HoraceCarm.2.12, Maecenas, and Prose History

Abstract

Carm.2.12 has often received attention because scholiasts observe that Licymnia is a pseudonym for Maecenas' wife Terentia. The poem is also interesting for the originality of therecusatioit contains, and for the comments it elicits from scholars on Maecenas. Horace begins with a polite refusal to incorporate epic themes into his poetry, and in lines 9-12 he announces that Maecenas will better tell of Caesar's deeds in prose (‘pedestribus historiis’). Rejections of grand themes are found in Greek poetry, but for Roman poets therecusatioacquired the added function of dismissing apparent requests for weighty poetry, and poets on occasion address Maecenas inrecusationesthat supposedly decline his requests. Typically the poet recommends another poet to undertake the rejected task in a more elevated style, usually because the other person's talent (ingenium) is better suited to the job. In the case ofCarm.2.12.9-12, however, Maecenas himself is the suggested alternate, and he is not asked to compose a poem, but to write about Caesar's deeds in prose. Interpretations of these lines tend to focus on Horace's motives for suggesting that Maecenas, whose literary style was notoriously bad, should compose anything, much less prose history, for Caesar. In fact there are no motives or hidden meanings concerning Maecenas as a writer. Horace merely turned to a genre that better represented both his patron's status and the weightiness of Caesar's deeds.