Roman Odes Research Articles

Two Unnarrated Stories in Horace's Roman Odes (Carm.3.2.1–12 and 3.6.21–32): Echoes of Vergil's UnfinishedAeneidand a Lowlife Epigram

AbstractWithin the rhetorical frameworks of exhortation and illustrative exemplum, Horace's second and sixth Roman Odes offer compressed, contrasting images of a young person's education and transformation, presenting these as stories about apuerand avirgo, respectively, in a lyric mode that does not narrate. In the first of these stories (Carm. 3.2.1–12), Horace slyly usurps characters from Vergil's unfinishedAeneid, alluding to some of its distinctive narrative techniques, but also draws on the similes and plot structure of its Iliadic model. The second of Horace's stories (Carm. 3.6.21–32) plays off his first, as he converts theadulta virgowho figures inCarm. 3.2 into her antitype. This story has as its intertext an obscene Hellenistic epigram by Automedon. Horace makes both intertextual and metatextual use of his models, while his indirect references, through Homer, to Vergil's intended design for his emergingAeneidmay be considered under the new heading of extratextual.

Horace's “Roman Odes”

It is argued (a) that the title “Roman Odes” is a misnomer and should be replaced, (b) that the six odes do not constitute one long, single poem, as has recently been suggested.

Sulla cronologia di Orazio, Odi I–III (prima parte)

Abstract The theory that the first three books of Horace’s Odes were published together is based on arguments which do not stand up to open-minded analysis (§§ 2–3). In particular, the dating of the individual odes, in the few cases that can be established with any sound grounds, far from corroborating this theory rather reveals that three periods can be distinguished quite well for the composition of the three books (§ 3.3). Various elements, notable among them certain consistent evolutions in the metre, demonstrate that the books were in fact composed in series, and various findings of a historical nature provide confirmation of the composition-periods already detected (§§ 4.1–3). The Roman odes, however, demand different years, and their composition, completed at the time of Book III, had already begun and had progressed at least at the time of Book II (§ 4.1.3). Given these results, the hypothesis that the three books were published separately and in sequence is the most economical, best reflects Horace’s habits, and explains or eliminates some anomalies, but it is also supported by various specific indications (§ 4.4–6). We may conclude that Odes I, II and III appeared, respectively, at the end of AD 28, during 25, and in 23 or 22.

APPEARANCE AND REALITY IN HORACE'S ODES 3.7-12

The artistic principle of contrast is seldom pushed to its limit to the same extent as is done in the first section of Horace's Odes Book 3. Six sonorous poems in the Alcaic metre are followed by a second group of poems reflecting such diversity of metre that they remind the reader of the initial nine Parade Odes.2 Six poems on the state of the nation are followed by a group of poems exclusively concerned with a seemingly idiosyncratic perspective on individual experience.) Six Roman odes are followed by a group of poems described by Syndikus as sehr leichte, scheinbar gewichtlose Gedichte (1990:98).

LYRIC DOUBLE TALK IN HORACE'S ROMAN ODES (ODES 3.1-6)

Traditionally Horace's Roman Odes have been read as odes expressing what Santirocco has called a political statement.' That this major political statement has not always sat easily on the lyric vehicle chosen to convey it has also been clear.2 Horace, more than most, probably realised that individual freedom and opportunities, to a large extent depend on a stable framework of government.3 After all, Horace's and Vergil's generation had reason to appreciate fully the benefits brought about by Augustan political change.4 At the same time Horace's Roman Odes cannot be taken at face value only.s All the odes together including the Roman Odes, are an expression of a lyric poet's true genius.6 Even at his most solemn, as a supportive citizen of Rome and Augustus, Horace should be read with this larger perspective in mind.

SATIRIC LYRIC? HORACE ODES 3.7-12

A cluster of six poems, Odes 3. 7–12, enhanced by their position in the collection of Odes (following as they do the Roman Odes, Odes 3. 1–6) seems to stake Horace’s claim as a poet of personal relationships to the same extent that the Parade Odes (Odes 1. 1–9) staked his claim as a master craftsman.1 Nowhere else in the collection do we have such a large group of poems dedicated exclusively to expressing aspects of personal relationships.2 In addition, it is striking that the group as a whole also seems to focus on ironic points of view on the situations concerned. The most obvious explanation for this special focus could lie in the fact that the poems are meant to be read as a group, which in turn requires that the perspective reflected by the group as a whole should be taken into careful consideration.

A Commentary on Horace, Odes Book III (review)

Reviewed by: A Commentary on Horace, Odes Book III Alessandro Barchiesi R. G. M. Nisbet and Niall Rudd. A Commentary on Horace, Odes Book III. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Pp. xxx, 389. $130.00. ISBN 0-19-926314-0. The commentaries on books 1 and 2 by Nisbet and Margaret Hubbard (Oxford 1970 and 1978, respectively) have had so much impact on Horatian scholarship that books 3 and 4 have been comparatively neglected. Book 3 is one of the most difficult texts of Augustan poetry, and it is a relief to have a commentary at this level of competence. The format of the new commentary is the same as Nisbet–Hubbard, except that now the two editors, under the suitably chiastic acronyms RN and NR, are allowed to disagree in print ("RN sees here a hint. . . . NR thinks it is going too far to see"): the effect is refreshing, since it invites the reader to further experiments in disagreeing. Like its predecessor Nisbet–Hubbard, Nisbet–Rudd is excellent for three reasons, learning, flair in selecting relevant parallels, and the resolve not to sweep anything under the rug. If a difficulty can be identified, we will find it. If you want parallels for 3.3.11–12, where Augustus drinks in heaven with a "purple mouth," you will find them, but Nisbet and Rudd also warn you that the parallels are all about female beauty, then they part company: the implication is either "vitality of the new god" (Nisbet) or a staining red nectar (Rudd). If neither solution prevails, you can still go back to the [End Page 73] parallels and stare at the feminized lips of Augustus. There are also many unexpected new answers. Why, for example, specify (3.26.5–6) that the offer to Venus belongs to the left wall? The Roman temple of Venus on the Capitol, Nisbet observes, was rubbing elbows ("divided only by a gutter") with the simultaneously built temple of Mens (see Prop. 3.24.19 for a lover addressing the goddess of Good Sense). The authors have made a consistent attempt to integrate recent and less recent scholarship. (Of course they cannot please everybody in their selection of references: two works that in my experience repay constant attention, Gordon Williams' pioneering 1969 explication de texte, and the book by M. Citroni, Poesia e lettori in Roma antica [Roma and Bari, 1995], with very rich discussion of Horace's lyric addressees and no Horace in the title, therefore worth mentioning, do not loom large.) Nisbet and Rudd usually resist two main trends in recent Horatian scholarship, interest in book form and interest in performance: yet a discussion of the relationship and interaction between textual poetics and lyric performance was and is needed, especially if one refuses to consider the two approaches as incompatible. The foreclosing of those important general aspects sits oddly with their extremely open-minded approach to localized aporias. I end with two personal notes. The entry "Nisbet, Robin George Murdoch" in the Enciclopedia Oraziana ([Rome 1998] 372–74) by the late H. D. Jocelyn is worth consulting as a precocious celebration of Nisbet's achievement: set between the entries "Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm" and "Notker di San Gallo – V: Carolingi, Scrittori," it states that it is "unlikely that we will be able to see a volume on book 3," mentioning disaste for the Roman Odes as a stumbling block. Second, it is a sobering thought that neither of the two leading commentators on Roman poetry uses a word-processor: E. J. Kenney prefers a typewriter, and Nisbet a black ballpoint pen. Alessandro Barchiesi University of Siena at Arezzo Copyright © 2006 Classical Association of the Atlantic States

Pueri ludentes : Some Aspects of Play and Seriousness in Horace's Epistles

In Ode 3.4 Horace portrays himself as a sacred poet, beloved of the Muses. Even as a child, he was protected miraculously from harm: 11-13 ludo fatigatumque somno I fronde nova puerum palumbes I texere. Although the description is fanciful, as with the Wolf of Ode 1.22, Horace may feel, seri ously enough, that he bears a charmed life. He is also building up his poetic credentials as Musarum sacerdos (3.1.3) so that he may address the Princeps in a Pindaric mode. It is a new beginning for them both. For high Cae sar, returning from the wars, is Pierio recreatus antro, refreshed and renewed, or perhaps refashioned, by the Muses who love gentle counsel (3.4.40-42). And Horace, weary of struggling with epic subjects and with the tragic implications of recent Roman history, gets a second wind, a sense of spiritual renewal, halfway through the Roman Odes, and is enabled to pursue their moral and political vision to the end. Initially, he dedicated these odes to the as yet uncorrupted young: 3.1.4 virginibuspuerisque canto. Now it is the happy, poetically embellished image of himself as a child at play that gives him new resolution and new strength.1

‘Purpureo bibet ore nectar’: a reconsideration

‘To attempt to say anything new about Horace may seem absurd.’ To attempt to say anything new about the Roman Odes may seem still more absurd; my purpose, nevertheless, is to reconsider the lines ofCarm. 3.3 set out above, and to reinterpret an argument begun by the editor of the Delphin Horace (1691) in which the authority of Bentley is against me. My question is: what does Horace mean the reader to understand by describing Augustus as drinking nectar ‘purpureo ore’?

The Roman Odes at School: The Rise of the Imperial Horace

The Roman Odes at School: The Rise of the Imperial Horace

Horace, Odes 3.7: An Erotic Odyssey?

Horace's Asterie ode (3.7) has been somewhat neglected by critics. Fraenkel, uninterested in the erotic odes, fails to mention it, and others see it as merely counterbalancing the preceding six Roman Odes by its frivolity and light irony. However, it is one of Horace's most subtle and best-organized erotic odes, matching the more obvious conventions of Latin love-elegy with a romanticized Odyssey as an underlying framework.

Three Corrections in Horace's Roman Odes

Three Corrections in Horace's Roman Odes

The Poetics of Closure: Horace Odes III.17-28

One of the most important achievements of recent Horatian scholarship has been the rediscovery of structure — not the mechanical dissection of poems into component parts, but an awareness of how form is inseparable from content and how unity proceeds from design. Although the individual ode has by now received sufficient attention, the structure of the first lyric collection remains problematic. On the one hand, elaborate visual and numerological schemes have been proposed to account for the poems' placement. But such patterns could only be discovered by very selective handling of the evidence, and their neatness and level of abstraction raise doubts about their likelihood and significance. Partly as a corrective to these excesses, some recent scholars have gone to the other extreme, denying any extensive design. But while no single principle is likely to account for the disposition of all eighty-eight poems in twelve different meters, several considerations suggest that Horace had at least some concern for design. These include the well-documented interest in poetry books among Hellenistic and Roman writers; the aesthetic implications of the book roll, the physical format of which necessitates sequential reading; the existence of certain undisputed signs of arrangement in Odes I-III such as the frame of Odes I.1 and III. 30 or the grouping of Parade Odes (Odes I.1-9) and Roman Odes (Odes III. 1-6); and, finally, the relatively restricted thematic repertoire which facilitates the discovery of connections among odes by poet and reader alike. Since controls can be applied to this, as to all other literary study, the existence of larger structures and their relevance to an appreciation of the poetry is a legitimate subject for inquiry.