Chapter Two: Encomia Nobilium and Horace's Panegyric Praxis

If you mention anything which does not apply to him (the laudandus) and which everybody knows does not apply to him, it not only seems unconvincing, but you will make yourself suspect for other occasions and you will have an uphill job with your audience. One must always concur with what is commonly admitted.

--Menander Rhetor on the Propempticon (398.1-6)[1]

 

From its inception Odes IV puzzles: Horace released this second collection ten years following Odes I-III and five years after he announced he was quitting lyric (Epist. I.1.10-19; II.2.52-64, 141-144). Suetonius says Horace's return was prompted by pressure from Augustus, who requested/required (ut non modo saeculare carmen conponendum iniunxerit ... eumque coegerit ... quartum addere) that another book of Odes, as well as Epist. II.1, be written for him.[2] Specifically then the occasions for Horace's lyric 'propaganda /Augustan imaging' would be the epinikia for Drusus (c.4), Tiberius (c.14), and the odes praising Augustus (c.5; 15). I will state from the outset that I believe Horace's volte-face against his refusal to write direct panegyrics is more a matter of self-presentation and poetics than politics; although, as I have already argued, in Horace poetics and politics are not easily distinguished.[3]  Horace's change of heart has Vergilian precedent, and may even be a parodied imitation of Vergil's own reversal of his earlier Callimachean recusatio that resulted when he began composing epic. If parody is too strong to prove, certainly it is parallel. I will consider Vergil's influence on Odes IV more fully in the last chapter, but now I would like to challenge Suetonius' biography, as it is commonly applied.

Even if Suetonius is entirely credible and at the very least four odes in the book were commissioned by Augustus, this does not prove the presupposition that the panegyric mode makes Horace's poetry inferior in quality and content. This is precisely what much of the older scholarship assumes, and even recent studies have found it difficult to escape this prejudice, even though the Suetonian biography makes nonsense of book IV as a whole by forcing a bifurcation of the Horatian persona into the public versus private and by ignoring that the Horace of the Epistles, some of which are roughly contemporary to the writing and publication of Odes IV, is resistant, and argumentatively so, when facing the demands of patronage. Suetonius has been interpreted so that Horace simultaneously is (c.4, 5, 14, 15) and is not (the other odes) writing out of obligation, as if this would somehow affect the quality of the poetry.

It would be equally short-sighted to write off Suetonius as completely inaccurate and claim that book IV is not commissioned panegyric. Horace packs together in his shortest lyric collection more praise-poetry than in any other of his poetry-books. Even the sequencing of the poems, the chiastic arrangement of the corresponding pairs of imperial praise-poems, signals how prominent the epinikia/encomia Augusti (4, 5; 14, 15) are among the other poems. They are the conclusion of the entire book. On the other hand, if we accept the traditional view that the goal of panegyric is to persuade the audience that the deeds of the laudandus are worthy of immortal fame, in terms of poetics to convince the audience to adopt the interpretive perspective of the laudandus, then too much of book IV is left out. Consider alone the odes to Ligurinus. And Horace does not name Augustus in the opening ode, and when he does mention him in the second, it is in the form of a recusatio addressed to Iullus Antonius. If this is not enough, the odes addressed to Melpomene (c.3) and Apollo (c.6), which both exalt the poet's inspiration, frame the imperial praise-poems (c.4; 5), and four odes (c.10-13), three of them to lovers and none with any apparent connection to imperial concerns, introduce the final two praise-odes for Drusus, Tiberius, and Augustus. The poet during the entirety of Odes IV remains primary and sounds his own praises.[4] Odes IV leaves anyone expecting a collection of imperial encomiastic poetry wondering, and Augustus may well have wondered. I find it unfathomable -- no matter how dull Augustus' literary sense may be thought to have been[5] -- that such basic structural generalities would have been unnoticed by a patron who had requested a book honoring himself and was so concerned with his own imaging.

Taking into consideration solely the primacy of the imperial encomia, we are left with either a hodge-podge collection that looks awkwardly thrown together or with a dramatic limiting of the lyric persona in favor of imperial power. Poetic power becomes nothing more than an ability to secure immortal fame for others, or perhaps for the poet through his memorable praise, again for others. The lyric poet would play a secondary, supporting role at best. This is a full retreat from Horace's previous sympotic persona. In a metaphoric sense, the lyric persona of Odes I-III would remain in exile. I am not intending to stake out a middle ground or a compromise between these opposing views. The puzzling incongruence of the book's structures and its public-private themes, as well as the individual odes themselves, point to an intriguing panegyric praxis that champions the lyric poet as a leading voice in shaping civic identity and memory. The encomia nobilium do not support the caricature of the duty-bound poet, but a poet writing panegyric for the sheer fun of it. Horatian panegyric offers a maze of artistic pleasure. In more formal literary terms, Odes IV is a panegyric story that keeps the audience not just guessing the outcome, but inventing it.

A lineup of the book's addressees serves notice that Horace's encomia nobilium are not fixed unchanging memorials. Paulus Fabius Maximus (c.1), Iullus Antonius (c.2), C. Marcius Censorinus (c.8), and M. Lollius (c.9) were among the young favored insiders forming around Augustus during the 20s B.C., and at the time of Odes IV most of their political careers were ahead of them (only Lollius had yet held the consulship). Horace had little surety of their greatness and accomplishments, which made panegyric risky for both poet and laudatus. A politician's unpredictable legacy, enhanced by the volatility of the early principate, may well make any praise appear undeserved or out of place. Horace does not cover over the challenges these encomia present, but designs his praises to emphasize the vulnerability of both laudator and laudatus, and thereby to offer a critique of the praxis of panegyric. Horace does so by complicating the particular plots and details of the praise so that the resulting dissonance provokes the audience to consider the panegyrist-poet's craft. Progressively throughout the encomia nobilium the complications increase and the audience sees through the praise and blame of a particular individual the panegyric process itself and how it directs collective memory, that is, how a community's shared life becomes its history. The Horatian panegyrist is not a reactive recorder of deeds (a mere proponent or detractor), but an active inventor of a civic story that shapes public discourse and self-image (ideology).[6]

 

C.1 and 2: Great Expectations? Inventing Panegyric Discord

To whom should Horace address his new collection? Before the honor had always gone to Maecenas. Should the first poem address Augustus and acknowledge him openly as the preeminent patron? Horace's praise avoids the obvious. What about Sallustius Crispus, the addressee of C. II.2 and supposedly Maecenas' political replacement? Moving him to first position might highlight Maecenas' withdrawal and potentially injure an old friend.[7] Safer would be a youth, one of Augustus' favorites, who had not yet been involved in complicated intrigues or begun packing political baggage. Fabius Maximus would seem the perfect choice. He had distinguished himself by a military tribunate in Spain (26-25 B.C.) and quaestorship in the Eastern provinces (22-19 B.C.), but was still to hold the consulship (11 B.C.) or rival Tiberius as a possible successor.[8] Horace, however, with his encomium to Maximus invents complication:

tempestivius in domum

   Pauli purpureis ales oloribus                           10

comissabere Maximi,

   si torrere iecur quaeris idoneum.

 

namque et nobilis et decens

   et pro sollicitis non tacitus reis

et centum puer artium                                          15

   late signa feret militiae tuae,

 

et, quandoque potentior  

   largi muneribus riserit aemuli,

Albanos prope te lacus

   ponet marmoream sub trabe citrea.                20

 

illic plurima naribus

   duces tura lyraque et Berecyntia

delectabere tibia

   mixtis carminibus non sine fistula;

                                               

illic bis pueri die                                                   25

   numen cum teneris virginibus tuum

laudantes pede candido

   in morem Salium ter quatient humum.

(9-28)

 

More timely and swift on your purple swans you will parade in revelry to the house of Paulus Maximus, if you are seeking to torch a well-suited passion. For Maximus noble and winsome and outspoken in defense of anxious defendants, and a youth of a hundred talents, far and wide will carry your standards, Venus. And whenever he, more powerful, laughs triumphantly over the love-tributes of a rich rival, he will erect near the Alban lakes your marble votive statue under a citron roof. There you will breathe in plentiful incense and take pleasure in the combined music of the lyre and Berecyntian flute and also the shepherd's pipe. There twice daily lads and tender maidens will praise your divinity and with white feet shake the earth in the triple beat dance of the Salii.

 

Maximus was a bachelor almost thirty years old or older, about to marry Augustus' cousin Marcia.[9] Horace humorously tailors his praise to this occasion, as has already been observed: Horace praises Maximus for being a great lover. Horace also builds his eulogy so that its surprise ending alerts his audience that this is not a typical praise, even for an aristocrat soon to be married. The only attribute that Horace ascribes to Maximus befitting a Roman nobleman of the Augustan period is that Paulus is a good lawyer (14).[10] After Horace wishes Venus off, carried on her winged swans' colorful pageantry to the erotic revels at Maximus' house (9-12), Horace's praise for him momentarily becomes quite ordinary: panegyric adjectives (nobilis; decens, 13) introduce Maximus' eloquence (pro sollicitis non tacitus reis, 14) and suggest that the equally general centum puer artium refers to his military prowess (late signa feret militiae tuae, 15-16). Then "your" (tuae = Venus) at the verse-end quickly changes what appears to be a standard encomium back into epithalamic praise: Maximus is a skilled and victorious soldier in Venus' wars (17-18).[11]

Carnivalesque pleasures of the symposion are the dominant feature of Horace's praise for Maximus (four full strophes). Horace's detailed description of the sensual ritual revelry (radiant swans, incense, music, singing, and Salian dancing) in Venus' honor dramatizes the eroticism that pervades Maximus' home, while the future tense throughout places the encomium in the realm of the poet's imagination and reminds that the entire praise is fiction. As Horace casts his character, Maximus does not neatly fit the strictures of Augustan courtship and marriage. He may well be an upstanding noble bachelor, but the contrast of his character to the persona adopted by the poet, one outside sympotic pleasures (29-32), implies that Maximus can still enjoy symposia (complete with a woman or boy, flowers, and merum), which the poet feels he cannot. Yet it is not necessary to imagine that any incongruity between the eulogy (the heroic lover) and the occasion (impending marriage to Augustus' cousin) is entirely serious, and neither would I suggest that it is at the expense of Marcia and the imperial house -- that Maximus is some sort of 'playboy' marrying into an un/suspecting imperial family -- but rather the joke is with the thirty year old Maximus who is marrying later than the typical aristocrat. Maximus was likely not a verdant lover, and the poet's praise is a smile at the 'old bachelor' who finally managed a match, an impressive one at that.

Maximus is still better off than the poet, an even older bachelor fighting and losing in the wars of Venus (1-7; 30-40). The contrast between the bachelors muffles the humor directed at Maximus because it intensifies the poet's anxiety over his unrequited love for Ligurinus. Maximus is everything the poet is no longer. Nevertheless, treating the praise too seriously and lessening the disparity between Maximus' love-life and the poet's epithalamic praise in some misguided effort to protect supposed imperial sensibilities ruin the contrasting reversal in the fortunes of the ode's two major characters: Maximus finally wildly successful at love and the previously successful love lyricist unable now to charm his beloved. From the very beginning of the book the seriocomic hyperbole in the panegyric alerts the reader that praise is also poetic invention. How seriously or literally should any praise be taken? Is Fabius really the Maxima Venus and the lyric poet impotens?[12]

The panegyric humor of c.1 prepares for the poetic game-play of the recusatio in Horace's first praise for Augustus in the book, Odes IV.2:

Pindarum quisquis studet aemulari,

Iulle, ceratis ope Daedalea

nititur pennis vitreo daturus

   nomina ponto.

 

monte decurrens velut amnis, imbres               5

quem super notas aluere ripas,

fervet immensusque ruit profundo

   Pindarus ore,

 

laurea donandus Apollinari,

seu per audacis nova dithyrambos                   10

verba devolvit numerisque fertur

   lege solutis,

 

seu deos regesve canit, deorum

sanguinem, per quos cecidere iusta

morte Centauri, cecidit tremenda                       15

   flamma Chimaerae,

 

sive, quos Elea domum reducit

palma caelestis, pugilemve equumve

dicit et centum potiore signis

   munere donat,                                                    20

 

flebili sponsae iuvenemve raptum

plorat et viris animumque moresque

aureos educit in astra nigroque

   invidet Orco.

 

multa Dircaeum levat aura cycnum,                  25

tendit, Antoni, quotiens in altos

nubium tractus: ego apis Matinae

   more modoque

 

grata carpentis thyma per laborem

plurimum circa nemus uvidique                         30

Tiburis ripas operosa parvus

   carmina fingo.

 

concines maiore poeta plectro

Caesarem. quandoque trahet ferocis

per sacrum clivum merita decorus                     35

   fronde Sygambros,

 

quo nihil maius meliusve terris

fata donavere bonique divi

nec dabunt, quamvis redeant in aurum

   tempora priscum;                                              40

 

concines laetosque dies et urbis

publicum ludum super impetrato

fortis Augusti reditu Forumque

   litibus orbum.

 

tum meae, si quid loquor audiendum,               45

vocis accedet bona pars 'o sol

pulcher, o laudande!' canam recepto

   Caesare felix.

 

†teque dum procedit† 'io Triumphe!'

non semel dicemus, 'io Triumphe!'                    50

civitas omnis dabimusque divis

   tura benignis.

 

te decem tauri totidemque vaccae,

me tener solvet vitulus, relicta

matre qui largis iuvenescit herbis                      55

   in mea vota,

 

fronte curvatos imitatus ignis

tertium lunae referentis ortum,

qua notam duxit, niveus videri,

   cetera fulvus.                                                     60

 

Anyone who strives to rival Pindar, Iullus, trusts craftsman Daedalus' waxen wings and is fated to give his name to the glassy sea. Like a river, rushing down from the mountain and fed beyond its known bank by the rains, so Pindar seethes and rushes measureless with a deep-throated roar, worthy to be presented with Apollo's laurel whether he rolls new words down through bold dithyrambs and is carried on measures freed from restraints, or he sings of gods or kings, the offspring of gods, who justly slew the Centaurs, who extinguished Chimaera's terrifying flame, or whether he sings of those whom returning home the Elean palm exalts to the heavens or of the boxer or the charger, and he presents them with a gift better than a hundred statues, or mourns the young man stolen from his weeping bride and extols his strength, spirit, and golden virtue to the stars, and denies black Orcus these. Wind upon wind lifts the Dircaean swan, Antonius, as often as it tempts a flight into the cloudy heights; I, in the method and manner of the Matine bee at work picking pleasant thyme around many a grove and the moist banks of Tibur, I humbly craft my elaborate songs. You, a poet of grander plectrum, will sing of Caesar, when crowned with the well-won garland and ascending the Sacred Way he leads behind him the wild Sygambri; nothing greater or better than this have the fates and kind gods given to the earth nor will give, though the golden age of old return. You will sing of the city's holidays and public games celebrated for brave Caesar's return and of the Forum bereft of its contentions. Then, if I, joyous at Caesar welcomed home, say anything worth hearing, the excellent part of my voice will join in and I will sing, "O beautiful sun, O worthy to be praised!" And while you lead on, once and again we the entire citizenry will say, "Hail Triumph!," "Hail Triumph!," and will offer incense to the gracious gods. Ten bulls and ten heifers will fulfill your vows; mine, one delicate calf who, just weaned from its mother, grows strong feeding on plentiful grasses. His forehead imitates the crescent fires of the moon at her third rising, snowy white in appearance where he has a mark, otherwise tawny.

 

Horace addresses Iullus Antonius, praetor in 13 B.C. and married to Augustus' niece Marcella, but concentrates his praise on Augustus.[13] Iullus' only role is being the foil for the recusatio, which introduces the imperial laudatio (concines maiore poeta plectro / Caesarem, 33-34a). Antonius is a better choice to praise Caesar than Horace. A recusatio in Odes IV does not have the same force as in Odes I-III: the success of the CS and consequently the association of Horace's lyric with the celebration of Augustan achievements and the new age make any claim that another would be more qualified to sing imperial praises trite beyond acceptance.[14] The force of a recusatio, however, is not merely in the refusal but also in the opportunity that it allows the poet for generic self-definition.[15] Horace because of his repeated reliance on the recusatio to make his praise indirect could reasonably expect that his audience would react to and read critically any changes. Always before in terms of its poetics the Horatian recusatio presented an opposition to epic, but c.2 is not a recusatio of epic but Pindaric praise-poetry. This shift in the recusatio introduces Horace as Pindar's panegyric rival. Horace will use his disavowal ('the immoderately Pindaric Iullus is better at this sort of praise than I') to set at odds the poetics of the laudator and the actual accomplishments of the laudandus, and to demonstrate that excess in panegyric poetics can actually belittle deeds.

Although c.2 brings the first recusatio of the earlier collection readily to mind (C. I.6), Horace does not give Iullus a grand Homeric epithet as he does Varius (Vario ... Maeonii carminis alite). Instead, it is easy to imagine Iullus' Diomedeia (twelve books just like Vergil's Aeneid) filled with a flooding torrent of Pindaric imitation, which Horace effusively reviews in one long sentence for the first half of the poem (1-27a) and parodies in the triumphant celebration near the end of the ode (49-52). The ode's entire structure is misconstrued Pindar,[16] a type of false epinikion: only eleven lines of praise for Augustus (34-44), and at its heart a conflict between the ode's and audience's point of view. The dramatic situation of the ode has Augustus about to leave for or still away in Gaul sometime between 16 and 13 B.C. so that from the perspective of both poets, Horace and Iullus, Augustus' return and subsequent triumph over the Sygambri are future. C.2 honors an event the poets only imagine will occur. It is a prophetic epinikion. By the time the ode is published, Horace's audience with any memory of the recent past would recognize the hyperbole in Iullus' praise. Augustus, although honored greatly, chose not to celebrate a triumph over the Sygambri. Augustus set out for Gaul, but before he arrived Lollius had already negotiated a settlement.[17] Within view of such overstatement it is tempting, aided by the repetitious jingle of maius meliusve (37) and Iullus' larger lyre-pick (maiore ... plectro, 33), to interpret 'triumphant Augustus the greatest gift the gods will ever give though they restore the golden age' as an example of Pindar's unrestrained flood (37-40) -- just the sort of panegyric Iullus might write.

The repetition of concines (Horace does not use such repetition lightly, 33 and 41) suggests rather directly that verses 34-44 are Iullus' song, and there is little hope that he could measure well the Augustan achievement with such Pindaric excesses as Horace's parody intimates Iullus would no doubt incorporate. By contrast, when the panegyrist Horace finally adds his voice into the song (45-48), again with a touch of ironic self-deprecation (siquid loquor audiendum, / vocis accedet bona pars), it creates a dissonance, a conflicting decrescendo/crescendo between his conventional language of praise and the wild enthusiasm of the triumphal atmosphere. Unlike Iullus, Horace is only one of the crowd, singing nothing more than a trite rendition of the soldier's versus quadratus, 'o sol / pulcher, o laudande,'[18] the only direct praise in Horace's voice in the entire ode -- traditional and short, an absurd exemplar for Pindar's rushing river. The exaggeration of the triumph becomes more apparent because Horace omits any martial praise typical for celebrating a victory and makes Augustus' primary achievement his return (42b-43, 47b-48).[19] The context of a Return Ode heightens the contrast between Horace's and Iullus' panegyric song. A Return Ode anticipates less restraint from the panegyrist. Horace's phrasing of the reason for the celebration, Caesar's return, recalls the frenzy and excitement of an earlier sympotic Return Ode, when the poet welcomed back his friend Pompey (cf. recepto / Caesare, 47-48; recepto ... amico, C. II.7.26-28). Now Horace introduces Augustus' return with a picture of himself along with others excitedly yelling out non-descript traditional praise. Then in the very next verse Iullus returns to lead the procession to ecstatic but equally conventional cries of adulation, "io Triumphe! ... io Triumphe!"[20]

Once Horace's seriocomic eulogy for Maximus, the greatest lover, dispels the notion that Horatian panegyric must be entirely serious and earnest, then the poet's play with the precise panegyric tone of c.2 becomes harder to determine. Is the panegyrist Horace mischievously mimicking a Pindaric Iullus caught up in the celebration? Or, are we to imagine the panegyrist eager to praise, but when he does, he relies on a traditional formula? Or, is Horace happy to participate in the celebrations as one of the citizens with the excellent part of his voice (bona pars, 46)? This would seem to bolster the recusatio. How serious or comic is this praise? The discrepancy in the ode's prophetic and historical perspectives plays right into Horace's hands. It illustrates the conflicts inherent in panegyric when a poet is caught praising an achievement that never materializes, at least not in quite the way it was anticipated, or when a panegyrist allows his voice in an imagined celebration to soar to Pindaric heights.

Horace's recusatio shades the imperial encomium of c.2 and places his poetic at the center (25-32). The contrast appears black and white at first: the pretentious poetics of Pindar Iullus, the Dircaean swan striving to soar (tendit, 26) to the clouds,[21] compared to Horace, the busy bee of Callimachean-Vergilian aesthetics. Then Horace elaborates on his "method and manner" with a mixed collage of grand and slender combinations (29-32).[22] Horace as a bee is in a sympotic landscape, involved in the greatest labor, picking pleasant thyme around the Tiburtine groves (grata carpentis thyma[23] [per laborem / plurimum] circa nemus uvidique / Tiburis). The poet is small, but fashions work-laden songs (operosa [parvus] / carmina fingo). In the metaphor of himself as the little bee from his native Mount Matinus, Horace surrounds the grand with the sympotic and then reverses and surrounds the slender with the grand. Here is the familiar paradox: Horace's poetry, even his panegyric, is fat and thin. Horace's praise can be Pindaric and Callimachean. Overlaying the entire text (n.b. 1-4, 25) is the memory of C. II.20.13-16 when Horace metamorphosized into a swan more famous than Daedalus' Icarus. Horace never directly praises Antonius as 'a Pindar' -- the vocative Antoni and the metaphor Dircaeum cycnum avoid (25-26) this -- as he styles Varius 'a Homer,' because the real rival of Pindar in c.2, the Dircaean swan and Daedalus, is Horace.[24]

Part of the point in Horace's recusatio and komische Parodie is that the Callimachean-Pindaric lyricist (Horace), not the effusive Pindaric Iullus, knows how to sing praise within appropriate limits. Therefore, Horace criticizes both epic panegyric and Pindaric panegyric, at least Iullus' imitation. Horace's classification of both Homer and Pindar as 'grand' forms and his use of similar metaphors for each (flights and floods) do not necessarily reflect similar generic characteristics as much as a tactical shift on Horace's part to distinguish his panegyric from the excesses of epic and Pindaric praise. Horace will not be a Homer and is the better rival of Pindar. At first glance, Horace's praise may appear the lesser of the two (53-60). Horace compares his offering of one calf to Iullus' ten bulls and as many heifers, and yet Horace's calf is slender (tener) and growing vigorous (iuvenescit) from generous grazing (largis ... herbis), another image of thinness and fatness. Lyric restraint lends vitality to praise (53-56; iuvenescit reverses the image of the 'old poet' in the previous ode). The Callimachean aesthetic does not make panegyric impossible; its restraint gives praise life and strength.

 

C.3 and 6: The Poet among the Nobiles

Four odes intervene before Horace again addresses a young nobleman and as the comparision with Pindar in c.2 predicts Horace's voice takes flight with two praise-poems for the imperial family, an epinikion (c.4) and a hymn to Augustus (c.5).[25] But these panegyrics do not stand alone; they are pinned between two other hymns to the poet's source of inspiration, to the Muse Melpomene (c.3) and to the Muses' divine leader, Apollo (c.6). Horace within these hymns develops further his image as the grand lyric swan (cf. C. II.20; IV.2). The poet's panegyric inspiration is not earth-bound, but heaven-sent; therefore, his praise is not directed to him by any human authority, but comes from the gods. The sequence of odes 3-6 and their interdependence establishes that the poet exercises a unique vatic function in Roman society as a manifestation of divine power.

Horace linked together Melpomene and Apollo only once before, at the conclusion of C. III.30 when he dared to designate himself the potens princeps:

         ... ex humili potens

 

princeps Aeolium carmen ad Italos

deduxisse modos. sume superbiam

quaesitam meritis et mihi Delphica

lauro cinge volens, Melpomene, comam.

                                                                (12-16)

 

... from a humble beginning I became the powerful prince in shaping Aeolian song to Italian verse. Receive the pride I rightly acquired for my deeds and gladly wreathe my hair with Apollo's Delphic laurel, Melpomene.

 

Horace is not just one leader among others (princeps), not when the preceding lines are so concerned with ritual power and rule (dum Capitolium / scandet cum tacita virgine pontifex, 8b-9; regnavit at the lead position, line 12, as is princeps, 13). Horace is affirming his preeminence and power as a lyric poet over the canon, a position he envisioned at the start of the first collection (C. I.1.35-36). He has realized his vision and then some. Horace within the political context of the developing principate (Augustus established himself as the princeps civium particularly through the first and second constitutional settlements, 27-23 B.C., dates roughly coincident with the writing of Odes I-III) praises himself with an 'August' tone. The poet is not humble. Given the status of the Greek lyric canon, neither a metamorphosis into a lyric swan nor the regal heights of the pyramids are any more ambitious or triumphant than Horace as an Augustus, a princeps, of the lyric poets. These are the same self-portraits (C. II.20; III.30) Horace recalls in his fourth book (c.2, 3, 6).[26] Melpomene and Apollo, who structurally enclose the laudationes for Drusus, Tiberius, and Augustus, set the parameters for imperial praise, and the boundaries are as great as the lyric poet.

At first in c.3 the poet appears more reticent than in the epilogues of Odes II and III. The Muse's attentive watchfulness and the poet's gratitude and deference, represented in the anonymity of the quem and in the conditionals si libeat (20) and si placeo (24), give the ode a solemn spirit:

Quem tu, Melpomene, semel

   nascentem placido lumine videris,

illum non labor Isthmius

   clarabit pugilem, non equus impiger

 

curru ducet Achaico                                            5

   victorem, neque res bellica Deliis

ornatum foliis ducem,

   quod regum tumidas contuderit minas,

 

ostendet Capitolio:

   sed quae Tibur aquae fertile praefluunt        10

et spissae nemorum comae

   fingent Aeolio carmine nobilem.

 

Romae, principis urbium,

   dignatur suboles inter amabilis

vatum ponere me choros,                                   15

   et iam dente minus mordeor invido.

 

o, testudinis aureae

   dulcem quae strepitum, Pieri, temperas,

o mutis quoque piscibus

   donatura cycni, si libeat, sonum,                    20

 

totum muneris hoc tui est

   quod monstror digito praetereuntium

Romanae fidicen lyrae:

   quod spiro et placeo, si placeo, tuum est.

 

Whom you have graced at birth, Melpomene, with your serene presence, Isthmian labor will not make him a famed boxer; a tireless horse will not lead him on to victory in Achaean chariot; martial art will not parade him to the Capitoline, a general wearing Apollo's laurel crown, because he smashed the angry, swelling threats of kings. But the waters flowing past fertile Tibur and the thick foliage of her groves will fashion him noble for his Aeolian song. The children of Rome, prince of cities, think I deserve a place in the beloved choruses of bards, and now I do not suffer criticism's envious bite. O Pierian Muse, who tunes the golden shell's sweet sound and who would easily give the swan's song even to voiceless fish if it should please you, it is entirely your reward that the passers-by point me out as Rome's lyric poet; that I have the lyric breath and am so approved, if I am so approved, is your reward.

 

But these structural elements are only the poet's concessions to the hymnic form and thinly mask his enthusiastic self-congratulatory tone.[27] This is the only hymnic address where Horace places the relative pronoun clause ahead of the vocative, and in this instance it does not modify the deity addressed. The objective quem transplants Melpomene from first position and any sense of anonymity creates a suspense that only emphasizes the Muse's displacement. Quem ... illum is not all that general. Whom else but the poet would Melpomene bless from birth? Then, in addition, there are the links to c.2 beginning with labor Isthmius (laborem / plurimum, 2.29-30). The priamel (3-9) so continues the Pindaric themes of c.2, even in the same order of boxer, charioteer, and warrior (2.17-24),[28] that it is natural to assume that the quem .. illum is Horace even before he names himself (15). The argument is the same as c.2 -- 'I am not Pindar; I can rival, even surpass Pindar.' If that were not enough, the contrasting complement (sed) of the priamel pictures the same Tiburtine lyric landscape as did the central panel of c.2 (30-32). The poet is still at the beginning and center of the song (9-16).

Melpomene is not completely upstaged. Her power is evident through the greatness of the poet she inspires, and a brief autobiographical moment reverses the entirety of Horace's unassuming satiric persona. Horace was the son of a freedman, introduced into the company of Maecenas, and everywhere sensitive to the criticism that he had improved his position beyond proper bounds (S. I.6; 9.43-56). The priamel denies that Horace has any claim to glory because of traditional aristocratic deeds (3-9); because of his Aeolian song he has become a nobleman (nobilis, the last word of the priamel and at the middle of the ode, 12). Horace's rise in status from the 'Horace' of the Satires is remarkable and Horace's allusion to C. I.1 does not allow the change to go unnoticed (Romae, principis urbium, /  dignatur suboles inter amabilis  / vatum ponere me choros, 13-15; cf. quod si me lyricis vatibus inseres, / sublimi feriam sidera vertice, C. I.1.35-36). Horace now does not seek the approval of a patron, because his lyric achievement has been recognized by the Roman race. Before, his patron Maecenas had honored him on the basis of his quality and character, while the citizenry refused to disregard his low birth. The imagined onlookers of the Satires had envied and chided him because Horace dared to satirize others, even though he himself lived beyond his proper social status (S. I.6.45-64; II.6.32-58); now their envy has subsided and it is not the patron but those same citizens who count him among the love-filled choruses of the bards. Those who pass Horace on the street still point him out (quod monstror digito praetereuntium, 22), but their reason has entirely changed -- Horace is the Roman Pindar, Romanae fidicen lyrae (23). Horace transformed takes his place among the noble addressees of Odes IV. This is not the stance of a retiring poet. The ironic self-depreciation of Horace's lyric power in c.1-2 has been effectively countered.

Horace hymns his Melpomene and then her divine master, Apollo (c.6):

Dive, quem proles Niobea magnae

vindicem linguae Tityosque raptor

sensit et Troiae prope victor altae

   Pthius Achilles,

 

ceteris maior, tibi miles impar,                            5

filius quamvis Thetidis marinae

Dardanas turris quateret tremenda

   cuspide pugnax --

 

ille, mordaci velut icta ferro

pinus aut impulsa cupressus Euro,                   10

procidit late posuitque collum in

   pulvere Teucro.

 

ille non inclusus equo Minervae

sacra mentito male feriatos

Troas et laetam Priami choreis                           15

   falleret aulam,

 

sed palam captis gravis, heu nefas, heu,

nescios fari pueros Achivis

ureret flammis etiam latentis

   matris in alvo,                                                    20

 

ni tuis flexus Venerisque gratae

vocibus divum pater annuisset

rebus Aeneae potiore ductos

   alite muros.

 

doctor argutae fidicen Thaliae,                          25

Phoebe, qui Xantho lavis amne crinis,

Dauniae defende decus Camenae,

   levis Agyieu.

 

spiritum Phoebus mihi, Phoebus artem

carminis nomenque dedit poetae.                      30

virginum primae puerique claris

   patribus orti,

 

Deliae tutela deae fugacis

lyncas et cervos cohibentis arcu,

Lesbium servate pedem meique                         35

   pollicis ictum,

 

rite Latonae puerum canentes,

rite crescentem face Noctilucam,

prosperam frugum celeremque pronos

   volvere mensis.                                                 40

 

nupta iam dices 'ego dis amicum,

saeculo festas referente luces,

reddidi carmen, docilis modorum

   vatis Horati.'

 

God, you whom Niobe's children knew to be the avenger of a boastful tongue and whom the rapist Tityos acknowledged and whom Pthian Achilles nearly victorious over high Troy, greater than the other heroes, not your equal in warfare although he, the son of sea-born Thetis, warring with his terrifying spear shook the Dardan towers -- he, like a pine struck by iron's bite or a cypress uprooted by the East wind, fell forward flat and laid down his neck in Teucrian dust. He would not have shut himself in the horse, that false sacrifice for Minerva, and deceived the Trojans caught up in their inappropriate festal day and Priam's court rejoicing in the dances, but in the sight of all, vicious to his captives -- alas, a crime unspeakable, alas -- he with Greek fires would have burned speechless babes, even the unborn nestling in their mother's womb, if the father of the gods had not been turned by your cries and the cries of charming Venus and appointed for Aeneas' destiny walls built under a better auspice. Lyric master-teacher of melodious Thalia, you who bathe your tresses in the river Xanthus, guard the honor of the Daunian Muse, you Phoebus, smooth-faced Agyieus. Phoebus has inspired me, given me the art of song, and named me poet. Best noble-born lasses and lads, wards of the Delian goddess who controls the fleeing lynxes and stags with her bow, keep the Lesbian foot to the beat of my finger as you reverently hymn Latona's son, reverently hymn the Moon goddess with her torch waxing, as she blesses the harvest and swiftly rolls on the sinking months. You will soon be married and say, "I performed the song pleasing to the gods when the century was returning its festal days, I, learned in the verses of the bard Horace."

 

Horace in c.6 continues the language of praise for his divine inspiration that ended c.3 (fidicen ... spiro, c.3.23-24; cf. fidicen ... spiritum Phoebus mihi ... dedit, 25-30), but unlike a song to Melpomene a poet's prayer to Apollo as the master-teacher of the lyre automatically assumes political dimensions. The poet's claim to be divinely inspired does not permit him an easy escape from the prejudice that his panegyric reflects solely imperial interests. After Actium and the dedication of the Palatine temple (31 and 28 B.C.), any prayer to Augustus' patron deity Apollo was potential imperial panegyric, and therefore more often than not c.6 is read as a continuation of Horace's praise for Augustus in the preceding two odes (c.4; 5).

The sequence c.4-6 is thus commonly politicized into a coherent plot-line. It had been well over ten years since the battle of Actium and Rome was secure, enjoying the benefits of the Augustan peace. Horace's encomia no longer betray any fear that civil unrest may return, as do his earlier imperial panegyrics.[29] Although Augustus in c.5 is away from Rome, he is in firm control and the citizens long for his return not because there are any serious threats to their welfare, but because they lack the divine light of his presence. After years of destruction and civil war, the respite of peace is like a long holiday (c.5.29-40). Subsequently in c.6, the imperial panegyrist guides Augustan propaganda so that Augustus' Apollo mirrors the present peace and prosperity rather than the civil wars and social upheaval of the past. The god loses his militaristic role as avenger and becomes the god of restoration and song. In short, Augustus is Apollo's special emissary on earth, and Horace enjoys a particular status as Apollo's student-bard. When Apollo empowers him to praise Augustan Rome, Apollo links the ruler and poet in a powerful juggernaut of imperial imaging. The circumstances of the ode's composition are taken to confirm the poet's role as the director of the image of Augustus as Apollo. The ode's dramatic situation slightly predates the performance of the CS. Horace anticipating this singular honor invokes Apollo's favor for his song and encourages the chorus to make the most of their performance. Such a reading tends to restrict the poet's pride and boast of unending fame to his selection as the principate's spokesperson (41-44).[30] Any intimation that divine inspiration places the poet beyond imperial command, once Apollo is introduced, seems little more than special pleading.

In spite of its intriguing historical context and importance for defining the poet's reading of his own performance at the Ludi Saeculares, c.6 is one of the most neglected poems of Odes IV in part because of its difficult structure. There is another reason. If the Horace of c.6 openly and without any rhetorical ploys embraces imperial favor and the glory of leading its praises, then this ode marks a watershed in Horace's career. The lyric Horace has so unmasked his patronage that there remains little if any room to interpret his song as a creative rather than reactive poetic agency. The vates, in spite of the emphatic sphragis that ends the ode (vatis Horati), has divested himself of his prophetic function, and consequently the ode becomes little more than the poet's affirmation of Augustan achievements. I do not mean to stigmatize patronage as if the Romans thought it demeaning, when it was a strong fiber that helped hold together Roman society and was a benefit to the poet: the greater the patron, the higher his poet's status. Nevertheless, the typical panegyric portrait of Horace drawn from this ode is incomplete and focuses on the last four lines and the prestige that Horace gained by executing his commission without recognizing how his acceptance of this public honor would have affected his audience's perception of his work then and generations later. The poet of c.6 is keenly aware of the problem: in view of the CS a reader might assume after the grand imperial encomia of the last two odes that the poet has adopted the perspective of the divine Augustus. Horace by addressing and recreating the CS alertly reasserts that this is not the case. Anyone who has ever thought that a praise-ode in book IV lacks enthusiasm, since Horace was simply fulfilling obligations to his patrons as best he could, must account for c.6. When the ode is read as a whole, not isolated but as an intricate component of the fourth book, it eloquently defends without breaking from the panegyric mode the creative active agency of the poet's lyric voice and its role in shaping public thought.

Admittedly viewing c.6 as the culmination of the poet's praise for Augustus is a natural consequence of the socio-political environment of the late Republic, when it was common for political leaders to exploit their associations with a patron deity.[31] Octavian's devotion to Apollo began early in his career and intensified until the god became the most potent political and religious symbol of Augustan Rome.[32] This is where c.5 and 6 begin. The parallelism in their opening addresses, specifically the repetition of the first words (divis : dive) and the vocatives orte (Caesar) and dive (Apollo), confirms what c.5 implies: Caesar's divine parent is Apollo. Horace amplifies Augustus' divinity by continuing in c.6 the images of light and day, the physical trait that father Apollo passed on to his son. Augustus' return will brighten the day for Rome (c.5.5-8); Horace names the sun god Phoebus three times in just four lines (c.6.26-29). In the ritual celebrations that end each ode divine light is always present both in the drinking from sunrise to sunset, a complete journey of Phoebus across the sky (c.5.37-40), and in the dawn of a new age (c.6.41-42).

The symbolism of divine light, parallel to the CS, creates the expectation that the Apollo of c.6 will be a nurturing deity of restored Rome. What is shocking about the hymn as a whole is how quickly and thoroughly Horace replaces the Apollo of restoration and peace, set up by c.5, with the Apollo of vengeance (c.6.1-24). An admonitory Apollo, although not without precedent in Horace, is not the poet's customary characterization of the god. In a given ode Apollo can be uniquely a symbol of restoration (C. I.7.21-32; III.3.65-68) or strictly admonitory (C. I.12.21-24; IV.15.1-4), but most often these opposing traits are held in a balanced tension (C. I.21.9-16; II.10.17-20; III.4.60-68). Horace's Apollo is persistent in his dual roles. Horatian poetry shows no established pattern in which Apollo transitions from a state of revenge to restoration in regard to a single individual or group. There is no cause and effect relationship between punishment and healing, that is, Apollo does not restrain in order to restore. Apollo is a simple duality: the same god capable of punishing the proud or healing the humble. Such contrasting powers compel the poet to invoke the god's blessing, pray for his protection, and direct his hostilities toward the enemy. Therefore, Apollo, god of war and healing, represents the conflation in Horatian lyric between the serious and comic, and embodies the argument that the poet's lyre is strong enough to encapsulate even the martial themes of epic.[33]

Horace in c.6 leaves Apollo's nature unbalanced, devoting almost complete attention to the god's admonitory function against hubristic speech (1-20). Nowhere else does Horace so lavishly illustrate the mythology of the avenging Apollo (on Niobe, Tityos, and Achilles). Horace postpones Apollo's part in the restoration of Troy, and consequently the Roman people, for nearly half the ode and then permits it only four lines (21-24). Apollo must share credit for Achilles' defeat and Aeneas' renewed fates with Venus.[34] Neither does Phoebus' act of breathing his inspiration into his poet (25-31) transition away from divine vengeance and violence. In the second half of the ode, Apollo's sister is also armed (33b-34). The fact that Horace so minimizes the god's role as nurturer makes the Apollo of c.6 quite different from Apollo in the CS. The CS asks Apollo to put down his bow; and although Apollo retains his weapon (34-35), by the end of the song the bow becomes one of the frequent images of light (2a, 9-10a, 23-24) that no longer holds any threat but only the promise of healing (61-68). The CS balances the god's dual nature, but leans decidedly toward a nurturing and guarding Apollo. He can be triumphant, but should be generous to the vanquished (49-56), and since he granted Aeneas' escape, he should not fail to rebuild Rome's future generations (41-48). The Apollo of the CS has much more in common with the Augustus of c.5 than the angry Apollo of c.6.

Apollo's vengeful wrath against the trio of Niobe, Tityos, and Achilles brings to the forefront of Horace's hymn crimes of extreme sexual violence against the individual and the consequences that these have for the family (1-8). Horace compresses into his lyric mythology the psychology of tyranny, the propensity to commit hubristic crimes of status that boastfully claim rights or a position of domination to which the tyrant is not by nature or merit entitled. Niobe's boast that the number of her children proved her superiority to Leto did not just insultingly question Leto's integrity and authority, it mocked the wound left by Zeus' rape and Leto's flight from the anger of his wife Hera. When Leto visited her son in Delphi, Tityos viewed her as an easy victim who had already been violated once, followed his father Zeus' example, and attempted to rape Leto again. Apollo answered his mother's cry for help, when the core of her personhood, sexuality, autonomy, and physical well being were threatened.[35] Achilles, whose divine lineage was not even as high as that of the Zeus born Tityos, would have annihilated the entire Trojan family, if Apollo had not intervened.

What might this have to do with Augustus, Apollo, and a carmen saeculi referentis? Horace has placed c.6 in an interesting position -- published after the lyric (CS) whose performance the ode supposedly anticipates. More specifically, the ode's form and occasion, a hymn to the gods of the new age, align it with the CS, but the recasting of Apollo makes it potentially corrective to the CS and c.5. Isolating the ode within only one of its time-referents, namely prior to the CS, has caused undue accentuation or perhaps even fabrication of a perfect transition from a vengeful to peaceful Apollo. There has been an overall failure to account for the angry militarism of the ode's first half, particularly of the mythological exempla, and what effect this might have in a panegyric context. An audience reading Horace's mythology back into the CS and within an openly panegyric context could see Augustus through Apollo. As Apollo took vengeance on the enemies of his mother and triumphed in the restoration of his family so his son Octavian avenged the murders of his adopted father Julius Caesar, ended the civil wars, and brought a new age of peace to his fellow Romans.[36] But since the Apollo of c.6 is so at variance with c.5 and the CS and since the ode's mythology at its outset casts the god in an admonitory role, the ode within the movement of the book has as much potential to restrain as expand the praise of c.5.

After Verg. Ecl. 6.3-5, Apollo's first appearance among the Augustans as a deity restricting martial praise-poetry, the god rarely appears as a warning figure in Latin poetry.[37] It seems significant then in light of the opportune merging of Callimachean-Vergilian poetics with an Apollo who would have his poets sing of Rome's peace that Horace instead highlights Augustus' Apollo as a violent admonitory deity after two imperial praises, one being an epinikion (c.4).[38] After the poet comes as close to the adulation of a deified Augustus as any imperial praise (c.5), he introduces an Apollo who avenges the proud and boastful.[39] What is more, the mythological trio are all guilty of over-reaching their lineage and claiming equality to or even superiority over a god. Horace's pithy definition of Achilles' heroic dilemma (ceteris maior, tibi miles impar, 5) puts divine ancestry in perspective: gods procreate with mortals and produce other mortals lesser than themselves who must by their deeds achieve immortality. The only exceptions were Apollo and his sister. Thus in his epistle to Augustus (II.1) when Horace for his last time acknowledges Augustus' divinity, which Augustus achieved remarkably even before he died (13-17), the poet reminds Caesar that he gained his divine status by merit (5-10a).[40] Horace's mythology vividly illustrates both that Augustus' divinity is of a different sort from Apollo's, since Augustus' divinity is dependent on the judgment of others (panegyric), and that exaggerated claims of divinity are dangerous.

It is possible at this point to draw some preliminary conclusions about Horatian encomia. Horace's praise does not readily fit the either/or of the pro-Augustan versus anti-Augustan dichotomy, which has been the mainstay of Horatian studies, especially regarding Odes IV.[41] I do not intend to argue that Horace simply subverts the imperial praise of c.4 and 5 -- the oppositional approach is far too easy -- but to show how readily an Horatian praise-ode supports either position. Horace constructs his panegyric to admit disputes (dubia) and conflicting viewpoints as is evident from the eulogy for Maximus, the recusatio to Iullus, the positioning of c.6 (its dramatic date versus publication date) and its mythological exempla. Consequently, Horace's panegyric praxis by its nature provokes an audience to debate. Such a patterning within the encomia permits the panegyrist/poet to explore the process by which praise is generated, to reveal the complex of interactions among the laudandus, laudator, and the evaluations of the audience. By implication the 'Augustan ideology' to which the praise-poet supposedly reacts cannot be the sole possession of any one authority, but is subject to the volatile climate of communal interpretation, the outcome of which cannot be well predicted. C.6 constitutes such an interpretive event. After all, the poet imagines his hymn as a choral performance that causes him to pray for Apollo's defense. C.6 as performance contradicts the notion of a poet who has withdrawn into community in order to abdicate his public role. Instead, the poet assumes the vital role of mediator between the various public sectors (duces and cives) that compose one political sphere. The panegyric poet is the agent who creates the interpretive opportunity for ideas to be shaped into a shared cultural-political discourse, and by virtue of this act is a co-creator of ideology rather than in a responsive position as a mere reporter of any program that already exists. Horatian panegyric is a lesson in how poetics produces meaning.

I concede that up to this point my discussion of c.6 has been mostly in the responsive mode, reacting to what has been the main focus of other studies, the relationship of Apollo to Augustan Rome. The conceptual unity of c.6, however, insists that the song is primarily about Apollo and the poet. The failure to treat seriously the poet's prayer for divine aid and his defensive posture has pushed the poetics of c.6 to the periphery, and the persistent reading of the ode within a specific historical setting (prior CS) has dissected it into two loosely connected halves. Horace faces two criticisms: (1) the transitions from addressing the god to the chorus (30-31) to a single member of the chorus (41) are so abrupt that the hymnic-prayer has little to do with the personal nature of the ode's conclusion, and (2) the mythological exempla (1-3) and the intermissio on the death of Achilles (9-24) do not support a coherent argument for both the hymn and the address to the chorus.[42] The answers to these objections will illustrate an artistry so intensely introspective that the poet's stance naturally shifts from a defensive to offensive posture: Horace again asserts, this time within an openly panegyric mode, the eloquent power of his lyric and his immortal fame as its director (corodidavskalo").

The first objection proves easier to answer. Horace is imitating Pindar. Fraenkel, elaborating on a suggestion first made by Heinze (K.-H.5, 1908), cites Pindar's sixth paean as the model for c.6. Not only are the occasions and content of the two lyrics similar (the poet anticipating a performance of his hymn to Apollo), but the paean praises among Apollo's great deeds his slaying of Achilles (78-91) and includes an abrupt transition from the poet addressing the god to instructing the chorus (121). Horace being in a similar situation follows Pindar's lead and adopts the same general structure for his ode.[43]

The success of Fraenkel's argument is that it begins to reassociate the ode with the thematic progression of Odes IV. Horace in c.2 put himself forward as the true rival of Pindar and in c.3 his more accomplished successor. With c.6 Horace then demonstrates his command of a particular Pindaric hymn-form. Horace had done the same in Satires I when he backed up his criticism of Lucilius with a direct imitation of a Lucilian satire (s.4; 5). This is a case in point that it is possible to answer much of the criticism about Horace's techne in c.6 with structural paradigms common to the Odes even without recourse to a specific Pindaric paean. Horatian odes often move swiftly from the general to the specific and personal within a single ode and from one ode to another. Such movement collapses the private versus public dichotomy, a boundary that is not as fixed in Horace as for the modern reader. For example, Horace waits until the final eight lines of C. I.1 to make himself the cap of the priamel. A hymn to Mercury (C. I.10) is followed by the carpe diem ode to Leuconoë (11), an ode praising Augustus (12), and then the poet's anger over a love triangle (13). C. III.14 turns quickly from a public ritual celebration of Augustus' return to a private party, presumably to celebrate the same occasion.[44] Two odes later (III.16), the gold that cheated Acrisius of his Danaë (1-8) and won Philip of Macedon entrance into his enemies' cities (13-14) in mid-stanza (18) shifts to become a symbol of Horace's unassuming manner with Maecenas. If Cairns is correct about C. IV.6 that the first half of the ode is the song to Apollo that the poet imagines will be performed in the second,[45] there is no shortage of such parallels in other Horatian hymns (C. I.32; IV.15),[46] especially in the poet's sympotic invitations when the drinking-party promised is depicted as on-going in another section of the same ode (C. I.17; II.7; III.19). Such poetic constructs are a natural consequence of the compression of time in lyric where the distinction between the present and future is blurred. The move from a hymn to the performance of a hymn in c.6 is no more abrupt than similar transitions in other Horatian lyrics.

The second objection that the violence of the mythology and the intermissio does not align with the occasion of the hymn's performance, the celebration for a new age of peace (Epist. I.12.25-29; C. IV.5; 15), is more complex. The traditional response is exclusively political. The supposition has gradually gained support that there is within c.6 a transition from the vengeful Apollo to the peaceful lyric Apollo who restored Rome and now inspires the poet.[47] Such a view reduces the violence of Apollo to a past and lesser interest in the ode (and attempts to rebalance what the poet obviously did not) so that the praise is forced to fit the restraints of a supposed imperial propaganda that after Actium sought to repress symbols of the past civil wars and accentuate those of peace and restoration.[48] To return to metaphor: there was a movement away from the violent acts of vengeance displayed on the doors of Apollo's Palatine temple and toward the Altar of Peace. Horace's ode, however, takes the opposite direction: the theme of vengeance that consumes half of the ode reverses the standard chronology for Augustan imaging by lingering overly long at the temple-doors. This is a startling reversal in a book so intimately connected with monumental Rome and specifically the dedication of the Altar of Peace. Any transition in the figure of Apollo from war to peace is diminutive and incomplete.

The unity of the ode cannot be found by subordinating the personal to the political (or the political to the personal) and all but ignoring that the ode is a hymnic prayer from the poet about a public occasion. The private and public aspects of the poem are inseparable. Horace in his hymns does not always make specific requests, but here he makes two both concerning his poetic, one that Apollo will defend the honor of his Italian Muse (27) and another that the chorus will guard his Lesbian lyric (35-36). The continuation of the ode's martial tone in both imperatives is telling (defende; servate). The lyric poet places himself in a defensive posture that requests the protection of a warring god and support from his followers. Horace is engaging in a battle of poetics that musters both the divine (Phoebus' inspiration) and earthly realms (human performance). The poet literally surrounds himself with his god (Phoebus mihi Phoebus, 29). Even here it has proven impossible to escape from the tendency to interpret the ode as strictly pre-CS, rather than within the movement of Odes IV, and consequently the battle has most often been explained as the pressure that Horace must have felt over 'going public.' Horace is only asking that Apollo by his divine inspiration and the chorus by their hard practice spare him public embarrassment. The sheer sentimentality of the situation has a strong appeal: the humble poet nervously anticipating his official public debut. The dramatic and extended description of Apollo's wrath and his victory over the barbarous Achilles would indeed be excessive even for the most severe case of 'performance-butterflies.' The scene of the nervous poet does not fit the general boldness of Horace's lyric persona, certainly not this ode. The poet's prediction of his own success in the climactic last strophe would require an extremely rapid metamorphosis in his attitude over the ode's second half. C.6 instead stands in book IV as corrective to the success of the CS and what official recognition would mean for the Horatian lyric persona. The battle is for Horace's lyric ego. Horace's acceptance of the commission to compose the CS and the epinikia of Odes IV could well affect audience perception. Horace's feigned distance from weighty imperial concerns and policies that was much of his strategy for asserting his own independent agency strains the audience's ability to suspend belief and risks losing the credibility necessary to retain its seriocomic force, on which the recusatio of c.2 depends. Horace continues to resharpen the identity of his lyric persona and bring it into clear focus, especially after the sympotic disavowal of c.1. Is the lyric Horace the same or not?

Horace connects the direct addresses (1-8, 25-30, 31-40), the intermissio (9-24), and the sphragis (41-44) in structure and theme to form an apologia against the notion that direct panegyric has changed his lyric persona. First the intermissio supports Horace's prayer to the god and his instruction to the chorus to preserve his lyric by setting out the generic breadth of Horace's poetic, and then the sphragis champions the grandeur of Horace's contribution to the lyric tradition. C.6 is, as it were, a microcosm of the Horatian poetry-book, odes carefully crafted together, relating a trove of human experiences, defying generic boundaries, and ending with the poet reveling in his success. In spite of the familiarity of its argument and conceptual arrangements, c.6 is atypical of Horatian structural patterns based on the balance and symmetry of units. The eleven stanzas of c.6 have no center, which is highly unusual for Horace's odes with an odd number of stanzas, and the poem resists any bipartite division. Instead, the symmetrical pattern is disrupted by a four stanza insertion (9-24) and a one stanza accretion (41-44). Horace is being Pindaric. If the intermissio and sphragis were to be removed, the symmetry would return (two direct addresses of twelve verses each: 1-8 and 25-28; 29-40), but not completely since Horace inserts a third person tribute to Apollo (29-30) that delays the direct address to the chorus by two verses. Horace by this slight disruption ensures that the second person addresses and the third person narratives remain inseparable. The song cannot be broken apart.

Although the intermissio is clearly an intricate part of the ode's overall dynamic, it introduces a brokenness that interrupts with syntactic violence the direct address and begins a movement/counter-movement between the second and third person. In other words, the poet sets up a violent struggle between the direct address and the third person narrative, which metaphorically supports the panegyric conflicts that he senses and which he resolves in his address to the chorus. Achilles (9-24) temporarily usurps Apollo's place as the subject of the hymn and the god recovers his rightful position only after killing his opponent. With the death of Achilles, the direct address resumes (Phoebus regains control), but before moving on to address the chorus the poet returns briefly to third person narrative (29-30). Now, however, the distinction between the narrative and the direct address is blurred. The poet receives the answer to his prayer for Phoebus' help and he is assured that he is the god's protected poet (29-30). It is as if he is reporting an imagined second person address to himself by Apollo: 'I inspired you, gave you the art of lyric song, and named you, poet.' The conflation of narration and address continues in the poet's instructions to the chorus. The address to the chorus returns the deity (this time Diana) to the objective position but as an entity to be reverenced rather than challenged. The narratological rivalry between Achilles and Apollo is replaced by hymnic praise, the poet's song that makes his instruction to the chorus, if they obey his orders, an address to the goddess herself (37-40). The poet's song resolves the structural conflicts he set in motion by blending together direct address and narrative, that is, inspiration and panegyric discourse. The ode's conclusion (41-44) comes with a bit of a jolt when the direct address to one female chorister gives the poem's final praise to the choir-master. But his is not the vain boast of a Niobe, Tityos, or Achilles, because the identity of the poet's voice has already been placed in complete harmony with the god's. Horace is Apollo's prophet and the teacher of his lyre (doctor, 25 ... docilis, 43). Consequently, a poem that begins as if Augustus will be so closely identified with Apollo that he will become divine ends instead with the poet more nearly so.

The entirety of the ode defends the power of Apollo's/the poet's lyre and the defense maintains the sympotic tone of Odes I-III. Horace has embedded into the direct addresses the emotive nucleus of his sympotic carpe diem argument: the seductive lush party, the sexual tension of coming to age, and the brevity of life. The youthful Apollo bathes his hair in the river and teaches his song to Thalia, the beautiful clear-voiced Muse of festive revelry.[49] The seductive power of the moment matches the eroticism of Horace's invitations to Lyde and Phyllis to learn and share his song (C. III.28; IV.11). When Horace addresses the chorus, the virgin Diana has her bow bent to prevent her animal-subjects from escaping her control. Her threatening posture suggests that she barely still restrains her human charges, the unwed choristers, who are on the verge of becoming the young married maiden who boasts of her lyric past in the ode's final lines. The Moon goddess marks how swiftly the months roll by (cf. C. II.11.10-11; IV.7.13). The sequence simulates scenes familiar from any number of sympotic odes (I.17.13-28; I.38; II.3.5-12; 5.5-24; 7.17-28; 11.13-17), not least C. I.1.19-22 when the poet, his own persona briefly hidden in the anonymous qui, discloses that he enjoys spending his day with a good wine while he lazes beside a gentle stream.

Horace's sympotic lyre is not light-weight. Although this hymn contains no overt recusatio of epos -- the admonitory Apollo does not directly intervene and change the poet's direction (cf. c.15) -- the ode in the tradition of the Greek lyricists, as is typical of Horatian epic disavowals, does blend lyric and epic themes, specifically the inclusion of an epic battle within the sympotic world of the lyric Apollo. The violent intermissio displays the intertextual depth of Horatian lyric. The multiplicity of possible sources appears endless: Achilles' death by Apollo (Pi. Paean 6, which includes in a contrary to fact condition that Troy would have been sacked, if Apollo had not intervened; Hom. Il. 19.409-414; 22.358-360) and the manner of Achilles' death, that is, stretched out in the dust (Hom. Od. 24.39-40) and fallen like a tree (Hom. Il. 13.389-393; 16.480-486; Simon. fr. 11.1-12 W.; Cat. 64.105-111; Verg. A. 5.446-449).[50] Each intersection can add its own nuance to Horace's retelling, and as a result the intermissio is an eloquent apology for the marvelous capacity of Horatian lyric to look thin but be fat. This Horatian mythological narrative has been very well fed.

After the metaphor of the 'fallen tree,' however, the intertextual dialogue narrows and focuses on Vergil's Aeneid. In this way the metaphor represents a transition. Once Vergil's voice is heard among the others from then on the mythological narrative draws from the Aeneid. Horace's Trojan horse (ille non inclusus equo Minervae / sacra mentito, 13-14a; cf. votum pro reditu simulant ... / huc delecta virum sortiti corpora furtim / includunt caeco lateri, A. 2.17-19a), the ill-omened chorus (sacra ... male feriatos / Troas et laetam Priami choreis / falleret aulam, 14-16; cf. ... pueri circum innuptaeque puellae / sacra canunt, A. 2.238-239a), and the persuasive pleas of Venus (21-22) owe more to Aeneas' storytelling to Dido than Demodocus' song to Odysseus.[51] The narrowing of the intertextual progression in the intermissio puts Vergil forward as the epic heir of Homer. Therefore, when Horace names the Muse Thalia first before Phoebus, he is likely continuing his close interaction with Vergil, specifically with eclogue 6 and with the bucolic poet's turned epicist's two line prelude to his earlier reinvention of the Callimachean dictum (Prima Syracosio dignata est ludere versu / nostra neque erubuit silvas habitare Thalea, 1-2). Horace has called Vergil on the ironic play of his recusatio. After sustained consecutive direct allusions to the Aeneid, Horace's return back to Vergil's comic Theocritean Thalia, who did not blush at rustic verses, challenges the implication that underlies Vergil's martial epic project -- that for Horace Vergil's very act of writing the epic Aeneid constituted a potential disavowal of Vergil's past poetic and its strategies for asserting the poet's authority (such as the pretense of the recusatio), both of which Horace refuses to abandon.[52] Horace's Muse once and for all is Apollo's lyric Thalia. Vergil's apparent reversal and Horace's continued resistance to any change are part of the conflict behind his prayer to Apollo that the god defend the glory of his poet's Daunian Muse, and enhance the significance of Horace's reference to his own Italian countryside (Daunus was the mythic king of Apulia where Horace was born). Horace looks back across the Aeneid to the bucolic, more lyric Vergil.[53]

Lyric Apollo and his poet Horace come together as one voice. When the poet's ego speaks through the married female chorister (41-44), it adopts the role of Apollo's priest and ends the ode in the same mantic voice that Propertius more fully develops in his praise for Palatine Apollo and Augustus (4.6.1-2, 5-10)­.[54] The metaphor of poet as priest is often lost in Horace, overshadowed by the novelty of the sphragis, which is nothing less than Horace's prophecy that his own name will prove immortal. C.6 ends, just like books II and III, with Horace predicting the immortality of his lyric achievement. Augustus promised to return to Rome (redi, c.5.4); Horace, after he dies, will return in the performance of his songs (reddidi, 43). The supposition behind Horace's instruction to the choir is that interpretation is part of the ritual vatic process. Apollo, the teacher (doctor) of Thalia, inspires the poet-priest, who in turn teaches the chorister (docilis). The combined choral performance of god, poet, and singer produces the poet's praise. This resulting panegyric is powerful religious ritual, the carmen saeculare.

The communal nature of Horatian panegyric should not be taken to diminish the role of the poet nor detract from what a potent anomaly the arrangement of c.3-6 really is. It was not uncommon for other Augustan and later writers (Vergil, Propertius, Ovid, Martial, Statius, Pliny) to revere their patrons or addressees as sources of inspiration or at least a support for their ingenium.[55] The closest Horace ever comes is C. I.1 when he says that Maecenas is his guardian (praesidium) and sweet honor (dulce decus). In c.3-6 Horace does just the opposite: he surrounds the first duet of imperial praises with his own claims to be uniquely blessed by the gods and asks for Phoebus' protection, the very same god who destroyed the boastful. Horace's point could not be clearer or more definitively expressed. He is still Rome's divine prophetic voice, vates Horatius.

Within the plot development of Odes IV, c.6 is climactic and introductory. Horace's effective modeling of Pindaric techne confirms that he should be enrolled in the lyric canon and that he will be remembered as the great name in the lyric tradition, just as his spoken name at the end of c.6 predicts. There is much in Horace that is the same. The poet's reaffirmation of his sympotic persona reveals completely the ironic character of his disavowal of sympotic lyric, which began the book, and introduces the carpe diem ode to Torquatus, c.7. Horace has not sworn off Venus[56] nor will his old age lack the lyre, his first prayer to Apollo:

frui paratis et valido mihi,

Latoe, dones et precor integra

   cum mente, nec turpem senectam

      degere nec cithara carentem.

                                (C. I.31.17-20)

 

Please grant, Latona's son, that I enjoy what I have and my health; and I pray that I live to be an old man respected, with a sound mind, and not without my lyre.

 

The hymns complete each other (C. I.31; IV.6): both identify Apollo by his ancestry and together round out Horace's Lesbian beat, the first Alcaic and the latter Sapphic. The god is dependent on his prophet for his voice -- to make him come alive.[57] Inside the Palatine temple, in front of which the CS was performed, stood the statue of Apollo holding his lyre, mute, if it were not for the poets' songs:

hic equidem Phoebo visus mihi pulchrior ipso

   marmoreus tacita carmen hiare lyra

 

deinde inter matrem deus ipse interque sororem

   Pythius in longa carmina veste sonat.

                                                (Prop. 2.31.5-6, 15-16)

 

This marble statue opening its mouth to sing with its silent lyre seemed to me more beautiful than Phoebus in person.

 

Then between mother and sister the Pythian god himself wearing his long robe sings his songs.

 

Horace and Propertius are on the same page. Horace breathes out his divine breath (spiritum) in c.8 and 9, when he rivals the immortality of the physical arts (8.13-15a), and breathes life back into Sappho (9.10b-12), just as Propertius gives the marble Apollo his song. Horace's art resounds, a living monument sung and sung again, and therefore becomes the embodiment of cyclical immortal time (saeculo referente, c.6.42). Horace the panegyrist cannot be defined with regard to only the laudatus either quantitatively (the extent of the praise) or qualitatively (the poetic for the praise).

 

C.7: Panegyric and Politics, Putting Off Heirs

A. E. Housman's "most beautiful poem in Latin literature" can appear even more beautiful by comparison to its surroundings.[58] Among all the panegyric morass of Odes IV, c.7 has stood out as an oasis of Horatian artful pleasure, the lyric poet as he once was in Odes I-III:

Diffugere nives, redeunt iam gramina campis

   arboribusque comae;

mutat terra vices et decrescentia ripas

   flumina praetereunt.

 

Gratia cum Nymphis geminisque sororibus audet          5

   ducere nuda choros.

immortalia ne speres, monet annus et almum

   quae rapit hora diem.

 

frigora mitescunt Zephyris, ver proterit aestas

   interitura, simul                                                                  10

pomifer autumnus fruges effuderit; et mox

   bruma recurrit iners.

 

damna tamen celeres reparant caelestia lunae:

   nos ubi decidimus

quo pius Aeneas, quo Tullus dives et Ancus,                               15

   pulvis et umbra sumus.

 

quis scit an adiciant hodiernae crastina summae

   tempora di superi?

cuncta manus avidas fugient heredis, amico

   quae dederis animo.                                                          20

 

cum semel occideris et de te splendida Minos

   fecerit arbitria,

non, Torquate, genus, non te facundia, non te

   restituet pietas.

 

infernis neque enim tenebris Diana pudicum                  25

   liberat Hippolytum,

nec Lethaea valet Theseus abrumpere caro

   vincula Pirithoo.

 

The snows have scattered away, and now the grass is returning to the fields and the leaves to the trees; the earth is changing her seasons and the subsiding rivers are flowing along their banks. The Grace with the nymphs and her own twin sisters dares to lead the dances naked. Do not hope for immortality, warns the year and the hour which snatches away the nourishing day. Zephyrs warm winter's cold, summer heat tramples on spring and is sure to pass on swiftly as soon as fertile autumn has poured out her fruit, and soon hibernating winter runs round again. But swiftly moons repair their absence from the heavens; we, when we sink down where dutiful Aeneas, where rich Tullus and Ancus are, we are dust and shadows. Who knows whether the gods above will add tomorrow's time to today's total? Only what you have spent on your own dear self will escape the greedy hands of your heir. Once you die and Minos has passed his righteous sentence on you, not your lineage, Torquatus, not your eloquence, not your piety will raise you to life again. Indeed, not even Diana sets Hippolytus free from the darkness of the dead, and Theseus is not strong enough to break his beloved Pirithous free from Lethaean bonds.

 

I have chosen not to burden c.7 with a detailed structural analysis, since I do not want to risk misrepresenting the effect of the ode within the moments of book IV. C.7 is a panegyric pause, but as any persuasive orator knows pauses are stuffed with meaning and interpretive value. The task is to reconnect the ode to its context through recognizing its unique qualities and the essential contribution they make to the collection. C.7 so thoroughly muddles the boundaries of private and public, the poetics of carpe diem and Realpolitik that it is impossible to interpret the coming odes (10-13) as some poorly executed Pindaric digression without any thematic relevance to the panegyric movement of the book.

When Odes IV returns again to the nobiles (c.7-9), the first addressee, Torquatus, is strangely out of step with the book's other political insiders. He is the only one of the young nobles distinguished by a second address. In Epistle I.5 Horace with a carpe diem argument invited Torquatus, an eloquent and busy lawyer, to set aside his clients' concerns and enjoy a drinking-party. Horace does not cast Torquatus as a political figure, but his friend. Although Horace tells us too little about Torquatus to substantiate his identification as Manlius Torquatus, the son or grandson of L. Manlius Torquatus (consul in the year Horace was born, 65 B.C.), it can be concluded with reasonable certainty that this Torquatus is the only addressee among the nobiles to never hold political office.[59] Torquatus, therefore, represents an older apolitical character compared to the young Maximus and Iullus, whose careers were bolstered by marriage alliances with the imperial family. This is not an obscure point, but the beginning of the collection: one ode to Maximus, the soon-to-be husband of Augustus' cousin, followed by another to Iullus, the husband of Augustus' niece. Torquatus is noticeably not in the family, a political outsider.

Torquatus presents an enigma. Why would Horace anchor Odes IV at its near center and introduce odes to Censorinus and Lollius with a carpe diem ode to a peer whose political career had not distinguished him among the nobiles? Certainly the ode does provide a break in the panegyric mode of c.1-6. The person of Torquatus, the argument of the ode, and its prominent position in the collection together should prevent the conclusion that the poet routinely represents imperial interests. Only propaganda of the most indirect kind leaves room for a Torquatus. And yet a carpe diem ode is particularly apt after the reaffirmation of the Horatian sympotic lyric persona in c.6. For the poet to place a carpe diem lyric in a panegyric context after he has just honored Melpomene and Apollo for their gift of inspiration is a remarkable statement of poetic authority. The poet will simply not push aside his lyric world and all that is implied in it from Odes I-III, including its epic criticism and its formulaic aversion to praise-poetry (supported by the recusatio of c.2). Through c.7 Horace provides another instance of a persistent poetic arete that is the heart of both the ode to Censorinus (c.8) and Lollius (c.9).

Nevertheless, Horatian poetics once again lead back to the political background of Odes IV. Not far from view is the Horace of c.1 who disavowed, or at least attempted to do so, his sympotic carpe diem world. Horace's affirmation of his lyric voice began immediately, gradual but steady: the sympotic landscape at the center of the recusatio (c.2), supported by the divine favor of the gods (c.3; 6), culminating in a carpe diem ode (c.7). There is some change; Horace's carpe diem is not exactly the same. What is missing throughout is any sympotic celebration of the type common in Odes I-III. Horace does not cap the recusatio of c.2 with a declaration that he will sing only of sympotic pleasures, such as love-games, as he did its counterpart in the first collection (I.6.17-20), but with a triumphal celebration for Augustus (42-60). C.6 sketches the argument for sympotic celebration, Apollo bathing his hair, the beauty of song and the transience of life, but there is no party, unless it is the celebration of the novum saeculum that the poet claims as his own. C.7 appears the perfect traditional carpe diem argument -- the transience of human existence portrayed by the changing seasons, the permanence of death, the gods in control of the future, and the inability of humanity to gain back any life at all once lost -- but it alone of Horace's carpe diem poems excludes any sympotic image.[60] Horace's omission of sympotic pleasures and an invitation to enjoy the present results in a more serious tone that recalls the carpe diem warning to Postumus (II.14). Postumus is so frugal that he cheats himself out of any pleasures that his riches afford, not recognizing that swiftly approaching death will end any chance to enjoy life and will bequeath his precious stored wine, his sympotic pleasures, to an intemperate heir.[61] The poet's warning is stern (25-28):

absumet heres Caecuba dignior

servata centum clavibus et mero

   tinget pavimentum superbo,

      pontificum potiore cenis.

 

A more worthy heir will waste the Caecuban you keep under hundreds of locks and keys and will stain the pavement with your haughty wine, a choicer vintage than at the feasts of priests.

 

Against all the expectations created by sympotic Horace's principle of moderatio, Postumus' heir is "more worthy" (dignior). In spite of his extremely immoderate behavior lavishly portrayed by absumet, mero ... superbo, tinget, and pontificum potiore, the heir at least enjoys the present with an immediacy that befits the shortness of life.[62] The frugal Postumus, erring to the other extreme of excessive moderation, not only misses out on the pleasures of this life, but is destined to join the greatest sinners, Geryon, Tityos, the daughters of Danaus, and Sisyphus (7b-12).[63]

Inescapable death also awaits Torquatus; nevertheless, the pessimism of c.7 is not as penetrating as its prequel (C. II.14). Horace draws out inviting scenes in nature and the renewal of the seasons for nearly half of the ode (1-12), and although his descriptions are not without a sinister side (summer trampling spring to death, 9b-10a), they offer a more gentle and seductive beginning to the song than Postumus' sacrifices failing to stop time's steady march. Heroes and kings, Aeneas, Tullus, Ancus, and the bright judgments of Minos, not tormented criminals wait to welcome Torquatus. Horace's change to a less menacing tone reflects the different characters of the addressees. Never does Horace so much as imply that Torquatus is a miser deserving censure, but Horace does jog his friend's memory by repeating the advice from his earlier letter to him that it is useless and insane to hold back (like a Postumus) from life's pleasures for the sake of an heir:

   Quo mihi fortunam, si non conceditur uti?

parcus ob heredis curam nimiumque severus

assidet insano. potare et spargere flores

incipiam patiarque vel inconsultus haberi.

(Epist. I.5.12-15)

 

cuncta manus avidas fugient heredis, amico

   quae dederis animo.

                                (C. IV.7.19-20)

 

What good is my fortune, if not to enjoy it? Being frugal and excessively strict in order to look out for an heir is nearly insane. I will start off the drinking and scattering flowers, and I do not care if anyone thinks me thoughtless.

 

Only what you have spent on your own dear self will escape the greedy hands of your heir.

 

Horace in c.7 has shifted the focus from a father concerned with guarding his estate in order to secure his son's future (C. II.14; Epist. I.5) to the heir anxious to inherit as much as possible. Now the heir is not worthier, but has grasping hands.

To return to the original question, the possible political dimensions of c.7 -- Horace begins the central panel of book IV with a poem on the brevity of life and the certainty of death from which neither his friend Torquatus nor the great epic Aeneas can escape. Only the things that are not held in reserve for heirs escape the consequences of mortality. By placing the eager heirs of c.7 among the encomiastic litany of young nobles, Horace conjures up the impression of an older Augustus' concern and preparation for a successor.[64] What appears to be a private concern for Torquatus is for an aging Augustus and the Roman public Realpolitik. Horace does not make such an application too great of a stretch. The ode had already reached its climax and could have ended well at verse 24, but Horace adds two interconnected mythic exempla (told in present time) to help make the point (25-28). Hippolytus and Theseus together, an infamous story of seduction, family rivalry and misunderstanding with the most tragic consequences,[65] summarize well for Augustus, his family, and the nobiles around them the dangers of ambitio and of the intrigues surrounding great households, especially during transitions of power. The ode to Torquatus would find in the noble addressees of Odes IV a most empathetic audience.

 

C.8 and 9: 'As the Wor(l)d Turns,' Praise and Blame

If for no other reason than their position within the collection c.8 and 9 deserve special attention. They are the last of the encomia nobilium and the heart of Odes IV, marked out by their meters (Asclepiadean, c.8; Alcaic, c.9) that correspond to those of c.1 (Asclepiadean) and 15 (Alcaic). Although c.8 and 9 are at the middle of the collection, together they represent extremes, as Horace tests the limits of panegyric propriety and impropriety -- the first a generic set piece to Censorinus and the second a suspect encomium for Lollius.

 

C.8: Censorinus

Donarem pateras grataque commodus,

Censorine, meis aera sodalibus,

donarem tripodas, praemia fortium

Graiorum, neque tu pessima munerum

ferres, divite me scilicet artium                           5

quas aut Parrhasius protulit aut Scopas,

hic saxo, liquidis ille coloribus

sollers nunc hominem ponere, nunc deum:

 

sed non haec mihi vis, nec tibi talium

res est aut animus deliciarum egens.                10

gaudes carminibus; carmina possumus

donare et pretium dicere muneri.

 

non incisa notis marmora publicis,

per quae spiritus et vita redit bonis

post mortem ducibus, [non celeres fugae        15

reiectaeque retrorsum Hannibalis minae,

non incendia Karthaginis impiae

eius qui domita nomen ab Africa

lucratus rediit] clarius indicant

laudes quam Calabrae Pierides; neque             20

 

si chartae sileant quod bene feceris,

mercedem tuleris. quid foret Iliae

Marvortisque puer, si taciturnitas

obstaret meritis invida Romuli?

 

ereptum Stygiis fluctibus Aeacum                    25

virtus et favor et lingua potentium

vatum divitibus consecrat insulis.

[dignum laude virum Musa vetat mori]

caelo Musa beat. sic Iovis interest

optatis epulis impiger Hercules,                        30

clarum Tyndaridae sidus ab infimis

quassas eripiunt aequoribus ratis,

[ornatus viridi tempora pampino]

Liber vota bonos ducit ad exitus.

 

I would give bowls and pleasing bronzes readily, Censorinus, to my comrades; I would give tripods, the rewards of Greek heroes; and you would win not the least of the prizes, if I, of course, were rich in the crafts which either Parrhasius displayed or Scopas, both talented, the one in sculpting and the other in liquid paints, to fashion now a mortal, now a god. But I do not have this power, neither does your wealth nor inclination beg such dainties. You take pleasure in song; songs we can give and we can name the value of the service. No, marble inscribed with public notices, through which good leaders regain breath and life after death, do not -- not Hannibal's swift flight and his threats turned back, not the fiery destruction of impious Carthage -- praise more effectively him who gained his fame by conquering Africa and returning home than do the Calabrian Muses; and if my pages should pass by your good deeds in silence, you would not gain the reward due. What would have become of the child of Ilia and Mars, if jealous silence blocked out Romulus' just rewards? The character and good will and song of powerful bards stole Aeacus from the Stygian waves and set him on the Isles of the Blessed. The Muse forbids that a hero worthy of praise die. The Muse blesses with the renown of heaven. Thus spirited Hercules partakes of the desired feasts of Jove; the sons of Tyndareus, bright stars, rescue sea-battered ships from the ocean's depths; Liber, his head adorned with green vine, brings vows to successful conclusion.

 

The unstable text of c.8 and the resulting interpretive questions remain unresolved.[66] These difficulties are only compounded, however, by the presumption that the poem is an entirely earnest panegyric for Censorinus. Only the very basic thesis is undisputed: the poet and his poetry have the power to immortalize heroes and prevent them from suffering an ignominious death. The poet destroys death's permanence, which dominated the previous ode, with nothing short of resurrection (per quae spiritus et vita redit bonis / post mortem ducibus, 14-15). Bards by their own character (virtus), blessing (favor), and word (lingua) can do what the goddess Diana and the hero Theseus could not (c.7) -- defy death and rescue even Aeacus from the Stygian floods (25-27). Hannibal, P. Scipio Africanus, Hercules, and the Dioscuri, all saved by the Muse, overshadow and all but obscure Censorinus. The panegyric is the poem itself, given to Censorinus for a tribute that will theoretically ensure his undying fame.[67] The encomium holds center-stage, but Censorinus' deeds do not.

So much seems clear, but what is peculiar is the paradox that in a poem vigorously defending the superiority of the poet as the author of immortality, the gift of praise for Censorinus is so empty of any of his legacy or accomplishments, which would distinguish his nobility, that it fails to be a lasting memorial. This is not what the opening lines lead one to expect. The Pindaric priamel that passes by the heroic awards of the Greeks and the visual arts, Scopas' sculptures and Parrhasius' paintings, makes poetry the greater gift.[68] Horace emphasizes this claim by litotes (neque tu pessima ... / ferres, 4b-5a), the repetition of munerum ... muneri (4, 12), and his rehearsal of the historical and legendary heroes whom the poets immortalized (16-34). Poetry is a rich reward, and the poet is a full and generous giver, a meaning enhanced by the proximity of pateras ... commodus (1) and the appearance of Dionysus at the end of the poem (34). Commodus is a loaded word. Horace uses it in only one other ode, III.19.12.[69] In that symposion the poet assumes the role of a noisome magister bibendi, who orders for himself the stronger of two wine-mixtures (13-15a)[70] and meets any reluctance to join the party with vehement impatience (18b-22a). A 'generous' poet, then, anticipates that the opening verses introduce a full and unrestrained encomium, but instead Censorinus vanishes.

Beyond the inference from the martial context of the Scipios' victory over Hannibal and the general assumption that Censorinus has done some feat worthy of Horace's song (20b-22a), there is no reference to any of Censorinus' accomplishments: no mention about his praetorship as a legate in the East (14 or 13 B.C.)[71] and no hint of his illustrious family descended from the kings of Rome. The entire encomium is so completely generic that it is still debated whether Censorinus is the younger Gaius Marcius or his father Lucius Marcius.[72] I would go further. Horace is not praising father like son, as he does Augustus and his sons in the epinikia (c.4; 14). This encomium is not designed to prevent obscurity. One could remove Censorinus and replace him with any number of other young outstanding Augustans with some military experience, such as P. Cornelius Scipio, L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, P. Quinctilius Varus, or M. Messalla Appianus, without diminishing the poem in the least.[73]

This nondescript praise makes the ode's main premise all the more perplexing. How exactly is such a praise-poem a better gift than a sculpture or painting?[74] Horace raises the question when he offers the poem and commends its value, but then credits the other arts with the same ability to give breath and life to the dead (13-15). Horace makes clear from the outset with an emphatic non (13) that the superiority of poetry is never in doubt.[75] The progression of the immortalized Romulus, Aeacus, and then Hercules, Castor, Pollux, and Dionysus (21-34) by comparison dwarf Scipio and Hannibal whose images and deeds are engraved in marble. The lyric Muse even immortalizes her own deity, Dionysus. Still Horace gives a good amount of space to the immortalizing power of statues by delaying for more than five lines (15-19) the crescendo of poetry's supremacy. Harrison's contention that lines 15-19 offer an epigraphic model that would be an integral feature of an honorary statue softens the contrast some between poetry and the solid arts by arguing that even a fixed image needs words.[76] Harrison's explanation solves the difficult sense of the text, but makes the question more pertinent -- What distinguishes the excellence of the praise-gift, poetry, from another praise-gift, a statue with an inscription?

That Censorinus just happened to like poetry better (gaudes carminibus, 11) and therefore a poem is an appropriate gift for him is a minimalist answer for a competition between poetry and the solid arts that covers the entire ode.[77] Poems are not mute objects. They have the power of speech (dicere, 12) in contrast to silence when there is no poem (sileant and taciturnitas, 21 and 23), but Horace's direct reference to the power of the public inscription that accompanies the image and the detail he gives this inscription seem to diminish the distinction. The solution depends on noting carefully Horace's word-choice beginning with the opening condition (1-8), especially the sarcastic tone that scilicet implies (4-8). The sculptor Scopas and painter Parrhasius were renowned for their excellence (sollers) -- their deficiency was not aesthetic -- but their art lacked discretion. The compressed repetition of nunc depicts the flippancy of the painter and sculptor who at one time with the same craft fashion a man and then at another with no distinction to their art create a deity (nunc hominem ponere, nunc deum, 8). Horace distances himself and Censorinus from such nondescript panegyric. With a hint of the recusatio (sed non haec mihi vis) Horace disavows his ability in the solid arts and refuses to treat his subjects so lightly (9-10). The poet's point is not simply the rather meaningless notion that Censorinus is so wealthy that he could commission plenty of such art, if he wanted. Of course he could, but the rich Censorinus does not require such arts (nec tibi talium / res est aut animus deliciarum egens). Horace is also complimenting Censorinus because he does not have the disposition (animus) to accept the nondiscriminating standards (deliciarum) that the other arts permit.

As I already noted, commodus is a loaded word. It does double-duty. It interjects the poet's vigorous sympotic persona from Odes I-III, which, as in C. III.19.18-22, energizes the power of lyric song and is essential for this ode and the second half of Odes IV, but commodus further suggests that the worth of an encomium depends on decorum. In the Satires Horace uses commodus for convivial pleasures, and often when he is encouraging moderatio or narrating the conduct appropriate for a banquet (S. I.6.110; II.2.91; 8.75-76).[78] In the Epistles both the verb and adjectival substantive are connected with encomiastic restraint, once for the laudandus (I.1.36-40) and once for Horace the laudator (II.1.1-4).[79] The panegyrist-poet of c.8 is an active giver (the repetition of donarem, donarem, possumus / donare all in first person, first position in their lines), both generous and discriminating (commodus), which by contrast to the other arts is exactly what makes his praise so valuable. The opening twelve lines are as key to the poet's defense of his encomium as the power to immortalize Romulus and Hercules. An encomium not only demands great deeds (meritis ... Romuli, 24), but also virtuous poets who will set them apart (virtus ... potentium / vatum ... consecrat, 26-27). This dual emphasis on the character of the giver (the panegyrist) and receiver (the laudandus) is evident in the ode's ritual conclusion that the Muse refuses to let a person deserving praise die by blessing him to the heavens (27-28), and that Liber ensures that vows taken succeed (34).

The two parts of the paradox, a nondescript encomiastic set-piece as an argument for the higher value of praise-poetry, come together. This ode is more than an encomium for a patron; it is a critique of the craft, and provides a negative model. Nowhere is this more clear than in the extreme hyperbole of the apotheoses that dominate more than half of the ode: the poet can immortalize the praetor Censorinus just as Romulus, Aeacus, Hercules, Dionysus. The poet had just done the same for Augustus (C. IV.5.33-36). Such reward is certainly above the young noble's merits and is an example of how ephemeral panegyric could become, if a poet were to be hired or pressured to fashion nunc hominem, nunc deum.[80] Muneri, which punctuates the priamel (12), is not a synonym of metrical convenience for donorum. Horace uses munus both for the poems and the rewards that are the goods of patronage (Epist. II.1.246, 267). Behind possumus ... pretium dicere muneri is the insinuation, 'we can set a price for our patronage.' Horace's encomium is that he sets Censorinus apart from those who would enjoy being praised no matter if it were only a business transaction. And the ironic fun is that Censorinus, if he welcomes the poet's gift, must accept it on the poet's terms for what praise it offers. Horace's imagined gift-exchange relies on the simple but fundamental presupposition that a gift is most appropriate when it is deserved (praemia [3] ... dignum laude virum Musa vetat mori [28]) and a gift is not a gift, if it is constrained.  If it is, then it is not a gift (dona); it is a service (munus).[81]

 

C.9: Lollius

            Horace's praise for Lollius defies comprehension according to Richard Bentley: "Locus perdifficilis est, et varia hominum iudicia expertus." Bentley hesitates over the syntax that requires consul (39), iudex (41), and victor (44) to be appositional modifiers of animus (34). He preserves the lines and defends the metaphor with his customary learned barrage of parallel examples,[82] but his exasperation could apply equally well to the debate over the entire encomium, namely that Horace's glowing praise of Lollius is so out of line with other ancient witnesses of the young noble's character and career:

Ne forte credas interitura quae

longe sonantem natus ad Aufidum

   non ante vulgatas per artis

      verba loquor socianda chordis:

 

non, si priores Maeonius tenet                          5

sedes Homerus, Pindaricae latent

   Ceaeque et Alcaei minaces

      Stesichorive graves Camenae,

 

nec, si quid olim lusit Anacreon,

delevit aetas; spirat adhuc amor                        10

   vivuntque commissi calores

      Aeoliae fidibus puellae.

 

non sola comptos arsit adulteri

crinis et aurum vestibus illitum

   mirata regalisque cultus                                   15

      et comites Helene Lacaena,

 

primusve Teucer tela Cydonio

direxit arcu; non semel Ilios

   vexata; non pugnavit ingens

      Idomeneus Sthenelusve solus                     20

 

dicenda Musis proelia; non ferox

Hector vel acer Deiphobus gravis

   excepit ictus pro pudicis

      coniugibus puerisque primus.

 

vixere fortes ante Agamemnona                        25

multi; sed omnes illacrimabiles

   urgentur ignotique longa

      nocte, carent quia vate sacro.

 

paulum sepultae distat inertiae

celata virtus. non ego te meis                            30

   chartis inornatum silebo

      totve tuos patiar labores

 

impune, Lolli, carpere lividas

obliviones. est animus tibi

   rerumque prudens et secundis                       35

      temporibus dubiisque rectus,

 

vindex avarae fraudis et abstinens

ducentis ad se cuncta pecuniae

   consulque non unius anni

      sed quotiens bonus atque fidus                  40

 

iudex honestum praetulit utili,

reiecit alto dona nocentium

   vultu, per obstantis catervas

      explicuit sua victor arma.

 

non possidentem multa vocaveris                    45

recte beatum; rectius occupat

   nomen beati, qui deorum

      muneribus sapienter uti

 

duramque callet pauperiem pati

peiusque leto flagitium timet,                             50

   non ille pro caris amicis

      aut patria timidus perire.

 

No, do not believe for a second that the words will die which I, born near the far-sounding Aufidus, speak to be sung to the strains of the lyre by arts before uncommon; no, if first place belongs to Maeonian Homer, Pindar's Muse is not hidden nor the Muse of Ceos nor the threatening Muse of Alcaeus nor Stesichorus' weighty Muse. No, and time has not destroyed any playful verse Anacreon once sung; the Aeolian girl's love still breathes and her sexual heat trusted to the lyre lives on. No, Spartan Helen was not the only lover to burn, lust-struck at her adulterer's dandy locks and gold covered clothes, and his royal bearing and attendants, nor was Teucer the first to fire shots from Cydonian bow; no, not just once was Ilium assailed; no, mighty Idomeneus and Sthenelus were not the only heroes to fight battles worthy of the Muse's song; no, bold Hector and fierce Deiphobus were not the first to accept heavy blows while fighting for their chaste wives and children. Many brave men lived before Agamemnon; but all are weighed down by death's long night, unmourned and unknown because they lack a sacred bard. Once buried, unsung bravery differs little from cowardice. No, Lollius, I will not pass you over in silence without the praise of my pages, nor will I allow black oblivion free reign to depreciate your many labors. You have a practical mind, stable in both promising and doubtful circumstances, an avenger of deceitful avarice, and self-restrained with money luring everything into its own control, and a consul not of one year; but your mind, always a good and faithful judge, has valued character above expediency and high-minded has rejected the bribes of the guilty, and through the opposing forces deployed victorious its own armies. No, you would not be right, if you were to call the rich man blessed. More rightly one earns the name blessed who uses wisely the rewards of the gods and understands how to endure hard poverty and fears disgrace worse than death; no, the blessed man is not afraid of dying for beloved friend or country.

 

M. Lollius alone of Horace's noble addressees had already held the consulship. He managed a brilliant political career and had well earned Augustus' confidence.[83] As a young man he administered the annexation of Galatia and served as its first legate (25/24 B.C.), and four years later he was sole consul during a difficult time of political unrest (21 B.C.).[84] Lollius went on to serve his proconsulate in Macedonia (19/18 B.C.) and added to his military reputation by subjugating the Bessi, but he was not so fortunate in Gaul (16 B.C.). The Sygambri along with several other tribes had arrested and crucified a number of Romans, whom they claimed to have caught in their territory. Not content with this outrage they crossed west of the Rhine and ambushed a contingent of Roman cavalry. While in pursuit, the Sygambri happened upon Lollius and his forces, defeated them, and in the process captured the Roman eagles (omitted by Cassius Dio, 54.20). The defeat was only a minor military setback since, when Lollius later regrouped and threatened to attack, the Sygambri, who also may have heard in the meantime that supporting troops were being dispatched, surrendered, returned the eagles, and gave hostages. Everything was settled by the time Augustus arrived later in the year. Augustus put his stepsons Drusus and Tiberius in charge of the German campaigns and Lollius returned to Rome.[85] In spite of the defeat, Lollius did not lose standing with Augustus, who years later (1 B.C.) sent him to the East as the guardian and advisor for Gaius Caesar when the young nineteen year old assumed proconsular power. Then Lollius' career quickly deteriorated. He was caught trying to influence Gaius against Tiberius, and was accused of taking bribes from the Parthians. He died (or committed suicide) soon after.

The historians categorically censure Lollius, and if their accounts of his military defeat and alleged treachery represent Lollius' reputation with any accuracy at all, then Lollius did not fare well in the court of public opinion (Vell. 2.97.1-5; 102.1-4; Plin. Nat. 9.118; Suet. Aug. 23.1-3; Tac. Ann. 1.10.17-19). Lollius' reputation may in fact be worse today than in antiquity. Commentators, as I have just done, have so frequently cited these historians together that they have become a biographical indictment against Lollius' character. The historians, however, are suspect. Lollius' enmity with Tiberius made him vulnerable to Velleius' deference to the emperor.[86] A novus homo who enriched himself by provincial rule and was rumored to have been in the pockets of the Parthians right before he died would fit nicely Pliny's didactic moralizing. Tacitus and Suetonius are more difficult to dismiss. Setting aside any anti-imperialism, objectivity itself could prompt an historian to point out that the Augustan peace did not mean a complete lack of unrest in the provinces or in Rome, but there would be other instances available to the historians without magnifying Lollius' loss to the Sygambri into the bloody clades Lolliana and associating it closely with Varus' loss of three complete legions. When the varying interests of the sources have been considered, however one may judge the individual credibility of the historians, it remains that for a Roman commander to lose eagles was a disgrace, no matter how quickly the standards were recovered. Even Syme, the most critical opponent of Velleius' account, agrees in general with Suetonius' assessment that Lollius' defeat, although not of strategic importance, did damage his reputation.[87]

Especially relevant to c.8 is how closely Velleius and Pliny interact with the wording of Horace's encomium.[88] Velleius' homine in omnia pecuniae quam recte faciendi cupidiore and plena subdoli ac versuti animi consilia invert Horace's animus tibi / rerumque prudens (34b-35) and rectus, / vindex avarae fraudis et abstinens / ducentis ad se cuncta pecuniae (36b-38), and Pliny turns Horace's rectius occupat / nomen beati, qui deorum / muneribus sapienter uti (46b-48) into hic est rapinarum exitus ... infamatus ... muneribus ("bribes"). Velleius further vilifies Lollius by contrasting the people's joy over his death to the mourning that followed the death of Censorinus, a comparison which directly confronts the sequencing of c.7 and 8 and the correlation of the two encomia. Velleius' Lollius was no Censorinus. Although there is some justification in light of such literary interplay to be wary of Velleius' Lollius, it would be also uncritical to dismiss the contrast between the reputations of Velleius' Lollius and Censorinus as exaggeration by a later historian in a different context. Lollius had been a prominent public figure long enough when Horace wrote the ode and certainly by the time his praise was published to have earned a reputation; the public at large could readily know of Lollius' new wealth, his defeat, and Augustus' trip to Gaul. It is reasonable that if Horace's encomium, which emphasizes not just Lollius' administrative gifts but his moderate spirit and military prowess, provoked a direct counter from historians less than a generation later, its immediate reception would meet some skepticism.[89]

Syme's dismissal of Velleius has not ended the debate on how to read Horace's praise because ultimately it does not set aside the primary problem: Horace chose to immortalize Lollius for his virtus with comparatively detailed directness, when he had shown in the ode to Censorinus that he could construct a nondescript encomium to avoid the difficulty altogether.[90] Solutions divide into four categories: (1) Lollius is not the point, the poet is. The encomium is still general enough to prevent any meaningful tension; (2) Horace may not have enjoyed the task of praising Lollius, but he did his best to represent Lollius well; (3) the encomium is an attempt to rehabilitate Lollius' reputation; (4) the poet's praise is false and should be read as a mock encomium indicting Lollius' moral turpitude.[91]

Such answers are bound to be less than satisfying, since they tend to view the ode as an isolated unit and thus disregard how basic features of the ode's content and structure, compared to Horace's other panegyrics, especially the praise for Censorinus, come together to accentuate the encomium for Lollius. In contrast to Censorinus, Lollius is not a type-cast figure for idealized panegyric commonplaces. Among the praise-odes for the young nobles, this is Horace's outstanding encomium in depth and length. No one outside the imperial family and Maecenas receives as high praise as Lollius in either collection. This comparison alone invites special consideration of Lollius' merit, and there is no escaping that part of Lollius' notoriety for the audience is that after recovering from a military setback he was replaced by Augustus' stepsons. Even if this poem were simply written to please Augustus by praising one of his favorites, Horace, as Lyne suggests, would "risk tactlessness" or at the very least an ambivalent response when he praises Lollius victorious in arms (43-44).[92] Interpreting Horace's song as only a general praise-piece devoid of any specific reference to Lollius' career would require an especially dull audience completely unaware of the contemporary political environment and/or a panegyric-poet so perfunctory and unconcerned about his credibility as not to care about how anyone might react other than the patron. The ode's structure indicates otherwise. Horace includes disputes (dubia). Horace reverses the structure of c.8. He delays naming Lollius for over half of the poem and places the extensive reaffirmation of lyric and its power to immortalize in the lead, as if to take the immediate focus off Lollius, but counters the effect by a five stanza encomium that closes the ode. Further, since the poet and the power of his lyric dominate the foreground of the ode, the virtue of the poet (as emphasized in c.8) gives even more weight to any praise that follows. Horace does not allow Lollius' character and deeds to escape notice.[93]

The encomium for Lollius cannot be properly understood without reference to c.8. The precision of the verbal and thematic similarities between the two poems make them interdependent. Horace fully develops throughout the first seven stanzas of c.9 the précis of his praise for Censorinus (gaudes carminibus; carmina possumus / donare et pretium dicere muneri, 11-12). Horace begins by praising the permanence of poetic speech, which he accents with the pleonasm of verba and its juxtaposition with loquor (1-4). As the sympotic imagery at the opening and closing of c.8 predicted, c.9 now revels in the power of the poet's creative genius to transcend the boundaries of time with words. This song is no longer an amicable gift-exchange agreeable to patron and poet, the pleasure of receiving (gaudes) and giving (possumus donare) a poem. Horace commands. He tells Lollius not to believe for a moment that poetic power will ever end (Ne forte credas interitura, 1) and reaffirms his own lyric triumph (2-3) that closed the first collection: the poet born by the roaring Aufidus will not die (C. III.30.6-10). Horace by imitation resurrects Sappho, her passion and heat (... spirat adhuc amor / vivuntque commissi calores, c.9.10b-11), and simultaneously represents her as still alive and quickening his song. Horace gives his breath to Sappho and she to him. The relationship between the two lyric poets is reciprocal and vibrant. Statues with their inscriptions -- as the pyramids (C. III.30) -- had some power to give breath and life to others (hic saxo, liquidis ille coloribus ... spiritus et vita, c. 8.7-14), but color and calor are not as close as their assonance suggests. Changing, living passions (calores), the lyric breath shared by poets, can never be reproduced by colors (coloribus) on any hard object. Subsequently, Horace rewrites the credit that he gives to the epic Ennius. Horace's tribute to the Muses of Ennius (at the center of c.8, 13-20a) becomes conditional for Homer (... si priores Maenonius tenet / sedes Homerus, c.9.5-6a) and, given the power and ferocity of the lyric tradition Horace parades (minaces, graves, lusit, 6-12), the condition becomes more of a challenge disguised in Horace's 'small voice.' Immediately Horace appears as a new Homer to demonstrate the immortal power of his own poetic by rewriting an epic narrative into a lyric mode (9.13-24).

The inanimate artes of c.8 give way completely to the animating lyric of c.9. The poetic ego replaces the personified voice of Horace's pages and Horace personally refuses to keep silent (si chartae sileant, 8.21a; non ego te meis / chartis inornatum silebo, 9.30b-31), because silence brings moral confusion. When he immortalizes human virtue, the panegyric-poet performs a priestly function (virtus ... vatum ... consecrat, 8.26-27; vate sacro, 9.28). Sacred space requires virtue (the inner quality of character evident in meritorious conduct) both from the panegyrist, who in spite of any pressure from a patron must exercise propriety (commodus, c.8), and from the honored hero. The poet, however, is preeminent since without his song moral opposites lose their clarity: unsung virtuous action and absolute inertia die together (c.9.29-30a). Accordingly, both encomia praise the poet's and addressees' inner spirit (mihi vis; tibi...est...animus, 8.9-10; est animus tibi, 9.34), and the extended metaphor of Lollius' animus as vindex, consul, iudex, and victor, far from out of place, is a vivid expression of the poet's understanding of virtue, that conduct either civil or military is an expression of one's inner-self.

The interface of the two odes presents a simple but critical thematic consequence. It hardly seems probable that Horace would write an encomium (with the epic Ennius at its heart) in which he champions the circumspect (commodus) poet of virtue and the necessity of meritorious deeds by the laudandus and then in a companion song with an enlivened dynamic lyric voice seriously use an exaggerated encomium to 'rescue' a favorite of Augustus. If these two praise-songs together make anything clear it is that encomia are not meant to save or protect broken virtue but to reward with immortal fame those who have distinguished themselves beyond the ordinary limits of their humanity.

The solutions proposed for the encomium for Lollius share a questionable presupposition (or a particular reliance on the Suetonian Horace), that the occasion for the praise is the obligation of Horace's patronage. Horace would not have written an encomium at all for a youth of such dubious reputation unless he needed to please his patron. It was his duty to praise, and therefore he either delicately bypasses Lollius' career through panegyric generalities and metaphor or attempts to distract the audience with his celebration of lyric power. Or, perhaps Lollius' reputation was not that bad yet and merited praise to some degree. Such theorizing produces a disjointed ode of little sense: the most prolonged and joyous expression of lyric's passion and power in the entire collection, for 'a Lollius.' It is imperative not to ignore the pattern of Horace's encomia nobilium. Horace's praise openly engages complications so as to argue that human achievement and failures require praise to be a communal activity between a powerful sacred bard and an audience alert to interpret. Horatian panegyric does not avoid disputes (dubia) about the merits of the laudatus; it stimulates audience-interaction by constructing and encouraging multiple perspectives from within the panegyric. Lollius offers the perfect case: a person like all others whose mis/deeds challenge the gift of immortality.

Both in his lyric remodeling of Homer's epic and in the structure of the encomium, Horace centers the ode around the ambiguity between praise and blame to model and provoke audience-response.[94] The second set of three stanzas (13-24), which completes the ode's first half, remembers the epic heroes of the Trojan war, but the silence of the ode is barely below the surface. There were adulterers, suitors, warriors, and the destruction of cities before Troy, but without a Homer they perished unknown. The argument in itself implies the intrinsic value of song, since song preserves the memory of specific heroes as opposed to the forgotten others who were unsung. Horace places at the beginning of their respective clauses the negative non, the ode's predominant feature, repeated four times and coupled with the alliteration and anaphora of sola ... semel ... solus, to enhance the sense of distance between the remembered and forgotten.

Horace is not merely listing off disconnected snapshots of particular epic lives; his overlapping of the stanzas by the repetition of -ve ... vel forms one continuous narrative.[95] Horace's choice of characters in his lyric Trojan war is not random. He moves with lyric swiftness from one combatant to the next weaving the narrative together with subtle transitions. Teucer's Cydonian (Cretan) bow comes from Idomeneus' native land. The narrative covers the range of battle techniques: bowman (Teucer) to spearman (Idomeneus) to charioteer (Sthenelus). Dicenda Musis proelia (21), parallel to dignum laude virum (8.27), inasmuch as it also recalls proelia coniugibus loquenda (4.68) lends a sense of lament that prepares for Hector and Deiphobus, as well as anticipates the pathos for the unmourned brave (25-28).[96] A Sapphic passion (10-12) breathes life into Helen. Horace's story is an erotic disaster of seduction, betrayal, exile, and murder rivaling any romance novel.[97] Horace provides the barest outline, but the familiar details are easily supplied. Helen is the dazzling and bedazzled mistress, seduced to abandon her home for a foreign land (Helene Lacaene). Her suitors, driven mad by passion and vengeance, fight to reclaim her, while her new brothers-in-law fight for her and the lives of their own wives and children. The entire affair is sordid enough that the chastity of the nameless innocents (pudicis coniugibus puerisque), who end the narrative, is not so much ironic as empathetic. What virtuous panegyrist would group the meritorious chaste into anonymous generic social classes, while extolling the immortal fame of the notorious 'heroic' others?

Horace raises this question by a slight shift between the narrative and its summation (25-28). Before Homer some died unknown (ignoti) not because they so deserved, but they simply had no bard to remember their deeds. This is the ultimate disaster for the heroic ethic, but it is not one of forethought. At the end of Horace's narrative, however, some, the chaste children and wives, lived on nameless even when there was a bard. Poets' songs discriminate by immortalizing some and not others, and not all of their choices may find an approving audience. The irony of the narrative is that Horace uses the very anonymity of the wives and children and the empathy of their plight to provoke the question of who is remembered and how. It is left to the listener/reader to set the depth of the narrative details on which the poet is silent, that is, whether or not to imagine behind the general pudicis coniugibus puerisque the families of Hector and Deiphobus.[98] Andromache and Astyanax, especially as they are immortalized in their tender parting from Hector (Il. 6), embody the narrative well. Helen is the only wife of Deiphobus named in the Iliad, but it is hard to accept that she could be the chaste wife for whom Deiphobus fought. After Paris was killed, Helen was wed to Deiphobus, and she in turn helped Menelaus murder him on the night Troy fell. Yet Horace makes Helen his lead character and Andromache remains unnamed.

Horace's narrative from its outset invites a dubious reading. Helen's guilt or innocence in the affairs leading up to the Trojan war was a well worn topic. Horace too plays both sides of her character. The Helen of c.9.13-16 completes the seduction scene of C. I.15.13-15, the only other ode to name Helen, Teucer, and Sthenelus together.[99] In c.15 Paris' seductive powers are irresistible as he sits in the bed-chamber combing his hair and rehearsing his songs on the lyre. Helen plays a passive role, carried off by the shepherd Paris (1-2), taken in by his false promises of heroism (29-32). Paris bears all the responsibility for violating the laws of guest-friendship and the resulting calamity his treachery brings on himself and his city. Horace's lyric in c.9 imagines Helen looking intently at Paris (as someone might view a breathtaking work of art) and although she still plays the responsive role, her passivity is replaced by the active state of her passions, arsit ... mirata. Others must bear the consequences of her insatiable desire, both the Greeks who fought for her and the Trojans who suffered, including Deiphobus whose death at the hands of Menelaus and Helen is a poignant reference to love's lethal conflicts.[100]

Hector and Deiphobus only intensify the dilemma posed by the narrative -- why some are remembered and others forgotten. Horace openly honors the Trojans who lost the war so that their deeds rival those of the victorious Greeks. Commentators contrast the passive Trojans to the active Achaean heroes, but the Trojans, although in a defensive position, are not passive.[101] Horace emboldens the suffering Trojans with an active expression (ferox ... acer ... excepit ictus) and assigns them the most honorable motivation for fighting, to save their wives and children. In Horace's Trojan war, just as in Homer's, merit and immortal glory are not based on the simple distinction of winning and losing, which might be some consolation to Lollius. But Horace does not leave the heroism of the Trojans without complication. Teucer, Idomeneus, and Sthenelus versus the champion of the Trojans and his brother call attention to the absence of Achilles. Horace does not name the greatest Greek warrior, and makes his silence felt both by the imbalance of Hector against the lesser Greek fighters and by pairing Hector with Deiphobus. Three times Achilles chased Hector around Troy and it was not until Athena appeared to Hector in the guise of Deiphobus that Hector, challenged by the danger his brother risked when he ventured outside the walls, stopped running and faced Achilles (Il. 22.226-246). Horace with the hyperbaton non ... primus, a separation of nearly three verses, and the juxtaposition and enjambment of non ferox / Hector holds the narrative momentary suspended. Is Hector ferox or not?

Horace breaks the narrative when he ends the connecting pattern of non ... solus ... primus ... -ve ... vel (24), but thematically Agamemnon, strategically placed at the ode's center, provides the perfect summary for the narrative and entire poem. Agamemnon's story is a model of the basic conflicts that are a part of poetic memory (25-28). First, Horace states his basic point: there were many brave warriors before Agamemnon, but they died from memory because they did not have a Homer. Second and more important, however, is the compassion the poet evokes for the forgotten brave (fortes). Horace creates this pathos when he ends his Trojan narrative with a comparison which violates a fundamental supposition of justice, that meritorious conduct should result in reward not loss. The brave were as deserving as Agamemnon, but they passed beyond the memory of even tears (illacrimabiles) and, as a result, suffered the worst fate a hero can endure, the loss of klevo" (ignoti). The singer has the power to prevent this calamity and restore the injustice of mortality. When he does, he becomes the sacred priest of Virtue.[102] Horace contextualizes panegyric in ritual and thereby requires that it be communal. The poet-priest must have an audience to engage and then in turn to enact the sacrificial rites, panegyric. Horace has included an audience as an indispensable participant in the formation/interpretation of immortal memory. Horace leaves the quality of Agamemnon's reputation up to the audience. Agamemnon is the only hero that Horace does not praise directly by an epithet or as Teucer by a manner of fighting. The syntax implies that he also is fortis, but a lyric retelling of Agamemnon's passions of the type Horace has just illustrated with his lyric Trojan war leaves Agamemnon's case ambiguous at best. Horace's 'Sapphic' Helen (10-16) sets the mood for remembering the disasters of Agamemnon's life: the curse of the house of Atreus.[103] Agamemnon killed his daughter, returned home with his captive mistress, and was murdered by his adulterous wife. Agamemnon is Idomeneus, Helen, and Deiphobus.

The argument is not that these heroes, the creations of a poetic tradition, are undeserving of their immortal fame, although nothing would of necessity prevent that conclusion, but that Homer's epic tale does not preclude Horace's lyric retelling and reshaping of the same events. Panegyric cannot be static. Horace's lyric narrative within a panegyric context demonstrates that undying fame is the product of poetic invention and reinvention, which does not overlook the ambiguities of the human experience. Nor is there a firm boundary between poetic memory and history, each creating and influencing the other, and therefore panegyric requires the reaction of an audience to judge the ambiguities inherent in the merits and failures of a particular life remembered (cf. Cicero: panegyric is established by testimony, de Orat. 2.43-49, 65, 342-347; Part. 71-72, 75-82). Panegyric, then, is not necessarily a reward to be coveted, since praise also risks blame.

The praise for Lollius then is not merely tacked on to an encomium for Horace's poetics. The interpretive challenges in Horace's lyric Iliad in the ode's first half prevents a reductionist reading of the second and prepares the audience to engage and evaluate the poet's panegyric for Lollius. The ode's two encomia are codependent. As the conflicts in the first narrative predict, Horace sets a positive encomium for Lollius (35-44) within an introduction (30b-34) and conclusion (45-52) that together imply blame. The general meaning of the introduction is undisputed: Horace intends to present Lollius with the gift of immortality.[104] The support for this interpretation is clear. The personification of envious forgetfulness (lividas obliviones), which the poet will not allow to go unpunished (impune) in its attempt to eat away (carpere) and blot out Lollius,[105] provides a transition to the poet's priestly role as the guardian of virtue (25-30a) and sets the stage for the extended metaphor of the encomium (35-44). Horace's pronouncement that the absence of a singer can bury the brave and cowards alike in forgotten tombs again recalls Pindar (O. 10.91-92; N. 7.12-13),[106] and repeats the theme of c.8 (si chartae sileant quod bene feceris, / mercedem tuleris, 21-22a). Even if initially labores were to be taken as the subject of carpere instead of obliviones, the general sense of the lines would remain constant: 'I will not allow your deeds to be forgotten.'

Horace does not leave this premise, that the gift of immortal memory brings only blessing, as settled as commonly supposed. Horace includes a negative bite. Forgotten labors (labores ... carpere ... obliviones) for Horace's sympotic carpe diem argument are a blessing, the chief pleasure of wine especially for worn out soldiers, such as Plancus (C. I.7.17b-21a) or Horace's friend Pompey (C. II.7.17-23a).[107] Not only do the ups and downs of Lollius' military career parallel the lot of these soldiers, but Horace builds into the praise for Lollius the basic outline of the sympotic carpe diem motif. The necessity of death in the press of the unending night (omnes ... urgentur ... longa nocte) brings to mind Horace's warning to Sestius (iam te premet nox, C. I.4.16a). The personifying attribute lividas lends an urgency that there must be some immediate action (song) taken now to counter the effects of death, as does the modifier invida in C. I.11.7b-8 (fugerit invida / aetas. carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero). Then there is carpere. Pejorative denotations of carpere ('to tear, wear away, destroy, harp at') are common in literature of the late Republic and Augustan period, but not in Horace, who most often uses carpere in the positive sense of acting or making a decision before the opportunity is lost, a meaning which depends on the metaphor of harvesting.[108] Only once does Horace use carpere pejoratively ('to pick on,' S. I.3.21). Add in the carpe diem theme of c.7 and the sympotic beginning and ending of c.8. There is enough of the carpe diem argument present in c.9 in residual form to see in the lines a negative nuance, a reversal of Horace's sympotic rule that limited memory is a blessing: 'I will not allow your labors to be forgotten' becomes in the sympotic environment 'There is no escape ever from your deeds.' Immortalis fama is not for the soldier Lollius or for any other hero a completely comfortable thought.

The conclusion is more direct (45-52). Excluding blame from the end of the encomium requires one of two difficult assumptions or both. First, vocaveris must be an impersonal 'one,' which complements the subject of ne forte credas (1).[109] Perhaps credas may be read as a general nameless 'you,' but after the extensive encomium praising Lollius and his Stoic character and the continuation of the Stoic ideals in the conclusion, the second person has lost its universality and become personalized.[110] Second, if the poet is rehearsing the Stoic maxims by which Lollius in fact lives,[111] vocaveris implies that the voice of Lollius is speaking through the poet or that at the very least the poet is speaking directly for him. In either case, the voices of the laudator and laudandus become inseparable. This destroys the poet's lead role in panegyric because he would be giving his voice totally up to the laudandus and abdicating his sacred role. The notion is counter to the ode's entire thesis. The encomium does set Lollius up as a wise Stoic, but the direct address of vocaveris introduces a gentle correction that quickly becomes more stern. In Horace the Stoic sage never goes unchallenged (S. I.3; II.3). The encomium moves from rectus (36) to recte to rectius (46). The asyndeton (45-46) stresses Horace's switch from the second to the third person: 'you would correctly call him blessed; (on the contrary) one would more correctly call.' Lollius understands the blessed state as a negative, the lack of possessions, but the ode encourages him toward a more positive definition. Stoic life requires exercise (exercendum), and Horace specifies the regimen in the last strophe -- sacrificial military valor.

Horace states the admonition against cowardice positively and negatively (50-52), and thus ties the conclusion to the end of the first narrative. The poet changes fighting for chaste wives and children (23-24) to courageously dying for dear friends and fatherland, a mentality and motivation more applicable to the political responsibilities of the Roman nobleman. The noble who would not die for his people does not fit among the ranks of the immortalized heroes. To help make his point Horace replays the language and theme of C. III.2 (pauperiem, 2.1 and 9.49; dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, 2.13 and pro ... patria timidus perire, 9.51-52). Horace carries the alliteration of pro patria over to perire (mori in c.2) and the insertion of timidus between patria and perire places the focus at the end of c.9 on the soldier's state of mind, animus. It is only a virtue which has no knowledge of disgraceful retreat (Virtus repulsae nescia sordidae) that merits immortal reward (c.2.14-24): a painful reminder for Lollius who, however inadvertently and temporarily, lost the Roman eagles.[112]

Horace praises Lollius between the extremes. Horace does not bury Lollius' failures beyond recovery, but forces them on the memory. Neither is Horace's encomium an ironic attack. There is no motive. Lollius had served Rome well as consul and at an early age had achieved significant military success. Praise nor blame effaces or overcomes the other. Horace allows both to stand side by side. The resulting tension renders Horace's panegyric true to the life lived: no one's history is a constant stream of success or failure. So says the satiric Horace in a critique of the Stoic sage (nam vitiis nemo sine nascitur; optimus ille est / qui minimis urgetur, S. I.3.68-69a)[113] The natural ambiguities inherent in any human life are precisely what makes this encomium so difficult to read, and Horace uses the conflict to draw the audience into the panegyric process. The conflicts within Horace's encomium for Lollius prompt the audience to exercise their judgment about the merits/demerits of Lollius' life. Praise becomes a communal creation of the poet and audience.

 

Conclusion

Through the encomia nobilium the poet presents his critique of panegyric and the problems that any poet faces when presented with the task of praise. Since Roman culture does not necessarily begin with skeptical expectations and is not naturally cynical of panegyric -- this is a more modern predilection -- Horace nuances his panegyric to invite the audience to evaluate the practice of praise, its form and content. The sympotic environment of c.1 invests the Horatian encomium with a seriocomic tone. The predicted triumph of c.2 exposes the dangers and limitations of encomium: any praise once given can be belittled by a comparison to the past or betrayed by future events. Then follow c.3-6 praising the poet's divine source of inspiration, separating his poetry from earthbound motivations or designs. The effect is to distance Horace the panegyrist from the difficulties that human limitations and motivations impose. The last two poems of the first half (c.8; 9) test the limits of panegyric: a generic hyperbolic set piece which fails to distinguish the addressee in any meaningful or lasting sense versus a laudatio which so risks opposition to the popular character and deeds of the praised that it is directly challenged by later historians. Lollius in the full scope of his merits and demerits is immortalized. Throughout the encomia nobilium the poet is both panegyrist and a critic of panegyric, author and reader, and thereby models for his audience how they should engage his encomia. Part of the pleasure in reading Horatian panegyric is questioning the praise. Interpretation is the power of Horatian panegyric poetry and the dynamic that ensures that it will remain a vibrant part of a community's story. The twist of Horatian ingenuity is that the formative modeling of praise does not overload the panegyric genre with such negatives that it becomes weak. Horace does just the opposite. By changing the modality of panegyric from persuasion to the freedom of interpretation, Horace allows panegyric the flexibility to change with its society. Therefore, Horatian panegyrics are timeless not because they have the power to immortalize the laudandus as a particular type of hero, but because they adapt to the interpretive sensibilities of the audience. In this sense they belong to the present moment.[114] They constitute a sympotic experience.


[1] Russell and Wilson (1981: ad loc.).

 

[2] Others also have doubts about Suetonius' word-choice, e.g. Brink (1982: 243); White (1993: 115); Hills (2001: 615-616).

 

[3] See also Freudenburg (2002: 139-140). McNeill (2001: 75) reads Epist. II.1.111-113 as an admission from Horace that he was writing carmina all the time; versus (111), however, is not so specific. Horace is describing all poetry composed in response to societal pressures.

 

[4] Encomia addressed to noblemen, married into the imperial family (1; 2), are balanced by two imperial praises (14; 15). C.3 and 6 (two hymns celebrating the poet's inspiration), enclosing two imperial praise-pieces for Drusus and Augustus (4; 5), are grouped against another set of four odes (10-13), sympotic lyrics akin to Odes I-III. Left in the middle are three odes to noblemen (7-9), which have at their center (8) praise for the poet. Horace has ensured that the poet remains central.

 

[5] Lyne (1995: 30, 189-190) judges Augustus' views on literature simplistic. What we know of Augustus' literary perception and tastes derives from Suetonius, whose account indicates that Augustus knew how to modify language to fit the circumstances (Aug. 85-89). For instance, Augustus' oratorical style and prose rhythms were moderate (as is evident in the RG), but he was free in his correspondence, where the familiarity of colloquialism would be more appropriate, to coin new expressions (e.g. baceolus for stultus). Augustus' ability to manipulate language and his use of monuments for his own imaging suggest a pragmatic and sophisticated literary sense; cf. Augustus' joke that Horace's poems were short and fat like their poet (ch.1).

 

[6] Kennedy (1992: 29): "When taken on a large scale, acts of speech and writing will tend to mobilise meaning in one direction rather than another ... and so cumulatively produce the social structures and hierarchies of a particular society."

 

[7] On the nature of Maecenas' power in the 20s, see Brink (1982: 528-530); Williams (1990: 258-275); White (1991: 130-138); Lyne (1995: 132-138). That Maecenas lost first place as the addressee of Horace's books is certainly significant (the break from Horace's past practice would be noticed), but is too circumstantial to confirm that Maecenas fell from Augustus' favor after he gossiped to his wife about the conspiracy of Murena (Suet. Aug. 66.3; Tac. Ann. 3.30). Whatever status Maecenas had in the political hierarchy at the time of Odes IV, Horace honors Maecenas with an ode celebrating his birthday (c.11).

 

[8] There is no evidence for any enmity between Tiberius and Maximus at the time Horace wrote (likely early 16 B.C. near the time of Maximus' marriage) and published c.1. Maximus' career, however, continued to flourish while Tiberius' favor with Augustus declined. By the time of his exile Ovid overlooks Tiberius, mentioned in the Fasti in only later revisions, and turns to Maximus for help (Pont. 1.2.113-118; 3.3.1-4, 95-108; cf. Syme, 1986: 403, 409).

 

[9] On Maximus' age, see ch.1; political career, PIR2 3.103-105, no. 47; RE 6.1780-1789 s.v. Fabius 102; Syme (1978: 135-155; 1986: 124, 396, 403-420); the importance of aristocratic marriage alliances to the Fabii, Münzer (1920: 98-109). The rumors about Maximus' death (Tac. Ann. 1.5; compare Syme supra) take the irony of the love-encomium to another level for Horace's future audience. Maximus like many heroes was ruined by his beloved. Cassius Severus' scathing epigram on Maximus (Sen. Cont. 2.4.11-12, Håkanson [1989]) is certainly not the entire story.

 

[10] It is unnecessary to adjust Horace's praise or justify it, unless it is assumed that panegyric must be entirely serious. Fraenkel (1957: 413-414) argues Horace includes verse 14 to elevate the praise to an acceptable level. Horace's attempt here, however, even allowing for the erotic parameters, could hardly qualify as typical praise for a nobleman. The praise of Censorinus (c.8) and Lollius (c.9) would come closer. Bradshaw (1970: 142-153; cf. Habinek, 1986: 413) attempts to temper Horace's characterization of Maximus by insisting commissor must lose its riotous edge (limited to "singing a triumphal song" in the Pindaric sense of kwmavzein) so that the eulogy is appropriate for a man courting a relative of Augustus. Even in ritual contexts Pindar's kwmavzein does not lose its revelry.

 

[11] The portrait of Maximus is best understood as contingent on that of the poet. Horace's eulogy only intensifies his own weakness (e.g. Maximus' eloquence heightens the frustration of Horace's faltering tongue, 14, 35-36; Habinek, 1986: 413-414).

 

[12] Hyperbole need not be a negative term (Hardie, 1986: 241-292) or insinuate that Horace requires in some hyper-Ciceronian fashion that panegyric decorum stick to the facts. Horace's praise for Maximus demonstrates that panegyric is very much the product of the imagination and hyperbole in panegyric can introduce seriocomic tensions difficult to read. Horace is constantly playing with such tensions in his encomia.

 

[13] Iullus Antonius, son of Mark Antony and Fulvia, was raised by Octavia and became a favorite with Augustus. Antonius had a fine political career (co-consul, 10 B.C., with Africanus Fabius Maximus, Paulus' brother, c.1). But he died in disgrace (2 B.C.) after he was caught in an adulterous scandal with Augustus' daughter Julia (Vell. 2.100; Plu. Ant. 87; Tac. Ann. 4.44; Cass. Dio 51.15; 54.26; 55.1; 55.10; PIR2 1.153-154, no. 800; Schanz-Hosius 2.273; Syme, 1986: 144, 396-399). Horace's later readers could note that infidelity does not sit well after an encomium portraying Maximus as the great lyric lover while engaged to Augustus' cousin Marcia.

 

[14] Williams (1990: 270-272) does not consider IV.2 and 15 recusationes, and certainly in details they break from Horace's pattern. In c.2 there is no admonitory Apollo who stops the poet from singing martial themes, but only the briefest suggestion that Iullus would be better suited to sing Augustus' triumph. This would be enough to bring to mind the recusatio for an audience so accustomed to this Horatian tactic (parvus / carmina fingo. / concines maiore poeta plectro c.2.31b-33; cf. Epist. II.1.257b-258a: sed neque parvum / carmen maiestas recipit tua; C. II.1.40: quaere modos leviore plectro). Williams also does not take into full consideration the martial Apollo of c.6 and admonitory Apollo of c.15. Compare Race (1978: 192).

 

[15] See Davis (1991: 11-30).

 

[16] Freis (1983: 27-36).

 

[17] After his triumph over Dalmatia, Actium, and Egypt (29 B.C.), Augustus declined all others, but it is unclear when this solidified into recognized official policy; cf. DuQuesnay (1990: 132 n.22). If Horace wrote his praise before he knew there would be no triumph, he certainly knew when he published it (13 B.C.). If Horace had wanted to play it safe, he could have avoided prophetic praise altogether and had Iullus sing of a clear cut victory. A triumph that never was for a battle never fought exemplifies well Antonius' exaggerated Pindaric style (cf. Cicero's criticism of Greek panegyric for attributing false triumphs to their heroes, Brut. 62). For a complete view of the debate surrounding the clades Lolliana, see c.9 infra (Vell. 2.97; Suet. Aug. 23; Tac. Ann. 1.10; Cass. Dio 54.20-21). For the Sygambri as a symbol of Augustan peace, cf. C. IV.14.51-52. It would be difficult to begin with a projected triumph over the Sygambri, call further attention to the clades by praising Lollius' victorious arms (IV.9.43-44), and then use with total seriousness the same tribe as the crowning example of Augustan peace. Horace perhaps succeeds in exactly that, however, by reference to the pacified slaughter-loving Sygambri (c.14); cf. Prop. 4.6.77-79.

 

[18] Fraenkel (1957: 438-439); Syndikus (1973: 307-308); Harrison (in Harrison, 1995: 123).

 

[19] Cf. Seager (1993: 36).

 

[20] See the poet's enthusiasm over Actium (Ep. 9.21-23). Is the second person (49) Augustus or Antonius (cf. Putnam, 1986: 58 n.20; Harrison supra)? Either identification retains the incongruity between the communal praise (45-52) and Antonius' grand Pindaric praise (33-44). It is tempting to take every 'you' (33, 41, 49, and 53) as the same person, Antonius, and I would prefer, as does Putnam, the reading of the deteriores, tuque over the majority reading teque (49). This places Antonius at the head of the procession. The supposed difficulty of allowing the lesser panegyrist such a prominent role complements the hyperbolic quality of his panegyric persona (compare Kirby, 1992: 42-50). Perhaps part of the panegyrist's fun is that he has disguised exactly who plays the lead role in praising Augustus, the crowd, Iullus, or himself.

 

[21] Horace last used a form of tendere at Epist. II.2.55-57. Horace's repetitious word-choice (tendunt, tendit), in both instances describing the effort required to write praise-poetry for Caesar, relates c.2 to the earlier protest.

 

[22] Horace's sources for the bee-metaphor give away the mix: Pindar (P. 10.53-54), Callimachus (Ap. 110-112; Aet. fr. 1.29-30 Pf.), and Vergil (G. 4.179); cf. Putnam, (1986: 55-56).

 

[23] Cf. Epist. I.3.6-29.

 

[24] Cf. Fitzgerald (1987: 80-83); Kirby (1992: 44-45); Nagy (1994: 416).

 

[25] Horace's emulation of Pindar throughout Odes IV reveals that Horace does not apply his warning against competing with Pindar (c.2) too seriously to himself.

 

[26] Verrall (1884: 7 n.1); Becker (1963: 180-182). Compare Estévez (1982: 279-300).

 

[27] Fraenkel (1957: 407, 410) sensed as much when he argued that c.3 and 6 were the "first fruits" of Horace's return to lyric after the success of the CS; contrast Putnam (1986: 74-75 n.23). 

 

[28] Horace's listing of boxing, chariot-racing, and warfare (c.2; 3) introduces the epinikion (c.4), since Horace classifies epinikia by contest (Ars 84; see Sider, 2001: 285 n.29). On the priamel-form, see Race's (1982) classic.

 

[29] Those holding this view do not necessarily think less of Horace's poetry; e.g. Putnam (1986: 16-22); Lyne (1995: 38-39); McNeill (2001: 131-134). Obviously my arguments defend Armstrong (1997: 398-401) against what McNeill labels his "overstatement" of the 'independent Horace' in Odes IV. My discussion of c.4 and 5 (ch.3) will show that the imperial praise of Odes IV is not as free from disputes (dubia) as presumed.

 

[30] Horace's selection to officially hymn the new age and his pride in this achievement (Epist. II.1.132-138) should not be so belittled. On the ode's celebratory mood, see Fraenkel (1957: 400, 406-407); cf. Putnam (2000) on the poet's vatic power in the CS.

 

[31] Sulla: Venus (Balsdon, 1951: 1-10); Julius Caesar: Venus (Weinstock, 1971: 83-111); Sextus Pompeius: Neptune (Taylor, 1931: 120-121); Marc Antony: Dionysus (Scott, 1929: 133-141; 1933: 7-49). The literature on Augustus and Apollo is vast, but the following provide an overview: Taylor (1931: 118-121, 131-134); Lambrechts (1953: 65-82); Gagé (1955; 1981); Simon (1957: 30-44); Weinstock (1971: 8-15); Liebeschuetz (1979: 82-85); Kienast (1982); Zanker (1988: 48-53); Galinsky (1969: 9-10; 1992: 471-472; 1996: 215-220, 295-302); Miller (1994: 99-112); Gurval (1995: 87-136). On the Aedes Apollonis Palatini, cf. Carettoni (1983); Zanker (1983: 21-40; 1988: 85-89); Lefèvre (1989); Richardson (1992: 14).

 

[32] Horace's Apollo warns against overestimating the intentionality of Octavian's imperialistic imaging, especially in the early years of Octavian's career. Although Horace's earlier writings avoid martial themes in general, when he does address Rome's conflicts as in Ep. 1 and 9 there is no association of Octavian with Apollo, unless perhaps in the suggestive humor behind Apollo saving Horace from the pest (S. I.9.78). Only once does Horace invoke Apollo as Caesar's guardian (C. I.21.9-16); otherwise, he charges Mercury (C. I.2.41-52) and Jupiter (C. I.12.49-52) with the task. Horace's odes for the dedication of the Palatine temple (C. I.31 and 32; Babcock, 1967: 189-194) are the poet's own prayers for blessing and protection and do not mention Augustus. However, the psychological impact of Apollo's temple, dominating the summit of the Palatine, does not require literary or numismatic support (Suet. Aug. 29.1, 3, 31.1; Cass. Dio 53.1.3; Serv. ad A. 6.72; CIL VI.4.2 nos. 32323, 32326). Gurval (1995: 102-103, 136), when he claims that Augustan poets do not make any connection between Augustus' divinity and Apollo, misses that the tandem of opening lines in c.5 and 6 (infra) identify Apollo as Augustus' divine parent. Also at approximately the same time as these odes, fifteen years after Actium, there was an increasing interest in Actian Apollo as Gurval (89-90 n.6) notes in the numismatic evidence; contrast Miller, supra.

 

[33] Also, C. I.32.5-16: war-loving Alcaeus praises Venus with the lyre; C. III.3.69-72: Horace ends his longest retelling of the Trojan epic by disavowing the epic themes he has just written into lyric.

 

[34] Vergil's Aeneas owes more to Venus than Apollo (A. 1.229-253; 10.18-62; 12.18-62; cf. Miller, 1994: 108). For the legend of Aeneas and Troy in Augustan imaging and as evidence for a collective Roman muthos, see Torelli (1999: 165-183).

 

[35] Niobe is a rich multiplex symbol (Hom. Il. 24.596-620; Diod. Sic. 4.74; Paus. 1.21.3; 2.21.9; 5.11.2; 5.16.4; 8.2.5,7; Apollod. Bibl. 3.5.6; Ov. Met. 6.146-316; Hyg. Fab. 9,11) and it is hard to judge how far Horace imagined that his audience would read his ode against other accounts of the myth. Niobe commonly represents unending grief, but Homer's Niobe facilitates the resolution of Priam's grief and Achilles' anger. Tityos seems an easier image since, although he is worshipped in his homeland Euboea (Strabo 9.3.14), he is one of the chief sinners in Hades (Hom. Od. 11.576-581; Pi. P. 4.90-93; Pl. Grg. 525E; Joseph. BJ 2.156; Apollod. Bibl. 1.4.1; Lucr. 3.984-994; Verg. A. 6.595-600; Hyg. Fab. 55). Horace also lists Tityos as one of the damned (C. II.14.8; III.4.77), but at C. III.11.21 the lyre has the power to make Tityos smile and momentarily forget his eternal pain. Here again is the duality of Apollo: the god slew Tityos, but the lyre brings him relief. 

 

[36] The layout of Apollo's Palatine temple can be taken to support this view (Kellum, 1985; Simon, 1986; Lefèvre, 1989; compare Gurval, 1995: 123-131). One entered the temple through ivory paneled doors decorated with symbols of Octavian's vengeance on Rome's enemies (Apollo slaying the Niobids and overthrowing the Gauls' attack on Delphi; Prop. 2.31.13-14), and saw Apollo not with his bow but lyre, a symbol of Augustan peace.

 

[37] Wimmel (1960).

 

[38] Ross (1975: 27-28 n.5).

 

[39] Nagy (in Solomon, 1994: 3-7; cf. Burkert, 1975; Heubeck, 1987) identifies in the etymology of Apollo "the god of authoritative speech, the one who presides over speech acts." The application of speech-act theory is particularly relevant to panegyric where the words spoken/written are the very act of praising (C. IV.8.11-12). Apollo's governance of the propriety and impropriety of speech-acts means that within a laudatory context Horace has every reason to invoke the blessing of an admonitory Apollo who restrains the boastful.

 

[40] Cf. c.5.34-36.

 

[41] See Introduction.

 

[42] Peerlkamp (1834) obelized lines 29-44. Others divide the ode into two on technical grounds: Sanadon (1728: ad loc., endorsed by Shackleton Bailey, 1985); Bücheler (1859: 158-160). Verrall (1884: 76-82) complains about Horace's techniques, but does not split the ode; cf. Williams (1968: 64).

 

[43] Fraenkel (1957: 400-402); Reckford (1969: 133-134); Cairns (1971: 440-444); Syndikus (1973: 346-348); A. Hardie (1998: 251-293).

 

[44] To clarify my earlier argument on Ep. 9 (1997: 323-327), I agree with Williams (1968: 217) about the validity of the general form, namely that Horace collapses the present and future, and disagree only about whether specific poems, as Ep. 9, exhibit such a structure and whether the person invited is actually attending the party. The carpe diem argument would imply that they (Maecenas, Ep. 9) are not.

 

[45] Accordingly Cairns (1971: 440-444) argues that the carmen saeculare of c.6 is a different song with a different occasion entirely from the CS. While the differences between the gods of the two songs could support Cairns, the dramatic situation of the ode is too close to the circumstances of the CS not to remind the reader of its composition and performance.

 

[46] C. I.32: Horace asks the lyre for a song when the ode is that song he is requesting. C. IV.15: Horace's praise of Augustus (4-24) is the communal banquet-song or a model for such a song that he predicts at the end of the ode (25-32). Cf. Lefèvre (in Vogt-Spira, 1993: 143-157).

 

[47] Wickham (1874: praef., n.1); Fraenkel (1957: 402-403). Compare Borzsák (1976: 25-36) on Apollo Agyieus, the patron god of the young coming into adulthood, who watches over the maturation of Rome.

 

[48] For chronologies of Augustan imaging, see Hardie (1986: 136); Zanker (1988: 79-100, 167-238); McNeill (2001: 89-138). C.5 and 6 warn that such chronologies cannot be made absolute since Augustan imperial representations are more complex, placing together opposing symbols (such as restoration [c.5] and vengeance [c.6]). Cf. Zanker's discussion (193-215) of the Forum of Augustus and its temple of Mars Ultor; Galinsky (1992: 468-475) on the Ara Pacis; the tension between the corruption and splendor of the golden age (Barker, 1996: 442-446); Augustus' association with Romulus (Hinds, 1992: 129-131).

 

[49] Poets do not always distinguish the characteristics of the Muses and Graces (cf. Hes. Th. 915-917; Pi. O. 14.13-17a). It would make no difference whichever Horace had in mind.

 

[50] On Simonides, see Barchiesi (1996b: 247-253). For the most extensive index on the metaphor of 'the fallen tree,' consult Nisbet (1987: 243-251).

 

[51] Hardie (1994: 102) suggests that Horace also had in mind Verg. A. 9.150-153. If he is correct, Horace in order to intensify Achilles' pride has rewritten into his Achilles the image of Turnus' boastful hubris against the Trojans, holed up behind their fortifications. Turnus does not need the deception of a Trojan horse to destroy his enemies. He is bolder than even Achilles.

 

[52] Cf. Thomas (1985: 61-73).

 

[53] My words are chosen carefully, "potential disavowal" and "apparent reversal," because later I will argue that Horace interprets the Aeneid as a lyric (c.12; 15). The poets are two halves of the same process: Vergil's epic incorporates lyric and Horace's lyric incorporates epic.

 

[54] Surely the numbering 4.6 is not coincidental. Propertius' Apollo like Horace's is Actian and sympotic (67-76). Propertius' rehearsal of Augustan victories (in particular the return of the Parthian standards in a banquet-setting) harmonizes also with C. IV.14, 15.

 

[55] White (1993: 20 n.39-40) cites Verg. G. 2.39-44; 3.42; Prop. 2.1.1-16; 3.9.52; Tib. 2.1.35-36; Ov. Fast. 1.3-26; Pont. 1.7.28; 2.3.78; 4.12.23; Mart. 12.3.5; Stat. Silv. 1.4.19-36; Laus Pis. 216-218 -- No Horace.

 

[56] Flexus (c.6.21) is a repetition from Horace's own battle with Venus in c.1.4a-7a. Even the father of the gods bent to Venus' pleas and did not remain durus. If the poet persists in his hard-heartedness, he would then run the risk of becoming another unrelenting Achilles. The counter-relationship of c.6 to c.1 provides some context for Horace's continued use of military metaphor in his requests to Apollo and the chorus in c.6. In this respect, the battle is within his own persona.

 

[57] Compare the lyre as the advocate (suvÊndiko") for Apollo and his Muses (Pi. P. 1.1-2).

 

[58] Richards (1942: 289). 

 

[59] About Torquatus we know only that his speech defending a Moschus was still known to Porphyrio in the third century (on Epist. I.5.9); cf. PIR 2.329, no. 122. Torquatus may have written some light verse (Plin. Ep. 5.3.5; Syme, 1986: 396). If this Torquatus is from the Manlia gens, as is likely given the adscriptions of the manuscripts and the testimonia of the scholia, his limited political career may be explained. Lucius Manlius Torquatus, the family's last consul, was an Epicurean (Cic. Fin. 1.23-25, 39), and therefore he and his sons may have gradually withdrawn from public life.

 

[60] Housman could not resist (consciously or unconsciously?) adding back in the image of the banquet in his splendid version of the ode (Diffugere Nives): "Torquatus, if the gods in heaven shall add / The morrow to the day, what tongue has told? / Feast then thy heart, for what thy heart has had / The fingers of no heir will ever hold" (17-20).

 

[61] Whether Postumus was fictitious or not (compare Commager, 1962: 285; N.-H., 1978: 223; White, 1995: 151-161), the legal meaning of his name, 'born too late for inclusion in a father's will,' emphasizes the futility of a rich miser saving his hoard only to pass it on to a wanton heir.    

 

[62] Commager (1962: 286).

 

[63] Some judge Horace guilty of severe pessimism, but this would be to charge the wrong party -- Horace is not neglecting the joys of life, Postumus is (Porph. ad loc.; Orelli, 1837:  proem; Commager, 1962: 285; N.-H., 1978: 238 s.v. dignior). Even so, dignior (25) has given pause. N.-H. appear unruffled by the word, since it was normal for a Roman to be concerned that his heir be deserving. Dignior, however, cannot be understood from Postumus' viewpoint (he will be dead when the heir is drinking his wine), but can only be the opinion of the sympotic poet. Campbell (1945: ad loc.) was so bothered by dignior he emended the text to "durior," turning praise for the heir into criticism. Campbell cannot be right: the rough pessimism of the entire ode is directed toward Postumus -- otherwise, why chide him at length about the inescapability of death? Cf. Matt. 22.8: those declining the king's invitation to his son's wedding-party are oujk a[xioi.

 

[64] This ode was written well before the untimely deaths of Augustus' heirs, except for Marcellus (23 B.C.). Because Augustus was prone to illness, any concerned about who would succeed him could not gamble on him living as long as he in fact did. Augustus himself began to advance his sons with early elections to offices by 24 B.C. On Augustus' efforts to create a succession, see Syme (1939: 415-439); for the 'Augustus as republican' viewpoint, cf. Eder (1990: 120-122).

 

[65] The Euripidean version: Phaedra falls in love with Hippolytus, the son of her husband Theseus, and when he rejects her advances, she commits suicide and leaves behind a note accusing Hippolytus of trying to seduce her and then raping her. Before Theseus learns the truth he curses his son, and Poseidon answers by causing Hippolytus' death.

 

[66] For the Wissenschaftsgeschichte, as well as a complete summary and analysis of c.8 and its text, see Harrison (1990: 31-43).

 

[67] I mean "technically" to be sarcastic. Harrison (1990: 34) based on sodalibus (2) surmises that Horace wrote this ode as a response to a personal patronage Horace had to sustain after the decline of Maecenas' influence. I hardly think that if Censorinus had commissioned a praise-ode that this is what he had in mind.

 

[68] On Pindar in c.8, see Harrison (1990: 34-36). Horace's imitation of Pindar continues from the second ode on, but likewise the force of the recusatio. Horace is Pindar's rival and better; cf. Lefèvre (1993: 276-277, 299-300). The poet's use of Pindar is part of his criticism against the hyperbolic/non-discriminating praise of standard panegyric.

 

[69] The antiquarian so enamored with his own genealogy that he misses the pleasures of living (C. III.19) is parallel to Horace's stereotype of the proud young nobleman. C. IV.8 and III.19 are two of the three odes that mention Aeacus (cf. II.13).

 

[70] The general sense of C. III.19.11b-12, while intensely argued (Bentley, 1711; Orelli, 1837; Page, 1883: ad loc.; Marquardt, 1888: 324-330; Campbell, 1945: ad loc.), relies on commodis (12). Either mixture of wine, one quarter pint of wine to a pint of water or three quarters wine to the pint, is acceptable and generously strong; but, the vates (attonitus) will choose the more potent.

 

[71] Does Horace reserve his military praise in Odes IV for Augustus and his sons out of deference to the princeps (Syme, 1986: 399; cf. Harrison, 1990: 33)? By comparison, the actual description of Drusus' military victory over the Vindelici (c.4.17-18, 23-24) is hardly longer than the praise for Lollius' (c.9.43-44), four lines compared to two, but the epic-styled similes in the proemium, the gnome, as well as the historical narrative of c.4 lend the imperial praise a more august tone; cf. Lowrie (1997: 76). To preview the next chapter, Horace does not change his panegyric praxis altogether and exclude disputes (dubia) from his epinikia. That he does not could be predicted from the recusatio of c.2 and the sequencing of c.3-6 that surrounds imperial praise with the poet's divine inspiration.

 

[72] The younger Gaius Marcius (Vell. 2.102.1; Cass. Dio 55.5; PIR2 5.2.177-178, no. 222; Syme, 1986: 79, 333 n.32, 395-397, 405-406; Harrison, 1990: 32-33) is the more likely addressee than his father Lucius Marcius (cos. 39), one of the two senators who attempted to shield Julius Caesar. The encomium is similar to Horace's praise for up-and-coming young nobles.

 

[73] These are only some of the nobiles absent from Odes IV; cf. Syme (1986: 399).

 

[74] Horace does not always differentiate among the arts. At Ars 361-365 he likens the interpretation of poetry to painting, although the exact point of comparison is debated; cf. Brink (1971: ad loc.); Trimpi (1973: 1-34). Panegyric is closely related to the visual arts in that it requires the contemplation of a person/image represented by the poet. Horace in c.8 lessens any ekphrastic similarity to the solid arts by limiting the details of Censorinus' praise and maintaining the poem's gaze on the internal power and creativity of the poet; cf. Hardie (1993: 122). Contrast the sustained pictorialism of the proemium to c.4 (discussed fully in the next chapter) when Horace with compound ekphrastic similes directs the audience to scrutinize the imperial image.

 

[75] Cf. C. IV.2.19b-20: (Pindar) centum potiore signis / munere donat.

 

[76] Scholars who follow Lachmann and excise 15b-19a (non celeres ... rediit) need not face this difficulty. That easy solution is tempting given the problem of fugae, minae, and incendia as the subject of indicant. Harrison's (supra) proposal that the lines are an epigraphic model (cf. K.-H., 1884: nn.13-20; Hardie, 1993: 134-135) spares all but 17 and can be defended on interpretive grounds. The weight devoted to the other arts prompts the question, 'Just how is poetry better?,' which makes for a more interesting panegyric poem and begins to explain, if only in part, why the ode is at the center of the book. One other line would have to be excised, such as 33 (Harrison), before the song would divide into stanzas and comply with Meineke's (1854) principle.

 

[77] On the ferocity of the competition between Horace and the visual arts, see Hardie (1993: 121-139).

 

[78] S. I.6.107-111 like c.8 names the praetor and mentions Greek vessels (oenophora). The satiric Horace prefers the simplicity of his own life. He does not have to put on a show to maintain a reputation.

 

[79] Also in Epist. II.1.219, 226-228 poets belittle their own poetry and reputations in their search for a generous (commodus) patron.

 

[80] I am not as convinced as Harrison (1990: 42-43) that Augustus would appreciate the inflation of Censorinus' worth. Would he perhaps see c.8 as lowering the value of his own encomium as Horace ponit nunc hominem, nunc deum? The similarities between c.5 and 8 (the sympotic setting complete with pateris, Castor, and Hercules, c.5.33-36) may be a little too close for comfort.

 

[81] I would argue that line 28 is a principal tenet for this ode and the book, and therefore is Horatian.

 

[82] Most editors are either satisfied by Bentley's defense or have no problem understanding Lollius as the primary subject since the appositional substantives are so far removed from animus. Shackleton Bailey (1985) speculates that four lines were lost after 38. To me, the progression of the metaphor seems natural enough and complements the syntax: prudens and rectus set up vindex, which is followed at the beginning of every other line by consul and iudex.

 

[83] Lollius in the historians: Vell. 2.97, 102; Plin. Nat. 9.118; Suet. Aug. 23, Tib. 12-13; Tac. Ann. 1.10; 3.48; Cass. Dio 53.26; 54.6, 20. Cf. PIR2 5.1.83-84, no. 311; RE 13.1377-1387 s.v. Lollius 11; Syme (1933: 17-19; 1986: passim).

 

[84] Cass. Dio 54.6; cf. Epist. I.20.26-28.

 

[85] Only Velleius directly states that Augustus removed Lollius and replaced him with Drusus. This may well have happened whatever Lollius' performance, since Augustus was looking for opportunities to put forward his stepsons. Syme (1933: 17-18) rejects the notion that Lollius' defeat caused any major changes in Augustus' military policy and questions the accuracy of Dio's chronology; see Woodman's (1977: 110-111) convincing rebuttal.

 

[86] Compare Woodman (1977: 110-111) and Radke (1986: 768-782) on Velleius' objectivity.

 

[87] Syme (1933: 17-18).

 

[88] Cf. Putnam (1986: 168-169 n.19); Lyne (1995: 205-206).

 

[89] Admittedly "reasonable," "some skepticism" are non-committal. Accusations of bribery against Lollius and his tampering with Gaius, strictly in the historians, post-date Horace's ode. But rumors probably preceded the accusations (cf. Sage, 1994: 569-570) and Horace's praise betrays an uncomfortable shift between the poet's celebration of his poetics in the first half and his "apologetic" stance in the second (Woodman, supra). This tonal shift perhaps indicates a panegyrist who imagines that praising Lollius will find a cool reception.

 

[90] Syme (1933: 17-19) discredits Velleius; six years later (1939: 429) and again over fifty years later (1986: 402) he continues to defend vigorously his position.

 

[91] [1] Reckford (1969: 130-131); Syndikus (1973: 375-376, 384). [2] Page (1883: proem); Fraenkel (1957: 425-426); Garrison (1991: 359 nn.43-44). [3] This is the most widely held view: Orelli (1837: excursus); Wickham (1874: proem); K.-H. (1884: proem); Syme (1978: 153; 1939: 428-429; 1986: 402); Putnam (1986: 168-169 n.19); Harrison (1990: 33); Lefèvre (1993: 276-277). Both Commager (1962: 321-322 n.18) and Quinn (1980: nn.34-44) argue that Horace's praise would help defend Lollius' reputation, but they view the encomium overall as rather perfunctory; also Campbell (1924: 228), who classifies the last two stanzas as an admonitory accretion in which the poet attempts to motivate Lollius to good deeds. [4] Ambrose (1965: 1-10) relies heavily on Velleius' Lollius and therefore has been summarily dismissed, but there is more room for irony in the encomium than has been admitted. Seager (1993: 37) refers to the encomium as "deliberate tactlessness" and a "whitewashing  job," making the point that Lollius never risked his life for his fatherland. Add Sage (1994: 565-586), who concludes that the singer acts as a vatic sage admonishing rather than praising.

 

[92] Those maintaining that the encomium strengthens Lollius' reputation often read 43-44 as a metaphor that limits the victory to Lollius' civil life (suggested by Porphyrio and taken up by Orelli, Page, and Quinn). This interpretation must take victor as subordinate to iudex and not as a parallel appositive with animus; otherwise, there is no reason that animus-victor could not apply to military deeds. This is not the best way to interpret the nominative sequence. Granted, vindex, consul, and iudex (not victor) all stand in first position and follow every other verse, but victor balances the position of animus near the end of its line. Also animus occupies two lines as does vindex and consul; animus as iudex and animus as victor would maintain the two line symmetry. It simplifies the metaphor to acknowledge that the encomium admits some blame (Wickham, 1874: nn.40-44; Lyne, 1995: 205-206; Seager, supra).

 

[93] Cf. Sage (1994: 566-568).

 

[94] The ambiguity between praise and blame includes memory (Epist. II.1.262-263): discit enim citius meminitque libentius illud / quod quis deridet quam quod probat et veneratur.

 

[95] For a defense of the presence and importance of narrative in Horatian lyric, see Lowrie (1997: 1-16; 97-137). This ode for which narrative is so vital to the overall argument is the only time Horace mentions the lyricist Stesichorus (8), whose use of narrative was exceptional (West, 1971: 302-314). Horace's graves is a technically appropriate designation for Stesichorus' Muses because he wrote epic myth into lyric. Horace is about to do the same.

 

[96] Proelia coniugibus loquenda is contested. The Iliad ends in the wailing of the surviving Trojan women, which is the primary and most grievous form of praise. The cries of women for their dead husbands add a strong emotive depth to the context of c.4. For the textual history and significance of the phrase, see c.4 in ch. 3. Simonides' influence is evident in Horace's tones of lament (Barchiesi, 1996a: 5-47; Lowrie, 1995: 45; 1997: 185; the articles in Boedeker and Sider, 2001, particularly Harrison, 261-271). Ceae, line 7, also neatly designates Simonides' nephew, Bacchylides.

 

[97] Epist. I.2.15-16.

 

[98] The immediate sense of coniugibus puerisque is general: the Trojan wives and children (K.-H., 1884: n.23). Yet there is nothing to prevent anyone from reading into the narrative any further details that they know about the characters (Cf. Putnam's version, 1986: 163-164). The condition si priores Maeonius tenet sedes Homerus invites a comparison of the epic and lyric traditions, which in turn suggests that the narrative is designed to encourage just such 'over-reading,' specifically a reading that compares the Homeric tale to the Horatian. See also Horace's erotic Odyssey in Tyndaris' lyric song, C. I.17.18-20 (Lowrie, 1995: 44).   

 

[99] The identical line numbers, the negative (nequiquam [c.15] and non [c.9]) at the beginning of both scenes, and the repetition of ferox in c.9 at a line end (21) demonstrate how interrelated the two episodes are.

 

[100] Horace's narrative combines characters who do not stand up well to the scrutiny of an audience invited by the poet to question whether the deeds of some merit immortal fame and not others. Teucer, the best Achaean archer, fought like a child hiding behind its mother (Hom. Il. 8.268-272; cf. 8.312-324) and failed to offer appropriate sacrifices (Il. 23.850-883). Idomeneus was an impetuous braggart (Il. 13.374-382; 23.474-481), a personality Augustus did not admire (Suet. Aug. 25). Sthenelus, Diomedes' charioteer, was often replaced at moments of crisis and left standing behind (Il. 5.835-838; 8.98-115).

 

[101] Compare Wickham (1874: n.21); Putnam (1986: 163).

 

[102] On the priestly prophetic function of the poet, see Newman's seminal work (1967b).

 

[103] The Stoic principles in the encomium for Lollius also prompt the memory: it was the Stoic sage Stertinius (S. II.3.193-207) who argued that Agamemnon's murder of Iphigenia was every bit as much an act of insanity as Ajax's suicide.

 

[104] So all commentators except Ambrose (1965: 5-6), who argues that labores is the subject of carpere and obliviones the object. Although I agree with Ambrose that the praise of the introduction is not unequivocal, it is not for the syntactical explanations he proposes (see Sage, 1994: 577).

 

[105] Cf. Cat. 68.41-46.

 

[106] Orelli (1837) and Putnam (1986: 164) cite N. 7.12-13, but perhaps O. 10.91-92 is even closer; for other parallels, see Gow (1950) on Theoc. 16.30.

 

[107] Cf. forgetting (obliviscitur) the cares of love (Ep. 2.37-38). When faced with the obligations of his patronage, Horace himself welcomes the undisturbed state of inertia and forgetfulness, cf. S. II.6.60b-62; Ep. 14.2. Again there are implications for Horatian poetics: the Pierian Muses refresh Caesar when he is recovering from the fatigue of war (C. III.4.37-40).

 

[108] Carpere as a verb of destruction: Cat. 68.35, Verg. G. 3.215, Liv. 8.38.6, Ov. Ars 2.114; surprise attacks both physical and verbal: Caes. Civ. 1.63.2, Cat. 62.36, Liv. 6.32.11, 7.12.12, Ov. Met. 2.781. In Horace: S. I.5.95; II.6.93; C. II.17.12 (choosing a road or direction); S. II.3.256; C. I.11.8; III.27.44; IV.2.29 (plucking); C. III.27.64 (carding wool). Most read carpere in c.9 as a synonym for rodere; see Putnam (1986:159), who following Horatian usage translates "to pluck."  

 

[109] Quinn (1980: nn.45-52). This may also have been Fraenkel's position (1957: 426), since he judges that the principles are not relevant to Lollius. 

 

[110] Beatus is the equivalent of the Stoic eujdaimoniva, the blessings surrounding the virtuous man (Cic. Luc. 134). For the Stoic only the wise man is truly rich. The Stoic sage as rex is represented here by the consulship of Lollius' upright mind; cf. Lyne (1995: 145-146; 205-206).

 

[111] Most others, including Orelli (1837: nn.51-52); K.-H. (1884: nn.45-52); Syndikus (1973: 385); Putnam (1986: 168); Lyne (1995: 204). Wickham (1884: n.45) hedges: the maxims were meant to defend Lollius' character and make him think.

 

[112] There may well be another intertextual chain that raises questions about Horace's praise of Lollius' moderatio. Forms of intereo are infrequent in Horace: only six, and half of these in the Ars (61, 146, and 464). The future participle interitura of c.9.1 appears also in c.7.9-10 (ver proterit aestas / interitura), an ode containing in its carpe diem argument, as discussed earlier, a warning about greedy heirs. The language of c.7 recalls C. II.18.15-16: truditur dies die / novaeque pergunt interire lunae. The primary thesis of c.18 is moderatio and the emptiness of wealth. These are the only instances of the verb in the Odes: two against wealth and then the last praising the restraint of Lollius who grew rich through provincial rule.

 

[113] The association of c.9 with Horace's criticism of the Stoic sage in S. I.3 and II.3 is strengthened by shared characters (Helen, S. I.3.107-108; Teucer and Agamemnon, S. II.3.187-213) and themes (avarice, a great evil for the Stoic, S. II.3.82).

 

[114] Words and their conventions constantly suffer death and rebirth, a cycle controlled by the changing force of usage (Ars 60-72). This is just the type of paradox Horace loves. Poetry becomes immortal when it first dies and then is reborn in an endless cycle of interpretive transformation, which Horace illustrates by renewing the metaphor of the falling leaves from Homer and Simonides (61-62; cf. Sider, 2001: 283-285). Miller (1991: 365-388) speaks of an unresolved dialogue among Horatian poems that grants to the poet, gods, and heroes their own autonomy. The same occurs within the praise-poems of Odes IV.