Horace
Quintus Horatius Flaccus, (65 BC - 8 BC) known in the English world as Horace was the leading lyric poet in Latin.
Horace was the son of a freedman, but himself born free. His father spent considerable amounts of money on Horace's education, including sending him to Athens for the study of Greek and philosophy.
After the assassination of Julius Cæsar, Horace joined the army, serving under the generalship of Brutus. He was present at the battle of Philippi, and saved himself by fleeing. When an amnesty was declared for those who had fought against the victorious Augustus, he returned to Italy, only to find his father dead, his estate confiscated. Horace was reduced to poverty. He was, however, able to purchase a clerkship in the quæstor's office, which allowed him to get by and practice his poetic art.
Horace was a member of a literary circle that included Virgil and Varius[?]; they introduced him to Mæcenas, friend and confidant of Augustus. Mæcenas became his patron and close friend, and presented Horace with an estate near Tibur[?], contemporary Tivoli.
Horace's surviving work includes:
- Four books of Odes, longer poems, usually on mythological subjects;
- A book of Epodes, containing shorter poems;
- Two books of Satires, and
- Two books of Letters or Epistles, and
- The Carmen Sæculare[?].
One of the Epistles is often referred to as a separate work in itself, the Ars Poetica[?].
Horace is generally considered by classicists to be, along with Virgil, the greatest of the Latin poets. He wrote many Latin phrases that remain in use, in Latin or in translation, including carpe diem, "seize the day," and aurea mediocritas, the "golden mean." His works are highly derivative of Greek models, and written exclusively in Greek metres which were sometimes a difficult fit to Latin structure and syntax. The Satires and Epistles are his most personal works, and the most interesting to the contemporary reader.
Quote:
Graïs ingenium, Graïs dedit ore rotundo Musa loqui, præter laudem nullius avaris. . .
--- "It was the genius of a Greek that first taught the Muse to sing, a Greek seeking nothing but praise."
External link:
The works of Horace at The Latin Library: http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/hor.html
And the first episode, here called "The Fortune of the
PARIS, July 1, 1871.
THE FORTUNE OF THE ROUGONS
CHAPTER I
On quitting Plassans by the Rome Gate, on the southern side of the
little way past the first suburban houses, a plot of land locally
footpath of the adjacent road.html">road, from which it is separated by a strip
borders it on the right; while on the left, and at the further end, it
seen the top branches of the mulberry-trees of the Jas-Meiffren--an
three sides, the Aire Saint-Mittre leads nowhere, and is only crossed
a greatly honoured Provencal saint; and in 1851 the old people of
standing, although the place itself had been closed for years. The
to open a new burial-ground at the other end of town. Then the old
vegetation which had sprouted over it every spring. The rich soil, in
human remains, was possessed of wondrous fertility. The tall weeds
to be visible from the high road; while inside, the place presented
of singular brilliancy. Beneath one's feet amidst the close-set stalks
trees, with twisted and knotty boughs; but none of the housewives of
the townspeople spoke of this fruit.html">fruit with grimaces of disgust. No such
bands at twilight and climbed the walls to steal the pears, even
assimilated all the decomposing matter in the old cemetery of Saint-
been greedily absorbed by the flowers and the fruit; so that
strong perfume of wild gillyflowers. This had merely been a.
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