HORACE (Qui:virus IlooatTuUs FLACCVS) (11.e. 65-S). A Latin poet, born at Venusia, on the borders of Lucania and Apulia. llis early years were thus passed amid a picturesque en vironment of mountain, forest, and stream, which made a deep impression upon his mind, and strengthened that love of nature which so often finds expression in his verse. The older Flat:ens watt a coaetor, a collector of taxes or of money due for goods sold at public a net inns, and by his thrift was successful not only in huviug Ills own free Itllt also in mittiring a small estate and an income which enabled him to give to his son the best education the capital itself could offer. Thither, about the age of twelve. Iloraee went with his father, who, in Ilk affection and devotion to his son's interests, made himself the boy's comrade in the daily round of study and play, and at Rome, as at N'enusia, helped to form his son's standards by his own shrewd comments upon men and manners. It was naturally the moss maioruni rather than any abstract ideal of which the freedman pointed otut the advantages. but the familiar talks had their desired effect in the rise in Iforaee's mind of an instinctive aver sion to excess rf every sort, and trained hint, beside:. in similar habits of keen observation and pointed, though kindly. eriticism. it was then enstomuars a ninntr young Romans of birth and means to complete their education by what may be called a university course in the schools of philosophy at Athens or in those of oratory at Rhodes, and so, between eighteen and twenty, Horace took up his residence at Athens, listened to the exposition of conflicting philosophical the ories, and entered into the social life of his fel low students. Purely speculative problems at tracted him as little as they did the average Roman, nor had he, in fact, much relish for the technicalities of any philosophical system. The paradoxes and social eccentricities of the Stoic thinkers, for instance, long made it difficult for him to do justice to the real elevation of their essential principles. But he had already become profoundly interested in the practical problem of how to order one's life aright, and his stay at Athens confirmed this taste for ethical inquiry. At this time, too, he must have come to know more intimately the work of Alca•s, Sappho, Archilochus, and the other Greek lyric poets who were to be his models in the Epodes and the Odes.
But these peaceful and congenial pursuits were suddenly interrupted by the news of the assassi nation of Caisar in March, 44, and the subsequent arrival of Brutus in Athens to secure recruits for the republican cause. The liberator, himself a lover of letters and an eager student of philos ophy, was received with enthusiasm, and was so much taken with Horace's promise that the lat ter. despite his youth and lack both of family connection and of military experience, was made a staff officer, and ultimately served in the cam paign of Philippi as tribunals militum. That decisive defeat and the suicide of his chief seem to have convinced him of the futility of further effort, and he made his way back to Rome, where, finding that his father's estate had been confiscated, lie obtained employment as a clerk in the qsuestor's office. It was the darkest period of his life, and, as the earliest of the Epodes show. the bitterness of his feeling found unre
strained expression in the verses which, in his own words, poverty drove him to write. But he was so fortunate as to win the regard of Vergil and Varius, who, three years after his return to Italy. introduced him to Mecenas. That discern ing but cautious statesman waited nine months after the first interview before he again sent for the young writer. Ile then bestowed the friend ship that saved Horace for poetry.
But it was in metrical prose rather than imaginative poetry, as he himself viewed his work, that Horace first tried to gain an audi ence. Early training and the mood of the moment combined to make the choice of satire almost inevitable. LuciBus, a member of the circle, had for the first time in Latin literature used the old an Flange form of Ennius as a. vehicle for witty and often stinging criticism of the political and social life of his time. The range of topics was naturally exceedingly wide, the treatment often dramatic, and cast in the dialogue form, the metres varied. though in the end the hexameter decidedly predominated. The new satera was marked by a feature quite as original and as noteworthy as itself. This was the establishment of a personal and intimate relation between Lueilius and his reader, so that the frankest revelation of the poet's inmost feel ings seemed yet free from egotism and consistent with self-respect. it was thus natural that Hor ace should be strongly attracted by Lueilius, though, with a mind already much occupied with the niceties of phrase and cadence, he could not hut feel that, despite all its vigor and charm, the work of the older poet was sadly lacking in artistic finish. To write in the manner of Lueilius, but with a more perfect art—this was the end proposed and achieved in the Satires (Sermones, `eauseries,' as he calls them), of which the first volume appeared about B.C. 35. The sec ond, published about B.C. 29, is far superior in execution to the first, and shows Horace at his best in this kind. We are listening to an accom plished man of the world, intimately acquainted with human nature, whose whims and weaknesses he probes with delightful humor. He is exceed ingly fond of the weapon of irony, which he uses against himself quite as often as against others, and every page reflects his sunny nature, genuine ly tolerant and charitable. These 'talks,' however light in their touch, have yet a definite and se rious purpose. it is the art of living that is ever under discussion, and, as he studied others, so also 'Horace studied most minutely the nature best known to him, so that one of the special charms of the Satires is the presence of this constant self-analysis. One may say of Horace what Mr. Sidney Colvin says of Stevenson in his introduction to the Vallima Letters, that be "belonged to the race of Montaigne and the lit erary egotists." The word seems out of place, since of egotism in the sense of vanity or selfish ness he was of all men the most devoid; but lie was nevertheless a watchful and ever inter ested observer of the motions of his own mind. He saw himself as he saw everything else (to borrow the words of Mr. Andrew Lang) with the lucidity of genius, and loved to put himsett on terms of confidence with his readers.