HORACE

Horace was one of the famous Latin literary figures. He was a poet and a literary critic rolled into one. Horace was born in December 65 BC. His father was a slave who was later freed from the bond. His father had made enough money to give a good education to his son. Horace was educated at Rome and Athens. In Athens he is believed to have studied philosophy and poetry at the Academy founded by Plato.
Horace served the Roman army for a short period and fought at Philippi in 42BC. After the war he returned to Athens and secured a government job. He began to write poetry. The great Virgil, a poet laureate and the author of Aeneid, the Latin epic impressed by his poems introduced Horace to the statesman Gaius Cilnius Maecenas, a patron of the arts and a friend of Octavian. Horace often visited and stayed at the estate in the Sabine Hills that Maecenas had given him.
Horace wrote satires, epodes, odes, and epistles. Book I of the Satires (35 BC) and Book II (30 BC), collections of dialogues in hexameter, were an imitation of the satirist Lucilius. The ten satires in Book I and the eight in Book II were tempered by tolerance.
The Epodes, published in 30 BC, contained an impassioned plea to end to the civil war. The poems in the Epodes were adaptations of the Greek lyric style created by the poet Archilochus.
Horace's major poetical works were the Odes, Books I, II, and III. Most of them were an imitation of poets such as Anacreon, Alcaeus, and Sappho. In them Horace celebrates patriotism, peace, friendship, love, wine and simplicity. Noted for their rhythm, irony, and cultivated urbanity, the Odes were often imitated by 18th- and 19th-century English poets.
The Epistle that appeared in about 20 BC contained 20 personal letters. They were on literature, philosophy and social issues. His philosophical writings reflect the influence of Epicurus
When his mentor Virgil died in 19BC, Horace was made the poet laureate. Emperor Augustus asked him to write Carmen Saeculare for the secular games in Rome. Though the dates of his last works are not certain it is believed that The Epistle to the Pisos, better known as Ars poetica belongs to his last period. In Ars Poetica he praises Greek masters and advises those who wish to take writing seriously to study them thoroughly.
Horace died on 27 November in 8 BC in Rome.

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