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Epodes
The Epodes, with the first book of the Satires, were Horace's first published work. They consist of a collection of seventeen poems in different versions of the iambus, the metre traditionally associated with lampoon and in particular with the seventh-century Greek poet Archilochus. In none of Horace's works is his originality more brilliantly displayed than in this creative appropriation of a hitherto unexploited Greek genre. David Mankin's introduction and commentary examines all aspects of Horace's relationship with his models and of the technical accomplishment of his verse; it also gives help with linguistic problems. His edition places the Epodes firmly in their literary and historical context: Rome at the time of its greatest crisis, the Civil War which ended the Republic and led to the establishment of the Principate. Students and scholars alike will welcome this commentary, only the second in any language since the 1930s and the only one providing a full and detailed interpretation in English.
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First published January 1, 31
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About the author
Horatius
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Odes
and
Satires
Roman lyric poet Quintus Horatius Flaccus exerted a major influence on English poetry.
(December 8, 65 BC – November 27, 8 BC)
Horace, the son of a freed slave, who owned a small farm, later moved to Rome to work as a coactor, a middleman between buyers and sellers at auctions, receiving 1% of the purchase price for his services. The father ably spent considerable money on education of his son, accompanied him first to Rome for his primary education, and then sent him to Athens to study Greek and philosophy.
After the assassination of Julius Caesar, Horace joined the army, serving under the generalship of Brutus. He fought as a staff officer (tribunus militum) in the battle of Philippi. Alluding to famous literary models, he later claimed to throw away his shield and to flee for his salvation. When people declared an amnesty for those who fought against the victorious Octavian Augustus, Horace returned to Italy, only to find his estate confiscated and his father likely then dead. Horace claims that circumstances reduced him to poverty.
Nevertheless, he meaningfully gained a profitable lifetime appointment as a scriba quaestorius, an official of the Treasury; this appointment allowed him to practice his poetic art.
Horace was a member of a literary circle that included Virgil and Lucius Varius Rufus, who introduced him to Maecenas, friend and confidant of Augustus. Maecenas became his patron and close friend and presented Horace with an estate near Tibur in the Sabine Hills (contemporary Tivoli). A few months after the death of Maecenas, Horace died in Rome. Upon his death bed, Horace with no heirs relinquished his farm to Augustus, his friend and the emperor, for imperial needs, and it stands today as a spot of pilgrimage for his admirers.
(December 8, 65 BC – November 27, 8 BC)
Horace, the son of a freed slave, who owned a small farm, later moved to Rome to work as a coactor, a middleman between buyers and sellers at auctions, receiving 1% of the purchase price for his services. The father ably spent considerable money on education of his son, accompanied him first to Rome for his primary education, and then sent him to Athens to study Greek and philosophy.
After the assassination of Julius Caesar, Horace joined the army, serving under the generalship of Brutus. He fought as a staff officer (tribunus militum) in the battle of Philippi. Alluding to famous literary models, he later claimed to throw away his shield and to flee for his salvation. When people declared an amnesty for those who fought against the victorious Octavian Augustus, Horace returned to Italy, only to find his estate confiscated and his father likely then dead. Horace claims that circumstances reduced him to poverty.
Nevertheless, he meaningfully gained a profitable lifetime appointment as a scriba quaestorius, an official of the Treasury; this appointment allowed him to practice his poetic art.
Horace was a member of a literary circle that included Virgil and Lucius Varius Rufus, who introduced him to Maecenas, friend and confidant of Augustus. Maecenas became his patron and close friend and presented Horace with an estate near Tibur in the Sabine Hills (contemporary Tivoli). A few months after the death of Maecenas, Horace died in Rome. Upon his death bed, Horace with no heirs relinquished his farm to Augustus, his friend and the emperor, for imperial needs, and it stands today as a spot of pilgrimage for his admirers.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
April 4, 2025
joan ratbonell et virgiliem
August 6, 2025
8/10
Favourite poems: “Quo, quo, scelesti ruitis?”, “Rogare longo”, and “Altera iam teritur”.
The ability to write about both the immense inhumanity of civil war and the sagging tits of a spurned lover is what we call “artistic variety”.
Favourite poems: “Quo, quo, scelesti ruitis?”, “Rogare longo”, and “Altera iam teritur”.
The ability to write about both the immense inhumanity of civil war and the sagging tits of a spurned lover is what we call “artistic variety”.
January 17, 2018
my favourites are epodes 2 and 13
December 4, 2023
king shit. obligatory minus one star for misogyny.
April 4, 2025
First Latin text I read through in its entirety!
March 10, 2025
Avui tinc examen i surt aquesta obra.
Edit: he tret molt bona nota🤭
Edit: he tret molt bona nota🤭
April 23, 2009
Although I find Horace's epodes, taken as a whole, to be a rather uneven affair, there are still a few poems in here that rise to greatness. Mankin is a fine commentator, meticulous and helpful without smothering the text.
April 1, 2017
A vigorous mixed-bag. The trick here is to read the collection in a concerted & concentrated pass, not terribly difficult as it consists of 17 poems -- I made the mistake of being distracted at two-or-three intervals, running off to read snippets of the "Historia Augusta" or Juvenal before stumbling back.
There is a lyric vigor here, a refinement but not a sleek repose that one finds occasionally in later compositions like "Odes 1-3". Topically the poems are wide-ranging -- from political retorts & anxieties (Epodes 1 & 16) , to an extended pastoral fantasy that gets shockingly quashed in a final couplet by putting the speech on the lips of an un-reformed usurer (Epode 2, like a Vergilian eclogue dutifully inhabited but ultimately skewered by Horatian satire), to sneering invectives (this being the more expected province of a genre modeled on Greek poets like Archilochus or Hipponax), to more quiet moments where "Horace" & co., seeking shelter from a storm with an impromptu symposium, invoke the sorrow of Chiron who tells Achilles he will never return from Troy (Epode 13). The poems on Canidia (3, 5, 17) are all quite excellent -- she is a nemesis throughout the collection, both stock witch in the Thessalian tradition (i.e. we are told she can draw/de-duct celestial bodies from the heavens) and "domina"/mistress of love elegy. Epode 5 is an incredible back-and-forth between Canidia and a young boy she has captured for sacrifice -- a dialogue between prey & predator, as though drawing up the psychological currents in elegiac love poetry and staging them in a malevolent, merciless narrative.
As noted above, however clumsily, this collection feels like a proper pivot in Horace's canon -- from the chatty strut of his "Sermones" to the refined splendor of his "Odes". There is a fair amount of planning and detail in this collection that hints at the poet's transition. I pluck but one detail to support this in closing: the final word of the "Epodes", from the lips of Canidia, is "exitus" which, slightly out of step with its context, means departure, conclusion. Looking back at the first word of the first poem, "ibis", "you will go", i.e. a beginning, one sees a tidy, almost itinerary traced throughout the collection: from "ibis" to "exitus", a journey started and eventually concluded.
There is a lyric vigor here, a refinement but not a sleek repose that one finds occasionally in later compositions like "Odes 1-3". Topically the poems are wide-ranging -- from political retorts & anxieties (Epodes 1 & 16) , to an extended pastoral fantasy that gets shockingly quashed in a final couplet by putting the speech on the lips of an un-reformed usurer (Epode 2, like a Vergilian eclogue dutifully inhabited but ultimately skewered by Horatian satire), to sneering invectives (this being the more expected province of a genre modeled on Greek poets like Archilochus or Hipponax), to more quiet moments where "Horace" & co., seeking shelter from a storm with an impromptu symposium, invoke the sorrow of Chiron who tells Achilles he will never return from Troy (Epode 13). The poems on Canidia (3, 5, 17) are all quite excellent -- she is a nemesis throughout the collection, both stock witch in the Thessalian tradition (i.e. we are told she can draw/de-duct celestial bodies from the heavens) and "domina"/mistress of love elegy. Epode 5 is an incredible back-and-forth between Canidia and a young boy she has captured for sacrifice -- a dialogue between prey & predator, as though drawing up the psychological currents in elegiac love poetry and staging them in a malevolent, merciless narrative.
As noted above, however clumsily, this collection feels like a proper pivot in Horace's canon -- from the chatty strut of his "Sermones" to the refined splendor of his "Odes". There is a fair amount of planning and detail in this collection that hints at the poet's transition. I pluck but one detail to support this in closing: the final word of the "Epodes", from the lips of Canidia, is "exitus" which, slightly out of step with its context, means departure, conclusion. Looking back at the first word of the first poem, "ibis", "you will go", i.e. a beginning, one sees a tidy, almost itinerary traced throughout the collection: from "ibis" to "exitus", a journey started and eventually concluded.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews