Odes 1.29

Iccius goes soldiering

by Horace

Horace is ribbing Iccius for dropping philosophy to seek his fortune as a soldier: how friendly the humour was meant to be isn’t possible to say. Both the reference to the girl’s late husband and the prettification of the boy to serve wine at a party carry some implication of sexual availability. Some modern readers might be tempted to read this poem as critical of militarism, conquest and slavery, but that would be a mistake. Here and generally, Horace takes them all as much for granted as other Romans of his time. The point is purely personal: you, a soldier, Iccius? Don’t make me laugh!

See the illustrated blog post here.

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Icci, beatis nunc Arabum invides
gazis et acrem militiam paras
non ante devictis Sabaeae
regibus horribilique Medo

nectis catenas? quae tibi virginum
sponso necato barbara serviet,
puer quis ex aula capillis
ad cyathum statuetur unctis

doctus sagittas tendere Sericas
arcu paterno? quis neget arduis
pronos relabi posse rivos
montibus et Tiberim reverti,

cum tu coemptos undique nobilis
libros Panaeti Socraticam et domum
mutare loricis Hiberis,
pollicitus meliora, tendis?

Are you, Iccius, really now turning envious eyes on the treasures of Araby, getting ready for some hard soldiering, and already making fetters for frightful Persians and, once you’ve overthrown them, the Kings of the Yemen? What barbarian maiden will be your slave, when you’ve killed her husband, what well-born boy will be stationed by the ladle with his hair perfumed [to measure out wine for you], though he was trained for firing Eastern arrows from the bow of his fathers? Well, who can deny that tumbling rivers can flow back up high mountains and the Tiber can reverse its course, when you are seriously intending to swap the Socratic school, and the works of worthy Panaetius [the philosopher] that you bought up wherever you could find them, for Spanish armour – when you promised us something better?

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More Poems by Horace

  1. Relief from care
  2. Love a slave-girl? Oh, Xanthias!
  3. Augustus, master of the world
  4. Diffugere nives
  5. Gathering rosebuds: carpe diem
  6. Stormy seas
  7. Pindar and Augustus
  8. A day off for rain
  9. Romulus in Heaven
  10. Wealth should be used, not hoarded
  11. The country is best
  12. Horace’s Cleopatra ode
  13. O Fons Bandusiae
  14. The fleeting years slip by
  15. Jupiter’s authority, and Caesar’s
  16. Housman and Horace
  17. Carpe diem, Sestius
  18. Horace welcomes his army comrade
  19. A prayer to Venus
  20. Horace’s limitations
  21. Pyrrha
  22. Rome: disaster and salvation
  23. What Roman youth should be
  24. Courage and decadence: the Regulus ode
  25. Here’s to Murena!
  26. Diana and Apollo: a hymn
  27. The lust for money versus the simple life
  28. A Prayer to the poetry-God
  29. Lovely mother, lovelier daughter
  30. Glycera
  31. An invitation to Maecenas
  32. Horace’s prayer to a wine-jar
  33. A garland from the Muses
  34. Horace’s Chloe
  35. Pollio’s histories of civil war
  36. Don’t worry, be happy
  37. An oath to Maecenas
  38. Luxury versus the simple life
  39. Locked out
  40. The Golden Mean
  41. Be your age, Chloris!
  42. Unrequited love
  43. Gyges’s constancy
  44. Romulus becomes a God
  45. Caesar’s safe return
  46. The tug-of-war for Nearchus
  47. Some advice for Dellius
  48. Horace returns to lyric poetry
  49. Horace, the wolf and the upright life
  50. A prayer to Mercury
  51. The final ode
  52. Valgius and Mystes
  53. Horace rests from his labours
  54. Lydia’s tragedy
  55. Curse you, tree!
  56. Last love
  57. Mourning for a good man
  58. A change of mind
  59. Licymnia
  60. Numida’s back
  61. Fortuna
  62. Give me comfort, not riches
  63. Horace’s first Ode
  64. The pleasures and dangers of wine
  65. Soracte
  66. Horace’s reverence to Bacchus
  67. Horace’s wine
  68. Tibur or Tarentum: a poet’s dilemma?
  69. Horace the swan
  70. Celebrating Neptune’s feast day
  71. A plea for burial
  72. The consolations of wine
  73. New temples, new morals
  74. Love lost and found
  75. Neobule
  76. Horace the peacemaker
  77. Postumus, the years slip by
  78. Jealousy
  79. Poscimur
  80. Lalage is too young
  81. Horace’s monument
  82. Nereus prophesies the Trojan War
  83. Roman values for the new age
  84. An invocation to the lyre
  85. Awe for the Gods
  86. A Farewell to arms
  87. Don’t trust Barine
    88. View Latin Poems
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