Plancus, this ode’s dedicatee, was a political and military heavyweight whose achievements included founding the city of Lyons, a consulship and proposing the title of Augustus for Octavian. He was a supporter of Mark Antony who defected to Octavian shortly before the Battle of Actium.
Commentators have puzzled over the purpose of the poem, but a simple explanation is available. Horace prefers Tibur to the famous spots of the Greek world; Plancus is also associated with Tibur and (by implication) might wish to spend his time there, but he is a man with public responsibilities which are likely to take him away. Horace (again by implication) likens him to Teucer, a flattering comparison as Teucer was a hero who bravely bore circumstances which kept him, too, unwillingly away from his home. In the meantime, wine offers a solution, albeit a temporary one.
Teucer’s father, Telamon, exiled him from his home, Salamis, when he returned from the Trojan war without avenging his brother, Ajax, who killed himself after failing to be awarded the arms of the dead Achilles. The poplar that Teucer wears as a garland was sacred to Hercules.
The metre alternates dactylic hexameters (the six-measure metre of epic) with dactylic tetrameters (a shorter variant with four measures).
See the illustrated blog post here.
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