Diana and Apollo, brother and sister, were both associated with the bow; Diana as Goddess of the hunt, Apollo because he could be the bringer of sickness and death, an attribute with which he appears at the opening of Homer’s Iliad when the Greek leaders refuse to restore his priest’s daughter to her father. Octavian, the future Emperor Augustus, dedicated a temple to Apollo in 28 BCE, which very likely prompted this piece; Horace might well also have felt a particular affinity with Apollo as the God of Poetry. The illustration shows a sacrifice to Diana from the House of the Vetti at Pompeii. Hear Horace’s Latin and follow in English here.
In praise of Diana and Apollo
