Xanthias the Phocian is in love with a slave. What does Horace think? What he says is reassuring and supportive on the surface, but, as TE Page the Victorian commentator pithily remarks, the intention is clearly satirical throughout. As part of his (apparently) supportive reasoning, Horace quotes examples from among Greek heroes who fought the Trojan War – one of them Achilles, who was captivated by the captive Briseis but had her confiscated by Agamemnon to replace a priest’s daughter whom he had to return to her father to appease Apollo, as related at the beginning of Homer’s Iliad. This was the cause of Achilles’s withdrawal from the fighting and the starting-point of the events that ensue in Homer’s great epic.
Hear Horace’s Latin and follow in English here.
The illustration form a Roman fresco shows the parting of Achilles and Briseis. (Photo ArchaiOptix, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons