Phidyle, the addressee of this Ode, is the bailiff’s wife on a modest country estate. One of the things that went with the job was to make sure that the regular round of observance and sacrifice to the domestic gods of the home and the estate were duly carried out to help guard against anything that might go wrong with crops or livestock: Horace stands in the place of the master of the household, whose permission and approval for the necessary rituals was required. The intention is to sacrifice a pig, but the poem suggests that routine observances of this kind were not enough, but, on the other hand, that true piety towards the gods would satisfy them even should no costly offering be available. This little Lar, or household god, of the type that Phidyle might have had on her domestic altar, was found in Paris.
A country altar on the farm.
