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In a piece which seems to have been written at a dangerous point some years before Horace launched his first three books of odes in 23 BCE, he turns for help to the Goddess Fortuna, while recognising that the fortunes that she has in store for Rome after a long period of civil wars could be bad as well as good. This ode seems as deeply and personally felt as any that Horace wrote, and is surely no mere literary exercise.

In the illustration, from a mediaeval manuscript of the Carmina Burana, Fortuna governs the cycle of life.

Hear Horace’s Latin and follow in English here.

In Horace’s ode, Apollo threatens his brother, Mercury, with dire consequences if he does not return his herd of stolen cattle. How does the trickster-God respond? By stealing Apollo’s quiver! Hear Horace’s Latin and follow in English here.

Horace is concerned that such a promising young cavalryman as Sybaris should be neglecting his trade because of a girl. Hear his complaint to her in Horace’s original Latin here.

In philosophical mood, Horace advises a friend whose lover has left him for a younger man not to dwell on his woes. Love is often unrequited, and that is the way that Venus, who has a sense of humour, likes it. Hear Horace’s Latin and follow in English here. In the illustration Narcissus, with whom the nymph Echo is in love, has fallen for his own reflection in the water.

In a compliment to the eminent general and politician L Munatius Plancus, Horace celebrates Tibur, which seems to have been his home, likens him flatteringly to the legendary hero Teucer, and reflects on the consolation available from wine in both mythical and contemporary times.

Hear Horace’s Latin and follow in English here.

An important part of Horace’s project in the odes was to use his poetic skills to celebrate Augustus, and to contribute to consolidating his standing in Roman society as an object of supreme veneration and deference. Hear an early example of a poem of fulsome praise for the first Emperor from the first book of Odes in Horace’s Latin and follow in English here.

The magnificent “Blacas” cameo, named after a previous possessor, was probably made soon after Augustus’s death and is in the collection of the British Museum.

Why does Horace couple (no pun intended) the name of Glycera with those of the goddess of love and the god of commerce? I think we can guess. Hear Horace’s Latin and follow in English here.

Horace is ribbing an acquaintance, Iccius, for abandoning philosophy in the hope of getting rich quick from military campaigning. Horace’s matter-of-fact acceptance of imperial ambition, slavery and military conquest is completely normal for him and his contemporaries, but highlights some of the less attractive aspects of the times and society in which he lived.

This boy with perfumed hair is Zeus’s favourite, Ganymede, from a 5th century BCE Attic ceramic.

Hear Horace’s Latin and follow in English here.

Horace pays reverence to the divine favour that (he says) he enjoys from the Muses, while asserting his poetic skill and gift for innovation in a small masterpiece which he presents as a floral garland for a dear Friend, Lamia.

Hear Horace’s original Latin and follow in English here.