Odes 3.14

Caesar’s safe return

This ode requires some background. The campaign from which Augustus is returning was in Spain from 25-24 BCE. He became seriously ill and recovered only after a long convalescence: hence the apparent reference at the start of the poem to false reports that he had died or was likely to. Like Augustus, Hercules returned from Spain after a victory, in his case over the monster Geryon. Among those imagined going out to welcome Augustus, the mothers of his young soldiers would be glad to have them back safely, and the mothers of unmarried girls would be thinking that their daughters might find husbands among the homecomers. It is hard to be sure why Horace should make such a point of specifying a particular, very old vintage of wine, and the text may be corrupt. In the last stanza, Horace seems to be drawing a parallel between his own mellowing attitudes to life as he enters his forties and the settled period of peace which Rome is enjoying under Augustus after a succession of terrible civil wars. No Roman hearing Plancus’s consulship mentioned would have been unaware that it was the year when Caesar’s assassins were defeated at the battle of Philippi, where Horace fought on the losing side.

Metre: Sapphics.

See the illustrated blog post here.

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Herculis ritu modo dictus, o plebs,
morte venalem petiisse laurum
Caesar Hispana repetit penatis
victor ab ora.

unico gaudens mulier marito
prodeat iustis operata sacris
et soror clari ducis et decorae
supplice vitta

virginum matres iuvenumque nuper
sospitum; vos, o pueri et puellae
iam virum expectate, male ominatis
parcite verbis.

hic dies vere mihi festus atras
exiget curas ego nec tumultum
nec mori per vim metuam tenente
Caesare terras.

i pete unguentum, puer, et coronas
et cadum Marsi memorem duelli,
Spartacum si qua potuit vagantem
fallere testa.

dic et argutae properet Neaerae
murreum nodo cohibere crinem;
si per invisum mora ianitorem
fiet, abito.

lenit albescens animos capillus
litium et rixae cupidos protervae;
non ego hoc ferrem calidus iuventa
consule Planco.

Like Hercules, o people, Caesar, said just now to have sought a triumph that could cost him his life, is coming home a victor from the shore of Spain! Let the famed general’s wife, joyful in her one and only husband, go forth [to receive him] from performing the due rites, and his sister, and, adorned with the suppliant’s headband, the mothers of unmarried girls and of the young soldiers lately returned to safety! You, boys and girls, wait to receive him, and avoid ill-omened words. This day, a truly joyful one for me, will drive away black cares, and I shall have no fear of revolution or violent death while Caesar holds sway over the lands. Go, boy, fetch balsam and garlands and a jar of wine that remembers the Social War, if any such in bottle managed to escape Spartacus and his marauding. And tell sweet-voiced Neaera to be quick and put up her perfumed hair – but if there is delay because the doorkeeper makes difficulties, then come away. When one’s hair is going white, it softens tempers which are prone to quarrelling and lovers’ brawls – I would not have put up with that in the hot days of my youth when Plancus was Consul.

More Poems by Horace

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