Odes 1.29

Iccius goes soldiering

by Horace

Horace is ribbing Iccius for dropping philosophy to seek his fortune as a soldier: how friendly the humour was meant to be isn’t possible to say. Both the reference to the girl’s late husband and the prettification of the boy to serve wine at a party carry some implication of sexual availability. Some modern readers might be tempted to read this poem as critical of militarism, conquest and slavery, but that would be a mistake. Here and generally, Horace takes them all as much for granted as other Romans of his time. The point is purely personal: you, a soldier, Iccius? Don’t make me laugh!

See the illustrated blog post here.

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Icci, beatis nunc Arabum invides
gazis et acrem militiam paras
non ante devictis Sabaeae
regibus horribilique Medo

nectis catenas? quae tibi virginum
sponso necato barbara serviet,
puer quis ex aula capillis
ad cyathum statuetur unctis

doctus sagittas tendere Sericas
arcu paterno? quis neget arduis
pronos relabi posse rivos
montibus et Tiberim reverti,

cum tu coemptos undique nobilis
libros Panaeti Socraticam et domum
mutare loricis Hiberis,
pollicitus meliora, tendis?

Are you, Iccius, really now turning envious eyes on the treasures of Araby, getting ready for some hard soldiering, and already making fetters for frightful Persians and, once you’ve overthrown them, the Kings of the Yemen? What barbarian maiden will be your slave, when you’ve killed her husband, what well-born boy will be stationed by the ladle with his hair perfumed [to measure out wine for you], though he was trained for firing Eastern arrows from the bow of his fathers? Well, who can deny that tumbling rivers can flow back up high mountains and the Tiber can reverse its course, when you are seriously intending to swap the Socratic school, and the works of worthy Panaetius [the philosopher] that you bought up wherever you could find them, for Spanish armour – when you promised us something better?

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More Poems by Horace

  1. Awe for the Gods
  2. Love lost and found
  3. A country sacrifice
  4. The consolations of wine
  5. The fleeting years slip by
  6. Diffugere nives
  7. O Fons Bandusiae
  8. A day off for rain
  9. Give me comfort, not riches
  10. Horace’s prayer to a wine-jar
  11. Glycera
  12. Lalage is too young
  13. Valgius and Mystes
  14. The Golden Mean
  15. Pindar and Augustus
  16. The lust for money versus the simple life
  17. A prayer to Venus
  18. Gathering rosebuds: carpe diem
  19. Pollio’s histories of civil war
  20. Wealth should be used, not hoarded
  21. Horace welcomes his army comrade
  22. The pleasures and dangers of wine
  23. Horace the swan
  24. Horace’s monument
  25. Stormy seas
  26. Gyges’s constancy
  27. Horace’s Chloe
  28. Nereus prophesies the Trojan War
  29. Relief from care
  30. Last love
  31. Roman values for the new age
  32. Horace’s Cleopatra ode
  33. Soracte
  34. Neobule
  35. Licymnia
  36. Celebrating Neptune’s feast day
  37. Jealousy
  38. Some advice for Dellius
  39. Horace’s limitations
  40. A plea for burial
  41. Lydia’s tragedy
  42. Romulus becomes a God
  43. Here’s to Murena!
  44. Lovely mother, lovelier daughter
  45. Courage and decadence: the Regulus ode
  46. Housman and Horace
  47. Curse you, tree!
  48. The country is best
  49. Augustus, master of the world
  50. Unrequited love
  51. Luxury versus the simple life
  52. Numida’s back
  53. Don’t worry, be happy
  54. The tug-of-war for Nearchus
  55. Love a slave-girl? Oh, Xanthias!
  56. Postumus, the years slip by
  57. Late stirrings
  58. Romulus in Heaven
  59. Don’t trust Barine
  60. Jupiter’s authority, and Caesar’s
  61. Mourning for a good man
  62. An invitation to Maecenas
  63. Poscimur
  64. Rome: disaster and salvation
  65. An oath to Maecenas
  66. A Farewell to arms
  67. Horace returns to lyric poetry
  68. Locked out
  69. Be your age, Chloris!
  70. New temples, new morals
  71. The final ode
  72. Fortuna
  73. A prayer to Mercury
  74. Caesar’s safe return
  75. Horace the peacemaker
  76. A prayer to Faunus
  77. A dedication to Diana
  78. Carpe diem, Sestius
  79. A divine inspiration
  80. An invocation to the lyre
  81. Tibur or Tarentum: a poet’s dilemma?
  82. Horace rests from his labours
  83. Horace’s wine
  84. A call for a moral renaissance
  85. Horace’s first Ode
  86. A Prayer to the poetry-God
  87. What Roman youth should be
  88. Horace’s reverence to Bacchus
  89. Horace, the wolf and the upright life
  90. A garland from the Muses
  91. A change of mind
  92. Pyrrha
  93. Diana and Apollo: a hymn
    94. View Latin Poems
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