Odes 3.3

Romulus becomes a God

This, the third of Horace’s series of six major Alcaic poems about the state of the Roman world to begin his third book of Odes, is built around a tableau showing the Gods in Council some time after the end of the Trojan War and Rome’s foundation. Juno, Queen of the Gods, gives grudging agreement to the admission of Romulus, Rome’s founder, to Olympus as a God, and to the future greatness of the Romans – provided that misguided piety towards their Trojan origins does not lead them to rebuild Troy, of which she was the great enemy. The prominence given to this point has prompted some not particularly productive scholarly speculation – there was a contemporary city of Ilium with links to the Caesars – but the main message of the poem is surely that Juno’s divine prediction of Rome’s greatness has been borne out. Horace had very likely seen or heard a passage in the final book of his friend Virgil’s Aeneid in which Juno agrees to renounce the enmity towards Aeneas and his Trojans that she had maintained throughout the work to that point.

Metre: Alcaics.

See the illustrated blog post here.

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Iustum et tenacem propositi virum
non civium ardor prava iubentium,
non voltus instantis tyranni
mente quatit solida neque Auster,

dux inquieti turbidus Hadriae,
nec fulminantis magna manus Iovis:
si fractus inlabatur orbis,
inpavidum ferient ruinae.

hac arte Pollux et vagus Hercules
enisus arcis attigit igneas,
quos inter Augustus recumbens
purpureo bibet ore nectar,

hac te merentem, Bacche pater, tuae
vexere tigres indocili iugum
collo trahentes, hac Quirinus
Martis equis Acheronta fugit,

gratum elocuta consiliantibus
Iunone divis: “Ilion, Ilion
fatalis incestusque iudex
et mulier peregrina vertit

in pulverem ex quo destituit deos
mercede pacta Laomedon, mihi
castaeque damnatum Minervae
cum populo et duce fraudulento.

iam nec Lacaenae splendet adulterae
famosus hospes nec Priami domus
periura pugnacis Achivos
Hectoreis opibus refringit

nostrisque ductum seditionibus
bellum resedit; protinus et gravis
iras et invisum nepotem,
Troica quem peperit sacerdos,

Marti redonabo; illum ego lucidas
inire sedes, ducere nectaris
sucos et adscribi quietis
ordinibus patiar deorum.

dum longus inter saeviat Ilion
Romamque pontus, qualibet exsules
in parte regnanto beati;
dum Priami Paridisque busto

insultet armentum et catulos ferae
celent inultae, stet Capitolium
fulgens triumphatisque possit
Roma ferox dare iura Medis.

horrenda late nomen in ultimas
extendat oras, qua medius liquor
secernit Europen ab Afro,
qua tumidus rigat arva Nilus.

aurum inrepertum et sic melius situm,
cum terra celat, spernere fortior
quam cogere humanos in usus
omne sacrum rapiente dextra,

quicumque mundo terminus obstitit
hunc tanget armis, visere gestiens,
qua parte debacchentur ignes,
qua nebulae pluviique rores.

sed bellicosis fata Quiritibus
hac lege dico, ne nimium pii
rebusque fidentes avitae
tecta velint reparare Troiae.

Troiae renascens alite lugubri
fortuna tristi clade iterabitur
ducente victrices catervas
coniuge me Iovis et sorore.

ter si resurgat murus aeneus
auctore Phoebo, ter pereat meis
excisus Argivis, ter uxor
capta virum puerosque ploret”

non hoc iocosae conveniet lyrae —
quo, Musa, tendis? desine pervicax
referre sermones deorum et
magna modis tenuare parvis.

Not the passion of the citizens urging what is wrong, not the face of the threatening tyrant shakes a man who is just and keeps to his purpose once his mind is made up, nor the south wind, wild commander of the restless Adriatic Sea, nor the mighty hand of thundering Jupiter: if the world shatters and falls in, the ruins will strike him unafraid. This quality it was through which Pollux and the wandering Hercules after his labours reached the fiery citadels [of the Gods], between whom Augustus shall recline and drink nectar with mouth stained purple; it was through this quality, Father Bacchus, that your tigers bore you [there] as you deserved, drawing your chariot with their untameable necks, through this that Romulus escaped Acheron, borne by the horses of Mars, when Juno spoke what found favour with the Gods in council. “Troy, Troy, an unclean and fatal judge and a foreign woman turn to dust, delivered to my and the chaste Minerva’s condemnation along with its deceitful people and leader ever since the time when Laomedon cheated Gods of their promised reward. Now her infamous guest no longer glitters for the Spartan adulteress, and the perjured house of Priam no longer fights off the warlike Greeks with Hector’s help; the war, drawn out by dissensions among ourselves, has subsided, and I will now relent forthwith towards Mars over my grave causes for complaint and that hateful grandson [of mine, Romulus,] that a Trojan priestess bore: I will suffer him to enter our shining home, drink the essence of our nectar and be admitted to the serene ranks of the Gods. While the great length of sea rages between Ilion and Rome, let the exiles reign in any region that they wish. For as long as herds may jump over the pyre of Priam and Paris, and wild beasts may hide their offspring there unmolested, let the shining Capitol stand, and let fierce Rome be able to dictate conditions to Parthians over whom they have triumphed; striking fear, let her extend her name abroad where the waters between part Europe from Africa, where the swelling Nile waters the fields. Better able to disdain undiscovered gold – which is better placed, while the earth conceals it, to help strengthen their resolve, rather than snatch into their hands all that is sacred and force it into the service of humankind – whatever furthest bound hems in the world, let them reach in arms, burning to see in what regions fires range freely, and in which mist and drizzling rain. But I pronounce this fate for the warlike Romans on a condition: that they should not form the wish out of misguided piety and trust in their fortunes to rebuild the roofs of Troy. Troy’s fate, should it under evil omen be reborn, will be repeated with grim destruction, and I, wife and sister of Jupiter, will be leading the conquering forces. If the wall should rise again three times, created by Apollo in bronze, three times let it perish, hewn down by my Greeks, three times let the enslaved wife mourn her husband and sons.” But this does not suit my good-humoured lyre – where, Muse, are you leading? Stop repeating the speeches of the Gods so wilfully, and trim down these great themes to fit my little strains.

More Poems by Horace

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