Tag: horace

True riches and the throne of Cyrus

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Looking for an example to show why wealth is not necessarily the key to happiness, Horace chooses Phraates, who was restored to the throne of Parthia in 25 BCE. The message is that the crown and authority of a king must always be uncertain: only the man who can maintain a philosophical indifference to such things can truly possess them.

The illustration shows a famous mosaic from Pompeii of Alexander the Great defeating King Darius, an earlier holder of the “throne of Cyrus” at the battle of Issus, some three centuries before Horace’s time.

Hear Horace’s Latin and follow in English here.

Two garlands and a cup of wine

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In the last poem of his first book of Odes, Horace celebrates with a drink in the shade of a closely tangled vine, served by a single slave. Both wear myrtle crowns for the occasion, chosen for their simplicity, as Horace stresses. The garland that the beautiful Antinous wears in this bust from the British Museum is of ivy, sacred to Bacchus/Dionysus.

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

Valgius’s lost Mystes

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This ode is addressed to one of Horace’s brother-poets, a love-elegist called Valgius. Read literally, it seems to urge Valgius to come to terms with the loss of a male lover, Mystes, but it may be more about the kind of poetry that Valgius has been writing than a real-life bereavement. “Mystes” is a Greek name and means someone who has been initiated into religious mysteries such as those practised at Eleusis in Greece. Hear Horace’s Latin and follow in English here.

The illustration is a 4th century BCE votive plaque from Eleusis showing a scene from the mysteries, photo George E. Koronaios, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons.

Wealth and virtue

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Echoing Stoic philosophy, Horace commends indifference to riches and makes the point that they are of value only when put to use. Hear Horace’s Latin and follow in English here; see the illustrated blog post here.

Wealth does not buy happiness

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Odi profanum volgus et arceo, omne capax movet urna nomen, post equitem sedet atra cura – “I despise the profane crowd, I banish them”; “(Destiny’s) capacious urn shakes every name together”; “behind the rider sits black Care”. These, among Horace’s most famous phrases, all occur in the first poem in his third book of Odes. It is “carpe diem” with a difference: the more you have, the more there is for you to worry about, and the answer is to be content with modest comforts and avoid the temptations of greed and excess. It is no coincidence that, at the time, the Emperor Augustus was championing a return to simpler, ancestral, Roman values. Hear Horace’s Latin and follow in English here.

Wine and friendship

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Horace offers his friend and patron Maecenas friendship, simple wine and a memory of a cherished occasion. Hear Horace’s Latin and follow in English here; see the illustrated blog post here.

Wine the consoler

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Greece is beautiful, says Horace, but Tibur – home of the Famous Plancus – is more beautiful still, says Horace. Hear Horace’s Latin and follow in English here; see the illustrated blog post here.

Wine, not worry

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You can’t do anything about what is happening on the frontiers – have a drink instead, says Horace. Hear Horace’s Latin and follow in English here; see the illustrated blog post here.

Wooing Phyllis

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A middle-aged Horace attempts, in the last Book of his Odes, to seduce Phyllis, who will, he says, be his last love. He just might be describing a real attraction, with the names changed, or be reworking a Greek model as a purely literary exercise: we will never know, but the poetry is beautiful, and vintage Horace. Hear his Latin and follow in a new English translation here.

The illustration is a Greek girl, by the classicising Victorian painter, Alma-Tadema.