In this, the only poem that Horace (or any other Latin poet) ever wrote in the unusual metre of ionicus a minore, a young girl is distracted from her spinning and weaving by a handsome horseman who embodies all the martial skills and values that Augustus was keen to encourage in the Romans of his time. She (or is it Horace?) compares him to Bellerophon, the mythical rider who tamed Pegasus, the winged horse. The illustration is a Roman mosaic discovered in Autun.
Hear Horace’s Latin and follow in English here.