56–60. “When first introduced, I showed due modesty and simply recounted who I was.” Singultim = “stammeringly.”
Pudor prohibebat plura profari: note the alliterative stutter. Pudor was a positive value. It represented the internalized sense of shame a proper Roman citizen possessed. The best account is in Kaster (1997).
Satureiano … caballo = “a Tarentine nag.” The area around Tarentum was renowned for its vast and pleasant estates. Caballus, however, was the vulgar term for equus. The mixture of high and low registers in diction and social status reveal the pretentiousness of any such claim on Horace’s part.
60–2. Maecenas responds but briefly. After nine months Horace is officially invited to join his circle.
62–4. I consider this a great thing, since you judge me by my life not birth. Non patre praeclaro directly recalls line 58, claro natum patre, which in turn calls to mind the earlier cited examples of lines ending in patre natum and natus.
65–78. “In fact, my father was the cause of my advancement! But, not in the usual fashion. He taught me to shun vice and embrace virtue.” We are reminded of the picture of Horace’s father in 1.4.103–43 using examples drawn from daily life to teach his son. It was from this habit, Horace tells us, that he took up the practice of writing satire. The phrase vitiis mediocribus is an echo of 1.4.139–40. Thus, Horace ties together his birth, his practice of satire, and his pursuit of virtue. 1.4, 1.5, and 1.6 constitute a comprehensive meditation on the theory, practice, and social context of satire at the dawn of the Augustan age.
Naevos = “moles.”
68. Lustra = “bogs” and thus “brothels.” It often functioned as metonymy for debauchery.
71. Macro … agello = “a meager little plot.” Agellus is the diminutive of ager. Horace’s father’s poverty should not be taken too literally. He had sufficient resources to procure a first-rate education for his son and enough slaves to be able to leave his fields in their charge while he saw to the education of his son. This would not have been an opportunity open to the average Roman peasant or subsistence farmer. Horace’s father’s poverty is relative to that of the senators and equestrians with whose sons the poet went to school.
72. Flavi ludum = “the school of Flavius,” Flavius was a grammaticus in Venusia.
Magni … magnis: the repetition underlines the bitter sarcasm. Veterans had been given land grants in Venusia and constituted the local aristocracy.
73. Orti = “sprung from.” Note Horace’s avoidance of the colorless word.
74. Loculos tabulamque = “satchel and writing tablet,” the latter was made of wood and covered with wax into which the letters were incised.
75. Octonos … aeris = eight coppers. Teachers, then as now, were poorly paid.
Idibus: bills were paid on the Kalends and the Ides.
76. Est ausus: Horace’s father has already stepped beyond his station in seeking to educate his son at Rome in the same fashion as the child of a senator or an eques.
78–80. Horace’s father spared no expense so that the boy would appear to come from aristocratic stock. In magno ut populo: the exact translation of this passage is disputed, although the general sense is clear. The most natural Latin would be “as in a great mass of people.” This would indicate first what is customary in the crowded city of Rome, as opposed to provincial Venusia. Second, it would pick up on magni … magnis in lines 72–3. The magnus populus would be those who are truly great, as opposed to the pretensions of the rural magnates.
Avita … re = “ancestral fortune.”
81–2. Custos: Roman boys were accompanied by a guardian who was a trusted family slave. He was charged with the boy’s moral and physical well-being. Horace’s father here plays the servile part, but this serves as a marker of his concern with virtue. His nobility is manifested in his willingness to play an ignoble part.
82–8. “He watched for my reputation nor gave a thought to his.” Horace’s father, on a quiet bourgeois level, is the model of Roman self-sacrifice in the name of pietas (“duty to family, state, and the gods”), which on the heroic level was represented by characters like Aeneas and Horatius at the bridge. Pudicum: pudor often refers to sexual modesty and purity. Tales of predatory pederasts seeking positions as tutors of handsome boys are a staple of Roman comic literature.
Turpi refers both to facto and to opprobrio.
Vitio … verteret = an idiom, “should reproach him.” The essence of the charge is that Horace’s father is reaching beyond his station for a boy who is bound to follow in his footsteps as an auctioneer (praeco) or collector of debts (coactor). People who worked for wages were looked down upon as not fully free. They sold their time and abilities in the same way as a slave’s whole person was sold. In traditional Roman terms, only those who lived off the incomes of their estates or large-scale mercantile ventures were truly free.
Neque ego essem questus: a contrary to fact use of the pluperfect potential subjunctive.
89–92. I am as proud of my father as if I had been born of aristocratic parents.
Paeniteat < paeniteo, –ere: “to cause regret or sorrow,” usually used in the impersonal with an accusative of person affected and genitive of reference.
Eoque non … sic me defendam = “and I would not defend myself in this fashion.”
Dolo is a technical legal usage that, as the scholiasts tell us, is equivalent to vitio or culpa. i.e., most defend themselves from the charge of base birth by responding that it is not their fault.
92–9. “Given the choice, I would have the same parents again.” A certis annis = “from a certain age.”
Remeare = “to live again.”
Ad fastum = “for the sake of pride.”
Honestos = “those who have been honored,” as in the cursus honorum.
Fascibus: the fasces were the symbols of office of consuls, praetors, curule aediles, and quaestors, as was the sella curulis.
Tuo: Porphyrion says this is addressed to Maecenas. Understand iudicio again. Maecenas, while possessing great power and influence, never held formal office and remained an equestrian.
99. Nollem … molestum: Horace redefines libertas as freedom from the burden of office. This was the opposite of libertas as understood by the traditional Roman aristocracy, who defined freedom as the power to rule oneself and others.
100–4. Political life means not controlling one’s destiny, but being subject to the conventions and expectations of others. This is an argument for Epicurean quietism [26].
Maior quaerenda foret res: the pursuit of wealth and power is never ending and never satisfied. This is certainly good advice to the disenfranchised political grandees of the late republic just prior to the dawn of the principate. But it applies equally well to Octavian as he neared a final showdown with Antony at Actium.
Salutandi plures: Horace refers to the morning salutatio, a daily ritual in which clients went to their patrons’ houses at the crack of dawn to greet them and sometimes accompany them to the Forum. An aspiring young politician would have a very demanding schedule of morning rounds among the rich and powerful. A successful politician could expect an all but endless stream of well-wishers and favor-seekers.
Peregre = an adverb, “to a foreign country, abroad.”
Calones atque caballi: the pretender to power must maintain a vast retinue of retainers and livestock. On caballus, see line 59. On calones, see 1.2.42.
Pertorrita = “four-wheeled Gallic carriages.”
104–9. “Now I am free to go where I please, how I please.” Curto … mulo: a gelded mule is not only a humble means of transport, but also a metaphor for Horace’s own estate.
Usque Tarentum: recall that in 1.5 this was where Maecenas and Cocceius were to meet up with Antony, but Horace and his satire are cut short in Brundisium.
Mantica = “saddle bags.”
Armos = “shoulders.” The image of the mule weighed down by Horace and his baggage is comic.
Sordis = accusative plur
al, “meanness.” Roman officials were expected to travel in a style befitting their rank. The fact that Tillius’s train consists of only five slaves (pueri) is taken as evidence of his humble origins.
Tiburte < Tiburs, –burtis: “pertaining to the village of Tibur” (modern Tivoli).
Lasanum … oenophorumque = “chamber pot and wine cask.” As Kiessling and Heinze (1999) note, these are things that would normally be packed away in a wagon. But poor Tillius’s meager entourage is forced to parade his personal items through the street. A number of commentators attempt to translate lasanum as “cook pot,” but the gloss of the scholiast is clear. See also Petronius 41.9. The argument for a greater parallelism between the cooking utensil and the wine cask, in addition to suffering from a lack of evidence and being transparently based on prudishness, fails to recognize the frequent identification of food and excrement in the comic and grotesque tradition (Bakhtin 1968, Miller 1998). Besides, the parallelism remains in the literal translation, as a comic chiasmus links the result of consumption with its precondition.
110–18. “My life is better than that of a famous senator.” This passage concludes with one of the classic genre scenes of Roman literature: Horace at his humble table. The picture of his daily routine represents more an Epicurean ideal than reality. The poet as we know from other poems had social and political obligations to Maecenas and Augustus. He also certainly devoted more time to writing and study than pictured here [26].
Libido est = libet,
Percontor = “I inquire.”
Quanti = genitive of price.
Holus = “vegetables.”
Far = “spelt.”
Fallacem Circum: the Circus Maximus was a favorite gathering place for hucksters and mountebanks. The scholiast notes that the circus was also deceptive in itself since the outcomes of the races, on which substantial sums were bet, was uncertain.
Vespertinumque: in the evening, when the day’s business was done, the Forum became a popular gathering spot. For Horace, the forum matinale of legal and political business is to be avoided.
Divinis: He listens to the fortune-tellers. Horace’s life is that of the sophisticated flâneur.
115. Ad porri et ciceris … et laganique catinum: “for a dish of fritters, chickpeas, and leeks.” Horace returns home for a simple vegetarian meal, yet that simplicity is deceptive. The last two words are Greek. This is a cultivated simplicity.
116. Pueris tribus: a modest, but hardly poverty stricken service.
Lapis albus: “a plain white marble table” as Porphyrion explains
117. Cyatho < cyathus, –i: “ladle,” another Greek term.
Echinus: another Greek term. The scholiasts offer a variety of guesses about the nature and material of this utensil. The literal meaning of the word is “sea urchin.” Many assume it is a salt cellar.
118. Gutus = “a narrow-necked jug.”
Campana supellex = “Campanian crockery,” i.e. everyday earthenware.
119–21. “My sleep is untroubled by thoughts of the next day’s obligations.” Horace defines freedom as otium and inertia, “leisure” and “idleness.” See Tibullus 1.1. Dormitum = supine with verb of motion.
Mane = “crack of dawn.”
Marsya < Marsyas: Greek third-declension noun, the name of a satyr flayed by Apollo after challenging the god to a musical contest. He was remarkable for his ugliness. A statue of him stood in the Forum near the rostra, and other such statues are found in similar contexts in other cities. He appears to stand for presumption punished and was pictured with one hand raised. Horace’s joke is that not even Marsyas can bear the ugly face of the younger Novius (Noviorum … minoris) and so holds up his hand to stop him from entering the Forum. The combined image of the busy patronus rushing off to the Forum and Novius’s homely mug (vultum) creates a moment of comic bathos.
122–4. “When you are up about your business, greeting clients and head off to court, I’m still in bed.” Quartam: see 1.5.23–6.
Lecto … scripto = frequentative verbs, as Porphyrion notes.
Unguor olivo = “I am rubbed down with oil” preparatory to a ball game.
Quo: the antecedent is olivo. Natta is otherwise unknown. He is rubbed down with oil destined for his lamps (lucernis). This would be of a lower grade than that normally used for personal care. Horace’s life is modest, but far from rustic or mean. The humorous image of Natta smearing himself with oil stolen (fraudatis) from his own (or others’) lamps should be noted.
125–6. “After some light exercise, it’s off to the baths.” Lavatum: supine with verb of motion.
Trigonem < trigo, –onis: a ball game with players at the apexes of a triangle. Small round balls were thrown and caught, much like a game of catch with a baseball, only without gloves.
127–8. Then, after a light lunch, I laze around the house. Interpellet < interpello, –are: “to prevent,” subjunctive with quantum in a clause of purpose. Understand me as the subject of durare.
Domesticus otior is a humorous periphrasis. Otior is a verb formed from otium and only found once before in a humorous context in Cicero. The scholiast labels it a Horatian coinage. Domesticus is here used to mean domi.
128–30. I would not trade my life for all the honors the republic and illustrious ancestors have to offer. Misera ambitione gravique: compare prava ambitione, lines 51–2. Note the initial ambiguity of misera. Because of the elision between it and ambitione the quantity of the final syllable is impossible to determine. The reader only realizes that it must be ablative and modify ambitione, rather than nominative and modify vita, at gravique. Of course, to the typical Roman aristocrat, motivated by the pursuit of wealth and office, Horace’s life is misera. But from Horace’s perspective, the shoe is on the other foot.
Victurum < vivo, –ere, vixi, victus.
1.9
Horace is bothered by a social climber envious of his access to Maecenas. Many think the pest in question is Propertius. The identification is most uncertain. It is based on the facts that the pest uses clearly identified neoteric vocabulary, identified with that of the elegists [2], and that Propertius was finishing his first book at this time, on the strength of which he was offered admission into Maecenas’s charmed circle [64].
The main problem with the identification, however, is not that it is false. In fact, there is no way of knowing who the pest was or if an actual person lies behind the comic portraiture. What is demonstrably true, however, is that any attempt to reduce this poem to the level of the clever anecdote is a vast oversimplification. Beyond its manifest status as an exercise in character drawing, 1.9 works on at least four other interconnected levels.
First, it begins and ends with direct imitations of Lucilius. In the last instance, Horace imitates in Latin a line from Homer Lucilius had cited in the original Greek. Horace criticizes Lucilius for this mixing of languages in 1.10.20–1. Thus, 1.9 continues the practice of stylistic imitation and simultaneous criticism of Horace’s generic predecessor seen in 1.4 and 1.5.
Second, as Anderson (1982: 84–102) has shown, the satire is shot through with military vocabulary. Maecenas is portrayed as a city to be besieged by Horace’s overeager companion. Horace himself, in the line he imitates from Lucilius, is portrayed as Hector at the end of the Iliad, saved by Apollo, god of poets. The mock epic language both deflates the poetaster’s pretensions and humorously portrays Horace as unable to fend off the assault of his determined foe.
Third, poem 1.9 functions in an analogous structural fashion to 1.5 earlier in the collection. Where 1.5 presented itself as a straightforward anecdotal account of a journey, 1.9 presents itself as a straightforward anecdotal account of a personal encounter. Where 1.5 was an imitation and correction of Lucilius, which was sandwiched between a more direct discussion of Lucilius’s style and an evocation of Maecenas and his coterie, 1.9 is an imitation and correction of Lucilius that immediately precedes a direct discussion of Lucilius in the context of a poem on Horace’s relationship
to Maecenas and his coterie. Lastly, where 1.5 portrayed itself as a purely personal poem, while actually being a work of no small political import, 1.9’s day in the life of Horace reveals much about how the inner workings of Maecenas’s circle were meant to be perceived by the world at large.
Fourth, poem 1.9 is indirectly a poem about Maecenas and the new model of a post-republican aristocracy he and those gathered around Augustus were striving—even if only subconsciously—to create. As Rudd put it so well:
Maecenas and his friends knew very well that this was their poem. Not only were they the object of the pest’s endeavours, but without them the whole episode would have been inconceivable. As they listened to Horace’s account of the fellow’s efforts to ingratiate himself their amusement must have been spiced with a dash of self-congratulation. Secure in their own eminence they could smile on the antics of the social climber.
(1982: 82–3)
Of course, as we know from 1.6, the real social climber was none other than Horace himself.
1–5. “I happened to be going down the Sacred Way completely absorbed in my own thoughts, when I was accosted by a man I barely knew.” Ibam forte: ibat forte begins two lines in Lucilius (1159 and 16.535). Most think the echo deliberate.
Via Sacra: one of the main roads in central Rome. It was lined with temples.
Nugarum: a common neoteric euphemism for light poetic verse. See Catullus 1. As Timothy Johnson notes (2004: chapter 1), the pest’s greeting, dulcissime rerum, and Horace’s response, suaviter, are equally Catullan. Horace’s additional ut nunc est could be read one of two ways: “as things are now,” i.e. I’m doing fine for the moment, but if you keep bugging me it could change; or “as is said now,” i.e. I can speak this same poetic lingo too, if I choose. These are clearly two poets marking off their ideological and aesthetic territories.
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