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'ECCE HOMO AMORE!'


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POSTSCRIPT TO THE LIFE OF HORACE

Fraenkel's major work on Horace leaves us with the clear, magnificent image of the professional poet but with only the vague, two–dimensional image of the man himself, one with whom it is virtually impossible to come to terms as a person of human virtues and failings. Quinn‘s more pragmatic work on the Odes allows us to see a little way behind the profile of the perfect poet, enough for us to want to know much more about this creative genius than the substance of his poetical output. But both of these authors seem content to leave Horace's poetic methodology to speak for the man as well as the poet, as though that were sufficient in itself. With diffidence, it is suggested that this cannot provide the total answer nor unlock the enigma of the man himself. Without wishing to enter into any Existential philosophical argument, creative genius is a natural force that is shaped by environment, upbringing and experience. It is only the output of such creative genius that may be initially constrained and directed by external conventions. The maturing of that creative genius, to bring out any measure of innovation, must proceed by way of experience itself rather than by copying what has gone before.

To seek out the real man behind the inscrutable face that history has assigned to Horace it has been necessary to look, not at his epic and laudatory poetry but at his personal poetry. For it is only by searching for inter–personal relationships that one is able to observe the private, as opposed to the public face of the man himself. The poetry of real, emotional love is the one genre in which there is little striking of false attitudes or of self posturing in such personal relationships. The deep emotions and all the rigours of love expose the true character of a man. By assuming the love poems to be autobiographical and the record of a set of sequential events in his life, it has been possible to gain a glimpse of human side of Horace. It is hoped that, that in creating a sort of inner life of Horace, this book has served to flesh out the bare bones of Suetonius's Life of Horace and equip them with the frailities and strengths of the common man and help form the persona of a living, breathing individual

When Horace returned to Rome, after Philippi, he would have been in his early twenties, the age of the angry young man. Whether he had begun to write love poetry by that time cannot be verified but examination of his output would certainly place Epodes 8 and 12 and Satire 1, 2. within that period. Horace is certainly the indignant, angry young man in these two Epodes and very much the arrogant, self–certain and uncompromising youth in the Satire. Epode 8 is not just about the lusts of older women but it contains a young man's contempt for the rich life and the intellectual pretensions that are often part of it. Hence the silken cushions and the Stoic pamphlets; the harsh descriptions of the idle rich and the way they seek and demand their pleasures. Epode 12 is also a youthful diatribe; against the power of wealth and how it can command any service it chooses by the exercise of that power, the imtemperance it allows its possessor, the artifices it attracts and the utter lack of moral scruples to which it descends. The woman buys Horace with money and gifts and treats him as merchandise that must provide pleasure. Satire 1, 2. is a young man's view of sexual gratificaton for its own sake, one in which any notion of love is absent. In an older man what would appear as world weary cynicism emerges as a succession of simplistic, youthful vignettes in stark black and white; there is never a hint of a compromising grey. It can in no way be seen to be chauvinistic, only as a youthful, superficial comprehension of an enjoyable activity shorn of any deeper relationship.

In Epode 12 Horace is seen to be already involved with Inachia but in Epode 11 he is at least three years older and recovering from his first serious bout of being in love. Inachia has passed out of his life, presumably to another man, and Horace has realised, belatedly, that there is much more to love than mere sexual gratification. There is still a residue of the angry young man where Horace flaunts convention and the advice of friends by seeking a homosexual relationship with Lyciscus thereby showing scorn for further heterosexual affairs. However, Epode 15 shows Horace involved, heterosexually, with Neaera, having presumably parted with Lyciscus after a very short time. He is unlucky again, Neaera is involved with another man, one who can offer her riches with which Horace cannot compete. Horace is bitter and vestiges of the angry young man are still visible. In Epode 14, he has the friendship and influence of Maecenas to help but possibly resents his dependence upon it since he is very ascerbic in reply to an assumed criticism. Once again he is having trouble in his affairs with women, this time with a freedwoman named Phryne. He neatly turns the criticism back on Maecenas by reminding him of his own dependence on the young actor Bathyllus. However, by the time he wrote Ode I, 5 Horace is clearly over his angry young man stage. In this Ode to Pyrrha there is a touching maturity and acceptance that love often takes far more than it gives; that the rewards it offers are like harvests and must be reaped and enjoyed as they occur. There is no guarantee that they will perpetuate.

Lydia is a major factor in Horace's life for during her dominance he grows from angry young man to maturity. In the first of four Odes, I, 8, he is an observer of her power over men, particularly his friend Sybaris, who is swept off his feet by the emotion of the moment, forgetting his friends and his masculine pursuits. In Ode I, 13 he becomes involved himself and finds himself the possessive lover, jealously guarding his beloved from his friends and behaving foolishly himself. Already we see that Horace has passed beyond youth sufficiently to see them, not as rivals, but possessing the attributes of youth with which he now cannot compete. In Ode I, 25, Horace is the passed–over lover once again but anger is now replaced by a philosophic acceptance. Rather than castigate Lydia for choosing another he reminds her that time is on his side rather than hers and that, in turn, she will suffer the same indifference. Ode III, 9, is an effervescent work, bubbling over with joy, sly humour and a sense of the ridiculousness that love, in retrospect, confers upon its participants. It is by a mature Horace, in years and poetical craftmanship, written much later in his life and after being involved with Glycera and Chloe.

Horace's affairs with Glycera and Chloe are the real watershed in his life because we sense that, during this time, Horace reaches the years of discretion where he begins to question whether the pursuit of love as a pleasure is really worth the effort it requires, both mentally and physically. Glycera is really too hot for him to handle and the very young Chloe, although a sop to his middle–aged vanity, is the quintessimal adolescent still partially imprisoned in childhood. More and more Horace has to call on divine help. In Ode I, 19, he addresses Venus, blaming her for filling him with desire for the young Glycera and saying that he is now mature and past such frivolous, young love. Yet he admits that he is flattered by the attentions of this younger woman and is prepared to behave accordingly and play the youth again. We see him, now rich and established, with the help of servants, setting the scene for her seduction. But, in Ode I, 30, he again appeals to Venus to bring with her, Juvena the Goddess of Youth and Mercury, the God, among other things, of virility. The implication seems obvious. There is a feeling of relief in Ode I, 33, when he commiserates with a friend at having been jilted by Glycera and admits that he, now rid of Glycera himself, is passing time with the freedwoman, Myrtal. The two odes to Chloe end this phase in his life when he admits that he has reached a stage where he intends to pursue love no more. Ode I, 23, records his attempt to attract the love of a very young girl, still at her mother's side. Ode III, 26, records his disillusion with the whole business of love, vowing to lay down his arms in the warfare of love. He invokes Venus one more time to awaken Chloe to his desires but his heart is not really involved.

With Lyce Horace enters full maturity where the pursuit of love is at a more gentle pace and where mutual satisfaction is the aim of both parties. In Ode II, 10, he addresses Lyce in matter–of–fact terms pointing out the realities of their respective situations and advising her against striking false attitudes when their mutual need is self evident. In Ode IV, 13, some years have passed when he meets Lyce again and while admonishing her for failing to give age its due is struck with the sudden realisation that it has overtaken them both. Ligurinus is a Roman youth and the subject of two late odes in which Horace is attracted by his youthful beauty. No longer the angry young men with a desire to shock, it is by no means clear if Horace's interest is physical but since the love does not appear to have been consumnated, except in Horace's dreams, it is perhaps not relevant to even speculate. Certainly these are the last of the recognisable love poems, Horace is fifty years of age, successful, assured in an easy lifestyle and women are no longer a challenge. The youth Ligurinus must have represented as much a vision of lost youth as an object of desire and with him the wheel seems to have turned full circle.

The poems written specifically for friends, such as Lycimnia and Torquatus, those containing advice on problems of love, such as Phyllis and Lalage and the critical poems to Barine and Chloris, do not add substantially to what may be obtained from the poems where he himself is actively involved in close relationships. The life can be construed from a study of the love poems is cohesive and believable. Horace is seen to progress through recognisable stages as a living human being rather than a professional poet. He experiences grief and joy, he comments rationally on life in general and is seen to be as fallible as the rest of us in matters of the heart. It allows us to renew our love of his poetry with the knowledge that it was written not only with the precision of perfect and immaculate poetical vision but with the common fears and frailities of the ordinary man.