The tension and interplay between town and country form a key theme in Horace’s poetry, and have significant philosophical and ideological implications. This chapter seeks to explore this important poetic material and its presentation in the different genres and periods of Horace’s output.

A divided existence?

The theme of town and country appears in the first programmatic poem of Horace’s first poetry book, Satires (35 BC) - Satires 1.1.8-9:

This split between urban and rural life, here couched in the ironic context of criticising mempsimoiria, discontent with one’s own lot, and applied to lifestyles paradigmatic of the two environments, is a major Horatian topic. Like most Romans of the first century BC, Horace’s existence, both practical and poetical, oscillated between rus and urbs: the tension between his natural inclination for the quiet life in the country, with its peaceful space for reading, writing and thinking, and the bustle of Rome, with its round of social and other duties, is often brought out in his work.