Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Prologue
- Acknowledgements
- 1 HORACE'S BIRTHDAY AND DEATHDAY
- 2 AMICVS CERTVS IN RE INCERTA CERNITVR: Epode I
- 3 DREAMING ABOUT QUIRINUS: Horace's Satires and the development of Augustan poetry
- 4 BIFORMIS VATES: the Odes, Catullus and Greek lyric
- 5 THE ODES: just where do you draw the line?
- 6 A WINE-JAR FOR MESSALLA: Carmina 3.21
- 7 FEMININE ENDINGS, LYRIC SEDUCTIONS
- 8 THE UNIQUENESS OF THE CARMEN SAECVLARE AND ITS TRADITION
- 9 SOLVS SAPIENS LIBER EST: recommissioning lyric in Epistles 1
- 10 POETRY, PHILOSOPHY, POLITICS AND PLAY: Epistles 1
- 11 HORACE, CICERO AND AUGUSTUS, OR THE POET STATESMAN AT EPISTLES 2.1.256
- 12 VNA CVM SCRIPTORE MEO: poetry, Principate and the traditions of literary history in the Epistle to Augustus
- 13 EPILOGUE
- Notes
- Abbreviations and bibliography
- Indexes
1 - HORACE'S BIRTHDAY AND DEATHDAY
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Prologue
- Acknowledgements
- 1 HORACE'S BIRTHDAY AND DEATHDAY
- 2 AMICVS CERTVS IN RE INCERTA CERNITVR: Epode I
- 3 DREAMING ABOUT QUIRINUS: Horace's Satires and the development of Augustan poetry
- 4 BIFORMIS VATES: the Odes, Catullus and Greek lyric
- 5 THE ODES: just where do you draw the line?
- 6 A WINE-JAR FOR MESSALLA: Carmina 3.21
- 7 FEMININE ENDINGS, LYRIC SEDUCTIONS
- 8 THE UNIQUENESS OF THE CARMEN SAECVLARE AND ITS TRADITION
- 9 SOLVS SAPIENS LIBER EST: recommissioning lyric in Epistles 1
- 10 POETRY, PHILOSOPHY, POLITICS AND PLAY: Epistles 1
- 11 HORACE, CICERO AND AUGUSTUS, OR THE POET STATESMAN AT EPISTLES 2.1.256
- 12 VNA CVM SCRIPTORE MEO: poetry, Principate and the traditions of literary history in the Epistle to Augustus
- 13 EPILOGUE
- Notes
- Abbreviations and bibliography
- Indexes
Summary
In every human life there are two days of special significance – birthday and deathday. The first is marked with a rubric in the diary, while the second lurks unknown among all the leaves of the year. In Rome birthdays were noted and celebrated throughout life and sometimes afterwards, but deathdays were less liable to leave a permanent mark, unless the deceased was an emperor or a Christian saint. Cases where an individual's precise dates are recorded are rare, and of all Latin authors up to the fifth century ad only five – apart from Caesars and saints with literary pretensions – appear to qualify. Horace is one of the few, and it seems worthwhile to review the evidence for his lifespan and to examine what he himself had to say about his beginning and his end.
THE TRADITION
The dates commonly quoted in modern biographical notices are derived from the Vita which is ascribed with plausibility to Suetonius and which ends with the following passage (unamended):
Natus est VI Idus Decembris L. Cotta et L. Torquato consulibus [8.12.65], decessit V Kal. Decembris C. Marcio Censorino et C. Asinio Gallo consulibus [27.11.8] post nonum et quinquagesimum annum herede Augusto palam nuncupato, cum urgente ui ualetudinis non sufficeret ad obsignandas testamenti tabulas. humatus et conditus est extremis Esquiliis iuxta Maecenatis tumulum.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Traditions and Contexts in the Poetry of Horace , pp. 1 - 16Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2002
- 1
- Cited by