This chapter looks at potential allusions in Horace’s Odes to the religious buildings in Rome known to have been constructed or substantially repaired by Augustus. These major construction projects in Rome in the Augustan period are naturally a topic of interest to contemporary poets; in the case of the Odes, it can be argued that there are many points of contact between poetic and architectural artefacts, and even that the Roman literary achievement of the Augustan poet as proclaimed in Odes 3.30 can be paralleled with a Roman architectural project of Augustus himself. It is also interesting to note that though Horace’s Odes contain a number of potential allusions to a range of projects in the considerable programme of temple construction and renovation later carefully recorded by Augustus in the Res gestae, there are no allusions to the Temple of Diuus Iulius, perhaps because the memory of Julius Caesar was felt to be too problematic.

Chapter 3 analyses the carpe diem motif in Horace from an innovative angle. It argues that we gain a better understanding of the motif if we read it against the background of Horace’s literary criticism in the Ars Poetica. In the Ars Poetica, Horace compares a language’s lexical development to leaves falling from a tree: while some words disappear, old ones return. Both the image of leaves and the understanding of time as cyclical are also part of Horace’s poetry of carpe diem. The chapter shows that the poems as well as the individual words of which they consist evoke present enjoyment. The chapter combines innovative work on Horace’s literary criticism with new interpretations of some of Horace’s most famous Odes, including the ode to Leuconoe, C. 1.11. The chapter reveals the importance of Horace’s choice of words for his poetics of presence.

Chapters 2 analyses the carpe diem motif in Horace and pays particular attention to wine and calendars. In doing so, the chapter shows how Horace’s lyric is distinct from any lyric poem that was written in archaic Greece. Rich Romans possessed thousands of wine amphorae, and consular dates marked the age of each amphora. The chapter argues that this made wine storage places into huge drinkable calendars, in which the oldest wines were stored at the back, and the younger wines at the front. Every time Horace mentions vintage wines, he accesses this calendar. Time is expressed through wine: opening an old wine creates a moment of present enjoyment, which cannot be repeated. Yet, through vintage wines Horace also brings moments of the past to the present. The chapter combines close readings of some of Horace’s poems with research into epigraphical sources, and ultimately advances our understanding of Roman calendars and fasti.

Over the course of his career Horace shows a variety of ways of referring to the way that readers are reacting to his work. In the Satires and Epistles he regularly makes references to his reception, but in the Epodes and Odes—following archaic and classical Greek precedent—he never does. The chapter argues that the main reason for these choices is that Horace was simultaneously keen to be famous and appalled at the idea of his poetry being vulgarised by a mass audience.