Studies in the Poetry of Italy, Part I. Roman

by Frank Justus Miller

Few Roman writers are more frankly autobiographical than Horace. His odes, epodes, satires, and epistles are full of his own personality and history. From various references in these poems, we learn that he was born in 65 B. C., in Venusia, a municipal town in Apulia; that his father was a freedman, a small farmer, and debt collector by trade; that he was educated in Rome under his father's personal care; that he finished his education in Athens, where he eagerly imbibed Greek philosophy and literature. But now the long storm of civil war, which had attended the rise of Julius Cæsar and the struggle between that leader and Pompey for supremacy, and which had been temporarily allayed by the complete ascendency of Cæsar, broke out afresh with renewed violence upon the assassination of the great dictator. The verse of Horace, especially in his odes, is full of the consciousness of this civil strife, and of deep and sincere regret for its consequence to the state.

The young student was just twenty-one years of age when the fall of Cæsar startled the world. And when Brutus reached Athens on his way to Macedonia, and called upon the young Romans there to rally to the republic and liberty, the ardent heart of the youthful Horace responded to the summons. He joined the ill-fated army of the liberators, was made a military tribune, and served as such until the disastrous day of Philippi, when Horace's military and political ambition left him forever, together with all hope which he may have cherished of the lost cause. He made his way back to Rome under shelter of the amnesty which the merciful conqueror had granted, and there found himself in an unfortunate plight indeed; for his father was now dead, his modest estate lost, probably swallowed up in the general confiscations, and he himself with neither money, friends, nor occupation. He managed in some way, however, to secure a small clerkship, the income from which served to keep the wolf from his humble door.

But in this obscure, unfriended clerk one was now walking the streets of Rome to whom Rome's proudest and most princely mansions were before many years to open as to a welcome guest. For he carried within him, concealed in a most unpretentious personality, a rich store of education, experience, and genius, which was to prove the open sesame for him to the world's best gifts. To the exercise of this genius he now turned; and the appearance of the earliest of his satires, with perhaps some of his odes and epodes as well, was the result. All these things and much more the poet tells us, frankly giving the whole of his story with neither boasting on the one hand nor false pride on the other.

And now the event occurred which was the first link that bound Horace tangibly to his future greatness—his meeting with the poet Vergil, who was at this time famous and powerful in the friendship of Mæcenas, Pollio, and even the emperor himself. This sweet and generous-souled poet, recognizing the kindred spirit of genius in the youthful Horace, straightway admitted him to his own friendship, a friendship which is one of the most charming pictures of that brilliant age, and which was destined to endure unbroken until parted by the death of Vergil himself. It was Vergil who in due time introduced Horace to another friend, a man who was one of the great personages of that age, a leading statesman, a man of letters himself, and a generous patron of letters—Mæcenas, under whose sheltering patronage our poet grew and expanded to the full development of those poetic powers which first had brought him recognition.

From this shelter Horace writes a satire addressed to Mæcenas, in which he recounts, among other circumstances of his life, the occasion of his introduction to his patron; and takes occasion to answer the envious criticisms which were aimed against him, that he, a mere freedman's son, should be elevated above his betters to this high social position. The theme of this satire, which he sturdily maintains, is, that in social, even if not in political matters, character, not family, should be the standard; or, in the language of another gifted son of poverty:

The rank is but the guinea's stamp;
The man's the gowd for a' that.

We give quotations from this satire in the translation of Francis.

The poet feels justified in addressing it to his patron, because, though Mæcenas is of noble birth himself, he does not hold in contempt the worthy of lowly descent. Horace says that it is all very well to deny a man political advancement on the score of low birth; but when it comes to denying social advancement upon this score to a man of worth, that is quite unbearable. Horace cannot rightly be envied or criticized for his friendship with Mæcenas, for this came to him purely on his merits and not by chance. A pleasing picture is given of his first introduction to Mæcenas, and his final admission to that nobleman's charmed circle of friends.

As for myself, a freedman's son confessed;
A freedman's son, the public scorn and jest,
That now with you I joy the social hour,—
That once a Roman legion owned my power;
But though they envied my command in war
Justly, perhaps, yet sure 'tis different far
To gain your friendship, where no servile art
Where only men of merit claim a part.
Nor yet to chance this happiness I owe;
Friendship like yours it had not to bestow.
First my best Vergil, then my Varius, told
Among my friends what character I hold;
When introduced, in few and faltering words
(Such as an infant modesty affords),
I did not tell you my descent was great,
Or that I wandered round my country seat
On a proud steed in richer pastures bred;
But what I really was I frankly said.
Short was your answer, in your usual strain;
I take my leave, nor wait on you again,
Till, nine months past, engaged and bid to hold
A place among your nearer friends enrolled.
An honor this, methinks, of nobler kind,
That, innocent of heart and pure of mind,
Though with no titled birth, I gained his love,
Whose judgment can discern, whose choice approve.

The poet here pays a glowing tribute of filial affection to his father, to whose faithful care and instruction he owes it that he has been shielded from the grosser sins and defects of character.