‘Bioneis sermonibus et sale nigro.’
Sueton. vit. Hor., ‘Patre, ut ipse tradit, libertino et auctionum coactore, ut vero creditum est, salsamentario.’
Sat. i. 6, 6,
‘Ut me libertino patre natum’;
ibid. 85,
‘Nec timuit, sibi ne vitio quis verteret olim,
si praeco parvas aut, ut fuit ipse, coactor
mercedes sequerer.’
Stories of his childhood are given, Od. iii. 4, 9 sqq.; Sat. i. 9, 29 sqq.; Sat. ii. 2, 112 sqq.
Horace speaks highly of his father, who took him from the village school to Rome for his education. After speaking of his own freedom from vice he says (Sat. i. 6, 71 sqq.),
‘Causa fuit pater his, qui macro pauper agello
noluit in Flavi ludum me mittere, ...
sed puerum est ausus Romam portare docendum
artis quas doceat quivis eques atque senator
semet prognatos. Vestem servosque sequentis,
in magno ut populo, si qui vidisset, avita
ex re praeberi sumptus mihi crederet illos.
Ipse mihi custos incorruptissimus omnis
circum doctores aderat.’
He received instruction, both in Latin and Greek, from Orbilius,[52] a teacher of conservative tendencies. Ep. ii. 1, 69,