‘Nunc itaque et versus et cetera ludicra pono:
quid verum atque decens, curo et rogo et omnis in hoc sum.’
The dates of Ep. ii. 1, 2, have already been mentioned. Both treat of literary criticism, and the first deals particularly with that of the drama. Iulius Florus, to whom Ep. ii. 2 is addressed, was the representative of the younger literary school at Rome. The Epistula ad Pisones or De Arte Poetica is an essay in verse on literary criticism, specially pointing out how necessary art is to composition. In it, according to Porphyrion, Horace ‘congessit praecepta Neoptolemi τοῦ Παριανοῦ[61] de arte poetica, non quidem omnia, sed eminentissima.’ Horace probably was also indebted to Aristotle’s Poetics. Porphyrion says that Horace wrote the Ars Poetica ‘ad L. Pisonem qui postea urbis custos fuit eiusque liberos.’ This does not fit in with the probable date, B.C. 17 or 16, as L. Piso was born B.C. 49, and his sons could not have been old enough for the letter to be addressed to them. It is probable that Porphyrion is wrong, and that the A.P. was addressed to Cn. Piso, who served with Horace under Brutus, and his two sons.
Horace and nature.—Besides references to his Sabine villa, Horace refers to natural scenery in many passages. Such are Epod. 2; Od. i. 7, 10; ii. 6, 13; iii. 13, 9; Sat. ii. 6, 1 sqq.; Ep. i. 10, 6 sqq., i. 16, 1 sqq.[62] Horace is fond of comparing dangers to the plague of floods,[63] a plague from which Italy has always suffered. Cf. Od. i. 31, 7,
‘rura quae Liris quieta
mordet aqua taciturnus amnis.’
So Od. iii. 29, 32 sqq., and many other passages.
Popularity of Horace.—Horace’s prediction that his works would become school-books, Ep. i. 20, 17,
‘Hoc quoque te manet, ut pueros elementa docentem
occupet extremis in vicis balba senectus,’
was early fulfilled. Cf. Iuv. 7, 226,
‘Quot stabant pueri, cum totus decolor esset
Flaccus et haereret nigro fuligo Maroni.’