The Complete Odes and Epodes

by Horace

PROETUS See Bellerophon.

  PROMETHEUS A Titan of early Greek legend. He created man out of clay, taught him the arts, and stole fire for him from heaven. He was punished by Zeus (Jupiter) by being chained to Mt Caucasus with an eagle continuously pecking at his liver.

  PROSERPINA Queen of the underworld.

  PROTEUS A sea-god who tended the ‘flocks’ of Neptune.

  PUNIC Carthaginian. The Poeni (whence Punic) were the Phoenicians who founded Carthage.

  PYRRHA She and her husband Deucalion were the sole human survivors of the great flood sent by Zeus (Jupiter).

  PYRRHUS (a) King of Epirus who invaded Italy. The greater part of his army was destroyed at Asculum (279 B.C.), though the victory was his (hence the expression ‘Pyrrhic victory’). (b) Unknown addressee of 111.20.

  PYTHAGORAS A Greek philosopher and mathematician who flourished about 530 B.C. He was a strict vegetarian, holding that in the course of purification souls transmigrated between animal and man through successive reincarnations.

  PYTHIA(N) See Delphi.

  QUIRINUS See Romulus.

  QUIRITES Roman citizens in full possession of their civil rights.

  REGULUS M. Atilius Regulus, Roman consul and general and national hero. His army was defeated by the Carthaginians in 255 B.C., and he and many of his men were captured. In 250 B.C. he was sent back to Rome on parole to arrange a peace. He advised Rome to continue the war, returned to Carthage, and was tortured and executed with the remainder of his army.

  REMUS Twin brother of Romulus, who killed him in a quarrel over seniority.

  RHAETI (ANS) An Alpine tribe.

  RHODOPE A mountain in Thrace.

  RHOETUS One of the Giants.

  ROMULUS (QUIRINUS) Son of Mars. The legendary founder and first king of Rome, he was said to have disappeared in a thunderstorm in a chariot drawn by Mars’ horses.

  SABAEA A region of Arabia. An unsuccessful expedition was made into Arabia Felix (Sabaea) in 24 B.C.

  SABELLIAN The Sabellians were an Italian mountain tribe from which many witches seem to have originated.

  SABINE The Sabine people occupied a district just north of Rome, where (at Tibur) the farm that Maecenas gave to Horace was located.

  SALAMIS (a) Teucer’s native Greek island; the Persian fleet was defeated off its shores in 480 B.C. (b) Having been banished from this Salamis by his father for having ‘allowed’ his brother Ajax to die, Teucer founded a second Salamis in Cyprus.

  SALII ‘Jumpers’. The dancing priests of Mars.

  SALLUSTIUS CRISPUS, C. Friend of Augustus, nephew of the historian Sallust.

  SAPPHO Lyric poet of Lesbos (q.v.), fl.. 600 B.C. Her celebration of homosexual love accounts for the modern term ‘lesbian’.

  SATURN The ruler of the gods and heaven preceding and deposed by Jupiter.

  SATYRS Mythical goat-men hybrids, often highly sexed.

  SCAMANDER A river near Troy.

  SCAURI This family was often linked with the Fabii, Curii, and Fabricii as an example of old-fashioned morality. M. Aemilius Scaurus was consul in 115 and censor in 109 B.C.

  SCOPAS A celebrated Parian sculptor who flourished about 375 B.C.

  SCYTHIANS Inhabitants of Scythia, a region to the north of the Black Sea.

  SERES The Chinese, who were already in Horace’s time organizing the silk trade to Parthia.

  SESTIUS Lucius Sestius, consul in 23 B.C.

  SIBYL A variously localized prophetess, e.g. the Campanian Sibyl at Cumae.

  SIDONIANS The Phoenicians, the sea-traders of antiquity.

  SILVANUS God of woodlands. (In epode 2, line 22, he is evidently identified with Terminus, god of boundary stones.)

  SIMOIS A river near Troy.

  SISYPHUS A king of Corinth who for his sins was condemned in the underworld to push a great rock up a hill, from which it continually rolled down.

  SORACTE (Monte Soratte) A mountain some twenty-five miles north of Rome.

  SPARTACUS The gladiator who led the slave rebellion in 73–71 B.C. He was eventually captured by Crassus and crucified with many of his followers.

  STESICHORUS A Greek lyric poet who lived c. 600 B.C.

  STHENELUS Charioteer of the Greek hero Diomedes (Tydides) at the siege of Troy.

  STYX One of the four rivers of the underworld. Charon ferried the shades of the dead across the Styx so that they could gain admittance to the underworld.

  SUBURA A street of bad repute in Rome.

  SYBARIS A Greek colony in southern Italy which became a byword for luxurious living.

  SYGAMBRI A German tribe who defeated a Roman army under M. Lollius in 16 B.C., but sued for peace when they heard Augustus himself was marching against them.

  SYRTES Dangerous shoals off the coast of North Africa. Also the desert of the hinterland.

  TAENARUS A promontory of Laconia (Cape Matapan) where there was supposed to be an entrance to the underworld.

  TANTALUS The father of Pelops. A notorious sinner in myth, he was punished in the underworld by being stuck fast near food and water which receded when he tried to eat or drink.

  TARENTUM (Taranto) A Spartan colony on the ‘heel’ of Italy.

  TARQUIN(S) The Etruscan noble family which provided two kings of early Rome. Tarquinius Superbus was the last of the kings of Rome; his fall in 510 B.C. led to the foundation of the Republic.

  TARTARUS A region of the underworld devoted to the punishment of evil.

  TECMESSA A Trojan princess whose father was killed by Ajax.

  TELEGONUS Legendary founder of Tusculum in Latium; a son of Ulysses and Circe; he killed his father by mistake.

  TELEPHUS (a) a king of the Mysians; Achilles wounded him with a spear, but then (as had been foretold by an oracle) healed him with rust from the same weapon. (b) Unknown young man/men of I.13, III.19 and IV.11.

  TEMPE A beautiful valley in Thessaly.

  TERMINUS God of boundary stones.

  TEUCER A Greek hero at the siege of Troy; brother of Ajax. See also Salamis.

  THALIA The Muse of comedy.

  THEBES A Boeotian city; the scene of various Greek myths, including those of Cadmus and of Oedipus.

  THESEUS Legendary king of Athens, father of Hippolytus. With his friend Pirithous, he attempted to abduct Proserpina from the underworld. Pirithous was caught and put in chains.

  THESSALY A region, of northern Greece notorious for being only semi-civilized and for magical goings-on. See Centaurs, Lapiths and Peleus.

  THETIS A sea-goddess. Mother of Achilles by Peleus.

  THRACE (THRACIANS) A primitive region north of Greece. Horace habitually associates the Thracians with drunkenness, presumably on account of their cult of Dionysus (Bacchus), god of wine and ecstasy.

  THYESTES His own children were served up to him at a banquet given by his brother Atreus (father of Agamemnon and Menelaus), on whose house he laid a curse of revenge (cf. Aeschylus’ Oresteia).

  THYONEUS An epithet of Bacchus.

  TIBERIUS The elder stepson of Augustus (the younger was Drusus); later emperor.

  TIBULLS Albius Tibullus, elegiac poet, d. 19 B.C.; friend of Horace and Ovid; friend and protégé of M. Valerius Messalla Corvinus.

  TIBUR (Tivoli) Town twenty miles north-east of Rome, near Horace’s Sabine farm.

  TIRIDATES (II) Usurper to the throne of Parthia; in 30–29 B.C. a refugee in Syria, supported by Octavian (later Augustus).

  TITANS In early Greek legends gods or demi-gods; the children of Heaven and Earth (Uranus and Ge); often identified or confused with the Giants.

  TITHONUS A mortal who was granted eternal life – but not (owing to an oversight) eternal youth, so his doom was perpetual ageing.

  TITYOS A Giant who attempted to violate Latona and was killed by her children Apollo and Diana.

  TORQUATUS (a) Addressee of IV.7 and Epistles I.5, otherwise unknown. (b) L. Manlius Torquatus – see Manlius.

  TROILUS A son of Priam, king of Troy; killed by Achilles in the Trojan War.
r />   TULLUS (a) Tullus Hostilius. third king of Rome. (b) L. Vocatius Tullus, consul in 66 B.C.

  TUSCULUM (Frascati) A mountain town ten miles south-cast of Rome founded by Telegonus, son of Ulysses and Circe.

  TYDIDES Son of Tydeus, i.e. Diomedes, a Greek warrior at the siege of Troy.

  TYRE Eastern Mediterranean city and sea-port famous for its woollen fabrics and its dyes.

  ULYSSES (Odysseus) Greek hero whose many adventures in the course of his return from Troy to his native Ithaca and his faithful wife Penelope form the subject of Homer’s Odyssey.

  USTICA A valley (or perhaps a hill) near Horaces Sabine farm.

  VALGIUS C. Valgius Rufus, a member of Maecenas’ circle of poets (cf. Satires I.10.81–2).

  VENAFRUM A town in Campania, famous for its olive-groves.

  VENUS Goddess of love.

  VENUSIA (Venosa) A town on the borders of Apulia and Lucania; Horace’s birthplace.

  VESPER (Hesper) The evening star.

  VESTA Roman goddess of the hearth.

  VINDELICI Tyrolean tribe defeated by Tiberius and Drusus in 15 B.C.

  VIRGIL (a) Illustrious poet, author of the Aeneid, contemporary and friend of Horace. (b) Unknown addressee of IV. 12.

  VULCAN The blacksmith-god, husband of Venus.

  VULTUR A mountain in Apulia, near Venusia.

  XANTHUS The name of several rivers in Asia Minor – in IV.6 probably that in Lycia where Apollo had an oracle at Patara, on its banks.

  ZEPHYR The west wind of spring.

  INDEX TO POEMS

  EPODES

  Altera Iam Teritur

  16

  At, o deorum

  5

  Beatus ille

  2

  Horrida tempestas

  13

  Iam iam efficaci

  17

  Ibis Liburnis

  1

  Lupis et agnis

  4

  Mala soluta navis

  10

  Mollis inertia

  14

  Nox erat et caelo

  15

  Parentis olim

  3

  Petti, nihil me

  11

  Quando repostum Caecubum

  9

  Quid immerentis hospites

  6

  Quid tibi vis

  12

  Quo, quo, scelesti ruitis?

  7

  Rogare longo

  8

  ODES

  Aeli vetusto

  III.17

  Aequam memento

  II.3

  Albi, ne doleas

  I.33

  Angustam amice

  III.2

  Audivere, Lyce

  IV.13

  Bacchum in remotis

  II.19

  Caelo supinas

  III.23

  Caelo tonantem

  III.5

  Cum tu, Lydia

  I.13

  Cur me querelis

  II.17

  Delicta maiorum

  III.6

  Descende caelo

  III.4

  Dianam tenerae

  I.21

  Diffugere nives

  IV.7

  Dive, quem proles

  IV.6

  Divis orte bonis

  IV.5

  Donarem pateras

  IV.8

  Donec gratus eram

  III.9

  Eheu fugaces

  II.14

  Est mihi nonum

  IV.11

  Et ture et fidibus

  I.36

  Exegi monumentum

  III.30

  Extremum Tanain

  III.10

  Faune, Nympharum

  III.18

  Festo quid potius die

  III.28

  Herculis ritu

  III.14

  lam pauca aratro

  II.15

  Iam satis terris

  1.2

  Iam veris comites

  IV.12

  Icci, beatis

  I.29

  Ille et nefasto

  II.13

  Impios parrae

  III.27

  Inclusam Danaen

  III.16

  Intactis opulentior

  III.24

  Integer vitae

  1.22

  Intermissa, Venus

  IV.1

  Iustum et tenacem

  III.3

  Laudabunt alii

  1.7

  Lydia, dic, per omnis

  I.8

  Maecenas atavis edite

  1.1

  Martiis caelebs

  III.8

  Mater saeva Cupidinum

  1.19

  Mercuri, facunde

  I.10

  Mercuri – nam te

  III.11

  Miserarum est

  III.12

  Montium custos

  III.22

  Motum ex Metello

  II.1

  Musis amicus

  I.26

  Natis in usum

  I.27

  Ne forte credas

  IV.9

  Ne sit ancillae

  II.4

  Nolis longa ferae

  II.12

  Non ebur neque aureum

  II.18

  Non semper imbres

  II.9

  Non usitata

  II.20

  Non vides quanto

  III.20

  Nondum subacta

  II.5

  Nullam, Vare, sacra

  I.18

  Nullus argento

  II.2

  Nunc est bibendum

  I.37

  O crudelis adhuc

  IV.10

  O diva, gratum

  I.35

  O fons Bandusiae

  III.13

  O matre pulchra

  I.16

  O nata mecum

  III.21

  O navis, referent

  I.14

  O saepe mecum

  II.7

  O Venus, regina

  I.30

  Odi profanum vulgus

  III.1

  Otium divos

  II.16

  Parcius iunctas

  I.25

  Parcus deorum cultor

  I.34

  Pastor cum traheret

  I.15

  Persicos odi

  I.38

  Phoebe

  Centennial

  silvarumque

  Hymn

  Phoebus volentem

  IV.15

  Pindarum quisquis

  IV.2

  Poscimur. Si quid

  I.32

  Quae cura patrum

  IV.14

  Qualem ministrum

  IV.4

  Quantum distet

  III.19

  Quem tu, Melpomene

  IV.3

  Quem virum aut heroa

  I.12

  Quid bellicosus

  II.11

  Quid dedicatum

  I.31

  Quid fles, Asterie

  III.7

  Quis desiderio

  I.24

  Quis multa gracilis

  I.5

  Quo me, Bacche, rapis

  III.25

  Rectius vives

  II.10

  Scriberis Vario

  I.6

  Septimi, Gades aditure

  II.6

  Sic te diva

  I.3

  Solvitur acris hiems

  I.4

  Te maris et terrae

  I.28

  Tu ne quaesieris

  I.11

  Tyrrhena regum

  III.29

  Ulla si iuris

  II.8

  Uxor pauperis I byci

  III.15

  Velox amoenum

  I.17

  Vides ut alta

  1.9

  Vile potabis

  1.20

  Vitas
inuleo

  I.23

  Vixi puellis nuper

  III.26

  1. See Appendix, p.194.

  2. All translations quoted of the Satires and Epistles are by Niall Rudd.

  3. See Gilbert Highet, Poets in a Landscape pp. 121–6 and Giuseppe Lugli, La Villa d’Orazio nella valle del Licenza.

  4. L. P. Wilkinson, Horace and his Lyric Poetry, p.46.

  5. Introduction to The Odes of Horace.

  6. See references in Wilkinson, pp. 109 ff.

  7. Wilkinson, p.28.

  8. Annals, 1.2, translated by Michael Grant.

  9. Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars: Augustus 66.3.

  10. See Appendix, p. 195.

  11. Fraenkel, p. 382.

  12. See further K. Quinn in Latin Explorations, Chapter 1: ‘Horace’s Spring Odes’ (IV. 12, I.4, IV.7).

  13 Quintilian, X. 1.96.

  14. Juvenal, Sàtires VII.266–7, translated by Peter Green; cf. Quintilian I.8.6.

  15. Sec further Wilkinson, pp. 159 ff.; Gilbert Highet, The Classical Tradition, pp. 124–5, 244–50; and R. M. Ogilvie in Latin and Greek, Chapter 2: ‘Horace and the Eighteenth Century.’