Horace: Epodes and Odes
A New Annotated Latin Edition
Oklahoma Series in Classical Culture Vol. 10
The first fully annotated Latin edition with notes in English since 1903, this volume explains Horatian meters, vocabulary, and difficult points of grammar in his lyric poetry. For advanced students, it places Horace against the background of archaic and Hellenistic Greek poetry, demonstrates his debt to Catullus, and illuminates his relation to his contemporaries, particularly Virgil. The full text of the Epodes is included and placed before the Odes, as it was originally written and published.
Appendices on meter, persons mentioned in the poems, and technical terminology provide all that readers need to understand topical and mythological references, rhetorical conventions, and poetic artistry. Maps identify important places in Horace's life and works.
This volume presents a Horace that is far from the immortal sage featured in the usual school commentaries. The Horace discovered by today's readers is a man of his time struggling to ingratiate himself with the Augustan principate whose leader he had earlier opposed. Less a profound thinker than a poet of commonplace thoughts, Horace strove to write poetry that would stand the test of time--and often succeeded.