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Horace's Invitation Poems to Maecenas: Gifts to a Patron

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2014

Barbara Pavlock
Barbara Pavlock*
Affiliation:
University of Santa Clara
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Extract

The friendship between Horace and Maecenas quickly attained an almost mythical status as the ideal relationship of poet and patron. In addition to such material generosity as his gift of the Sabine farm, Maecenas seems to have given the poet a ‘spiritual’ patronage which was equally important. As a gesture of gratitude, the mature Horace dedicated to his patron the first three books of odes and addresses to him seven poems within that collection. Several of these take the form of invitations to symposia at the poet's Sabine retreat. Their primary interest for critics has been ethical: the poet suggests the value of his humble farm as a recreative, peaceful environment for the sophisticated urban dweller who is caught up in the busy world of Rome. Critics have shown how the invitations to this simple, private world involve the attainment of a proper attitude towards life, an awareness of human limitations. Recent studies have tended to explore more fully the poetic implications of Horace's invitations, by which the poet points beyond the ethical to the artistic principles associated with his Sabine farm. They have, for example, analyzed metaphors which link wine with poetry and Greek things with Italian as Horace's self-conscious expressions of his special contribution to the lyric genre.

Type
Research Article
Information
Ramus , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , 1982 , pp. 79 - 98
Copyright
Copyright © Aureal Publications 1982

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References

1. Reckford, K., ‘Horace and Maecenas’ TAPA 90(1959), 201Google Scholar, discusses Horace’s use of rex and pater as genuinely personal rather than merely formal, social terms in Satire 1.6.

2. Commager, S., The Odes of Horace: A Critical Study (New Haven 1962), 247Google Scholar, observes that the invitations constantly stress acceptance of human nature; Fraenkel, E., Horace (Oxford 1957), 216Google Scholar, emphasizes that Odes 1.20 goes beyond the expression of an immediate occasion by making the wines a symbol of Horace’s modest way of life: Putnam, M.C.J., ‘Horace, Odes 1.20,’ CJ 64 (1969), 153–57Google Scholar, perceives not only the expensive wines but also the applause of the crowds in Horace’s first invitation poem to Maecenas as symbolic of the life that Horace rejects.

3. See, for example, Commager, S., ‘The Function of Wine in Horace’s Odes,’ TAPA 88 (1957Google Scholar), especially 77–79, on the connection of Bacchus with Horace’s poetry.

4. Bardon, H., La littérature latine inconnue, II (Paris 1956), 14–15Google Scholar. Fraenkel (n. 2 above), 16–17, also comments on the neoteric qualities of Maecenas’ poetry.

5. On Horace’s attitude towards Catullan and neoteric poetry, see Lee, M. O., ‘Catullus in the Odes of Horace,’ Ramus 4 (1975), 33–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6. Commager (n. 2 above), 326.

7. Race, W., ‘Odes 1.20: An Horatian Recusatio,’ CSCA 11 (1979), 178–96Google Scholar, offers a broad definition of the recusatio as a poem in which the writer ‘poses the options available to him and then “rejects” some as inappropriate.’ Such a classification of the invitation poems seems unnecessary to me, for so much great poetry implies a self-conscious exclusion of other forms and styles. But Race seems right to pay attention to the implied poetics in the invitation poem as a literary kind.

8. Nisbet, R. G. M. and Hubbard, M., A Commentary on Horace: Odes, Book I (Oxford 1970), 244Google Scholar, cite Philodemus’ poem as a predecessor in the Hellenistic genre of invitation poem that Horace must have known; they do not elaborate, however, on the similarities. Race (n. 7 above) briefly discusses Philodemus’ poem, but not as a model for Horace’s.

9. Rist, J. M., Epicurus: An Introduction (Cambridge 1972), 136–38Google Scholar, discusses the Epicurean belief in the immortality of the group in that friendship can be passed on continually within the Epicurean community.

10. Cited by DeWitt, N., Epicurus and His Philosophy (1954; rpt. Westport, Conn. 1973), 282Google Scholar.

11. Race (n. 7 above), 189 and 195, note 22. Cf. J. Snyder, ‘The Poetry of Philodemus the Epicurean,’ CJ 68 (1973), especially 353–54.

12. Callimachus, Epigram XXVII (Pfeiffer), praises the style of Aratus: while the manner (ho tropos) is generally Hesiodic, the poet has not borrowed everything (to eschaton) but only the sweetest things (to melichrotaton); his expressions are altogether subtle, refined (leptai). See also the prologue to Callimachus’ Aitia, where the word melichrous similarly has a stylistic connotation as ‘refined’ (melichroterai, 1. 16, as a description of his short poems in contrast to the inelegant, long-winded works of his detractors).

13. E.g., Odes 3.8.9. See below, pp. 82f.

14. Horace, Odes and Epodes, ed., C. E. Bennett (Ithaca 1901). My quotations of Horace are from this edition.

15. Horace uses iocosum as a characteristic of his lyric poetry at Odes 3.3.69: non hoc iocosae conveniet lyrae. There he reminds his Muse not to trivialize great themes with small or light meters. In Satire 1.10, defending his criticism of Lucilius, he claims that satire requires a style that is sometimes grave, sometimes light (modo tristi, saepe iocoso, 11) in the manner of Old Comedy. At Epode 3.20, Horace calls his patron iocose Maecenas in reference to his joke of overspicing a dinner with garlic. He also describes his patron divinities Mercury and Bacchus as iocosi: at Odes 1.10.7, Mercury’s clever theft of Apollo’s cattle when he was an infant is called iocoso; at Odes 3.21.15–16, the wine god as a releaser of cares is called iocoso … Lyaeo, and at 4.15.26, he is iocosi … Liberi.

16. Williams, G., The Third Book of Horace’s Odes (Oxford 1969), 72Google Scholar, specifically connects the word sermones to Maecenas’ learning: ‘sermones implies treatises, in dialogue-form, on scientific and philosophical topics.’ But the usual connotation of manner rather than content (whether literary or ordinary style) is borne out by Horace’s general use of the word in the Satires passage mentioned above: et sermone opus est modo tristi, saepe iocoso (1.10.11). Cf. Satires 1.4.48, 2.3.4, 2.4.9, and 2.5.98. E. McDermott, ‘Horace, Maecenas, and Odes 2.17.’ Hermes 110 (1982), 215, also (but in another context) observes the stylistic connotations of sermones utriusque linguae.

17. Pasquali, G., Orazio Lirico (Florence 1920), 247–58Google Scholar, points to some of the suggestive aspects of the mythological allusions and the subtle use of Hellenistic motifs. More recently, W. Owens, ‘Horace, Odes 3.7,’ paper delivered at the APA Annual Meeting, 1982, discusses the problematic nature of Horace as a speaker in this ode in subtle detail.

18. Fraenkel (n. 2 above), 223, note 2, cites two examples from Plautus where the idea of a homo privatus in politics is turned into a joke.

19. See Ferguson, J., ‘Catullus and Horace,’ AJP 77 (1956), 12–13Google Scholar, for a general discussion of the differences in form and structure between Catullus 45 and Odes 3.9.

20. Nielsen, R. M., ‘Catullus 45 and Horace Odes 3.9: The Glass House,’ Ramus 6 (1977), 137CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21. Lyne, R. O. A. M., The Latin Love Poets from Catullus to Horace (Oxford 1980), 224–27Google Scholar, is an exception. Lyne’s emphases, however, are different from mine.

22. The echoes are noted and discussed by Commager (n. 2 above), 155.

23. Catullus changes some of Sappho’s metaphors but keeps to a highly figurative language, such as the concrete image of lingua torpet (‘my tongue stiffens’) and the alliteration and onomatopoeia of sonitu suopte tintinant aures to describe the ringing in his ears.

24. Nisbet and Hubbard (n. 8 above), 175, mention a specific connection with DRN 4.1079ff.

25. Some recent studies which discuss the complex, sometimes deceptive, lyric voice that Horace projects in the amatory odes include the following: Boyle, A. J., ‘The Edict of Venus: An Interpretive Essay on Horace’s Amatory Odes,’ Ramus 2 (1973), 163–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pucci, P., ‘Horace’s Banquet in Odes 1.17,’ TAPA 105 (1975), 259–81Google Scholar; and Woodman, A. J., ‘The Craft of Horace in Odes 1.14,’ CP 75 (1980), 60–67Google Scholar.

26. Lyne (n. 21 above), 215–16, has a good discussion of Horace’s humorous but sensitive technique in the ode to Chloe.

27. On Horace’s admission of his own temper, see Satire 2.3.323 (where Damasippus says non dico horrendam rabiem, ‘I don’t speak of your horrible temper’) and Epistle 1.20. 25 (irasci celerem, tamen ut placabilis essem, ‘quick to be angry but so as to be placated’).

28. Fraenkel (n. 2 above), 418, note 2, represents the views rejecting Vergil the poet. More recently, Reckford, K., Horace (New York 1969), 128–29Google Scholar.

29. For example, Bowra, C. M., ‘Horace, Odes IV.12,’ CR 42 (1928), 166Google Scholar, cites numerous parallels in vocabulary, ‘peculiarly Vergilian words’ that Horace does not use elsewhere. Moritz, L. A., ‘Horace’s Virgil,’ G&R n.s. 16 (1969), 174–93Google Scholar; Porter, D. H., ‘Horace, Carmina IV, 12,’ Latomus 31 (1972), 71–87Google Scholar; Minadeo, R., ‘Vergil in Horace’s Odes 4.12,’ CJ 71 (1975–76), 161–64Google Scholar; and Belmont, D., ‘The Vergilius of Horace, Odes 4.12,’ TAPA 110 (1980), 1–20Google Scholar, all discuss the problem and offer various references to the poet Vergil.

30. On the allusions to the Catullan models, see Belmont (n. 29 above), 15, and Quinn, K., Latin Explorations (New York 1963), 8Google Scholar.

31. Exceptions are Porter (n. 29 above), 81–83, who thinks that Horace may have been influenced by the news of Vergil’s death right after composing Epistle 1.5, ironically the celebration of a birthday; and Moritz (n. 29 above), 192–93, who believes that Horace wrote 4.12 as a public monument to Vergil with an intimate picture that is essentially private (observing the gloomy end of 4.11 and the Catullan period evoked by the use of the Fabullus poem).

32. For Horace’s use of tener for Callimachus’ stylistic term leptos, as well as other words denoting style, see Crowther, N. B., ‘Horace, Catullus, and Alexandrianism,’ Mnemosyne 31 (1978), 33–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

33. Race (n. 7 above), 185.

34. Ross, D., Style and Tradition in Catullus (Cambridge, Mass. 1969CrossRefGoogle Scholar), esp. 76–80 and 104–12, discusses the signal terms of Catullus’ poetic vocabulary, including venustus and dulcis.

35. On the confusion of names in the myth of Philomela and Procne, see Conington, J. and Nettleship, H. (eds.), Vergil, Opera I (1898Google Scholar; rpt. Darmstadt 1963), 83, note 78.

36. See Coleman, R., ‘Gallus, the Bucolics, and the Ending of the Fourth Georgic,’ AJP 88 (1962), especially 57–60Google Scholar; and Boyle, A. J., ‘A Reading of Virgil’s Eclogues’, in Ancient Pastoral: Ramus Essays on Greek and Roman Pastoral Poetry (Berwick, Victoria 1975), 105–21Google Scholar, esp. 108 and 113ff.

37. See Lee, M. O., ‘Vergil as Orpheus,’ Orpheus 11 (1964), 9–18Google Scholar.

38. Satires 1.10.44, where he praises Vergil for the Eclogues (gaudentes rure Camenae, ‘Muses rejoicing in the country’).

39. On Horace’s poetic response to Maecenas’ fear of death (whether real or a literary pose), see McDermott (n. 16 above), 222–28. On Maecenas’ own poem, Bardon (n. 4 above), 18–19.

40. The three surviving lines (Ni te visceribus meis, Horati, / plus iam diligo, tu tuum sodalem / hinnulo videos strigosiorem, ‘If I so not love you more than my own flesh, may you see your friend skinnier than a baby mule’) echo the opening lines of Catullus’ poem: Ni te plus oculis meis amarem, / iucundissime Calve (14.1–2).

41. Horaz und die Augustische Kultur (Basel 1948), 358Google Scholar.

42. See Cody, J. V., Horace and Callimachean Aesthetics (Brussels 1976), esp. 98–101Google Scholar.

43. On the importance of gratitude as an Epicurean virtue, see DeWitt (n. 10 above), 321–27.