Memorable Quotations: Horace

Horace (65 B.C. - 8 B.C.) was a Latin poet and one of the greatest lyric poets. His patron, Maecenas, gave him the famed Sabine farm where he spent the majority of his later life, composing poetry exhibiting the civilized spirit of the Augustan age and his own gracious temperament and love of nature. His poetry comprises of two books of Satires, four books of Odes, the Epodes, two books of Epistles, the Carmen Saeculare (a hymn), and the Ars Poetica (on literary matters). Horace's satire was gentler than that of Juvenal. He was a genius of poetic form, and his later verse displays a totally individual adaptation of Greek meters to Latin. Horace has remained a foremost influence on English poetry.