Horace : Poet on a Volcano.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Stothard, Peter.

Series:

Ancient Lives Series

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource (328 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New Haven : Yale University Press, 2025.

Summary:

A biography of Horace, one of the most popular poets from antiquity, revealing the little-known man behind his famous lines “Peter Stothard is a master of modern writing about ancient Rome, of vividly bringing to life its poetry and its poets.”—Mary Beard Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65–8 BCE) wrote some of ancient Rome’s greatest poetry, melding languages and cultures with youthful ideals and a realist’s recognition of the dictatorial world around him. Horace is famed for his fine phrases, lyric sex, and guidance on how to live, but he was a poet maddened by war, and many of his most self-revealing poems have rarely been read. He could be sublime and obscene, amusing and abusive, a model of moderation and anything but. In this book, the first modern retelling of Horace’s life, Peter Stothard follows the poet from his birth as the son of a formerly enslaved father through his rise to the highest circles of Roman society. He shines a light on how shattering experiences in the war to save Rome’s republic shaped the loyal servant and revolutionary artist he became. With astute scholarship and sympathy, Stothard follows Horace’s rise from humble beginnings to the social and political heights of the autocracy he had fought to prevent.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Introduction

CHAPTER ONE Son of a Sometime Slave

CHAPTER TWO Poets and Assassins

CHAPTER THREE Behind the Lines

CHAPTER FOUR War Poet

CHAPTER FIVE Connoisseur of the Concealed

CHAPTER SIX Out of Here!

CHAPTER SEVEN Hangers On

CHAPTER EIGHT Under Vesuvius

CHAPTER NINE Town and Country

CHAPTER TEN A Room of Mirrors

CHAPTER ELEVEN Treacherous Ground

CHAPTER TWELVE Odes and Eels

CHAPTER THIRTEEN Horoscopes

CHAPTER FOURTEEN Death of Vergil

CHAPTER FIFTEEN Game Show

CHAPTER SIXTEEN Poet on a Volcano

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Captor and Captive

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN On the Esquiline

CHAPTER NINETEEN Monumentum

CHAPTER TWENTY Words as Weapons

Three Poems

Chronology

Source Notes

Bibliography

Acknowledgments

Index

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9780300283747

0300283741

OCLC:

1513533865