Description: The writings of Horace have exerted strong and continuing influence on writers from his day to our own. Sophisticated and intellectual, witty and frank, he speaks to the cultivated and civilized world of today with the same astringent candor and sprightliness that appeared so fresh at the height of Rome's wealthy and glory.
The Satires and Epistles spans the poet's career as a satirist, critic, and master of lyric poetry, as man of the world, friend of the great, and relentless enemy of the mediocre. "Horace," writes translator Smith Palmer Bovie, "is the best antidote in the world for anxiety. His Satires and Epistles demonstrate the good-humored freedom of a man who has cheerfully assumed the responsibility for making his own life not so much a 'success' as the occasion for a true enjoyment of virtue and knowledge." Bovie's impeccable translation, along with Clancy's edition of the Odes and Epodes, offers the reader a complete and modern Horace.Brief description: Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65 BCE-8 BCE), known as Horace, was a Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus. During the course of Horace's life, Rome transitioned from a republic to an empire. Horace was educated in Rome and in Athens at the Academy. When he was twenty-one, Julius Caesar was assassinated and Horace joined Brutus in the republican cause. He fought with the republican forces at the Battle of Philippi, which ended in defeat for Brutus and his army. A year later, Augustus extenended amnesty to his opponents, and Horace accepted it, eventually becoming part of the emporer's inner circle.