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HORACE
After style, theme. One theme, recurrent at all periods, is that of simplicity.
Here perhaps the best example of a public ode is 2.15 (jam pauca aratro).
The abuse in question (viz. uncontrolled building) is a civic abuse affecting
the country's economy. No one is addressed, except the community at large,
and at no point does the poet speak in the first person. An appeal is made to
the traditions of Romulus, Cato, and the Romans of an earlier day who spent
their money on public rather than private buildings, and these old traditions
were, we are told, enforced by law. Several of the same features are found in
3.24; there too the poet asserts that no change of heart can come about without
the aid of laws.
"When we turn to 3.1, however, the situation is less straightforward. For
although odi profanum is the first of the so-called 'Roman odes', its argumentation
comes from the world of private ethics. Acquisitiveness and extravagance
are criticized not for their social or national effects but for what they do to the
individual. The greedy man is reminded that money does not guarantee happiness
and that it usually brings worry and resentment. Such reasoning is
familiar from the Satires and Epistles. Again, though the poet appears initially
as the Muses' priest (Musarum sacerdos), at the end of the ode we hear the
familiar Horace talking about his Sabine farm. So apart from the first two
stanzas the ode is essentially a lyrical diatribe.
Although the theme of simplicity connects both sides of Horace's work, his
treatment of the matter is not simple. First, Horace had no objection to wealth
in itself, as long as it was used in a generous and enlightened way {Sat. 2.2.101—5,
2.8; Odes 2.2). His main target was acquisitiveness; for the man who thought
only of making money harmed both himself and society. Secondly, Horace
was not so hypocritical as to maintain that extreme poverty was in some way
beneficial. His aurea mediocritas ruled out' the squalor of a tumbledown house'
just as firmly as 'the mansion that excites envy' (Odes 2.10.5—8; cf. Epist.
2.2.199). He does, however, occasionally express the view that since life is
precarious any man may find himself in poverty, and that he should be able to
survive the experience without being shattered (Odes i.zw^ff.; cf. 4.9.49).
In particular, young men in military training should learn to rough it {Odes
3.2.1).
Thirdly, it is sometimes helpful to distinguish between what Horace admired
and what he liked. We cannot doubt, for instance, that he admired the toughness
of the early Romans, but he would hardly have chosen to sit beside Regulus
at a dinner party. If pressed hard, this distinction could leave him open to the
charge of insincerity, and he knew it.' You praise the good fortune and character
of the men of old', says Davus {Sat. 1..7.22.K.), 'but if a god urged you to go
back you'd strenuously refuse.' But we must be careful here, for some of the
warmest praise of the hardy peasant is uttered by characters other than Horace
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