Kenney_and_Clausen B.M.W.(eds.) - Get a Free Blog

A CRITIQUE OF THE ACADEMIC DICHOTOMY
ing desert of Syria.' Half the poem is taken up with this intimate spiritual
relationship, then suddenly we come upon this surprising stanza:
uos Caesarem altum, militia simul
fessas cohortes abdidit oppidis,
finire quaerentem labores
Pierio recreatis antro. (37—4°)
You refresh great Caesar in a Pierian cave as he longs to bring his labours to an end
after settling his battle-weary troops quietly in the towns.
So the Emperor too is under the Muses' care. They refresh his spirit (i.e. he
takes pleasure in poetry), but more important they advise him to act with
gentleness and good sense:
uos lene consilium et datis et dato
gaudetis almae. (41—2)
It is significant that Horace should have given a central position among the
Roman odes to a poem which expressly connects his own activity with that of
Augustus and ascribes both poetic and political power to the same divine source.
A similar point can be made with reference to Bacchus. On the one hand
we have passages like Epist. 2.2.77—8, where Horace protests that as a servant
of Bacchus (i.e. a poet) his proper milieu is the countryside, or Odes 3.8 where
he offers a goat to Bacchus to celebrate his escape from death. On the other
hand Bacchus is also associated with Augustus. As a hero who has benefited
mankind, Bacchus achieved divinity; the same will be true of Augustus {Odes
3.3.11—15). Only after becoming a god did Bacchus receive due praise from
men; Augustus receives it already {Epist. 2.i.5ff.). The triangular relationship
becomes closer in Odes 2.19, a hymn to Bacchus which testifies to Horace's
inspiration and then goes on to record some of the god's achievements. One
of these was his defence of Jupiter against the Giants. That same battle, which
symbolized the triumph of civilization over barbarism and was known to
Horace's readers from Pindar and Greek sculpture, is used again in Odes
3.4.49ff. as a means of glorifying Augustus. Finally, in Odes 3.25 Bacchus'
inspiration is specifically connected with Horace's new political lyrics in honour
of the Emperor.
The deity most closely associated with Augustus, however, was Apollo.
In the Republican period Vediovis, the god of the Julian gens, became assimilated
to Apollo; Apollo was the son of Jupiter, and Augustus was the (adopted)
son of Julius, who in his lifetime had assumed the attributes of the king of the
gods; Apollo had helped Rome's Trojan ancestors against the Greeks, and
as the god of sanity and order he had been a powerful psychological ally in the
struggle against Antony/Dionysus. These and other affinities were attested in
the magnificent temple of Apollo on the Palatine, dedicated in 28 B.C. It is
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