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

A CRITIQUE OF THE ACADEMIC DICHOTOMY
modulari are both used of playing the lyre (i.24.14; 1.32.5; Epist. 2.2.143).
But as the central idea in modus is that of limit or proportion, the management
of die lyre is seen as a kind of organization. The same idea lies behind temperare.
In Odes 1.12.16 and 3.4.45 the earth, sea, and sky, and the affairs of men, are
said to be 'tempered' or 'controlled' by Jupiter. In Odes 4.3.18 the Muse
'tempers' the sweet din of the golden lyre. Or again, in Odes 2.12.4 themes are
'adjusted' (aptare) to the strains of the lyre (cf. Epist. 1.3.13); in Odes 3.30.14
aeolian verse is 'set to' or 'settled amongst' Italian tunes (deducere); and in
Odes 4.9.4 an 'alliance' has to be made between strings and words (sociare).
Like die creator in the old myths the poet imposes order and harmony on
already existing material. This material, which is shapeless, discordant, and
meaningless, is sometimes seen as die lyre, sometimes as language, and sometimes
as theme; but whatever it may be, it must eventually yield to the poet's
authority.
Horace's attitude to Augustus was complex, and it is hard to see it in perspective.
One can appreciate the poet's independent spirit by recalling that he
did not speak about Octavian until the time of Actium; that he remained loyal
to old Republican friends; that only a small proportion of Odes 1—3 was written
in praise of Augustus and those odes were notably restrained in comparison
widi the usual type of Hellenistic panegyric; 1 and that aldiough die Emperor
took a more direct interest in Horace and his work after 17 B.C. no very close
friendship ever existed between the two men. Nevertheless, Horace acknowledged
and admired the colossal achievements of Augustus; he saw that the
Princeps had a power and status which set him apart from ordinary men, and
that this power had on the whole been used to promote harmony throughout
the empire. Finally, he recognized that after a century of civil war Rome stood
in desperate need of regeneration, and diat this involved religious regeneration
too. Such feelings, which were shared by the vast majority of his countrymen,
allowed Horace at certain times to adopt the role of uates ('priest' or 'bard')
and to speak about Roman affairs in traditional religious language. It is quite
true that all this did not add up to theological conviction and that Horace's
normal attitude to the state religion was one of indifference. Yet this area of
expression is notoriously imprecise. A patriotic feeling for the past, the sense
of a great occasion, a close familiarity with the age-old symbols of one's
culture — such factors combine to blur definitions and blunt charges of hypocrisy.
Housman's ' 1887' (commemorating Victoria's golden jubilee) concludes
Oh, God will save her, fear you not:
Be you the men you've always been,
Get you the sons your fathers got,
And God will save the Queen.
• See Doblhofer (1966).
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