Horace on the Hymnic Genre
By Brittney Szempruch
Horace’s Carmen Saeculare is often viewed as an entity unto itself, generically distinct from the rest of the Horatian corpus. As a result, when Horace pauses briefly in Epist. 2.1 to consider choral song’s place in Latin literary history, scholars have argued that Horace is likely talking about his own secular hymn, performed in 17 BCE [Hornblower et al. 2014: 395, Lyne 1995: 195 n.7]. In this passage, Epist. 2.1.132-8, Horace assigns to the chorus a variety of apotropaic and favor-winning functions (2.1.134-6).
The Pleasures of Lyric in Plutarch's Hierarchy of Taste
By David F. Driscoll
Much recent work has considered how Greek speakers of the early Roman empire reinterpreted canonical classical texts to develop and assert their own identities (Whitmarsh 2001, Kim 2010), but relatively little attention has been paid to early non-hexametric poetry (though see Bowie 1997, 2008a, 2008b, 2009; Cannatà Fera 1992, 2004). In attempting to understand the place of early melic, iambic and elegiac poetry in this context, this paper shows how Plutarch represents intellectuals engaging with such poetry as an expression of aesthetic taste in his Table Talks.
A Defense of Horace, Ars Poetica 172
By Courtney Evans
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The Snake-Throttler in Saffron Clothes. Baby Herakles in the Hippodrome (Pindar, Nemean 1)
By Claas Lattmann
Since antiquity, Pindar’s epinician odes have puzzled readers and scholars alike (see Young 1970; cf. Lloyd-Jones 1973: 109–117; Most 1985: 11-41). Two of the most pressing problems concern their unity and their relation to the extratextual situation. One instructive example is Nemean 1, a victory ode for Chromios of Syracuse who won in the chariot race at Nemea (see Braswell 1992; Carey 1981).
Explaining Archilochus in antiquity: the indirect tradition
By Enrico Emanuele Prodi
In the context of a research project on ancient scholarship on archaic Greek iambos, this paper focuses on exegetic material on Archilochus preserved by the indirect tradition.
Integrating Sappho and Alcaeus in Horace Odes 1.22
By Justin Hudak
Classical scholars interested in Aeolic influence upon Horatian poetry tend to read Odes 1.22 in one of two ways: either in relation to Sappho (Ancona 2002, Putnam 2006, Young 2015) or in relation to Alcaeus (Burzacchini 1976, 1985, 1994). However, Horace’s poetic practice protests against such segregation. Indeed, when he refers explicitly to one of the Lesbian poets, he more often than not refers to the other as well (Odes 2.13, 4.9; Epistles 1.19).