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Horace - Coggle Diagram

- - - - Significance
        
        Celebrates Octavian's victory at Actium
      - Analysis
        
        Directly addressed to Maecenas, Horace's patron
        
        In the third book of The Republic, Plato deems Dorian music appropriate for war-making men. This is suitable music, then, to celebrate Caesar's (Octavian's) victory at Actium.
        
        Antony is unnamed, which serves to downplay his military strength as it presents him as not a significant enough threat to Octavian to have his name recorded.
        
        Antony is portrayed as childish and foolish. 'Upping sticks' likens him to a child, and doing this "For a woman's sake" would have been considered weak and effeminate.
        
        Antony is portrayed as running contrary to Roman values in order to justify Octavian's involvement in civil war: he is presented as having given in to eastern decadence and his affair with Cleopatra is presented as degrading.
        
        Cyclical structure: begins with drinking wine to celebrate events of the past and ends with drinking wine to distract oneself from the uncertainty of Octavian's future.
        
        Alcaeus was a Greek poet writing some five hundred years before Horace, whom Horace took much inspiration from. (Alcaeus was from the island of Lesbos and often overlooked in favour of Sappho.) In his poem An Invitation, Alcaeus describes wine as a "sweet oblivion to our woes"; Horace expresses a similar sentiment at the end of Epode 9.
        
        Africanus was a renowned Roman general responsible for the Roman victory at the Battle of Zama in 200 BCE which concluded the Second Punic War against the Carthaginians.
        
        Allusion to Cleopatra's 'shameful pavilion' emphasises her luxurious and immoral lifestyle.
        
        Repetition of "Hail, Triumph!" emphasises and glorifies Octavian's military success.
  - - - Analysis
        
        Directly addressed to reader
        
        Opens with a sense of purpose, triumph and optimism for the future. Repetition of "now" stresses the stability of the current situation in Rome now that Octavian has triumphed over Antony and Cleopatra.
        
        In times of war, the Romans set out twelve "sacred couches" for the Olympian gods as a means of increasing soldiers' morale by assuring them the gods were on their side.
        
        The Salians were priests of Mars notorious for their excellent feasts and jumping dances. Associations with Mars, the god of war, are fitting to celebrate Octavian's victory at Actium and the connotations of dancing match the lively dance-like rhythm of the poem.
        
        The first stanza takes a list format to emphasise all the celebrations that can now go ahead: "Now's the time for drinking deep... now's the time to beat the earth with unfettered feet... the time to... prepare a Salian feast"
        
        The Capitol was the central part of Rome where many of Rome's most important temples were housed
        
        Emphasis on Cleopatra as opposed to Mark Antony helps to paint Actium as a foreign war, not a civil one.
        
        Hyperbolic language to exaggerate the victory: Horace claims "scarcely a single ship escaped the flames" but in reality around sixty of one hundred and forty survived.
        
        The dove was a bird sacred to Venus and usually symbolic of pure love; however, here it could be a reference to Cleopatra's scandalous affair with Mark Antony. Likening Cleopatra to a "gentle dove" intensifies Octavian's victory over her, having reduced a "maddened queen" to a powerless creature.
        
        Rome did not view suicide as a disgraceful act and in fact Horace here glorifies Cleopatra for having the "courage" to take her own life.
      - Significance
        
        Focuses on the role of Cleopatra in and after Actium
    - - Significance
        
        Deals with the issue of moral laxity in Rome and links this with misfortunes that had befallen the Roman people in recent years
      - Analysis
        
        "Romans, though you're guiltless, you still expiate / your fathers' sins": suggestive of a prior generation that has committed some great sin, perhaps an allusion to the foundation myth of Rome in which Romulus kills his brother Remus.
        
        Horace suggests that the gods are punishing Romans for their failure to properly observe their religious duties.
        
        Horace links military failures (against the Parthians, Dacians and Ethiopians) with a decline in sexual morals. It was believed that chaste women were particularly loved by the gods. "Our age... has first defiled the marriage bed... disaster's stream has flowed from this source".
        
        Horace encourages the reader to be like those who fought bravely in battle and "stained the Punic Sea with blood".
    - - Significance
        
        Celebrates Augustus' return from foreign campaigns, mentions Livia and Octavia, women of the imperial household
      - Analysis
        
        Presents women of the imperial household as role models for the nation: "May his wife rejoice in a matchless husband, / having sacrificed to true gods, appear now / with our famous leader's sister [Octavia], and, all dressed / in holy ribbons, / the mothers of virgins and youths, now safe and sound".
        
        Livia explicitly linked to practising Roman religion. She sacrifices to the gods in the absence of Augustus, showing her to be capable of upholding religious duties while he is away.
        
        It was crucial for Horace to focus on Octavia and Livia as opposed to Augustus' daughter Julia who, under the Leges Iuliae, had been exiled from Rome for adultery.
    - - Significance
        
        Focuses on the military achievements of Tiberius and Drusus, and the role of Augustus as a father figure
      - Analysis
        
        Horace uses simile to compare Drusus to a "lion-cub newly weaned from milk", presenting Drusus as young and inexperienced. He then explains how this lion-cub is fated to kill a deer, leaving readers impressed by the innate skill and capability of the lion-cub, or Drusus, at such a young age.
        
        The poem focuses on the excellent upbringing Drusus and Tiberius, Augustus' step-sons, received, and how important role models and a proper education are in a child's development: "They came to realise what mind and character / nurtured, with care, in a fortunate household, / by Augustus' fatherly feelings / towards his stepsons, the Neros, could do."
        
        Horace references one of Tiberius and Drusus' most well-known ancestors, Gaius Claudius Nero, who had been responsible for the defeat of Hannibal's brother Hadrusbal during the Punic Wars in 207 BCE.
        
        Horace greatly amplifies the military achievements of Drusus and his brother by asserting that "There's nothing that Claudian power can't achieve", clearly painting the brothers as Augustus' natural successors.
        
        Tiberius was a particularly skilled general, and was closely involved with the retrieving of the standards lost by Crassus to the Parthians.
    - - Significance
        
        Communicates the idea that peace and prosperity reign in Rome, thanks to Augustus
      - Analysis
        
        "Phoebus [Apollo] condemned my verse, when I tried to sing / of war and conquered cities" could be meant literally or it could be a veiled comment about Augustus, who associated himself closely with Apollo, dictating the content of Horace's poetry.
        
        Horace presents Augustus as the bringer of peace and plenty: "With Caesar protecting the state, no civil / disturbance will banish the peace, no violence, / no anger that forges swords, and makes / mutual enemies of wretched towns."
        
        In the closing lines, Horace calls for a revival of the old tradition of singing stories about past great leaders on festival days, linking to Augustus' own ideology of himself as a restorer of Roman customs and also allowing Horace to glorify Augustus' ancestry: "we'll sing of Troy, / Anchises, and the people of Venus"
  - - - Composed to be performed during the ludi saeculares
    - - Addresses various gods, all of whom were somehow connected with Augustus' public image, e.g. Apollo and Venus.
      - The ludi saeculares were games performed to celebrate the coming of a new saeculum/age. Augustus portrayed the new age he had brought to Rome as a Golden Age of peace and prosperity.
- - - - Technical language features (e.g. repetition, simile)
      - Contextual knowledge
      - Themes of the poem
      - How Augustus is portrayed and how Augustus would want to be portrayed
      - Links to other sources/cross references