Suetonius: DE POETIS

Q. HORATIUS FLACCUS, Venusinus, patre ut ipse tradit libertino et exactionum coactore (ut vero creditum est salsamentario, cum illi quidam in altercatione exprobrasset: "Quotiens ego vidi patrem tuum brachio se emungentem!") bello Philippensi excitus a Marco Bruto imperatore, tribunus militum meruit; victisque partibus venia impetrata scriptum quaestorium comparavit. Ac primo Maecenati, mox Augusto insinuatus non mediocrem in amborum amicitia locum tenuit. Maecenas quantopere eum dilexerit satis testatur illo epigrammate:

Q. Horatius Flaccus, Venusinus, his father, as he himself relates, a libertine (freedman) and coactor of exactions (a collector of levies) — though, as was said, a salsamentarius (a seller of garum), when someone in an altercation reproached him: "Quotiens ego vidi patrem tuum brachio se emungentem!" ("How often I have seen your father wiping his arm!") — roused by the Philippian war by the commander Marcus Brutus, he earned the rank of tribunus militum; and, with the defeated parties obtaining pardon, he procured a quaestorian appointment on paper. At first introduced to Maecenas, and soon insinuated to Augustus, he held no small place in the friendship of both. How greatly Maecenas loved him he sufficiently attests by that epigram:

"Ni te visceribus meis, Horati,
Plus iam diligo, tu tuum sodalem
Ninnio videas strigosiorem";

"If I do not love you, Horace, more than my own entrails,
may you deem your companion Ninnius the more shaggy";

sed multo magis extremis iudiciis tali ad Augustum elogio: "Horati Flacci ut mei esto memor".

but much more at his last judgments with such an eulogy to Augustus: "May Horatius Flaccus be mindful of me."

Augustus epistolarum quoque ei officium optulit, ut hoc ad Maecenatem scripto significat: "Ante ipse sufficiebam scribendis epistulis amicorum, nunc occupatissimus et infirmus Horatium nostrum a te cupio abducere. Veniet ergo ab ista parasitica mensa ad hanc regiam, et nos in epistulis scribendis iuvabit." Ac ne recusanti quidem aut suscensuit quicquam aut amicitiam suam ingerere desiit. Exstant epistulae, e quibus argumenti gratia pauca subieci: "Sume tibi aliquid iuris apud me, tamquam si convictor mihi fueris; recte enim et non temere feceris, quoniam id usus mihi tecum esse volui, si per valitudinem tuam fieri possit." Et rursus: "Tui qualem habeam memoriam, poteris ex Septimio quoque nostro audire; nam incidit ut illo coram fieret a me tui mentio.

Augustus also offered him the office of letters, as he indicates in a written note to Maecenas: "Before, I myself was sufficient for writing the letters of friends; now, most occupied and infirm, I desire to take our Horatius away from you. He will therefore come from that parasitic table to this palace, and will help us in writing letters." And he neither sulked at him for refusing nor ceased to press his friendship upon him. Letters remain, from which, for the sake of example, I have appended a few: "Claim for yourself some standing with me, as if you were my boarder; for you will have acted rightly and not rashly, since I wished that that use (that advantage) be with you, if your health permits." And again: "What sort of remembrance I have of you, you will be able to hear also from our Septimius; for it happened that mention of you was made before him by me."

Neque enim si tu superbus amicitiam nostram sprevisti, ideo nos quoque anthuperephanoumen." Praeterea saepe eum inter alios iocos "purissimum penem" et "homuncionem lepidissimum" appellat, unaque et altera liberalitate locupletavit. Scripta quidem eius usque adeo probavit mansuraque perpetuo opinatus est, ut non modo Saeculare carmen componendum iniunxerit sed et Vindelicam victoriam Tiberii Drusique, privignorum suorum, eumque coegerit propter hoc tribus Carminum libris ex longo intervallo quartum addere; post sermones vero quosdam lectos nullam sui mentionem habitam ita sit questus: "Irasci me tibi scito, quod non in plerisque eius modi scriptis mecum potissimum loquaris; an vereris ne apud posteros infame tibi sit, quod videaris familiaris nobis esse?" Expressitque eclogam ad se, cuius initium est:

For not even if you, proud, have spurned our friendship, therefore should we also anthuperephanoumen." Moreover he often among other jests calls him "purissimum penem" and "homuncionem lepidissimum," and enriched him by both this and that generosity. He so approved his writings and supposed them to endure forever, that he not only ordered the Saecular hymn to be composed but also the Vindelican victory of Tiberius and Drusus, his stepsons, and compelled him on that account to add, after a long interval, a fourth book of Carmina; but when certain speeches were read in which no mention of himself was made, he complained thus: "Know that I am angry with you, because in most of those sorts of writings you do not speak of me chiefly; or do you fear that among posterity it will be shameful for you to seem to be familiar with us?" And he set forth an eclogue addressed to himself, the beginning of which is:

"Cum tot sustineas et tanta negotia solus,
Res Italas armis tuteris, moribus ornes,
Legibus emendes: in publica commoda peccem,
Si longo sermone morer tua tempora, Caesar."

"Since you bear so many and so great negotia alone,
you guard the affairs of Italy with arms, adorn them with moribus,
you reform them with legibus: I should sin against the publica commoda,
if with a long speech I delayed your tempora, Caesar."

Habitu corporis fuit brevis atque obesus, qualis et a semet ipso in saturis describitur et ab Augusto hac epistula: "Pertulit ad me Onysius libellum tuum, quem ego ut excusantem, quantuluscumque est, boni consulo. Vereri autem mihi videris ne maiores libelli tui sint, quam ipse es; sed tibi statura deest, corpusculum non deest. Itaque licebit in sextariolo scribas, ut circuitus voluminis tui sit ogkodestatos, sicut est ventriculi tui."

His bodily habit was short and corpulent, such as is described by himself in the Satires and by Augustus in this letter: "Onysius brought to me your little book, which I, as excusing you, however minute it is, regard as a good thing. Yet you seem to me to fear that your little books are larger than you yourself; but stature is wanting to you, a little body is not wanting. Therefore it will be permitted that you write in a sextariolo, so that the circuit of your little volume may be ogkodestatos, as is your belly."

Ad res Venerias intemperantior traditur; nam speculato cubiculo scorta dicitur habuisse disposita, ut quocumque respexisset ibi ei imago coitus referretur. Vixit plurimum in secessu ruris sui Sabini aut Tiburtini, domusque eius ostenditur circa Tiburni Iuculum. * * * * Venerunt in manus meas et elegi sub titulo eius et epistula prosa oratione quasi commendantis se Maecenati, sed utraque falsa puto; nam elegi vulgares, epistula etiam obscura, quo vitio minime tenebatur.

He is reported more intemperate in Venusian matters; for, with a mirrored chamber, prostitutes are said to have been arranged so that whithersoever he looked an image of coitus was reflected to him. He lived for the most part in the seclusion of his Sabine or Tiburtine estate, and his house is shown near Tiburnum’s Iuculum. * * * * They came into my hands — elegies under his name and a letter in prose, as if commending himself to Maecenas — but I judge both false; for the elegies are vulgar, the letter even obscure, a fault of which he was in no wise guilty.

Natus est VI Idus Decembris L. Cotta et L. Torquato consulibus, decessit V Kl. Decembris C. Marcio Censorino et C. Asinio Gallo consulibus post nonum et quinquagesimum diem quam Maecenas obierat, aetatis agens septimum et quinquagesimum annum, herede Augusto palam nuncupato, cum urgente vi valitudinis non sufficeret ad obsignandas testamenti tabulas. Humatus et conditus est extremis Esquiliis iuxta Maecenatis tumulum.

He was born on the 6th day before the Ides of December, in the consulship of L. Cotta and L. Torquatus; he died on the 5th day before the Kalends of December, in the consulship of C. Marcius Censorinus and C. Asinius Gallus, on the 59th day after Maecenas had died, being in his 57th year of age, Augustus having been publicly named as heir, when the urgent force of his illness did not suffice to seal the testamentary tablets. He was buried and interred on the outermost Esquiline, beside Maecenas’ tomb.