Horace , (Quintus HoratiUs Flaccus), a Roman poet, born in Venusia, Apulia, Dec. 8, 65 B. C, died Nov. 27, 8 B. C His father was a freedman, collector, and proprietor of a farm, and though of servile origin determined to devote his time and fortune to the education of his son. He took him to Rome, where he was educated as the son of a knight or senator. One of his teachers, the flogging Orbilius (plagosum Orbilium), the poet has immortalized. He studied the Greek and Latin poets, especially Homer and Livius Andronicus, and went through the usual course of rhetorical instructions. From Rome he was sent in his 18th year to Athens to continue his studies, and, though he chiefly attached himself to the philosophical tenets of the Academy, he heard also Cratippus the Peripatetic and Philodemus the Epicurean. There, too, he read Homer again, the masterpieces of Grecian tragedy and comedy, and especially the Greek lyric poets. When Brutus arrived in Athens on his way to Macedonia after the death of Caesar, Horace enthusiastically joined him with other Roman students, and notwithstanding his youth and inexperience was advanced to the rank of a military tribune and the command of a legion in the republican army.

To his share in the battle of Philippi, the loss of his shield, and his hasty flight, he playfully alludes (Carm. ii. 7), intimating that he knew when he was beaten, and ascribing his escape to Mercury, the god of poets. He returned to Rome with no prospects, his paternal estate having been confiscated, but was enabled to buy a clerkship in the quaestor's office, which furnished scanty emolument. Poverty, he says, impelled him to write verses. His efforts soon won the attention of Virgil and Varius, who introduced him to Maecenas. The latter dismissed him with few words and no promises, and took no further notice of him for nine months, after which their friendship rapidly ripened into intimacy. In the following year (87) he accompanied his patron on the journey to Brundusium which is the subject of Satire i. 5. He soon after received from Maecenas the gift of his Sabine farm, which he has often described, and which secured him the means of support and enjoyment for the rest of his life. His constant intercourse with Maecenas introduced him to the society of other distinguished men, and won the notice of Augustus himself, who was ambitious of being celebrated by the poet, but whose offers of advancement the latter seems to have declined, though he expresses in his odes the prevailing admiration for "the tutelary guardian of peace, civilization, and progress." His friendship with Maecenas was unbroken till the death of the latter, who in his last words commended him to the emperor: Horatii Flacci, ut mei, este memor.

Horace died a few weeks later, so suddenly that he had no time to make his will, and appointed Augustus his executor and heir. He was buried on the slope of the Esquiline hill. His poems contain many particulars as to his person, habits, tastes, and temperament. He was of short stature, with dark hair which early turned gray, and dark eyes, and in advanced life was very corpulent. He was never married. He appears to have been of a singularly contented and happy nature, adopting a practical, if not speculative, Epicureanism, a lover of choice wines and good society, but generally simple and frugal in his habits. His odes are exquisitely finished, and are marked by a faultless taste and a mastery of metre and of language, by keen observation and a joyous amenity. His satires are sketches of the life and manners of the Romans in the reign of Augustus, and present a striking contrast to the more grave and severe productions of Juvenal. His epistles, including De Arte Poetica, are the most perfect of his poems, fully exhibiting his terseness and elegance of style, and abounding in wise thoughts and just sentiments on manners and society, which have made Horace the favorite companion not only of scholars but of men of the world, the most read, best remembered, and most frequently quoted of all the writers of antiquity.

Among the editions of Horace are those of Lambinus (1561), Torrentius(1608), IIeinsius(1612), Bent-ley (1711), Burmann (1713), Sanadon (1728), Doring (1803), Anthon, with English notes (New York, 1830), Orelli (Zurich, 1837), Lincoln (Boston, 1851), Ritter (Leipsic, 1855), Didot (Paris, 1855), and Wickham (London, 1873). Translations of his works have been made into nearly all European languages, but there is no good English version of his complete writings. The free metrical translations of several of the odes and satires by Dry-den, Pope, Swift, and others, are excellent. A collection of translations by Ben Jonson, Cowley, Milton, Dryden, Addison, Pope, Chat-terton, Byron, etc, was published by Valpy as an appendix to the translation of the works of Horace by the Rev. Philip Francis (2 vols. London, 1831). The odes have also been rendered into English lyric verse by Newman (1853), Robinson (1844-'59), Lord Ravensworth (1858), Theodore Martin (1860), Conington (1863), and Lord Lytton (1869); and into French by Count Simeon (1874). Conington published a translation of the satires and epistles in 1869. Among prose versions is one by J. Lonsdale and S. Lee (London, 1873).