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Horace, Satires 1.5 an inconsequential journey

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2013

Emily Gowers
Emily Gowers
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University CollegeLondon
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Extract

‘If I were to waste your time with a long conversation (si longo sermone morer tua tempora), I would be damaging the public interest.’ So Horace begins his Epistle to Augustus, typically selling himself short. He does not pause for breath for 270 lines. Equivocations like this about the sound of his own voice had been a particular characteristic of Horace's earlier books of ‘Conversations’, the Satires or Sermones, a teasing mixture of seemingly directionless rambling and forceful short cuts. Nowhere is this mixture more evident than in the fifth satire of the first book, a short story which apologises for being a long one, where Horace compensates his readers for a long haul with an ending that must leave them feeling short-changed.

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Research Article
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Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society (Second Series) , Volume 39 , 1994, pp. 48 - 66
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Copyright © The Author(s). Published online by Cambridge University Press 1994

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References

Notes

1. Ep. 2.1.4.

2. On equivocation as a feature of the Satires, see in general Zetzel, J. E. G., ‘Horace's Liber Sermonum: the structure of ambiguity’, Arethusa 13 (1980) 59–78Google Scholar.

3. On the route see Mazzarino, S., ‘Aspetti di storia dell' Appia antica’, Helikon 8 (1968) 174–96Google Scholar. I am grateful to John Patterson for this and other references.

4. Gibbon, E., ‘A minute examination of Horace's journey to Brundisium, and of Cicero's journey into Cilicia’, Miscellaneous works, ed. Sheffield, (1814) IV 335–54Google Scholar; Addison, J., Remarks on several parts of Italy in the years 1701, 1702, 1703 (1705) 186Google Scholar; Lister, C., Between two seas. A walk down the Appian Way (1991)Google Scholar. Cf. Dorsch, J., ‘Mit Horaz von Rom nach Brindisi’, Jahrbuch des St Gymnasium (1904)Google Scholar, cited by Rudd, N., The Satires of Horace (1966) 60Google Scholar.

5. Calp. Sic. Ecl. 1.28 describes the literary style of the traveller (uiator) as triuiali more.

6. Fraenkel, E., Horace (1970) 110 (Anxur)Google Scholar; 109 (marshes).

7. Nicolson, H., ‘Horace's progress from Rome to the Adriatic, based on the journey to Brundisium’, Spectator 172 21.1 (1944) 54Google Scholar.

8. Porph.: Lucilio hac satyra aemulatur Horatius iter suum a Roma Brundisium usque describens quod et ille in tertio libro fecit, primo a Roma Capuam usque et inde fretum Siciliense.

9. See Fiske, G. C., Lucilius and Horace (1920) 306–16Google Scholar. On ancient journey poems: Lejay, P., Q. Horati Flacci Saturae (1966) 140–3Google Scholar; Grupp, H., Studien zum antiken Reisegedicht (1953)Google Scholar; Illuminati, L., La satura odeporica (1938)Google Scholar. Possible other candidates for a genre of Latin travel poetry include: Varro's Menippean satires, Marcipor, Periplous and Sesculixes, ed. R. Astbury (1985); the praetexta by Cornelius Balbus cited at Cic. Fam. 10.32, in imitation of the presbeia in Iliad 9; J. Caesar, Iter (Suet. Jul. 56: reliquit poema quod inscribitur Iter … fecit dum ab urbe in Hispaniam ulteriorem quarto et uicensimo die peruenit); Valgius (Morel, W., Frag. poet. Lat. 106Google Scholar); Persius, Hodeporicon (a possible textual reading in the Vita); Ausonius, , Mosella, ed. Green, R. P. H. (1991)Google Scholar; Namatianus, Rutilius, De reditu suo siue Iter Gallicum, ed. Doblhofer, E. (1972)Google Scholar. Cf. also the prose epistle of Sidonius (Ep. 1.5) with its echoes of Horace on friendship (2); laughter (3); and filthy water (6, 8).

10. Rut. Nam. 1.419–20; 1.387–94.

11. Ramage, C. T., Nooks and by-ways of Italy (1868)Google Scholar. Kenney, Ted has kindly drawn my attention to Hogarth's peregrination, ed. Mitchell, C. (1952)Google Scholar.

12. Voltaire, Candide, ch. 25.1 owe this reference to Neil Hopkinson. See Sallmann, K., ‘Die seltsame Reise nach Brundisium. Aufbau und Deutung der Horazsatire 1,5’, in Musa iocosa (Festschrift for A. Thierfelder), ed. Reinhardt, U. and Sallmann, K. (1974) 179–206 for a catalogue of disgruntled readers (180–1)Google Scholar.

13. See DuQuesnay, I. M. le M., ‘Horace and Maecenas: The propaganda value of Sermones 1’, in Poetry and politics in the age of Augustus, ed. Woodman, T. and West, D. (1984) 19–58 esp. 40-3Google Scholar.

14. Musurillo, H. A., ‘Horace's journey to Brundisium – fact or fiction?’, CW 48 (1954–1955) 159–62, where the arguments for each treaty are set outGoogle Scholar; modified by Anderson, W. S., ‘Poetic fiction – Horace Serm. 1.5’, CW 49 (1955–1956) 57–9Google Scholar.

15. See Lowe, W. H., ‘Horace, Sermones, Book 1. A study’, diss. Brown University (1979) 135Google Scholar: ‘This Horatian journey is essentially a conceptual journey, at once a real action and a metaphoric device, the theme of a poem, and an illustration of the way to write such a poem.’

16. De elocutione 47.

17. See Fantham, E., Comparative studies in Republican Latin imagery (1972) 153–5Google Scholar, who points out that the metaphor is an appropriate one for the dialogue, which relies for its existence on the hospitality of friends. The same is, of course, true of Horace's journey.

18. OLD s.v. deuerticulum: 1 (c) a circumlocution; (2) a loophole, means of evasion; (3) a digression.

19. Var. Men. 418 (Astbury): et ne erraremus, ectropas esse multas; omnino tutum esse, sed spissum iter.

20. Rut. Nam. 2.1–4: nondum longus erat nec multa uolumina passus, | iure suo poterat longior esse liber; | taedia continuo timuit cessura labori, | sumere ne lector iuge paueret opus …; 7–10: interualla reor fessis praestare uidetur | qui notat inscriptus milia crebra lapis | partimur trepidum per opuscula bina ruborem, | quem satius fuerat sustinuisse semel.

21. Rut. Nam. 2.61–2: sed deuerticulo fuimus fortasse loquaces: | carmine propositum iam repetamus iter.

22. H. Fielding, Joseph Andrews, Bk 3, Ch. 1.

23. Ep. 1.18.20: Brundisium Minuci melius uia ducat an Appi.

24. See Wimmel, W., Kallimachos in Rom (1960)Google Scholar; Clausen, W. V., ‘Callimachus and Roman poetry’, GRBS 5 (1964) 181–96Google Scholar; and the survey of Latin references in Hopkinson, N., A Hellenistic anthology (1988) 98–101Google Scholar.

25. Cf. Barnes, W. R., ‘Horace Sermones 1, 5, 104’, Prudentia 20.1 (1988) 57–9Google Scholar; Freudenburg, K., The walking muse. Horace on the theory of satire (1993) 202Google Scholar.

26. Lucil. 228M. The most recent attempts to identify the town are in Desy, P., ‘La traversée de l'Apennin par Horace’, Latomus 47 (1988) 620–5 (Ausculum)Google Scholar and Radke, G., ‘Topographische Betrachtungen zum Iter Brundisinum des Horaz’, RhM 132 (1989) 54–72 (Herdoneae)Google Scholar.

27. See Rudd (n. 4) 61.

28. Freudenburg (n. 25) 203–5 argues that Horace is playing the role of a disgruntled comic parasite, and compares Ep. 1.17.52–7 on the disasters that befall a hanger-on on his journey to Brundisium (cf. Ep. 1.11.11: sed neque qui Capua Roman petit imbre lutoque | aspersus uolet in caupona uiuere).

29. On the poem as a recusatio see Ehlers, W. W., ‘Das “Iter Brundisinum” des Horaz (Serm. 1.5)’, Hermes 113 (1985) 69–83 (82)Google Scholar and Lowe (n. 15) 130.

30. See Frank, T., ‘Heliodorus-Apollodorus. Horace Serm. 1.5.2’, CPhil 15 (1920) 393Google Scholar.

31. See Kiessling, A. and Heinze, R. edd., Q. Horatius Flaccus 2. Satiren (1921)Google Scholar ad loc. Twelve hexameters of this poem survive in Stobaeus, Anth. 100.6 (= III 344.17 Meineke), describing a miraculous spring that cured eye-disease near Cicero's villa at Puteoli (cf. Plin. N.H. 31.3).

32. At Sat. 2.3.11–12 he names four Greek writers as his ‘companions’ on a writing-trip: quorsum pertinuit stipare Platona Menandro, | Eupolin, Archilochum, comites educere tantos? Cf. Mart. 14.188 on a parchment volume of Cicero: si comes ista tibi fuerit membrana, putato | carpere te longas cum Cicerone uias; and OED s.v. ‘cicerone’.

33. Sat. 1.1.29: perfidus hie caupo, miles nautaeque per omne | audaces mare qui currunt.

34. On the etymology of satura see Coffey, M., Roman satire ed. 2 (1989) 12Google Scholar; Diomedes 1.485 GLK: siue a quodam genere farciminis, quod multis rebus refertum saturam dicit Varro uocitatum; and cf. Martianus Capella 9.997–8: miscilla … doctis indoctis adgerans, | fandis tacenda farcinat, immiscuit.

35. Ep. 1.11.29–30: quod petis hic est, est Vlubris, animus si te non deficit aequus.

36. Cf. Ep. 1.15.10: mutandus locus est et deuersoria nota | praeteragendus equus.

37. Porph.: id est, expeditius et agilius; cf. Serv. ad Aen. 1.210: accinctos enim industrios dicimus. The phrase has roughly the same meaning as English ‘with sleeves rolled up’.

38. Testorelli, E., Analisi stilistica della Satira 1, 5 di Orazio (1977) 29 n. 62Google Scholar.

39. As suggested by Palmer, A., Q. Horatius Flaccus. Satires ed. 2 (1885)Google Scholar.

40. 2.6.16–17: ergo ubi me in montis et in arcem ex urbe remoui, | quid prius illustrem satiris musaque pedestri?

41. Cic. Leg. 2.68: herois uersibus, quod longos appellat.

42. On the poem as epic parody see Sallmann (n. 12) 200–6.

43. See Ehlers (n. 29) 80–1: Homer Od. 9.39–40: | ; cf. Virg. Aen. 3.210: seruatum ex undis Strophadum me litora primum | excepit.

44. In the light of Rutilius' explicit comparison between the divisions of his book and those of a journey (n. 20), it is also possible to read lines 5–6 as a statement about the place of 1.5 as a half-way stopping-point in Book 1.

45. Ps.-Acron: Appia uia non est molesta tardioribus, quia habitaculis frequentatur ubi possunt manere, quocumque peruenerint.

46. Cf. Ep. 1.4.4: reptare.

47. Strab. C282–3.

48. Sat. 1.6.104–5: nunc mihi curto | ire licet mulo uel si libet usque Tarentum.

49. Sat. 1.6.58–9: non ego circum | me Satureiano uectari rura caballo.

50. As a hybrid, and a form of transport half-way between horseback and Shanks's pony, the mule would suit Horace's pedestrian poetics. Cf. Lucian, , Bis acc. 33Google Scholar, where Dialogue claims to be a paradoxical mixture, neither pedestrian nor mounted on the back of metre (). Freudenburg (n. 25) 206–7 also believes that mules are a metaphor for satire.

51. 12–13: ‘huc appelle!’ ‘trecentos inseris: ohe | iam satis est!’

52. Sterne, L., Tristram Shandy, vol. VII, Ch. 4Google Scholar.

53. 26: impositum saxis late candentibus Anxur; 36: latum clauum.

54. See Fussell, P., The rhetorical world of Augustan humanism (1965) 262–82Google Scholar, ‘The open and ironic road’, on ‘empirical tourism’ in eighteenth-century English literature.

55. On friendship as the poem's theme see Classen, C. J., ‘Eine unsatirische Satire des Horaz? Zu Sat. 1, 5’, Gymnasium 80 (1973) 235–50Google Scholar. However, there are hints throughout that Horace's release is only temporary: the scriba Messius is described as a runaway slave (656, 68); mules are let loose, then tied up again (18–19); Aricia (1) was connected with a runaway slave who became the priest of Diana; Feronia (24) protected freedmen (Serv. ad Aen. 8.564). With one bound Horace is free (egressum 1) after the mock-threats of the press-gang of poets at the end of Satire 4, but he is eventually forced back to Rome.

56. Varius leaves his friends wearing a tragic mask (by contrast with his comic persona at Sat. 2.8.63–4: Varius mappa compescere risum | uix poterat); these lines look like a reference to a lost epic or tragedy, or possibly to his Epicurean poem De morte, given the double meaning of discedere, ‘to leave’ or ‘to die’ (Richard Janko has suggested to me that the poets met Horace at Sinuessa because of the associations of the Bay of Naples with Epicurean philosophy). Savage, J. H., ‘Flentibus amicis. Horace Sat. 1.5.93’, CB 36 (1959–1960) 1-4, 9–10Google Scholar, sees an allusion to the myth in which Diomedes' friends were metamorphosed into birds.

57. See Sallmann (n. 12) 197 n. 52: Ps.-Acron compares Pl. Amph. 863: (Iuppiter) in superiore qui habito cenaculo.

58. Sat. 1.7.32: Italo … aceto.

59. Cf. Lejay (n. 8) 139. Strabo C250 notes that the Campanians used to invite gladiators in pairs to perform at dinners.

60. Isid. Etym. 12.1.54 on equiferus: qui ad urbanam dignitatem transire non potest.

61. There may well be an element of self-ridicule in the characters of Aufidius Luscus and Sarmentus, both described as scriba (35, 66). Horace's native river was the Aufidus, he was a scriba quaestorius, like Luscus (‘One-Eye’) he had something wrong with his vision (lippus 30), and his satirical physique is puny (Sat. 2.3.308: longos imitaris, ab imo | ad summum totus moduli bipedalis; cf. pusillo 69). I have not been able to see Doblhofer, E., ‘Gedanken zur Cena Cocceiana’, Informationen zum altsprachlichen Unterricht 2 (1980) 52–67Google Scholar, which apparently makes this point.

62. Savage, J. J. H., ‘The Cyclops, the Sibyl and the poet (Horace Sat. 1.5.51–70)’, TAPA 93 (1962) 410–42Google Scholar.

63. Ep. 2.2.124–5: ut qui | nunc Satyrum, nunc agrestem Cyclopa mouetur. Barnes (n. 25) 59 n. 12 points out that Messius' joke about Sarmentus' physique is an echo of the Cyclops' description of Odysseus at Od. 9.515: .

64. Ars 229.

65. See P. Vergili Maronis Aeneidos liber secundus, ed. Austin, R. G. (1964) 141 on Aen. 2.310–11Google Scholar, where the two passages are compared, especially the phrase flamma culinam | Volcano [sic] summum (Hor. Sat. 1.5.73–4) against Virgil's ampla ruinam | Volcano superare.

66. E.g. Sat. 1.3.24; 1.4.5.

67. Plut., Ant. 35Google Scholar.

68. Wiseman, T. P., ‘Satyrs in Rome? The background to Horace's Ars Poetica’, JRS 78 (1988) 1–13Google Scholar, in considering the evidence for Roman satyr-plays, lists a number of connections between Italian place-names and satyrs (7: e.g. Satricum in the Pomptine marshes, comparing Virg. Aen. 7.801 Saturae palus ), but he does not mention Satyrion. As he points out (12), Odysseus' wanderings were a rich source of satyr-play plots with Italian connections.

69. On the endings of Latin poems, see Fowler, D. P., ‘First thoughts on closure’, MD 22 (1989) 75–122Google Scholar. Line 104 might recall Ennius, Annals 542W, Brundisium pulcro praecinctum praepete portu, and momentarily excite hopes that a topographical description is to follow.

70. Barnes (n. 25): at Od. 3.4.2 Horace uses longum … melos unironically of a long poem.

71. Cf. 1.1.95: non longa est fabula.

72. Cf. 1.1.120; 1.7.3; 1.3.25.

73. See Pisani, V., ‘Apella’, Paedeia 8 (1953) 18 on Apella (100) as a name that means ‘circumcised’Google Scholar.

74. See Gowers, E., The loaded table. Representations of food in Roman literature (1993) 178–9Google Scholar.

75. See above n. 55 on examples of ties and bonds in the poem. Bail is one aspect of the shadow of the law-courts that hangs over the satires as a whole: cf. 1.1.11 datis uadibus qui rure extractus in urbem est; 1.9.36–7 et casu tunc repondere uadato | debebat.

76. Cf. 1.1.1: Qui fit, Maecenas …; cf. 1.1.108: illuc unde abii redeo; and Cic. Fam. 12.15.5: redeamus unde diuertimus.

77. The endings (-que … -que 104) are mock-Homeric. For the Odyssey as a proverbially long-winded narrative, see Leutsch, –Schneidewin, , Corpus Paroem. Graec. I 210.8, II 13.79Google Scholar and Barnes (n. 25).

78. Cf. 1.1.106: sunt certi denique fines | quos ultra citraque nequit consistere rectum; 1.1.92: denique sit finis quaerendi. The joke may have been improved by the visual effect of seeing this very definite ending followed at one by a new beginning on the same page or the next one (John Henderson points this out to me). Cf. uerbum non amplius addam (Sat. 1.1.121), followed immediately by Satire 2. Van Sickle, J., ‘The book-roll and some conventions of the poetic book’, Arethusa 13 (1980) 5–42Google Scholar suggests that an ancient book-roll could be as long or as short as the author wanted (7) and that the last column of a poem was usually shared with the beginning of the next poem (6). I cannot see any particular reason for the length of 1.5 (104 lines), though the number is almost an average of the total length of the 10 satires (1,030 lines).

79. Gell. A.N. 9.4.1.

80. I am grateful for criticisms and suggestions from the audience at the Philological Society meeting at which this paper was first delivered, and to Ted Kenney and Edmund Thomas for advice and encouragement at various stages. I should also like to thank Richard Hunter and the anonymous referee for their very helpful comments.