Oil and vinegar. Fire and rain. Leather and lace. Oscar and Felix. We all love a good odd couple. This collection explores that dynamic in the Roman Empire, for Augustan Epicurean poet Horace and Neronian Stoic philosopher-cum-tragedian Seneca. The intriguing proposition is that in juxtaposing two writers who, at face value, have little in common, we would be driven to reconsider our traditional presuppositions not only about Horace and Seneca themselves, but also about the spheres in which they travelled, which are marked by moral advice, political influence and self-awareness of the writing process. Overall, the collection succeeds in presenting a variety of methodologies to explore the literary relationship between the two authors.

The volume originates in a conference of the same name held in Heidelberg in 2015. Nearly all the contributions found their beginnings as conference papers, and all but a few of the original conference presentations are represented in the volume. Several chapters have now been translated into English, to the benefit of an Anglophone readership; as a result the volume is entirely in English, and all Latin has been translated. An introduction, fourteen chapters, a ‘Table of Correspondences’ (more on this below), a volume-wide list of works cited and a general index make up the book.

The introduction lays the methodological groundwork for the titular ‘interactions, intertexts, [and] interpretations’ between Horace and Seneca. The discussion of the points and the nature of interaction between the two corpora is grounded securely in the texts themselves, focusing largely on the known (or credited) quotations of Horace in Seneca, the probable quotations and the uncertainty surrounding these uncredited quotations. The introduction addresses the questions persistent in classical tradition and reception studies: how do we know whether the receiving text really refers to the source text, and was it intentional? In so doing, the introduction anticipates the objections of those who see no correspondence between Horace and Seneca; and yet it seems also, in its quasi-Senecan anxiety of the status of the project,Footnote ¹ to miss an opportunity to demonstrate the far-reaching ramifications of an arguably anachronistic nexus of meaning-making between the two corpora and beyond. That is, for those of us who are already on board with the project, some indication of the pay-off would be welcome.

The contributions are divided into four thematic sections: (1) ‘Philosophy in Literature – Literature in Philosophy’; (2) ‘Horatian Verse in Senecan Tragedy’; (3) ‘Themes and Concepts’; (4) ‘Modes of Quotation and Issues of Reception’. In general, the first two sections tend to focus on textual quotations or direct echoes of Horace in Seneca and the ends to which those allusions are employed; the latter two sections, as their titles imply, are more generally interested in the treatment of different topics across the authors. They are thus representative of a number of approaches to the question of the relationship between Horace and Seneca.

The papers in Part 1, ‘Philosophy in Literature – Literature in Philosophy’, all discuss Seneca's response to Horace in his philosophical work. B. Del Giovane explores Seneca's inheritance of Bion's diatribic tradition via Horace; F.R. Berno reveals how Seneca employs Sallust's Bellum Catilinae to refute Horace's depiction of Epicureanism; C. Edwards considers both authors’ treatments of Saturnalia in service of their philosophical commitments.

Part 2, ‘Horatian Verse in Senecan Tragedy’, focuses on precisely that: R. Tarrant explores the behaviour of Seneca's choruses as a reflection of the political structure, in contrast to the more optimistic ideals expressed in Horace; C. Trinacty demonstrates how Seneca uses quotations from Horace, often ironically, in the mouths of tragic characters; T. Allendorf similarly explores the re-reading of Horace by Seneca's characters, but his treatment focuses on the use of sound and metre; J. Geiger utilises data analysis to explore the regularity of metre in Horace and Seneca, and to what ends irregularities may have been used.

In Part 3, ‘Themes and Concepts’, the contributions accordingly shift their focus towards topics and away from specific quotations. G. Vogt-Spira compares Horace and Seneca's conceptions of time and its role in achieving happiness; B. Blum explores the treatment of libraries as a medium for both authors to discuss moral and political concerns; E. Giusti discusses the uneasy relationship between the philosophical and the poetic sublime in both authors; Kirichenko explores how both authors use the same combination of politics, ethics and aesthetics to craft a sense of self, but to differing degrees of actualisation.

The final section, ‘Modes of Quotation and Issues of Reception’, considers both authors from a third perspective: U. Tischer examines how the deployment and format of quotations in the authors are reflective of their didactic aims; N. Mindt explores how Martial's allusions to Horace and Seneca emphasise the similarities among three writers of disparate genres; V. Moul, similarly, discusses the Nachleben of the authors in English early modern literature, and in so doing uncovers practices of translation and compilation in the early modern period.

As this brief summary reveals, the collection engages in a variety of methodologies. All are grounded in close readings of the text, but process the text differently. On the one extreme, Geiger's computational analytics demonstrate the utility of digital humanities and big data for textual analysis. On the other, analyses like Mindt's and Moul's demonstrate the uniquely human intertextual identifications that can be made beyond the current capacity of artificial intelligence. While many of the contributions restrict themselves to particular works, genres or topics, many of their approaches may readily be applied elsewhere or even to other combinations of authors.

A persistent and perhaps intractable issue in the collection is the assumption of unidirectional influence. That is, many of the studies discuss how Seneca employs, responds to or even abuses Horace, but they are harder pressed to describe how the interactions and intertexts affect Horace or our reading of him. This tendency is less pronounced in the final section, which treats both authors on equal footing, from the perspective of a third party receiving their texts. Mindt and Moul, in particular, both consider how receiving authors interpret Horace and Seneca in a mould outside of their traditional genre-defined categories. Reception studies has, following the vein of reader-response criticism, acknowledged the utility of the ‘two-way’ street of influence: that the receiving text can also influence the meaning of the source text. Indeed, Mindt refers to this phenomenon under the terms ‘transformation’ and allopoiesis (p. 317 n. 9), and it would seem to be a fruitful area for future study on the interactions between Horace and Seneca.

The contributions formally end with Moul's chapter, though a conclusion bringing the chapters into closer dialogue with each other would have been a welcome addition. The collection as a whole stands to make important observations about the role of various facets in the understanding and construction of Horace's and Seneca's works and personae, and some of these topics could also be extended to other authors whose lives or works are similarly situated, including those in the Greek world. Many of the chapters touch on one or more of the following key points in the constellation that is ‘Horace’ and/or ‘Seneca’, and it would have been beneficial to compare how different contributors approached the topics: the relationship between writing and ethics; the relationship and coexistence of poetic and philosophical personae; the influence of politics upon literature; writing about writing. Further, a topic idiosyncratic to the duo of Horace and Seneca, touched upon by a few contributors: the impetus for Seneca's disavowal or lack of explicit acknowledgement of Horace's influence; in some ways, this silence is the sine qua non for the entire volume, since a clearly stated indebtedness to Horace would have obviated the need to explore the question.

Closing the volume are the aforementioned ‘Table of Correspondences’, list of works cited and a general index. The ‘Table of Correspondences’ is bidirectional: organised both by Senecan text and Horatian correspondence, then Horatian text and Senecan correspondence. In addition, the correspondences are categorised into seven types: ‘verbal parallel’, ‘motif, imagery’, ‘name’, ‘philosophical theme’, ‘verbatim quotation’, ‘structural parallel’ and ‘inversion of thought’. This hand-checked and meticulously categorised list will surely be a valuable resource and jumping-off point for future studies on the relationship between the Horatian and Senecan corpora. In addition, it serves as an index locorum for the volume, since it includes references to the pages wherein the specific correspondence is discussed. The list of works cited is thorough and easily navigable. The general index is somewhat short at five pages and tends to focus on ancient authors or texts. On the other hand, the chapters are all aptly titled, and the first few pages of each chapter provide a thorough preview of the argumentation, topics and passages discussed; as a result, the need for a general index may be less pronounced.

The volume is an interesting foray into the experiment of juxtaposing two ancient authors to explore how their points of correspondence might inform our understanding of them. The pair in question, Horace and Seneca, are not a slapdash selection, but one which, despite being traditionally classified in two different categories by literary genre, could be assured of a number of touch points due to their biographical details and choice of literary subject matter. One wonders what might result from other similar pairings or perhaps even more brazen pairings of authors. It is our very own modern Plutarchian project of Parallel Lives – and I look forward to more volumes.