In this volume M. revisits Horace and provides a thoughtful overview of his works from the playfully philosophical perspective of Socratic irony. He provides an engaging analysis of this poet of contradictions (p. 2), whose content is perpetually elusive for readers and especially scholars seeking to pin him down. He ‘never means exactly what he says’ (p. 3), since what he says (dictum) is often able to be understood (intellectum) in a variety of different – and often seemingly contradictory – ways (pp. 62–3). These challenges are further examined in four chapters, each of which tackles Horace's works in chronological order. There is a short epilogue followed by two pages of notes, and the volume concludes with a bibliography and a general index. The text is clear, and the volume as a whole is easy to digest in terms of its organisation into chapters that contain more detailed arguments regarding individual instances of irony and what they entail.
The first chapter takes W.S. Anderson's study ‘The Roman Socrates: Horace and his Satires’ (originally published in 1963, later included in the 1982 collection Essays on Roman Satire) and applies it to the entire Horatian corpus (p. 20). Through a significantly broader analysis of the poet's ‘drive for an adequate self-knowledge’ (p. 19), M. argues for the consistency of this philosophical tradition in Horace by cataloguing its pervasive influence as seen in specific passages, especially in the Satires. After a helpful overview of the genre, M. tackles Satires 1.4, which highlights the poet's methodology as distinct from that of Lucilius (and is therefore the perfect place to begin). Central to this poem is the ambiguity of libertas: Horatian ‘freedom’ is not defined by the attacks of Lucilius but rather by ‘moral health’ (sanus, itself an equivocal term), which comes from attentiveness to one's own behaviour, ‘self-surveillance’ and the ‘silent internalization’ of the morally destructive behaviour of others (pp. 27–8). Indeed, the unexamined life is not worth living. The rest of the chapter focuses on three satires, namely 1.1, 2.7 and 2.8. What these have in common, according to M., is Socratic irony leading to playful ambiguity. Whether dealing with the serio-comic speaker of 1.1, who in his diatribe uses words like finis to mean both ‘spatial limitations’ as well as the ‘limits of nature’ (pp. 36–7), or the wordplay and ethical examinations in the other poems, the overall thesis is that ‘the poet himself envisions a process where external observation leads to internal critique and self-interrogation: precisely the ultimate aim of Socratic discourse, which more often ends in aporia or perplexity than dogmatic assurance’ (p. 49).
Turning to the Epodes, M. gives another helpful overview of the literary context while connecting these poems to the Satires by means of their frank speech (libertas), which in both cases ‘can function as a weapon’ (p. 53). What makes Horace's invective in the Epodes special, and what distinguishes it from his predecessors Callimachus and Catullus, is that it is not only more uniform (written mostly in Archilochean, epodic metres) but also that it is ‘more amusing than cruel and more Socratic than vengeful’ (p. 60). Beginning with Epodes 3, which includes references to both Canidia and Maecenas, M. argues that it is the nexus or ‘nodal point’ (p. 64) of the entire collection, since it contains structural references to major themes such as impotence (Horace is ‘poisoned’ by an almost lethal dose of garlic) and politics (the perpetrator of the crime is none other than his patron). The next poem in the collection involves political ambiguity: in society there are ‘wolves’ and ‘sheep’, but the sheepish poet who attacks his enemies is a wolf in sheep's clothing (p. 71). In other words, there is an unclear distinction between aggressors or victims and individuals – like Horace – who are ‘actors in a larger historical drama that they were powerless (impotens) to change’ (p. 73). But perhaps the best summary of the main thesis of the chapter is that of M. himself: ‘Horace, as we see him in Epodes 3, in the Canidia poems, in the political and in the impotence poems, is both the subject and object of iambic invective, the perpetrator and the victim of sexual aggression, the voice of social norms and of their reinforcement as well as the embodiment of their breach’ (p. 80).
M. argues that even in the Odes, which are less concerned with ethics or philosophy than the other works, ‘The Roman Socrates is still very much with us’ (p. 126). Unlike the poems of his predecessor Catullus, Horace's lyric odes are purer, in a sense, because they are ‘validated by the precedent of the canonical Greek lyricists’ and part of what unifies them is a ‘profoundly ironic’ and thus ‘two-eared’ discourse (p. 82). A few examples should suffice. There is general ambiguity regarding the ‘profound cultural bilingualism’ (p. 82) of the Odes, which are both Greek as well as Latin. More specifically, much of the vocabulary Horace uses can be understood in more than one way or involves contradiction: at the end of Odes 1.1 Horace asks to be ‘inserted’ (inseres) into the traditional canon of lyricists that has already been closed; in Odes 1.9 the verb vides can mean ‘you the reader’, but as ‘you the reader’ become absorbed into the imaginary world the poet has created, a transition takes place, and life is given to Thaliarchus, the other ‘you’ and the subject of the imperatives dissolve etc.; in the same poem there is mention of a Sabina diota, a contradictory blend of the Greek word for a ‘two-eared jar’ and the Roman ‘Sabine’; Cleopatra, in Odes 1.37, is described ambiguously as impotens, which can mean both ‘powerless’ (she has been defeated) and ‘mad’ or ‘frightening’; finally, the very nature of Horace's Odes, which pretends to follow the organic tradition of archaic lyric, is paradoxically studied and meticulously refined. ‘This is poetry of the book and not song’ (p. 100).
The Epistles, which M. notes are ‘self-consciously philosophical letters that return to the more discursive Socratic stance of the Satires’ (p. 132), continue to display the ludic irony found in previous works. The first letter to Maecenas in particular seems to outline the threefold, somewhat programmatic focus of the collection: Horace's independence vis-à-vis his patron as well as other individuals; a more explicitly philosophical (Socratic) form of introspective discourse; the announcement of a new kind of poetry, namely epistolography in hexameter form (p. 141). Regarding self-reflection, in Epistles 1.1 (pp. 7–9) the poet reveals that ‘a voice often whispers in my well-cleansed ear’ (M.'s translation), which is a phenomenon identified as the ‘foundation of ethical thought’ (p. 135) that strongly recalls the daimon of Socrates (p. 136). This emphasis on philosophical introspection and the complete detachment from less serious content, however, is somewhat dishonest, especially since the Epistles in many ways look back to Horace's earlier works (especially the Satires). Aside from being introspective, Horace is also aware of his external obligations and relationships with others, especially Maecenas, as he demonstrates in Epistles 1.7. This letter, which contains many words that can be interpreted in various ways, addresses the nature of complex relationships as well as their limitations and expectations, without ever directly spelling these things out. M. puts it best: ‘Horace in Epistles 1.7 is merely the man who has lied (mendax) to his friend in order to preserve his libertas, a libertas which on one level is founded on the gifts provided by that friend but which on another he must remain free to return, if he is to enjoy them’ (p. 173). This reflection foregrounds the formidable – and yet by now familiar – irony that the poet's audience (including Maecenas) faces: Horace is not to be taken seriously, but rather to be taken seriously.
Overall, this study is well written, well documented in terms of secondary sources (included throughout in the form of parenthetical notations), and, most impressively, it speaks to a wide audience. M.'s examination is sure to be helpful to students approaching Horace for the first time, while simultaneously challenging more advanced readers on a philological level and playfully provoking experts – just as Horace does – with regard to convictions. Why Horace? Why now? Because there will always be more questions than answers when it comes to Horatian scholarship, as M. demonstrates in this entertainingly erudite (another paradox?) volume.
