Epodes

Horace was writing hisEpodes1at the same time as he was writingSatires. The nameEpodesis derived from the metrical term ό ἐπῳδός (і.е. στίχος) which signifies the second and shorter line of a couplet, but Horace himself referred to them asiambi(soEpod. 14. 7,Epist. i. 19. 23). The collection is titledLiber Epodonin the MSS. and the title was used by grammarians of the fourth and fifth centuries. Butiambigives a better idea of their basic inspiration. Horace says of them(Epist. i. 19. 21-5):So he claims(a)originality,(b)Archilochus as a model,(c)that he was the first Roman to use Archilochus as a model, and(d)that he discarded the vicious personal invective of Archilochus. The judgement disregards Catullus, who had writteniambibefore Horace, but whose similarity to Archilochus did not extend far beyond metre and invective. There is a consistency in Horace’s poetic career: he began by recreating the poetry of Archilochus in hisEpodes, and his later—and greatest— work was the recreation in hisOdesof the lyric poetry of poets like Sappho, Alcaeus, and Pindar. There is a similarly close relationship between theSatiresand theEpistles;and, furthermore, all of his writing uses an autobiographical technique. There is another sort of consistency too, for basicallyEpodesandSatiresexpress a similar attitude of mind: anger, contempt, and amusement are the fundamental emotions (though he often transcends these emotions in both works), and a plausible case can be made out for regarding this as a sign of a young man of low social status, unsure of himself and his talent, and already finding ways of expressing a personality that were not too self-revealing. TheOdesandEpistles, on the other hand, express a more meditative, more philosophical, more humane attitude, yet ultimately no more self-revealing.