A biography of Horace one of the most popular poets from antiquity revealing the little-known
man behind his famous lines “ Peter Stothard is a master of modern writing about ancient
Rome of vividly bringing to life its poetry and its poets.”—Mary Beard Quintus Horatius
Flaccus (65–8 BCE) wrote some of ancient Rome’s greatest poetry melding languages and cultures
with youthful ideals and a realist’s recognition of the dictatorial world around him. Horace is
famed for his fine phrases lyric sex and guidance on how to live but he was a poet maddened
by war and many of his most self-revealing poems have rarely been read. He could be sublime
and obscene amusing and abusive a model of moderation and anything but. In this book the
first modern retelling of Horace’s life Peter Stothard follows the poet from his birth as the
son of a formerly enslaved father through his rise to the highest circles of Roman society. He
shines a light on how shattering experiences in the war to save Rome’s republic shaped the
loyal servant and revolutionary artist he became. With astute scholarship and sympathy
Stothard follows Horace’s rise from humble beginnings to the social and political heights of
the autocracy he had fought to prevent.
