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 A New Statesman Book of the
Year 2025 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.
