Month: January 2023

What was Horace’s concept of personal ethical cause and effect? According to Wikipedia “Quintus Horatius Flaccus known in the English-speaking world as Horace was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.” Horace was born on December 8th in the year 65 Bc, And died on November 27 in the year 8BC. Horace wrote many things including the book Odes, “The Art of Poetry.” According to Wikipedia “Modern lyric poetry is a formal type of poetry which expresses personal emotions or feelings, typically spoken in the first person.” In his books Horace writes likes he is talking to you. He writes things that may or may not affect their lives. Horace’s concept of personal ethical cause and effect is the “golden mean.” According to Wikipedia ““The golden mean or golden middle way is the desirable middle between two extremes, one of excess and the other of deficiency. It appeared in Greek thought at least as early as the Delphic maxim “nothing in excess” and emphasized in later Aristotelian philosophy.” 

In the Odes Horace writes a lot about death. He says things like the only major thing in life is death. We can never escape death no matter how hard we try to. It’s the one thing all men have in common. Because of this all men are equal. No one’s life means more than someone else’s. We are all equal. All the riches we have on earth will mean nothing to us once we die. You cannot do anything with those riches once you die. So Horace says to live by the golden mean, the middle way. 

Throughout Odes Horace uses examples of the ant. Proverbs 6: 6-7 says 

⁶ Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise:

⁷ Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler,

⁸ Provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest.

Death is something that no one can escape no matter how hard you try. So Horace says if you live be the golden mean you will have satisfaction.

What was Ovid’s view of the gods’ ethical performance? According to Wikipedia According to Wikipedia, “Publius Ovidius Naso, known in English as Ovid, was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the three canonical poets of Latin literature.” Ovid was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. Ovid wrote “a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people” which is called Ab Urbe Condita. Around 8 BC Augustus banished Ovid to the Black sea. About that same time Ovid started writing a book called Metamorphoses. This book is Ovid’s worldview on how creation happened. 

In most of the stories in the Metamorphoses the main theme is pride. Both the gods and men were prideful. The gods were so prideful that if anyone denied their pride that they would have to face the harsh and cruel consequences. Some of these consequences were bad sanctions. 

One of the stories that has a lot of pride in it is book six. This is called “Rustics changed to frogs”. This story begins when a goddess named Latona gives birth to twins, which are both gods. She becomes very thirsty after giving birth and so she goes to get a drink from a pond. There were some men at the pond and they did not let her pass and get a drink. This is because they thought that if they resisted a god that they would become powerful. This is mans pride. The goddess Latona was also being prideful because she thought as a god that she could do what she wanted when she wanted. She tried multiple times to get a drink and every time they resisted. Finally she was done with them so she prayed that they would become frogs. The men did become frogs after this. It’s crazy that all of this happened over a drink of water. 

Was there any basis for an optimistic view of Rome in Livy and Ovid? Titus Livius was a Roman historian. Livy wrote down many thing about the history of Rome, but some of his writings do not exist today. We cannot believe some of these stories though. Much of these writings he does not know what happened so he writes down his imagination to fill in the blanks.  

Ovid’s full name was Publius Ovidius Naso. Ovid was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. Ovid wrote “a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people” which is called Ab Urbe Condita. Around 8 BC Augustus banished Ovid to the Black sea. About that same time Ovid started writing a book called Metamorphoses. This book is Ovid’s worldview on how creation happened. 

Both Livy’s and Ovid’s stories begin on their view of creation and then how they think Rome originated. Livy’s view on the creation of Rome starts when two children named Romulus and Remus were born. The king saw them as a threat and ordered them to be put in the river. the river god ,Tiberius, saved them and put them at the bank of where Rome would eventually be. There a she-wolf heard them crying and went to them and let them nurse of her. Eventually a shepherd found and adopted them. When they became adults they argued about who would build a great city and rule over it. Soon enough Romulus killed Remus, built the city, then named it Rome. 

In Ovid’s version mankind was so wicked that the god Jupiter sent a flood to destroy them all. there were two survivors, Deuclion and Pyrra. they repopulated the earth by tossing rocks over their shoulders which turned them into people. 

These two stories have some similarities, but they’re mostly different. They both begin with the corruption of mankind and end with building up hope for Rome. The basis of optimism for these two books is hope.