Horace

Parshia Lee-Stecum (University of Melbourne)

Ed. by William John Dominik, University of Otago
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.1.2: Ancient Roman Writing and Culture (Republic and Empire), -750-476.
Vol. editors: William John Dominik (University of Otago), Giacomo Fedeli (University of Exeter), Thomas Habinek (University of Southern California), Emily Kneebone (University of Nottingham), Elodie Paillard (University of Sydney), Sophia Papaioannou (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens), Jula Wildberger (American University of Paris)

Dates

Born 6 Dec -65
Died 27 Nov -8
Activity -35--10

Places

Born in Ancient Rome (Republic & Empire)
Active in Ancient Rome (Republic & Empire)

Activities

Primary

Poet

Other

Essayist

Resources

Horace's Works

Save to Bookshelf

Details of the life and career of Quintus Horatius Flaccus (known in the English-speaking world as Horace) emerge from references in his own works and a biographical sketch probably written 100 years after Horace’s death as part of Suetonius’

De Viris Illustribus

(

Famous Men

). Thanks to these sources we know more about Horace’s life than we do about any other poet of the late Republican and early Imperial periods.

Horace was born in the Calabrian town of Venusia on December 8, 65 BCE and died on November 27, 8 BCE. His father was a freedman (libertus) who worked as a “money collector” (the term Horace uses is coactor, Satires 1.6.86). The Suetonian biography explains it as a collector of taxes (exactionum coactor), although some editors emended this to auctionum coactor (a

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

2509 words

Citation: Lee-Stecum, Parshia. "Horace". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 07 May 2010 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2207, accessed 01 May 2024.]

View recommended reading for this article

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here