Horace: Poet on a Volcano

8vo, hardcover in dj, pp.336. Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65ñ8 BCE) wrote some of ancient Romeís greatest poetry, melding languages and cultures with youthful ideals and a realistís 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 Horaceís 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 Romeís republic shaped the loyal servant and revolutionary artist he became. With astute scholarship and sympathy, Stothard follows Horaceís rise from humble beginnings to the social and political heights of the autocracy he had fought to prevent.