Who Said it: Horace or Millennial Rustic Twee?

It’s hard to find a lot of common ground with Horace. You can’t really sell him to students as a credible voice of the populus Romanus as you can Ovid, or as the cheerleader of Augustan Rome like you can Virgil. His poems are intentionally obscure and erudite, meant for an exclusive, elite audience — namely, the landed gentry and literati of the Augustan inner circle who had villas in the country. While it is true there are smatterings of Stoic sentiments in his poems, his references to moderation are pitched in terms that mark it as a coveted commodity rather than a principled philosophical position. Nor was it exactly an Epicurean commune Horace was envisioning in his verses, but rather a lifestyle that would appeal to an exclusive circle of wealthy, male, Roman citizens. In short, Horace is a bit of a problem poet.