As this last observation suggests, there are of course many instances where Horace departs from the models provided by Catullus’ work, or otherwise follows a slightly different path in his interpretation, execution, or emphasis of particular poetic themes. These points of divergence can be regarded as constituting further Horatian responses to the Catullan model, carefully tailored to the different social and political circumstances in which the later poet found himself.
In terms oftheir respective realizations ofthe lyric form, it could be said that Horace demonstrates a somewhat tighter control over its rhythms and sounds in the Odes than Catullus does in his poems. This is suggested, for instance, by the fact that Horace only rarely resorts to the elision or enjambment of individual words in order to fit them into each line, whereas Catullus frequently elides his words, and shows himself to be more willing to spread a single word across two lines of text (Horace Odes and Catullus passim;althoughcf., e. g., Hor. Carm. 1.2.19-20; Catull. 11.11-12). Asaresult, itisa commonplace to say that Horace’s Odes exhibit an unmatched degree of polish and care, with not a single word out of place; many of Catullus’ poems are traditionally regarded more as literary experiments, innovative but not always entirely successful. By the same token, however, it must be acknowledged that Horace’s comparatively tidier construction of individual lines surely owes something to Catullus’ earlier efforts in this regard.
Thematically, Horace manifests a greater interest in evocative descriptions of the natural world, combining sound and image to establish vivid pictures of the settings in which his poems take place. To take two famous examples, Odes 1.9 elicits in the reader an almost visceral appreciation for the silence and cold of a winter landscape:
Vides ut alta stet niue candidum Soracte, nec iam sustineant onus siluae laborantes, geluque flumina constiterint acuto
You see how Mount Soracte stands gleaming in deep snow. The weighted woods no longer bear their burden, and the rivers stand still in the sharp frost (Hor. Carm. 1.9.1-4)
While Odes 3.13 conveys something of the music and movement of a bubbling forest spring:
Fies nobilium tu quoque fontium, me dicente cauis impositam ilicem saxis, unde loquaces lymphae desiliunt tuae.
You too will become one of the celebrated springs, when I sing of the oak tree above the hollow rocks from which your chattering waters leap down. (Hor. Carm. 3.13.13-16)
Catullus’ natural settings, by contrast, tend to be delineated in more allusive and artificial terms, distancing the reader somewhat from the scene:
Ubi iste post phaselus antea fuit comata silua; nam Cytorio in iugo loquente saepe sibilum edidit coma.
Where that latter-day ship was formerly a long-haired forest; often, on the Cytorian ridge, it whispered with speaking hair. (Catull. 4.10-12)
On the other hand, in other respects it is Horace who contrives to leave his readers on the outside of things, restricting their role (as well as his own) to that of relatively detached observers, whereas Catullus more typically collapses the points of view of reader and poet into a single, intimate, and inwardly directed perspective that he presents as his (cf., e. g., Carm. 1.5; Catull. 8). This is reflected also in the way in which the two poets develop similar initial premises in very different directions: Catullus takes his personal experiences as a starting point for the exploration of peculiar yet wholly plausible psychological and emotional states (as in cc. 72 and 75, where Lesbia’s unreliability has led Catullus to love her more, but like her less); Horace treats his experiences as pretexts for the expression of generalized philosophical or aesthetic sentiments (as in Carm. 2.13, where an accident involving a falling tree branch prompts reflections on the abiding power and appeal of poetry).
As a further reflection of this difference in emphasis, both poets provide ostensibly personal and autobiographical details in support of their broader poetic self-images. Catullus creates the impression of doing so almost spontaneously, as though poetry simply happened to be the medium through which he has chosen to express his true feelings and negotiate his actual personal relationships (see, e. g., c. 50 and especially c. 101, which is deeply moving precisely because it seems so naked and unguarded in its expression of grief). Horace, by contrast, engages in apparent autobiographical revelation as part of a more explicitly literary exercise, devoting entire poems to the artful, guarded, and self-consciously planned representation of his life, and purposely conjuring specific details in such a way as to call into question the basic veracity of the overall picture (e. g., in Sat. 1.4, 1.5, 1.6; see McNeill 2001).
Within these larger programs of seemingly personal revelation, the city of Rome itself fulfills slightly different functions in the works of the two poets. For Catullus, Rome plays an almost entirely negative role, suggestive perhaps of his alienation from the moral values of the city (Wiseman 1985). In his poems the capital becomes a place of low depravity, its streetscapes the setting for expressions of contempt and despair (e. g., c. 37 and especially c. 58), whereas his country estate at Sirmio is celebrated entirely on its own merits, with Rome wholly absent and Bithynia explicitly rejected (c. 31). While Horace seems on occasion to echo these sentiments (famously in Carm. 3.29.11-12: omitte mirari beatae/fumum et opes strepitumque Romae, ‘‘cease to marvel at the smoke and riches and noise of blessed Rome’’), he also routinely frames his praise of the countryside and of his Sabine villa as constituting an indirect admission of the extent to which Rome represents the true focus of his attention, the source of his innermost anxieties as well as his greatest joys. In so doing, he openly acknowledges that he loves being closely associated with those in power in Rome; his avowed preference for the country imperfectly masks his real desire to be back in the city with them (Sat. 2.6.50-117; 2.7.28-35).
These different ways in which the two poets portray Rome, its atmosphere and preoccupations, are themselves suggestive of the very different social and political worlds in which they lived. In the late Republican Rome ofCatullus’ day, members of the elite could group themselves around a comparatively wide array of leading individuals as they competed for personal advancement - or, like Catullus, choose not to align themselves at all. By the mid-30s bc, however (and certainly by the Battle of Actium in 31 bc and the first constitutional settlement in 29 bc), one’s chances for prominence in Rome were determined largely by one’s closeness to Octavian/ Augustus and his associates, whose centralized network of patronage and control now sat atop the entire apparatus of Roman government. Men like Horace could enter the highest social and political circles by being invited or summoned inside (Sat. 1.6.52-62), only to serve subsequently as both adherents and gatekeepers of the new regime, a role that itself generated new personal anxieties. Horace’s poetic gestures of friendship thus take on a political as well as a social resonance, in contrast to those of Catullus: a reference to his friend Pollio’s literary compositions becomes a veiled warning of political danger; another friend’s long-anticipated return prompts complicated reflections on the poet’s past role in the civil wars (cf. Hor. Carm. 2.1 and Catull. 95; Hor. Carm. 2.7 and Catull. 9; cf. also Hor. Epod. 9 and Catull. 9). When Catullus dismisses Caesar in c. 93, he proclaims his freedom to adopt an attitude ofindifference to the political affairs ofhis day; when Horace invites Maecenas to take a rest from all his cares in Odes 3.29.25-33, he obliquely celebrates his friend’s indispensability as a key overseer of Rome’s security. In these respective roles as urbane outsider and canny insider, both poets are very much representative of their times.
World History
