I can't believe I am the first to review this excellent book; it's been in print for a while, too. And it is an innovative, intelligent look at one of the most important, indeed foundational poets in the canon. In Latin, Horace is second only to his contemporary and friend Virgil; every succeeding poet has imitated him, consciously or unconsciously. He was the most successful of all those who, in the course of several centuries, undertook to adapt Greek rhythms and poetic fashions to Latin, and therefore the most important intermediary between Greece and ourselves; and besides, hisbeauty of sound and ease of expression are unsurpassed. Surely no poem ever had a lovelier or more unexpected close than DULCE RIDENTEM LALAGEM AMABO/ DULCE CANENTEM ("the sweetly smiling Lalage I'll love,/ the sweetly singing") or a prouder statement of the value of poetry than EXEGI MONUMENTUM AERE PERENNIUS... NON OMNIS MORIAR ("Longer will last the monument I built/ than bronze... Not all of me will die").
However, Horace had been the victim of superficial and dated assessments, and was overdue for a rethinking; and Lyme delivers it excellently. He quite rightly points out that just because a poet TELLS us that his Muse is too small and delicate a thing for war, and that the purpose of life is to enjoy the moment, we should not necessarily believe him; especially if he does so after a civil war in which his side has lost, and by the favour of the party he had opposed. Lyme traces excellently the aspect of "public", one might say play-acting performance in Horace's work, and, as the years go by and the terrors of civil war recede, his growing confidence and his increasingly ironical and even patronizing attitude towards his patron Maecenas. It is the young Horace, trying to escape the shadow of civil war and hatred, who tells us CARPE DIEM, QUAM MINIMUM CREDULA POSTERO ("Seize the moment, and have no faith in posterity"); it is the old Horace, a much more calm and confident man, who tells us that the greatest of kings would be nothing without poets to sing their praises, so that it is the sovereign who relies on the poet rather than the reverse. (VIXERE FORTES ANTE AGAMEMNONA/ MULTI; SED OMNES INLACRIMABILES/ URGENTUR IGNOTIQUE LONGA/ NOCTE, CARENT QUIA VATE SACRO: "Many were brave before Lord Agamemnon;/But for none of them is a tear shed./ A long night of unknowing drove them down,/ For God had given them no inspired singer...") And on the way, Lyme sheds much light on ancient Rome and its social and political ideas. I warmly recommend this book to anyone interested in antiquity or in a very great poet.