I preface my essay with these reflections because there may be readers
at first thought skeptical of even modest statements regarding Horace as
a force in the history of our culture and a contributor to our life
today. It is only when the continuity of history and the essential
simplicity and constancy of civilization are understood that the direct
and vital connection between past and present is seen, and the mind is
no longer startled and incredulous when the historian records that the
Acropolis has had more to do with the career of architecture than any
other group of buildings in the world, or that the most potent influence
in the history of prose is the Latin of Cicero, or that poetic
expression is more choice and many men appreciably saner and happier
because of a Roman poet dead now one thousand nine hundred and thirty
years.
HORACE AND HIS
INFLUENCE
I. HORACE INTERPRETED
THE APPEAL OF HORACE
In estimating the effect of Horace upon his own and later times, we must
take into account two aspects of his work. These are, the forms in which
he expressed himself, and the substance of which they are the garment.
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