Now
I am full of action and deep in the waves of civic life, an unswerving
follower and guardian of the true virtue, now I secretly backslide to
the precepts of Aristippus, and try to bend circumstance to myself, not
myself to circumstance.
Horace is either Stoic or Epicurean, or neither, or both. The character
of philosophy depends upon definition of terms, and Epicureanism with
Horace's definitions of pleasure and duty differed little in practical
working from Stoicism. In profession, he was more of the Epicurean; in
practice, more of the Stoic. His philosophy occupies ground between
both, or, rather, ground common to both. It admits of no name. It is not
a system. It owes its resemblances to either of the Schools more to his
own nature than to his familiarity with them, great as that was.
The foundations of Horace's philosophy were laid before he ever heard of
the Schools. Its basis was a habit of mind acquired by association with
his father and the people of Venusia, and with the ordinary people of
Rome. Under the influence of reading, study, and social converse at
Athens, under the stress of experience in the field, and from long
contemplation of life in the large in the capital of an empire, it
crystallized into a philosophy of life.
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