Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-nwzlb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T12:17:14.986Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Horace, Epode 6.16

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

S. J. Harrison
Affiliation:
St John's College, Oxford

Extract

Here Horace gives warning to an adversary of his powers of literary attack, comparing himself with the great iambists Archilochus (‘Lycambae spretus infido gener’) and Hipponax (‘acer hostis Bupalo’). The general sense of the last two lines seems clear: ‘If someone attacks me (gifted as I am with the weapons of the iambist), shall I weep like a mere boy?’, i.e. ‘Am I not to take revenge?’

Type
Shorter Notes
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1987

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Some support for ‘inutilis flebo puer’ might also be derived from the identical word-shape of a similar iambic dimeter at Epodes 5.12, ‘insignibus raptis puer’ (a point which I owe to the anonymous referee for CQ).

My thanks for encouragement to Professor R. G. M. Nisbet.