Abstract

This chapter examines in detail the second ode of Horace’s fourth book of Carmina in the light of the adjective felix. Both Quintilian and Petronius’s Eumolpus so designate the poet’s work in general. The chapter places the lyric in the context of the ancient genre as a whole and follows its course, watching, in particular, the exemplary appropriateness and exquisite taste that Horace demonstrates in the choice and deployment of words as he structures the whole to achieve unity of form. Horace himself plays the role of literary critic, warning the poem’s addressee about the dangers of trying to emulate Pindar. Yet after the caution, the Horatian speaker himself offers a praise of Augustus that emulates not just Pindar, but epic as well.