and modern times have charmed the world. His first efforts were
apparently imitative, and were directed to the attainment of perfect
mastery over form, metre and rhythm. The first nine Odes of the
first book are experiments in different kinds of metre. They and all
the other metres employed by him are based on those employed by
the older poets of Greece—Alcaeus, Sappho, Archilochus, Alcman,
&c. He has built the structure of his lighter Odes also on their model,
while in some of those in which the matter is more weighty, as in
that in which he calls on Calliope “to dictate a long continuous
strain,” he has endeavoured to reproduce something of the intricate
movement, the abrupt transitions, the interpenetration of narrative
and reflection, which characterize the art of Pindar. He frequently
reproduces the language and some of the thoughts of his masters, but
he gives them new application, or stamps them with the impress of
his own experience. He brought the metres which he has employed
to such perfection that the art perished with him. A great proof of
his mastery over rhythm is the skill with which he has varied his
metres according to the sentiment which he wishes to express.
Thus his great metre, the Alcaic, has a character of stateliness and
majesty in addition to the energy and impetus originally imparted
to it by Alcaeus. The Sapphic metre he employs with a peculiar
lightness and vivacity which harmonize admirably with his gayer
moods.
Again in regard to his diction, if Horace has learned his subtlety and moderation from his Greek masters, he has tempered those qualities with the masculine characteristics of his race. No writer is more Roman in the stateliness and dignity, the terseness, occasionally even in the sobriety and bare literalness, of his diction.
While it is mainly owing to the extreme care which Horace gave to form, rhythm and diction that his own prophecy
| “Usque ego postera Crescam laude recens” |
has been so amply fulfilled, yet no greater injustice could be done to him than to rank him either as poet or critic with those who consider form everything in literature. With Horace the mastery over the vehicle of expression was merely an essential preliminary to making a worthy and serious use of that vehicle. The poet, from Horace’s point of view, was intended not merely to give refined pleasure to a few, but above all things, to be “utilis urbi.” Yet he is saved, in his practice, from the abuse of this theory by his admirable sense, his ironical humour, his intolerance of pretension and pedantry. Opinions will differ as to whether he or Catullus is to be regarded as the greater lyrical poet. Those who assign the palm to Horace will do so, certainly not because they recognize in him richer or equally rich gifts of feeling, conception and expression, but because the subjects to which his art has been devoted have a fuller, more varied, more mature and permanent interest for the world.
Authorities.—For the life of Horace the chief authorities are his own works and a short ancient biography which is attributed to Suetonius. The apparatus criticus is most fully described in O. Keller’s preface to vol. i. of the 2nd ed. (1899) of Keller and Holder’s recension of Horace’s works. This edition also gives by far the largest collection of variants and emendations to the text and of the testimonia of ancient writers.
What might have proved the most important manuscript of Horace, the so-called vetustissimus Blandinius, is now lost, and we know it only from the account of J. Cruquius who saw it in 1565. The relations of the extant MSS. to each other and the presumed archetype present an intricate problem; and Keller’s solution has not proved generally acceptable. See a résumé of the controversy Horazkritik seit 1880 by J. Bick (Leipzig, 1906) and F. Vollmer in Philologus. Supp. x. 2, pp. 261-322. Many MSS. of Horace contain ancient scholia which are copied or taken with abridgment from the commentaries of Porphyrio, who lived about A.D. 200, and Helenius Aero, a still earlier grammarian. These scholia also have been collected and edited—the Porphyrio scholia by A. Holder (1902) and the “Acronian” (or pseudo-Acronian) by O. Keller (1902–1904). R. Bentley’s epoch-making edition (1711) has been reprinted with an index by Zangemeister (1869). Of the modern commentaries the most useful are those of J. C. Orelli (4th ed., revised by O. Hirschfelder and J. Mewes, 1886–1890, with index verborum), and of A. Kiessling (revised by R. Heinze, Odes, 1901, 1908, Satires, 1906, Epistles, 1898). The best complete English commentary is that of E. C. Wickham (2 vols., 1874–1896). Other editions with English notes are those of T. E. Page (Odes, 1883), A. Palmer (Satires, 1883), A. S. Wilkins (Epistles, 1885), J. Gow (Odes and Epodes, 1896, Satires, i., 1901), P. Shorey (Odes and Epodes, 1898, Boston, U.S.A.). L. Müller’s elaborate edition of the Odes and Epodes was published posthumously (1900). Of the critical editions Keller and Holder’s still holds the field: to this Keller’s Epilegomena zu Horaz (1879) is a necessary adjunct. F. Vollmer’s text (1907) uses Keller’s materials on a new principle. Of illustrated editions H. H. Milman’s (1867) and C. W. King’s (1869, with text revised by H. A. J. Munro) deserve mention. The best verse translation is that of J. Conington lately reprinted with the Latin text from the recension in Postgate’s new Corpus poetarum. For further information see Teuffel’s Geschichte der römischen Litteratur (Eng. trans. by G. C. Warr), §§ 234-240, and M. Schanz’s excellent account in his Geschichte der römischen Litteratur, vol. ii. §§ 251-266. (W. Y. S.; J. G.*)
HORAE (Lat. hora, hour), the Hours, in Greek mythology
Ὡραι, originally the personification of a series of natural phenomena.
In the Iliad (v. 749) they are the custodians of the gates
of Olympus, which they open or shut by scattering or condensing
the clouds; that is, they are weather goddesses, who send down
or withhold the fertilizing dews and rain. In the Odyssey,
where they are represented as bringing round the seasons in
regular order, they are an abstraction rather than a concrete
personification. The brief notice in Hesiod (Theog. 901),
where they are called the children of Zeus and Themis, who
superintend the operations of agriculture, indicates by the
names assigned to them (Eunomia, Dikē, Eirenē, i.e. Good
Order, Justice, Peace) the extension of their functions as goddesses
of order from nature to the events of human life, and at the same
time invests them with moral attributes. Like the Moerae
(Fates), they regulate the destinies of man, watch over the newly
born, secure good laws and the administration of justice. The
selection of three as their number has been supposed to refer
to the most ancient division of the year into spring, summer and
winter, but it is probably only another instance of the Greek
liking for that particular number or its multiples in such
connexions (three Moerae, Charites, Gorgons, nine Muses).
Order and regularity being indispensable conditions of beauty,
it was easy to conceive of the Horae as the goddesses of youthful
bloom and grace, inseparably associated with the idea of springtime.
As such they are companions of the Nymphs and Graces,
with whom they are often confounded, and of other superior
deities connected with the spring growth of vegetation (Demeter,
Dionysus). At Athens they were two (or three) in number:
Thallo and Carpo, the goddesses of the flowers of spring and of
the fruits of summer, to whom Auxo, the goddess of the growth
of plants, may be added, although some authorities make her
only one of the Graces. In honour of the Horae a yearly festival
(Horaea) was celebrated, at which protection was sought against
the scorching heat and drought, and offerings were made of
boiled meat as less insipid and more nutritious than roast.
In later mythology, under Alexandrian influence, the Horae
become the four seasons, daughters of Helios and Selene, each
represented with the conventional attributes. Subsequently,
when the day was divided into twelve equal parts, each of them
took the name of Hora. Ovid (Metam. ii. 26) describes them as
placed at equal intervals on the throne of Phoebus, with whom
are also associated the four seasons. Nonnus (5th century A.D.)
in the Dionysiaca also unites the twelve Horae as representing
the day and the four Horae as the seasons in the palace of Helios.
See C. Lehrs, Populäre Aufsätze (1856); J. H. Krause, Die Musen, Grazien, Horen, und Nymphen (1871); and the articles in Daremberg and Saglio’s Dictionnaire des antiquités, J. A. Hild; and in Roscher’s Lexikon der Mythologie, W. Rapp.
HORAPOLLON, of Phaenebythis in the nome of Panopolis in Egypt, Greek grammarian, flourished in the 4th century A.D. during the reign of Theodosius I. According to Suidas, he wrote commentaries on Sophocles, Alcaeus and Homer, and a work (Τεμενικά) on places consecrated to the gods. Photius (cod. 279), who calls him a dramatist as well as a grammarian, ascribes to him a history of the foundation and antiquities of Alexandria (unless this is by an Egyptian of the same name, who lived in the reign of Zeno, 474–491). Under the name of Horapollon two books on Hieroglyphics are extant, which profess to be a translation from an Egyptian original into Greek by a certain Philippus, of whom nothing is known. The inferior Greek of the translation, and the character of the additions in the second book point to its being of late date; some have even assigned it to the 15th century. Though a very large proportion of the statements seem absurd and cannot be accounted for by anything known in the latest and most fanciful usage, yet there is ample evidence in both the books, in individual cases, that the tradition of the values of the hieroglyphic signs was not yet extinct in the days of their author.
Bibliography.—Editions by C. Leemans (1835) and A. T. Cory (1840) with English translation and notes; see also G. Rathgeber in Ersch and Gruber’s Allgemeine Encyclopädie; H. Schäfer, Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache (1905), p. 72.
