7.2) Horace Epistle 1.13: Intro
1 Leave a comment on paragraph 1 0 This is basically a letter to Augustus disguised as a letter to Vinnius, the messenger of Horace’s poetry. Horace writes to Vinnius about the proper way to deliver his poems to Augustus. There are a number of jokes that run through this poem, the most prominent being that Vinnius may handle the poems like a donkey handles its saddlebags and thus that Vinnius will embody his father’s nickname, Asina (See Johnson 1940 for more about the name). It is also possible that Vinnius was actually a notable strong man of the day, who was a member of the praetorian guard, and thus Horace has fun with this beefcake being unable to wield his three books of light odes (Horace often mentions how his poetry is to be considered levis, e.g. C. 2.1.40). These sorts of jokes may have been the type of humor that Augustus enjoyed, if we can trust Suetonius’ Life of Horace, which preserves some jokes told by Augustus about Horace. It is also possible that certain word choices in the poem from inportes (only here in Augustan poetry) and lamas (“bogs”) may be the sort of diction that Augustus favored (cf. Suetonius, Augustus 87). If so this whole letter can be seen as an inside “joke” (risum) to Augustus and a “fable” (fabula, line 9) for the way to speak to the emperor. Don’t address him directly, but do so in a playful manner. This may win favor and certainly shows that Horace both knows his audience and understands how to play to that audience.