Horace (65-8 bc), Roman lyric poet and satirist, whose works are masterpieces of Latin literature of the Golden Age.

Horace was born Quintus Horatius Flaccus in December 65 bc, the son of a freedman, in Venusia (now Venosa, Italy), and educated in Rome and subsequently in Athens, where he studied Greek philosophy and poetry at the Academy. Soon after the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 bc, Horace was recruited into the Republican army by Marcus Junius Brutus, one of the assassins. He was made a military tribune and fought at Philippi in 42 bc, where the Republican army was routed by Mark Antony and Octavian (later Augustus). Under the terms of a general amnesty, Horace returned to Rome, where he received a government job and began to write poetry.

Horace's verse attracted Virgil, then poet laureate, who, about 38 bc, introduced Horace to the statesman Gaius Cilnius Maecenas, a patron of the arts and a friend of Octavian. Maecenas brought Horace into the Roman literary and political circles; in about 33 bc, he gave Horace an estate in the Sabine Hills where the poet often retired for reflection and writing.

One of the great Roman poets, Horace produced works that fall into four categories: satires, epodes, odes, and epistles. Book I of the Satires (35 bc) and Book II (30 bc), both collections of dialogues in hexameter, were an imitation of the satirist Lucilius. The ten satires in Book I and the eight in Book II were tempered by tolerance. The Epodes, also issued in 30 bc, were apparently written earlier, for they are an impassioned plea for an end to the civil discord, an end that came with Octavian's victory over Antony at Actium in 31 bc. The 17 short iambic-couplet poems in the Epodes were adaptations of the Greek lyric style created by the poet Archilochus. Horace's chief poetical works were the Odes, Books I, II, and III (23 bc), adapted from and many directly in imitation of the poets Anacreon, Alcaeus, and Sappho. In the 88 selections of the Odes, Horace praises peace, patriotism, love, friendship, wine, country pleasures, and simplicity. Famous for their rhythm, irony, and cultivated urbanity, the Odes were often imitated by 18th- and 19th-century English poets.

About 20 bc Horace published Epistles, Book I, 20 short personal letters in hexameter, giving his observations on society, literature, and philosophy. He is the philosopher of the golden mean, seeking Epicurean pleasures but always advocating moderation, even in the pursuit of virtue. By this time his reputation was so high that, on the death of Virgil in 19 bc, Horace succeeded his friend as poet laureate. Two years later he returned to lyric poetry when Augustus commissioned him to write the hymn Carmen Saeculare for the secular games in Rome. The dates of Horace's last works, the Epistles, Book II; the Odes, Book IV; and the Epistle to the Pisos, better known as the Ars poetica, are uncertain. The two letters that appear in Book II are both discussions of literary development. Ars poetica, his longest single work, extols the Greek masters, explains the difficulty and the seriousness of the poetic art, and gives technical advice to aspiring poets. Horace died November 27, 8 bc, in Rome.