SOURCE: “Poet and Patron (1) (I.6)” in The Satires of Horace, University Press, 1966, pp. 36-53.

In the following excerpt, Rudd examines Horace's relationship with his friend and patron, Maecenas, and explores how Horace dealt with its political ramifications in his poetry.

1. 6

It is hard for an Englishman, with his long history of civic order, to imagine the almost continuous violence which Rome endured in the last sixty years of the Republic. Sulla, who played a large part in crushing the Italian rebels in 88 b.c., had only just left to take command in the east when Marius and Cinna seized power in Rome. The slaughter of their opponents went on for five days. Sulla's return brought a new outbreak of fighting which culminated at the Colline Gate in 82 b.c. Thousands fell in battle, thousands were killed after surrendering, and thousands more died in the proscriptions which followed. Savagery...