SOURCE: Reckford, Kenneth J. “Only a Wet Dream? Hope and Skepticism in Horace, Satire 1.5.” American Journal of Philology 120, no. 4 (1999): 525-54.

In the following essay, Reckford considers Horace's Satires 1.5, the “Trip to Brundisium,” focusing on the theme of amicitia, the agon between Sarmentus and Messius Cicirrus, and the “failed miracle sequences” at the end of the work.

Long enjoyed as an entertainment piece, Horace's “Trip to Brundisium” has continued to baffle its readers by recounting trivialities while ignoring politics. A brief, tactful hint at great affairs is quickly abandoned:

huc venturus erat Maecenas optimus atque Cocceius, missi magnis de rebus uterque legati, aversos soliti componere amicos. hic oculis ego nigra meis collyria lippus illinere. interea Maecenas advenit … 

(S. [Satire] 1.5.27-31)

In his first hic ego (7), Horace missed dinner because of stomach trouble. In the second (30), he misses Maecenas' arrival—and its meaning—because of eye trouble. Is he unable...