Cave, Cave: Iambic Rabies as
Poetic Inspiration in Horace's Epodes

Michael W. Ritter (University of Florida)

In Ep. 1.19.21-25 Horace claims to have been the first to introduce Parian iambi to Latium, a boast supported by his dependence on Archilochean metrics throughout the Epodes. The fact that Horace selected the iambic genre, which already had Roman adherents, and selected Archilochus as his model would lead his audience to expect a certain kind of poetry, since iambi had come to be associated with invective. But the question remains of just how angry Horace’s Epodes are and to what extent iambic rabies serves as Horace’s inspiration in the Epodes. While rife with invective anger, Horace’s iambi are by and large impersonal insofar as they avoid the persistent attacks characteristic of Archilochean invective.  Horace, then, by adopting a Callimachean aesthetic to temper the excesses of invective rabies, mirrors his own advice to the Pisones in the Ars Poetica to balance ingenium with ars.