Sappho, Alcaeus, and the Literary Timing of Horace

Abstract

This chapter argues on the basis of cues in Horace’s Odes 4.9 that Sappho fr. 16 is an important intertext for Horace’s Odes 1.15. Though neglected as such in scholarship, this chapter aims at showing that the poem’s background is precisely Sappho fr. 16, which helps bring out the crucial question of literary timing. This question, which is more or less important to all Augustan poets, emerges as an especially important topic in both Horatian poems. The Trojan War features prominently in this chapter, which, in addition to the Horatian poems and the fragment of Sappho, investigates several passages from Homer, Alcaeus, and Proclus’ summary of the Cypria.