Horace, Odes 4.11 and Birthdays
(2019) Invited Lecturer: Department of Classics, Cambridge — Location: Cambridge, UK
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- Abstract
- This paper represents an early attempt to give a new account of Roman birthday-cult and the genius in the works of Horace. Horace’s implicit theology of genius, it argues, related the public sphere of the nascent State (itself buttressed by birthday cult) to the private sphere of his relationship to Maecenas, and to the solitary sphere of his relationship to himself. At its core, this paper solves two problems raised by his final birthday-poem, Odes IV, 11, «The Blood-Offering Problem » and «The Birthday Problem ». In revealing Horace’s identification of his births and rebirths with those of Maecenas, this paper illuminates Horace’s novel coordination of cosmos, imperium and the individual, in ways that clarify his poetry, his new political theology of empire, and the history of birthday cult. For the later printed version on the basis of this research, see: See “Births, Rebirths, and Horace’s Genius : Odes IV,11”, Asdiwal: Revue genevoise d'anthropologie et d'histoire des religions (2019), vol. 14, pp. 127-143.
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Trinity Cambridge
Citations
Kachuck, A. (2019). Horace, Odes 4.11 and Birthdays. Invited Lecturer: Department of Classics, Cambridge, Cambridge, UK. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/100981