Abstract:
During their own lifetime, Horace and Vergil were Rome’s two most
celebrated living poets, and history relates that they were also friends.
Unfortunately, little is known of their friendship, and few avenues exist by
which to illumine its nature. In Horace's four books of Carmina, three such
avenues exist: Odes 1.3, 1.24, and 4.12, and mercantile language is the leitmotif
that unites them. Insofar as commercial language pervades these three odes,
Horace creates a poetic triptych, a cohesive representation of a relationship cast
against the history of Epicureanism. Through a careful reading of these three
poems, I elucidate how the mercantile imagery reveals a friendship underpinned
by Epicurean philosophy and practice. Horace holds that if we bank on
friendship, it will always pay dividends.
