Quintus Horatius Flaccus, more commonly known as Horace, was an ancient Roman poet whose works have been enormously influential for more than 2,000 years.
Born in 65 BCE in Venusia, Rome (modern-day Venosa, Italy), Horace came from humble beginnings. His father was a former slave who had gained his freedom and become an auctioneer’s assistant, acquiring a small property and even mustering the funds to send Horace to Rome for an elite education. Horace later studied in Athens as well, and it was in Greece that he became swept up in the most pivotal era of Roman history, when the Roman Republic became the Roman Empire.
After Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BCE, Rome was racked by a number of succession wars wrapped in a political crisis. Horace joined the army of Brutus, Caesar’s assassin, in the eastern empire and was promoted to the position of tribune. In 42 BCE, Horace found himself elevated to the role of an improvised commander leading one of the legions fighting for Brutus and Cassius (another conspirator). When their armies were destroyed, and Brutus and Cassius killed, Horace fled back to Rome to find that his father’s farm had been confiscated for the war effort. He made his way to Rome (the city), where he became a prestigious treasury clerk and, through building political connections, eventually moved into close orbit with Octavian, Caesar’s heir, successor, and the first Roman Emperor.
It was during this period, after his return to Italy, that Horace produced his corpus of celebrated poetry. Between the years 35–8 BCE, Horace wrote two volumes of Satires, four volumes of Odes, and two volumes of Epistles, as well as collections of Epodes, Carmen Saeculare (“Song of the Ages”), and Ars Poetica (“The Art of Poetry”). His best-known work is Odes, a collection of lyrical poems that celebrate the joys of life, love, and friendship. Among his other writings, he also criticized the vices and follies of Roman society and offered moral advice to his readers. Horace was considered among the most renowned poets of his age. His works have influenced generations of writers since and have become part of the canon of classic literary works taught in liberal arts education to this day. Horace died at the age of 56 in 8 BCE.
Little is known about Horace’s personal life. Some gossip was recorded decades after his death by the Roman historian Suetonius (69–122 CE), alleging that Horace was a particularly lustful man who was known to frequent the services of prostitutes and even lined his room with mirrors to see himself in the act from every angle. His writings, however, may shed more light on the man. In his poetry, Horace, who wrote through a first-person poetic speaker, frequently expressed admiration for both men and women, and some of his poems address male lovers in language that suggests a romantic or sexual relationship.
One famous line from Odes, in a section about rejecting Venus, the goddess of love, he wrote,
As for me, neither woman nor boy nor the fond hope of a kindred spirit gives me pleasure now.
The phrase suggests that Horace, or his character, was previously attracted to both sexes.
Similarly, in Odes and Epodes, Horace wrote of his (or his character’s) love for male figures such as Ligurinus, Lycidas, and Lyciscus.
Where Horace’s first-person character ends, and the poet himself begins, is up to interpretation, but some scholars believe these writings point to the same kind of casual bisexuality that was common throughout Greek and Roman antiquity.
It must also be noted that bisexuality had no name in those days, so no person attracted to both sexes would have had any kind of label with which to describe themselves.
Whether Horace himself was bi remains up for debate, but what’s not in question is that his poetry expressed clear bi themes.