Though Horace is a great poet, much loved and imitated in the past, he is very little read today. This is partly because he has never been translated into readable English that is also faithful to the Latin original. David West here provides such a translation of one of Horace's greatest works, and supports it with a basic commentary that will help newcomers to Horace--whether students or general readers--to understand how the poetry works.

Horace's first book of Satires is his debut work, a document of one man's self-fashioning on the cusp between Republic and Empire and a pivotal text in the history of Roman satire. It wrestles with the problem of how to define and assimilate satire and justifies the poet's own position in a suspicious society. The commentary gives full weight to the dense texture of these poems while helping readers interpret their most cryptic aspects and appreciate their technical finesse. The introduction puts Horace in context as late-Republican newcomer and a vital figure in the development of satire and...

In the first book of odes, Horace presents himself to his Roman readers in a novel guise, as the appropriator of the Greek lyric tradition. He aspired to add a new province to the empire of the national literature. The first book is designed both to establish Horace's engagement with his Greek predecessors and to create a role for lyric poetry in contemporary Rome. The collection of thirty-eight poems is therefore a dazzling feat of poetic appropriation and innovation, a blend of the public and the private voice of the poet. Classic Greek songs are evoked so as to provide a springboard for...