Ten years after publishing his first collection of lyric poetry, "Odes I-III," Horace (65 B.C.-8 B.C.) returned to lyric and published another book of fifteen odes, "Odes IV." These later lyrics, which praise Augustus, the imperial family, and other political insiders, have often been treated more as propaganda than art. But in "A Symposion of Praise," Timothy Johnson examines the richly textured ambiguities of "Odes IV" that engage the audience in the communal or "sympotic" formulation of Horace's praise. Surpassing propaganda, "Odes IV" reflects the finely nuanced and imaginative poetry of...