Abstract

dicar, qua uiolens obstrepit Aufiduset qua pauper aquae Daunus agrestiumregnauit populorum ex humili potensprinceps Aeolium carmen ad Italos 13deduxisse modos. Surely there is something puzzling about 13–14? What Horace was the first to do was to write Latin poetry using the metrical schemes of the Greek lyricists, principally Alcaeus and Sappho, who wrote in the Aeolic dialect of Lesbos. There can be no reasonable doubt that Aeolium carmen refers in the first instance to Horace's adoption of Aeolic metre. For deduxisse there are two possibilities, and conceivably Horace meant both to operate. The first involves motion, bringing something or someone home or into port. So Horace took Greek metres and moved them in one way or another to Italy. Secondarily deducere might mean ‘to produce ’, a usage found at Sat. 2.1.2-4 similisque meorum mille die uersus deduci posse.