Chronology
Every drafted work, year by year, alongside the events of Horace's life. Runs of consecutive letters are folded into groups so you can skim past them or expand to read.
35 BC
Age ~30. A freedman's son who had fought on the losing republican side at Philippi (42), Horace has been taken up by Maecenas into the circle around the young Octavian. The first book of Satires is his arrival as a poet.
poem The Satires 35 BC30 BC
Age ~35. As Octavian's victory at Actium (31) ends the civil wars and leaves him sole master of Rome, Horace publishes the Epodes and the second book of Satires.
poem The Epodes 30 BC23 BC
Age ~42. Augustus's new order is settling over Rome. Horace issues the first three books of Odes — his bid to naturalize the meters of Greek lyric into Latin — dedicated to Maecenas.
poem The Odes 23 BC20 BC
Age ~45. Turning from lyric to reflective verse letters on how to live, Horace writes at ease on the Sabine farm Maecenas had given him; the first book of Epistles belongs here.
poem The Epistles 20 BC19 BC
Age ~46. Virgil dies this year. Horace's late period yields the verse epistle on poetic craft later known as the Ars Poetica.
poem The Art of Poetry 19 BC17 BC
Age ~48. Augustus commissions Horace to write the Carmen Saeculare for the Secular Games of 17 BC — public, official recognition of him as Rome's leading poet.
poem The Secular Hymn 17 BC