Civil war pollution in the Epodes and the Odes of Horace
Civil war pollution in the Epodes and the Odes of Horace

Summary/Abstract: This paper will examine the use of the vocabulary of religious pollution in Horace’s Epodes and Odes and its connection to the causes of the civil war and the potential role of Augustus as expiator. First, I will discuss the Roman notions of pollution, especially as they relate to bloodshed. I will then provide a sequential overview vocabulary used in the Epodes (7 and 16) and the Odes (1.2, 35; 2.1; 3.1–6, 24), which demonstrate a gradual movement from pessimism to guarded optimism. The main trends that can be observed are the shifting of the blame for the cause of the civil war from the ancestral guilt originating with Romulus’ murder of Remus to the overall degradation of morals, and fashioning Augustus as the potential, and eventually real, expiator of the civil war pollution and restorer of order. I will conclude with a reading of Odes 4.5 and 15, which depict the age of Augustus as purified.

• Details
• Contents