The Secular Hymn by Horace
"The Secular Hymn," composed by the Roman poet Horace and performed on June 3, 17 BCE, is a significant cultural artifact reflecting Roman attitudes during the reign of Augustus. The hymn was part of the Centennial Festival celebration, which marked the belief in the cyclical nature of human history, with new ages beginning every ten or eleven decades. In the poem, Horace utilizes rich imagery associated with the sun, seasons, and birth to symbolize the dawn of a new era under Augustus's leadership.
The goddess Eileithyia, associated with childbirth, serves as a metaphor for the birth of this new age, linking Augustus's social policies, which encouraged family growth, to traditional Roman values. The hymn also invokes various deities, including Apollo and Diana, suggesting that the prosperity of Rome is under divine guidance. Themes of fertility and the foundational story of the Trojan warrior Aeneas further underscore Augustus's vision of restoring the empire's greatness. Concluding with a return to the hymn's initial deities, Horace emphasizes the cyclical nature of life while celebrating an anticipated era of peace and prosperity, as envisioned by Augustus. This work encapsulates the cultural and political aspirations of Rome during a transformative period in its history.
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The Secular Hymn by Horace
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of World Literature, Revised Edition
First published:Carmen saeculare, 17 b.c.e. (English translation, 1726)
Type of work: Poem
The Work
Originally sung by a double choir of twenty-seven boys and twenty-seven girls on June 3, 17 b.c.e., The Secular Hymn is an important statement about the Romans’ view of their empire in the time of Augustus. Stemming from an Etruscan belief that a new age of humanity was inaugurated each eleven (or, in some cases, ten) decades, the Centennial Festival reflected Augustus’s view that, with his reign, a new period had begun. For this reason, the poem is filled with images of the rising and setting sun, the passing of the seasons, and, most of all, symbols of birth.
The goddess of childbirth, Eileithyia (or Ilithyia), is mentioned both because a new age is being born and because of Augustus’s belief that Rome needed to return to its traditional values. The emperor rewarded Romans who produced large families and imposed a higher level of taxation upon those who remained single. In this way, Horace is able to use the figure of Eileithyia to shift from the birth imagery at the beginning of the poem to advocacy of Augustus’s social policies in the second group of verses.
Moreover, Eileithyia is only one of the deities invoked in this hymn. Horace also addresses Apollo and Diana, the Sun, the Fates, Ceres, and a host of other gods and goddesses. The resulting image is that Rome’s destiny is guided by all the deities in the Roman pantheon. It was the will of the gods that Rome should become great, and it was through their efforts that Augustus rose to rule the state.
The fertility of the Italian countryside and the founding of the Roman people by the Trojan warrior Aeneas, alluded to in this poem, appear also as major themes in the works of Vergil and on the Altar of Peace (Ara Pacis), erected in Rome between 13 and 9 b.c.e. These images represent, therefore, a consistent view of how Augustus wished his rule to be portrayed. As the one who brought about the end of the Roman Civil Wars, Augustus is depicted as making it possible for battlefields to become wheat fields once again. As the new Aeneas, Augustus is depicted as fulfilling the gods’ plan begun at the very beginning of human history.
The poem ends with an invocation of Apollo and Diana, as it had similarly begun. This “ring composition” allows Horace to tie the poem directly to the human cycles that the Centennial Festival honors. Even as the hymn itself begins, rises, and ends, so (Horace suggests) do the ages of human life. The poet expresses Augustus’s belief, however, that the current age would be one of unparalleled peace and prosperity.
Bibliography
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