Description:
Editorial Reviews
Review
“Stothard knows his source material backwards—and has fun with it.”—Rachel Cunliffe, Times (UK)
“Vibrant and enthralling . . . [and] relevant today. . . . A compelling portrait of a man and his times that will entrance.”—Jim Kelly, Air Mail
“Vivid, informative and probing.”—William Fitzgerald, Times Literary Supplement
“[Stothard’s] books are so intensely enjoyable, so invigoratingly smart. . . . So it is with this new book. . . . [A] remarkably energetic work, with two standout bits of excellence. The first of these is Stothard’s running commentary on the poems themselves, which tends to make Horace’s artistic development as gripping as if readers were watching it happen in real time. . . . And the second bit of excellence: 30 pages of close-typed Source Notes that veritably sing with erudition and zest.”—Steve Donoghue, Open Letters Review
“Beautifully-written. . . . Stothard writes so compellingly that you feel you are never more than a few feet away from the poet in all his lardy splendour.”—Daisy Dunn, Spectator
“Stothard has written a splendid and fascinating book that will surely have us rereading it time and again. No body interested in late republican and early imperial Rome should miss it.”—Allan Massie, Literary Review
“A pert, canny, and enchanting biography.”―New Criterion
“In an always lucid, evenly flowing prose, Stothard sets out Horace’s family background, corrects mistaken notions about him, and connects his life and career to the major events and players of his day. . . . [Horace] was in his poetry able to establish a winning intimacy between himself and his readers that traveled down through the centuries.”—Joseph Epstein, National Review
“[Stothard] manages with fine economy and immensely readable sentences to integrate life and times (and what times) in a most compelling narrative.”―Cultag Press Blog
“Among the valuable takeaways from Horace: we do ourselves no favor by censoring the past—we need to perceive it in its full, horrifying context. But that does not mean its artists should be condemned, especially those, like Horace, who advocated seizing on the immediate with existential zest.”—Thomas Filbin, Arts Fuse
“Perhaps the greatest strength of this biography is Stothard’s close reading of Horace’s work, including both the Latin (for the nerdier connoisseurs) and his translations (for the benefit of all readers). Words matter, and for a poet who took much time choosing each one carefully, words matter even more than for most. I have a greater appreciation for Horace as both a poet and a thinker after reading this biography.”—Nadya Williams, University Bookman
“Enviably graceful and erudite. . . . [Stothard] opens up Horace’s poetry for new and experienced readers alike.”—Spencer A. Klavan, Claremont Review of Books
“Dazzling. . . . An elegantly written biography of a famous, but still little-known, man.”—Joan Baum, Baum on Books, WSHU Public Radio
“Peter Stothard is a master of modern writing about ancient Rome, of vividly bringing to life its poetry and its poets.”—Mary Beard
“A fascinating biography of an extraordinary life. Sexual abuse and the madness of war beyond the better-known moral lectures, wine, and rose petals. A brilliant and compelling study that brings Horace to life for a new generation.”—Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of The World: A Family History of Humanity
“In this lively biography of Horace and his times, Stothard shows how a poet is not only born, but made. From humble beginnings (the son of a slave), through education, application, and luck, even after finding himself on the losing side of a civil war, Horace finds himself rubbing shoulders with Rome’s elite. Stothard wears his considerable learning with gossamer lightness, keeping a weather eye on the poems (there is something here for the Latinist as well as the layman) even as he tells Horace’s story. Coming of age in an uncertain era of strong men jostling for dominance, as dreams of restoring the Republic faded and the world order was upended, Horace is a poet not only for all time, but for our times. Should poets be speaking truth, albeit slant, to autocratic power, or distract themselves with love, friendship and song? In Horace’s modern poems, technical feats of meter and mosaics of word order, he shows the way of the Roman road, ‘straight where it can be, sinuous where it has to be.’ No one knows what’s coming. Seize the moment.”—A. E. Stallings, author of Frieze Frame
About the Author
Reviews:
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant
(function() { P.when('cr-A', 'ready').execute(function(A) { if(typeof A.toggleExpanderAriaLabel === 'function') { A.toggleExpanderAriaLabel('review_text_read_more', 'Read more of this review', 'Read less of this review'); } }); })(); .review-text-read-more-expander:focus-visible { outline: 2px solid #2162a1; outline-offset: 2px; border-radius: 5px; } A brilliant biography of the great Roman poet. Beautifully written. If you know nothing of Horace you will rush right out to read his poetry. If you know something of Horace, you will now love him and his poems even more. And do rush out to read Christopher Childers’ new translations of Horace at the same time as you read Stothard’s new book. A gem.
4.0 out of 5 stars Appreciation for "Horace: Poet on a Volcano
Scholarly and interesting. Well written. Especially interesting regarding life, politics and customs in transitional Rome. I would have appreciated more of the poems but I will have to get another book with a collection of his poems.
3.0 out of 5 stars Too much information
One unwittingly follows Horace about in Rome's, and his, gutters. I had to pause. Not good bedside reading.
5.0 out of 5 stars Buy it!
Well-written, clear and conversational. He makes Horace's genius understandable without dumbing-down the material. This make you want to buy a book of Horace's' poems and read them yourself.
5.0 out of 5 stars A fine biography of the Roman poet told through his poetry
Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65-8 B.C.), better known to us as Horace, lived through one of the most tumultuous periods of Western history. The son of an ex-slave, he came of age during the rapid decline of the Roman Republic, the assassination of Julius Caesar, the civil wars that followed as competing factions battled (literally) for power, and the final triumph by Octavian, soon called Augustus Caesar.When death from warfare, suicide, forced suicide, and murder was all too common, Horace was able to thread his way through the politics of power in Roman society. And he did something that few of peers accomplished – he died in his bed from natural causes. That by itself was an achievement, given the deadly nature of Roman politics, especially in the upper tier of society.British journalist and author Peter Stothard tells Horace’s story in “Horace: Poet on a Volcano.” But he does do in an intriguing way – he uses Horace’s famed odes as the biographical reference. It’s an engaging way to write a biography. But given Horace’s stature as perhaps the leading lyrical poet of his day, celebrated by common man and Caesar alike, it’s also a natural way to write the story of this man’s life.And what a life he led.Following the assassination of Julius Caesar, Horace threw his lot in with the rebels and the rebel army led by Brutus and Pompey. After their defeat in Greece, he quietly made his way back to Rome and kept his head down. He eventually caught the eye of Gaius Maecenas, five years older and a poet, diplomat, and counselor to Caesar Augustus. Maecenas was the patron of the poet Virgil, and he soon assumed that role for Horace as well. It paid to have such a high-placed patron; Horace was given an estate 30 miles from Rome. He lived there until his death in 8 B.C., a few months after Maecenas had died.Stothard tells this often-enthralling story by close readings of Horace’s poetry. And details of the man’s life can be discerned from the famous odes, because Horace wrote much of his own life, his experiences, and the lives of his friends into his poetry. What such a biographical study requires is an in-depth understanding of Roman history and culture as well as the lives of the key figures of the times. You read this biography of Horace, and it appears almost effortlessly written; it’s that engaging and readable. But you know that the effortlessness is appearance only; this type of understanding comes from lifelong study and a keen mind.Stothard uses excerpts from the odes throughout the text, and he includes full versions of three of the odes in an appendix.Stothard studied at Trinity College, Oxford, where he was editor of the Oxford student newspaper Cherwell. After university he worked for the BBC and then joined The Sunday Times in 1978 and The Times in 1981. From 1992 to 2002, he was editor of The Times, and from 2002 to 2016 editor of the Times Literary Supplement.His books include “Thirty Days: An Inside Account of Tony Blair at War “(2004), “On the Spartacus Road: A Spectacular Journey Through Ancient Italy” (2010), “Alexandria: The Last Night of Cleopatra” (2013), “The Senecans: Four Men and Margaret Thatcher” (2016), “The Last Assassin: The Hunt for the Killers of Julius Caesar” (2020), “Crassus: The First Tycoon” (2022), and “Palatine: An Alternative History of the Caesars “(2023).As Stothard’s title implies, Horace did indeed sit on a volcano, the volcano or Roman society and its power structure, the deaths and assassinations, and the wars that were fought. He survived to write some of the most widely admired lyrical poetry of his day. Stothard puts all of that into context, a poetic context, and what results is a fascinating account and a story told well.
3.0 out of 5 stars Horace
Arrived damaged.
A poet for all ages
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Visit the Peter Stothard (Author) Store
Horace: Poet on a Volcano (Ancient Lives)
AED19125
Quantity:
Order today to get by 7-14 business days
Delivery fee of AED 20. Free for orders above AED 200.
Imported From: United States
At BOLO, we work hard to ensure the products you receive are new, genuine, and sourced from reputable suppliers.
BOLO is not an authorized or official retailer for most brands, nor are we affiliated with manufacturers unless specifically stated on a product page. Instead, we source verified sellers, authorized distributors or directly from the manufacturer.
Each product undergoes thorough inspection and verification at our consolidation and fulfilment centers to ensure it meets our strict authenticity and quality standards before being shipped and delivered to you.
If you ever have concerns regarding the authenticity of a product purchased from us, please contact Bolo Support. We will review your inquiry promptly and, if necessary, provide documentation verifying authenticity or offer a suitable resolution.
Your trust is our top priority, and we are committed to maintaining transparency and integrity in every transaction.
All product information, images, descriptions, and reviews originate from the manufacturer or from trusted sellers overseas. BOLO is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or an authorized retailer for most brands listed on our website unless stated otherwise.
While we strive to display accurate information, variations in packaging, labeling, instructions, or formulation may occasionally occur due to regional differences or supplier updates. For detailed or manufacturer-specific information, please contact the brand directly or reach out to BOLO Support for assistance.
Unless otherwise stated, all prices displayed on the product page include applicable taxes and import duties.
BOLO operates in accordance with the laws and regulations of United Arab Emirates. Any items found to be restricted or prohibited for sale within the UAE will be cancelled prior to shipment. We take proactive measures to ensure that only products permitted for sale in United Arab Emirates are listed on our website.
All items are shipped by air, and any products classified as “Dangerous Goods (DG)” under IATA regulations will be removed from the order and cancelled.
All orders are processed manually, and we make every effort to process them promptly once confirmed. Products cancelled due to the above reasons will be permanently removed from listings across the website.
Description:
Editorial Reviews
Review
“Stothard knows his source material backwards—and has fun with it.”—Rachel Cunliffe, Times (UK)
“Vibrant and enthralling . . . [and] relevant today. . . . A compelling portrait of a man and his times that will entrance.”—Jim Kelly, Air Mail
“Vivid, informative and probing.”—William Fitzgerald, Times Literary Supplement
“[Stothard’s] books are so intensely enjoyable, so invigoratingly smart. . . . So it is with this new book. . . . [A] remarkably energetic work, with two standout bits of excellence. The first of these is Stothard’s running commentary on the poems themselves, which tends to make Horace’s artistic development as gripping as if readers were watching it happen in real time. . . . And the second bit of excellence: 30 pages of close-typed Source Notes that veritably sing with erudition and zest.”—Steve Donoghue, Open Letters Review
“Beautifully-written. . . . Stothard writes so compellingly that you feel you are never more than a few feet away from the poet in all his lardy splendour.”—Daisy Dunn, Spectator
“Stothard has written a splendid and fascinating book that will surely have us rereading it time and again. No body interested in late republican and early imperial Rome should miss it.”—Allan Massie, Literary Review
“A pert, canny, and enchanting biography.”―New Criterion
“In an always lucid, evenly flowing prose, Stothard sets out Horace’s family background, corrects mistaken notions about him, and connects his life and career to the major events and players of his day. . . . [Horace] was in his poetry able to establish a winning intimacy between himself and his readers that traveled down through the centuries.”—Joseph Epstein, National Review
“[Stothard] manages with fine economy and immensely readable sentences to integrate life and times (and what times) in a most compelling narrative.”―Cultag Press Blog
“Among the valuable takeaways from Horace: we do ourselves no favor by censoring the past—we need to perceive it in its full, horrifying context. But that does not mean its artists should be condemned, especially those, like Horace, who advocated seizing on the immediate with existential zest.”—Thomas Filbin, Arts Fuse
“Perhaps the greatest strength of this biography is Stothard’s close reading of Horace’s work, including both the Latin (for the nerdier connoisseurs) and his translations (for the benefit of all readers). Words matter, and for a poet who took much time choosing each one carefully, words matter even more than for most. I have a greater appreciation for Horace as both a poet and a thinker after reading this biography.”—Nadya Williams, University Bookman
“Enviably graceful and erudite. . . . [Stothard] opens up Horace’s poetry for new and experienced readers alike.”—Spencer A. Klavan, Claremont Review of Books
“Dazzling. . . . An elegantly written biography of a famous, but still little-known, man.”—Joan Baum, Baum on Books, WSHU Public Radio
“Peter Stothard is a master of modern writing about ancient Rome, of vividly bringing to life its poetry and its poets.”—Mary Beard
“A fascinating biography of an extraordinary life. Sexual abuse and the madness of war beyond the better-known moral lectures, wine, and rose petals. A brilliant and compelling study that brings Horace to life for a new generation.”—Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of The World: A Family History of Humanity
“In this lively biography of Horace and his times, Stothard shows how a poet is not only born, but made. From humble beginnings (the son of a slave), through education, application, and luck, even after finding himself on the losing side of a civil war, Horace finds himself rubbing shoulders with Rome’s elite. Stothard wears his considerable learning with gossamer lightness, keeping a weather eye on the poems (there is something here for the Latinist as well as the layman) even as he tells Horace’s story. Coming of age in an uncertain era of strong men jostling for dominance, as dreams of restoring the Republic faded and the world order was upended, Horace is a poet not only for all time, but for our times. Should poets be speaking truth, albeit slant, to autocratic power, or distract themselves with love, friendship and song? In Horace’s modern poems, technical feats of meter and mosaics of word order, he shows the way of the Roman road, ‘straight where it can be, sinuous where it has to be.’ No one knows what’s coming. Seize the moment.”—A. E. Stallings, author of Frieze Frame
About the Author
Reviews:
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant
(function() { P.when('cr-A', 'ready').execute(function(A) { if(typeof A.toggleExpanderAriaLabel === 'function') { A.toggleExpanderAriaLabel('review_text_read_more', 'Read more of this review', 'Read less of this review'); } }); })(); .review-text-read-more-expander:focus-visible { outline: 2px solid #2162a1; outline-offset: 2px; border-radius: 5px; } A brilliant biography of the great Roman poet. Beautifully written. If you know nothing of Horace you will rush right out to read his poetry. If you know something of Horace, you will now love him and his poems even more. And do rush out to read Christopher Childers’ new translations of Horace at the same time as you read Stothard’s new book. A gem.
4.0 out of 5 stars Appreciation for "Horace: Poet on a Volcano
Scholarly and interesting. Well written. Especially interesting regarding life, politics and customs in transitional Rome. I would have appreciated more of the poems but I will have to get another book with a collection of his poems.
3.0 out of 5 stars Too much information
One unwittingly follows Horace about in Rome's, and his, gutters. I had to pause. Not good bedside reading.
5.0 out of 5 stars Buy it!
Well-written, clear and conversational. He makes Horace's genius understandable without dumbing-down the material. This make you want to buy a book of Horace's' poems and read them yourself.
5.0 out of 5 stars A fine biography of the Roman poet told through his poetry
Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65-8 B.C.), better known to us as Horace, lived through one of the most tumultuous periods of Western history. The son of an ex-slave, he came of age during the rapid decline of the Roman Republic, the assassination of Julius Caesar, the civil wars that followed as competing factions battled (literally) for power, and the final triumph by Octavian, soon called Augustus Caesar.When death from warfare, suicide, forced suicide, and murder was all too common, Horace was able to thread his way through the politics of power in Roman society. And he did something that few of peers accomplished – he died in his bed from natural causes. That by itself was an achievement, given the deadly nature of Roman politics, especially in the upper tier of society.British journalist and author Peter Stothard tells Horace’s story in “Horace: Poet on a Volcano.” But he does do in an intriguing way – he uses Horace’s famed odes as the biographical reference. It’s an engaging way to write a biography. But given Horace’s stature as perhaps the leading lyrical poet of his day, celebrated by common man and Caesar alike, it’s also a natural way to write the story of this man’s life.And what a life he led.Following the assassination of Julius Caesar, Horace threw his lot in with the rebels and the rebel army led by Brutus and Pompey. After their defeat in Greece, he quietly made his way back to Rome and kept his head down. He eventually caught the eye of Gaius Maecenas, five years older and a poet, diplomat, and counselor to Caesar Augustus. Maecenas was the patron of the poet Virgil, and he soon assumed that role for Horace as well. It paid to have such a high-placed patron; Horace was given an estate 30 miles from Rome. He lived there until his death in 8 B.C., a few months after Maecenas had died.Stothard tells this often-enthralling story by close readings of Horace’s poetry. And details of the man’s life can be discerned from the famous odes, because Horace wrote much of his own life, his experiences, and the lives of his friends into his poetry. What such a biographical study requires is an in-depth understanding of Roman history and culture as well as the lives of the key figures of the times. You read this biography of Horace, and it appears almost effortlessly written; it’s that engaging and readable. But you know that the effortlessness is appearance only; this type of understanding comes from lifelong study and a keen mind.Stothard uses excerpts from the odes throughout the text, and he includes full versions of three of the odes in an appendix.Stothard studied at Trinity College, Oxford, where he was editor of the Oxford student newspaper Cherwell. After university he worked for the BBC and then joined The Sunday Times in 1978 and The Times in 1981. From 1992 to 2002, he was editor of The Times, and from 2002 to 2016 editor of the Times Literary Supplement.His books include “Thirty Days: An Inside Account of Tony Blair at War “(2004), “On the Spartacus Road: A Spectacular Journey Through Ancient Italy” (2010), “Alexandria: The Last Night of Cleopatra” (2013), “The Senecans: Four Men and Margaret Thatcher” (2016), “The Last Assassin: The Hunt for the Killers of Julius Caesar” (2020), “Crassus: The First Tycoon” (2022), and “Palatine: An Alternative History of the Caesars “(2023).As Stothard’s title implies, Horace did indeed sit on a volcano, the volcano or Roman society and its power structure, the deaths and assassinations, and the wars that were fought. He survived to write some of the most widely admired lyrical poetry of his day. Stothard puts all of that into context, a poetic context, and what results is a fascinating account and a story told well.
3.0 out of 5 stars Horace
Arrived damaged.
A poet for all ages
(function() { P.when('cr-A', 'ready').execute(function(A) { if(typeof A.toggleExpanderAriaLabel === 'function') { A.toggleExpanderAriaLabel('review_text_read_more', 'Read more of this review', 'Read less of this review'); } }); })(); .review-text-read-more-expander:focus-visible { outline: 2px solid #2162a1; outline-offset: 2px; border-radius: 5px; } An extraordinary accessible, while at the same time, very scholarly treatment of Horace, not only a great Roman poet, but also one of the greatest poets in Western literature. Peter Stothard has done a magnificent job in introducing this poet and the times in which he lived to modern readers.
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