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HORACE'S MONUMENT

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2021

A. J. Woodman
A. J. Woodman*
Affiliation:
University of Virginia, USA/Newcastle University, UK
*
*Email: ajw6n@virginia.edu
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Abstract

Exegi monumentum aere perennius

regalique situ pyramidum altius,

quod non imber edax, non Aquilo impotens

possit diruere aut innumerabilis

annorum series et fuga temporum.

Horace, Odes 3.30.1–5

I have finished a monument more durable than bronze and higher than the royal situs of the pyramids, the kind which neither biting rain nor the uncontrolled North Wind can destroy, or the procession of unnumbered years or flying time.

The paper argues that altius in line 2 is variously inappropriate; a clue to the true reading is to be found in the passage of Pindar to which Horace is alluding.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Cambridge Classical Journal , Volume 67 , December 2021 , pp. 164 - 169
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Cambridge Philological Society

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Footnotes

For reading and commenting on earlier drafts of this paper I am most grateful to J. D. Dillery, I. M. Le M. Du Quesnay, P. R. Hardie, D. S. Levene, S. P. Oakley and two anonymous referees; their agreement should not be assumed.

References

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