Horace, Carm. 1.12.33-40:
Romulum post hos prius an quietum
Pompili regnum memorem ac superbos
Tarquini fascis dubito an Catonis nobile letum. 35
Regulum et Scauros animaeque magnae
prodigum Paulum superante Poeno
gratus insigni referam Camena
34 ac Hamacher an codd. 35 anne Curti Bentley
35-7 catenis nobilitatum Regulum Hamacher
There seems little point in rehearsing at length the arguments of Bentley, Housman (CP 94-6), and others: Cato has no place amongst the ancient kings of Rome. Nisbet and Hubbard make a case for Horatian eulogy of the republican, but not for the gross disruption of Horace's poetic history. They incline towards emendation. However, Hamacher's conjecture is rejected because it ‘disrupts the pattern of three-stanza groups and substitutes a clumsy and artificial phrase for what is crisp and incisive’, and Bentley's ‘more plausible’ suggestion because ‘nobile letum is so applicable to Cato's suicide’.