## QUINTILIUS AND EPICUREANISM,

## HORACE ODES 1.24: PHILODEMUS AND VARIUS

By Francis Cairns

Summary:  A number of Epicurean elements have been identified in Odes 1.24 by past scholarship. This paper begins by summarising them, before proposing two major additions, one a quotation from Philodemus On Death . A final section appends a speculation about another possible Epicurean source for the ode, Varius' De Morte .

| Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus tam cari capitis? praecipe lugubris cantus, Melpomene, cui liquidam pater vocem cum cithara dedit.   |    |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|----|
| ergo Quintilium perpetuus sopor urget; cui Pudor et Iustitiae soror incorrupta Fides nudaque Veritas                                    |  5 |
| multis ille bonis flebilis occidit, nulli flebilior quam tibi, Vergili. tu frustra pius, heu, non ita creditum poscis Quintilium deos.  | 10 |
| quid? si Threicio blandius Orpheo auditam moderere arboribus fidem, num vanae redeat sanguis imagini, quam virga semel horrida          | 15 |
| non lenis precibus fata recludere nigro conpulerit Mercurius gregi? durum: sed levius fit patientia quidquid corrigere est nefas.       | 20 |

§I of the present paper assembles those Epicurean elements which have already been identified in Odes 1.24. §II adds two further such elements, viz. pudor/Pudor (§II.i), and a hitherto unrecognised quotation of Philodemus (§II.ii). §III considers other possible sources of the ode, especially Varius' On Death .

## I .   I d e n t i f i e d   E p i c u r e a n   E l e m e n t s   i n Odes 1 . 2 4 1

Odes 1.24 consoles Virgil for the death of Quintilius Varus. 2 Quintilius, a committed Epicurean, had, along with L. Varius Rufus, Plotius Tucca and Virgil, been a pupil of Philodemus in the 40s BC. The four men are addressed together in three of the treatises which were part of Philodemus' Περὶ κακιῶν καὶ τῶν ἀντικειμένων ἀρετῶ v ( On Vices and their Opposing Virtues ), viz. PHerc. Paris. 2, col. Z.23-25 ( On Slander ), PHerc . 253, fr. 12.3-5 ( On Greed ), and PHerc. 1082, col. 11.2-4 ( On Flattery ). 3 Philodemus always, so it seems, addressed them in the same way: ὦ Πλώτιε καὶ Οὐάριε καὶ Οὐεργίλιε καὶ Κοϊντίλιε . 4 They are the 'dedicatees' of the works in which their names appear in that they constituted the small class of elite students 5 who heard as lectures (at least) these three treatises of Philodemus which, as recorded by his stenographers and then corrected by the Master, 6 contributed to his published On Vices .

Norman De Witt seems to have been the first scholar to note and discuss some of the Epicurean content of Odes 1.24. 7 He identified nudaque

- 1 The bibliography on Od. 1.24 is extensive; in the present paper only items relevant to the ode's Epicurean content are cited.
- 2 On the epicedic/consolatory aspects of Od .  1.24 see Esteve-Forriol 1962: 27-31, 166 (Stellenregister s.v. Horatius carm. 1.24); Nisbet-Hubbard 1970: 280-81.
- 3 For the constituents of On Vices and Opposing Virtues see Capasso 2010.
- 4 See Puglia 2023.
- 5 On the group see Gigante 1993: 172-74; Sider 1997: 19-23.
- 6 For the transformation of lectures into books see Heath 2004: 255-76 (= Ch. 8 'Technography').
- 7 De Witt 1935: 314-15.

Veritas (7) and corrigere (20) as references to Epicurean parrhesia (frankness). 8 In 1993 Marcello Gigante added that Fides (7) is an essential element of another major Epicurean aspiration, friendship, 9 and he commented on bonis (9) as a term with Epicurean significance 10 - see also below. More recently Philip Thibodeau has successfully attempted a fuller treatment of the ode in Epicurean terms. 11 He explored topoi drawn by Horace from Epicurean sources, viz.: 1) the endlessness and irreversibility  of  death;  2)  the  non-interference of the gods in human life; 3) the commercial metaphor of non ita creditum as  a  possible  reflection of an Epicurean source (cf. Lucretius DRN 3.971); and 4) the need for Epicureans to avoid excessive lamentation for the dead and to show restraint in mourning. 12 More broadly, Thibodeau again related the overall frank and critical tone of Horace in Odes 1.24 to parrhesia among Epicurean friends - and specifically to Philodemus' On Frank Criticism .  Horace knew of its particular interest to the group of four to which Virgil and Quintilius belonged, 13 and especially to Quintilius, to whom parrhesia was doubly germane: not only did he have a general reputation for speaking frankly, but he  was  famous  for  his  candour  in  the  field  of  literary  criticism. 14 Thibodeau also pointed out that Horace's own stance in Odes 1.24 vis-àvis Virgil is reminiscent of the way Quintilius behaved towards his Epicurean friends: 'how better to advise Vergil to quit his mourning than with a style of sermo memorializing Quintilius' own?' (252). Horace, so Thibodeau  proposed,  is  also  making  the  implicit  point  that,  although Quintilius is dead, his style of frank but friendly criticism based on the teachings of Philodemus lives on. Two final implications of Thibodeau's discussion, while not intrinsically implausible, are perhaps less relevant. They are first that Horace adopts the role of frank speaker with awareness that Philodemus had discriminated between, on the one hand, genuinely candid critics and, on the other, flatterers who employed illusory criticism to convey adulation, and second that Horace also had in mind that 'Philodemus dedicated his Peri Kolakeias [ On Flattery ] to Vergil, Quintilius, Plotius, and Varius' (250). The difficulty here is that Odes 1.24 contains no reference to flattery.

8 On corrigere see also Putnam 1992-1993: 134.

9 Gigante 1993: 175; for Pudor , the third member of the personified trio, see below §II.i.

10  Gigante 1993: 171.

11  Thibodeau 2002-2003.

12  See also, for background, Hessler 2015.

13  Thibodeau 2002-2003:  250-51,  citing  Hor. Sat .  1.5.39-42,  where  Virgil,  Varius,  and Tucca are described as candidi .

14  See Muthmann 1967: 31; Thibodeau 2002-2003: 251, and below.

## I I .   F u r t h e r   E p i c u r e a n   E l e m e n t s   i n   O d e s   1 . 2 4 i. Pudor

Lines 6-7 present three personified and deified abstractions who will be unable to find the like of Quintilius again: cui Pudor et Iustitiae soror / incorrupta Fides nudaque Veritas / quando ullum inveniet parem? They are associated with Quintilius much as other such entities constitute the attendant komos of deities in lyric poetry: cf., e.g., sive tu mavis, Erycina ridens, quam Iocus circum volat et Cupido (Horace Odes 1.2.33-34). 15 As noted above, two of the three abstractions, Fides and Veritas (7), have previously been linked with Epicurean ethics. The third, Pudor (6), echoes pudor in the first line of Odes 1.24, and in both instances the term implies 'selfrestraint' ( OLD s.v. 2a). 16 Horace describes Quintilius' critical method as involving self-restraint and moderation; he gives frank advice, but, if the recipient's ears are closed, he desists:

Quintilio siquid recitares, 'corrige sodes hoc' aiebat 'et hoc'. melius te posse negares bis terque expertum frustra: delere iubebat 440 et male tornatos incudi reddere versus. si defendere delictum quam vertere malles, nullum ultra verbum aut operam insumebat inanem, quin sine rivali teque et tua solus amares. ( Ars Poetica 438-444)

- 15  See Nisbet-Hubbard 1970: 236 on Od . 1.18.14. A comparable group of deified abstractions ( Fides , Pax , Honos , Pudor , Virtus ) appears at Hor. CS 57-60, but in this case unattached to a lead deity/human.
- 16  See also D'Agostino 1969: esp. 322 ( pudor / pudicitia and σωφροσύνη ); Reeve 2011. For the  association  (sometimes  quasi-synonymity)  of pudor 's  Greek  'equivalent' aid ō s with s ō phrosyn ē see further Cairns 1993: General Index s.v. s ō phrosyn ē . The essays of Renaud et al. 2012 concentrate on other aspects of pudor .

Quintilius' self-control thus goes even further than that prescribed by Philodemus' in On Frank Criticism . 17 There Philodemus notes that Epicurus reproached Pythocles ' in moderation' ( μετρίω c, fr. 6.7-8) cf.(?) fr. 20.1 as restored; he also says that a teacher should respond to a pupil's objections  'moderately  (again μετρίω c,  fr.  71.4-6),  and  that  a  frank  critic should  approach  an  advisee  with  'moderate  reminders'  ( ἐπ [ ελθ ] ὼν / μετρίαιϲ ὑπ [ ο ] μ v ήϲεϲ̣ιν , fr. 93 N.7-8). 18

Pudor therefore also has Epicurean status as an essential concomitant of παρρησία . 19 Its operation within the ode is visible almost immediately from its  start.  The  function  of  the  first  two  stanzas  is  to  eulogise  the uniqueness of Quintilius. Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus / tam cari capitis? (1-2) is usually understood as a rhetorical question, in effect a call for no pudor or modus in expressions of desiderium / πόθος for Quintilius. Similarly,  the  injunction  to  the  Muse  Melpomene (2-3) is  (less  justifiably) taken as setting no limit to the lamentation that she should initiate. 20 This makes lines 1-3 troubling in the light of the standard Epicurean disapproval of excessive mourning. 21 Apart from noting that Melpomene's cantus are lugubris (2-3), not unrestrained, there are two ways in which one might reconcile lines 1-3 with what follows. One is to deny that Quis etc. is a rhetorical question, and to treat it as a real question, a preliminary to a philosophical discussion. In this case, the initial emphasis on pudor and modus (1) implies that the desiderium / πόθος for Quintilius and Melpomene's laments for him should be regulated by pudor and modus . In other words, Horace is challenging the appropriateness of a standard topos of the epicedion / consolatio - the unrestrained outpouring of grief by

- 17  References to On Frank Criticism are to the edition of Konstan et al. 1988.
- 18  See also Konstan et al. 1988: 13-14.
- 19  Thibodeau 2002-2003: 250 comments (correctly) that: 'he [Philodemus] repeatedly urges the teacher to tailor his remarks to the character of individual disciples, measure his words carefully, and use full harshness only when necessary (e.g. with a particularly arrogant disciple)'; but he does not connect his remarks to Pudor .
- 20  So, e.g., Nisbet-Hubbard 1970: 281-82 on line 1.
- 21  Cf. the views of Epicurus ( συμπαθῶμεν τοῖς φίλοις οὐ θρηνοῦντες ἀλλὰ φροντίζοντες ,  Let  us  have  fellow-feeling  for  our  friends,  not  bewailing  them  but thinking about them, Sententiae Vaticanae 66) and of Philodemus ( On Death Book 4 col. 100.12-15 Delattre, quoted below §II.ii).

the bereaved. 22 The second mode of reconciliation is arguably valid in either case: Horace's follow-up in stanza 2 with ergo (5) cools the emotional fervour of the first stanza, shows the poet standing back and assessing the situation, and sees him offering as his 'conclusion' that Quintilius' death is permanent (5-6), before moving on in stanzas 4 and 5 to counsel Virgil's acceptance of his loss. Thibodeau believed that Melpomene takes over as speaker of the ode from line 5 on. 23 Muses do often respond to such invitations as praecipe (2) by becoming speakers or joint speakers of the ongoing work, 24 but, although in the present instance Melpomene remains Horace's preceptor, 25 she does not seem to replace him as speaker. In particular, it is hard to hear the words addressed directly to Virgil at lines 9-12 as spoken by anyone other than Horace himself. Whatever the case, all three personified abstractions attached to Quintilius turn out to be specifically Epicurean in nature.

## i i .   P h i l o d e m u s On Death B o o k  4

Odes 1.24  has  a  direct,  apparently  unnoticed  link  with  Philodemus On Death Book 4, a link which, enriched by its context, places the ode at the heart of that group of Philodemus' students of the 40s BC who later became some of the most eminent writers and critics of the Augustan age. Odes 1.24.9 reads: multis ille bonis flebilis occidit .  Compare Philodemus On Death Book 4 col. 100.12-15 Delattre = col. 21.12-15 Henry:

… λυπ̣ [ ηϲομ ] έ̣ [ ν ] ουϲ τε πολλοὺϲ̣ καὶ ἀγαθοὺϲ λ̣εί̣ [ ψομεν ] τελευτήϲαντεϲ , ὃ προλαμβα [ νό ] μενον εὐφ [ ραίνει φ ] υ -ϲικῶϲ …

- 22  For this topos see Esteve-Forriol 1962: 126-27.
- 23  Thibodeau  2002-2003:  253-54,  comparing Natura in  Lucr.  3.914-51  and  Xantho  in Philod. AP 9.570 = 14 GPh. = 3 Sider.
- 24  The convention is already visible in the Iliad and Odyssey and is echoed throughout antiquity.
- 25  Cf. OLD s.v. praecipio 5.b.

et ainsi, nombreux seront les gens de bien qui éprouveront du chagrin quand [nous les laisserons] en mourant - ce dont l'anticipation procure une joie bien naturelle (trans. Delattre 2022: 54-55)

And [we shall have] many good people who will be distressed when we  die,  anticipation  of  which  thing  gladdens  (us)  naturally  (trans. Henry 2009: 49, who reads ἕ̣ [ ξομεν in line 13)

The two passages are close enough for Horace's line to be considered a quotation  of  Philodemus: multis = πολλούϲ , bonis = ἀγαθούϲ , flebilis = λυπ̣ [ ηϲομ ] έ̣ [ ν ] ουϲ ,  and occidit = τελευτήϲαντεϲ .  Moreover, in Epicurean writings bonis (= ἀγαθούϲ ) refers specifically to Epicureans - Philodemus On Gods 1 col. 12.18 Diels (1916) 20 speaks of 'good men' with the same reference: ὁ δ ' Ἐ [ πί -/ κουρ [ οϲ ] ἄνδ̣ρα̣ϲ ἀ [ γαθοὺ ] ϲ ἐκώλ̣ [ υ ] ε ν̣ο̣εῖν / τοι [ αῦ ] τ̣α ο [ ἷ ' ἂ ] ν ἐκ [ βάλλη̣ τὸ ] εὐδοκ̣ῆϲαι (17-19); and at On Gods 3  col. 14.5 (Diels 1917) 37 Philodemus similarly uses σπουδαῖος as a term of approbation with the same reference: ἄ [ λλωϲ τε ] κ ( αὶ ) τῆϲ / πρ ( ὸϲ ) τοὺϲ ὁμοίου [ ϲ ] τοῖϲ σπουδαίο [ ιϲ ] κοινολογίας ἄ -/ φατον ἡδονὴν καταχεούσηϲ (And particularly since, for good human beings, the sharing of discourse with one's peers pours down indescribable pleasure, 4-6 tr. D. Armstrong 191). 26 At Odes 1.24.9 bonis points to the Epicurean circle to which Quintilius belonged.

Βοο k 4 of Philodemus On Death dates from after 50 BC, and more precisely to 45 BC at the latest. 27 It was thus roughly contemporary with the three Philodemean works dedicated to the group of four students which included Virgil and Quintilius (above §I). The group may, then, have in addition attended the lecture-course which gave rise to On Death Book 4. If they did, Virgil heard Philodemus utter the same sentiment in almost the same words as Horace now addresses to him, and moreover Virgil heard Philodemus' words in the company of Quintilius (Horace knew the words  from  the  now  published On  Death ).  In  that  case  the  emotional charge carried by Horace's reminder of the Master's precept can only be imagined.

26  See Armstrong 2016: 190-91.

27  Delattre 2022: cxlvi.

## I I I   T h e   ' E l e p h a n t   i n   t h e   R o o m ' :   V a r i u s On Death

In addition to the quasi-mythical trio of Pudor , Fides ,  and Veritas (6-7), Odes 1.24  features  'real'  mythical personae :  Melpomene,  Orpheus,  and Mercury. Horace's treatment of the two divinities appears to conform to Epicurean norms, 28 but to lack specifically Epicurean connections. As for Orpheus, the most prominent mythical character in the ode, Philodemus' surviving mentions of Orpheus again offer nothing tangible: four of them treat Orpheus as the author of Orphic Hymns, while the remaining three rationalise his alleged magical powers. 29 The origin and Epicurean significance of Horace's Orpheus, like those of his Melpomene and Mercury, must rather be sought in earlier poetry, where the tale of Orpheus in Virgil Georgics 4.453-529 is most often (and most plausibly) cited as his main inspiration. 30 Virgil is usually understood to be viewing Orpheus' excessive  love  for  Eurydice  and  his  excessive  grief  over  her  death  ( Georgics 4.464-466) as breaching the Epicurean ideal of moderation in the expression of emotions. Horace took a similar Epicurean line with regard to love in, e.g., Odes 1.5 and 1.33, and to Valgius' love of and grief for the dead Mystes in Odes 2.9, where lines 10-12 (… nec tibi vespero / surgente decedunt amores / nec rapidum fugiente solem ) appear to echo Virgil's te ueniente die, te decedente canebat ( Georgics 4.466). Here in Odes 1.24 Horace's Epicurean target is again excessive shows of grief for the death of a loved one, and here too Orpheus reemerges as a negative mythical paradeigma.

Nevertheless, we should not forget Varius, another of Quintilius' fellow students in the classes of Philodemus, who composed his hexameter work On Death 31 in 44 or 43 BC. 32 Its surviving fragments tell us very little about it, and they contain no mythical material. But this poem, written close to the time when Varius was Philodemus' pupil, must somehow be linked to the recent and homonymous treatise of his teacher - either as a  poetically  transformed  and  embellished  version  of  it, 33 or  as  a  work more distant from Philodemus but still influenced by him; and, although Odes 1.24  contains no pointer to Varius' On Death visible  to  us,  Horace cannot have forgotten its existence. This background, along with Horace's choice to compose Odes 1.24 in the Second Asclepiad metre, which permits potential quotation of the first hemistichs of hexameters, emboldens an unevidenced speculation. Might Horace have quoted from Varius' On Death in the ode, as we know Virgil quoted Varius in his Eclogues ? 34 If he did, one can imagine no more touching and effective consolation to Virgil for the loss of Quintilius than a borrowing in multis ille bonis flebilis occidit (9) from their old comrade Varius' rendering of that dictum of Philodemus. 35

28  On Epicurean attitudes to poetry see e.g. Obbink 1995.

29  See Vassallo 2015.

30  See, e.g. Thibodeau 2002-2003: 247; Davis 2023: 32-33, on which the remainder of this paragraph draws.

31  For its surviving fragments see Hollis 2007: 254-55 (texts), 263-73 (commentary).

32  So Hollis 2007: 264.

## Addendum

Subsequent to the acceptance of my paper by Classica et Mediaevalia I became  aware  of  Michael  McOsker's  'The  Epicureanism  of  Horace, Odes 1,24 Revisited: Mourning and Friendship', which appeared in the final  fascicle  of Rheinisches Museum 2024 (167.3-4: 321-44). Focussing primarily on Philodemus' On the Gods , McOsker offers several convincing proposals about further Epicurean elements in Odes 1.24, discussing  in  particular  (329-35) vana  imago (15), modus (1),  and  Epicurean grief. There is, however, virtually no overlap between McOsker's paper and my own, which I have therefore left unaltered. F.C.

- 33  See Hollis 2007: 263-64; and cf. Sedley 1998: esp. 134-65 (= Ch. 5), arguing that Lucretius' DRN stands in that relationship to Epicurus' On Nature .
- 34  Varius fr. 150.6 Hollis = Verg. Ecl . 8.88: see Hollis 2007: 255; Lebek 2008. The line nec serae meminit decedere nocti - looks to be from the same Orphic context as Georg. 4.466 and Hor. Od . 2.9.10-11: see Davis 2023: 32-33.
- 35  I am very grateful to Dr Jürgen Hammerstaedt for his comments on and corrections of this paper. My thanks also go to the anonymous referees of Classica et Mediaevalia for valuable additional material.

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