Horace 3.6 Moral Decadence

Question 1

When was it published?

(Horace 3.6 Moral Decadence)

Answer 1

23BC

Question 2

which themes does it cover?

(Horace 3.6 Moral Decadence)

Answer 2

imperator, augustus and pater patriae

Question 3

what is the poem about?

(Horace 3.6 Moral Decadence)

Answer 3

the poem covers the recent woes of the Romans, and how this is due to their neglect of the gods and their lack of morals. Horace laments that generations get worse as time goes on

Question 4

How have the Romans displeased the gods?

(Horace 3.6 Moral Decadence)

Answer 4

• neglect of temples- they have been neither rebuilt nor kept clean
• without the gods, you cannot rule, because it is they who bestow the power (reason for Rome’s dominance)

Question 5

What have the Roman’s suffered as a consequence of their slighting the gods?

(Horace 3.6 Moral Decadence)

Answer 5

• the recent woes
• the recent civil wars
• conflicts with parthians (generals Monaeses and Pacorus) and how the Parthians have taken spoils
• Dacian and Ethiopian threats

Question 6

what does Horace say about civil war?

(Horace 3.6 Moral Decadence)

Answer 6

just that the city was going through it

Question 7

quote about the wickedness of the age

(Horace 3.6 Moral Decadence)

Answer 7

“our age, fertile in its wickedness, has first defiled the marriage bed, our offspring and homes”

Question 8

what does Horace say about the young girl/ woman (and what she does later)?

(Horace 3.6 Moral Decadence)

Answer 8

• dances dances from eastern countries
• dresses fancily
• commits adultery
• which her husband allows
• worth noting it’s a woman whose sins are discussed!

Question 9

what does Horace say about the ancestors of the Romans?

(Horace 3.6 Moral Decadence)

Answer 9

• those who fought in the Punic wars weren’t like the romans of the day “from a different mould”
• they were a “virile crowd of rustic soldiers”
• hard working farmers, who worked to please their strict mothers, and to the end of the day

Question 10

what does Horace say about different generations?

(Horace 3.6 Moral Decadence)

Answer 10

time makes everything worse, the next generation is always weaker and worse, and we’re going to have even rubbisher kids (“sinful children” Kline vs “degenerate heirs” Michie)

Question 11

Morgan’s scholarship on the poem?

(Horace 3.6 Moral Decadence)

Answer 11

• “terrifyingly pessimistic”
• “insisting the Romans do something that’s already being done”
• “the only way to explain [the recent woes] was that they had somehow upset the gods”