Write a 500-word essay on this topic: “What was Horace’s concept of personal ethical cause and effect?”
Horace was a bureaucratic ally of many political leaders after his career in the Roman army. He also wrote beautiful and influential poetry and is remembered as one of the best poets of ancient Rome. From reading Horace’s most famous book of poems, Odes, you can get a sense of his opinion on the cause and effect of personal ethics.
Horace believed in the “golden mean” concept which is a strongly Aristotelian philosophy. This is an approach to life where everything follows a “golden mean”, in between two extremes of a spectrum. An easy way to describe this concept is how the character Goldilocks acted in her folktale: having not too much, nor too little of anything. This goes for money, power, and everything else. I can’t say how well he personally lived out this philosophy, but regardless, this is what his poetry promotes.
He believed the best place to be in society, ethically, is the middle class. This way neither rich nor poor people will be against you, so you will be free to enjoy the pleasures of a peaceful simple life like the Epicureans strove for. Horace himself was not exactly who you would call a middle-class man, but he reprimanded his richer friends to follow the lifestyle.
His view of how people should live their lives was somewhere between Stoicism and Epicureanism. In a Stoic manner, he advised others to be grateful for what they have and not try to control their future too much. His poems also promoted an Epicurean lifestyle, to pursue happiness through simple luxuries, like sipping wine on the beach or something of that sort. He believes contentment is ethical but doesn’t bring anything beyond death. It will just make your life on earth more pleasant.
Horace had a very firm stance on death, which is clearly evident in his poems. He believed death is impartial to whether you were a good or bad person, so in the long run, your ethics don’t affect you personally. What is significant after your death is the reputation you leave behind to others. For example, Horace strongly believed that he would be ‘immortalized’ through his writing for many centuries to come. He believed nothing good will come from trying to predict the end in store for you. He says this particularly in regards to astrology, which was incredibly popular in his time. He also didn’t think that inheritance or deliverance after death mattered, the only final thing is death itself.
His poems imply that ethical decisions do not control history, but he does not clearly say what does control it. There is no particular sovereign being or force governing over the fate of the world. He implies it may be Zeus, Apollo, fate, or luck, but based on his poems there is no single force for people to obey. In conclusion, there is no serious or permanent consequence related to ethics in Hesiod’s opinion. Horace advises the reader to enjoy their life while being grateful for what they have and avoiding conflict.
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