Poeti e potenti: un’eco terenziana in Orazio

Horace’s epistle I 20 v. 23 (me primis urbis belli placuisse domique) raised a number of interpretative problems because of the difficulty in understanding whether placuisse should refer to primis urbis or to placuisse. In the first case the allusion would refer to the most powerful personalities of the time when the epistle was composed, namely Augustus and Maecenas; in the second case to Horace’s youthful military experiences and, implicitly to his republican past, and thus including Brutus among the primis urbis. The clear allusion contained in the Horatian verse to the prologue of Terence’s Adelphoe (vv. 18-19 eam laudem hic ducit maxumam quom illis placet / qui vobis univorsis et populo placent), hitherto not fully appreciated, may be helpful in this respect: these verses were meant to stir in the reader of the epistle the memory of the powerful figures whom a tradition, now well established in Horace’s time, identified with Scipio Aemilianus, Laelius, and Furius Philo. Such a reading was similarly proposed by the ancient commentaries on Horace, who partly noted the Terence allusion (Ps. Acro), and partly identified Augustus, Maecenas, and Pollion as the primi urbis (Porphyrio). In this sense, the allusion to Terence should be conceived as a tool and cue offered to the reader to understand the Horatian verse as referring to the powerful figures of his time, at least Augustus and Maecenas. No allusion to Horace's republican past, or Brutus, is therefore discernible in it.