The Young Horace (65 B.C.—8 B.C.) Writes About His Devotion to His Father

Once upon a time rebellion of the young toward their parents was most uncommon. In a touching passage, almost unique in ancient literature, the poet Horace tells of his great devotion to his father, who was a freedman, a collector of taxes, and as such was not a man of wealth. Horace wrote this moving tribute to his father in (Satires, Book 1 number 6.). And yet, if the flaws that mar my otherwise sound nature are but trifling and few in number, even as you might find fault with moles spotted over a comely person—if no one will justly lay to my charge avarice or meanness or lewdness; if, to venture on self-praise, my life is free from stain and guilt and I am loved by my friends—I owe this to my father, who, though poor with a starveling farm, would not send me to the school of Flavius, to which grand boys used to go, sons of grand centurions, with slate and satchel slung over the left arm, each carrying his eightpence on the Ides—nay, he boldly took his boy off to Rome, to be taught those studies that any knight or senator would have his own offspring taught. Anyone who saw my clothes and attendant slaves—as is the way in a great city—would have thought that such expense was met from ancestral wealth. He himself, a guardian true and tried, went with me among all my teachers. Need I say more? He kept me chaste —and that is virtue's first grace—free not only from every deed of shame, but from all scandal.