Horace and the Ages of Excess  by Harry Eyres  While researching
Horace and Me, my book on the Roman poet (and a few other things
besides), I was astonished time and again by the uncanny
prescience of this ancient and some might think antiquated poet;
by how pertinent so many of his words remain, two thousand years
after they were written. Perhaps it was something like the
experience an archaeologist has, pushing a spade into long-
dormant earth and coming up with a perfect glittering coin or
piece of jewelry: how can this thing still be shining so bright
after so long?  Horace wanted his poems to be useful as well as
sweet. He offers not just beautiful images and rhythms, but a
philosophy of living well. It is a poet’s philosophy, that is to
say it is thoroughly human, grounded in experience, not theory,
and accepting of inconsistency, of the fact that the noblest
philosophy can be undone by a bad cold.  Some of the words that
seemed truest came in one of his verse letters, or Epistles,
written to a friend ca