The Burden of Antiquity in Horace and in the Dialogus de oratoribus

In this paper I intend to analyse in parallel two well-known texts, Horace’s Epistle 2.1 to Augustus and some sections of Aper’s second speech in the Dialogus de oratoribus, in order to point out some significant similarities of theme and argument. Both Horace and the character of Aper portray antiquity, a codified and ‘authorized’ section of the past, in a negative way, as a disvalue, and present themselves in turn as champions of the present and the moderns. They both offer a conceptualization of antiquity: they investigate and, at the same time, try to weaken its (alleged) chronological basis as well as the axiological value commonly ascribed to it. This is interesting in itself, because of their theoretical and definitional approach, because they dilate upon the topic and because of the set of arguments, which are largely similar: 1. Identification of the fautor[es] veterum / antiquorum admiratores as a target. 2. Conceptualization of antiquity as axiological criterion. 3. Refusal of a method depreciative of the present. 4. Relativization of ‘antiquity’ as a criterion (chronological and axiological): a. Request for a limit and its fixing at 100 years; b. Use of paradoxical arguments. 5. Consciousness of the chronological gap between the two cultures of Greece and Rome. 6. Presentation and critique of a canon. 7. Change and gradual development of the arts towards an only partially or not yet achieved acme. 8. On the side of the moderns: proposals for a new canon. (A textual proposal is also made for Dialogus de oratoribus 16.7).