Ten years after publishing his first collection of lyric poetry, Odes I-III, Horace (65 B.C.-8 B.C.) returned to lyric and published another book of fifteen odes, Odes IV. These later lyrics, which praise Augustus, the imperial family, and other political insiders, have often been treated more as propaganda than art. But in A Symposion of Praise, Timothy Johnson examines the richly textured ambiguities of Odes IV that engage the audience in the communal or "sympotic" formulation of Horace's praise. Surpassing propaganda, Odes IV reflects the finely nuanced and imaginative poetry of Callimachus rather than the traditions of Aristotelian and Ciceronian rhetoric, which advise that praise should present commonly admitted virtues and vices.  In this way, Johnson demonstrates that Horace's application of competing perspectives establishes him as Pindar's rival.
    Johnson shows the Horatian panegyrist is more than a dependent poet representing only the desires of his patrons. The poet forges the panegyric agenda, setting out the character of the praise (its mode, lyric, and content both positive and negative), and calls together a community to join in the creation and adaptation of Roman identities and civic ideologies. With this insightful reading, A Symposion of Praise will be of interest to historians of the Augustan period and its literature, and to scholars interested in the dynamics between personal expression and political power.

Timothy Johnson is associate professor of classics at the University of Florida.

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Contents
Acknowledgments		000
Abbreviations		000
Introduction		000
Chapter One: Sympotic Horace		000
Looking Back		000
Levis et Gravis		000
Parties and Politics		000
Sympotic Horace's Epic Criticism		000
Sympotic Horace Exiled: Epistle II.2 and Odes IV.1		000
Chapter Two: Encomia Nobilium and Horace's Panegyric Praxis		000
C.1 and 2: Great Expectations? Inventing Panegyric Discord		000
C.3 and 6: The Poet among the Nobiles		000
C.7: Panegyric and Politics, Putting Off Heirs		000
C.8 and 9: As the Wor(l)d Turns, Praise and Blame		000
Chapter Three: Encomia Augusti, "Take One"		000
C.4: EpinikionOne-The Panegyric Agon		000
C.5: A Panegyric TagOne-All in the Family		000
Chapter Four: Songs of Mo(u)rning		000
C.10: Faces in the Mirror, Ligurinus, Horace, and Vergil		000
C.11: The Phyllis Odes and the Comic Power of Shared Lyric		000
C.12: Vergilius at the Symposion		000
C.13: E/motive Song, The Art of Writing Off Lyce		000
Chapter Five: Encomia Augusti, "Take Two"		000
C.14: EpinikionTwo-Winners and Losers		000
C.15: A Panegyric TagTwo-I Really Wanted To!		000
Notes		000
Works Cited		000
Index		000