Latest news with #Horace
Spectator
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Spectator
Nunc est bibendum – to Horace, the lusty rebel
Horace suffers from a reputation as an old man's poet. Classicists often joke that Catullus and Martial are for the young, and Horace for those of a certain vintage – wine being a favourite Horatian theme. Many lose their thirst for his Odes at school, only to realise their brilliance decades later. Classroom Horace is just a bit too bombastic and patriotic to be cool. The Horace of Peter Stothard's beautifully written new biography surprises with his sexiness. Not many pages in we find him poring over scurrilous papyri in the libraries of Athens. A verse by the Archaic-era poet Archilochus has caught his eye. It describes a woman with a man, 'head-down, as she did her work like a Thracian drinking beer through a straw'. Golly. This certainly isn't the Horace we met in Latin lessons: lusty, libidinous – a rebel eager to escape his strict upbringing. He was born Quintus Horatius Flaccus (meaning 'floppy') at Venusia, south-east of Rome, on 8 December 65 BC. His father was a former slave who made his living by salting meat and fish. In his keenness to help his son move up in the world he was willing to pose as his personal slave. Horace repaid him by going slightly wild on his travels and refusing to knuckle down following his return to Rome. The longed-for promotion came unexpectedly. Horace fought on the 'wrong' side at the Battle of Philippi, aiding the defenders of the Republic against Octavian, the future Emperor Augustus. Still dreaming of Archilochus, who had written less ripely of laying aside his armour out of cowardice, Horace quit the fight.
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Charles Barkley compares OKC Thunder to Bad Boy Pistons and 90s Bulls: "This is the best defensive team I've seen in a long time"
Only one game into the WCF, and the OKC Thunder seems to have already made a strong case for the 2024-25 NBA championship. The most well-rounded roster among all the other teams in the conference finals as of today. Their consistency at both ends of the floor is remarkable. OKC's defense has been the talk of the town for a while now. Coach Mark Daigneault and his crew have been the No.1 team in defensive ratings, whether it was the regular season (106.6) or the ongoing playoffs (100.7) in a complete team effort from the Thunder. Advertisement Talking playoffs, OKC leads the league in steals, averaging 10.8 per game, and ranks fourth in blocks. The Thunder also holds the top position for opponent points off turnovers and fast breaks, limiting it to 10.9 and 9.1 per game, respectively, heading into Game 2. Addressing their win against the Timberwolves, Charles Barkley was in awe of Oklahoma's defense, comparing it to the iconic Chicago Bulls-Detroit Pistons rivalry during the 1990s. "This is the best defensive team I've seen in the NBA in a long time…They remind me of the Bad Boy Pistons and Chicago Bulls when they had Dennis Rodman and Horace Grant. When they had Michael and Scottie and Dennis, or Horace, if you were a little bit off your pass, it's going the other direction. This is the deepest team in the NBA, and they're going to win an NBA championship. I've not seen any team that can beat this team," said "Sir Charles" about the Thunder, who limited the Timberwolves to 88 points in Game 1 of the 2025 WCF. OKC has the personnel Coming off a second-round exit last year, GM Sam Presti managed to make two great additions in Alex Caruso and Isaiah Hartenstein over the summer. It was a move that filled the missing gaps, giving the Thunder size, defense, versatility, playmaking and championship DNA. Advertisement OKC now has twin towers in Isaiah and Chet Holmgren, with the latter making a solid case for DPOY before going down with a hip fracture. Doing a great job disrupting the opposition's offense and causing turnovers, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams and Cason Wallace impressed us with their abilities to play tenacious lockdown defense on any given night. There needs to be a special mention of "The Carushow," who once again stepped up when his team needed him the most. The former Los Angeles Lakers champion stunned the basketball world with his defense on the seven-foot Nikola Jokic, making the three-time MVP appear helpless on the court. Related: Ivica Zubac reflects on breakout year, Jokic battles, and more in Basketball Network exclusive Defense wins championships There's a popular saying in sports that the Thunder might soon prove true. As Barkley pointed out, defense was a crucial ingredient in the championship runs of the Pistons and Bulls during their heyday. Advertisement While superstars do what superstars do, every team needs a Dennis or Horace to fill the gaps, which could eventually help boost a team's odds of winning it all. A perfect example is Caruso, whose play-reading instincts, anticipation, and relentless hustle often go unnoticed. His championship pedigree — having played a key role in the Lakers' 2020 Bubble title — adds even more value. With MVP-led Oklahoma City peaking at the right time, the Thunder appear primed to chase and potentially taste championship glory. Related: LeBron and Nash on why role players matter more in the playoffs: "You can't win without their efforts"
Times
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
The life of Horace, the rude Roman who made Latin fun
Horace has always been the hero of the Classics classroom. For teachers, his intricate use of the Latin language makes him an ideal lesson in grammar and poetry — so much so that he was adopted into the curriculum almost within his lifetime and has remained there, give or take, for the intervening 2,000 years. For students, his often downright filthy choice of subject matter is in some instances (including this reviewer's) their reason for wanting to study Classics at all. For Peter Stothard, Quintus Horatius Flaccus serves another purpose: the opportunity for a biography that fuses history with literary criticism. The former editor of The Times tells the well-known tale of Octavian's triumph over Antony and the fall of the Roman Republic through the
Daily Mail
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Horace by Peter Stothard: Plump, playboy poet who was in love with wine and the sunshine
Horace by Peter Stothard (Yale £18.99, 328pp) In the autumn of 44 BC, after Julius Caesar's brutal assassination, the ringleader, Brutus, was in Athens raising support for a full-scale conquest of Italy that would restore the values of the old Roman Republic. The world waited to see what would happen. And, then, on to this stage stepped a short, plump 21-year-old poet called Horace, a man who hated war and politics, loved wine and sunshine and girls, and believed that life was for living and enjoying. In Athens, Horace met with Brutus. How was an ambitious young poet to negotiate his way through this splintered and barbed contemporary landscape and not fall foul of the powerful? And what should he write about? Horace is the anglicised version of his Latin name, Quintus Horatius Flaccus. It sounds imposing, yet Flaccus actually means flaccid. Roman names were often faintly mocking. (Cicero bore a name meaning chickpea. Likeably, he refused to change it to something more dignified.) Thus opens this wonderful new biography of the most accessible of all Latin poets. Horace has even been likened to John Betjeman. And while we know little about Homer, who gave us the immortal Iliad and Odyssey, and not much about Virgil, who wrote that sublime, ambiguous epic of Rome, The Aeneid, we know plenty about Horace from his verse. It is from his own lines that we know for instance that he was 'short and plump.' Though sometimes savage and satirical, it's his love of life that shines in his writing. Born in 65 BC, in his youth Horace moved to Rome, living as the archetypal starving young poet in the teeming slum quarter. Here he scraped a miserable living copying legal documents, burning for recognition and success. An angry young man, it seems he had a affair with a wealthy older woman which turned sour. She had mocked him for being flaccid. Maybe, he wrote laceratingly, that was due to her blackened teeth, her ploughed-field face, her flabby stomach... Though on the upside, there were her fat pearls and silk cushions. It was incendiary stuff, designed to make an impact in gossip-loving Rome. In time Horace's startlingly original work was noticed by the wealthy patron of the arts, Maecenas, and he escaped the slums and entered his charmed circle. He still wrote cheeky verses about how chasing married women wasn't worth it. If you were caught in flagrante you'd only have to flee in undignified undress, or even be 'buggered by the stable boys' as punishment. No one gives us such a startlingly vivid and uncensored feel for Roman life. He spent much time at Maecenas' palatial villa in Herculaneum. Here he came to the attention of the Emperor Augustus, who called him a purissimum penem, freely but fairly translated by Stothard as 'an amusing little f***er'. In middle age, Horace wrote less about love affairs, more about the countryside, as well as complex, brilliant poetry about the twin curses of politics and war. He died in Rome in 8 BC, aged 56. He never married but cherished old friends, sought the quiet life, praised a philosophy of enjoyment and gratitude. Dona praesentis cape, he wrote: Seize the gift of the present.
Epoch Times
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Epoch Times
‘The Inside Story': Money Must Keep Moving
NR | 1h 27m | Drama | 1948 Money is like blood: It's no good unless it's circulating. That's the point of producer-director Allan Dwan's lighthearted film about a quiet town in Vermont. The less lighthearted backdrop is the Great Depression: Nearly everyone's indebted and struggling to repay. A stranger in town, Eustace Peabody (Roscoe Karns) arrives at Silver Creek Inn with $1,000 meant for Ab Follansbee (Tom Fadden). But Follansbee's not back until later that day. So, while Peabody waits, inn manager Uncle Ed (Charles Winninger, who is also the narrator) stores the dough in the inn's vault, but absentmindedly doesn't alert inn proprietor Horace Taylor (Gene Lockhart). Horace, imagining the money's his, pays off a pressing debt to grocer Johnson. But Johnson had pressured Horace to repay his debt to him only because businesswoman Geraldine Atherton (Florence Bates) had pressured Johnson to repay his debt to her. Never mind that she'd wanted that money to help Horace out. Anyway, now that her money's back, she thoughtfully gives it to unemployed lawyer Tom O'Connor (Robert Shayne), under the guise of paying for his services. He'd been depressed because his wife Audrey's (Gail Patrick) salary, not his, was paying the bills. Thrilled, he promptly gifts the money to Audrey. Amid the smiles, the inside story unravels. Horrified, Horace wants to make up for his unintentional error but, reputationally, can't risk being exposed. So, his daughter Francine (Marsha Hunt) and Uncle Ed distract Peabody from reclaiming the money, while Horace tries to recover it before either of two things happen: Follansbee returns or Peabody's patience runs out. But is the nerve-wracking money trail suggesting that his hope is misplaced? Born in 1885, Dwan knew of fragile prosperity before and between two world wars. When the Depression hit, he appreciated just how fortunate everyone was to get by. Here, he centers the enforced deprivation that millions endured, playfully weighing the fearful tactic of hoarding against the freeing strategy of investing or spending. Related Stories 7/8/2024 2/4/2024 The film opens with Uncle Ed and his friend Mason (Hobart Cavanaugh) at a bank. Like nearly everyone, Mason's hoarding cash. He, too, fears the financial forecast: inflation, disappearing credit, recession. Ed, however, is investing in bonds to help the federal government keep the economy running. To Mason, hoarding is justified because a dollar won't do much for a person these days. To Ed, that's because a person won't do much for a dollar these days; if people stay honest and hardworking, they deserve to be rewarded. To Ed, hoarding is 'mammon making monkeys out of men.' He reminisces, through a flashback, how it was the freeing, not the freezing, of money flow that helped him and his boss years ago. Poster for "The Inside Story." Republic Pictures What Goes Around Dwan's characters hold a range of jobs including advertising model, proprietress-in-waiting-turned-waitress, and collection agent. They appear unconnected, but as long as one's buying what the other's selling, it could be a service, product or skill, it doesn't matter who has money. Trouble starts when money is withheld out of fear, greed, or ignorance. Dwan likens money to oxygenation that keeps a person alive. It is through moving, not motionless, blood that the heart pumps life-giving oxygen into (and lethal carbon dioxide out of) the body. Yes, some parts seem less useful. Only, they aren't. Here, the artist, Francine's boyfriend (William Lundigan), whom Horace first dismisses as a loafer, is first to suffer, but his one failed art deal in New York sets off a chain reaction that nearly chokes far-off Vermont. (L–R) Uncle Ed (Charles Winninger), Francine (Marsha Hunt), and Bill Williams (William Lundigan), in 'The Inside Story.' Republic Pictures That said, the movement of money must have meaning and purpose. So, Dwan pits Vermont's warm simplicity against New York's cold sophistication. He's saying, with a wink, that the heart should rule the head. Only when people start thinking also about others that they stop thinking only about themselves. Francine and Audrey ponder how their men, so used to protecting and providing for their women, suddenly find themselves without jobs or contracts. Francine doesn't agree with those who think it's a tough time for women alone. In some ways, it's probably worse for men, especially 'sensitive, proud men.' Geraldine reminds a troubled Tom that this isn't the first time America has scraped the bottom of the barrel. Economic or financial upheavals aren't new, she says, 'The bottom fell clear out in '29. But Uncle Sam always manages to patch up the barrel and refill it.' For good-hearted people, she hints, it isn't only money that makes their eyes light up, but what they can do with it: making others feel better because it makes them feel better. You can watch 'The Inside Story' on YouTube, Dailymotion, and DVD. 'The Inside Story' Director: Allan Dwan Starring: Marsha Hunt, Charles Winninger, Gene Lockhart Not Rated Running Time: 1 hour, 27 minutes Release Date: March 14, 1948 Rated: 3 stars out of 5 What arts and culture topics would you like us to cover? Please email ideas or feedback to
