Aims to provide the reader with the background knowledge of conventional forms and topics needed to fully appreciate every aspect of Horace's "Odes". The text focuses on "Book II" of the "Odes", which contains poems predominantly concerned with philosophy, conduct and friendship.

This commentary provides the reader with the background knowledge of conventional forms and topics needed to appreciate fully every aspect of the poems. The editors focus particularly on word play, literary parallels, and stylistic nuances.

`One cannot praise sufficiently highly the assiduous scholarship that has gone into the making of the commentary.' JACT Bulletin