26
wit
h ambition.  Many drove themselves night and day to win honors
in the eyes of their countrymen and to rise in the hierarchy of the state.
They entered what was called the cursus honorum--the racecourse of
honors.  The system was simple.  If you were just starting out, you
competed with other young men to win a government position
reserved for neophytes.  Once you landed the prized new post, you
were able to work your tail off and clamber to the next position up the
ladder.  You showed your worthiness for advancement through a
variety of means--diligence, splendid speeches in the forum, donations
of warships and monuments to the state, and presentations (at your
own expense) of massive public spectacles.  If the crowds and the folks
in power liked what you had done, you moved step by step upward on
the stairway of honors.  And finally, if you had labored long and hard
enough, you might attain the ultimate prize, becoming one of the two
consuls, the highest officers in the land and the supreme commanders
of the army.  The cursus honorum was a splendid motivator.  It impelled
Rome's best and brightest to dedicate nearly all their energies to the
betterment of their society.52
But Horace, the Roman poet, wrote loftily that the struggle for
political power was vain and meaningless.  True beauty and
happiness, his poems said, were to be found in the quiet moments of
private life, a life in the countryside, isolated from the tension and
bustle of teeming Rome.  Ah, how elevated, how inspired, how
ethereal Horace's delicate verses and their sentiments seemed.  How
far from the low rumblings of ambition.  Or were they?
The Roman cursus honorum was open strictly to men of noble
birth.  Horace was not an aristocrat.  In fact, he was the grandson of a
slave.  Horace's father had been a freedman who'd done well...well
enough to send Horace to school with the upper crust.  After
graduation, Horace had continued to hobnob with  the elite.  But,
nonetheless, he wasn't one of them.   Horace could not participate in
the traditional race for power.
He could, however, spend time on the farm a wealthy patron had
given him.  There he could quietly write his heart out.  Curiously
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