ABSTRACT
This chapter enters the still exhaustless mine of contemplation by a different shaft, narrow and hazardous. The English-reading student in 1973 is well-placed to study Horace's poetic technique. The chapter explains a small point of technique and shows that it is frequent and important in the Odes; then study some apparent examples of technique in the hope of improving our understanding of the passages where it occurs or seems to occur; then gather our observations to present a general picture of Horace's poetic technique in the Odes. It shows that the setting off of A against B is the major motif of Horatian verbal composition. The chapter began usque coloratis amnis deuexus ab Indis, et uiridem Aegyptum nigra fecundat harena. It is no need to argue for a calculated interplay between Sabina and diota, but it is worth mentioning that the Sabine and the Sabellan are never mentioned in the Odes except in conscious and telling contrast to the foreign.
