horace epode 9 - a toast to actium

• Jove - Jupiter, the voice of fate
• Caecuban wine - Italian wine
• Dorian - Hellenistic people
• "faithless slaves" - slaves freed by Sextus Pompeius to fight with him in Nauchlos
• eunuch - castrated man, who worked in an oriental court serving women
• pavillion - open structure considered an Eastern luxury
• "two thousand Gauls chanting Caesar" - the army of the Gallic King Amyntas who deserted Antony to join Octavian
• "in the war of Jurgurtha, you never returned such a general to us" -> likens Octavian to Gaius Marius who defeated Jurgurtha, the king of Numidia
• Africanus - Africanus Scipio, a famed general
• Crete - Greek island
• Syrtes - body of water on the northern coast of Libya
• Chian wine and Lesbian wine -> Greek wine and wine from Lesbos
• ends and begins with celebration, furthering the idea of peace through war
• addressed to Maecenas, Horace's patron
• written in 30BC, right after Actium
• References to the east - "eunuch" "shameful pavillion"
• Octavian's military greatness - names generals like Africanus and Marius but places Octavian higher than them
• Celebration - reference to different wines, "let's delight in banishing fear and anxiety" "hail triumph"