Blog Post#9

In Book II, Horace writes about many topics such as war, wealth, aging, love, and death. These are themes by poems:

1. War

2. Greed

3. Aging

4. Love, War

5. Love, Aging

6. Aging

7. War, Friendship

8. Love

9. Love, Aging

10. Love

11. Aging

12. War

13. Death

14. Aging

15. Modesty

16. Modesty

17. Death

18. Modesty

19. Bacchus(wine)

20. Death

The book II is like a lesson book. He shows the themes that a human has to pursue in order to fully understand a life, and these important themes are arranged in a periodical order of a human’s life. For the first ten poems, he talks about war, greed, aging, love and friendship. These themes are very important to think about when a person is in young age. The first poem is about the Rome and war, second poem indicates wealth and greed.  These topics are necessary for young people to think about their personal values such as patriotism, loyalty, and wealth. After poem three, he talks about love and friendship. Love and friendship have to deal with other people, not alone. He emphasizes the relationship with people, especially friends and lovers. After first ten poems, the last ten poems are dealing with deeper and heavier topics. He conveys his opinions of modesty, wine, and death.  He says that a human cannot avoid getting older and eventually faces death as a human nature. So he advises readers to take advantages while they are alive. Especially he recommends how a person has to be modest and why he should enjoy wines in their life. The book II seems like a guideline how a person should live his life in periodical order. Horace puts all of his opinions about war, wealth, love, aging, friendship, modesty, wine, and death by arranging them with progression of life.