Quintus Horatius Flaccus, known in English as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet of the Augustan age. A freedman’s son who rose under the patronage of Maecenas, he gave Latin its most quoted tags — carpe diem, nunc est bibendum, aurea mediocritas — in his Odes (published 23 and 13 BC). His verse blends Epicurean and Stoic themes of mortality, moderation, and the swift flight of time.