Horace Carmina 1.14: A Reconsideration of the Allegorical Ship
IWASAKI Tsutomu

Many of modern scholars have accepted Quintilian's interpretation that the ship in C. 1.14 is an allegory of the state. Their general argument is that this ode is modeled on one poem of Alcaeus (frag. 326 L.P.) and that Alcaeus' poem is able to be considered to picture the state in distress allegorically. Mendell, however, reviewing the general practices of Roman writers in the matter of sea figures, thought that Horace's ship is unlikely to be "the Ship of State". Then Anderson more effectively pointed out the inadequacies of the traditional interpretation and concluded that the ship symbolizes a woman, probably an experienced courtesan. Recently Knorr, reading the ode in the context of the First Book of Carmina, suggested that the ship is an attractive young hetaera faced with a love-triangle.
Now the suggestion that the ship is an allegory of a woman in love is impossible to turn down easily. However, this interpretation also has some problems. As Jocelyn pointed out, many examples of identification of a woman with a ship which are able to be found in Greek and Latin literature have a single common tone. The identifier is always hostile and doesn't have warm affection to the woman identified. Accordingly, the affectionate language of the ode's final stanza is out of tune with the feature general to the figurative expression of "the Ship of Love".
If we consider the ship is an allegory of the state, C. 1.14 is similar in composition to Epodes 16 which is one of the early political poems and in which the poet suggests setting sail from Rome for the Islands of the Blest. Both poems describe the present state of Rome, contrasting it with Rome's past glory, in the first half and suggest a method for avoiding misfortune in the latter half. We can also find the same composition in C. 1.2 in which the poet deplores the Romans' crime of civil war. Additionally C. 1.14 and E. 16 have verbal echoes such as 'fortiter occupa portum' (C. 1.14.2-3) and 'ratem occupare quid moramur' (E. 16.24). In conclusion, by paying heed to the structural and verbal similarity of C. 1.14 to E. 16, we advocate the traditional interpretation that Horace's ship represents the state.