The Barking Cure: Horace’s “Anatomy of Rage” in Epodes 1, 6, and 16

This article argues that the figure of the dog functions in Horace’s Epodes as a cipher for trauma. My title takes its inspiration from Freud’s “talking cure,” but my contention is that Horace accomplishes an inversion of this psychoanalytic method in his Epodes. I argue that Horace’s rehabilitation of Archilochean iambus in the image of attack animals in Epode 6 at this particular pass in Roman history involves a rehabilitation of the iambic dog and a refocusing of the rabid rage—punning on the semantic link between rabies (anger) and rabies (disease)—that characterized not only the Triumviral period, but also the biography of Archilochus.