Abstract

Wishing to forestall an inquiry from Quinctius about the produce of his farm, Horace says that he will describe its forma et situs . What follows is not an impersonal description, but an account directed at Quinctius who is thought of as passing judgement on the farm . This involvement of Quinctius in the description must be extended to the protasis of the opening sentence of the description: continui montes si dissocientur opaca/valle…, temperiem laudes where the sense is something like ‘if you were to find yourself in a place where the mountains, which crowd close to one another, are parted…, you would praise its temperate climate