Horace was born on Dec. 8, 65 B.C., at Venusia (Venosa) on the borders of Lucania and Apulia. His father was a freedman, probably of old Italian stock, and had retired on his savings as an auctioneer's clerk to live on a small farm there. He had, however, high ambitions for Horace, who was apparently his only son, and took him to Rome, where he studied under the famous grammaticus Orbilius. Orbilius left Horace with the impression of numerous floggings and a deep distaste for Livius Andronicus and the early Latin poets. Horace's father himself served as his paedagogus, an office usually reserved for a slave, whose job it was to accompany a boy to and from school and in general to protect him from moral and physical dangers. Horace later paid tribute to his father for this care and attention, attributing whatever good there might have been in his character to the effects of this tutelage.
After his work with Orbilius, and presumably after advanced training under a rhetor, although this is never mentioned by Horace, he went to Athens for further study.
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