Horace, Pindar and the Censorini in Odes 4.8

Extract

Odes 4.8 is anomalous: its thirty-four lines are not a multiple of four. Most editors delete two or six lines, but this involves deleting at least one blameless line and disturbing the stanzaic structure of the poem. Instead mark a lacuna of two or six lines before the final couplet. The missing lines will have contained a prayer for Censorinus' immortality and some words of praise, thereby fulfilling the expectations raised earlier in the poem. Vota in 34 refers to Horace's prayer, which Bacchus fulfils as god of poetry. Finally, the conceit that uates potentes can in real terms immortalize or deify their subjects chimes in with a feature of Roman religion noted by A. D. Nock.