A word should be said here regarding the frequent use of the word
"Hellenic" in connection with Horace's genius. Among the results of his
higher education, it is natural that none should be more prominent to
the eye than the influence of Greek letters upon his work; but to call
Horace Greek is to be blinded to the essential by the presence in his
poems of Greek form and Greek allusion. It would be as little reasonable
to call a Roman triumphal arch Greek because it displays column,
architrave, or a facing of marble from Greece. What makes Roman
architecture stand is not ornament, but Roman concrete and the Roman
vault. Horace is Greek as Milton is Hebraic or Roman, or as Shakespeare
is Italian.