Leslie: We went to university together reed methotrexate for arthritis provoke His beginnings were not grand: Horace’s father was a freed slave who bestowed upon his son the rather wonderful name of Quintus Horatius Flaccus, flaccus meaning something like “droopy”. He left behind a body of work which he claimed was “more lasting than bronze”, and quite right he was about that. Most people can quote carpe diem and dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. The former is usually translated (wrongly, in Harry Eyres’s opinion) as “seize the day” – the verb carpo means something more gentle, like “pluck”. The second, thanks to Wilfred Owen, is largely taken out of context, thought to be justifying the deaths of soldiers.