According to Wikipedia, “Quintus Horatius Flaccus, known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.” He was born on December 8, in the year 65 BC in the city or Venosa, Italy. He died on November 27, in the year 8 BC in the city of Rome, Italy. Horace wrote many good works, one of which is Odes, “The Art of Poetry”. He wrote lyric poetry, which is, according to Wikipedia, “Modern lyric poetry is a formal type of poetry which expresses personal emotions or feelings, typically spoken in the first person.” In his works, Horace writes to the person reading it specifically and tells them things that will mentally stick to them forever. His simple concept of cause and effect is that the person should stay in the “golden mean”. According to Wikipedia, “The golden mean or golden middle way is the desirable middle between two extremes, one of excess and the other of deficiency. It appeared in Greek thought at least as early as the Delphic maxim “nothing in excess” and emphasized in later Aristotelian philosophy.” He tells the person to expect no more and no less that the middle, which he says is healthy.
In his Odes, Horace tells us that the only major thing in the lives of man, is death. Death comes to every human being at some point. With this end from which we can never escape from, men are equal during and after our final breath. Therefor, men are equal throughout their entire lives. The amount of riches and wealth a man receives will not mean anything after that person dies. A person can work hard to obtain riches, but it does not change their position. But, you can not just not work or live in poverty, so Horace says to live the golden mean, or the medium type of life. He says to live a balanced life.
He also says to avoid disappointment. If they live in a medium life, then they will not encounter big disappointments.
He even provides the example of the ant from the Bible. Proverbs 6:6-8 says “6 Go to the ant, you sluggard;
consider its ways and be wise!
7 It has no commander,
no overseer or ruler,
8 yet it stores its provisions in summer
and gathers its food at harvest.
Throughout the entire book (or whatever it is called) he points towards the golden mean. He said we should live like the ant, which is a balanced lifestyle, not too much, and not too little. He also makes the point, why have a lot of gold if you are not going to take it with you if you die? The answer is, to live by the golden mean, a balanced lifestyle (or at least that is his answer).
Death is something that no one can escape from, however, Horace says that if you live in the golden mean, you will have satisfaction. What Horace calls the balanced lifestyle we call today the middle-class-lifestyle. He says that the rich and poor and everyone in-between are equal because they will all encounter death.