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Horatio fought in the ranks of the Republicans before becoming, at least in appearance, one of the most fervent supporters of Augustus and of the Imperial regime. This ideological volte-face is very surprising, perhaps because we tend to assign ideologies a significance they did not actually have in the Roman world. In reality, Horatio did not believe he had recanted. He simply changed patrons after the defeat of his Republican friends; he wagered a bet on the future by incorporating himself into a new network, that of the victors. Far from having been manipulated by the new regime, and far from having become its spokesman, he tried to influence it through his verses, and by so doing, assumed the stature of an intellectual.