Carmen Saeculare brings to prominence Apollo, functioning as a surrogate for and patron of the princeps (Augustus), for whom a new temple on the Palatine had recently been consecrated. A marble inscription recording the ceremony and the part played by Horace still survives. The "Carmen Saeculare" is the earliest fully preserved lyric poem for which there is definite information about the circumstances of its public performance. The term "secular hymn" has recently been applied to popular music. Carmen Saeculare The Carmen Saeculare (Latin for "Secular Hymn" or "Song of the Ages") is a hymn in Sapphic meter written by the Roman poet
John Ker (Latin poet) John Ker (Latin poet) John Ker (died 1741) was a Scottish schoolteacher and academic, a classical scholar known as a neo-Latin poet. Ker was born at Dunblane, Perthshire, and was for a time schoolmaster at Crieff. About 1710, after examination by ministers and professors, he became a master in the Royal High School, Edinburgh. In 1717 he was appointed professor of Greek in King's College, Aberdeen, the first specialist teacher of the subject there, despite his admiration for the uncompromising Jacobite Archibald Pitcairne. On 2 October 1734 Ker succeeded Adam Watt in the Latin chair at Edinburgh University. He studied