Crossword Genius

Did he house people in Rome? (6)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

horace

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'rome?' is the definition.
Both the answer and definition are singular nouns.
Maybe you can see a link between them that I don't see?

'did he house people in' is the wordplay.
'did he' becomes 'o' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'house' becomes 'h'.
'people' becomes 'race' (people can mean a national group or race).
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'h'+'race'='hrace'
'o' inserted into 'hrace' is 'HORACE'.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for horace that I've seen before include "Boy's name - Roman poet" , "Roman poet; -- Walpole" , "- Walpole, eighteenth century English author" , "Odist" , "Roman lyric poet, d.8BC -- a chore (anag)" .)

I've seen this clue in the Evening Standard.
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