Satires

Satires (Sermōnes), of Horace, two books of ‘discourses’ (in hexameters) written in the 30s BC (the first refers to an event of 37, the second to the events of 31). See also SATIRE. In the first book Horace presents his own personality through his views on a variety of topics, moral and literary criticism, and simple autobiography (including a touching tribute to the author's father). In the second book all the satires except one are written in dialogue form. Painful invective against individuals is almost entirely absent. In this respect Horace differs markedly from his model Lucilius, as he does also in the deliberately casual and easy style of his language and metre, the hexameters conveying an impression of colloquial but urbane Latin.

Among the satires the following are notable: 1. 5, ‘A Journey to Brundisium’ (corresponding to Lucilius' ‘Journey to Sicily’) describes his travels in the suite of Maecenas with the poet Virgil and the tragedian Varius Rufus; 1. 6 is interesting for its autobiographical details, an account of Horace's father and of his own introduction to Maecenas; 1. 9, ibam forte via Sacra (‘I was going by chance along the Sacred Way’) is an entertaining description of an encounter with a bore and the author's efforts to get rid of him; 1. 8 is the least personal, a story of witches put to flight in the midst of their incantations by the sudden cracking of a wooden statue of Priapus. In the second book, the adoption of dramatic form gives life and humorous variety to the illustrations of Roman life. II. 5 is a parody of epic in which Odysseus, in a continuation of the Underworld episode in Odyssey II, consults Teiresias as to the recovery of his lost fortune and receives advice in the (Roman) art (or vice) of legacy-hunting. II. 6 is the famous satire on town and country life illustrated by the fable of the town mouse and the country mouse. Alexander Pope's imitation (1738) of the last part of this satire is the best known of his Imitations of Horace.