The Satires of Horace (65-8 BC), written in the troubled decade ending with the establishment of Augustus' regime, provide an amusing treatment of men's perennial enslavement to money, power, glory and sex. Epistles I, addressed to the poet's friends, deals with the problem of achieving contentment amid the complexities of urban life, while Epistles II and the Ars Poetica discuss Latin poetry - its history and social functions, and the craft required for its success. Both works have had a powerful influence on later western literature, inspiring poets from Ben Jonson and Alexander Pope to W. H. Auden and Robert Frost. The Satires of Persius (AD 34-62) are highly idiosyncratic, containing a courageous attack on the poetry and morals of his wealthy contemporaries - even the ruling emperor, Nero.
QUINTUS HORATIUS FLACCUS was born in 65 B.C. HIs first work, the first book of Satires, was published in 35 B.C. About a year later, Mæcenas presented him with the celebrated Sabine Farm, and Horace was at liberty to the end of his life to do as he liked. Before he died he was famous: the Emperor Augustus commissioned him to write the fourth book of Odes. He died eight years before the birth of Christ.
Aulus Persius Flaccus (34-62). A member of a distinguished family, he went to Rome in boyhood, was educated there, and came under the influence of the Stoic philosopher Lucius Annaeus Cornutus, to whom he became attached in lasting friendship. His writings (only six short satires), preach Stoic moral doctrine. He exposed to censure the corruption and folly of contemporary Roman life, contrasting it with the ideals of the Stoics and of earlier Rome.
Niall Rudd is a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin. After lecturing in England during the fifties, he moved to Canada where he wrote a book on Horace's Satires. He has also published an edition of Juvenal's Satires and a book on Dr. Johnson's adaptations of Juvenal. In 1973 he was appointed to the Chair of Latin at Bristol University.
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