Satires

The title is uncertain. Horace usessaturagenerically in ii. 1. 1 andsaturaein ii. 6. 17, but elsewhere he uses the wordsermones, which Porphyrio asserts was the title of the work. This name best reflects the conversational style and structure.The Greek background to theSatiresHorace expressed when he described them asBionei sermones (Epist.ii. 2. 60); Bion of Borysthenes was one of a number of third-century ‘philosophers’ whose ideas were disseminated in moralizing sermons. But no Greek lay behind theSatiresas Archilochus lay behind theEpodes:their model was Lucilius, and Horace treated the relationship in three of theSatires. In each he uses the concept of an attack on himself as a framework in which to express his ideas. In i. 4 he defends the aggressiveness of satire by reference to Lucilius (whose style he criticizes) and asserts a general social and moral function for satire; the latter he illustrates by the analogy of his own father’s moral instruction (this gives a deeply personal touch to the satire). In i. 10 he uses supposed criticism of his own stylistic criticism of Lucilius as a framework for discussing his