Horace

The Satires of Horace

The Satires of Horace from The Works of Horace. Translated literally into English prose by C. Smart. The Satires are a collection of satirical poems written by the Roman poet Horace. Composed in dactylic hexameters, the Satires explore the secrets of human happiness and literary perfection. Published probably in 35 BCE and at the latest by 33 BCE, the first book of Satires represents Horace's first published work, and it established him as one of the great poetic talents of the Augustan Age. The second book was published in 30 BCE as a sequel. Both in antiquity and in the Middle Ages, Horace was much better known for his Satires and the thematically related Epistles than for his lyric poetry. In the century after his death, he finds immediate successors in Persius and Juvenal, and even Dante still refers to him simply as "Orazio satiro" (Inferno 4.89). Conte (1994: 318) writes, "Over 1,000 medieval quotations from his Satires and Epistles have been traced, only about 250 from his Carmina."