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The title is uncertain. Horace uses satura generically in ii. 1. 1 and saturae in ii. 6. 17, but elsewhere he uses the word sermones, which Porphyrio asserts was the title of the work. This name best reflects the conversational style and structure.
The Greek background to the Satires Horace expressed when he described them as Bionei 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 the Satires as Archilochus lay behind the Epodes: their model was Lucilius, and Horace treated the relationship in three of the Satires. 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
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1
Editions: Wickham (Oxford, 1891); Palmer4 (London, 1891); Orelli-Baiter-Mewes4 II (Berlin, 1892); Lejay (Paris, 1911); Kiessling-Heinze6 (Berlin, 1957—with extensive bibliography by Burck). The most adequate introduction to the Satires is Niall Rudd, The Satires of Horace (Cambridge, 1966): an account is given of every satire and there is also a good survey of earlier work. In what follows, reference to this book is everywhere taken for granted. Fraenkel, Horace, 76-153, is fundamental. See also the general essay of W. S. Anderson in Critical Essays on Roman Literature: Satire, ed. J. P. Sullivan (London, 1963), 1-37.
References
page no 15 note 2 Rudd, 154 ff.
page no 15 note 3 Cf. i. 4. 41-2, neque si qui scribat uti nos | sermoni propiora, putes hune esse poetam.
page no 15 note 4 For a general characterization, see Wendland, P., Die Hellenistisch-Römische Kultur2 (Handbuch zum neuen Testament i. 2 and 3: Tübingen, 1912), 75 Google Scholar ff.
page no 15 note 5 For the originality of Lucilius see Fraenkel, Horace, 150 ff.; Williams, TORP, 447 ff. For the relationship, see Fiske, G. C., Lucilius and Horace (Madison, 1920)Google Scholar; this book goes far too far in tracing imitations and argues in a circle, but it is a useful collection of material—to be used with caution.
page no 15 note 6 This concept of the poetic framework (which is something given, in the sense that its correspondence to reality or otherwise is irrelevant) is fundamental to the under standing of Horace’s poetry: see p. 9 above, and pp. 18, 26, and 27 f. below. In general see Williams, TORP, e.g. 20 ff., 77 f., 354, 529-42, 566 ff., 577. In the case of Sat. i. 4 and 10 (as in Epist. i. 19), I regard modern attempts to find out who attacked Horace and why as mistaken. For a useful survey, see Rudd, N., Mnemosyne x (1957), 319-36CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
page no 15 note 7 The concept of poetry as fulfilling a social function occupied Horace from his earliest to his latest works.
page no 15 note 8 It is important to notice the various artistries by which Horace expresses his concept of satire as an autobiographical poetic form. On the significance of the autobiographical form here and elsewhere in Roman poetry, see Williams, TORP, Chapter 7.
page no 16 note 1 The great lawyer is neatly characterized; see Fraenkel, Horace, 145-7 and (on Trebatius, and Cicero, ) JRS xlvii (1957), 66–70 Google Scholar.
page no 16 note 2 Fraenkel, Horace, 149 ff. It needs to be emphasized that the change in viewpoint on Lucilius between i. 4, i. 10, and ii. I need not be chronological: each successive viewpoint is adapted to the poet’s particular purpose in each satire.
page no 16 note 3 6, 45, 46 (cf. 21, 29).
page no 16 note 4 Williams, TORP, 453-9.
page no 16 note 5 The prayer to Mercury is an example of the use of prayer-form as a ‘framework’ (see p. 15 n. 6 above) in the manner of the Odes (see pp. 25-6 below).
page no 16 note 6 See note 2 above.
page no 16 note 7 In general, see Wimmel, W., Zur Form der Horazischen Diatribensatire (Frankfurt 1962)Google Scholar, though the analysis is too schematic and rigid.
page no 17 note 1 There is, in fact, no way of dating these satires. One or more of them may antedate i. 4; but it is simply in the published collection that i. 1-3 illustrate a concept of satire which is defended in i. 4. Who can say that Horace published all he wrote in the final collection?
page no 17 note 2 See Knoche, U., Philologus xc (1935), 372-90Google Scholar and 469-82.
page no 17 note 3 The same thing happens at the same point in 1 (14-15) and 3 (19-20).
page no 17 note 4 e.g. Rudd, 10-11: ‘Now this would be quite consistent if Horace had kept a firm Aristotelian framework, rejecting the extremes of high and low society and recommending relations with an intermediate class. It would also be clear, though less consistent, if he had abandoned the idea of the mean and developed a simple two-term argument on the advantages of the “call-girl” over married ladies. Unfortunately he appears to do now one, now the other, and the result is confusing.’
page no 18 note 1 See Rudd, 23 ff.
page no 18 note 2 See p. 15 n. 6 above.
page no 18 note 3 See Fraenkel, Horace, 82.
page no 18 note 4 See p. 28 below.
page no 18 note 5 On this way of viewing moralizing in Roman poetry, see Williams, TORP, 599 f., 608 ff.
page no 18 note 6 See (in addition to Fraenkel and Rudd) Herter, H., RLM xciv (1951), 1 Google Scholar ff.
page no 18 note 7 On the Greek background to the relationship between these two ideas, see Fraenkel, Horace, 91 ff. But here too—as in all these satires—most commentators do not follow the poet’s conversational technique; instead they force him into a logical straitjacket and then complain that it does not fit.
page no 18 note 8 19-20.
page no 18 note 9 See p. 15 n. 8 above.
page no 19 note 1 e.g. Rudd, 174 f.
page no 19 note 2 See p. 16 n. I above. But the great man is certainly ‘taken off’ to some extent.
page no 19 note 3 See Williams, TORP, 314-16.
page no 19 note 4 Excellently expounded by Rudd, 203-13.
page no 19 note 5 For this effect of parenthesis, see Williams, TORP, 711 ff. (and Index s.v.).
page no 19 note 1 A useful survey of the evidence is to be found in Wickham, 2-9.
page no 19 note 2 For application of this point of view to Propertius i-iii, see Williams, TORP, 480-95.
page no 19 note 3 See p. 35 below for analogous arrangement of odes to Maecenas in the unitary Odes i-iii.
page no 19 note 4 Which explains why there are only eight.
page no 19 note 5 See p. 7 n. 1 above.
page no 19 note 6 See Boll, F., Hermes xlviii (1913), 143 Google Scholar ff.; Fraenkel, Horace, 137; and Ludwig, W., Poetica ii (1968), 304-25Google Scholar, for elaboration.