So Sat. ii. 1, 28 and 74. Lucilius’ influence is seen most in Sat. i. 2; 5; 7; 8; ii. 2; 3; 4; 8. Horace, after the reception Sat. i. 2 met with, did not, like Lucilius, attack individuals; nor did his position as a dependent (Sat. ii. 1, 60-79) allow him to do so. We find, therefore, no political satire in Horace, who confines himself to social and literary topics. He does not attack his contemporaries by name, but (a) takes some names from Lucilius, as Albucius (Sat. ii. 1, 48), Opimius (Sat. ii. 3, 142); (b) invents ‘tell-tale-names,’ as Pantolabus (Sat. i. 8, 11), Novius (Sat. i. 3, 21). In Sat. i. 4 and ii. 1 he defines the moral and social aim of his satire. In Sat. i. 4, 1-13 he criticizes Lucilius’ style; this seems to have given offence, and in Sat. i. 10 he gives reasons for his former criticism. Horace’s Epicureanism is more pronounced in Book i. than in Book ii. In Sat. i. 1 and i. 3 (cf. ll. 99-124) the influence of Lucretius is seen. In i. 3 he takes up an antagonistic position to Stoicism (cf. ll. 124-142). In ii. 3 he shows less hostility to Stoicism though he still criticizes it.[58] In Sat. ii. 7, where the slave Davus enunciates the Stoic doctrine, ὅτι μόνος ὁ σοφὸς ἐλεύθερος, Davus’ arguments from l. 75 onwards have been taken by Horace from Cic. Parad. 5.
Horace does not pretend that his Satires (or Epistles) are poetry, and makes several statements to that effect. Sat. ii. 6, 17,
‘Quid prius inlustrem satiris musaque pedestri?’
Ep. ii. 1, 250,
‘Sermones ... repentes per humum.’
So Sat. i. 4, 39-44.
The Epodes are called Epodi in the MSS. Ἐπῳδός was the name given to a piece composed of couplets, the first line of which is longer than the second. Horace calls them iambi (Epod. 14, 7; Od. i. 16, 3). Their style is an imitation of that of Archilochus of Paros. Ep. i. 19, 23-5,
‘Parios ego primus iambos
ostendi Latio, numeros animosque secutus
Archilochi, non res et agentia verba Lycamben.’
This is seen in the personal attacks made in many of them, as well as in the αἰσχρολογία employed, and also in the versification. The dates of several can be fixed. Epod. 16 was written B.C. 41, and refers to the Perusian war. Horace takes no part with either side, but advises his countrymen to leave Rome, like the Phocaeans of old. Epod. 7 was written B.C. 39; and Epod. 1, 9, and 14, about B.C. 31. The order is strictly metrical. Epodes 1-10 are simple iambics (trimeter and dimeter alternately); 11-16 more complicated forms; 17, the last, in iambic trimeters.
The Odes Horace himself calls carmina. The metres are nearly all taken from Sappho and Alcaeus, the two poets whose works Horace wished to present to his countrymen in a Roman dress. Cf. Od. iii. 30, 13-4,