For me, this walk of satire, vainly tried
By Atacinus and some few beside,
Best suits my gait; yet readily I yield
To him who first set footstep on that field,
Nor meanly seek to rob him of the bay
That shows so comely on his locks of gray.[68]
The Epodes were written in the same period as the first book of Satires, and, like them, are on various subjects. The Epodes. About 31 B. C. Horace yielded to the persuasions of Mæcenas and published a collection of seventeen pieces which he had written at various times since 40 B. C. The first ten are in the epodic metre, that is, an iambic trimeter followed by an iambic dimeter, as in the lines:
Beatus ille, qui procul negotiis
Ut prisca gens mortalium,
Paterna rura bobus exercet suis,