Satires (Horace) book's poems are dialogues in which the poet allows a series of pseudo-philosophers, such as the bankrupt art-dealer turned Stoic philosopher Damasippus, the peasant Ofellus, the mythical seer Teiresias, and the poet's own slave, Dama, to espouse their philosophy of life, in satiric contrast to that of the narrator. Although the "Satires" are considered to be inferior to the "Odes", they have been received positively in recent decades. Horace's direct predecessor as writer of satires was Lucilius. Horace inherits from Lucilius the hexameter, the conversational and sometimes even "prosaic" tone of his poetry, and the tradition of personal attack. In
John Ker (Latin poet) John Ker (Latin poet) John Ker (died 1741) was a Scottish schoolteacher and academic, a classical scholar known as a neo-Latin poet. Ker was born at Dunblane, Perthshire, and was for a time schoolmaster at Crieff. About 1710, after examination by ministers and professors, he became a master in the Royal High School, Edinburgh. In 1717 he was appointed professor of Greek in King's College, Aberdeen, the first specialist teacher of the subject there, despite his admiration for the uncompromising Jacobite Archibald Pitcairne. On 2 October 1734 Ker succeeded Adam Watt in the Latin chair at Edinburgh University. He studied