Epistles (Horace) meditative life, and had become fonder of the country and of study, and that while owing allegiance to no school or sect of philosophy, he was framing for himself a scheme of life, was endeavoring to conform to it, and was bent on inculcating it in others." "In both his "Satires" and "Epistles", Horace shows himself a genuine moralist, a subtle observer and true painter of life, and an admirable writer." But in spirit the "Epistles" are more philosophic, more ethical and meditative. Like the "Odes" they exhibit the twofold aspects of Horace's philosophy, that of temperate Epicureanism and that
Horace borrowed from Archaic Greece, employing hexameters in his "Satires" and "Epistles", and iambs in his "Epodes", all of which were relatively easy to adapt into Latin forms. His "Odes" featured more complex measures, including alcaics and sapphics, which were sometimes a difficult fit for Latin structure and syntax. Despite these traditional metres, he presented himself as a partisan in the development of a new and sophisticated style. He was influenced in particular by Hellenistic aesthetics of brevity, elegance and polish, as modeled in the work of Callimachus. In modern literary theory, a distinction is often made between immediate personal experience