Latin obscenity for anything to do with sex in the most obscene category. These words are strictly avoided in most types of Latin literature; however, they are common in graffiti, and also in certain genres of poetry, such as the short poems known as epigrams, such as those written by Catullus and Martial. The poet Horace also used obscenities in his early poems, that is the Epodes and the first book of Satires, but later writers of satire such as Juvenal and Persius avoided the coarser words even when discussing obscene topics. There were, however, some occasions in public life, such as
Cynic epistles letters, probably date from the 1st century CE. It is not known who wrote the letters, but they seem to have been written by multiple authors. Written in Koine Greek, the Epistles are among the few Cynic writings which have survived from the time of the Roman empire. In addition to these letters, there are 10 epistles attributed to Anacharsis and 9 epistles attributed to Heraclitus. The letters of Anacharsis may have been written in the 3rd century BCE, whereas the Heraclitean letters probably date from the 1st century CE. Anacharsis and Heraclitus predate the Cynics, but they were both