Satires (Horace) say that Lucilius' verses hobble along"), functions as an epilogue to the book. Here Horace clarifies his criticism of his predecessor Lucilius, jokingly explains his choice of the genre ("nothing else was available") in a way that groups him and his "Satires" among the foremost poets of Rome, and lists Maecenas and his circle as his desired audience. Both in antiquity and in the Middle Ages, Horace was much better known for his "Satires" and the thematically-related "Epistles" than for his lyric poetry. In the century after his death, he finds immediate successors in Persius and Juvenal, and even Dante
Latin literature in writing as a means of influencing public opinion. Early Latin literature ended with Gaius Lucilius, who created a new kind of poetry in his 30 books of "Satires" (2nd century BC). He wrote in an easy, conversational tone about books, food, friends, and current events. Traditionally, the height of Latin literature has been assigned to the period from 81 BC to AD 17, although recent scholarship has questioned the assumptions that privileged the works of this period over both earlier and later works. This period is usually said to have begun with the first known speech of Cicero and