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
Carmen Priami literary historian Gian Biagio Conte, "could only be to lend substance to some intuition of primitive preliterary epic composition." The poem is among the "countertendencies" in Latin literature that reveal Roman ambivalence toward the adoption of Greek culture. Carmen Priami The Carmen Priami ("Priam's Song") is a lost Latin poem known from the quotation of a single line by Varro. The unknown poet, "a remarkable reactionary," rejects the Hellenizing trend in Latin poetry led by Ennius ("ca." 239–169 BC) and adopts a deliberately archaic style, invoking the Camenae: The invocation of the Muse is a convention of Greco-Roman poetry, and