Prosody (Latin) were felt to be especially suited to this role. The Greek poet Archilochus was one of the main exponents of the iambic distich and he provided a model for Horace's Epodes 1-10. The following couplet forms the first two lines of Epode 7. Note that the first syllables in both lines ("Quo" and "ap") are in anceps and thus a spondee appears to have been substituted for an iamb in both the initial feet. Also "ti" in "scelesti" is long by nature and it too is in anceps; the third foot would otherwise be a tribrach (uuu) thanks to the
Horace themes throughout his poetic career, including politics, love, philosophy and ethics, his own social role, as well as poetry itself. His "Epodes" and "Satires" are forms of 'blame poetry' and both have a natural affinity with the moralising and diatribes of Cynicism. This often takes the form of allusions to the work and philosophy of Bion of Borysthenes but it is as much a literary game as a philosophical alignment. By the time he composed his "Epistles", he was a critic of Cynicism along with all impractical and "high-falutin" philosophy in general. The "Satires" also include a strong element of