Satires (Horace) Satires (Horace) The Satires ( or "Sermones") is a collection of satirical poems written by the Roman poet, Horace. Composed in dactylic hexameters, the "Satires" explore the secrets of human happiness and literary perfection. Published probably in 35 BCE and at the latest, by 33 BCE, the first book of "Satires" represents Horace's first published work. It established him as one of the great poetic talents of the Augustan Age. The second book was published in 30 BCE as a sequel. In his "Sermones" (Latin for "conversations") or "Satires" (Latin for "miscellaneous poems"), Horace combines Epicurean, that is, originally Greek
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