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 Possum Carmen Possum Carmen Possum is a popular 80-line macaronic poem written in a mix of Latin and English. Its author is unknown, but the poem's theme and language enable one to surmise that he or she was from the United States of America and was either a teacher or at least a student of Latin. The poem's title represents a multilingual play on words: "Possum" is Latin for "I can"/"I am able to" and colloquial English for "opossum." While "carmen possum" sounds like a well-formed Latin phrase to untrained ears, its meaning in context reveals that at least this instance