Two books of verse conversations about how Romans actually live — what they eat, who they sleep with, how they bore each other at dinner parties, why the road to Brindisi is terrible. Horace calls them 'sermones' — chats. The tone is wry, self-deprecating, and deceptively gentle. The knife is always there; he just doesn't twist it.
Start ReadingTen conversational poems on greed, sex, social climbing, and the good life. Includes the journey to Brundisium and the bore on the Sacred Way.
Eight satires, increasingly dramatic. Philosophy in the mouths of others: Ofellus on simple living, Damasippus on madness, the slave Davus who turns Stoic logic against his master.