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Satire and the law: the case of Horace

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2013

Thomas A. J. McGinn
Thomas A. J. McGinn
Affiliation:
Vanderbilt University
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Extract

The idea of examining law as a cultural phenomenon seems surprisingly underappreciated – especially by legal scholars. Black-letter law, sociology of law, Eigentum und Besitz, law and life, life and law (which of you imitates the other?), all rank among the usual suspects in professional discourse, to the evident exclusion of law as culture. This is of course potentially a broad topic, even if we limit it to the assumptions or assertions about law found in literary discourse, an area of study that naturally requires no small degree of non-legal expertise. That may be the difficulty. A few exceptions, whom I admire and hope to emulate – for their ambitious, pioneering spirit, have spied an opportunity here. Perhaps the best-known example of this approach is John Crook, who writes:

… legal talk and terminology seem rather more frequent and more at home in Roman literature than in ours. Legal terms of art could be used for literary metaphor, could be the foundation of stage jokes or furnish analogy in philosophical discussion. And a corollary of this is that many a passage of Latin belles lettres needs a knowledge of the law for its comprehension.

Crook, disappointingly, lets it go at that, failing to fulfil the promise of boundless opportunity expressed in the last sentence.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society (Second Series) , Volume 47 , 2001 , pp. 81 - 102
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s). Published online by Cambridge University Press 2001

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References

1 It is a pleasure to be able to express my gratitude to the Vanderbilt University Research Council, which provided much-needed support in the writing of this article. I must thank my friends, Susanna Braund, Cynthia Damon, Kirk Freudenburg, Emily Gowers, John Henderson, Nicholas Horsfall, Frances Muecke, Michael Putnam, and William Race for having improved this paper beyond all measure. I am especially grateful to Kirk Freudenburg for having shared his work prior to its publication. Any remaining defects in the material are now your problem, Dear Reader.

2 Crook, J., Law and Life of Rome, 90 BC – AD 212 (Ithaca 1967) 8Google Scholar.

3 Mazurek, T., ‘Self-Parody and the Law in Horace, Sat. 1.9’, CJ 93.1 (1997) 1–17Google Scholar (esp. at 6).

4 Cloud, J. D., ‘Satirists and the Law’, in Braund, S. H. (ed.), Satire and Society in Ancient Rome (Exeter 1989) 49–68Google Scholar (esp. 54).

5 I refer to Muecke, F., ‘Law, Rhetoric, and Genre in Horace, Satires 2.1’. in Harrison, S. J. (ed.), Homage to Horace: A Bimillenary Celebration (Oxford 1995) 203–18Google Scholar.

6 I use Satires to translate the Latin title, Sermones: see Horsfall, N., La villa Sabina di Orazio: Il galateo della gratitudine (Venosa 1993) 13–14Google Scholar. For legal matter in Horace generally, see Marasco, G., s.v. ‘diritto’, Orazio: Enciclopedia oraziana 2 (Rome 1997) 162–6Google Scholar. One may reasonably compare New Comedy, for which see Scafuro, A. C., The Forensic Stage: Settling Disputes in Graeco-Roman New Comedy (Cambridge 1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 See the observations of Cloud (n. 4) 49, 62–3. and, more generally, Ducos, M., ‘Horace et le droit’, REL 72 (1994) 79–89Google Scholar (esp. 79). Here I speak of sheer amount of legal material, not its importance for each author. See for example the celestial trial of Lupus in Lucilius, Book 1.

8 As argued by Freudenburg, K., Satires of Rome: Threatening Poses from Lucilius to Juvenal (Cambridge forthcoming 2001) 66–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For me, 1.4 itself does not stand as a ‘legal’ indictment, but as a literary one, the reference to the indices selecti at 123 notwithstanding. These ‘jurymen’ were not by any means legal professionals; evaluation here is made of them on the basis of moral character and social status. See Armstrong, D., ‘Horatius Eques et Scriba: Satires 1.6 and 2.7’, TAPA 116 (1986) 255–88Google Scholar on Horace's own status as a index selectus. At most we might claim an oblique reference to a concern with law as process, a concern that surfaces elsewhere: below. One might also regard the figure of the iudex in the Satires as an independent, competing, and therefore suspect source of authority, like censors, philosophers, and-perhaps-jurists. Of crucial significance is that 1.10 is followed, even if at some remove in time, by 2.1, where the fact that the satirist consults a jurist on the subject of the Lucilian ‘law’ of Satire might suggest to the reader that Horace did not win his brief in 1.10.

9 This is not to say that we do not find the occasional legal pun. The best example known to me is at 1.2.46, a play on the legal formula for justifiable homicide, iure caesus. For more on this passage, please see below.

10 See Palmeri, F., Satire in Narrative: Petronius, Swift, Gibbon, Melville, and Pynchon (Austin 1990) 4, 13Google Scholar. Palmeri's work is useful for an understanding of Horace's satiric technique, despite his own protestations to the contrary: 6–7.

11 This subject has been treated in detail recently, by Mazurek (n. 3), whose solution does not completely persuade me, to the extent that I think his version of ‘Horace's’ role in the poem is inadequately supported by the evidence. There is a sense in which the legal summons at the end of the poem does connect with the theme of law found elsewhere in the Satires: see below.

12 Cf. Cloud (n. 4) 64–5: ‘… in Satire 2.5 Horace makes considerable use of testamentary law’. I can agree with Cloud only in the sense that the rules of testamentary succession might be read as part of the deep structure of the poem. See for example the forensic flavouring at 29–30, or the advice given at 106–9 to cultivate the favour of an older, sickly co-heir through fictitious sale (i.e. gift) of part of one's portion. with the comments of Muecke, F., Horace: Satires II (Warminster 1993) 183, 193Google Scholar.

13 See the discussion in Champlin, E., Final Judgments: Duty and Emotion in Roman Wills, 200 BC – AD 250 (Berkeley 1991) 94Google Scholar.

14 There is a nice reference to the ambiguity of law (ius anceps) at 2.5.34, but this is hardly limited to testamentary law and the context focusses on unethical exploitation of legal knowledge rather than on its substance.

15 See for example Mazurek (n. 3) esp. 6, who conflates critique with parody, seeing parody in Horace wherever there is law.

16 This is Brobdingnag: the passage may be found in Greenberg, R. A. and Piper, W. B., The Writings of Jonathan Swift: A Norton Critical Edition (New York 1973) 111Google Scholar. On treatment of law in Gulliver's Travels, see Pencak, W., ‘Swift Justice: Gulliver's Travels as a Critique of Legal Institutions’, in Rockwood, B. L., Law and Literature Perspectives (New York 1996) 255–67Google Scholar.

17 On Horace's less than serious treatment of Epicureanism in these lines, see Freudenburg, K., The Walking Muse: Horace on the Theory of Satire (Princeton 1993) 26–7Google Scholar. Cf. especially Lucr. 5.1136–60; other references to the development of law in ancient literature are in Gatz, B., Weltalter, goldene Zeit, und sinnverwandte Vorstellungen (Hildesheim 1967) 231–2Google Scholar (= Spudasmata 16).

18 One may compare Vergil's idealism about the Latins, who as the people of Saturn require no legal checks to keep them just: Aen. 7.203, with Gatz (n. 17) 124, 207.

19 Muecke (n. 5) 208. Cloud (n. 4) 67 sees parody, as does Ducos (n. 7) 79 (though at 87 he appears to locate the parody as that of archaic legal language). At the very end of the poem, Horace comes close to parody, when he switches roles with the jurist (see below). In my view, the point of this is literary not legal. Horace signals that his persona and anti-persona – as well as their respective message(s) – are suitably mixed and matched.

20 What there is is analyzed by Michel, J.-H., ‘La satire 2,1 à Trébatius ou la consultation du juriste’, RIDA3 46 (1999) 369–91Google Scholar (at 372–85). The unwary might regard the case of the plate-licking slave at 1.3.80–3 (below) as a sendup of juristic doctrine on breaking bulk, which does contain some appropriately absurd elements: see Ofil.-Treb.-Ulp. D. 47.2.21 pr. Not so: Horace emphasizes that the slave consumes all that is there including the sauce; what is more, the punishment of crucifixion is too harsh even had the slave intercepted the food before it arrived at the table.

21 I refer to the inscriptional apotropaism iuris consultus abesto, Cicero's Pro Murena and De Legibus, etc. On popular dissatisfaction with legal professionals, reflected above all in epigraphic formulas such as iuris consultus abesto, see Nörr, D., Rechtskririk in der römischen Antike (Munich 1974) 52, 83–94Google Scholar. On Cicero's criticism of jurists, above all in the Pro Murena and De Legibus (at 1.14,2.47–51), see Schulz, F., History of Roman Legal Science (Oxford 1946) 51Google Scholar; Nörr, Rechtskritik 84–5.

22 By Frier, B. W., The Rise of the Roman Jurists: Studies in Cicero's Pro Caecina (Princeton 1985) 252Google Scholar.

23 My text of Horace here and elsewhere is, barring explicit indication to the contrary, that of Wickham, E. C. and Garrod, H. W. (eds.), Q. Horatii Flacci Opera2 (Oxford repr. 1967)Google Scholar.

24 The other professional types mentione d in 1. I also envy their counterpart s for inappropriate reasons, as noticed by Zetzel, J. E. G., ‘Horace's Liber Sermonum: The Structure of Ambiguity’, Arethusa 13 (1980) 59–77 (at 69–70)Google Scholar.

25 E. 2.2.159: si credis consultis is just such a passing hit. At E. 2.2.87–9 two brothers, a jurist and a trial lawyer, are mutual victims of praise inflation. A man combining both roles (if the et here is not disjunctive) is advanced as an example of honourable mediocrity at Ars 369–72. Horace's assignment of forum putealque Libonis to the sober at E. 1.19.8–9 does not necessarily concern jurists, as opposed to, say, rhetors, despite Marasco (n. 6) 165, for whom this passage would confirm ‘la sua stima per la professione legale’.

26 Compare the very similar version given by [Aero.]: In cruce s(uffigat): Labeo iuris peritus vituperabat leges Augusti Caesaris; hunc modo reprehendit Horatius in gratiam Caesaris. Marcus Antistius Labeo iuris peritus memoratae libertatis, namque in Augustum libere invectus est; ideo etiam eum nunc poeta male tractat, ut gratificetur Augusto. ‘In cruce s(uffigat): The legal expert Labeo used to criticize harshly the laws of Caesar Augustus; here Horace takes a shot at him to gain favour with Augustus. Marcus Antistius Labeo the legal expert (was) renowned for his freedom of speech, since he freely castigated Augustus; for this reason him too the poet now treats badly, in order to do a favour for Augustus.’

27 Kunkel, W., Herkunft und soziale Stellung der römischen Juristen2 (Graz 1967) 114Google Scholar places his death between AD 10 and 21. On his father, also a jurist, see Kunkel, 32–4. At all events, his criticism of Augustus, attested in other sources, must postdate the foundation of the regime in 27 BC: Bretone, M., Techniche e ideologic dei giuristi romani2 (Naples 1982) 131–2Google Scholar. D. R. Shackleton Bailey proposes to eliminate the reference to Labeo, following Bentley in substituting the non-jurist Labienus, T.: see ‘Horatian Aftermath’, Selected Classical Papers (Ann Arbor 1997) 276–96Google Scholar (at 279–80) (= Philologus 134 [1990] 213–28). Thus the reading Labieno at Bailey, D. R. Shackleton (ed.), Horatius: Opera3 (Stuttgart 1995) 178Google Scholar. The change, though it suits my argument well, seems bold. See Fedeli, P., Q. Orazio Flacco Le opere II: Le satire, le epistole, l'arte poetica 2 (Rome 1994) 367–8Google Scholar, who suggests an identification with C. Atinius Labeo, tribunus plebis in 131 BC. It is regrettable in any case that we must abandon what at first glance seems a promising Ciceronian-style pun on the word ius.

28 Both Wickham and Garrod (n. 23) ad loc. and Shackleton Bailey, Horatius: Opera (n. 27) 180 print tonsor here: see below.

29 [Aero.] virtually duplicates part of this: Urbane satis Alfenum Varum Cremonensem deridet, qui abiecta <s>u[s]trina quam in municipio suo exercuerat, Romam venit magistroque usus Sulpicio iuris consulto ad tantam scientiam pervenit, ut et consulatum gereret et publico funere efferretur. There is also this: Alfenus, sutoris filius, qui ita iuris studio intendit, ut beneficio artis huius latum sumeret clavum et ad consularem consurgeret dignitatem. Sunt qui dicant hunc Cremonensem fuisse.

30 Vafer seems well-suited for a satirical presentation of a jurist in its sense(s) of “clever … a little TOO clever”: see Hor., S. 2.2.131Google Scholar: …vafri inscitia iuris…, Ov., Her. 20.30Google Scholar:…consultoque fui iuris Amore vafer: OLD s.h.v.

31 This despite the claims of Romanists to the contrary. See Kunkel (n. 27) 29 on the scholiast's reliability: ‘Es besteht kaum ein Anlass, die Glaubwürdigkeit dieser Nachricht zu bezweifeln.’ Cloud (n. 4) 135 n. 29 holds that ‘…the conjunction of precisely those two names [sc. Labeo and Alfenus] is too remarkable to be a mere coincidence’. A recent convert among non-legal specialists to this cause is Nisbet, R. G. M., ‘The Survivors: Old-Style Literary Men in the Triumviral Period’, in Harrison, S. J. (ed.), Collected Papers on Latin Literature (Oxford 1995) 390–413Google Scholar (at 406–12), against a different view in Nisbet, R. G. M. and Hubbard, M., A Commentary on Horace: Odes I (Oxford 1970) 228Google Scholar. See DuQuesnay, I. M. Le M., ‘Horace and Maecenas: The Propaganda Value of Sermones I’, in Woodman, T. and West, D., Poetry and Politics in the Age of Augustus (Cambridge 1984) 19–58, 200–11Google Scholar (at 55), for the sheer unlikelihood of the identification and the suggestion of an alternative; see also Fedeli (n. 27) 380.

32 It is a long way to go for a dull joke (tonsor - ‘shearer’, i.e. ‘crook’), and circular reasoning at that. See Freudenburg (n. 17) 50–1, with literature; Nisbet (n. 31) 409. Non-juristic rationales for reading tonsor are none of our concern, but see Fedeli (n. 27) 380–1.

33 Porphyrio: ‘Iure’ omnes: Galba negabat: Subaudiendum hie extrinsecus: factum dicebant. Est enim totum tale: iure omnes factum dicebant, Galba autem negabat. amare autem Servium Galbam iuris consultum perstrinxit, quasi contra manifestum ius pro adulteris respondent, quia ipse adulter esset. ‘“Iure” omnes: Galba negabat: Something has to be read into the context here: “they were saying it was done”. So the whole thing goes like this: “everyone was saying it was done with justice; Galba on the other hand was denying this was so”. What's more, he's launched a caustic attack on the jurist Servius Galba, on the ground that in defiance of settled law [Galba] gave a formal legal opinion on behalf of adulterers, because he himself was an adulterer.’ [Acro.]: ‘Iure’ omnes: Subaudi factum esse dicebant. Galba iuris peritus et ipse matronarum sectator, qui dicebat non iure factum, ut testes amputarentur, quia primo adulterii poena pecuniaria erat. ‘“Iure” omnes: Understand “they were saying it was done”. Galba (was) a legal expert and at the same time an adulterer, and was claiming that the castration was not done with justice, because originally the penalty for adultery was a monetary one.’

34 See Treggiari, S. M., Roman Marriage: Iusti Coniuges from the Time of Cicero to the Time of Ulpian (Oxford 1991) 271Google Scholar n. 43; Gigante, M., Orazio: Una misuraper l'amore (Lettura della satira seconda del primo libro) (Venosa 1993) 66Google Scholar.

35 On the difficulty in relying on the scholiasts' identifications of persons, see Rudd, N., The Satires of Horace (Berkeley rev. ed. 1982) 132–59Google Scholar. On the general unreliability of the scholiasts to Horace, required reading is Nisbet and Hubbard (n. 31) xlvii–li.

36 Given my lack of confidence in scholiastic prosopography (see previous note), the reader will perhaps either think I am being unduly cautious or recognize the legal joke. At all events, Galba as Galba the jurist still has his defenders: Fedeli (n. 27) 331.

37 This playfulness extends to sexual innuendo, which seems designed to enact a certain male chumminess between the two: see Freudenburg, K., ‘Horace's Satiric Program and the Language of Contemporary Theory in Satires 2. 1’, AJP 111 (1990) 187–203Google Scholar, who does however take a rather aggressive view on the amount of this innuendo.

38 On the (anti-)persona of the Horatian pater, see the remarks of Schrijvers, P. H., ‘Amicus liber et dulcis: Horace moraliste’, in Horace: L'Oeuvre et les imitations, un siècle d'interprétation (Geneva 1992)Google Scholar (Entretiens Hardt 39) 41–94 (at 50–1); Schlegel, C., ‘Horace and His Fathers: Satires 1.4 and 1.6’, AJP 121 (2000) 93–119Google Scholar (who are in different ways rather too sanguine for my taste). Leach, E. W., ‘Horace's Pater Optimus and Terence's Demea: Autobiographical Fiction and Comedy in Sermo, 1,4’, AJP 92.4 (1971) 616–32Google Scholar remains fundamental, though see also Hunter, R. L., ‘Horace on Friendship and Free Speech’, Hermes 113.4 (1985) 480–90 (at 486–90)Google Scholar.

39 Cf. Ducos (n. 7) 84, who, if I understand him correctly, takes the statement in earnest. At 2.2.131 ignorance of the law is presented as not at all a good thing.

40 As Marasco (n. 6) 163 points out, tutela is legally imprecise: the correct term is cura.

41 Tac., Ann. 3.25–8Google Scholar is the best-known example; see Nörr (n. 21) 63–1, 76–8.

42 See 2.3.69–71 discussed above. So also the case of Petillius, who stole the crown of Capitoline Jupiter but was acquitted by Caesar: 1.4.93–100, 1.10.25–6. There is further the concern with the corrupt iudex at 2.2.8–9. See also the discussion of law in the Epistles below and the comments of Marasco (n. 6) 163–4.

43 See Cloud (n. 4) 66; Henderson, J., ‘Be Alert (Your Country Needs Lerts): Horace, Satires 1.9’, in Henderson, J., Writing Down Rome: Satire, Comedy, and Other Offences in Latin Poetry (Oxford 1999) 202–27, 315–20Google Scholar (= (with modifications) PCPS n.s. 39 (1993)67–93) at 205, 217 with n. 39, 220–3 with n. 51, on the conclusion to 1.9: if you fail to use the law in a socially appropriate way, this may boomerang, and law (ab)use you.

44 For a somewhat different perspective, one that has Horace asserting personal virtue over the mechanical application of the law, see Marasco (n. 6) esp. 164.

45 Anything remotely humourous and/or offensive about this anti-persona might be elucidated with reference to Henderson (n. 43).

46 For this point, see the discussion of A Tale of a Tub, in White, J. B., When Words Lose Their Meaning: Constitutions and Reconstitutions of Language, Character, and Community (Chicago 1984) esp. 132CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

47 A warning on Juvenal is found in Henderson, J. G. W., ‘Not “Women in Roman Satire”, but When Satire Writes “Woman”’, in Braund, S. H. (ed.), Satire and Socieft in Ancient Rome (Exeter 1989) 89–125, 139–44Google Scholar (at 124) that in my view equally applies to Horace.

48 Wilson, P., ‘Feminism and the Augustans: Some Readings and Problems’, in MacCabe, C. (ed.), Futures for English (Manchester 1988) 80–92Google Scholar (at 82). By ‘Augustan’ Wilson means Swift and Pope, but I want you to think of Horace.

49 See Palmeri (n. 10) 3 on Swift: ‘Ultimately, Gulliver the satirist is satirized’.

50 The problem of the anti-persona is crucial to an understanding of Horace: for a recent discussion, see Schrijvers (n. 38) 78–84. On a particular (or two or three) Horatian Significant Other, name(less)ly the Pest (quondam Bore), just Like a Rolling Stone, see Henderson (n. 43). More generally, see White (n. 46) 120; Palmeri (n. 10) 12.

51 Henderson (n. 47) 92.

52 White (n. 46) 120–1. 130–1: Wilson (n. 48) 85; Palmeri (n. 10)3.

53 White (n. 46) 131–5; Palmeri (n. 10) 1–2, 5.

54 White (n. 46) 136.

55 On the implication of the reader's values in Satire, see Henderson, J., ‘On Getting Rid of Kings: Horace, Satires 1.7’, in Henderson, J.. Fighting for Rome: Poets and Caesars, History and Civil War (Cambridge 1998) 73–107Google Scholar (= (with modifications) CQ 44 (1994) 146–70CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed) at 88–9. For this reason, the generous observation of Posner, R. A., Law and Literature (Cambridge rev. ed. 1998) 210Google Scholar that ‘someone who read Swift's “A Modest Proposal” without knowing anything about the author might conclude that he was advocating cannibalism’ does not quite succeed in letting the reader off the hook.

56 For this issue, see Henderson (n. 47) 106. 109.

57 One can of course argue that this is present implicitly in 1.5, though the key there is that Horace spends the entire poem NOT talking about this rather obvious, plainly provocative. 800 lb. gorilla of a theme. Thus I write ‘deliberately obscured’ in the text.

58 This is much more true of the first book than of the second, which shows a sharper focus on literary theory: see Horsfall (n. 6) 13–17, with reference to his earlier work. All the same, the reader will find grist for this particular mill in both books.

59 See also C. 4.9.37–14. The concern does not emerge explicitly in the references to indices at S. 1.4.123 and 2.7.54 (cf. 101), though it might be thought to be lurking in the subtext.

60 Rudd, N., Horace: Epistles Book II and Epistle to the Pisones (‘Ars Poetica’) (Cambridge 1989) 13–14Google Scholar shows how neatly the poet adapts the legal set-up to his own situation at 20–5. For a very different view of this passage, see Ducos (n. 7) 87–8.

61 For a possible hit at pedantry in the private law implicating Alfenus Varus, see C. 1.18.1 with Nisbet (n. 31) 408–9. By the same token, please note the references to the lex Roscia and the Augustan marriage legislation, above in the text.

62 For this change, see Cloud (n. 4) 54.

63 This is suggested by the change in focus in the Ars Poetica. aka Epistula ad Pisones, which is epistolary, and therefore satirical, last in the series of the great Horatian Satirical Project: see above for the explication of this enthymeme. On the problematic constitutional situation of the triumvirs and its meaning for Horace, see DuQuesnay (n. 31) 40–1.

64 C. 2.15.17–20 (cf. 3.6 as a call to reform), 3.24,4.5.1–4, 21–4,4.15.9–16. Carm.Saec. 13–20, Ars 396–9. The point is noticed, regarding adultery, by Treggiari (n. 34) 291.

65 C. 3.24.35–6. See also C. 4.5.22: …mos el lex maculosum edomuit nefas…

66 This risks obscuring a subtle yet important shift in Horace's political stance traceable in his lyric poetry from what appears to be a consistent conditionality in his acceptance of Augustus in the first three books of Odes (see the use of the future tense in C. 3.3.12. 3.5.2. 3.24.27) to a much less ambiguous allegiance in the Carmen Saeculare and fourth book of Odes: these are the arguments of Putnam, M. C. J., Horace's Carmen Saeculare (New Haven 2000) 4–5, 11, 45–50, 83, 94, 97–8. 111, 167Google Scholar (168) n. 7.

67 My treatment of this poem is indebted to DuQuesnay (n. 31) 36–8: Henderson (n. 55).

68 The scene is a conventus. or circuit-court, held at Clazomenae: for the practice, especially in the province of Asia, see Burton, G. P., ‘Proconsuls. Assizes and the Administration of Justice under the Empire’, JRS 65 (1975) 92–106Google Scholar (who. interestingly, does not mention Clazomenae as a venue, though discussing Republican usage at 92–3). Brutus is described as praetor, appropriately for his judicial responsibilities, but there is also surely a reference to his appointment to this office by his victim. Julius Caesar, as DuQuesnay (n. 31) 205 n. 81 observes. The reference prefigures the end of the poem and resonates with the perversion of justice it represents.

69 For a critical survey of earlier approaches, see Henderson (n. 55) 85–6 (a condensation of the original at 154–5).

70 On their moral equivalence in anger, see Schlegel, C., ‘Horace. Satires 1.7: Satire as Conflict Irresolution’. Arethusa 32 (1999) 337–52 (at 343–1)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

71 For the evidence, see DuQuesnay (n. 31) 37.

72 The parody of epic is notably sharp-edged. Horace critiques epic values directly here, not the falling away from epic one might expect per the analysis of Palmeri (n. 10) 8.

73 On the poem's (un)veiling of violence, see Henderson (n. 55).

74 See S. 2.1.34: Sequor hunc [Lucilium], Lucanus an Apulus anceps. Praeneste, a town of such cosmopolitan background that it had three ethnically distinct foundation myths, with its deep commercial interests in the Greek East in the mid- and late Republic, and its anti-Roman history, bears some thematic significance.

75 See the comments of Schlegel (n. 70) 338 (cf. 350) on how ‘invective enacts conflict’ in this poem.

76 The setting is one obvious difference between this agôn and the set-to between Messius Cicirrus and Sarmentus in 1.5, in several respects a clear analogue. On this encounter, see Corbett, P. B., The Scurra (Edinburgh 1986) 66–7Google Scholar.

77 See the comments of Henderson (n. 55) 103–4.

78 Much depends, Dear Reader, on whether you view this conclusion as Horace's point or my own assessment of the poem. What do you think?

79 These opinions are canvassed, and well treated, by Muecke (n. 5) 204–5. See also the extended discussion at ead. 211–12, 214–16.

80 For a recent, sophisticated presentation of the persona-theory, see Martindale, C., ‘Introduction’, in Martindale, C. and Hopkins, D. (eds.), Horace Made New: Horatian Influences on British Writing from the Renaissance to the Twentieth Century (Cambridge 1993) 1–26Google Scholar (esp. 1, 11–13, 16–18). Oliensis, E., Horace and the Rhetoric of Authority (Cambridge 1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar prefers to substitute for it the sociological construct of ‘face’.

81 On this somewhat controversial subject (there are certainly passages where the opposite tendency is found), I take the view of Griffin, J., ‘Horace in the Thirties’, in Rudd, N. (ed.), Horace 2000: A Celebration; Essays for the Bimillennium (Ann Arbor 1993) 1–22Google Scholar (at 10–11), though I do not accept his assumption (at 11) that this signifies that ‘…Horace was not…following any course of consistent or real politics in these matters.’ See also now Freudenburg (n. 8) 75 n. 92.

82 See Freudenburg (n. 8) 75: ‘Without actually saying so, Trebatius reminds us that Actium has happened just months ago*hellip;’. Actium might be regarded as an awkward subject for an Italian poet, if not a Roman one: note the diverse treatment in Hor. Epod. 9, C. 1.37; Prop. 2.1.27–46, 2.15.44, 2.16.37–42,4.6; Verg. Aen. 8.675–728.

83 Speaking of fallback positions, I must signal here how much I bitterly regret the eclipse of so much promising juristic material back in Section 2.1 had meant to use the alleged criticism of those jurists by Horace to posit foils to Trebatius in this poem, or anti-personae to the anti-persona here. Labeo in particular would have suited this purpose very nicely, don't you think? So, Dear Reader, if you did not buy any part of that criticism, please feel free to go ahead and construct your own argument along these lines.

84 On Horace's claims to the legacy of Lucilian libertas, and redefinition of it, see DuQuesnay (n. 31) 27–32. 50; Freudenburg (n. 8) esp. 15–27 and below.

85 On the political problems with writing Lucilian-style satire in the 30s BC. see Muecke (n. 5) 215–16.

86 On Horace as a friend of Maecenas, and behind him Octavian, see DuQuesnay (n. 31) esp. 26, 33–4. Freudenburg (n. 8) 68 emphasizes that Horace, while on trial in 1.10 for outrage to Lucilius/Lucilian Satire, receives support from ‘…some of the most powerful political figures of late triumviral Rome…’. His take on 1.10 in my view provides support for my interpretation of 2.1.

87 The important idea that the reader is left to choose one or the other of these alternatives is the suggestion of Freudenburg (n. 8) 107.

88 The temptation is almost beyond resisting to search out details of Trebatius’ personality and career from sources like Cicero and Gellius and use them as an interpretive key for this poem: see most recently Tatum, W. J., ‘Ultra Legem: Law and Literature in Horace, Satires II. 1’, Mnemosyne 51.6 (1998) 688–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar (esp. 691): cf. Michel (n. 20) 387–91.

89 The jurist's recommendation to swim the Tiber as a cure for insomnia in 2.1.7–9 resonates with Cicero's description of Trebatius as studiosissimus homo natandi (Fam. 7.10.2). So also the recommendation of recourse to wine: Fam. 7.22. Nisbet (n. 31) 406 attributes Trebatius' cognomen to this predilection.

90 Trebatius very likely came from Velia in Lucania, and may have been the grandson of a rebel Samnite commander in the Social War: see Kunkel (n. 22) 28: Frier (n. 27) 279–80: Williams, G., ‘Libertino Patre Natus: True or False?’, in Harrison, S. J. (ed.). Homage to Horace: A Bimillenary Celebration (Oxford 1995) 296–313Google Scholar (at 303–4). The situations of Maecenas and Horace himself are too well known to call for much comment, but in this context Horace's famous emphasis on his patron's non-Roman background at C. 1.1.1 and 3.29.1 is significant, as is his identification of himself at S. 2.1.34–9, not with the Roman colonists sent to Venusia, but with the locals. Those who require information about Horace's status should of course consult Armstrong (n. 8); Williams, ‘Libertino Patre Natus’ (who doubts that Horace's claim to be the son of a freedman should be understood in a literal sense).

91 To be clear. I believe that an understanding of the political reality of the late thirties contributes much to our reading of this satire. Using the satire as a means of understanding that political reality is far more difficult: for a recent attempt, see Tatum (n. 88) esp. 695.

92 Stoic philosophy serves as the most obvious, consistent example of a target: see 1.3, 2.3, for example. Religion is another: S. 1.5.100–3: cf. E. 1.18.111–12.

93 Frier (n. 22) 257–8.

94 Maecenas of course ranked highest of the three for his affinity to the autocrat. For a nice contrast of the social status of Horace and Trebatius with that – superior – of Lucilius, see Freudenburg. Satires of Rome (n. 8) 51. The gap in status between the two satirists left Horace notionally more vulnerable to legal challenge: Freudenburg. 96 n. 125 (cf. 105–6). Lucilius, then, enjoyed a libertas to which Horace could hardly aspire. The change in political system was as much a reason for this as the differential in status of course. Both factors made our satirist highly dependent on his ultimate patron: below. For Horace, the very meaning of the word libertas had changed: Kennedy, D. F., ‘“Augustan” and “Anti-Augustan”: Reflections on Terms of Reference’, in Powell, A. (ed.). Poetry and Propaganda in the Age of Augustus (Worcester 1992) 26–58Google Scholar (at 31).

95 This fact suggests the truth of Frier's argument (n. 22) 282–7 that the factors which promoted the rise of the jurists and the formation of an autonomous system of private law are the same as those which created the Principate. so that, if anything, the legal developments were prior. For another view, that this development follows upon the victory at Actium. see Tatum (n. 88) 696–7.

96 See Nörr(n. 21)32–4. 40–2.

97 Wallace-Hadrill, A., ‘Mutatto Morum: The Idea of a Cultural Revolution’, in Habinek, T. and Schiesaro, A. (eds.). The Roman Cultural Revolution (Cambridge 1997) 3–22Google Scholar (at 7).

98 See Wallace-Hadrill (n. 97) 14. 16. 18. 20. 22.

99 It is a modern conceit all the same to identify political engagement (or. if you will, bias) with bad poetry. See the remarks of Putnam (n. 66) 4. 8, 144.

100 See the comments of DuQuesnay (n. 31) 58. The useful observations of White (n. 46) 131–5. on how Satire corrects and instructs the reader, compelling her to construct a viable set of values, might be tempered by the reflection that different readers are equipped to do this in different ways, not all of them equally felicitous.

101 I agree in principle with the argument of Santirocco, M. S., ‘Horace and Augustan Ideology’. Arethusa 28 (1995) 225–43Google Scholar that the contrast between dominant and oppositional is not adequate for understanding Horace's position, and above all that Horace had his own distinct role to play in the creation of Augustan ideology. I do not have much confidence in the binary opposition of pro- and anti-Augustan assessments traditional in Horatian scholarship, because I believe such mutually exclusive categories are foreign to this poet. For a roundup of recent literature on this subject, see Armstrong, D., ‘Some Recent Perspectives on Horace’. Phoenix 51 (1997) 393–405CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a sense of how deeply rooted this bipolarity is in the modern mind, consult Stack, F., Pope and Horace: Studies in Imitation (Cambridge 1985) esp. 6–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar (cf. 152) on views of Horace as a ‘court slave’ (and not) in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In my view, much futile wheelspinning could be avoided by a careful reading of D. F. Kennedy, (review of Woodman and West. Poetry and Politics). LCM 9.10(1984) 157–60 and, more broadly. Kennedy (n. 94).

102 See, for example, Schrijvers (n. 38); Oliensis (n. 80) esp. 17. Others prefer understatement. Seager, R., ‘Horace and Augustus: Poetry and Policy’, in Rudd, N. ed., Horace 2000: A Celebration, Essays for the Bimillenium (Ann Arbor 1993) 23–40Google Scholar (at 38): ‘[Horace's] manner is often playful, but he shows no inclination to undermine the doctrines preached by the regime.’ N. Rudd. ‘Horace as a Moralist’, ibid. 64–88 (at 76): ‘Already [sc. around 36 BC and the writing of S. 1.6] Brutus' tribune is half way towards supporting an autocrat.’

103 Of great importance to me have been Richlin, A., ‘Invective Against Women in Roman Satire’. Arethusa 17 (1984) 67–80Google Scholar. The Garden of Priapus: Sexuality and Aggression in Roman Humor (Oxford rev. ed. 1992)Google Scholar; the works of Henderson, J. cited in the notes above, as well as his ‘Satire Writes Woman: Gendersong’, in Writing Down Rome: Satire, Comedy and Other Offences in Latin Poetry (Oxford 1999) 173–201Google Scholar. 310–15 (= [with modifications] PCPS n.s. 35 (1989) 50–80Google ScholarPubMed).

104 Wilson (n. 48) 87.

105 On Horace as the amicus omnium throughout the ages, see Martindale (n. 80) 11; cf. 21–2. For an acute analysis of the reasons for his long-running success, see Kennedy (n. 101) especially 159.

106 Kennedy (n. 101) 158–9 scores another hit here.

107 To steal one last phrase from John Henderson. ‘Satire…challenges us to do our worst’: (n. 43) 202–3.