Epicurean Ethics in Horace

The Psychology of Satire

Over the centuries leading up to their composition many genres and authors have emerged as influences on Horace's Satires, which in turn has led to a wide variety of scholarly interpretations. This study aims to expand the existing dialogue by exploring further the intersection of ancient satire and ethics, focusing on the moral tradition of Epicureanism through the lens of one source in particular: Philodemus of Gadara. An Epicurean philosopher who wrote for a Roman audience and was one of Horace's contemporaries and neighbours in Italy, Philodemus' works, which were preserved by the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79 but have nevertheless not been widely read on account of their fragmentary nature, offer a range of ethical treatises on subjects including patronage, friendship, flattery, frankness, poverty, and wealth. Epicurean Ethics in Horace: The Psychology of Satire offers a serious consideration of the role of Philodemus' Epicurean teachings in Horace's Satires and argues that the central concerns of the philosopher's work not only lie at the heart of the poet's criticisms of Roman society and its shortcomings, but also lend to the collection a certain coherence and overall unity in its underlying convictions. The result is an illuminating examination of the deep and pervasive influence of this moral tradition on the satiric poetry of one of the most acclaimed and beloved Roman lyricists, which also manages to reveal, to a degree, something of the poet behind the literary mask or persona through its elucidation of the philosophically consistent nature of Horace's self-representation in these poems.