INTRODUCTION
free republic, he indulged in broad and coarse personalities, attacking his enemies by name;—
secuit Lucilius urbem,
Te Lupe, te Muci, et genuinum fregit in illis.
In this respect, Horace tells us, Lucilius took his model from the writers of the old Attic comedy; but while commending his freedom and his wit, Horace is severe upon his style, which he pronounces rough, redundant, and inartistic. In the general tone of his writings, and in the purity of his aims, he seems to have represented on its best side the literary and moral ideas of the Scipionic circle. His poems have been described as open letters to the public, embracing the whole life of a cultivated man of the world in good position, ready to criticise everything and everybody in politics, literature, and social life.
With regard to the metre which he employed, the great body of his poems, with some exceptions, were written in dactylic hexameters; and from that time forward this became the recognised metre of Roman satire.
And now for the bond which linked together these various forms of composition under the common name of Satura.
It was the practice among the ancients, in making
