= Satires LIV 245 Objective Type Questions with Answers Qa. Ans. Q.2. Ans. Q.3. Ans. Q.4. Ans. Q5. Ans. Q6. Ans. Q.7. Ans. Q.8. Ans. Q9. Ans. Name the writers of ancient comedy as mentioned in Horace’s Satires I. IV. (C.U. 2018) Eupolis, Aristophanes, Cratinus were the writers of ancient comedy mentioned in Horace’s Satires I. IV. Who was Eupolis? Eupolis was an Athenian poet of the Old Comedy, who flourished during the time of the Peloponnesian War. Who was Aristophanes? Aristophanes (c. 460 - c. 380 BCE) was the most famous writer of Old Comedy plays in ancient Greece and his surviving works are the only examples of that style. Who was Cratinus? Cratinus (519 BC - 422 BC) was an Athenian comic poet of the Old Comedy. Who was Lucilius? What does Horace comment about him? Gaius Lucilius (c. 180 - 103/02 BC), was the earliest Roman satirist. Horace says that Lucilius largely depended on the writers of ancient comedy, having followed with only feet and numbers changed. Who was Crispinus? What does Horace comment about him? According to the scholiasts, Crispinus was an aretalogus, a speaker on Stoic virtue. He wrote verses. Horace says that Crispinus provokes him over so little: “Take, if you will, take now your tablets; let a place be given to us, a time, referees; let us see if one shall be able to write more.’ What according to Horace, were the main faults of the writers of the Old Comedy for which they were strongly criticised? _ According to Horace, the writers of the Old Comedy were ‘publicly exposed for being a crook and a thief, a lecher or a cut-throat, or for being notorious in any other way, for they were noted with much liberty. “As a tour de force he would often dictate two hundred lines an hour standin on his head” - About whom is this said? “Or, “A witty fellow with a keen nose, but harsh when it came to versification’- About whom is this said? Or, “A man of many words, he disliked the effort of writing” - About whom is this said? This is said about Gaius Lucilius (c. 180 - 103/02 BC), the earliest Roman satirist, in Horace’s Satires I. IV. How did Crispinus give challange to Horace? ‘Acoording to Horace, Crispinus gave him long odds saying- “Just246 Honours Hand Book (European Cla Q9. Ans, Q.10. Ans. Qu. Ans. Q.12. Ans. Q.13. Q.14. Q.15. Ans. ical Literature)-CC-2 take your jotter if you please and I'll take mine. Let’s fix a time and a place and umpires; then see which of us can write the more Who was Fannius? Fannius was a minor poet of Rome, famous for his extreme self- advertisement. How does Horace criticise Fannius? In his Satires I. IV, Horace says that Fannius is happy to present his wrks unasked, complete with a case to hold them and a bust of himself. “Pick anyone you like from a crowd: he’s plagued with greed or else the curse of ambition” - Metion the source of the line? Name a few among the crowd mentioned by the speaker? This line from Horace’s Satires I. IV, Horace mentions the ambitious literary men Lucilius, Crispinus and Fannius among the crowd plaged with greed or curse of ambition. Who is Albius In Harace's Satires I. IV, Albius is a man with expensive tastes. Possibly the father of Albius Tibullus the poet to whom Epistle I. 1V may be dedicated. In BkISatIV: II.26-62 he is mentioned for his taste for bronze-wares. In BkISatIV: II.107-143, he iis said to have run through his inheritance. “All such men are afraid of verses and loathe poets’- Who are these men? In Horace’s Sutires LIV, Horace mentions these men, except Albius. with their character or occupation. He says that one among them is obsessed with married women, another with boys, One loves the gliitter of silver; Albius stares at bronze. Another barters his wares from beneath the eastern sky to lands warmed by the evening sun; another us swept along through hardships, like dust raised by a whirlwind, in constant dread of losing a penny of his capital or failing to make profit. “That's why people have asked whether comedy is genuine poetry”- Why did people ask such a question? In Horace’s Satires LIV, the poet explains that in language and subject-matter a comedy lacks the fire and force of passion, and except that it differs from prose in the regulaity of its rhythm, it is prose pure and simple. “he’s the blackguard; beware of him, O son of Rome!”- Whom does the speaker warns to beware of? In Horace’s Satires I.1V, the poet warns his readers to beware of the man who defames a friend behind his back, who won't stand up for him when someone else is running him down, who looks for the big laugh and wants to be thought a wit, the man who can invent what he never saw but can’t keep a secret.=: Satires LIV 247 Q.16. What did Horace’s father say to him while urging him to practise thrift and economy? Ans. In Horace's Satires ILIV, he says that his father, while urging him to. practise thrift and economy, used to say “Notice what a miserable life young Aldius leads and how Baius is down and out - a salutary warning not to squander the family’s money.’ Q.17. “Don’t be like Scetanus!’’- Who said this and to whom? Why? Ans. In Horace’s Satires LIV, the poet says that his father used to say him the referred words while steering him away from a squalid attachment to a whore. Q.18. “It isn’t nice to get a name like that of Trebonius’- Who said this and to whom? Why? Ans. In Horace’s Satires LIV, the poet says that his father used to say him the referred words to stop him chasing another man’s wife when legitimate sex was available. Essay Type Questions with Answers Q. 1. What are Horace’s views on satire and its moral content as stated in his Satires 1.1V? Discuss. (C.U. 2018) Ans. Though Satires 1.4 is Horace’s first statement on the nature of his own writing, and writing in general, its difficulties cannot be explained away on the grounds that it is early and therefore inept. A poet with Horace’s dedication to self-criticism] would not have allowed the survival of something which he did not think lived up to his ideal scribendi recte. Similarly, it would be a mistake to conclude that, because his argumentation is playful, Horace is not saying anything serious about the ethics and poetics of satire. The aim of my reading of the poem is to arrive at Horace’s concept of himself as satirist, for in the end it is his own character which holds together the two seemingly disparate threads of the argument — the moral justification of satire and its definition as an artistic form. The central paradox in the theory of satire is that it is poetry and wants to be read for the sake of the words, while it claims a function that implies an unusual degree of involvement with life.9 This function, of course, is not sim- ply that of imitating life, though satire does claim this kind of realism (c£.25, ‘quemuis media elige turba’), but of improving it. Horace humorously focuses this dilemma on the audience. Given the state of mankind, his readers are his actual or potential victims. Their moral improvement, we come to realise, con- sists initially in their being taught how to read satire. ‘The poem opens with a standard piece of literary history, an innocent- looking disguise for one of the basic matters of Contention — satire’s aggressive- ness. Lucilius is said to depend on Old Comedy. This implies that a genre exists248 Honours Hand Book (European Classical Literature)-CC-2 and that certain expectations have been formed as to its style and content, expee- tations which any subsequent writer has to take into account, Horace’s implied definition accords with that found in Diomedes and generally agreed to be Varronian:"‘carmen maledicum ad carpendum uitia hominum archaeae comoediae charactere compositum’. The more specific point made in lines 1-5, that the libertas of a verbal attack can be justified on the grounds that the target deserves it (is dignus) is confirmed as current by a letter from Trebonius to Cicero, which uses the same argument and also cites Lucilius as a precedent. Horace therefore begins by outlining the traditional conception of satire as the public exercise of censori- ous wit, directed at individuals. It was Hendrickson’s main thesis that Horace wished to dissociate himself from this kind of satire, and to propose a new defini- tion more in accord with the milder spirit of his own work. In lines 34-38 the fear of the victim of satire is expressed. The way in which the answer to this complaint is postponed to lines 65 ff. has often been noticed. What is presented as a counter-argument {pauca accipe contra) devel- ops into a seemingly irrelevant disquisition on the nature of poetry. The argu- ment takes off from line 33. Horace replies in lines 39. ‘I am not a poet’. What is he getting at here? The initial disclaimer of the title of ‘poet’ may be motivated by the injunction in the Twelve Tables against ‘mala carmina’, but the passage leaves the joke behind to discuss the position of satire as a genre, again in the light of uerba and res. Horace will only give the status of poet to someone writ- ing in the grand style, with the inspirational force and verbal power to match an elevated subject matter. Ennius is cited as the example. In contrast, Horace and Lucilius write sermo, a nicely ambiguous term. From the stylistic point of view, it is the discourse of everyday life, the colloquial. In comedy, for example, it is the dialogue appropriate to the realistic content, and thus we are brought back to the question of the content of satire. The passage 48-56 makes much more than the stylistic point which, on the surface, it is intended to illustrate. The objector’s argument is contained in his opening words that is, comedy can portray passion. In giving the reason for the father’s rage the objector outlines a situation typical of New Comedy, conflict be- tweeh a stern father and a wastrel son. Horace immediately identifies this situation with that of Pomponius, a‘ concrete illustration of the difference between New Comedy and satire. If New Comedy presents moral conflicts in a generalized form, satire points to the same universal moral problems by identifying individual ex- amples of them. No less than lines 25. this passage anticipates lines 105., the section where Horace’s father teaches him how to ‘read’ life. Therefore, though satire does have the function which was probably attributed to New Comedy even at the time of its original composition, the function of holding a mirror up to life, it goes further, offering not just a representation of reality, but also a critique of it. Horace comments that it is not enough to write out verses as pure speech, which, if you rearrange, anyone should rage in such a way as the father, masked [as in a comedy]. If you take if you take from these things, which I now write and Lucilius once wrote, certain rhythms and meters, and, because= Satires LIV :- 249 the word is first in order, you make it later, placing the last before the first, indeed you will not come upon the limbs of a torn-poet as if you should rear- range, ‘After horrible Discord shattered the posts and iron doors of War.” This is the sense in which satire is ‘personal’ poetry, not so much ‘auto- biographical’ as venturing into that kind of moral philosophy spoken of by Plato as ‘conversation of the soul with itself’, and this is the reason why the character of the satirist himself is of such importance in the vindication of satire as a genre. The dialectical form of the satire reflects the satirist’s internal dialogue, the logical equivocations and discontinuities allowing both sides of the case to be represented in a way prohibited by a systematic exposition of the argument. Perhaps the use of irony and ambiguity, the constant reminders that every idea comes into the world with its equally valid (or invalid) counter- idea and that life allows us to put our feet up on very few certainties (if any) — perhaps all this does undermine the status of this piece as a contribution to a Poetics narrowly conceived. But it is the merit of this poem to have trans- formed literary critical commonplaces into issues of vital concern for the poet himself and for the reader linked to him in their common enterprise. Q. 2. What does Horace say in his Satires I.[V about his father’s training in providing a key to his satiric art? (C.U. 2018) ‘Ans.The best part of this discussion begins from line 109 in Satires LIV. Horace gives an of his upbringing by his father. He writes that when his father exhorted him to be thrifty and careful, so as to live in content on what he'd leave him. He would say, : “Don’t you see how badly young Albius is doing, how poor Baiusis? It is a clear warning: dont wilfully squander your birthright”. Or steering the poet from base love of a whore, the father said: “Don't take after Scetanus”. Or from chasing an adulteress where the poet might enjoy free sex, the father would have said: “Not nice, Trebonius name now he’s caught. Some wise man can tell you why its better to seek or avoid something: its enough for me that I follow the code our ancestors handed down, and while you need a guardian I'll keep your reputation and health from harm: then when age has strengthened your body and mind, you can swim free of the float”. Horace comments that with words such as these he formed the child, whether urging the poet on If he acted, with ‘You've an authority for doing this’, pointing to one of the judges the praetor had chosen, or forbidding it, with can you really be doubtful whether its wrong. or harmful, when scandals ablaze about that man and this? As a neighbour's funeral scares the sick glutton, and makes him diet, fearful of dying, so tender spirits are often deterred from doing wrong by others shame. That's why, Horace recounts, he is free of whatever vices bring ruin, though he is guilty of lesser failings, one’s the reader might pardon. Perhaps growing older will largely erase even these, or honest friends, or self-reflection: Since when the poet's armchair welcomes him, or a stroll in the portico, alert to250 Honours Hand Book (European Classical Literature)-CC-2 Rinselt Ks more honest, he will say, if he does that his life will be better: way he will make good friends: what he did wasn’t nice: could I ever unthinkingly do something similar one day? Horace's description of his upbringing in Satires 1.4.103-129 is one of the most important scenes in the entire collection, particularly because it estab- lishes the poet's ethical credentials and justifies his role as professional critic. It is also one of the most complex and multifaceted passages, for in the process of constructing his persona Horace synthesizes various literary and philosophi- cal influences in a sophisticated and yet often parodic manner. Scholars have repeatedly shown the role of Roman comedy, especially Terence’s portrayal of Demea in the Adelphoe, in Horace’s serio-comic depiction of his father’s train- ing. One of the least explored facets of his pedagogical method, however, is the role of Epicureanism, which offers much to a satiric poet concerned both with practical ethics and moral correction through the observation of vicious indi- viduals’ defects. This paper provides a new interpretation of this scene by con- sidering the role of Epicurean philosophy vis-a-vis Horace’s father’s emphasis on sense perception as the foundation for a useful education, the use of con- ventional language for the sake of clarity, the application of the pleasure calcu- lus within the context of moral deliberation, and the employment of frank criti- cism as a preventative, pedagogical technique. Previous considerations of Horace’s description his father’s method have emphasized this scene's literary and philosophical background. Leach (1971), Hunter (1985) and Freudenburg (1993, 2001) have interpreted parallels between the satiric father and the pater rusticus of Roman comedy as a programmatic characterization of Horace’s own persona as indoctus and therefore comically inept. Closely related to this reading is the assertion, maintained by Fiske (1971) and Freudenburg (1993), that Horace’s moral training incorporates the con- cerns and methods of popular philosophy as expressed by the flamboyant and roughshod Cynics, who, like the poets of Old Comedy, branded vicious indi- viduals by employing the finger-pointing method alluded to in 1.4.106: exemplis, vitiorum quaeque notando ("by branding each of the vices through examples”). Others have appreciated these influences but detected a more serious engage- ment with the philosophical tradition in general (Schlegel 2000), especially through connections between Horace’s father’s method and Plato’s pedagogi- cal concerns (Marchetti 2004). What is lacking in these examinations of Horace’s self-portrait is a serious examination of Epicureanism, which, in addition to enriching the ethical content of the Satires in general, adds depth to the poet's presentation and analysis of the foibles of contemporary Roman society. ‘Although Horace’s father does not deny the importance of abstract doc- trines, the fact that his pedagogical concerns are essentially practical is commu- sual depreciation of theoretical instruction. Indeed, Horace’s upbringing relies on practical sense-perceptions of everyday life, which, in ad- dition to resembling the Cynics’ emphasis on logoi chrestoi and informal reli- ance on empirical observation (Fiske 1971), also expresses the Epicurean doc- nicated by his251 s 8 the starting point of all knowledge. In order to qualify examples of vicious behavior, moreover, his father uses universally accepted ethical terms such as turpis and inhonestus, which is consistent with the prin- ciples of Panaetian sermo as described by Cicero (Off. 1.134-37) but likewise recalls Epicurus’ insistence on the use of conventional language in ethical dis- quisitions in his Letter to Herodotus (Asmis 1984). As a result of his exposure to the terrible consequences of economic and sexual vice (1.4.114-19), Horace reveals that he learned to calculate the potential outcomes of ethical decisions in terms of foreseeable pleasures (ibid, 134-35: rectius hoc . .. hoc faciens vivam melius), thus alluding to the hedonic calculus as seen elsewhere in the Satires 2.75 and 1.6.99-104). Finally, it may be observed that these lessons are communicated to Horace not in the spirit of overly harsh criticism or invec- ive typical of Stoic and Cynic diatribes; instead, they are motivated by the genuine concern of a loving teacher, whose frankness, in accordance with Epi- curean practice, is preventative and intended for the sake of correction. trine of sensation Q. 3. Comment on Horace’s criticism of his literary rivals in his Satires LIV. Ans. Despite the claims of Satires I. IV, Horace satirized almost no living contemporary of real significance in the first three satires of Book-1. Rather he reserved his best and most frequent lampoons for certain obscure literary rival, contemporary theorists and poets who, he suggests, were every bit as wicked in their poetic practices as the various misers, wanton profligates, adulterers, theives, and murderers mentioned in Satires LIV: they were poemicides who piled wordupon word with the relish of misers, sorting and stacking heaps of silver. Fabius, Crispinus, Fannius, Hemogenes Tigellius, Caprius, and Sulcius were real, living contemporaries, rival theorists, poets and writers of diatribe whose works, Horace suggests, subscribed to no aesthetic standards accepted in his day. He parodies their poetic practices in the diatribe satires of Book -1, portraying them as renegade poetasters guilty of the wildest sbuses of style. This is the standard view of Horace’s opponents in the opening satires of Book 1. Not a single fragment of their works has survived against which to check this view. As a result, the scholiasts and nearly all subsequent commentators on the Satires have accepted the satirist’s assessment of his rivals without question. It is very strange, however, that Horace should invest so much time and energy criticizing opponents who he would otherwise have us believe deserve no attention whatsoever. At Satires I. IV. Il 71-76 he even suggests that their works were read much more widely than his own. It is with good reason then that we suspect that Horace fabricated a very lopside impression of his literary rivals. ‘As a writer of lamppons in the iambographic tradition, the satirist is perfectly free to distort the image of his opponent. Aristophanes, for example, grossly misrepresents Euripides, whom he portrays in several places as the lowest type of fligty poetic huckster with no claim to critical feeling,252 Honours Hand Book (European Classical Literature)-CC-2 : rs i i 613, Horace satirizes the style of Gaius Lucilius (c. 180 }, the ‘oman satirist. Metioning some of the writers of the Old Comedy like Cratinus, Eupolis and Aristophanes, Horace comments that Lucilus derives entirely from them; he followed their lead changing only their rhythms and metres. Horace calls him a witty fellow with a keen nose, but harsh when it came to versification. Horace comments that is where the faut of Lucilius lay. He further explains that as a tour de force he would often dictate two hundred lines an hour standing on his head. As he flowed muddily on, there were things one would want to remove. A man of many words, he disliked the effort of writing, writing properly. Horace comments that he does not care a hoot for quantity. At Satires LIV. Il 13-16, the satirist derides Crispinus’s poetic pretensions: Here's Crispinus offering me long odds” ‘Just take your jotter if you please and I'll take mine. Let's fix a time and a place and umpires; then see which of us can write the more.’ The challenge to see whoo can write ‘more’ verses links Crispinus to the loose, unpolished ppractices of Lucilius described in the lines immediately preceding. The repeated ‘take’ in these lines underscores hiis insistence; he simply demads to be regarded as a fool. Another contemporary literary figure criticized in this satire is a certain Fannius, in Il. 21-22: “Fannius is happy to present his works unasked, complete with a case to hold them and a bust of himself”. Fannius is extremely elusive, for, as Rudd has pointed out, the scholiasts’ remarks on these lines are inconsistent: “Here we are told that Fannius presented book-case to the senate, that the senate presented book-cases to him, that his heirs presented his books to public libraries, and (splendidly) that at the hour of death Fannius begged to be cremeted on a pile of his own books.” In a separate article in which he treats these discrepancies in detail, Rudd has concluses that we are to regard Fannius as the donor, who, without being asked, has handed over his writings along with his portrait,, to the public library. Rudd concludes, “The lines will the run something like this” ‘Fannius takes a delight in making free donations of his poems, complete with boxes and bust.” This makes sense, bringing out the full ironic sense ‘happy’ and ‘present’ in line 21, which stress that Fannius is driven by his own desire to publish his workks, not that anyone really wants to read them, and that his wealth alone has made his works known to a broad since he himself made copies available to the various libraries and schools in Rome. Porphyrion, among other possibilities identifies the Fannius of Satires LIV. Il. 21 as Fannius Quadratus, a contemporary writer of satire. The identification, while attractive, is uncertain. Horace gives us little information about the type or style of these works, other than they required a strong set of lungs in performace. In this he associates Fannius with audience,~ Satires LIV 253 Crispinus, suggesting that he too wrote in verse, perhaps on the themes of Stoic ethics. We knoow from Satires IX. 1.80 that Fannius was, by reputation, a constant dinner companion-that is, a parasite- of Hermogenes, who was a school teacher and a favourite of Stoics, and that, at one time he had actively criticized the works of Horace. Q. 4, Comment on Horace’s style in his Satires LIV, Ans. Horace skews the portrait of his literary opponentsin the opening satires of Book 1, painting them, in his characteristic fashion, in the guise of various comic clowns. This portrait he intends for comic effect, making no claims to accuracy. Nowhere does he seriously engage his opponents in a discussion of the theoretical issues at hand, giving fair weight to the arguments that set them at odds. Although the satirist would have us believe otherwise, these critics were not regarded generally as theoretical illiterates in their day. In facing their objections, the satirist, in a sense, competes on their terms. Although he disagrees with his critics on many basic issues, he knows that their objections have at least some basis in theory. That much the same is true of his opponents as stylists is clear from the chief passages of Satires I. IV treating theories of style namely, lines 5-12 directed against Lucilius, and the large central passage, 38-63. Horace remarks that Lucilius derives from them, as a follower who only changed rhythm and metre: witty with a sharp nose, true, but the verse he wrote was rough. That is where the fault lay: often, epically, he'd dictate two hundred lines, do it standing on one foot even! Horace adds that a lot should have been dredged from his murky stream. He was garrulous, hated the labour involved in writing, writing well, the poet meant that he doesn’t care for mere quantity. He refers to what Crispinus offering him long odds: “Now, if you please, take your tablets and I'll take mine: pick a time, a place, The judges: lets see which of us can scribble the most.” Now Horace thanks the gods that he is a man of few ideas, with no spirit, one who speaks only rarely, and then says little. But, Horace comments, if it’s what one prefers, then he imitates air shut in a goat-skin bellows, labouring away till the fire makes the iron melt. The poet says that Fannius is Blessed, for he offers his books and a bust unasked, while no one reads what the poet writes, and he is afraid to recite it aloud since some care little for that sort of thing, and most men deserve censure. Horace says the readers that they may choose any man from the crowd: That man will be bothered by avarice or some wretched ambition. Horace then raises the question if a satirst is truly a poet though or not. He comments, among the crowd, this man is crazy for married"women, an- other for boys; that man is captivated by gleaming silver; Albius marvels at bronze; this man trades his goods from the east to the lands warmed by the evening rays, rushes headlong just like the dust caught up by the wind, full of fear lest he loses his capital or the chance of a profit. Horace says that all ofthe tha onl nos wh wo flo of pre sin rer the 254 Honours Hand Book (European Classical Literature)-CC-2 them dread their (satirists’) verses and hate the poets. The poet comments that he’s dangerous, flee, he’s marked by hay tied to his horns! He won't spare a single friend to get a laugh for himself; and whatever he’s scribbled all over his parchments he’s eager for all the slaves and old women to know, on their way from the well or the bake-house. Then the poet appeals to his readers to listen to these few words of reply. He says that, firstly, he would cut his own name from those he listed as poets; it’s not enough merely to turn out a verse, and the reader can’t call someone a poet who writes like him (the poet) in a style close to everyday speech. He urges to give the honour owed to that name to a man of talent, one with a soul divine, and a powerful gift of song. That is why, Horace comments, some people have doubted if Comedy is true poetry, since in words and content it lacks inspired force and fire, and except that it differs from prose in its regular beat, is merely prose. But it, the poet adds, highlights a father there in a raging temper, because his son, a spendthrift who is madly in love with his mistress, a slut, shuns a girl with an ample dowry, reels around drunk, and causes a scandal, with torches at even-tide. Accepting the fact the poet farther asks if Pomponius would not get a lecture no less severe from a real father. So, Horace comments, it is not nearly enough to write out a line in plain speech, that if one arranged it, would allow any father to fume like the one in the play. The suggests to take the regular rhythm from this verse that he is writing now, or Lucilius wrote, putting the first words last, placing the last ones first. He comments that it is not like transposing Ennius, when hideous discord shattered the iron posts and the gateways of War. Even dismembered, Horace remarks, the reader will find there the limbs of a poet. Although these passages appear confined to a private debate between Horace and certain obscure, addle-brained opponents, they fit nicely into the context of a much larger, contemporary debate on matters of style, to which both Horace and his critics were well attuned. Again, anew understanding of these passages is called for that gives due weight to the cogency of the tenets argues by Horace’s critics. The stairsist’s central passage on style, Satires I, IV, 38-63, shows the char- acteristic marks of conversational logic. The satirist would have us believe that the entire passage is a spontaneous digression propmted by this critics’ claim odere poetas (“‘they hate poets”) in line 33, to which the response in lines 38-63 is “Then why hate me? I am no poet.” It is in this half-serious, conversationalvein that the passage is conveyed, so that one must be wary of accepting at face value the satirist’s claim that comedy and satire are not true poetry, which has little if any basis in traditional theory.