Conduct in human relationships, in amicitia (‘friendship’), is a prevalent theme in Horace's works, and was of considerable interest to ancient philosophers. The extent to which such aspects of human behaviour should be regarded as philosophical is a question that has been discussed both in relation to ancient philosophical texts and to Horace. My concern here, however, is not primarily to argue for their philosophical nature but to illuminate certain influences in the Satires and Epistles that draw on philosophical texts pertaining to conduct and amicitia, and in particular those of Horace's near contemporary, Philodemus.
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This paper concerns Horace's treatment of ‘the mean’ in Satires 1.2: his ironic demonstration of its elusiveness and changeability in the first part of the satire; and how this leads to the alignment of Epicurean moderation with a framework most associated with Aristotle. I argue that the irony in the sometimes apparently illogical, humorous expression of Peripatetic and Hellenistic ethics complements the satire's other ironic inconsistencies, while nevertheless serving a serious underlying philosophical purpose which some recent scholarship has denied.
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