The title is uncertain. Horace uses satura generically in ii. 1. 1 and saturae in ii. 6. 17, but elsewhere he uses the word sermones, which Porphyrio asserts was the title of the work. This name best reflects the conversational style and structure.

The Greek background to the Satires Horace expressed when he described them as Bionei sermones (Epist. ii. 2. 60); Bion of Borysthenes was one of a number of third-century ‘philosophers’ whose ideas were disseminated in moralizing sermons. But no Greek lay behind the Satires as Archilochus lay behind the Epodes: their model was Lucilius, and Horace treated the relationship in three of the Satires. In each he uses the concept of an attack on himself as a framework in which to express his ideas. In i. 4 he defends the aggressiveness of satire by reference to Lucilius (whose style he criticizes) and asserts a general social and moral function for satire; the latter he illustrates by the analogy of his own father’s moral instruction (this gives a deeply personal touch to the satire). In i. 10 he uses supposed criticism of his own stylistic criticism of Lucilius as a framework for discussing his