The role of philosophy in Satires 1.2 and the other ‘diatribe’ satires

There has been much debate about the extent to which the philosophical content in the three opening diatribe satires, as signposted by allusions to Hellenistic and pre-Hellenistic ethics, ought to be considered philosophical. Some regard it as being of little philosophical significance;Footnote ¹ others, of whom I am one, see it as playing a role in the moral positioning of the poetry, the relation of ideas, and the structure – however apparently casual – of the arguments.Footnote ²

Satires 1.2 concerns the choices a young Roman male would be advised to take to meet his sexual needs while avoiding damage to his reputation, finances and emotional state. In the first part of the poem, up to line 63, Horace uses a three-term model of two opposing vices and a mean to pursue his argument. This model is most associated with Aristotle, whose doctrine of the mean is a well-known cornerstone of his ethics.Footnote ³ A specifically Aristotelian aspect to Horace's adoption of the mean is suggested at line 24: dum uitant stulti uitia, in contraria currunt, ‘while avoiding particular vices, fools rush into their opposites’;Footnote ⁴ and again, in summary of this: nil medium est, ‘there's no middle way’ (line 28). The use of the word uitia – vices – to describe the polarised behavioural extremes to be avoided is reminiscent of Aristotle's exposition of the doctrine of the mean in relation to virtue, where the vices (κακίαι) are polarised extremes (excesses and deficiencies) on either side of the virtuous mean (μεσότης, Eth. Nic. 1107a1–5).Footnote ⁵

There is uncertainty about precisely which components of Aristotle's esoteric ethics (that is, the ethics that are known to us today) were likely to have been in circulation in first-century BC Rome, though Cicero refers to two Aristotelian treatises on ethics, one of which was called ‘Nicomachean’, at De finibus 5.12 – the date of this work being 45 BC.Footnote ⁶ Also, Cicero refers to the mean itself in the context of metriopatheia (moderation of the passions), which the Peripatetics had developed in opposition to Stoic apatheia (freedom from the passions) in the Hellenistic period, at Tusc. 3.22 and 4.38.Footnote ⁷ Although it is unlikely that the Nicomachean Ethics Cicero refers to in De finibus is quite the same as the work we know, one can reasonably presume that much in them – not only with regard to the discussion of the mean in relation to passions, but also in relation to the connected area of pleasures and the virtue of temperance – would have coincided. It is clear that Cicero had knowledge of the major doctrines, whether through Aristotle's works themselves or other Peripatetic sources.Footnote ⁸ In addition, during this period in serious philosophical debate it was in fact the Peripatetics, rather than the Epicureans, who were the main opponents of the Stoics.Footnote ⁹ We can therefore be reasonably certain that an educated Roman would have been aware that this specifically three-term format used to propound moderation (rather than the advocacy of moderation in general) was most associated with the Peripatetics.Footnote ¹⁰

Although this opening and to some extent on-going theme of the mean in Satires 1.2 has been noted by commentators, its significance in the satire has generally been played down.Footnote ¹¹ Certainly, the idea of moderation as embodying a middle course, or at least of withholding oneself from excess, was a commonplace in Greek and Roman thought and literature;Footnote ¹² indeed Horace's Satires also mined Roman popular morality, especially the themes and sentiments associated with the Cynic–Stoic diatribe, where vice is targeted and so moderation duly upheld.Footnote ¹³ In particular, it has been noted that in Satires 1.1 the theme of mempsimoiria (discontent with one's lot) had also featured in the diatribes of Bion, and Horace himself refers to his Satires as Bionei sermones (Epist. 2.2.60).Footnote ¹⁴ Furthermore, inasmuch as the diatribe satires are to some extent parodies of the diatribe, and at the same time, as satires, ironically unsettle philosophical themes and individual reputations, they are not to be taken as serious philosophical expositions. But the mean in Satires 1.2 can nevertheless be seen as being applied following a model which, in its three-term format, would have been recognised as Aristotelian – a commonplace that was championed and delineated by Aristotle in this specific way.Footnote ¹⁵

The references to Hellenistic philosophy in Satires 1.2 have also been regarded as of questionable pertinence. Turpin, for example, though noting the Epicurean overtones in the poem (as he does for the other two opening diatribe satires), sees this as primarily a way for Horace to characterise the narrator as an incompetent Epicurean moralist.Footnote ¹⁶ Turpin's observations on the glib exposition of Epicurean doctrine taken together with the poem's subject and bawdy humour are in themselves convincing and illuminate a particular dimension of the satire's tone; indeed, Horace's double-edged allusions to Philodemus, discussed below, instil a further ironic undercurrent to the idea of a strictly Epicurean position. However, in making his case Turpin detracts from the still serious significance of these philosophical allusions.Footnote ¹⁷ Cynicism, in its influence on the diatribe and its frankness on sexual matters, also has a strong presence in Satires 1.2, particularly in complementing the Epicurean principles put forward in its second half. As we shall see, it is in Horace's humorously haphazard attempt to propound aspects of Hellenistic ethics to uphold a personal, though perhaps ethically questionable, agenda that an authentic philosophical truth emerges. This exemplifies what can be regarded as a key element of Horatian satire, most famously proposed at Sat. 1.1.24–5:Footnote ¹⁸

The elusive sexual mean: lines 1–63

After the introductory preamble on the inadvisability of going to extremes in many areas of life, Horace turns to sexual matters at line 28. Here he recommends the mean by again highlighting the folly of two particular extremes, having just pointed out that for the foolish, there is no middle way:

In the examples immediately preceding this, Horace mentions Maltinus, who dresses with his tunic let down low (line 25), and another with his (obscenely) hiked up to his groin (line 26); he then draws attention to Rufillus, who is over-pampered, and Gargonius, who ‘smells like a goat’ (line 27). In this way, the criteria involved – at least in respect of each of these examples – could be regarded as relating to dress (how much flesh to bare) and personal hygiene. Following this, the two extreme sexual options at lines 28–30 seem to be judged mainly by a criterion of accessibility. At least, this criterion suits the argument which immediately follows (see below), though it is slightly complicated since the brothel-prostitute and the matrona are also described in terms of dress and hygiene (the matrona is described by the clothes she wears, the prostitute by the stinking brothel in which she works: lines 27 olet, 30 olenti). Hence these extremes also partake in the criteria of the preceding examples so that the scale of accessibility is lent a subsidiary criterion of good taste or even (within the constraints of the bawdy context) of Panaetian appropriateness.Footnote ¹⁹ Still, those whose heels are covered by a flounce sewn onto their dress are matronae, married women, and as such are inaccessible. Although sexual relations with matronae were not yet technically illegal, the kinds of punishments meted out by husbands or dishonoured fathers (and deemed acceptable, as suggested by Horace in lines 37–46) would strongly affirm its inadvisability.Footnote ²⁰ Bearing in mind that one of these extremes (the brothel-prostitute) is therefore practically forbidden and the other (the matrona) demonstrably accessible, it is perhaps not surprising that the married woman, in the following lines, comes in for more severe criticism as a potential sexual choice:

Certainly, Cato's relative approval – or, rather, Horace's rendering of it – of the brothel-prostitute can be taken ironicallyFootnote ²¹ (note, for example, that his view is dia, and then the juxtaposition of taetra and aequum), and indeed the attendant description of the woman olenti in fornice (the sordid consequence of excessive accessibility) clearly presents this as an unappealing choice too; but the fact that adultery is considered out-and-out wrong, and the seedy prostitute is, as Rudd notes, ‘half condoned’, already suggests an unevenness in Horace's use of the mean as a model for his argument which some have thought problematic.Footnote ²²

Having got off to this unbalanced start, Horace then, it would seem, creates further difficulties in lines 49–63. At 47–8 he recommends the freedwoman as the medial, second – ‘favourable’ – choice between the seedy prostitute and the married woman (tutior at quanto merx est in classe secunda, | libertinarum dico), but this is only to introduce a passage which illustrates how this choice too can be problematic.Footnote ²³ This has been regarded as contradictory. Fraenkel notes that the idea of the freedwoman is no longer being promoted, and that at lines 62–3 (quid inter|est in matrona, ancilla peccesne togata?, ‘What difference does it make whether you go wrong with a married woman or a toga-wearing maid?’) ‘dealings with an ancilla togata [i.e. a slave-girl/prostitute, not a brothel-prostitute] seem to be just as harmful as those with a matrona’.Footnote ²⁴ Rudd takes the view that the satire would have been clearer if, having begun with a three-term ‘firm Aristotelian framework’, Horace had abandoned the mean altogether and stuck to a two-term argument (accessible sex versus adultery) from then on, rather than doing ‘now one, now the other’.Footnote ²⁵

These observations may amount to a fair criticism of the argument's rhetorical clarity, though in effect it has now simply been adjusted to make the point that infatuation with any sort of woman is an extreme condition to be avoided.Footnote ²⁶ The haphazard – and at first glance rather inconsequential – run of the discourse also serves to bring into focus the particular aspect of the mean that drives the narrative up to line 63 and accounts for much of the satire's humour: its elusiveness – nil medium est, as Horace justly puts it at line 28 before embarking on his argument. Although the tone behind this statement may seem a little scathing, with the implication that sensible people ought to be aware that there is a middle way which, with due consideration, is perfectly attainable, it in fact transpires that the mean is more difficult to achieve than the narrator at first supposed.

The narrator is initially saying with an unsubtle, knowing irony that there is no middle way (for foolish people), and then goes on to show (really ironically) between lines 49 and 63 that perhaps there really is no middle way – or that he, like those he criticises, is himself foolish. The problem is that trying to achieve the mean can itself lead to an extreme, when instead of rushing to opposing vices (as at line 24), fools make vices and excesses out of the mean – by rushing too eagerly in that direction.Footnote ²⁷ The irony here is enhanced by the progression of the narrative: having presented us with the mean, the narrator realises – in a conversationally natural way – that there are still further temptations and tendencies towards excess which must be checked. He is also, in his eager switch from adultery to the libertina, himself rushing from one vice to another (given how the mean of the libertina, in his hands, is itself so quickly shown to be a potential vice).Footnote ²⁸ The sudden flip from the libertina as the desirable mean to a potentially disastrous choice, rather than being merely confusing and contradictory (whether to show up the narrator parodically as an inadequate moralist or not), can therefore be seen as designed for intentionally ironic purposes, to underline the mean's elusiveness.

With these observations in mind, it is notable that Aristotle too stressed that the mean was difficult to come by (Eth. Nic. 1109a24) – that it was not possible for everyone, only for him who knew.Footnote ²⁹ Even if one were to doubt the likelihood of Horace or his readers being familiar with this passage from the extant Nicomachean Ethics, it is nevertheless reasonable to suppose that Peripatetics in the first century BC would still not have regarded the mean (in the context of metriopatheia, for example) as easily attainable, since it was an ideal associated with the Peripatetic telos of virtue and achievable only by the wise. Thus Horace's readers could have been aware not only of the internal irony within the satire regarding the mean's elusiveness, but also of the difficulty of its attainment in a Peripatetic, or at least more philosophically formal, context.

In his study of moderation in Horace, Propertius and Ovid, which also deals specifically with Satires 1.2, Roy Gibson comments on the fact that, as far as it appears in Roman (and early modern) literature, the mean is a somewhat elastic concept, and so prey to misunderstanding and resulting differences of interpretation; following from this, he astutely suggests that Horace plays on this interpretative elasticity for satirical purposes.Footnote ³⁰ Indeed, given the intellectual landscape of first-century BC Rome, particularly the activity of the Peripatetic school and its being the main opponent of Stoicism at the time, it could be that Horace is presenting us not only with the incompetent Epicurean moralist found by Turpin (above, at n. 16), but also with an incompetent Peripatetic moralist – or, indeed, any moralist who was quick to use the most commonplace and apparently easily communicable aspects of the mean to promote his own agenda. If one considers the Peripatetic position on sex and adultery in particular, adultery is seen as a result of licentiousness (e.g. Arist. Eth. Nic. 1130a29), which is the excess in relation to the mean of temperance and the opposing deficiency of insensibility (in the context of pleasures).Footnote ³¹ Although the narrator of Satires 1.2 does indeed advocate the mean, the fact that he considers sexual choice on a scale of accessibility (albeit with an attendant sense of appropriateness) is a considerable divergence from the Aristotelian consideration of sex with regard to the mean of temperance.Footnote ³² Equally, if one doubts that Aristotle is specifically being invoked here, the scale of accessibility in Horace, while it might be drawn from a hedonist's perspective or that of a popular image of Epicureans, would also not belong in the ethical system of a strict Epicurean or, for that matter, any philosophical system that regarded moderation as concomitant with virtuous living.

In actual fact, however, this distinction between the mean as part of virtuous living and the mean from a carnally hedonistic perspective is itself undercut by the fact that the reader of Satires 1.2, although asked within this conversational, bawdy context to regard adultery as primarily an extreme or vice with regard to accessibility, would from a morally serious perspective naturally also see adultery as wrong. The reason why adultery is practically forbidden is that it is regarded as a non-virtuous, morally wrong choice – one that is in contravention of the generally understood social and moral code of the time and as such can have dire social consequences (not just in terms of what Horace describes at lines 37–46). So the hedonist's argument, rather than being distinct from the Peripatetic's – or from any moralist's who sees moderation as conducive to virtue – is, in fact, somewhat confused with it because of the generally understood moral wrongness of adultery.

Therefore, following the statement nil medium est (line 28), on the surface of it the narrator puts forth an energetic argument about the dangers and pitfalls of sex with both seedy prostitutes and matronae. But in doing so he concentrates too much on adultery, creating a sense of imbalance; then in his lurch towards the libertina as the favourable choice, he finds the mean difficult to attain there too. Moreover, the moral intentions of the narrator seem somewhat confused, which adds to the sense of rhetorical uncertainty – elusiveness – as to precisely what the mean might be.

The changing nature of the mean in Satires 1.2 and its alignment with Epicurean moderation

As we have seen, the way in which sexual choices are depicted at lines 28–30 is not straightforward. Although accessibility would appear to be the major criterion, there is a sense that one is also being advised to choose according to some understood sense of appropriateness, that is, with some regard to a generally accepted moral judgement, and also to judgements regarding hygiene, class and attire. In this way, the narrator comes across as prescribing choices with regard to types of women, with the more easily measurable criterion of accessibility being obscured and confused. This contributes to the sense of the mean being difficult to define.

In fact, it can be argued that the doctrine of the mean, in its three-term, arithmetical, format (as if vice through deficiency were, say, on the extreme left-hand side of a horizontal line, vice through excess on the extreme right, and the ideal mean in an intermediate position) is rather limited. Most importantly, the criteria by which vices and the mean are being judged must always be made known – otherwise vices are open to be understood as vices in their own right, as it were, rather than relative to a mean and an opposing vice.Footnote ³³ It is in part this arithmetical, three-term interpretation of the mean which leads to the inconsequentiality of the argument in lines 49–63 (where the idea of a freedwoman as a happy mean comes unstuck), and pushes the narrator to pursue his argument for moderation in Epicurean terms.

Following the notion that vices can be judged as wrong in themselves, and so not necessarily according to some objective scale on which there might be found a corresponding mean and opposite vice, the matrona in Sat. 1.2 can be regarded as an extreme in a qualitative as well as a quantitative way: she is put forward as the wrong kind of woman to pursue. Even if we accept that there is a guiding quantitative scale of accessibility, this is never spelt out clearly, and the sexual options in lines 28–30 are presented as sexual objects of certain types with certain qualities.Footnote ³⁴ There is perhaps a sense that the narrator himself is not entirely sure what quantitative criterion he is applying, even at the outset. Alternatively, assuming that he is consciously suggesting that it is mainly about accessibility, he seems to forget this, and rashly jumps without explanation to other vices according to other criteria. If the narrator had moved on quickly from sexual matters after line 30 (as he had with the prior examples of foolish extremes), he would have avoided the confusion he goes on to create from line 49 onwards. But there, having embarked on this three-term format, the narrator in his impatience fails to proceed logically with accessibility as his guide. And it is partly for this reason that, as if by trial and error, he then finds himself pursuing moderation in more identifiably Epicurean terms.

From line 64 to the end of the satire Horace concentrates on the danger of adultery, coupling it with infatuation and setting it against the mean – the sensible, advisable choice – which he presents as satisfying one's desires on a casual, detached basis with the right kind of accessible sexual partner. The implication in the latter half of the poem that adultery is aligned with infatuation rests on the way in which Horace warns against the empty and dangerous attractions of matronae, so practically suggesting that one would have to be infatuated to indulge in such relations.Footnote ³⁵ At lines 96–7 he suggests that it is often the lure of forbidden fruit that spurs this infatuation:

In advocating cool-headed, casual sex, Horace effectively moulds the idea of the mean into a more recognisably Epicurean strain of moderation. The mean is subsumed by moderation as defined by living within the boundaries set by natura.Footnote ³⁶ Thus the mean, or middle way, having already been a little confusedly put forward in lines 47–63 as a casual, measured attitude to sex with reasonably accessible women, now becomes defined in Epicurean terms to illustrate the stupidity – and pain – of adultery, and the relative painlessness (Epicurean ataraxia) and of course pleasure of casual sex with an accessible woman. These Epicurean sentiments first begin to surface in lines 68–76, when the narrator comically asks whether the mutto (‘prick’) would have a preference for a particular type of woman (68–73), namely a married woman of noble birth. The absurdity of such a question incurs his subsequent recommendation to adhere to the dictates of nature:Footnote ³⁷

Again at lines 111–16 Horace alludes to the Epicurean distinction between the empty and the solid – what is to be avoided and what is naturally obtainable:Footnote ³⁸

This is followed by a direct quotation from an epigram of the Epicurean Philodemus, who advises against wasting time with inaccessible women:

Then, at lines 125–7 it appears that Horace may have drawn on a fragment of the Cynic Cercidas of Megalopolis:Footnote ³⁹

The Cynic flavour of Satires 1.2 is considerable. As mentioned, the Satires, as Bionei sermones, are in the tradition of the Cynic–Stoic diatribe; with regard to the subject matter here in particular, Cynicism was well known for its open attitude to sex.Footnote ⁴⁰ But the Cynic and Epicurean positions on sex are not far removed from each other: both schools are critical of the idea of falling in love, and opt for an approach which favours as little trouble as possible – a view taken up with rhetorical verve by Lucretius in book 4.Footnote ⁴¹ In fact, Brown (Reference Brown1987, 199) is perhaps right to suggest that these sentiments at lines 125–7 may have come via Philodemus, to whom Horace has just referred:Footnote ⁴² just as it seems that Philodemus was apt to endorse the Cynic attitude to sex to promote his own views, so is Horace, who in his pursuance of the moderation argument is essentially promoting Epicurean principles.

However, while the Epicurean influence is underscored by the reference to Philodemus by name, another earlier allusion to Philodemus could in fact be regarded as having an ironically destabilising effect on this Epicurean narrative. At lines 92–3 Philodemus’ sentiments, in his capacity as a love poet, are a source of parody.Footnote ⁴³ In the epigram to which Horace alludes here the girl's attributes continue to be exalted whereas in Horace, from uerum on, they do not meet with much approval:Footnote ⁴⁴

Indeed, this ironic instability brought about by Horace's invocation of Philodemus can be seen as similar to the deliberately confused treatment of a doctrine associated with Aristotle in the first part of the satire. In this way Horace is suggesting that however much cracker-barrel sense the argument makes – however serious or, at least in practical terms, truthful it is – we ought to be on our guard against taking it too seriously, as the satire form and subject matter demand anyway. But at the same time, with respect to the way in which these deliberate inconsistencies ironically enhance the underlying, serious message, we ought to be reminded all the more of the difficulty of avoiding Epicurean ‘empty opinion’ (kenodoxia, to which lines 92–3 imply that Philodemus succumbed), just as lines 49–63 should remind us of the difficulty of finding the mean. A similarly ironic, destabilising effect can also be inferred from Horace's references to Cato (line 31) and Sallust (line 48), where the suggestion that Sallust is in thrall to Cato's sentiments is undercut first by the fact that Cato, with a reputation as a stuffy moralist, is here approving of a brothel, then by the fact that Sallust was known for his adultery.Footnote ⁴⁵ Indeed, the satire's conclusion, in which the narrator appears to admit to his own stupidity in sexual matters (lines 127–34), serves to underline this funny, serious, hypocritical – ironic – undercurrent.Footnote ⁴⁶

The irony in the narrator's hypocrisy is, in fact, something of a unifying theme which develops through the three diatribe satires, alongside the unifying theme of moderation and stylistic similarities such as the introductory preamble of twenty-two lines in each.Footnote ⁴⁷ The illogicality of the argument in 1.1 reappears in 1.2 with an added hypocrisy, which is further developed in 1.3, while the reader becomes progressively more aware of the poems’ underlying truth.Footnote ⁴⁸ The humorous, hypocritical ending of 1.2 overturns the pretence of the narrator as a serious speaker while at the same time highlighting the philosophical truth under discussion. Horace does not labour the point by driving it home with argument, and although at the end of 1.2 he appears eager to rush on to the next poem, this is, in many ways, to continue his philosophical exposition – his continuing ironic espousal of moderation – rather than to start on something entirely new.

To return to the end of Satires 1.2, if we follow the surface Epicurean narrative from line 64 on, an aspect of the Epicurean rendering of moderation comes to light which is particularly (it would seem fortuitously) conducive to the narrator's argument: the fact that it can be defined in terms both quantitative and qualitative. If one considers the Epicurean view of moderation as dependent on desires being natural or unnatural, and necessary or unnecessary, the need to gratify desires that are natural and necessary would suggest a quantitative amount to ensure survival and security, whereas desires that are unnecessary imply a further qualitative aspect to living within limits, where personal preferences for particular types can be seen to operate. Compare Epicurus Sent. Vat. 29:

Annas gives a more detailed example of what is meant here by saying that the enjoyment of lobster could be classed as a natural and unnecessary desire (any kind of food will do to satisfy hunger), but that insistence on lobster makes this desire unnatural as well as unnecessary; the insistence is born of empty opinion (kenodoxia).Footnote ⁴⁹ In choosing the example of a particular food Annas is mindful of the scholion on Sent. Vat. 29, which adds:

It is in this diversification that a choice can be made according to particular taste and so to type, whereas in the three-term framework of the mean, applied according to a particular scale, such a qualitative element is only to be implied or understood (or even explained) in relation to other circumstances or specific, individual considerations.

Horace, too, uses the example of kinds of food to express the stupidity of kenodoxia in Satires 1.2. At line 116 he asks whether, when hungry, one would disdain everything but peacock and turbot, thus invoking Epicurean moderation by pointing out the folly of misguided opinion rather than (in the case of food) outright gluttony.Footnote ⁵¹ This image is used to support the view that when one desires sexual gratification one ought to take what is available rather than ‘burst with lust’ (tentigine rumpi, line 118) by insisting on a particular kind of woman – a high-class matrona.

Thus, having presented the libertina as a mean (lines 47–8) and shown how such a mean can itself be a vice if not pursued in a moderate way (lines 49–63), from line 64 on Horace channels the mean into Epicurean moderation. While the mean can be seen in ethics generally, as in Satires 1.2, as a basic guiding rule regarding moderation (not too much, not too little, but the right amount), it nevertheless appears that when applied to practical life, to different, changing examples and circumstances like those encountered in Satires 1.2, the Epicurean principles of behaviour and choice according to what is natural and necessary (and natural and unnecessary, and unnatural and unnecessary) have an inbuilt flexibility which can more easily be applied to individuals and particular circumstances. Horace's ironic allusions, even to an Epicurean like Philodemus, and indeed the foolish hypocrisy of the narrator himself in the satire's conclusion, render the Epicurean warning against the difficulty of avoiding kenodoxia all the more pertinent and true, just as his ironic handling of the mean, up to line 63, highlighted the difficulty of its attainment.