The writings of Horace have exerted strong and continuing influence on
writers from his day to our own. Sophisticated and intellectual, witty
and frank, he speaks to the cultivated and civilized world of today with
the same astringent candor and sprightliness that appeared so fresh at
the height of Rome's wealthy and glory.
The Satires and Epistles spans the poet's career as a satirist,
critic, and master of lyric poetry, as man of the world, friend of the
great, and relentless enemy of the mediocre. Horace, writes translator
Smith Palmer Bovie, is the best antidote in the world for anxiety. His
Satires and Epistles demonstrate the good-humored freedom of a man
who has cheerfully assumed the responsibility for making his own life
not so much a 'success' as the occasion for a true enjoyment of virtue
and knowledge. Bovie's impeccable translation, along with Clancy's
edition of the Odes and Epodes, offers the reader a complete and
modern Horace.