ABSTRACT
Little attention has been paid to the form which Horace adopted when in 23 B.C. he laid down his ‘Roman lyre’ 1 and resumed the writing of hexameter poetry. Sermones, ‘talks’, is the word under which he seems to bracket his satires and epistles. Commentators, perhaps because of this bracketing, have been too inclined to ignore the epistolary background and tradition.2
