In the two loci classici about Roman satire, Quintilian and Diomedes famously draw a bifurcation of the history of the genre into two strands, which often comes in handy for modern scholars. This chapter argues that this bifurcation is the result of a stratification of, and compromise between, at least two different views: a communis opinio held by most authors of satire of the Republican period and their readers, and the single but ‘authoritative’ view of Horace, who established meter as a formal criterion to define satire. This chapter traces the origins of both views by discussing the relevant sources, and shows how Horace’s Satires appropriated pre-existing ideas about the nature and history of the genre, innovated on key aspects of them, and became a source of original ideas in turn. A similar scheme applies to Quintilian and Diomedes too: their perspective combines previous stances, but this combination itself represents an innovation which influences our own view of Roman satire in turn. Thus, while focusing on Roman satire, this chapter discusses a more general dynamic in the creation of literary histories.

This chapter examines the language of Lucilius’ hexametrical satires, discussing aspects of vocabulary, morphology, syntax and versification. The varied typology of Lucilius’ supposedly early lexicon (obsolete words; words tied to genre, whether high-style or comic; evidence of seemingly spoken usage in various registers) demonstrates that whatever characteristics of earlier diction Lucilius retains are largely motivated by literary purposes, and often innovated upon. Morphological and syntactical features which Classical Latin will discard are also few and coexisting with diachronic or diastratic variants. Pronounced alliteration, synonymic pairs, and persistent reduction of final -s place firmly Lucilius in pre-neoteric poetic diction - but this too is stylised, marked language. The answer to the question ‘How early Latin is Lucilius?’ is, not very much, if we are looking for evidence of a superseded variety of Latin rather than deliberate literary choices for the sake of register, style or genre.

Discussion of Cicero’s use of Latin poetry (Lucilius’ Satires, Ennius’ Annales) as evidence of Roman history. Discussion of Cicero’s conceptualization of Latin poetry as artefact of Roman culture.

An exploration of the cultural mechanism of quotation in modernity and antiquity. An overview of the process of ancient poetic fragmentation (how fragments of poetry are made) and a brief history of scholarly editions and collections of Latin poetic fragments. An overview of techniques used by Cicero to quote poetry, and the impact of his methods upon the modern understanding of fragmentary Latin poetry.

My paper considers Lucilius’ relationship to Ennius within the evolving culture of literary appreciation and professionalization in Rome at the end of the second century BCE, when generic boundaries between epic and satire are newly forming and the emerging priorities for literary culture do not necessarily align with the canon-forming tendencies of later periods. Instead of letting, for example, Horace’s version of the relationship of satire to epic orient us to expect parody, a Lucilius-first perspective on Ennius creates a productive sort of dislocation with an eye to the multifarious nature of Ennius’ output, including his satires. A capacity to do literary criticism is prominent in Lucilian satire, and it creates differentiation from Ennius along lines not only defined by a generic hierarchy. On this score I discuss the case of what looks like feed-back of interpretation into the Annals in light of post-Ennian developments in satire, namely the assertion that the “good companion” passage is an Ennian self-portrait.