These forms are therefore to be regarded as three distinct and legitimate species of heroic poetry, the first of them being an epic poem in the strict Aristotelian sense, and the two others coming under the general head of _romanzi_. Of the two forms of _romanzi_, the biographical deals preferably with an historical subject, whereas the noblest writers of the more purely romantic form, dealing with many actions of many men, have invented their subject-matter. Horace says that an heroic poem should not commence at the very beginning of the hero's life; but it is difficult to understand, says Giraldi, why the whole life of a distinguished man, which gives us so great and refined a pleasure in the works of Plutarch and other biographers, should not please us all the more when described in beautiful verse by a good poet.[222] Accordingly, the poet who is composing an epic in the strict sense should, in handling the events of his narrative, plunge immediately _in medias res_. The poet dealing with many actions of many men should begin with the most important event, and the one upon which all the others may be said to hinge; whereas the poet describing the life of a single hero should begin at the very beginning, if the hero spent a really heroic youth, as Hercules for example did. The poem dealing with the life of a hero is thus a separate _genre_, and one for which Aristotle does not attempt to lay down any laws. Giraldi even goes so far as to say that Aristotle[223] censured those who write the life of Theseus or Hercules in a single poem, not because they dealt with many actions of one man, but because they treated such a poem in exactly the same manner as those who dealt with a single action of a single hero,--an assertion which is of course utterly absurd. Giraldi then proceeds to deal in detail with the disposition and composition of the _romanzi_, which he rates above the classical epics in the efficacy of ethical teaching. It is the office of the poet to praise virtuous actions and to condemn vicious actions; and in this the writers of the _romanzi_ are far superior to the writers of the ancient heroic poems.[224]