The additional information as to the poet's life and circumstances derivable from the satires themselves is not important. He had enjoyed the training which all educated men received in his day (i. 15); he speaks of his farm in the territory of Tibur (xi. 65), which furnished a young kid and mountain asparagus for a homely dinner to which he invites a friend during the festival of the Megalesia. From the satire in which this invitation is contained we are able to form an idea of the style in which he habitually lived, and to think of him as enjoying a hale and vigorous age (203), and also as a kindly master of a household (159 seq.). The negative evidence afforded in the account of his establishment suggests the inference that, like Lucilius and Horace, Juvenal had no personal experience of either the cares or the softening influence of family life. A comparison of this poem with the invitation of Horace to Torquatus (_Ep._ i. 5) brings out strongly the differences not in urbanity only but in kindly feeling between the two satirists. Gaston Boissier has drawn from the indications afforded of the career and character of the persons to whom the satires are addressed most unfavourable conclusions as to the social circumstances and associations of Juvenal. If we believe that these were all real people, with whom Juvenal lived in intimacy, we should conclude that he was most unfortunate in his associates, and that his own relations to them were marked rather by outspoken frankness than civility. But they seem to be more "nominis umbrae" than real men; they serve the purpose of enabling the satirist to aim his blows at one particular object instead of declaiming at large. They have none of the individuality and traits of personal character discernible in the persons addressed by Horace in his _Satires_ and _Epistles_. It is noticeable that, while Juvenal writes of the poets and men of letters of a somewhat earlier time as if they were still living, he makes no reference to his friend Martial or the younger Pliny and Tacitus, who wrote their works during the years of his own literary activity. It is equally noticeable that Juvenal's name does not appear in Pliny's letters.