After Horace, the satire, such as he conceived it, found no imitator; the period which followed brought with it too many conflicts to allow mildness and tolerance to find a place. The preaching of morals is carried into the domain of poetry; A. Persius Flaccus, the only representative of this class of writing, gives us a very poor idea of the age if it really regarded him as a satirist; but we are scarcely justified in drawing this conclusion, since at the most he met with approbation only from the ranks of the opposition. It is the same taste, which Lucan represents, transferred to the satire; the arrogance and self-sufficiency of an adept belonging to a circle of noble stoics, who had scarcely got beyond the scholar’s bench, hollow pathos, rhetorical ornamentation, versified expoundings of the stoic popular morality. Persius lacked practically all the attributes of a poet. A mediocre performance which might be reckoned as a satire was the _Translation into the Society of Gourds of the deified Claudius_ (_Divi Claudius Apokolokyntosis_), a petty, revengeful pamphlet against the unfortunate prince, prepared moreover after his death. The dazzling wit with which the poet strikes at gods and men might have elicited approval in his own day; but the reader’s uppermost feeling will always be that this satire sprang from miserable cowardice and perfidious flattery. The only really intellectual work of a satirical character that this period produced was the satires of Petronius, written in the reign of Nero. No other work so clearly bears the stamp of its time. At least the poor philosophy, which most of the poets have collected from their philosophical compendiums and their rhetorical exercises, has no part in this work, although the laboured and superficial culture of the time clings to its author throughout. The source of his wisdom is life. To him, man is the crown of creation, and he has studied him in all phases and degrees; what exists beside man has only interest for him inasmuch as it can serve to beautify human life and make it agreeable. Happiness and enjoyment are the watchword of the whole work, not in the coarsely material sense such as it is embodied in Trimalchio and his fellows, but a life which, while it is seasoned with all material joys, is also ennobled by all the contributions of art and cultivation. A rich and varied experience of life gives this work its great value; the age is reflected even to the most minute niceties of its language. Inventive power, description of detail, humour, and a fine irony, as well as an uncommonly skilful treatment, secure for some parts of these satires the praise of a master work; and if the frivolous and lascivious tone did not always bring us back to the court of Nero and the doings of the time, we might think that in this we had before us a model of the best age. Especially characteristic is the fine understanding of Greek art