Roman Satire and Imperial Society

Roman satire developed as a Latin genre of moral and social criticism. Horace, Persius, Juvenal, Martial and Petronius used wit, persona, invective and comic exaggeration to expose the anxieties of Roman social life.

The context matters because satire is one of the sharpest sources for Roman urban culture, patronage, dining, sex, money, literary competition and status anxiety. It should not be treated as plain reportage, but it reveals what Roman writers thought was laughable or corrupt.

It supports editions of satires, epigrams and satirical fiction such as the Satyricon and Apocolocyntosis.