Pisones

This chapter examines the Pisones , the persons to whom the Ars Poetica is addressed. It argues that Horace subjects the Pisones to a far less gentle handling than has been generally acknowledged, and one in line with his aggressive treatment at times of addressees and other figures in his Satires and Epistles . In dedicating his poem to a unit consisting of a father and two sons, Horace is able to make the father–son relationship a central narrative strand of the Ars Poetica and, with it, the theme of teaching. Ultimately, the chapter sees Horace presenting a studied evolution of his poetic persona from student-son in the Satires , written at the beginning of his career, in which one witnesses him receiving teachings from his own father, to teacher-father in the Ars Poetica , written at his career's end. From behind his masks of senex and pater , Horace instructs and helps to shape the Piso boys (and the general reader), as his own father had done for the poet's youthful persona in Satires .

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