5 thinkers, books, and ideas connected to this field.
Martial's collection of about 1,500 epigrams — written 86–103 CE — satirizing Roman social life with wit, obscenity, and acute observation — the foundation of the epigram as a literary form.
Roman satirist — author of 16 Satires — who attacked Rome's moral corruption with savage wit — whose phrases ('bread and circuses'; 'who watches the watchmen?') have survived as Latin quotations for 2,000 years.
Juvenal's 16 Roman satires — written 100–127 CE — attacking Rome's moral corruption, imperial sycophancy, women, and foreigners with savage wit — the most morally severe Roman satire and the source of the phrase 'bread and circuses.'
Virgil's epic poem — written 29–19 BCE — following Aeneas from the fall of Troy to the founding of Rome — the supreme Latin epic and the foundational text of Roman imperial identity.