Aristippus, Ulysses, and the Philosophus Polutropos in Horace Epistles, Book 1

Horace’s ethical project in Epistles book 1 weaves the philosophical and the poetic together in a richly constructed tapestry centered on the polytropic ideal formed of links, both subtle and explicit, between the exemplary lives of Ulysses from the world of poetry and Aristippus from the world of philosophy. The flexibility, adaptability, and resourcefulness of his central exemplars provide a key to decoding many of the ethical dilemmas raised within the poems which make up Epistles 1, including those most central to issues inherent to the Roman social institution of the patron and client relationship.