Friendship and Patronage

Friendship as a theme is pervasive in Horace's verse, as one might expect of an adherent of Epicureanism, the philosophical school that most prized this bond (for the attitude of Roman Epicureans to friendship, cf. Cicero De finibus 1.20.65; De officiis 1.66-70). This was a notion of friendship predicated on autonomy and self-sufficiency. ................
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