Using modern literary and anthropological theory, Bowditch investigates the relationship between Roman poets and patrons, based on a detailed study of selected Odes and Epistles which throw light on the dynamic relationship between Horace and his own patron Maecenas. Originally a thesis, this meticulously researched study examines the cultural, social and economic background to patronage in 1st-century Rome and highlights the gap between the strict hierarchy within the society of Rome and the idealised egalitarian community imagined in Horace's poems. Extracts in Latin with English translation.