Book II

. consists of the most elaborate of the satires, by many critics regarded as the poet's masterpiece, the famous sixth satire, directed against the whole female sex, which shares with Domitian and his creatures the most cherished place in the poet's antipathies. It shows certainly no diminution of vigour either in its representation or its invective. The time at which this satire was composed cannot be fixed with certainty, but some allusions render it highly probable that it was given to the world in the later years of Trajan, and before the accession of Hadrian. The date of the publication of