Book III

., containing the seventh, eighth and ninth satires, seems to be fixed by its opening line to the first years after the accession of Hadrian. In the eighth satire another reference is made (120) to the misgovernment of Marius in Africa as a recent event, and at line 51 there may be an allusion to the Eastern wars that occupied the last years of Trajan's reign. The ninth has no allusion to determine its date, but it is written with the same outspoken freedom as the second and the sixth, and belongs to the period when the poet's power was most vigorous, and his exposure of vice most uncompromising. In