  Philodemus and Piso may have begun their association in Rome, where the rising young politician will certainly have spent much time, or else in Campania, well-known as a haunt of Epicureans, especially of Siro, teacher of Vergil and Horace, and where Philodemus too seems to have taught. Siro and Philodemus, whom Cicero calls ‘excellent men and very learned’, are associated as living in Naples and engaging in philosophical discussions (Cicero, On Moral Ends 2.119 [T1 Sider]). Several books of Philodemus’ On Vices address a coterie of poetically minded Romans, Vergil along with three other associates of Maecenas and friends of Horace: L. Varius Rufus, Plotius Tucca, P. Quintilius Varus (PHerc. 1082 col. xi, and a treatise on calumny in  PHerc. Paris, 2; cf. Horace, Satires 1.5, 1.10 and Sider 1997: 19–23).