  There is little doubt that the vices treated by Philodemus were very widespread in the late Roman Republic, and it is likely that his work was in part meant to instruct those who had to live in that society about the alternative provided by Epicureanism. Perhaps Philodemus also intended to provide the poetically minded friends to whom the work was addressed with instruction on how to manage their own relations with others, including their patrons and members of their philosophically oriented discussion groups, and with raw material, in the form of character descriptions and analyses, for their poetry. Sider 1997: 21 notes that Horace, who was an associate of the four addressees of On Vices, says (Ars Poetica 438–452) that, if one read him one’s verses, Quintilius (one of the four) would not flatter, but offer honest criticism as a true friend would do, acting like Aristarchus and not saying: ‘Why should I offend my friend over trifles?’. Such a connection between criticism and friendship is not a standard topic of Hellenistic literary criticism, but it is central to Philodemus’ ethical works, where it appears as the art of frank criticism.