gradually changing the nature of poetry from a performance before a local group to a literary artifact with an international reach. By the Hellenistic period, the librarian/scholar Callimachus claimed to be following the example of Hipponax yet introduced a wider range of content and a more literary and intellectual focus. He also aligned iambus more closely with other genres such as curse poetry (Ἀραί) and farewell poetry (propemptika, ). Iambus was taken up as a political weapon by some public figures in Rome, such as Cato The Elder, who, in an account by Plutarch: Neoteric poets such as Catullus combined a native tradition of satirical epigram with Hipponax's pungent invective to form neatly crafted, personal attacks. Hipponactean choliambs were among Catullus's most often used meters but the spirit of iambus seems to have infused much of his non-iambic verse as well. Horace nominally modelled his Epodes on the work of Archilochus but he mainly followed the example of Callimachus, relying on painstaking craftsmanship rather than instinctive vitriol and broadening the range of the genre. Thus, for example he introduced a panagyric element in support of Augustus (Epodes 1 and 9), a lyrical element (Epode 13), and a suggestion of love poetry (Epodes 11 and 14). Moreover, his iambic persona is deliberately presented as powerless, in contrast to the swaggering persona of Archilochus. Horace's weak iambic persona is not inconsistent with the genre. Traditionally the iambic poet, though he bullies others, is a victim too. Thus, Archilochus was said to have driven his would-be in-laws to suicide by his invectives after they had cheated him out of a promised marriage, and Hipponax was said to have driven Bupalus to suicide after being caricatured by him in a sculpture. Similarly the author of the Strasbourg fragment below is motivated by revenge. Moreover, Horace's thematic variety is not without parallel among archaic poets such as Archilochus and Hipponax: the mood of the genre is meant to appear spontaneous and that inevitably led to some "hodepodge" contexts. Whatever his unique contribution may have been, Horace still managed to recreate something of the ancient spirit of the genre, alerting his companions to threats facing them as a group, in this case as Roman citizens of a doomed republic: {{Quote|In the midst of a crisis which could be seen as a result of the decline and failure of traditional Roman amicitia, Horace turned to a type