Captioned: "Mores hominum. The manners of men, described in sixteen satires, or, a survey of the manners and actions of mankind by Juvenal: as he is published in his most authentic copy, lately printed by command of the King of France. Plates engraved by Wenceslaus Hollar and published in 1660." This image accompanies: Satire VI: The Decay of Feminine Virtue. Decimus Junius Juvenalis, known in English as Juvenal, was a Roman poet active in the late 1st and early 2nd century AD, author of the Satires. Juvenal wrote at least 16 poems in dactylic hexameter covering an encyclopedic range of topics across the Roman world. While the Satires are a vital source for the study of ancient Rome from a vast number of perspectives, their hyperbolic, comic mode of expression makes the use of statements found within them as simple fact problematic. Juvenal criticizes the actions and beliefs of many of his contemporaries, providing insight more into value systems and questions of morality and less into the realities of Roman life. The author makes constant allusion to history and myth as a source of object lessons or exemplars of particular vices and virtues.