Chapter IV: Appendix: , on the Date of Juvenal's Satires (1)

The first Satire appears, from internal evidence, to have been written subsequently to at least the larger portion of the other Satires. But in this, as probably in many others, lines were interpolated here and there, at a period long after the original composition of the main body of the Satire; the cycle of events reproducing such a combination of circumstances, that the Satirist could make his shafts come home with two-fold pungency. For instance, the lines 60 _et seq._, which probably were in the first edition of the Satire directed against Nero and his favorite Sporus, would tell with equal effect against Hadrian and Antinous.

It is impossible, therefore, from any one given passage, to assign a date to any of the Satires of Juvenal. All that can be done, is to point out the allusion probably intended in the particular passages, and by that means fix a date prior to which we may reasonably conclude that portion could not have been written.

In those Satires whose subject is less complicated and extensive, a nearer approximation may be obtained to the date of the composition; as e. g. in the case of the second and eleventh Satires, and we may add the thirteenth and fifteenth.

But in the first Satire, the allusions extend over so wide a period, that unless we may suppose, as in the case just cited, that other persons are intended under the names known to history, to whom his readers would apply immediately the covert sarcasm, we can hardly imagine that they could _all_ at any one given time serve to give point to the shaft of the Satirist. Thus Crispinus, mentioned l. 27, was made a senator by Nero, and lived probably under Domitian also. The barber alluded to in l. 25 (if, as the commentators suppose, Cinnamus is the person), must have lost all his wealth, and been reduced to poverty, somewhere about A.D. 93, the date of Martial's seventh book of Epigrams (who mentions the fact, and advises him to recur to his old trade, Ep. VII. lxiv.). Massa and Carus (l. 35, 36) are mentioned by Martial as apparently flourishing when he wrote his twelfth book, which was sent to Rome A.D. 104. Again, line 49 seems to refer to the condemnation of Marius as a recent event; but this took place in A.D. 100. And in that same year M. Cornelius Fronto was consul with Trajan; and may have been the proprietor of the plane-groves, mentioned l. 12. But then, again, we hear of Julius Fronto in A.D. 129, and Hadrian's conduct toward Antinous in that and the following year, might well have given occasion to the 60th and following lines; and if we are right in applying line 40 to Plotina's manœuvring to secure the succession to Hadrian, it will furnish an additional argument for supposing these passages to have been added some time after. We may therefore offer the conjecture, that the first Satire was written shortly after the year A.D. 100, as a preface or introduction to the book, and that a few additions were made to it, even so late as thirty years subsequently.

The second Satire was, in all probability, the first written. The allusion in the first line to the Sarmatæ, may perhaps be connected with the Sarmatian war, which took place A.D. 93, and in which Domitian engaged in person. And this date will correspond with the other references in the Satire by which an approximation to the time of its composition may be obtained. In A.D. 84 Domitian received the censorship for life (l. 121), at the same time that he was carrying on an incestuous intercourse with his own niece Julia. This connection was continued for some years. Shortly after the death of Julia, the Vestal virgin Cornelia was buried alive, A.D. 91. These are alluded to as _recent_ events (l. 29, "nuper"). Agricola, too, the conqueror of Britain, died A.D. 93 (cf. l. 160), whose campaigns are spoken of as recent occurrences, "modo captas Orcadas." The mention of Gracchus also connects this with the eighth Satire, part of which at least was probably written soon after the consulship of Lateranus in A.D. 94. We may therefore conjecture that the Satire was composed between the years A.D. 93 and 95.

The third Satire may perhaps have been written in the reign of Domitian, and may refer to the general departure of men of worth from Rome, when Domitian expelled the philosophers, A.D. 90. Umbritius, who predicted the murder of Galba, A.D. 69, might have been alive at that time; and, from his political views, would have been a friend of Juvenal, who was a bitter enemy of Otho. The nightly deeds of violence perpetrated by Nero would have been still fresh in men's memories (l. 278, _seq._; cf. Pers., Sat., iv., 49); as would the judicial murder of Barea Soranus, and the arrogance of Fabricius Veiento (l. 116, 185). Still there are other parts of the Satire that seem to bear evidence of a later date. The name of Isæus would hardly have been so familiar in Rome till ten years after this date, l. 74. It was not till A.D. 107 that Trajan undertook the draining of the Pontine marshes; to which there is most probably an allusion in l. 32 and 307; to which nothing of importance had been done since the days of Augustus. The great influx of foreigners into Rome, in the train of Hadrian, at a still later date, A.D. 118, probably gave rise to the spirited episode from l. 58-125. (See Chronology.) We may therefore consider it probable that the main body of the Satire was written toward the close of the reign of Domitian, and received additions in the commencement of the reign of Hadrian.

The fourth Satire in all probability describes a real event; and would have possessed but little interest after any great lapse of time, subsequent to the fact described. We may therefore fairly assign it to the early part of Nerva's reign, very shortly after the death of Domitian, which is mentioned at the close of the Satire.

The fifth Satire contains nothing by which we can determine the date. From Juvenal's hatred of Domitian, we may suppose that l. 36 was suggested by the condemnation of Senecio, who was put to death for writing a panegyric on Helvidius Priscus, A.D. 90. If the Aurelia (l. 98) be the lady mentioned by Pliny (Epist., ii., 20), this would strengthen the conjecture, as Pliny's second book of Epistles was probably written very shortly before that date.

There is little doubt that considerable portions of the sixth Satire were written in the reign of Trajan. 1. The lines 407-411 describe exactly the events which took place at Antioch, in A.D. 115, when Trajan was entering on his Armenian and Parthian campaigns. 2. The coins of Trajan of the year A.D. 110, have the legend Dacicus and Germanicus, cf. l. 205; and although Domitian triumphed over the Dacians and Germans, none of his extant coins bear that inscription; the general title being Augustus Germanicus simply. 3. Again, l. 502 describes a kind of headdress, very common on the coins of the reigns of Trajan and Hadrian, representing Plotina the wife of Trajan, Marciana his sister, and Sabina the wife of Hadrian, and others: and this fashion was a very short-lived one. Beginning with the court, it probably soon descended to the ladies of inferior rank; but like its unnatural antitype, the towering, powdered, and plastered rolls of our own countrywomen, in the degraded days of the two first Georges, it was too unnatural and disfiguring to remain long in vogue with that sex, to whom "tanta est quærendi cura decoris tanquam famæ discrimen agatur aut animæ." 4. The subject itself also affords an additional reason for supposing that the Satire was composed when the poet was advanced in life. The vices of women are hardly a topic for a young writer to select; but the vigorous manner in which he handles the lash, rather marks the state of mind of the man who has outgrown the passions of early manhood, and from "the high heaven of his philosophy" looks down with cold austerity on the desires, and with bitter indignation at the vices, of those whose feelings he has long since ceased to share. Juvenal was, as Hodgson says, "an impenetrable bachelor," and if, as he conjectures, he was jilted in his early youth, this fact would give additional bitterness to the rancor which in old age he would feel toward the sex by whom his personal happiness had been embittered, as well as the ruin of his native country precipitated. 5. If we are right in supposing that by Heliodorus, Juvenal meant Artemidorus Capito (and the change in the name is both simple and readily suggested), this would also bring down the date of this Satire to Juvenal's later years, as about A.D. 122 was the time when this court-physician of Hadrian had attained his greatest reputation. 6. In line 320, Saufeia is spoken of in similar terms to those employed in the eleventh Satire, which was confessedly the work of his later years. 7. Compare also the mention of Archigenes (l. 236) with the 98th line of the thirteenth Satire, written A.D. 118. 8. The allusions to the importation of foreigners, with their exotic vices, would also refer to the same date. See Chron., A.D. 118.

The date of the seventh Satire will depend mainly on the question, Whom does Juvenal intend to panegyrize in his 1st line?

"Et spes et ratio studiorum in Cæsare tantum."

Gifford pronounces unhesitatingly in favor of Domitian, and his argument is very plausible. "The Satire," he says, "would appear to have been written in the early part of Domitian's reign; and Juvenal, by giving the emperor '_one honest line_' of praise, probably meant to stimulate him to extend his patronage. He did not think very ill of him at the time, and augured happily for the future." Juvenal's subsequent hatred of Domitian was caused, he thinks, by his bitter mortification at finding, in a few years, this "sole patron of literature" changed into a ferocious and bloody persecutor of all the arts. This opinion he supports by some references to contemporary writers, and by the evidence of coins of Domitian existing with a head of Pallas on the reverse, to symbolize his royal patronage of poetry and literary pursuits. But in almost every instance Gifford errs in assigning too early a date to the Satires; and one or two points in this clearly show that we must bring it down to a much later period. Domitian succeeded to the throne A.D. 81, and it could only have been in the _earlier_ years of his reign that even his most servile flatterers could have complimented him upon his patronage of learning. Now, 1. It was not till about ten years after this that the actor Paris acquired his influence and his wealth; and even allowing the very problematical story of the banishment of Juvenal having been caused by the offense given to the favorite by the famous lines (85-92) to be true, this would bring it down to a time subsequent to the banishment of philosophers from Rome; after which act Juvenal, certainly, would not have written the first line on Domitian. 2. Again, in A.D. 90, Quintilian was teaching in a public school at Rome, and receiving a salary from the imperial treasury; it could hardly therefore be so early as this date that he had acquired the fortune and estates alluded to in l. 189. 3. In l. 82, the Thebaid of Statius is mentioned. This poem was finished A.D. 94; and though it is true that Statius might, most probably, have publicly recited portions of it _during its progress_, it would have hardly earned the great reputation implied in Juvenal's lines, at a sufficiently early date to allow us to assign it to the first two or three years of Domitian's reign.

I should, therefore, rather suppose that by Cæsar we are to understand Nerva. The praise of Domitian is incompatible with Juvenal's universal hatred and execration of him. The opening of the reign of the mild and excellent Nerva might well inspire hopes of the revival of a taste for literature and the arts; and I would conjecture the close of A.D. 96 as the date of the Satire. Before the end of the year Statius was dead; but Juvenal's words seem to imply that he was still living. Again, Matho the lawyer has failed, and is in great poverty (l. 129), to which Martial alludes in lib. xi., Ep., part of which book was evidently written shortly before A.D. 97. But if we are right in supposing the first Satire to have been written about A.D. 100, the intervening years will have given Matho ample time to retrieve his fortune by his infamous trade of informing, and reappear as the luxurious character described Sat., i., 32.

Of the eighth Satire, if "Lateranus" be the true reading (l. 147), or if he be intended by "Damasippus," as I believe, we may assume the year A.D. 101 or 102 as the probable date: Lateranus had been consul A.D. 94, and in the year A.D. 101 Trajan for the first time extended the arms of Rome beyond the Danube. Cf. l. 169.

The plunder of his province of Africa, by Marius Priscus, was a recent event (l. 120 "nuper"); but, as we have said above, he was impeached by Pliny and Tacitus in the year A.D. 100. Ponticus, to whom the Satire is addressed, may be the person to whom Martial refers in his twelfth book, which was written A.D. 104.

There are two allusions by which we may form a conjecture as to the date of the ninth Satire. Crepereius Pollio is mentioned as nearly in the same circumstances of profligate poverty (l. 6, 7) as is described in the eleventh Satire (l. 43), which was undoubtedly written in Juvenal's later years; and he alludes (l. 117) to Saufeia, in very much the same terms in which he speaks of her in the sixth Satire (l. 320), which we suppose to have been written in his old age.

The internal evidence, supplied by the sustained majesty and dignified flow of language of the tenth (as well as of the fourteenth) Satire, without taking into consideration the philosophical nature of the subject of both, is quite sufficient to prove that they must have been the finished productions of a late period of a thoughtful life. We are therefore quite prepared to admit the conjecture that the allusion in line 136 is to the column of Trajan, erected in the year A.D. 113. The repetition of the line (226) also connects this with the first Satire, which it probably preceded only by a short interval.

The 203d line of the eleventh Satire fixes its date to the later years of Juvenal's life. It breathes, besides, throughout the spirit of a calm and philosophic enjoyment of the blessings of life, that tells of declining age; cheered by a chastened appreciation of the comforts by which it is surrounded, but far removed from all extraneous or meretricious excitement, and utterly abhorrent of all noisy or exuberant hilarity. An additional argument is mentioned in the Chronology for referring it to the date A.D. 124.

The twelfth Satire contains nothing by which we can fix its date with any certainty. If, however, as the commentators suppose, the wife of Fuscus, in the 45th line, be Saufeia, it will be connected with the sixth, ninth, and eleventh Satires, and may probably be considered the work of his advanced age.

The thirteenth Satire is fixed by line 17 to the year A.D. 118, the 60th after the consulship of L. Fonteius Capito. This is the only Satire to which Mr. Clinton has assigned a date.

The argument applied to the tenth Satire will apply with nearly equal force to the fourteenth. We are therefore prepared to admit the plausibility of the conjecture, that l. 196 refers to the progress of Hadrian through Britain, which would fix the date to A.D. 120; a very short time previous to the composition of the following Satire.

The event recorded in the fifteenth Satire occurred shortly after the consulship of Junius, l. 27, "nuper consule Junio gesta." This was, in all probability, Junius Rusticus, who was consul with Hadrian A.D. 119. The 110th line also probably refers to the influx of Greeks and other foreigners into Rome, in the train of Hadrian (to which we have alluded in discussing the date of the third Satire), which took place in the preceding year.

The sixteenth Satire may have either been the draft of a longer poem, commenced in early life (as l. 3 _may_ imply), which the poet never cared to finish; or an outline for a more perfect composition, which he never lived to elaborate. The mention of Fucus may connect it with the twelfth Satire. But though there is quite enough remaining to warrant us in unhesitatingly ascribing the authorship to Juvenal, there is too little left to enable us to form even a probable conjecture as to the date of its composition.

It is hardly necessary to add, that, after a careful examination of the foregoing Chronology, it must be evident to every novice in scholarship, that the whole life of Juvenal, as usually given, is a mere myth, to which one can not even apply, as in many legendary biographies, the epithet of poetical.

L. E.

ARGUMENTS OF THE SATIRES OF JUVENAL.

SATIRE I.

This Satire seems, from several incidental circumstances to have been produced subsequently to most of them; and was probably drawn up after the author had determined to collect and publish his works, as a kind of Introduction.

He abruptly breaks silence with an impassioned complaint of the importunity of bad writers, and a resolution of retaliating upon them; and after ridiculing their frivolous taste in the choice of their subjects, declares his own intention to devote himself to Satire. After exposing the corruption of men, the profligacy of women, the luxury of courtiers, the baseness of informers and fortune-hunters, the treachery of guardians, and the peculation of officers of state, he censures the general passion for gambling, the servile rapacity of the patricians, the avarice and gluttony of the rich, and the miserable poverty and subjection of their dependents; and after some bitter reflections on the danger of satirizing living villainy, concludes with a resolution to attack it under the mask of departed names.

SATIRE II.

This Satire contains an animated attack upon the hypocrisy of the philosophers and reformers of the day, whose ignorance, profligacy, and impiety it exposes with just severity.

Domitian is here the object; his vices are alluded to under every different name; and it gives us a high opinion of the intrepid spirit of the man who could venture to circulate, even in private, so faithful a representation of that blood-thirsty tyrant.

SATIRE III.

Umbritius, an Aruspex and friend of the author, disgusted at the prevalence of vice and the disregard of unassuming virtue, is on the point of quitting Rome; and when a little way from the city stops short to acquaint the poet, who has accompanied him, with the causes of his retirement. These may be arranged under the following heads: That Flattery and Vice are the only thriving arts at Rome; in these, especially the first, foreigners have a manifest superiority over the natives, and consequently engross all favor--that the poor are universally exposed to scorn and insult--that the general habits of extravagance render it difficult for them to subsist--that the want of a well-regulated police subjects them to numberless miseries and inconveniences, aggravated by the crowded state of the capital, from all which a country life is happily free: on the tranquillity and security of which he dilates with great beauty.

SATIRE IV.

In this Satire Juvenal indulges his honest spleen against Crispinus, already noticed, and Domitian, the constant object of his scorn and abhorrence. The introduction of the tyrant is excellent; the mock solemnity with which the anecdote of the Turbot is introduced, the procession of the affrighted counselors to the palace, and the ridiculous debate which terminates in as ridiculous a decision, show a masterly hand. The whole concludes with an indignant and high-spirited apostrophe.

SATIRE V.

Under pretense of advising one Trebius to abstain from the table of Virro, a man of rank and fortune, Juvenal takes occasion to give a spirited detail of the insults and mortifications to which the poor were subjected by the rich, at those entertainments to which, on account of the political connection subsisting between patrons and clients, it was sometimes thought necessary to invite them.

SATIRE VI.

The whole of this Satire, not only the longest, but the most complete of the author's works, is directed against the female sex. It may be distributed under the following heads: Lust variously modified, imperiousness of disposition, fickleness, gallantry, attachment to improper pursuits, litigiousness, drunkenness, unnatural passions, fondness for singers, dancers, etc.; gossiping, cruelty, ill manners; outrageous pretensions to criticism, grammar, and philosophy; superstitious and unbounded credulity in diviners and fortune-tellers; introducing supposititious children; poisoning their step-sons to possess their fortunes; and, lastly, murdering their husbands.

SATIRE VII.

This Satire contains an animated account of the general discouragement under which literature labored at Rome. Beginning with poetry, it proceeds through the various departments of history, law, oratory, rhetoric, and grammar; interspersing many curious anecdotes, and enlivening each different head with such satirical, humorous, and sentimental remarks as naturally flow from the subject.

SATIRE VIII.

Juvenal demonstrates, in this Satire, that distinction is merely personal; that though we may derive rank and titles from our ancestors, yet if we degenerate from the virtues by which they obtained them, we can not be considered truly noble. This is the main object of the Satire; which, however, branches out into many collateral topics--the profligacy of the young nobility; the miserable state of the provinces, which they plundered and harassed without mercy; the contrast between the state of debasement to which the descendants of the best families had sunk, and the opposite virtues to be found in persons of the lowest station and humblest descent.

SATIRE IX.

The Satire consists of a dialogue between the poet and one Nævolus, a dependent of some wealthy debauchee, who, after making him subservient to his unnatural passions, in return starved, insulted, hated, and discarded him. The whole object seems to be, to inculcate the grand moral lesson, that, under any circumstances, a life of sin is a life of slavery.

SATIRE X.

The subject of this inimitable Satire is the vanity of human wishes. From the principal events of the lives of the most illustrious characters of all ages, the poet shows how little happiness is promoted by the attainment of what our indistinct and limited views represent as the greatest of earthly blessings. Of these he instances wealth, power, eloquence, military glory, longevity, and personal accomplishments; all of which, he shows, have proved dangerous or destructive to their respective possessors. Hence he argues the wisdom of acquiescing in the dispensations of Heaven; and concludes with a form of prayer, in which he points out with great force and beauty the objects for which a rational being may presume to approach the Almighty.

SATIRE XI.

Under the form of an invitation to his friend Persicus, Juvenal takes occasion to enunciate many admirable maxims for the due regulation of life. After ridiculing the miserable state to which a profligate patrician had reduced himself by his extravagance, he introduces the picture of his own domestic economy, which he follows by a pleasing view of the simplicity of ancient manners, artfully contrasted with the extravagance and luxury of the current times. After describing with great beauty the entertainment he proposes to give his friend, he concludes with an earnest recommendation to him to enjoy the present with content, and await the future with calmness and moderation.

SATIRE XII.

Catullus, a valued friend of the poet, had narrowly escaped shipwreck. In a letter of rejoicing to their common friend, Corvinus, Juvenal describes the danger that his friend had incurred, and his own hearty and disinterested delight at his preservation, contrasting his own sacrifices of thanksgiving at the event, with those offered by the designing legacy-hunters, by which the rich and childless were attempted to be insnared.

SATIRE XIII.

Calvinus had left a sum of money in the hands of a confidential person, who, when he came to re-demand it, forswore the deposit. The indignation and fury expressed by Calvinus at this breach of trust, reached the ears of his friend Juvenal, who endeavors to soothe and comfort him under his loss. The different topics of consolation follow one another naturally and forcibly, and the horrors of a troubled conscience were perhaps never depicted with such impressive solemnity as in this Satire.

SATIRE XIV.

The whole of this Satire is directed to the one great end of self-improvement. By showing the dreadful facility with which children copy the vices of their parents, the poet points out the necessity as well as the sacred duty of giving them examples of domestic purity and virtue. After briefly enumerating the several vices, gluttony, cruelty, debauchery, etc., which youth imperceptibly imbibe from their seniors, he enters more at large into that of avarice; of which he shows the fatal and inevitable consequences. Nothing can surpass the exquisiteness of this division of the Satire, in which he traces the progress of that passion in the youthful mind from the paltry tricks of saving a broken meal to the daring violation of every principle, human and divine. Having placed the absurdity as well as the danger of immoderate desires in every point of view, he concludes with a solemn admonition to rest satisfied with those comforts and conveniences which nature and wisdom require, and which a decent competence is easily calculated to supply.

SATIRE XV.

After enumerating with great humor the animal and vegetable gods of the Egyptians, the author directs his powerful ridicule at their sottish and ferocious bigotry; of which he gives an atrocious and loathsome example. The conclusion of the Satire, which is a just and beautiful description of the origin of civil society (infinitely superior to any thing that Lucretius or Horace has delivered on the subject), founded not on natural instinct, but on principles of mutual benevolence implanted by God in the breast of man, and of man alone, does honor to the genius, good sense, and enlightened morality of the author.

SATIRE XVI.

Under a pretense of pointing out to his friend Gallus the advantages of a military life, Juvenal attacks with considerable spirit the exclusive privileges which the army had acquired or usurped, to the manifest injury of the civil part of the community.

JUVENAL'S SATIRES.

SATIRE I.

Must I always be a hearer only? Shall I never retaliate,[33] though plagued so often with the Theseid of Codrus,[34] hoarse _with reciting it_? Shall one man, then, recite[35] to me his Comedies, and another his Elegies, with impunity? Shall huge "Telephus" waste a whole day for me, or "Orestes," with the margin of the manuscript full to the very edge, and written on the back too,[36] and yet not finished, _and I not retort_?

No one knows his own house better than I do the grove of Mars, and Vulcan's cave close to the Æolian rocks. The agency of the winds,[37] what ghosts Æacus is torturing, whence another bears off the gold[38] of the stolen fleece, what huge mountain-ashes Monychus hurls, _all this_ the plane-groves of Fronto,[39] and the statues shaken and the columns split by the eternal reciter, are for ever re-echoing. You may look for the same themes from the greatest poet and the least.

And yet I too have shirked my hand away from the rod.[40] I too have given advice to Sylla, that he should enjoy a sound sleep by returning to a private station.[41] When at every turn you meet so many poetasters, it were a foolish clemency to spare paper that is sure to be wasted. Yet why I rather choose to trace my course over that plain through which the great foster-son of Aurunca[42] urged his steeds, I will, if you are at leisure, and with favorable ear listen to reason, tell you. When a soft eunuch[43] marries a wife; when Mævia[44] transfixes the Tuscan boar, and, with breasts exposed, grasps the hunting-spears; when one man singly vies in wealth with the whole body of patricians, under whose razor my beard, grown exuberant, sounded while I was in my prime;[45] when Crispinus, one of the dregs of the mob of the Nile, a born-slave of Canopus, (while his shoulder hitches up his Tyrian cloak,)[46] airs his summer ring from his sweating fingers, and can not support the weight of his heavier gem;--it is difficult not to write satire. For who can be so tolerant of this iniquitous city, who so case-hardened,[47] as to contain himself! When there comes up the bran-new litter of Matho[48] the lawyer, filled with himself; and after him, he that informed upon his powerful friend; and will soon plunder the nobility, already close-shorn, of the little that remains to them; one whom even Massa fears, whom Carus soothes with a bribe; or a Thymele suborned by some trembling Latinus.[49] When fellows supplant you, who earn their legacies by night-work, lifted up to heaven[50] by what is now the surest road to the highest advancement, the lust of some ancient harridan. Proculeius gets one poor twelfth; but Gillo has eleven twelfths. Each gets the share proportioned to his powers. Well! let him take the purchase-money of his blood, and be as pale as one that has trodden on a snake with naked heel, or a rhetorician about to declaim at the altar at Lyons.[51]

Why need I tell with what indignation my parched liver boils, when here, the plunderer of his ward (reduced by him to the vilest gains) presses on the people with his crowds of menials, and there, he that was condemned by a powerless sentence. (For what cares he for infamy while he retains the plunder?) Marius,[52] though an exile, drinks from the eighth hour, and laughs at the angry gods, while thou, O Province, victorious in the suit, art in tears! Shall I not deem these themes worthy of the lamp of Venusium?[53] Shall I not lash these? Why rather sing tales of Hercules or Diomede, or the bellowing of the Labyrinth, and the sea struck by the boy Icarus, and the winged artificer?[54] When the pander inherits the wealth of the adulterer (since the wife has lost the right of receiving it),[55] taught to gaze at the ceiling, and snore over his cups with well-feigned sleep. When he considers himself privileged to expect the command of a cohort, who has squandered his money on his stables, and has run through all his ancestors' estate, while he flies with rapid wheel along the Flaminian road;[56] for while yet a youth, like Automedon, he held the reins, while the great man showed himself off to his "mistress-in-his-cloak."[57] Do you not long to fill your capacious tablets, even in the middle of the cross-ways, when there comes borne on the shoulders of six slaves, exposed to view on either side, with palanquin almost uncurtained, and aping the luxurious Mæcenas, the forger, who made himself a man of splendor and wealth by a few short lines, and a moistened seal?[58] Next comes the powerful matron, who when her husband thirsts, mingles the toad's-poison in the mellow wine of Cales which she is herself about to hand him, and with skill superior even to Locusta,[59] initiates her neighbors, too simple before, in the art of burying their husbands, livid from the poison, in despite of infamy and the public gaze.[60]

Dare some deed to merit scanty Gyarus[61] and the jail, if you wish to be somebody. Honesty is commended, and starves. It is to their crimes they are indebted for their gardens, their palaces, their tables, their fine old plate, and the goat standing in high relief from the cup. Whom does the seducer of his own daughter-in-law, greedy for gold, suffer to sleep? Or the unnatural brides, or the adulterer not out of his teens?[62] If nature denies the power, indignation would give birth to verses, such as it could produce, like mine and Cluvienus'.

From the time that Deucalion ascended the mountain in his boat, while the storm upheaved the sea,[63] and consulted the oracle, and the softening stones by degrees grew warm with life, and Pyrrha displayed to the males the virgins unrobed; all that men are engaged in, their wishes, fears, anger, pleasures, joys, and varied pursuits, form the hotch-potch of my book.

And when was the crop of vices more abundant? When were the sails of avarice more widely spread? When had gambling its present spirits? For now men go to the hazard of the gaming-table not simply with their purses, but play with their whole chest[64] staked. What fierce battles will you see there, while the steward supplies the weapons for the contest! Is it then mere common madness to lose a hundred sestertia, and not leave enough for a tunic for your shivering slave![65] Which of our grandsires erected so many villas? Which of them ever dined by himself[66] on seven courses? In our days the diminished sportula is set outside the threshold, ready to be seized upon by the toga-clad crowd.[67] Yet he (that dispenses it), before giving, scans your features, and dreads lest you should come with counterfeit pretense and under a false name. When recognized you will receive your dole. He bids the crier summon the very Trojugenæ themselves. For even they assail the door with us. "Give the prætor his! Then to the tribune." But the freedman must first be served! "I was before him!" he says. "Why should I fear or hesitate to stand up for my turn, though I was born on the banks of Euphrates, which the soft windows[68] in my ears would attest, though I myself were to deny the fact. But my five shops bring me in four hundred sestertia. What does the Laticlave[69] bestow that's worth a wish, since Corvinus keeps sheep for hire in the Laurentine fields? I own more than Pallas[70] and the Licini. Let the tribunes wait then!" Let Riches carry the day, and let not him give place even to the sacrosanct magistrate, who came but the other day to this city with chalked feet.[71] Since with us the most revered majesty is that of riches; even though as yet, pernicious money, thou dwellest in no temple, nor have we as yet reared altars to coin, as we worship Peace and Faith, Victory and Virtue, and Concord, whose temple resounds with the noise of storks returning to their nests.[72] But when a magistrate of the highest rank reckons up at the end of the year, what the sportula brings him in, how much it adds to his revenue, what shall the poor retainers do, who look to this for their toga, for their shoes, their bread and fire at home? A closely-wedged crowd of litters is clamorous for the hundred quadrantes, and his wife, though sick or pregnant, accompanies and goes the rounds with her husband. One practicing a crafty trick now worn threadbare, asks for his wife though really absent, displaying in her stead an empty and closed palanquin: "My Galla is inside," he says, "dispatch us with all speed. Why hesitate?" "Put out your head, Galla!" "O don't disturb her! she's asleep!"

The day is portioned out with a fine routine of engagements. First the sportula; then the Forum,[73] and Apollo[74] learned in the law; and the triumphal statues, among which some unknown Egyptian or Arabarch has dared set up his titles, whose image, as though sacred, one dare not venture to defile.[75] At length, the old and wearied-out clients quit the vestibule and give up all their hopes;[76] although their expectation of a dinner has been full-long protracted: the poor wretches must buy their cabbage and fire. Meanwhile their patron-lord will devour the best that the forest and ocean can supply, and will recline in solitary state with none but himself on his couches. For out of so many fair, and broad, and such ancient dishes, they gorge whole patrimonies at a single course. In our days there will not be even a parasite! Yet who could tolerate such sordid luxury! How gross must that appetite be, which sets before itself whole boars, an animal created to feast a whole company! Yet thy punishment is hard at hand, when distended with food thou layest aside thy garments, and bearest to the bath the peacock undigested! Hence sudden death, and old age without a will. The news[77] travels to all the dinner-tables, but calls forth no grief, and thy funeral procession advances, exulted over by disgusted friends![78] There is nothing farther that future times can add to our immorality. Our posterity must have the same desires, perpetrate the same acts. Every vice has reached its climax. Then set sail! spread all your canvas! Yet here perchance you may object, whence can talent be elicited able to cope with the subject? Whence that blunt freedom of our ancestors, whose very name I dare not utter, of writing whatever was dictated by their kindling soul. What matter, whether Mucius forgive the libel, or not? But take Tigellinus for your theme, and you will shine in that tunic, in which they blaze standing,[79] who smoke with throat transfixed, and you will draw a broad furrow in the middle of the sand. "Must he then, who has given[80] aconite to his three uncles, be borne on down cushions, suspended aloft, and from thence look down on us?" Yes! when he meets you press your finger to your lip! There will be some informer standing by to whisper in his ear, That's he! Without fear for the consequences you may match[81] Æneas and the fierce Rutulian. The death of Achilles breeds ill-will in no one; or the tale of the long-sought Hylas, who followed his pitcher. But whensoever Lucilius, fired with rage, has brandished as it were his drawn sword, his hearer, whose conscience chills with the remembrance of crime, grows red. His heart sweats with the pressure of guilt concealed. Then bursts forth rage and tears! Ponder well, therefore, these things in your mind, before you sound the signal blast. The soldier when helmeted repents too late of the fight. I will try then what I may be allowed to vent on those whose ashes are covered by the Flaminian[82] or Latin road.

FOOTNOTES:

[33] _Reponam_, "repay in kind." A metaphor taken from the payment of debts.

[34] _Codrus_; a poor poet in every sense, if, as some think, he is the same as the Codrus mentioned iii., 203.

[35] _Recitaverit._ For the custom of Roman writers to recite their compositions in public, cf. Sat. vii., 40, 83; iii., 9. Plin., 1, Ep. xiii., "queritur se diem perdidisse." _Togata_ is a comedy on a Roman subject; _Prætexta_, a tragedy on the same; _Elegi_, trifling love-songs.

[36] _In tergo._ The ancients usually wrote only on one side of the parchment: when otherwise, the works were called "Opisthographi," and said to be written "aversa charta."

[37] _Venti_; cf. xii., 23, where he uses "Poëtica tempestas" as a proverbial expression.

[38] _Aurum_; probably a hit at Valerius Flaccus, his contemporary.

[39] _Julius Fronto_ was a munificent patron of literature, thrice consul, and once colleague of Trajan, A.D. 97. Cassiod.

[40] "Jam a grammaticis eruditi recessimus." Brit.; and so Dryden.

[41] "That to sleep soundly, he must cease to rule." Badham.

[42] Lucilius was born at _Aurunca_, anciently called Suessa.

[43] _Spado_, for the reason, vid. Sat. vi., 365.

[44] _Mævia._ The passion of the Roman women for fighting with wild beasts in the amphitheatre was encouraged by Domitian, but afterward restrained by an edict of Severus.

[45] "Who reap'd my manly chin's resounding field." Hodgson. Either Licinus, the freedman of Augustus, is referred to (Hor., A. P., 301), or more probably Cinnamus. Cf. Sat. x., 225. Mart., vii., Ep. 64.

[46] This is the most probable meaning, and adopted by Madan and Browne; but there are various other interpretations: e. g., "Cumbered with his purple vest." Badham. "With cloak of Tyrian dye, Changed oft a day for needless luxury." Dryden. "While he gathers now, now flings his purple open." Gifford. "O'er his back displays." Hodgson.

[47] _Ferreus_, "so steel'd."

[48] "Fat Matho plunged in cushions at his ease." Badham.

[49] Cf. Mart., i., v., 5, "Quâ Thymelen spectas derisoremque Latinum."

[50] _Cœlum._ There is probably a covert allusion here to Adrian, who gained the empire through the partiality of Plotina, in spite of the will of her dying husband Trajan.

[51] _Lugdunensem._ There was a temple erected in honor of Augustus at Lyons, A.U.C. 744, and from the very first games were celebrated there, but the contest here alluded to was instituted by Caligula. Cf. Suet., Calig., xx. It was a "certamen Græcæ Latinæque facundiæ," in which the vanquished were compelled to give prizes to the victors, and to write their praises. While those who "maximè displicuissent" had to obliterate their own compositions with a sponge or their tongues, unless they preferred being beaten with ferules, or ducked in the nearest river. Caligula was at Lyons, A.D. 40, on his way to the ocean.

[52] _Marius Priscus_, proconsul of Africa, was condemned for extortion, A.D. 100. Vid. Clinton in a. Pliny the Younger was his accuser, 2 Ep., xi. (Cf. Sat. viii., 120, "Cum tenues nuper Marius discinxerit Afros.") Though condemned, he saved his money; and was, as Gifford renders it, "by a juggling sentence damn'd in vain." The ninth hour (three o'clock) was the earliest hour at which the temperate dined. Cf. Mart., iv., Ep. 8, "Imperat exstructos frangere nona toros." Cf. Hor., i., Od. i., 20.

[53] _Venusium_, or Venusia, the birthplace of Horace.

[54] "Vitreo daturus nomina Ponto." Hor., iv., Od. ii., 3.

[55] _Jus nullum uxori._ Cf. Suet., Dom., viii. "Probrosis fœminis ademit jus capiendi legata hæreditatesque."

[56] The Flaminian road ran the whole length of the Campus Martius, and was therefore the most conspicuous thoroughfare in Rome. It is now the Corso.

[57] _Lacernatæ._ The Lacerna was a male garment: the allusion is probably to Nero and his "eunuch-love" Sporus. Vid. Suet., Nero, 28.

[58] "Signator-falso," sc. testamento. Cf. Sat. xii., 125, and Bekker's Charicles. "Fram'd a short will and gave himself the whole." Hodgson.

"A few short lines authentic made,
By a forged seal the inheritance convey'd." Badham.

[59] _Locusta._ Vid. Tac., Ann., xii., 66, 67. She was employed by Agrippina to poison Claudius, and by Nero to destroy Germanicus. On the accession of Galba she was executed. Cf. Suet., Nero, 33.

[60]

"Reckless of whispering mobs that hover near." Badham.

"Nor heed the curse of the indignant throng." Gifford.

[61] _Gyarus_, a barren island in the Ægean. Vid. Tac., Ann., iii, 68, 69. "Insulam Gyarum immitem et sine cultu hominum esse." Cf. Sat. x., 170; vi., 563.

[62] "The raw noble in his boyish gown." Hodgson. "Stripling debauchee." Gifford. The sons of the nobility wore the toga prætexta till the age of seventeen.

[63] "While whelming torrents swell'd the floods below." Badham.

[64] _Arcâ._ Cf. Sat. x., 24.

[65] _Reddere._ Probably "to pay what has been _long_ due."

[66] _Secreto_, "without their clients," opposed to the "in propatulo" of Val. Max., ii., 5. ἔῤῥ' ἐς κόρακας μονόφαγε. Alex.

[67] In former days the Romans entertained their clients, after the day's officium was over, at supper, which was called "cœna recta." In later times, the clients, instead of this, received their portion of the supper, which they carried away in a small basket, "sportula," or a kind of portable kitchen. Cf. iii., 249. This was again changed, and an equivalent in money (centum quadrantes, about twenty pence English) given instead. Domitian restored the "cœna recta." Cf. Suet., Dom., vii.; Nero, xvi.

[68] _Fenestræ._ Cf. Xen., Anab., III., i., 31. Exod., xxi., 6.

[69]

"Shall I then yield, though born perchance a slave,
To the proud beggar in his laticlave?" Hodgson.

[70] _Pallas_, the freedman of Claudius, was enormously rich. The wealth and splendor of Licinus is again alluded to, Sat. xiv., 305.

[71] _Pedibus albis._ The feet of imported slaves were marked with chalk. Cf. Sat. vii., 16. Plin., H. N., xxxv., 17.

[72] _Salutato crepitat._ It refers either to the chattering of the young birds, when the old birds who have been in quest of food return to their nests (the whole _temple_ being deserted by men, serves, as the Schol. says, for a _nidus_ to birds); or, to the noise made by the old birds striking their beaks to announce their return. Cf. Ov., Met., vi., 97.

[73] _Ordine rerum._ Cf. Mart., iv., Ep. 8. The _Forum_ is the old Forum Romanum.

[74] _Apollo_, i. e., the Forum Augusti on the Palatine Hill. In the court where pleas were held stood an ivory statue of Apollo. Cf. Hor., i., Sat. ix., 78.

[75] "And none must venture to pollute the place." Hodgson. Tantum, i. e., tantummodo. Cf. Pers., i. Sat., 114, Sacer est locus, ite profani, Extra meiete!

[76] To all these places the client attends his patron; then, on his return, the rich man's door is closed, and he is at liberty to return home, without any invitation to remain to dinner.

"The day's attendance closed, and evening come,
The uninvited client hies him home." Badham.

[77] _Nova._ "By witty spleen increased." Gifford.

[78]

"Friends, unenrich'd, shall revel o'er your bier,
Tell the sad news, nor grace it with a tear." Hodgson.

[79] _Tædâ._ Cf. viii., 235, "Ausi quod libeat tunica punire molestâ." Tac., Ann., xv., 44, "Aut crucibus adfixi, aut flammandi, atque ubi defecisset dies, in usum nocturni luminis urerentur." Sen., de Ira, iii., 3, "Circumdati defixis corporibus ignes."

[80] _Qui dedit_, i. e., Tigellinus.

[81] _Committas_, a metaphor from pairing or matching gladiators in the arena.

"Achilles may in epic verse be slain,
And none of all his myrmidons complain;
Hylas may drop his pitcher, none will cry,
Not if he drown himself for company." Dryden.

[82] _Flaminiâ._ The laws of the xii. tables forbade all burials within the city. The road-sides, therefore, were lined with tombs. Hence the common beginning of epitaphs, "Siste gradum viator." The peculiar propriety of the selection of these two roads is the fact that Domitian was buried by the Flaminian, and Paris, the mime, Juvenal's personal enemy, by the Latin road.

SATIRE II.

I long to escape from hence beyond the Sarmatians, and the frozen sea, whenever those fellows who pretend to be Curii and live like Bacchanals presume to read a lecture on morality. First of all, they are utterly unlearned, though you may find all their quarters full of busts of Chrysippus. For the most finished scholar among them is he that has bought an image of Aristotle or Pittacus, or bids his shelves retain originals of Cleanthes. There is no trusting to the outside! For what street is there that does not overflow with debauchees of demure exterior? Dost thou reprove abominations, that art thyself the most notorious sink among catamites who pretend to follow Socrates? Thy rough limbs indeed, and the stiff bristles on thy arms, seem to promise a vigorous mind within; but on thy smooth behind, the surgeon with a smile lances the swelling piles. These fellows affect a paucity of words, and a wonderful taciturnity, and the fashion of cutting their hair shorter than their eyebrows. There is therefore more frankness and sincerity in Peribomius; the man that by his very look and gait makes no secret of his depravity, I look upon as the victim of destiny. The plain-dealing of the latter class excites our pity; their very madness pleads for our forgiveness. Far worse are they who in Hercules' vein practice similar atrocities, and preaching up virtue, perpetrate the foulest vice. "Shall I feel any dread for thee, Sextus, unnatural thyself?" says the infamous Varillus. "How am I worse than thou? Let the straight-limbed, if you please, mock the bandy-legged; the fair European sneer at the Ethiop. But who could tolerate the Gracchi if they railed at sedition? Who would not confound heaven with earth, and sea with sky,[83] if a thief were odious to Verres, or a murderer to Milo? If Clodius were to impeach adulterers, or Catiline Cethegus? If Sylla's three pupils were to declaim against Sylla's proscriptions? Such was the case of the adulterer recently[84] defiled by incest, such as might be found in Greek tragedy, who then set himself to revive those bitter laws which all might tremble at, ay, even Venus and Mars, at the same time that Julia was relieving her fruitful womb by so many abortives,[85] and gave birth to shapeless masses, the image of her uncle! Might not then, with all reason and justice, even the very worst of vices look with contempt on these counterfeit Scauri, and if censured turn and bite again?"

Lauronia could not endure some fierce reformer of this class so often exclaiming, "Where is now the Julian law? is it slumbering?" and thus silenced him with a sneer: "Blest days indeed! that set thee up as a censor of morals! Rome now must needs retrieve her honor! A third Cato has dropped from the clouds. But tell me, pray, where do you buy these perfumes that exhale from your neck, all hairy though it be! Do not be ashamed to tell the shopman's name. But if old laws and statutes are to be raked up,[86] before all others the Scatinian ought to be revived. First scrutinize and look into the conduct of the men. They commit the greater atrocities; but it is their number protects them, and their phalanxes close serried with their shields. There is a wonderful unanimity among these effeminates. You will not find one single instance of such execrable conduct in our sex.[87] Tædia does not caress Cluvia, nor Flora Catulla. Hispo acts both sex's parts, and is pale with two-handed lust. Do _we_ ever plead causes? Do we study civil law? or disturb your courts with any clamor of our tongues? A few of us perhaps may wrestle, or diet themselves on the trainer's food; but only a few. You men, you spin wool, and carry home in women's baskets your finished tasks. You men twist the spindle big with its fine-drawn thread more deftly than Penelope, more nimbly than Arachne; work, such as the dirty drab does that sits crouching on her log. Every one knows why Hister at his death made his freedman his sole heir, while, when alive, he gave his maiden wife[88] so many presents. She will be rich without a doubt, who will submit to lie third in the wide bed. Get married then, and hold your tongue, and earrings[89] will be the guerdon of your silence! And after all this, forsooth, a heavy sentence is to be passed on us women! Censure acquits the raven, but falls foul of the dove!"

From this rebuke so true and undeniable, the counterfeit Stoics recoiled in confusion, For what grain of untruth was there in Lauronia's words? Yet, what will not others do, when thou, Creticus, adoptest muslin robes, and to the amazement of the people, inveighest in such a dress against Procula or Pollinea?