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, recite35 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 gold38 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 Aurunca42 urged his steeds, I will, if you are at leisure, and with favorable ear listen to reason, tell you. When a soft eunuch43 marries a wife; when Mævia44 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 Matho48 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 heaven50 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 Gyarus61 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 chest64 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 himself66 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 windows68 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 Laticlave69 bestow that’s worth a wish, since Corvinus keeps sheep for hire in the Laurentine fields? I own more than Pallas70 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 Apollo74 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 news77 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 given80 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 match81 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 Flaminian82 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.