The Satires of Juvenal, Persius, Sulpicia, and Lucilius
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