The Satires of Juvenal, Persius, Sulpicia, and Lucilius
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?
Fabulla, thou sayest, is an adulteress. Then let her be condemned, if
you will have it so, and Carfinia also. Yet though condemned, she would
not put on such a dress as that. "But it is July, it is raging hot, I
am on fire!" Then plead stark naked![90] To be thought mad would be a
less disgrace! Is that a dress to propound laws and statutes in, in
the ears of the people when flushed with victory, with their wounds
yet green, or that noble race, fresh from their plows? What an outcry
would you make, if you saw such a dress on the person of a Judex! I
ask, would such a robe be suitable even in a witness? Creticus! the
implacable, the indomitable, the champion of liberty, is transparent!
Contagion has caused this plague-spot, and will extend it to many more,
just as a whole flock perishes, in the fields from the scab of one
sheep, or pigs from mange, and the grape contracts the taint from the
grape it comes in contact with. Ere long you will venture on something
more disgraceful even than this dress. No one ever reached the climax
of vice at one step. You will by degrees enter the band of those who
wear at home long fillets round their brows, and cover their necks with
jewels, and propitiate Bona Dea with the belly of a young sow and a
huge bowl of wine; but by an inversion of the old custom _women_, kept
far aloof, dare not cross the threshold. The altar of the goddess
is accessible to males alone. "Withdraw, profane females!" is the
cry. No minstrel here may make her cornet sound! Such were the orgies
by the secret torch-light which the Baptæ celebrated, who used to
weary out even the Athenian Cotytto.[91] One with needle held oblique
adds length to his eyebrows touched with moistened soot, and raising
the lids paints his quivering eyes. Another drains a Priapus-shaped
glass, and confines his long thick hair with a caul of gold thread,
clothed in sky-blue checks, or close-piled yellow stuffs; while his
attendant also swears by Juno, the patron deity of his master. Another
holds a mirror, the weapon wielded by the pathic Otho, "the spoil of
Auruncan Actor,"[92] in which he surveyed himself when fully armed,
before he gave the signal to engage--a thing worthy to be recorded in
the latest annals and history of the day. A mirror! fit baggage for
a civil war! O yes, forsooth! to kill old Galba shows the consummate
general, to pamper one's complexion is the consistent occupation of
the first citizen of Rome; to aspire to the empire as the prize on
Bebriacum's[93] plains, and then spread over his face a poultice
applied with his fingers! Such an act as neither the quivered Semiramis
perpetrated in the Assyrian realms, or Cleopatra flying dejected in her
Actian galley. Among this crew there is neither decency of language,
nor respect for the proprieties of the table. Here is the foul license
that Cybele enjoins, the lisping speech, the aged priest with hoary
hair, like one possessed, a prodigy of boundless appetite, open to
hire. Yet why do they delay? since long ago they ought after the
Phrygian custom to have removed with their knives the superfluous flesh.
Gracchus[94] gave four hundred sestertia as his dowry, with himself,
to a bugler, or else one that blew the straight trumpet. The marriage
deeds were duly signed, the blessing invoked, a great dinner provided,
the he-bride lay in the bridegroom's arms. O nobles! is it a censor
we need, or an aruspex? You would without doubt be horrified, and deem
it a prodigy of portentous import, if a woman gave birth to a calf, or
a cow to a lamb. The same Gracchus puts on flounces, the long robe and
flame-colored[95] veil, who, when bearing the sacred shields swinging
with mysterious thong, sweated beneath the Ancilia! Oh! father of
our city! whence came such heinous guilt to the shepherds of Latium?
Whence, O Gradivus, came this unnatural lust that has tainted thy race?
See! a man illustrious in birth and rank is made over to a man! Dost
thou neither shake thy helmet, nor smite the earth with thy lance? Dost
thou not even appeal to thy father Jove? Begone then! and quit the
acres of the Campus once so severe, which thou ceasest to care for!
"I have some duty-work to perform to-morrow at break of day in the