The Satires of Juvenal, Persius, Sulpicia, and Lucilius
any time, either by night or day, assume a fictitious face; kiss his
hands in ecstasy, quite ready, to praise his patron's grossest acts; if
the golden cup has emitted a sound, when its bottom is inverted.
Besides, there is nothing that is held sacred by these fellows, or
that is safe from their lust. Neither the mistress of the house, nor
your virgin daughter, nor her suitor, unbearded as yet, nor your son,
heretofore chaste. If none of these are to be found, he assails his
friend's grandmother. They aim at learning the secrets of the house,
and from that knowledge be feared.
And since we have begun to make mention of the Greeks, pass on to their
schools of philosophy, and hear the foul crime of the more dignified
cloak.[130] It was a Stoic that killed Bareas--the informer, his
personal friend--the old man, his own pupil--bred on that shore[131]
on which the pinion of the Gorgonean horse lighted. There is no room
for any Roman here, where some Protogenes, or Diphilus, or Erimanthus
reigns supreme; who, with the common vice of his race, never shares
a friend, but engrosses him entirely to himself. For when he has
infused into his patron's too ready ear one little drop of the venom
of his nature and his country, I am ejected from the door; all my
long-protracted service goes for naught. Nowhere is the loss of a
client of less account. Besides (not to flatter ourselves) what service
can the _poor man_ render, what merit can _he_ plead, even though he be
zealous enough to hasten in his toga[132] before break of day, when the
very _prætor_ himself urges on his lictor, and bids him hurry on with
headlong speed, since the childless matrons have been long awake, lest
his colleague[133] be beforehand with him in paying his respects to
Albina and Modia. Here, by the side of a slave, if only rich, walks the
son of the free-born;[134] for the other gives to Calvina, or Catiena
(that he may enjoy her once or twice), as much as the tribunes in the
legion receive;[135] whereas you, when the face of a well-dressed
harlot takes your fancy, hesitate to hand Chione from her exalted seat.
Produce me at Rome a witness of as blameless integrity as the host
of the Idæan deity;[136] let Numa stand forth, or he that rescued
Minerva when in jeopardy from her temple all in flames: the question
first put would be as to his income, that about his moral character
would come last of all. "How many slaves does he keep? How many acres
of public land does he occupy?[137] With how many and what expensive
dishes is his table spread?" In exact proportion to the sum of money
a man keeps in his chest, is the credit given to his oath. Though
you were to swear by all the altars of the Samothracian and our own
gods, the poor man is believed to despise the thunderbolts and the
gods, even with the sanction of the gods themselves. Why add that this
same poor man furnishes material and grounds for ridicule to all, if
his cloak is dirty and torn, if his toga is a little soiled, and one
shoe gapes with its upper leather burst; or if more than one patch
displays the coarse fresh darning thread, where a rent has been sewn
up. Poverty, bitter though it be, has no sharper pang than this, that
it makes men ridiculous. "Let him retire, if he has any shame left,
and quit the cushions of the knights, that has not the income required
by the law, and let these seats be taken by"--the sons of pimps,
in whatever brothel born![138] Here let the son of the sleek crier
applaud among the spruce youths of the gladiator, and the scions of
the fencing-school. Such is the will of the vain Otho, who made the
distinction between us.
Who was ever allowed at Rome to become a son-in-law if his estate was
inferior, and not a match for the portion of the young lady?[139]
What _poor_ man's name appears in any will? When is he summoned to
a consultation even by an ædile? All Quirites that are poor, ought
long ago to have emigrated in a body.[140] Difficult indeed is it for
those to emerge from obscurity whose noble qualities are cramped by
narrow means at home; but at Rome, for men like these, the attempt is
still more hopeless; it is only at an exorbitant price they can get
a wretched lodging, keep for their servants, and a frugal meal.[141]
A man is ashamed here to dine off pottery ware,[142] which, were
he suddenly transported to the Marsi and a Sabine board, contented
there with a coarse bowl of blue earthenware, he would no longer
deem discreditable. There is a large portion of Italy (if we allow
the fact), where no one puts on the toga, except the dead.[143] Even
when the very majesty of festival days is celebrated in a theatre
reared of turf,[144] and the well-known farce at length returns to the
stage,[145] when the rustic infant on its mother's lap is terrified at
the wide mouth of the ghastly mask, _there_ you will see all costumes
equal and alike, both orchestra and common people. White tunics are
quite sufficient as the robe of distinction for the highest personages
there, even the very ædiles. Here, in Rome, the splendor of dress is
carried beyond men's means; here, something more than is enough, is
taken occasionally from another's chest. In this fault all participate.
Here we all live with a poverty that apes our betters. Why should I
detain you? Every thing at Rome is coupled with high price. What have
you to give, that you may occasionally pay your respects to Cossus?
that Veiento may give you a passing glance, though without deigning to
open his mouth? One shaves the beard, another deposits the hair of a
favorite; the house is full of venal cakes.[146] Now learn this fact,
and keep it to work within your breast. We clients are forced to pay
tribute and increase the private income of these pampered slaves.
Who dreads, or ever did dread, the falling of a house at cool
Præneste, or at Volsinii seated among the well-wooded hills, or simple
Gabii,[147] or the heights of sloping Tibur. We, in Rome, inhabit a
city propped in great measure on a slender shore.[148] For so the
steward props up the falling walls,[149] and when he has plastered over
the old and gaping crack, bids us sleep without sense of danger while
ruin hangs over our heads![150] I must live in a place, where there are
no fires, no nightly alarms. Already is Ucalegon shouting for water,
already is he removing his chattels: the third story in the house you
live in is already in a blaze. You are unconscious! For if the alarm
begin from the bottom of the stairs, he will be the last to be burned
whom a single tile protects from the rain, where the tame pigeons lay
their eggs. Codrus had a bed too small for his Procula, six little jugs
the ornament of his sideboard, and a little can besides beneath it, and
a Chiron reclining under the same marble; and a chest now grown old in
the service contained his Greek books, and opic[151] mice-gnawed poems
of divine inspiration. Codrus possessed nothing at all; who denies the
fact? and yet all that little nothing that he had, he lost. But the
climax that crowns his misery is the fact, that though he is stark
naked and begging for a few scraps, no one will lend a hand to help him
to bed and board. But, if the great mansion of Asturius has fallen,
the matrons appear in weeds,[152] the senators in mourning robes, the
prætor adjourns the courts. Then it is we groan for the accidents of
the city; then we loathe the very name of fire. The fire is still
raging, and already there runs up to him one who offers to present
him with marble, and contribute toward the rebuilding. Another will
present him with naked statues of Parian marble,[153] another with a
chef-d'œuvre of Euphranor or Polycletus.[154] Some lady will contribute
some ancient ornaments of gods taken in our Asiatic victories; another,
books and cases[155] and a bust of Minerva; another, a whole bushel of
silver. Persicus, the most splendid of childless men, replaces all
he has lost by things more numerous and more valuable, and might with
reason be suspected of having himself set his own house on fire.[156]
If you can tear yourself away from the games in the circus,[157] you
can buy a capital house at Sora, or Fabrateria, or Frusino, for the
price at which you are now hiring your dark hole for one year. There
you will have your little garden, a well so shallow as to require no
rope and bucket, whence with easy draught you may water your sprouting
plants. Live there, enamored of the pitchfork, and the dresser of your
trim garden,[158] from which you could supply a feast to a hundred
Pythagoreans. It is something to be able in any spot, in any retreat
whatever, to have made one's self proprietor even of a single lizard.
Here full many a patient dies from want of sleep; but that exhaustion
is produced by the undigested food that loads the fevered stomach. For
what lodging-houses allow of sleep? None but the very wealthy can sleep
at Rome.[159] Hence is the source of the disease. The passing of wagons
in the narrow curves of the streets, and the mutual revilings of the
teamdrivers[160] brought to a stand-still, would banish sleep even from
Drusus and sea-calves.[161]
If duty calls him,[162] the rich man will be borne through the yielding
crowd, and pass rapidly over their heads on the shoulders of his tall
Liburnian, and, as he goes, will read or write, or even sleep inside
his litter,[163] for his sedan with windows closed entices sleep. And
still he will arrive before us. In front of us, as we hurry on, a tide
of human beings stops the way; the mass that follows behind presses on
our loins in dense concourse; one man pokes me with his elbow, another
with a hard pole;[164] one knocks a beam against my head, another a
ten-gallon cask. My legs are coated thick with mud; then, anon, I am
trampled upon by great heels all round me, and the hob-nail of the
soldier's caliga remains imprinted on my toe.
Do you not see with what a smoke the sportula is frequented? A
hundred guests! and each followed by his portable kitchen.[165] Even
Corbulo[166] himself could scarcely carry such a number of huge
vessels, so many things piled upon his head, which, without bending his
neck, the wretched little slave supports, and keeps fanning his fire as
he runs along.[167]
Tunics that have been patched together are torn asunder again.
Presently, as the tug approaches, the long fir-tree quivers, other
wagons are conveying pine-trees; they totter from their height, and
threaten ruin to the crowd. For if that wain, that is transporting
blocks of Ligustican stone, is upset, and pours its mountain-load upon
the masses below, what is there left of their bodies? Who can find
their limbs or bones? Every single carcass of the mob is crushed to
minute atoms as impalpable as their souls. While, all this while, the
family at home, in happy ignorance of their master's fate, are washing
up the dishes, and blowing up the fire with their mouths, and making
a clatter with the well-oiled strigils, and arranging the bathing
towels with the full oilflask. Such are the various occupations of the
bustling slaves. But the master himself is at this moment seated[168]
on the banks of Styx, and, being a novice, is horrified at the grim
ferry-man, and dares not hope for the boat to cross the murky stream;
nor has he, poor wretch, the obol in his mouth to hand to Charon.
Now revert to other perils of the night distinct from these. What a
height it is from the lofty roofs, from which a potsherd tumbles on
your brains. How often cracked and chipped earthenware falls from the
windows! with what a weight they dint and damage the flint pavement
where they strike it! You may well be accounted remiss and improvident
against unforeseen accident, if you go out to supper without having
made your will. It is clear that there are just so many chances of