The Satires of Juvenal, Persius, Sulpicia, and Lucilius
have equaled all his wants, and, as far as appears, all his wishes.
Once only he regrets the narrowness of his fortune; but the occasion
does him honor; it is solely because he can not afford a more costly
sacrifice to express his pious gratitude for the preservation of his
friend: yet "two lambs and a youthful steer" bespeak the affluence of a
philosopher; which is not belied by the entertainment provided for his
friend Persicus, in that beautiful Satire which is here called the last
of his works. Farther it is useless to seek: from pride or modesty, he
has left no other notices of himself; or they have perished. Horace
and Persius, his immediate predecessors, are never weary of speaking
of themselves. The life of the former might be written, from his own
materials, with all the minuteness of a contemporary history: and the
latter, who attained to little more than a third of Juvenal's age, has
left nothing to be desired on the only topics which could interest
posterity--his parent, his preceptor, and his course of studies.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] "Junius Juvenalis liberti locupletis incertum filius an alumnus, ad
mediam ætatem declamavit, animi magis causa, quam quod scholæ aut foro
se præpararet." The learned reader knows that this is taken from the
brief account of Juvenal, commonly attributed to Suetonius; but which
is probably posterior to his time; as it bears very few marks of being
written by a contemporary author: it is, however, the earliest extant.
The old critics, struck with its deficiencies, have attempted to render
it more complete by variations, which take from its authenticity,
without adding to its probability.
[2] I have adopted Dodwell's chronology. "Sic autem (he says) se rem
illam totam habuisse censeo. Exul erat Juv. cum Satiram scriberet
xv. Hoc confirmat etiam in v. 27, scholiastes. 'De se Juv. dicit,
quia in Ægypto militem tenuit, et ea promittit se relaturum quæ ipse
vidit.'" Had not Dodwell been predisposed to believe this, he would
have seen that the scholium "confirmed" nothing: for Juvenal makes
no such promise. "Proinde rixæ illi ipse adfuit quam describit." So
error is built up! How does it appear that Juvenal was present at the
quarrel which he describes? He was in Egypt, we know; he had passed
through the Ombite nome, and he speaks of the face of the country
as falling under his own inspection: but this is all; and he might
have heard of the quarrel at Rome, or elsewhere. "Tempus autem ipse
designavit rixæ illius cum et 'nuper'[12] illam contigisse dicit, et
quidem 'Consule Junio.' Jun. duplicem habent fasti, alium Domit. in x.
Consulatu collegam App. Junium Sabinum A.D. lxxxiv.; alium Hadriani
in suo itidem consulatu III. collegam Q. Junium Rusticum. Quo minus
prior intelligi possit, obstant illa omnia quæ in his ipsis Satiris
occurrunt Domitiani temporibus recentiora." Yet, such is the capricious
nature of criticism! Dodwell's chief argument to prove the late period
at which Juvenal was banished, is a passage confessedly written under
Domitian, and foisted into a satire published, as he himself maintains,
many years after that emperor's death! "Posteriorem ergo intellexerit
oportet. Hoc ergo anno (CXIX.) erat in exilio. Sed vero Roma illum
ejicere non potuit Trajanus, qui ab anno usque CXII. Romæ ipse non
adfuit; nec etiam ante CXVIII. quo Romam venit imperator Hadrianus. Sic
ante anni CXVIII. finem, aut CXIX. initium, mitti vix potuit in exilium
Juvenalis: erat autem cum relegaretur, octogenarius. Proinde natus
fuerit vel anni XXXVIII. fine, vel XXXIX. initio." Annal. 157-159.
I have made this copious extract from Dodwell, because it contains
a summary of the chief arguments which induced Pithæus, Henninius,
Lipsius, Salmasius, etc., to attribute the banishment of the author to
Hadrian. To me they appear any thing but conclusive; for, to omit other
objections for the present, why may not the Junius of the fifteenth
Satire be the one who was Consul with Domitian in 84, when Juvenal, by
Dodwell's own calculation, was in his 47th instead of his 80th year.
[3] "Deinde paucorum versuum satira non absurde composita in Paridem
pantomimum, poetamque Claudii Neronis" (the writer seems, in this and
the following clause, to have referred to Juvenal's words; it is,
therefore probable that we should read Calvi Neronis, _i. e._ Domitian;
otherwise the phrase must be given up as an absurd interpolation),
"ejus semestribus militiolis tumentem: genus scripturæ industriose
excoluit." Suet.
[4] "Et tamen diu, ne modico quidem auditorio quicquam committere ausus
est." Suet. On this Dodwell observes: "Tam longe aberant illa a Paridis
ira concitanda, si vel superstite Paride fuissent scripta, eum irritare
non possent, cum nondum emanassent in publicum," 161. He then adds that
"Martial knew nothing of his poetical studies,[13] who boasted that
he was as familiar with Juvenal as Pylades with Orestes!" It appears,
indeed, that they were acquainted; but I suspect, notwithstanding the
vehemence of Martial's assertions, that there was no great cordiality
between minds so very dissimilar. Some one, it seems, had accused the
epigrammatist to the satirist, not improbably, of making too free
with his thoughts and expressions. He was seriously offended; and
Martial, instead of justifying himself (whatever the charge might be),
imprecates shame on his accuser in a strain of idle rant not much above
the level of a schoolboy. Lib. vii. 24.
But if he had been acquainted with his friend's poetry, he would
certainly have spoken of it. Not quite so certainly. These learned
critics seem to think that Juvenal, like the poets he ridicules, wrote
nothing but trite fooleries on the Argonauts and the Lapithæ. Were the
Satires of Juvenal to be mentioned with approbation? and, if they were,
was Martial the person to do it? Martial, the most devoted sycophant of
the age, who was always begging, and sometimes receiving, favors from
the man whose castigation was, in general, the express object of them.
Is it not more consonant to his character to suppose that he would
conceal his knowledge of them with the most scrupulous care?
But when Domitian was dead, and Martial removed from Rome, when, in
short, there was no danger of speaking out, he still appears, continue
they, to be ignorant of his friend's poetic talents. I am almost
ashamed to repeat what the critics so constantly forget--that Juvenal
was not only satirist, but a republican, who looked upon Trajan as a
usurper, no less than Domitian. And how was it "safe to speak out,"
when they all assert that he was driven into banishment by a milder
prince than Trajan, for a passage "suspected of being a figurative
allusion to the times?" What inconsistencies are these!
[5] "Mox magna frequentia, magnoque successu bis ac ter auditus est; ut
ea quoque quæ prima fecerat, inferciret novis scriptis,
'Quod non dant proceres dabit histrio,' etc.
Sat. vii., 90-92.
Erat tum in delitiis aulæ histrio, multique fautorum ejus quotidie
provehebantur. Venit ergo in suspicionem quasi tempora figurate
notasset; ac statim per honorem militiolæ, quanquam octogenarius, urbe
summotus, missusque ad præfecturam cohortis in extrema parte tendentis
Ægypti. Id supplicii genus placuit, ut levi atque joculari delicto
par esset. Verum intra brevissimum tempus angore et tædio periit."
Suet. Passing by the interpolations of the old grammarians, I shall,
as before, have recourse to Dodwell. "Recitavit, ni fallor, omnia,
emisitque in publicum CXVIII. (Juvenal was now fourscore!) postquam
Romam venissit Hadrianus quem ille principem à benevolo ejus in hæc
studia animo, in hac ipsa satira in qua occurrunt verba illa de Paride
commendat." 161. Salmasius supposed that the last of his Satires only
were published under Hadrian; Dodwell goes farther, and maintains that
the whole, with the exception of the 15th and 16th[14] ("si tamen
vere et illa Juvenalis fuerit"), were then first produced! "Illa in
Paridem dicteria histrionem, in suum (cujus nomen non prodidit auctor)
histrionem dicta interpretabatur Hadrianus. Inde exilii causa. Scripsit
ergo in exilio Sat. XV. Sed cum 'nuper Consulem Junium' fuisse dicat,
ante annum ad minimum CXX. scribere illam non potuit Juv. Nec vero
postea scripsisse, exinde colligimus, quod 'intra brevissimum tempus'
perierit." 164. Such is the manner in which Dodwell accommodates
Suetonius to his own ideas: which seem, also, to have been those of
a much higher name, Salmasius; and, while I am now writing, to be
sanctioned by the adoption of the learned Ruperti. I never affected
singularity; yet I find myself constrained to differ from them all:
but I will state my reasons. In his 7th Satire, after speaking of
Quintilian, Juvenal adds,
"Si fortuna volet, fies de rhetore consul:
Si volet hæc eadem fies de consule rhetor."
Which, taking it for a proverbial expression, I have loosely rendered,
Fortune can make kings of pedants and pedants of kings. Dodwell,
however, understands it literally. "Hæc sane cum Quintiliani causa
dicat, vix est quin Q. talem ostendant è rhetore nimirum 'nobilem,
senatorium, consularem,' et quidem illis divitiis instructum, quæ
essent etiam ad censum senatorium necessariæ." 152. Now, as Pliny, who
probably died before Trajan, observes that Quintilian was a man of
moderate fortune, it follows that he must have acquired the wealth and
honors of which Juvenal speaks at a later period. Dodwell fixes this to
the time when Hadrian entered Rome, CXVIII., which he states to be also
that of the author's banishment. It must be confessed that Juvenal lost
no time in exerting himself: he had remained silent fourscore years;
he now bursts forth at once, as Dodwell expresses it, recites all his
Satires without intermission ("unis continuisque recitationibus"),
celebrates Quintilian, attacks the emperor, and is immediately
dispatched to Egypt! 162. Here is a great deal of business crowded into
the compass of a few weeks, or perhaps days; but let us examine it a
little more closely. Rigaltius, with several of the commentators, sees
in the lines above quoted a sneer at Quintilian, and he accounts for
the rhetor's silence respecting our author, by the resentment which he
supposes him to have felt at it. As this militates strongly against
Dodwell's ideas, he will not allow that any thing severe was intended
by the passage in question; and adds that Quintilian could not mention
Juvenal as a satirist, because he had not then written any satires.
160. I believe that both are wrong. In speaking of the satirists,
Quintilian says that Persius had justly acquired no inconsiderable
degree of reputation by the little he had written. Lib. x., c. 1. He
then adds, "sunt clari hodieque, et qui olim nominabuntur." There are
yet some excellent ones, some who will be better known hereafter. It
always appeared to me, that this last phrase alluded to our author,
with whose extraordinary merits Quintilian was probably acquainted, but
whom he did not choose, or, perhaps, did not dare to mention in a work
composed under a prince whose crimes this unnamed satirist persecuted
with a severity as unmitigated as it was just. Quintilian had no
political courage. Either from a sense of kindness or fear, he flatters
Domitian almost as grossly as Martial does: but his life was a life of
innocence and integrity; I will therefore say no more on this subject;
but leave it to the reader to consider whether such a man was likely to
startle the "god of his idolatry" by celebrating the Satires of Juvenal.
Nor do I agree with the commentators whom Dodwell has followed, in
the literal interpretation of those famous lines. "Unde igitur tot,"
etc. Sat. vii., v. 188-194. Quintilian was rich, when the rest of