The Satires of Juvenal, Persius, Sulpicia, and Lucilius
his profession were in the utmost want. Here then was an instance of
good fortune. He was lucky; and with luck a man may be any thing;
handsome, and witty, and wise, and noble, and high-born, and a member
of the senate. Who does not see in this a satirical exaggeration?
Wisdom, beauty, and high birth luck can not give: why then should the
remainder of this passage be so strictly interpreted, and referred to
the actual history of Quintilian? The lines, "Si fortuna volet," etc.,
are still more lax: a reflection thrown out at random, and expressing
the greatest possible extremes of fortune. Yet on these authorities
principally (for the passage of Ausonius,[15] written more than two
centuries later, is of no great weight) has Quintilian been advanced to
consular honors; while Dodwell, who, as we have seen, has taken immense
pains to prove that they could only be conferred on him by Hadrian, has
hence deduced his strongest arguments for the late date of our author's
Satires; which he thus brings down to the period of mental imbecility!
Hence, too, he accounts for the different ideas of Quintilian's wealth
in Juvenal and Pliny. When the latter wrote, he thinks Quintilian had
not acquired much property, he was "modicus facultatibus:" when the
former, "he had been enriched by the imperial bounty, and was capable
of senatorial honors." Yet Pliny might not think his old master rich
enough to give a fortune with his daughter adequate to the expectations
of a man of considerable rank (lib. vi., 32), though Juvenal, writing
at the same instant, might term him wealthy, in comparison of the
rhetoricians who were starving around him; and count him a peculiar
favorite of fortune. Let us bear in mind, too, that Juvenal is a
satirist, and a poet: in the latter capacity, the minute accuracy of an
annalist can not be expected at his hands; and in the former--as his
object was to show the general discouragement of literature, he could
not, consistently with his plan, attribute the solitary good fortune of
Quintilian to any thing but luck.
But why was Quintilian made consul? Because, replies Dodwell (164),
when Hadrian first entered Rome he was desirous of gaining the
affections of the people; which could be done no way so effectually as
by conciliating the esteem of the literati; and he therefore conferred
this extraordinary mark of favor on the rhetorician. How did it escape
this learned man, that he was likely to do himself more injury in their
opinion by the banishment of Juvenal at that same instant? an old
man of fourscore, who, by his own testimony, had spoken of him with
kindness, in a poem which did more honor to his reign than any thing
produced in it! and whose only crime was an allusion to the influence
of a favorite player! Indeed, the informers of Hadrian's reign must
have had more sagacious noses than those of Domitian's, to smell out
his fault. What Statius, in his time, was celebrated for the recitation
of a Thebaid, or what Paris, for the purchase of an untouched Agave?
And where, might we ask Dodwell, was the "jest" of sending a man on
the verge of the grave, in a military capacity, into Egypt? Could the
most supple of Hadrian's courtiers look on it as any thing but a wanton
exercise of cruelty? At eighty, the business of satirizing, either in
prose or verse, is nearly over: what had the emperor then to fear? And
to sum up all in a word, can any rational being seriously persuade
himself that the Satires of Juvenal were produced, for the first time,
by a man turned of fourscore?
[6] But why should he complain at all? Was he ashamed of being known to
possess an influence at the imperial court? Those were not very modest
times, nor is modesty, in general, the crying vice of the "quality."
He was more likely to have gloried in it. If Bareas, or Camerinus, or
any of the old nobility, had complained of the author, I should have
thought it more reasonable: but Domitian cared nearly as little for
them as Paris himself did.
[7] I hold, in opposition to the commentators, that Juvenal was known
in Domitian's time, not only as a poet, but as a keen and vigorous
satirist. He himself, though he did not choose to commit his safety
to a promiscuous audience, appears to make no great secret of his
peculiar talents. In this Satire, certainly prior to many of the
others, he tells us that he accompanied Umbritius, then on his way
to Cumæ, out of the gates of Rome. Umbritius predicted, as Tacitus
says, the death of Galba, at which time he was looked upon as the most
skillful aruspex of the age. He could not then be a young man; yet, at
quitting the capital, he still talks of himself as in the first stage
of old age, "nova canities, et prima et recta senectus." His voluntary
exile, therefore, could not possibly have taken place long after the
commencement of Domitian's reign; when he speaks of Juvenal as already
celebrated for his Satires, and modestly doubts whether the assistance
of so able a coadjutor as himself would be accepted.
This, at least, serves to prove in what light the author wished to
be considered: for the rest, there can, I think, exclusively of what
I have urged, be little doubt that this Satire was produced under
Domitian. It is known, from other authorities, that he revived the
law of Otho in all its severity, that he introduced a number of
low and vicious characters, "pinnirapi cultos juvenes, juvenesque
lanistæ," into the Equestrian Order, that he was immoderately attached
to building, etc., circumstances much dwelt on in this Satire, and
applicable to him alone.
[8] The following line, "Dacicus et scripto radiat Germanicus auro,"
seems to militate against the early date of this Satire. Catanæus and
Arntzenius say that Juvenal could not mean Domitian here, because "he
did not think well enough of him to do him such honor; whereas he was
fond of commending Trajan." I see no marks of this fondness; nor were
the titles, if meant of Domitian, intended to do him honor, but to
reprove his vanity.
Whether medals were ever struck with the inscription of Dacicus and
Germanicus in honor of Domitian, I am not qualified to determine.
Certain it is, however, that he assumed both these titles; the latter,
indeed, in common with his predecessors from the time of Germ. Cæsar;
and the former, in consequence of his pretended success in the Dacian
war, for which he is bitterly sneered at by Pliny, as well as Dio.
It is given to him, among others, by Martial, who dedicates his
eighth book, "Imper. Domit. Cæs. Augusto Germanico _Dacico_." Dodwell
appropriates (as I do) the line to Domitian--a little inconsistently,
it must be confessed; but that is his concern. If, however, it be
adjudged to Trajan, I should not for that bring down the date of
the Satire to a later period. Juvenal revised and enlarged all his
works, when he gave them to the public: this under consideration,
in particular, has all the marks of having received considerable
additions; and one of them might be the line in question.
[9] This satire has contributed as much perhaps as the seventh to
persuade Lipsius, Salmasius, and others, that Juvenal wrote his best
pieces when he was turned of fourscore.
"----Stupet hæc, qui jam post terga reliquit
Sexaginta annos, Fonteio Consule natus!"
There were four consuls of this name. The first is out of the question;
the second was consul A.D. 13, the third in 59, and the fourth in 68.
If we take the second, and add any intermediate number of years between
sixty and seventy, for Calvinus had passed his sixtieth year, it will
just bring us down to the early part of Domitian's reign, which I
suppose to be the true date of this Satire; for I can not believe, as
I have already observed, that this, or indeed any part of Juvenal's
works, was produced when he was trembling on the verge of ninety, as
must be the case if either of the latter periods be adopted. But he
observes, "Hæc quota pars scelerum quæ custos Gallicus urbis," etc.
Now Rutilius Gallicus was præfect of Rome from the end of 85 to 88
(Domitian succeeded his brother in 81), in which year he died. There
seems to be no necessity for mentioning a magistrate as sitting, who
was not then in existence; nor can any reason be assigned, if the
Satire was written under Hadrian, for the author's recurring to the
times of Domitian for a name, when that of the "custos urbis" of
the day would have better answered his purpose. It is probable that
Gallicus succeeded Pegasus, who was præfect when the ridiculous farce
of the turbot took place (Sat. iv.); this would fix it to 85, the year
before Fuscus, who was present at it, was sent into Dacia.
[10] This Satire is referred by the critics to the reign of Trajan,
because Marius, whose trial took place under that prince, is mentioned
in it. I have attributed it to an earlier period; principally moved by
the consideration that it presents a faithful copy of the state of Rome
and the conquered provinces under Nero, and which could scarcely have
been given in such vivid colors after the original had ceased to affect
the mind. What Rome was under Domitian, may be seen in the second
Satire, and the difference, which has not been sufficiently attended
to, is striking in the extreme. I would observe too, that Juvenal
speaks here of the _crimes_ of Marius--they might be, and probably
were, committed long before his condemnation; but under Domitian it was
scarcely safe to attempt bringing such gigantic peculators to justice.
Add to this, that the other culprits mentioned in it are all of them
prior to that prince; nay, one of them, Capito, was tried so early as
the beginning of Nero's reign. The insertion of Marius, however (which
might be an after-thought), forms a main argument with Dodwell for the
very late date of this Satire; he observes that it had escaped Lipsius
and Salmasius; and boasts of it as "longe certissimum," etc. 156.
[11] I have often wondered at the stress which Dodwell and others lay
on the concluding lines of this Satire: "Experiar quid concedatur,"
etc. They fancy that the engagement was seriously made, and religiously
observed. Nothing was ever farther from the mind of Juvenal. It is
merely a poetical, or, if you will, a satirical, flourish; since there
is not a single Satire, I am well persuaded, in which the names of many
who were alive at the time are not introduced. Had Dodwell forgotten
Quintilian? or, that he had allowed one of his Satires, at least, to be
prior to this?
[12] This "nuper" is a very convenient word. Here, we see, it signifies
lately; but when it is necessary to bring the works of our author down
to a late period, it means, as Britannicus explains it, "de longo
tempore," long ago.
[13] But how to this ascertained? Very easily; he calls him "fecundus
Juvenalis." Here the question is finally left; for none of the
commentators suppose it possible that the epithet can be applied to any
but a rhetorician. Yet it is applied by the same writer to a poet of no
ordinary kind;
"Accipe, _facundi_ Culicem, studiose. Maronis
Ne, nugis positis, arma virumque canas."
Lib. xiv., 185.
And, by the author himself, to one who had grown old in the art:
"--------tunc seque suamque
Terpsichoren odit _facunda_ et nuda senectus."
Let it be remembered, too, that Martial, as is evident from the
frequent allusions to Domitian's expedition against the Catti, wrote
this epigram (lib. vii., 91) in the commencement of that prince's
reign, when it is acknowledged that Juvenal had produced but one or two
of his Satires.
[14] The former of these, Dodwell says, was written in exile, after
the author was turned of eighty. Salmasius, more rationally, conceives
it to have been produced at Rome. Giving full credit, however, to