The Satires of Juvenal, Persius, Sulpicia, and Lucilius
his diminutive satchel, begins to long, and longs through all his
quinquatrian[601] holidays, for the eloquence and the renown of
Demosthenes or Cicero. But it was through their eloquence that both of
these orators perished: the copious and overflowing fount of talent
gave over each to destruction; by talent, was his hand and head cut
off! Nor did the Rostra[602] ever reek with the blood of a contemptible
pleader.
"O fortunate Rome, whose natal day may date from me as consul!" He
might have scorned the swords of Antony,[603] had all he uttered
been such trash as this. I had rather write poems that excite only
ridicule, than thee, divine Philippic of distinguished fame! that art
unrolled next to the first! Cruel was the end that carried him off
also whom Athens used to admire as his words flowed from his lips in a
torrent[604] of eloquence, and he swayed at will the passions of the
crowded theatre. With adverse gods and inauspicious fate was he born,
whom his father, blear-eyed with the grime of the glowing mass, sent
from the coal, and pincers,[605] and the sword-forging anvil, and sooty
Vulcan,[606] to the rhetorician's school!
The spoils of war, the cuirass fastened to the truncated[607] trophy,
the cheek-piece hanging from the battered helm, the car shorn of its
pole, the streamer of the captured galley,[608] and the sad captive on
the triumphal arch-top,[609] are held to be goods exceeding all human
blessings. For these each general, Roman, or Greek, or Barbarian,
strains as his prize! Full compensation for his dangers and his toils
he sees in these! So much greater is the thirst after fame than virtue.
For who would embrace[610] virtue herself, if you took away the rewards
of virtue? And yet, ere now, the glory of a few has been the ruin of
their native land; that longing for renown, and those inscriptions that
are to live on the marble that guards their ashes; and yet to burst
asunder this, the mischievous strength of the barren fig-tree has power
enough. Since even to sepulchres[611] themselves are fates assigned.
Weigh[612] the remains of Hannibal! How many pounds will you find in
that most consummate general! This is the man whom not even Africa,
lashed by the Mauritanian ocean, and stretching even to the steaming
Nile, and then again to the races of the Æthiopes and their tall[613]
elephants, can contain! Spain is annexed to Carthage's domain. He
bounds across the Pyrenees. Nature opposed in vain the Alps with
all their snows; he cleaves the rocks and rives the mountains with
vinegar.[614] Now he is lord of Italy! Yet still he presses on. "Naught
is achieved,"[615] he says, "unless we burst through the gates of Rome
with the soldiery of Carthage, and I plant my standard in the heart
of the Suburra!" Oh what a face![616] and worthy what a picture! when
the huge Gætulian beast bore on his back the one-eyed[617] general!
What then was the issue? Oh glory! This self-made man is conquered,
and flees with headlong haste to exile, and there, a great and
much-to-be-admired client, sits at the palace of the king, until his
Bithynian majesty[618] be pleased to wake! To that soul, that once
shook the very world's base, it is not sword, nor stone, nor javelin,
that shall give the final stroke; but, that which atoned for Cannæ, and
avenged such mighty carnage,[619] a ring! Go then, madman, and hurry
over the rugged Alps, that you may be the delight of boys, and furnish
subjects for declamations![620]
One[621] world is not enough for the youth of Pella! He chafes within
the narrow limits of the universe, poor soul, as though confined in
Gyarus'[622] small rock, or scanty Seriphös. Yet when he shall have
entered the city that the brickmakers[623] fortified, he will be
content with a sarcophagus![624] Death alone discloses how very small
are the puny bodies of men! Men do believe that Athos was sailed
through of yore; and all the bold assertions that lying Greeks hazard
in history--that the sea was bridged over by the same fleets, and
formed into a solid pavement for the transit of wheels. We believe that
deep rivers failed, and streams were drunk dry[625] when the Persian
dined; and all the flights of Sostratus'[626] song, when his wings are
moistened by the god of wine. And yet, in what guise did _he_ return
after quitting Salamis, who, like a true barbarian as he was, used to
vent his rage in scourges on Corus and Eurus, that had never suffered
in this sort in Æolus' prison; and bound in gyves Ennosigæus[627]
himself. It was, in fact, an act of clemency that he did not think he
deserved branding[628] also. Would any of the gods choose to serve[629]
such a man as this? But how did he return? Why, in a single ship;
through waves dyed with blood, and with his galley retarded[630] by the
shoals of corpses. Such was the penalty that glory, for which he had so
often prayed, exacted.
"Grant length of life, great Jove, and many years!" This is your only
prayer in health and sickness. But with what unremitting and grievous
ills is old age crowded! First of all, its face is hideous, loathsome,
and altered from its former self; instead of skin a hideous hide and
flaccid cheeks; and see! such wrinkles, as, where Tabraca[631] extends
her shady dells, the antiquated ape[632] scratches on her wizened
jowl! There are many points of difference in the young: this youth is
handsomer than that; and he again than a third: one is far sturdier
than another. Old mens faces are all alike--limbs tottering and
voice feeble,[633] a smooth bald pate, and the second childhood of a
driveling nose; the poor wretch must mumble his bread with toothless
gums; so loathsome to his wife, his children, and even to himself,
that he would excite the disgust even of the legacy-hunter Cossus! His
palate[634] is grown dull; his relish for his food and wine[635] no
more the same; the joys of love are long ago forgotten; and in spite
of all efforts to reinvigorate them, all manly energies are hopelessly
extinct. Has this depraved and hoary lechery aught else to hope? Do we
not look with just suspicion on the lust that covets the sin but lacks
the power?[636]
Now turn your eyes to the loss of another sense. For what pleasure
has he in a singer, however eminent a harper it may be; nay, even
Seleucus himself; or those whose habit it is to glitter in a cloak
of gold?[637] What matters it in what part of the wide theatre he
sits, who can scarcely hear the horn-blowers, and the general clang
of trumpets? You must bawl out loud before his ear can distinguish
who it is his slave says has called, or tells him what o'clock it
is.[638] Besides, the scanty blood that flows in his chill[639] body
is warmed by fever only. Diseases of every kind dance round him in
full choir. If you were to ask their names, I could sooner tell you
how many lovers Hippia had; how many patients Themison[640] killed in
one autumn; how many allies Basilus plundered; how many wards Hirrus
defrauded; how many lovers long Maura received in the day; how many
pupils Hamillus corrupts. I could sooner run through the list of villas
owned by him now, beneath whose razor[641] my stiff beard resounded
when I was in my prime. One is weak in the shoulder; another in the
loins; another in the hip. Another has lost both eyes, and envies the
one-eyed. Another's bloodless lips receive their food from others'
fingers. He that was wont to relax his features to a smile at the sight
of his dinner, now only gapes[642] like the young swallow to whom the
parent bird, herself fasting,[643] flies with full beak. But worse
than all debility of limb is that idiocy which recollects neither the
names of his slaves nor the face of the friend with whom he supped the
evening before; not even those whom he begot and brought up! For by a
heartless will he disinherits them; and all his property is made over
to Phiale:[644]--such power has the breath of her artificial mouth,
that stood for hire so many years in the brothel's dungeon.
Even though the powers of intellect retain their vigor, yet he must
lead forth the funerals of his children; must gaze upon the pyre of
a beloved wife, and the urns filled with all that remains of his
brother and sisters. This is the penalty imposed on the long-lived,
that they must grow old with the death-blow in their house forever
falling fresh--in oft-recurring sorrow--in unremitting mourning, and
a suit of black.[645] The king of Pylos,[646] if you put any faith
in great Homer, was an instance of life inferior in duration only
to the crow's.[647] Happy, no doubt! was he who for so many years
put off his hour of death; and now begins to count his years on his
right hand,[648] and has drunk so often of the new-made wine. I pray
you, lend me your ear a little space; and hear how sadly he himself
complains of the decrees of fate, and too great powers of life, when
he watches the blazing beard of Antilochus[649] in his bloom, and
asks of every friend that stands near, why it is he lingers on to
this day; what crime he has committed to deserve so long a life!
Such, too, is Peleus' strain, when he mourns for Achilles prematurely
snatched from him: and that other, whose lot it was to grieve for the
shipwrecked[650] Ithacensian.
Priam would have joined the shade of Assaracus with Troy still
standing, with high solemnities, with Hector and his brothers
supporting his bier on their shoulders, amid the weeping Troades, so
that Cassandra would lead off the wail, and Polyxena[651] with mantle
rent, had he but died at any time but that, after that Paris had begun
to build his audacious ships. What then did length of days confer on
him? He saw his all o'erthrown: Asia laid low by flame and sword. Then
the poor tottering warrior[652] laid down his diadem and donned his
arms, and fell before the altar of supreme Jove; like some old ox[653]
that yields his attenuated and miserable neck to his owner's knife,
long ago scorned[654] by the ungrateful plow.
That was at all events the death of a human being: but his wife who
survived him barked fiercely from the jaws of a bitch.[655]
I hasten on to our own countrymen, and pass by the king of Pontus, and
Crœsus,[656] whom the eloquent voice of the right-judging Solon bade
look at the closing scene[657] of a life however long. Banishment,
and the jail, and the marshes of Minturnæ,[658] and his bread begged
in conquered Carthage, took their rise from this. What could all
nature, what could Rome, have produced more blessed in the wide world
than that citizen, had he breathed forth his soul[659] glutted with
spoils, while the captive train followed around his chariot, in all
the pomp and circumstance of war, when he was about to alight from his
Teutonic[660] car! Campania,[661] in her foresight for Pompey, had
given him a fever he should have prayed for. But the many cities and
their public prayers prevailed. Therefore his own malignant fortune
and that of Rome preserved him only that conquered he should lose
his head. Lentulus[662] escaped this torment; Cethegus paid not this
penalty, but fell unmutilated; and Catiline lay with corpse entire.
The anxious mother, when she visits Venus' temple, prays for beauty
for her boys with subdued whisper;[663] with louder voice for her
girls, carrying her fond wishes[664] even to the verge of trifling.
"But why should you chide me?" she says; "Latona[665] delights in the
beauty of Diana." But, Lucretia[666] forbids a face like hers to be the
subject of your prayers: Virginia would gladly give hers to Rutila,
and receive her wen in exchange. But, a son possessed of exquisite
person keeps his parents in a constant state of misery and alarm. So
rare is the union[667] of beauty with chastity. Though the house,
austere in virtue, and emulating the Sabines of old, may have handed