The Satires of Juvenal, Persius, Sulpicia, and Lucilius
By such proprietors as these, last of all[712] the ring is parted with,
and Pollio[713] begs with his finger bare. It is not the premature
funeral pile, or the grave, that is luxury's horror, but old age,[714]
more to be dreaded than death itself. These are most commonly the
steps: money, borrowed at Rome, is spent before the very owners' faces;
then when some trifling residue is left, and the lender of the money is
growing pale, they give leg-bail[715] and run to Baiæ and Ostia. For
now-a-days to quit the forum[716] is not more discreditable to you than
to remove to Esquiline from hot[717] Suburra. This is the only pain
that they who flee their country feel, this their only sorrow, to have
lost the Circensian games[718] for one[719] year. Not a drop of blood
remains in their face; few attempt to detain modesty, now become an
object of ridicule and fleeing from the city.
You shall prove to-day by your own experience, Persicus, whether
all these things, which are very fine to talk about, I do not
practice in my life, in my moral conduct, and in reality: but praise
vegetables,[720] while in secret I am a glutton: in others' hearing
bid my slave bring me water-gruel,[721] but whisper "cheese-cakes" in
his ear. For since you are my promised guest, you shall find me an
Evander:[722] you shall come as the Tirynthian, or the guest, inferior
indeed to him, and yet himself akin by blood to heaven: the one sent to
the skies by water,[723] the other by fire.
Now hear your bill of fare,[724] furnished by no public market.[725]
From my farm at Tibur there shall come a little kid, the fattest and
tenderest of the whole flock, ignorant of the taste of grass, that has
never yet ventured to browse even on the low twigs of the willow-bed,
and that has more milk than blood in his veins: and asparagus[726] from
the mountains, which my bailiff's wife, having laid down her spindle,
gathered. Some huge eggs besides, and still warm in their twisted hay,
shall be served up together with the hens themselves: and grapes kept a
portion of the year, just as they were when fresh upon the vines: pears
from Signia[727] and Syria: and, from the same basket, apples rivaling
those of Picenum,[728] and smelling quite fresh; that you need not be
afraid of, since they have lost their autumnal moisture, which has
been dried up by cold, and the dangers to be feared from their juice
if crude. This would in times gone by have been a luxurious supper
for our senate. Curius[729] with his own hands used to cook over his
little fire pot-herbs which he had gathered in his little garden: such
herbs as now the foul digger in his heavy chain rejects with scorn,
who remembers the flavor of the vile dainties[730] of the reeking
cook-shop. It was the custom formerly to keep against festival days
the flitches of the smoked swine, hanging from the wide-barred rack,
and to set bacon as a birthday treat before one's relations, with the
addition of some fresh meat, if a sacrificial victim furnished any.
Some one of the kin, with the title of "Thrice consul," that had held
command in camps, and discharged the dignity of dictator, used to go
earlier[731] than his wont to such a feast as this, bearing his spade
over his shoulder from the mountain he had been digging on. But when
men trembled at the Fabii,[732] and the stern Cato, and the Scauri and
Fabricii;[733] and when, in fine, even his colleague stood in dread
of the severe character of the strict Censor; no one thought it was
a matter of anxiety or serious concern what kind of tortoise[734]
floated in the wave of ocean, destined to form a splendid and noble
couch for the Trojugenæ. But with side devoid of ornament, and sofas
of diminutive size, the brazen front displayed the mean head of an ass
wearing a chaplet,[735] at which the country lads laughed in wantonness.
The food then was in keeping with the master of the house and the
furniture. Then the soldier, uncivilized, and too ignorant[736] to
admire the arts of Greece, used to break up the drinking-cups, the
work of some renowned artists, which he found in his share of the
booty when cities were overthrown, that his horse might exult in
trappings,[737] and his embossed helmet might display to his enemy
on the point of perishing, likenesses of the Romulean wild beast
bidden to grow tame by the destiny of the empire, and the twin Quirini
beneath the rock, and the naked image of the god coming down[738] with
buckler and spear, and impending over him. Whatever silver he possessed
glittered on his arms[739] alone. In those days, then, they used to
serve all their furmety in a dish of Tuscan earthenware: which you may
envy, if you are at all that way inclined.[740]
The majesty of temples also was more evidently near[741] to men, and a
voice[742] heard about midnight and through the midst of the city, when
the Gauls were coming from the shore of ocean, and the gods discharged
the functions of a prophet, warned us of these.
This was the care which Jupiter used to show for the affairs of
Latium, when made of earthenware,[743] and as yet profaned by no
gold. Those days saw tables made of wood grown at home and from our
native trees.[744] To these uses was the timber applied, if the east
wind had chanced to lay prostrate some old walnut-tree. But now the
rich have no satisfaction in their dinner, the turbot and the venison
lose their flavor, perfumes and roses seem to lose their smell, unless
the broad circumference of the table is supported by a huge mass of
ivory, and a tall leopard with wide-gaping jaws, made of those tusks,
which the gate of Syene[745] transmits, and the active Moors, and the
Indian of duskier hue than the Moor;[746] and which the huge beast
has deposited in some Nabathæan[747] glen, as now grown too weighty
and burdensome to his head: by this their appetite[748] is whetted:
hence their stomach acquires its vigor. For a leg of a table made
only of silver is to them what an iron ring on their finger would
be: I therefore cautiously avoid a proud guest, who compares me with
himself, and looks with scorn on my paltry estate. Consequently I do
not possess a single ounce of ivory: neither my chess-board[749] nor
my men are of this material; nay, the very handles of my knives are of
bone. Yet my viands never become rank in flavor by these, nor does my
pullet cut up the worse on that account. Nor yet will you see a carver,
to whom the whole carving-school[750] ought to yield the palm, some
pupil of the professor Trypherus, at whose house the hare, with the
large sow's udders,[751] and the wild boar, and the roebuck,[752] and
pheasants,[753] and the huge flamingo,[754] and the wild goat[755] of
Gætulia, all forming a most splendid supper, though made of elm, are
carved with the blunted knife, and resounds through the whole Suburra.
My little fellow, who is a novice, and uneducated all his days, does
not know how to take dexterously off a slice of roe, or the wing of a
Guinea-hen;[756] only versed in the mysteries of carving the fragments
of a small collop.[757]
My slave, who is not gayly dressed, and only clad so as to protect him
from cold, will hand you plebeian cups[758] bought for a few pence. He
is no Phrygian or Lycian, or one purchased from the slave-dealer[759]
and at great price. When you ask for any thing, ask in Latin. They have
all the same style of dress; their hair close-cropped and straight, and
only combed to-day on account of company. One is the son of a hardy
shepherd, another of a neat-herd: he sighs after his mother, whom he
has not seen for a long time, and pines for his hovel[760] and his
playmate kids. A lad of ingenuous face, and ingenuous modesty; such as
_those_ ought to be who are clothed in brilliant purple. He shall hand
you wine[761] made on those very hills from which he himself comes, and
under whose summit he has played; for the country of the wine and the
attendant is one and the same.
Gambling is disgraceful, and so is adultery, in men of moderate means.
Yet when rich men commit all those abominations, they are called
jovial, splendid fellows. Our banquet to-day will furnish far different
amusements. The author of the Iliad[762] shall be recited, and the
verses of high-sounding Mars, that render the palm doubtful. What
matter is it with what voice such noble verses are read?[763] But now
having put off all your cares, lay aside business, and allow yourself
a pleasing respite, since you will have it in your power to be idle
all day long. Let there be no mention of money out at interest. Nor if
your wife is accustomed to go out at break of day and return at night,
let her stir up your bile,[764] though you hold your tongue. Divest
yourself at once of all that annoys you, at my threshold. Banish all
thoughts of home and servants, and all that is broken and wasted[765]
by them--especially forget ungrateful friends! Meantime, the spectacles
of the Megalesian towel[766] grace the Idæan solemnity: and, like one
in a triumph, the prey of horses, the prætor, sits: and, if I may say
so without offense to the immense and overgrown crowd, the circus
to-day incloses the whole of Rome;[767] and a din reaches my ears,
from which I infer the success of the green faction.[768] For should
it not win, you would see this city in mourning and amazement, as when
the consuls were conquered in the dust[769] of Cannæ. Let young men be
spectators of these, in whom shouting and bold betting, and sitting
by a trim damsel is becoming. Let our skin,[770] which is wrinkled
with age, imbibe the vernal sun and avoid the toga'd crowd. Even now,
though it wants a whole hour to the sixth, you may go to the bath
with unblushing brow. You could not do this for five successive days;
because even of such a life as this there would be great weariness. It
is a more moderate use[771] that enhances pleasures.
FOOTNOTES:
[685] _Atticus._ Put for any man of wealth and rank. So _Rutilus_ for
the reverse. Cf. xiv., 18.
[686] _Lautus._ Cf. Mart., xii., Ep. xlviii., 5.
[687] _Apicius_ (cf. iv., 23), having spent "millies sestertium,"
upward of eight hundred thousand pounds, in luxury, destroyed himself
through fear of want, though it appeared he had above eighty thousand
pounds left.
[688] _Convictus._ Properly, like convivium, "a dinner party." Cf. i.,
145, "It nova nec tristis per cunctas fabula cœnas." Tac., Ann., xiv.,
4; xiii., 14.
[689] _Stationes_, "locus ubi otiosi in urbe degunt, et variis
sermonibus tempus terunt." Plin., Ep. i., 13; ii, 9.
[690] _Sufficiunt galeæ._ Cf. vii., 32, "Defluit ætas et pelagi patiens
et cassidis atque ligonis."
[691] _Cogente._ Cf. viii., 167, "Quanti sua funera vendunt Quid
refert? vendunt nullo _cogente Nerone_. Nec dubitant celsi prætoris
vendere ludis."
[692] _Scripturus._ Suet., Jul., 26. Gladiators had to write out the
rules and words of command of their trainers, "dictata," in order to
learn them by heart. Lubinus gives us some of these: "attolle, declina,
percute, urge, cæde."
[693] _Macelli._ So called from μάκελλον, "an inclosure," because the
markets, before dispersed in the Forum boarium, olitorium, piscarium,
cupedinis, etc., were collected into one building; or, from one
Romanius Macellus, whose house stood there, and was "propter latrocinia
ejus publicè diruta." Vid. Donat. ad Ter., Eunuch., ii., sc. ii.,
24, where he gives a list of the cupediarii, "cetarii, lanii, coqui,
fartores, piscatores;" or á mactando; as the French "Abattoir." Cf.
Sat., v., 95. Suet., Jul., 26. Plaut., Aul., II., viii., 3. Hor., i.,
Ep. xv., 31.
[694] _Perlucente ruinâ._ Cf. x., 107, "impulsæ præceps immane ruinæ."
A metaphor from a building on the point of falling, with the daylight
streaming through its cracks and fissures.
"Then with their prize to ruin'd walls repair,