The Satires of Juvenal, Persius, Sulpicia, and Lucilius
propitious to the mariner, and his destiny prevailed over Eurus and the
sea, when now the cheerful Parcæ draw kindlier tasks with benign hand,
and spin white wool,[793] and what wind there is, is not much stronger
than a moderate breeze, the wretched bark, with a poor make-shift, ran
before it, with the sailors' clothes spread out, and with its only sail
that remained: when now the south wind subsided, together with the
sun hope of life returned. Then the tall peak beloved by Iulus, and
preferred as a home by him to Lavinium,[794] his stepmother's seat,
comes in sight; to which the white sow[795] gave its name--(an udder
that excited the astonishment of the gladdened Phrygians)--illustrious
from what had never been seen before, thirty paps. At length he enters
the moles,[796] built through the waters inclosed within them, and
the Pharos of Tuscany, and the arms extending back, which jut out
into the middle of the sea, and leave Italy far behind. You would not
bestow such admiration on the harbor which nature formed: but with
damaged bark, the master steers for the inner smooth waters of the safe
haven, which even a pinnace of Baiæ could cross; and there with shaven
crowns[797] the sailors, now relieved from anxiety, delight to recount
their perils that form the subject of their prating.
Go then, boys, favoring with tongues and minds,[798] and place garlands
in the temples, and meal on the sacrificial knives, and decorate the
soft hearths and green turf-altar. I will follow shortly, and the
sacrifice which is most important[799] having been duly performed, I
will then return home, where my little images, shining in frail wax,
shall receive their slender chaplets. Here I will propitiate[800] my
own Jove, and offer incense to my hereditary Lares,[801] and will
display all colors of the violet. All things are gay; my gateway has
set up long branches,[802] and celebrates the festivities[803] with
lamps lighted in the morning.
Nor let these things be suspected by you, Corvinus. Catullus, for
whose safe return I erect so many altars, has three little heirs. You
may wait long enough for a man that would expend even a sick hen at
the point of death for so unprofitable a friend. But even this is too
great an outlay. Not even a quail will ever be sacrificed in behalf
of one who is a father. If rich Gallita[804] and Paccius, who have no
children, begin to feel the approach of fever, every temple-porch is
covered with votive tablets,[805] affixed according to due custom.
There are some who would even promise a hecatomb[806] of oxen. Since
elephants are not to be bought here or in Latium, nor is there any
where in our climate such a large beast generated; but, fetched from
the dusky nation, they are fed in the Rutulian forests, and the
field of Turnus, as the herd of Cæsar, prepared to serve no private
individual, since their ancestors used to obey Tyrian Hannibal, and our
own generals,[807] and the Molossian king, and to bear on their backs
cohorts--no mean portion of the war--and a tower that went into battle.
It is no fault, consequently, of Novius, or of Ister Pacuvius,[808]
that that ivory is not led to the altars, and falls a sacred victim
before the Lares of Gallita, worthy of such great gods, and those that
court their favor! One of these two fellows, if you would give him
license to perform the sacrifice, would vow the tallest or all the
most beautiful persons among his flock of slaves, or place sacrificial
fillets on his boys and the brows of his female slaves. And if he has
any Iphigenia[809] at home of marriageable age, he will offer her at
the altars, though he can not hope for the furtive substitution of
the hind of the tragic poets. I commend my fellow-citizen, and do not
compare a thousand[810] ships to a will; for if the sick man shall
escape Libitina,[811] he will cancel his former will, entangled in the
meshes of the act,[812] after a service so truly wonderful: and perhaps
in one short line will give his all to Pacuvius as sole[813] heir.
Proudly will he strut over his defeated rivals. You see, therefore,
what a great recompense the slaughtered Mycenian maid earns.
Long live Pacuvius, I pray, even to the full age of Nestor.[814] Let
him own as much as ever Nero plundered,[815] let him pile his gold
mountains high, and let him love no one,[816] and be loved by none.
FOOTNOTES:
[772] _Natali._ The birthday was sacred to the "Genius" to whom
they offered wine, incense, and flowers: abstaining from "bloody"
sacrifices, "ne die quâ ipsi lucem accepissent aliis demerent," Hor.,
ii., Ep. 144. "Floribus et vino Genium memorem brevis avi," Pers.,
ii., 3. "Funde merum Genio," Censorin., de D. N., 3. Virg., Ecl. iii.,
76. Compare Hor., Od., IV., xi., where he celebrates the birthday of
Mæcenas as "sanctior pœne _natali proprio_." Cf. Dennis's Etruria, vol.
ii., p. 65.
[773] _Cæspes._ Hor., Od., III., viii., 3, "Positusque carbo in cæspite
vivo." Tac., Ann., i. 18.
[774] _Niveam._ A white victim was offered to the Dii Superi: a black
one to the Inferi. Cf. Virg., Æn., iv., 60," _Junoni_ ante omnes, Ipsa
tenens dextrâ pateram pulcherrima Dido _Candentis_ vaccæ media inter
cornua fundit." Tibull., I., ii., 61, "Concidit ad magicos hostia
_pulla_ deos." Hor., i., Sat. viii., 27," Pullam divellere mordicus
agnam."
[775] _Gorgone._ Cf. Vir., Æn., viii., 435, _seq._; ii., 616.
[776] _Extensum._ It was esteemed a very bad omen if the victim did not
go willingly to the sacrifice. It was always led, therefore, with a
long slack rope.
[777] _Matris._ Cf. Hor., iv., Od. ii., 54, "Me tener solvet vitulus,
relicta matre."
[778] _Nascenti._ Hor., iii., Od. xiii., 4, "Cui frons turgida cornibus
Primis et Venerem, et prælia destinat."
"He flies his mother's teat with playful scorn,
And butts the oak-trees with his growing horn." Hodgson.
[779] _Hispulla._ Cf. vi., 74, "Hispulla tragædo gaudet." (This was the
name of the aunt of Pliny the Younger's wife, iv., Ep. 19; viii., 11.)
"Huge as Hispulla: scarcely to be slain
But by the stoutest servant of the train." Badham.
[780] _Clitumnus_ was a small river in Umbria flowing into the Tinia,
now "Topino," near Mevania, now "Timia." The Tinia discharges itself
into the Tiber near Perusia. Pliny (viii., Ep. 8) gives a beautiful
description of its source, now called "La Vene," in a letter which
is, as Gifford says, a model of elegance and taste. Its waters were
supposed to give a milk-white color to the cattle who drank of them.
Virg., Georg., ii., 146, "Hinc albi, Clitumne, greges, et maxima taurus
victima." Propert., II., xix., 25, "Quà formosa suo Clitumnus flumina
luco Integit et niveos abluit unda boves." Sil., iv., 547, "Clitumnus
in arvis Candentes gelido perfundit flumine tauros." Claudian., vi.,
Cons. Hon., 506.
[781] _Ignis._ Grangæus interprets this of the meteoric fires seen in
the Mediterranean, which, when seen single, were supposed to be fatal.
Plin., ii., 37, "Graves cum solitarii venerunt mergentesque navigia, et
si in carinæ ima deciderint, exurentes." These fires, when _double_,
were hailed as a happy omen, as the stars of Castor and Pollux.
"Fratres Helenæ lucida sidera," Hor., I., Od. iii., 2; cf. xii., 27.
The French call it "Le feu St. Elme," said to be a corruption of
"Helena." The Italian sailors call them "St. Peter and St. Nicholas."
But these only appear at the _close_ of a storm. Cf. Hor., ii., _seq._,
and Blunt's Vestiges, p. 37.
[782] _Poetica tempestas._
"So loud the thunder, such the whirlwind's sweep,
As when the poet lashes up the deep." Hodgson.
[783] _Pictores._ So Hor., i., Od. v., 13, "Me tabulâ sacer votivâ
paries indicat noida suspendisse potenti vestimenta maris Deo." It
seems to have been the custom for persons in peril of shipwreck not
only to vow pictures of their perilous condition to some deity in
case they escaped, but also to have a painting of it made to carry
about with them to excite commiseration as they begged. Cf. xiv., 302,
"Naufragus assem dum rogat et pictâ se tempestate tuetur." Pers.,
i., 89, "Quum fractâ te in trabe pictum ex humero portes." VI., 32,
"Largire inopi, ne pictus oberret cæruleâ in tabulâ." Hor., A. P., 20,
"Fractis enatat exspes navibus, ære dato qui pingitur." Phæd., IV.,
xxi., 24. Some think that _this_ picture was _afterward_ dedicated, but
this is an error.
[784] _Castora._ Ov., Nux., 165, "Sic ubi detracta est a te tibi causa
pericli Quod superest tutum, Pontice Castor, habes!" This story of
the beaver is told Plin., viii., 30; xxxvii., 6, and is repeated by
Silius, in a passage copied from Ovid and Juvenal. "Fluminei veluti
deprensus gurgitis undis, Avulsâ parte _inguinibus causâque pericli_,
Enatat intento prædæ fiber avius hoste," xv., 485. But it is an error.
The sebaceous matter called castoreum (Pers., v., 135), is secreted by
two glands near the root of the tail. (Vid. Martyn's Georgics, i., 59,
"Virosaque Pontus Castorea," and Browne's Vulgar Errors, lib. iii., 4.)
Pliny, viii., 3, tells a similar story of the elephant, "Circumventi a
venantibus dentes impactos arbori frangunt, _prædâque se redimunt_."
[785] _Bæticus._ The province of Bætica (Andalusia) takes its name from
the Bætis, or "Guadalquivir," the waters of which were said to give a
ruddy golden tinge to the fleeces of the sheep that drank it. Martial
alludes to it repeatedly. "Non est lana mihi mendax, nec mutor aëno. Si
placeant Tyriæ me mea tinxit ovis," xiv., Ep. 133. Cf. v., 37; viii.,
28. "Vellera nativo pallent ubi flava metallo," ix., 62. "Aurea qui
nitidis vellera tingis aquis," xii., 99.
"Away went garments of that innate stain
That wool imbibes on Guadalquiver's plain,
From native herbs and babbling fountains nigh,
To aid the powers of Andalusia's sky." Badham.
[786] _Urnæ._ Vid. ad vi., 426. Pholus was one of the Centaurs. Virg.,
Georg., ii., 455. Cf. Stat., Thebaid., ii., 564, _seq._, "Qualis in
adversos Lapithas erexit inanem Magnanimus cratera Pholus," etc.
[787] _Conjuge Fusci._ Vid. ad ix., 117.
[788] _Bascaudas._ The Celtic word "Basgawd" is said to be the root of
the English word "basket." Vid. Latham's English language, p. 98. These
were probably vessels surrounded with basket or rush work. Mart., xiv.,
Ep. 99. "Barbara de pictis veni bascauda Britannis; sed me jam mavolt
dicere Roma suam."
[789] _Olynthi._ Philip of Macedon bribed Lasthenes and Eurycrates to
betray Olynthus to him. Pliny (xxxiii., 5) says he used to sleep with a
gold cup under his pillow. Once, when told that the route to a castle
he was going to attack was impracticable, he asked whether "an ass
laden with gold could not possibly reach it." Plut., Apophth., ii., p.
178.
"A store
Of precious cups, high chased in golden ore;
Cups that adorn'd the crafty Philip's state,
And bought his entrance at th' Olynthian gate." Hodgson.
[790] _Digitis._ Cf. xiv, 289, "Tabulâ distinguitur undâ." Ovid. Amor.
ii. xi. 25, "Navita sollicitus qua ventos horret iniquos; Et prope tam
letum quam prope cernit aquam."
"Trust to a little plank 'twixt death and thee,
And by four inches 'scape eternity." Hodgson.
[791] _Ventre-lagenæ._ "A gorbellied flagon." Shakspeare.
[792] _Secures._
"His biscuit and his bread the sailor brings
On board: 'tis well. But hatchets are the things." Badh.
[793] _Staminis albi._ The "white" or "black" threads of the Parcæ
were supposed to symbolize the good or bad fortune of the mortal whose
yarn Clotho was spinning. Mart. iv. Ep. 73, "Ultima volventes oraba
pensa sorores, Ut traherent parva stamina pulla morâ." VI. Ep. 58, "Si
mihi lanificæ ducunt non pulla sorores Stamina." Hor. ii. Od. iii. 16,
"Sororum fila trium patiuntur atra."