The Satires of Juvenal, Persius, Sulpicia, and Lucilius
assassin's knife, than the fierce lust for wealth unlimited. For he
that covets to grow rich,[994] would also grow rich speedily. But what
respect for laws, what fear or shame is ever found in the breast of
the miser hasting to be rich? "Live contented with these cottages, my
lads, and these hills of ours!" So said, in days of yore, the Marsian
and Hernican and Vestine sire--"Let us earn our bread, sufficient for
our tables, with the plow. Of this the rustic deities[995] approve; by
whose aid and intervention, since the boon of the kindly corn-blade, it
is man's fortune to loathe the oaks he fed upon before. Naught that is
forbidden will he desire to do who is not ashamed of wearing the high
country boots[996] in frosty weather, and keeps off the east winds by
inverted skins. The foreign purple, unknown to us before, leads on to
crime and impiety of every kind."
Such were the precepts that these fine old fellows gave to their
children! But now, after the close of autumn, even at midnight[997] the
father with loud voice rouses his drowsy son:
"Come, boy, get your tablets and write! Come, wake up! Draw
indictments! get up the rubricated statutes[998] of our fathers--or
else draw up a petition for a centurion's post. But be sure Lælius
observe your hair untouched by a comb, and your nostrils well covered
with hair,[999] and your good brawny shoulders. Sack the Numidian's
hovels,[1000] and the forts of the Brigantes,[1001] that your sixtieth
year may bestow on you the eagle that will make you rich. Or, if you
shrink from enduring the long-protracted labors of the camp, and
the sound of bugles and trumpets makes your heart faint, then buy
something that you may dispose of for more than half as much again as
it cost you; and never let disgust at any trade that must be banished
beyond the other bank of Tiber, enter your head, nor think that any
difference can be drawn between perfumes or leather. The smell of gain
is good[1002] from any thing whatever! Let this sentiment of the
poet[1003] be forever on your tongue--worthy of the gods, and even
great Jove himself!--'No one asks how you _get_ it, but _have_ it you
must.' This maxim old crones impress on boys before they can run alone.
This all girls learn before their A B C."
Any parent whatever inculcating such lessons as these I would thus
address: Tell me, most empty-headed of men! who bids you be in such
a hurry? I engage your pupil shall better your instruction. Don't be
alarmed! You will be outdone; just as Ajax outstripped Telamon, and
Achilles excelled Peleus.[1004] Spare their tender years![1005] The
bane of vice matured has not yet filled the marrow of their bones! As
soon as he begins to trim a beard, and apply the long razor's edge,
he will be a false witness--will sell his perjuries at a trifling
sum, laying his hand[1006] on Ceres' altar and foot. Look upon your
daughter-in-law as already buried, if she has entered your family with
a dowry that must entail death on her.[1007] With what a gripe will
she be strangled in her sleep! For all that you suppose must be gotten
by sea and land, a shorter road[1008] will bestow on him! Atrocious
crime involves no labor! "I never recommended this," you will hereafter
say, "nor counseled such an act." Yet the cause and source of this
depravity of heart rests at your doors; for he that inculcated a love
for great wealth, and by his sinister lessons trained up his sons to
avarice,[1009] _does_ give full license, and gives the free rein[1010]
to the chariot's course; then if you try to check it, it can not be
restrained, but, laughing you to scorn, is hurried on, and leaves even
the goal far behind. No one holds it enough to sin just so much as you
allow him, but men grant themselves a more enlarged indulgence.
When you say to your son, "The man is a fool that gives any thing
to his friend,[1011] or relieves the burden[1012] of his neighbor's
poverty," you are, in fact, teaching him to rob and cheat, and get
riches by any crime, of which as great a love exists in you as was that
of their country in the breast of the Decii;[1013] as much, if Greece
speaks truth, as Menæceus[1014] loved Thebes! in whose furrows[1015]
legions with their bucklers spring from the serpent's teeth, and at
once engage in horrid war, as though a trumpeter had arisen along with
them. Therefore you will see that fire[1016] of which you yourself
supplied the sparks, raging far and wide, and spreading universal
destruction. Nor will you yourself escape, poor wretch! but with loud
roar the lion-pupil[1017] in his den will mangle his trembling master.
Your horoscope is well known to the astrologers.[1018] Yes! but it is
a tedious business to wait for the slow-spinning[1019] distaffs. You
will be cut off long before your thread[1020] is spun out. You are long
ago standing in his way, and are a drag upon his wishes. Long since
your slow and stag-like[1021] age is irksome to the youth. Send for
Archigenes[1022] at once! and buy what Mithridates[1023] compounded,
if you would pluck another fig, or handle this year's roses. You must
possess yourself of that drug which every father, and every king,
should swallow before every meal.
I now present to you an especial gratification, to which you can find
no match on any stage, or on the platform of the sumptuous prætor.
If you only become spectator at what risk to life the additions to
fortune are procured, the ample store in the brass-bound[1024] chest,
the gold to be deposited in watchful Castor's[1025] temple; since Mars
the avenger has lost helmet and all, and could not even protect his
own property. You may give up, therefore, the games of Flora,[1026] of
Ceres,[1027] and of Cybele,[1028] such far superior sport is the real
business of life!
Do bodies projected from the petaurum,[1029] or they that come down
the tight-rope, furnish better entertainment than you, who take up
your constant abode in your Corycian[1030] bark, ever to be tossed up
and down by Corus and by Auster? the desperate merchant of vile and
stinking wares! You, who delight in importing the rich[1031] raisin
from the shores of ancient Crete, and wine-flasks[1032]--Jove's own
fellow-countrymen! Yet he that plants his foot with hazardous tread
by that perilous barter earns his bread, and makes the rope ward off
both cold and hunger. _You_ run _your_ desperate risk, for a thousand
talents and a hundred villas. Behold the harbor! the sea swarming
with tall ships! more than one half the world is now at sea. Wherever
the hope of gain invites, a fleet will come; nor only bound over the
Carpathian and Gætulian seas, but leaving Calpe[1033] far behind, hear
Phœbus hissing in the Herculean main. A noble recompense indeed for
all this toil! that you return home thence with well-stretched purse;
and exulting in your swelled money-bags,[1034] brag of having seen
Ocean's monsters,[1035] and young mermen!
A different madness distracts different minds. One, while in his
sister's arms, is terrified at the features and torches of the
Eumenides.[1036] Another, when he lashes the bull[1037], believes
it is Agamemnon or Ulysses roars. What though he spare his tunic or
his cloak, that man requires a keeper,[1038] who loads his ship with
a cargo up to the very bulwarks, and has but a plank[1039] between
himself and the wave. While the motive cause to all this hardship and
this fearful risk, is silver cut up into petty legends and minute
portraits. Clouds and lightning oppose his voyage. "All hands unmoor!"
exclaims the owner of the corn and pepper he has bought up. "This
lowering sky, that bank of sable clouds portends no ill! It is but
summer lightning!"
Unhappy wretch! perchance that selfsame night he will be borne down,
overwhelmed with shivering timbers and the surge, and clutch his
purse with his left hand and his teeth. And he, to whose covetous
desires[1040] but lately not all the gold sufficed which Tagus[1041] or
Pactolus[1042] rolls down in its ruddy sand, must now be content with a
few rags to cover his nakedness, and a scanty morsel, while as a "poor
shipwrecked mariner" he begs for pence, and maintains himself by his
painting of the storm.[1043]
Yet, what is earned by hardships great as these, involves still greater
care and fear to keep. Wretched, indeed, is the guardianship[1044] of a
large fortune.
Licinus,[1045] rolling in wealth, bids his whole regiment of slaves
mount guard with leathern buckets[1046] all in rows; in dread alarm
for his amber, and his statues, and his Phrygian marble,[1047] and his
ivory, and massive tortoise-shell.
The tub of the naked Cynic[1048] does not catch fire! If you smash it,
another home will be built by to-morrow, or else the same will stand,
if soldered with a little lead. Alexander felt, when he saw in that tub
its great inhabitant, how much more really happy was he who coveted
nothing, than he who aimed at gaining to himself the whole world;
doomed to suffer perils equivalent to the exploits he achieved.
Had we but foresight, thou, Fortune, wouldst have no divinity.[1049]
It is _we_ that make thee a goddess! Yet if any one were to consult me
what proportion of income is sufficient, I will tell you. Just as much
as thirst and hunger[1050] and cold require; as much as satisfied you,
Epicurus,[1051] in your little garden! as much as the home of Socrates
contained before. Nature never gives one lesson, and philosophy
another. Do I seem to bind you down to too strict examples? Then throw
in something to suit our present manners. Make up the sum[1052] which
Otho's law thinks worthy of the Fourteen Rows.
If this make you contract your brows, and put out your lip, then take
two knights' estate, make it the three Four-hundred![1053] If I have
not yet filled your lap, but still it gapes for more, then neither
Crœsus' wealth nor the realms of Persia will ever satisfy you. No! nor
even Narcissus'[1054] wealth! on whom Claudius Cæsar lavished all, and
whose behest he obeyed, when bidden even to kill his wife.
FOOTNOTES:
[922] _Fuscinus._ Nothing is known of him.
"Fuscinus, those ill deeds that sully fame,
And lay such blots upon an honest name,
In blood once tainted, like a current run
From the lewd father to the lewder son." Dryden.
[923] _Alea_, i., 89. Cf. Propert., IV., viii., 45, "Me quoque per
talos Venerem quærente secundos, Semper _damnosi_ subsiluere Canes."
The Romans used four dice in throwing, which were thrown on a table
with a rim (alveolus or abacus), out of a dice-box made of horn,
box-wood, or ivory. This fritillus was a kind of _cup_, narrower at
the top than below. When made in the form of a tower, with graduated
intervals, it was called pyrgus, turricula, or phimus.
[924] _Ludit._
"Repeats in miniature the darling vice;
Shakes the low box, and cogs the little dice." Gifford.
[925] _Tubera._ Cf. v., 116, _seq._ Mart., Ep. xiii., 50.
[926] _Boletum._ Cf. v., 147. Mart., Ep. xiii., 48.
[927] _Ficedulas._ Mr. Metcalfe translates "snipes." Cf. Mart., Ep.
xiii., 49, "Cum me ficus alat, cum pascar dulcibus uvis, Cur potius
nomen non dedit uva mihi?"
[928] _Gula_, i., 140.
[929] _Septimus._ Plin., vii., 16, "Editis infantibus primores
dentes septimo gignuntur mense: iidem anno septimo decidunt, aliique
sufficiuntur."
[930] _Barbatos._ Pers., iv., 1, "Barbatum hoc crede magistrum dicere
sorbitio tollit quem dira cicutæ." Cic., Fin., iv., "Barba sylvosa et
pulchre alita, quamvis res ipsa sit exterior et fortuita, inter hominis
eruditi insignia recensetur."
[931] _Rutilus._ Used probably indefinitely, as in Sat. xi., 2, "Si
Rutilus, demens." Rutilus was a surname of the Marcian, Virginian, and
Nantian clans.
[932] _Servorum._ Gifford quotes an apposite passage from Macrobius,