No More Learning

THE
SATIRES
OF
JUVENAL, PERSIUS,
SULPICIA, AND LUCILIUS,

Literally Translated into English Prose,

WITH NOTES, CHRONOLOGICAL TABLES, ARGUMENTS, &c.


BY

THE REV. LEWIS EVANS, M. A. ,

LATE FELLOW OF WADHAM COLLEGE, OXFORD.

TO WHICH IS ADDED THE

METRICAL VERSION OF JUVENAL AND PERSIUS,

BY THE LATE

WILLIAM GIFFORD, ESQ.

NEW YORK:

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS
FRANKLIN SQUARE.
1881.

HARPER'S

NEW CLASSICAL LIBRARY.

COMPRISING LITERAL TRANSLATIONS OF

CÆSAR.
VIRGIL.
SALLUST.
HORACE.
TERENCE.
TACITUS. 2 Vols.
LIVY. 2 Vols.
CICERO'S ORATIONS.
CICERO'S OFFICES, LÆLIUS, CATO MAJOR, PARADOXES, SCIPIO'S DREAM, LETTER
TO QUINTUS.
CICERO ON ORATORY AND ORATORS.
CICERO'S TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS, THE NATURE OF THE GODS, AND THE
COMMONWEALTH.
JUVENAL.
XENOPHON.
HOMER'S ILIAD.
HOMER'S ODYSSEY.
HERODOTUS.
DEMOSTHENES. 2 Vols.
THUCYDIDES.
ÆSCHYLUS.
SOPHOCLES.
EURIPIDES. 2 Vols.
PLATO (SELECT DIALOGUES).

12mo, Cloth, $1 50 per Volume.

☞ HARPER & BROTHERS _will send either of the above works by mail,
postage prepaid, to any part of the United States or Canada, on
receipt of the price_.




PREFACE BY THE TRANSLATOR.


While the poetical versions of Juvenal deservedly hold a very high
place in the literature of this country, it is a curious fact that
there exists no single prose translation which can stand the test
of even ordinary criticism. Whether it be that the temptation to a
metrical version of a poetical writer is too great with some, or
whether the labor of faithfully representing the genius of confessedly
the most difficult writer in the Latin language has deterred others,
the fact is undeniable, that there is no prose version from which the
unclassical reader can form any adequate idea of the writings of the
greatest of Satirists.

Madan, though faithful, is utterly unintelligible to any one who has
not the Latin before him. Sheridan is far too free, in every sense of
the word, to be either a fair expositor of his original, or to suit the
taste of the present day; and without any disparagement of the labors
of Sterling, Nuttall, Smart, or Wallace, it was found impossible to
adopt any one of them even as the _basis_ of a version which should be
worthy of a place in the present series.

The accompanying translation, therefore, is entirely original; and
the translator is not aware of having copied a single line from any
previous version. How far he has succeeded in giving a faithful
transcript of the author, and in, at the same time, infusing some
spark of the fire and spirit of the original, must be for others to
determine; all that he dares venture to assert is, that he has brought
to the task an enthusiastic admiration of his author, and a careful
study of many years. The same remarks apply to the translation of
Persius.

The notes are to a considerable extent original, and the English,
perhaps even the classical, reader may not be displeased at the
occasional introduction of passages from metrical versions in which the
sense appeared to be the most forcibly given.

A Chronological Table has been added, which the labors of Mr. Clinton
have enabled the Translator to present in a far more correct form than
heretofore.

The poetical version by Gifford has been annexed, as having the
greatest hold on the public favor, and as being perhaps the best,
because the most equal; though, unquestionably, in all the Satires
which Dryden translated, he has immeasurably surpassed Gifford in fire
and spirit, as Hodgson has in elegance and poetic genius, and Badham in
taste, scholarship, and terse and vigorous rendering. But Gifford is
always equal, and generally faithful.

The remains of Sulpicia and Lucilius appear now for the first time
in English. Of the value of the latter, and of the propriety of
appending his Fragments to a translation of the great Roman Satirists,
no scholar-like reader of Juvenal and Horace can entertain a doubt.
The recent labors of foreign scholars have presented us with the text
in a purer form than almost any collection of Fragments of the older
Latin writers. In the Arguments prefixed to the several Books, and in
the notes, will be found the essence of the criticisms of Jan. Dousa,
Van Heusde, Corpet, Schoenbeck, Schmidt, Petermann, and especially of
Gerlach, whose readings have in general been preferred.

L. E.




CONTENTS.


PAGE

LIFE of Juvenal, by Gifford i

Essay on the Roman Satirists, by Gifford xii

Chronology of Juvenal, Persius, and Sulpicia xxxix

On the date of Juvenal's Satires xlix

Arguments of the Satires of Juvenal lvii

THE SATIRES OF JUVENAL 1

THE SATIRES OF PERSIUS 199

SULPICIA 269

FRAGMENTS OF LUCILIUS 280

Juvenal in verse, by Gifford 369

Persius in verse, by Gifford 488




THE LIFE OF JUVENAL,

BY WILLIAM GIFFORD, ESQ.


Decimus Junius Juvenalis,[1] the author of the following Satires,
was born at Aquinum, an inconsiderable town of the Volsci, about the
year of Christ 38. [2] He was either the son, or the foster-son, of a
wealthy freedman, who gave him a liberal education. From the period
of his birth, till he had attained the age of forty, nothing more is
known of him than that he continued to perfect himself in the study
of eloquence, by declaiming, according to the practice of those days;
yet more for his own amusement, than from any intention to prepare
himself either for the schools or the courts of law. About this time he
seems to have discovered his true bent, and betaken himself to poetry.
Domitian was now at the head of the government, and showed symptoms of
reviving that system of favoritism which had nearly ruined the empire
under Claudius, by his unbounded partiality for a young pantomime
dancer of the name of Paris. Against this minion, Juvenal seems to have
directed the first shafts of that satire which was destined to make
the most powerful vices tremble, and shake the masters of the world on
their thrones. He composed a few lines[3] on the influence of Paris,
with considerable success, which encouraged him to cultivate this kind
of poetry: he had the prudence, however, not to trust himself to an
auditory, in a reign which swarmed with informers; and his compositions
were, therefore, secretly handed about among his friends. [4] By
degrees he grew bolder; and, having made many large additions to his
first sketch, or perhaps re-cast it, produced what is now called
his Seventh Satire, which he recited to a numerous assemblage. The
consequences were such as he had probably anticipated: Paris, informed
of the part which he bore in it, was seriously offended, and complained
to the emperor, who, as the old account has it,[5] sent the author, by
an easy kind of punishment, into Egypt with a military command.
To remove such a man from his court must undoubtedly have been
desirable to Domitian; and, as he was spoken of with kindness in
the same Satire, which is entirely free from political allusions,
the "facetiousness" of the punishment (though Domitian's was not a
facetious reign) renders the fact not altogether improbable. Yet, when
we consider that these reflections on Paris could scarcely have been
published before LXXXIV. , and that the favorite was disgraced and
put to death almost immediately after, we shall be inclined to doubt
whether his banishment actually took place; or, if it did, whether it
was of any long duration. That Juvenal was in Egypt is certain; but he
might have gone there from motives of personal safety, or, as Salmasius
has it, of curiosity. However this may be, it does not appear that
he was ever long absent from Rome, where a thousand internal marks
clearly show that all his Satires were written. But whatever punishment
might have followed the complaint of Paris,[6] it had no other effect
on our author, than that of increasing his hatred of tyranny, and
turning his indignation upon the emperor himself, whose hypocrisy,
cruelty, and licentiousness, became, from that period, the object of
his keenest reprobation. He profited, indeed, so far by his danger or
his punishment, as to recite no more in public; but he continued to
write during the remainder of Domitian's reign, in which he finished,
as I conceive, his second, third,[7] fifth, sixth,[8] and perhaps
thirteenth[9] Satires; the eighth[10] I have always looked upon as his
first.

In XCV. , when Juvenal was in his 54th year, Domitian banished
the philosophers from Rome, and soon after from Italy, with many
circumstances of cruelty; an action, for which, I am sorry to observe,
he is covertly praised by Quintilian. Though Juvenal, strictly
speaking, did not come under the description of a philosopher, yet,
like the hare in the fable, he might not unreasonably entertain some
apprehensions for his safety, and, with many other persons eminent for
learning and virtue, judge it prudent to withdraw from the city. To
this period I have always inclined to fix his journey to Egypt. Two
years afterward the world was happily relieved from the tyranny of
Domitian; and Nerva, who succeeded him, recalled the exiles. From this
time there remains little doubt of Juvenal's being at Rome, where he
continued his studies in tranquillity.

His first Satire after the death of Domitian, seems to have been what
is now called the fourth. About this time, too, he probably thought
of revising and publishing those which he had already written; and
composed or completed that introductory piece,[11] which now stands
at the head of his works. As the order is every where broken in upon,
it is utterly impossible to arrange them chronologically; but I am
inclined to think that the eleventh Satire closed his poetical career.
All else is conjecture; but in this he speaks of himself as an old man,

"Nostra bibat vernum contracta cuticula solem;"

and indeed he had now passed his grand climacteric.

This is all that can be collected of the life of Juvenal; and how much
of this is built upon uncertainties! I hope, however, that it bears the
stamp of probability; which is all I contend for; and which, indeed, if
I do not deceive myself, is somewhat more than can be affirmed of what
has been hitherto delivered on the subject.

Little is known of Juvenal's circumstances; but, happily, that little
is authentic, as it comes from himself. He had a competence. The
dignity of poetry is never disgraced in him, as it is in some of his
contemporaries, by fretful complaints of poverty, or clamorous whinings
for meat and clothes: the little patrimony which his fosterfather left
him, he never diminished, and probably never increased. It seems to
have equaled all his wants, and, as far as appears, all his wishes.
Once only he regrets the narrowness of his fortune; but the occasion
does him honor; it is solely because he can not afford a more costly
sacrifice to express his pious gratitude for the preservation of his
friend: yet "two lambs and a youthful steer" bespeak the affluence of a
philosopher; which is not belied by the entertainment provided for his
friend Persicus, in that beautiful Satire which is here called the last
of his works. Farther it is useless to seek: from pride or modesty, he
has left no other notices of himself; or they have perished. Horace
and Persius, his immediate predecessors, are never weary of speaking
of themselves. The life of the former might be written, from his own
materials, with all the minuteness of a contemporary history: and the
latter, who attained to little more than a third of Juvenal's age, has
left nothing to be desired on the only topics which could interest
posterity--his parent, his preceptor, and his course of studies.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] "Junius Juvenalis liberti locupletis incertum filius an alumnus, ad
mediam ætatem declamavit, animi magis causa, quam quod scholæ aut foro
se præpararet. " The learned reader knows that this is taken from the
brief account of Juvenal, commonly attributed to Suetonius; but which
is probably posterior to his time; as it bears very few marks of being
written by a contemporary author: it is, however, the earliest extant.
The old critics, struck with its deficiencies, have attempted to render
it more complete by variations, which take from its authenticity,
without adding to its probability.

[2] I have adopted Dodwell's chronology. "Sic autem (he says) se rem
illam totam habuisse censeo. Exul erat Juv. cum Satiram scriberet
xv. Hoc confirmat etiam in v. 27, scholiastes. 'De se Juv. dicit,
quia in Ægypto militem tenuit, et ea promittit se relaturum quæ ipse
vidit. '" Had not Dodwell been predisposed to believe this, he would
have seen that the scholium "confirmed" nothing: for Juvenal makes
no such promise. "Proinde rixæ illi ipse adfuit quam describit. " So
error is built up! How does it appear that Juvenal was present at the
quarrel which he describes? He was in Egypt, we know; he had passed
through the Ombite nome, and he speaks of the face of the country
as falling under his own inspection: but this is all; and he might
have heard of the quarrel at Rome, or elsewhere. "Tempus autem ipse
designavit rixæ illius cum et 'nuper'[12] illam contigisse dicit, et
quidem 'Consule Junio. ' Jun. duplicem habent fasti, alium Domit. in x.
Consulatu collegam App. Junium Sabinum A. D. lxxxiv. ; alium Hadriani
in suo itidem consulatu III. collegam Q. Junium Rusticum. Quo minus
prior intelligi possit, obstant illa omnia quæ in his ipsis Satiris
occurrunt Domitiani temporibus recentiora. " Yet, such is the capricious
nature of criticism! Dodwell's chief argument to prove the late period
at which Juvenal was banished, is a passage confessedly written under
Domitian, and foisted into a satire published, as he himself maintains,
many years after that emperor's death! "Posteriorem ergo intellexerit
oportet. Hoc ergo anno (CXIX. ) erat in exilio. Sed vero Roma illum
ejicere non potuit Trajanus, qui ab anno usque CXII. Romæ ipse non
adfuit; nec etiam ante CXVIII. quo Romam venit imperator Hadrianus. Sic
ante anni CXVIII. finem, aut CXIX. initium, mitti vix potuit in exilium
Juvenalis: erat autem cum relegaretur, octogenarius. Proinde natus
fuerit vel anni XXXVIII. fine, vel XXXIX. initio. " Annal. 157-159.

I have made this copious extract from Dodwell, because it contains
a summary of the chief arguments which induced Pithæus, Henninius,
Lipsius, Salmasius, etc. , to attribute the banishment of the author to
Hadrian. To me they appear any thing but conclusive; for, to omit other
objections for the present, why may not the Junius of the fifteenth
Satire be the one who was Consul with Domitian in 84, when Juvenal, by
Dodwell's own calculation, was in his 47th instead of his 80th year.

[3] "Deinde paucorum versuum satira non absurde composita in Paridem
pantomimum, poetamque Claudii Neronis" (the writer seems, in this and
the following clause, to have referred to Juvenal's words; it is,
therefore probable that we should read Calvi Neronis, _i. e. _ Domitian;
otherwise the phrase must be given up as an absurd interpolation),
"ejus semestribus militiolis tumentem: genus scripturæ industriose
excoluit. " Suet.

[4] "Et tamen diu, ne modico quidem auditorio quicquam committere ausus
est. " Suet. On this Dodwell observes: "Tam longe aberant illa a Paridis
ira concitanda, si vel superstite Paride fuissent scripta, eum irritare
non possent, cum nondum emanassent in publicum," 161. He then adds that
"Martial knew nothing of his poetical studies,[13] who boasted that
he was as familiar with Juvenal as Pylades with Orestes! " It appears,
indeed, that they were acquainted; but I suspect, notwithstanding the
vehemence of Martial's assertions, that there was no great cordiality
between minds so very dissimilar. Some one, it seems, had accused the
epigrammatist to the satirist, not improbably, of making too free
with his thoughts and expressions. He was seriously offended; and
Martial, instead of justifying himself (whatever the charge might be),
imprecates shame on his accuser in a strain of idle rant not much above
the level of a schoolboy. Lib. vii. 24.

But if he had been acquainted with his friend's poetry, he would
certainly have spoken of it. Not quite so certainly. These learned
critics seem to think that Juvenal, like the poets he ridicules, wrote
nothing but trite fooleries on the Argonauts and the Lapithæ. Were the
Satires of Juvenal to be mentioned with approbation? and, if they were,
was Martial the person to do it? Martial, the most devoted sycophant of
the age, who was always begging, and sometimes receiving, favors from
the man whose castigation was, in general, the express object of them.
Is it not more consonant to his character to suppose that he would
conceal his knowledge of them with the most scrupulous care?

But when Domitian was dead, and Martial removed from Rome, when, in
short, there was no danger of speaking out, he still appears, continue
they, to be ignorant of his friend's poetic talents. I am almost
ashamed to repeat what the critics so constantly forget--that Juvenal
was not only satirist, but a republican, who looked upon Trajan as a
usurper, no less than Domitian. And how was it "safe to speak out,"
when they all assert that he was driven into banishment by a milder
prince than Trajan, for a passage "suspected of being a figurative
allusion to the times? " What inconsistencies are these!

[5] "Mox magna frequentia, magnoque successu bis ac ter auditus est; ut
ea quoque quæ prima fecerat, inferciret novis scriptis,

'Quod non dant proceres dabit histrio,' etc.

Sat. vii. , 90-92.

Erat tum in delitiis aulæ histrio, multique fautorum ejus quotidie
provehebantur. Venit ergo in suspicionem quasi tempora figurate
notasset; ac statim per honorem militiolæ, quanquam octogenarius, urbe
summotus, missusque ad præfecturam cohortis in extrema parte tendentis
Ægypti. Id supplicii genus placuit, ut levi atque joculari delicto
par esset. Verum intra brevissimum tempus angore et tædio periit. "
Suet. Passing by the interpolations of the old grammarians, I shall,
as before, have recourse to Dodwell. "Recitavit, ni fallor, omnia,
emisitque in publicum CXVIII. (Juvenal was now fourscore! ) postquam
Romam venissit Hadrianus quem ille principem à benevolo ejus in hæc
studia animo, in hac ipsa satira in qua occurrunt verba illa de Paride
commendat. " 161. Salmasius supposed that the last of his Satires only
were published under Hadrian; Dodwell goes farther, and maintains that
the whole, with the exception of the 15th and 16th[14] ("si tamen
vere et illa Juvenalis fuerit"), were then first produced! "Illa in
Paridem dicteria histrionem, in suum (cujus nomen non prodidit auctor)
histrionem dicta interpretabatur Hadrianus. Inde exilii causa. Scripsit
ergo in exilio Sat. XV. Sed cum 'nuper Consulem Junium' fuisse dicat,
ante annum ad minimum CXX. scribere illam non potuit Juv. Nec vero
postea scripsisse, exinde colligimus, quod 'intra brevissimum tempus'
perierit. " 164. Such is the manner in which Dodwell accommodates
Suetonius to his own ideas: which seem, also, to have been those of
a much higher name, Salmasius; and, while I am now writing, to be
sanctioned by the adoption of the learned Ruperti. I never affected
singularity; yet I find myself constrained to differ from them all:
but I will state my reasons. In his 7th Satire, after speaking of
Quintilian, Juvenal adds,

"Si fortuna volet, fies de rhetore consul:
Si volet hæc eadem fies de consule rhetor. "

Which, taking it for a proverbial expression, I have loosely rendered,
Fortune can make kings of pedants and pedants of kings. Dodwell,
however, understands it literally. "Hæc sane cum Quintiliani causa
dicat, vix est quin Q. talem ostendant è rhetore nimirum 'nobilem,
senatorium, consularem,' et quidem illis divitiis instructum, quæ
essent etiam ad censum senatorium necessariæ. " 152. Now, as Pliny, who
probably died before Trajan, observes that Quintilian was a man of
moderate fortune, it follows that he must have acquired the wealth and
honors of which Juvenal speaks at a later period. Dodwell fixes this to
the time when Hadrian entered Rome, CXVIII.
TO WHICH IS ADDED THE

METRICAL VERSION OF JUVENAL AND PERSIUS,

BY THE LATE

WILLIAM GIFFORD, ESQ.

NEW YORK:

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS
FRANKLIN SQUARE.
1881.

HARPER'S

NEW CLASSICAL LIBRARY.

COMPRISING LITERAL TRANSLATIONS OF

CÆSAR.
VIRGIL.
SALLUST.
HORACE.
TERENCE.
TACITUS. 2 Vols.
LIVY. 2 Vols.
CICERO'S ORATIONS.
CICERO'S OFFICES, LÆLIUS, CATO MAJOR, PARADOXES, SCIPIO'S DREAM, LETTER
TO QUINTUS.
CICERO ON ORATORY AND ORATORS.
CICERO'S TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS, THE NATURE OF THE GODS, AND THE
COMMONWEALTH.
JUVENAL.
XENOPHON.
HOMER'S ILIAD.
HOMER'S ODYSSEY.
HERODOTUS.
DEMOSTHENES. 2 Vols.
THUCYDIDES.
ÆSCHYLUS.
SOPHOCLES.
EURIPIDES. 2 Vols.
PLATO (SELECT DIALOGUES).

12mo, Cloth, $1 50 per Volume.

☞ HARPER & BROTHERS _will send either of the above works by mail,
postage prepaid, to any part of the United States or Canada, on
receipt of the price_.




PREFACE BY THE TRANSLATOR.


While the poetical versions of Juvenal deservedly hold a very high
place in the literature of this country, it is a curious fact that
there exists no single prose translation which can stand the test
of even ordinary criticism. Whether it be that the temptation to a
metrical version of a poetical writer is too great with some, or
whether the labor of faithfully representing the genius of confessedly
the most difficult writer in the Latin language has deterred others,
the fact is undeniable, that there is no prose version from which the
unclassical reader can form any adequate idea of the writings of the
greatest of Satirists.

Madan, though faithful, is utterly unintelligible to any one who has
not the Latin before him. Sheridan is far too free, in every sense of
the word, to be either a fair expositor of his original, or to suit the
taste of the present day; and without any disparagement of the labors
of Sterling, Nuttall, Smart, or Wallace, it was found impossible to
adopt any one of them even as the _basis_ of a version which should be
worthy of a place in the present series.

The accompanying translation, therefore, is entirely original; and
the translator is not aware of having copied a single line from any
previous version. How far he has succeeded in giving a faithful
transcript of the author, and in, at the same time, infusing some
spark of the fire and spirit of the original, must be for others to
determine; all that he dares venture to assert is, that he has brought
to the task an enthusiastic admiration of his author, and a careful
study of many years. The same remarks apply to the translation of
Persius.

The notes are to a considerable extent original, and the English,
perhaps even the classical, reader may not be displeased at the
occasional introduction of passages from metrical versions in which the
sense appeared to be the most forcibly given.

A Chronological Table has been added, which the labors of Mr. Clinton
have enabled the Translator to present in a far more correct form than
heretofore.

The poetical version by Gifford has been annexed, as having the
greatest hold on the public favor, and as being perhaps the best,
because the most equal; though, unquestionably, in all the Satires
which Dryden translated, he has immeasurably surpassed Gifford in fire
and spirit, as Hodgson has in elegance and poetic genius, and Badham in
taste, scholarship, and terse and vigorous rendering. But Gifford is
always equal, and generally faithful.

The remains of Sulpicia and Lucilius appear now for the first time
in English. Of the value of the latter, and of the propriety of
appending his Fragments to a translation of the great Roman Satirists,
no scholar-like reader of Juvenal and Horace can entertain a doubt.
The recent labors of foreign scholars have presented us with the text
in a purer form than almost any collection of Fragments of the older
Latin writers. In the Arguments prefixed to the several Books, and in
the notes, will be found the essence of the criticisms of Jan. Dousa,
Van Heusde, Corpet, Schoenbeck, Schmidt, Petermann, and especially of
Gerlach, whose readings have in general been preferred.

L. E.




CONTENTS.


PAGE

LIFE of Juvenal, by Gifford i

Essay on the Roman Satirists, by Gifford xii

Chronology of Juvenal, Persius, and Sulpicia xxxix

On the date of Juvenal's Satires xlix

Arguments of the Satires of Juvenal lvii

THE SATIRES OF JUVENAL 1

THE SATIRES OF PERSIUS 199

SULPICIA 269

FRAGMENTS OF LUCILIUS 280

Juvenal in verse, by Gifford 369

Persius in verse, by Gifford 488




THE LIFE OF JUVENAL,

BY WILLIAM GIFFORD, ESQ.


Decimus Junius Juvenalis,[1] the author of the following Satires,
was born at Aquinum, an inconsiderable town of the Volsci, about the
year of Christ 38. [2] He was either the son, or the foster-son, of a
wealthy freedman, who gave him a liberal education. From the period
of his birth, till he had attained the age of forty, nothing more is
known of him than that he continued to perfect himself in the study
of eloquence, by declaiming, according to the practice of those days;
yet more for his own amusement, than from any intention to prepare
himself either for the schools or the courts of law. About this time he
seems to have discovered his true bent, and betaken himself to poetry.
Domitian was now at the head of the government, and showed symptoms of
reviving that system of favoritism which had nearly ruined the empire
under Claudius, by his unbounded partiality for a young pantomime
dancer of the name of Paris. Against this minion, Juvenal seems to have
directed the first shafts of that satire which was destined to make
the most powerful vices tremble, and shake the masters of the world on
their thrones. He composed a few lines[3] on the influence of Paris,
with considerable success, which encouraged him to cultivate this kind
of poetry: he had the prudence, however, not to trust himself to an
auditory, in a reign which swarmed with informers; and his compositions
were, therefore, secretly handed about among his friends. [4] By
degrees he grew bolder; and, having made many large additions to his
first sketch, or perhaps re-cast it, produced what is now called
his Seventh Satire, which he recited to a numerous assemblage. The
consequences were such as he had probably anticipated: Paris, informed
of the part which he bore in it, was seriously offended, and complained
to the emperor, who, as the old account has it,[5] sent the author, by
an easy kind of punishment, into Egypt with a military command.
To remove such a man from his court must undoubtedly have been
desirable to Domitian; and, as he was spoken of with kindness in
the same Satire, which is entirely free from political allusions,
the "facetiousness" of the punishment (though Domitian's was not a
facetious reign) renders the fact not altogether improbable. Yet, when
we consider that these reflections on Paris could scarcely have been
published before LXXXIV. , and that the favorite was disgraced and
put to death almost immediately after, we shall be inclined to doubt
whether his banishment actually took place; or, if it did, whether it
was of any long duration. That Juvenal was in Egypt is certain; but he
might have gone there from motives of personal safety, or, as Salmasius
has it, of curiosity. However this may be, it does not appear that
he was ever long absent from Rome, where a thousand internal marks
clearly show that all his Satires were written. But whatever punishment
might have followed the complaint of Paris,[6] it had no other effect
on our author, than that of increasing his hatred of tyranny, and
turning his indignation upon the emperor himself, whose hypocrisy,
cruelty, and licentiousness, became, from that period, the object of
his keenest reprobation. He profited, indeed, so far by his danger or
his punishment, as to recite no more in public; but he continued to
write during the remainder of Domitian's reign, in which he finished,
as I conceive, his second, third,[7] fifth, sixth,[8] and perhaps
thirteenth[9] Satires; the eighth[10] I have always looked upon as his
first.

In XCV. , when Juvenal was in his 54th year, Domitian banished
the philosophers from Rome, and soon after from Italy, with many
circumstances of cruelty; an action, for which, I am sorry to observe,
he is covertly praised by Quintilian. Though Juvenal, strictly
speaking, did not come under the description of a philosopher, yet,
like the hare in the fable, he might not unreasonably entertain some
apprehensions for his safety, and, with many other persons eminent for
learning and virtue, judge it prudent to withdraw from the city. To
this period I have always inclined to fix his journey to Egypt. Two
years afterward the world was happily relieved from the tyranny of
Domitian; and Nerva, who succeeded him, recalled the exiles. From this
time there remains little doubt of Juvenal's being at Rome, where he
continued his studies in tranquillity.

His first Satire after the death of Domitian, seems to have been what
is now called the fourth. About this time, too, he probably thought
of revising and publishing those which he had already written; and
composed or completed that introductory piece,[11] which now stands
at the head of his works. As the order is every where broken in upon,
it is utterly impossible to arrange them chronologically; but I am
inclined to think that the eleventh Satire closed his poetical career.
All else is conjecture; but in this he speaks of himself as an old man,

"Nostra bibat vernum contracta cuticula solem;"

and indeed he had now passed his grand climacteric.

This is all that can be collected of the life of Juvenal; and how much
of this is built upon uncertainties! I hope, however, that it bears the
stamp of probability; which is all I contend for; and which, indeed, if
I do not deceive myself, is somewhat more than can be affirmed of what
has been hitherto delivered on the subject.

Little is known of Juvenal's circumstances; but, happily, that little
is authentic, as it comes from himself. He had a competence. The
dignity of poetry is never disgraced in him, as it is in some of his
contemporaries, by fretful complaints of poverty, or clamorous whinings
for meat and clothes: the little patrimony which his fosterfather left
him, he never diminished, and probably never increased. It seems to
have equaled all his wants, and, as far as appears, all his wishes.
Once only he regrets the narrowness of his fortune; but the occasion
does him honor; it is solely because he can not afford a more costly
sacrifice to express his pious gratitude for the preservation of his
friend: yet "two lambs and a youthful steer" bespeak the affluence of a
philosopher; which is not belied by the entertainment provided for his
friend Persicus, in that beautiful Satire which is here called the last
of his works. Farther it is useless to seek: from pride or modesty, he
has left no other notices of himself; or they have perished. Horace
and Persius, his immediate predecessors, are never weary of speaking
of themselves. The life of the former might be written, from his own
materials, with all the minuteness of a contemporary history: and the
latter, who attained to little more than a third of Juvenal's age, has
left nothing to be desired on the only topics which could interest
posterity--his parent, his preceptor, and his course of studies.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] "Junius Juvenalis liberti locupletis incertum filius an alumnus, ad
mediam ætatem declamavit, animi magis causa, quam quod scholæ aut foro
se præpararet. " The learned reader knows that this is taken from the
brief account of Juvenal, commonly attributed to Suetonius; but which
is probably posterior to his time; as it bears very few marks of being
written by a contemporary author: it is, however, the earliest extant.
The old critics, struck with its deficiencies, have attempted to render
it more complete by variations, which take from its authenticity,
without adding to its probability.

[2] I have adopted Dodwell's chronology. "Sic autem (he says) se rem
illam totam habuisse censeo. Exul erat Juv. cum Satiram scriberet
xv. Hoc confirmat etiam in v. 27, scholiastes. 'De se Juv. dicit,
quia in Ægypto militem tenuit, et ea promittit se relaturum quæ ipse
vidit. '" Had not Dodwell been predisposed to believe this, he would
have seen that the scholium "confirmed" nothing: for Juvenal makes
no such promise. "Proinde rixæ illi ipse adfuit quam describit. " So
error is built up! How does it appear that Juvenal was present at the
quarrel which he describes? He was in Egypt, we know; he had passed
through the Ombite nome, and he speaks of the face of the country
as falling under his own inspection: but this is all; and he might
have heard of the quarrel at Rome, or elsewhere. "Tempus autem ipse
designavit rixæ illius cum et 'nuper'[12] illam contigisse dicit, et
quidem 'Consule Junio. ' Jun. duplicem habent fasti, alium Domit. in x.
Consulatu collegam App. Junium Sabinum A. D. lxxxiv. ; alium Hadriani
in suo itidem consulatu III. collegam Q. Junium Rusticum. Quo minus
prior intelligi possit, obstant illa omnia quæ in his ipsis Satiris
occurrunt Domitiani temporibus recentiora. " Yet, such is the capricious
nature of criticism! Dodwell's chief argument to prove the late period
at which Juvenal was banished, is a passage confessedly written under
Domitian, and foisted into a satire published, as he himself maintains,
many years after that emperor's death! "Posteriorem ergo intellexerit
oportet. Hoc ergo anno (CXIX. ) erat in exilio. Sed vero Roma illum
ejicere non potuit Trajanus, qui ab anno usque CXII. Romæ ipse non
adfuit; nec etiam ante CXVIII. quo Romam venit imperator Hadrianus. Sic
ante anni CXVIII. finem, aut CXIX. initium, mitti vix potuit in exilium
Juvenalis: erat autem cum relegaretur, octogenarius. Proinde natus
fuerit vel anni XXXVIII. fine, vel XXXIX. initio. " Annal. 157-159.

I have made this copious extract from Dodwell, because it contains
a summary of the chief arguments which induced Pithæus, Henninius,
Lipsius, Salmasius, etc. , to attribute the banishment of the author to
Hadrian. To me they appear any thing but conclusive; for, to omit other
objections for the present, why may not the Junius of the fifteenth
Satire be the one who was Consul with Domitian in 84, when Juvenal, by
Dodwell's own calculation, was in his 47th instead of his 80th year.

[3] "Deinde paucorum versuum satira non absurde composita in Paridem
pantomimum, poetamque Claudii Neronis" (the writer seems, in this and
the following clause, to have referred to Juvenal's words; it is,
therefore probable that we should read Calvi Neronis, _i. e. _ Domitian;
otherwise the phrase must be given up as an absurd interpolation),
"ejus semestribus militiolis tumentem: genus scripturæ industriose
excoluit. " Suet.

[4] "Et tamen diu, ne modico quidem auditorio quicquam committere ausus
est. " Suet. On this Dodwell observes: "Tam longe aberant illa a Paridis
ira concitanda, si vel superstite Paride fuissent scripta, eum irritare
non possent, cum nondum emanassent in publicum," 161. He then adds that
"Martial knew nothing of his poetical studies,[13] who boasted that
he was as familiar with Juvenal as Pylades with Orestes! " It appears,
indeed, that they were acquainted; but I suspect, notwithstanding the
vehemence of Martial's assertions, that there was no great cordiality
between minds so very dissimilar. Some one, it seems, had accused the
epigrammatist to the satirist, not improbably, of making too free
with his thoughts and expressions. He was seriously offended; and
Martial, instead of justifying himself (whatever the charge might be),
imprecates shame on his accuser in a strain of idle rant not much above
the level of a schoolboy. Lib. vii. 24.

But if he had been acquainted with his friend's poetry, he would
certainly have spoken of it. Not quite so certainly. These learned
critics seem to think that Juvenal, like the poets he ridicules, wrote
nothing but trite fooleries on the Argonauts and the Lapithæ. Were the
Satires of Juvenal to be mentioned with approbation? and, if they were,
was Martial the person to do it? Martial, the most devoted sycophant of
the age, who was always begging, and sometimes receiving, favors from
the man whose castigation was, in general, the express object of them.
Is it not more consonant to his character to suppose that he would
conceal his knowledge of them with the most scrupulous care?

But when Domitian was dead, and Martial removed from Rome, when, in
short, there was no danger of speaking out, he still appears, continue
they, to be ignorant of his friend's poetic talents. I am almost
ashamed to repeat what the critics so constantly forget--that Juvenal
was not only satirist, but a republican, who looked upon Trajan as a
usurper, no less than Domitian. And how was it "safe to speak out,"
when they all assert that he was driven into banishment by a milder
prince than Trajan, for a passage "suspected of being a figurative
allusion to the times? " What inconsistencies are these!

[5] "Mox magna frequentia, magnoque successu bis ac ter auditus est; ut
ea quoque quæ prima fecerat, inferciret novis scriptis,

'Quod non dant proceres dabit histrio,' etc.

Sat. vii. , 90-92.

Erat tum in delitiis aulæ histrio, multique fautorum ejus quotidie
provehebantur. Venit ergo in suspicionem quasi tempora figurate
notasset; ac statim per honorem militiolæ, quanquam octogenarius, urbe
summotus, missusque ad præfecturam cohortis in extrema parte tendentis
Ægypti. Id supplicii genus placuit, ut levi atque joculari delicto
par esset. Verum intra brevissimum tempus angore et tædio periit. "
Suet. Passing by the interpolations of the old grammarians, I shall,
as before, have recourse to Dodwell. "Recitavit, ni fallor, omnia,
emisitque in publicum CXVIII. (Juvenal was now fourscore! ) postquam
Romam venissit Hadrianus quem ille principem à benevolo ejus in hæc
studia animo, in hac ipsa satira in qua occurrunt verba illa de Paride
commendat. " 161. Salmasius supposed that the last of his Satires only
were published under Hadrian; Dodwell goes farther, and maintains that
the whole, with the exception of the 15th and 16th[14] ("si tamen
vere et illa Juvenalis fuerit"), were then first produced! "Illa in
Paridem dicteria histrionem, in suum (cujus nomen non prodidit auctor)
histrionem dicta interpretabatur Hadrianus. Inde exilii causa. Scripsit
ergo in exilio Sat. XV. Sed cum 'nuper Consulem Junium' fuisse dicat,
ante annum ad minimum CXX. scribere illam non potuit Juv. Nec vero
postea scripsisse, exinde colligimus, quod 'intra brevissimum tempus'
perierit. " 164. Such is the manner in which Dodwell accommodates
Suetonius to his own ideas: which seem, also, to have been those of
a much higher name, Salmasius; and, while I am now writing, to be
sanctioned by the adoption of the learned Ruperti. I never affected
singularity; yet I find myself constrained to differ from them all:
but I will state my reasons. In his 7th Satire, after speaking of
Quintilian, Juvenal adds,

"Si fortuna volet, fies de rhetore consul:
Si volet hæc eadem fies de consule rhetor. "

Which, taking it for a proverbial expression, I have loosely rendered,
Fortune can make kings of pedants and pedants of kings. Dodwell,
however, understands it literally. "Hæc sane cum Quintiliani causa
dicat, vix est quin Q. talem ostendant è rhetore nimirum 'nobilem,
senatorium, consularem,' et quidem illis divitiis instructum, quæ
essent etiam ad censum senatorium necessariæ. " 152. Now, as Pliny, who
probably died before Trajan, observes that Quintilian was a man of
moderate fortune, it follows that he must have acquired the wealth and
honors of which Juvenal speaks at a later period. Dodwell fixes this to
the time when Hadrian entered Rome, CXVIII. , which he states to be also
that of the author's banishment. It must be confessed that Juvenal lost
no time in exerting himself: he had remained silent fourscore years;
he now bursts forth at once, as Dodwell expresses it, recites all his
Satires without intermission ("unis continuisque recitationibus"),
celebrates Quintilian, attacks the emperor, and is immediately
dispatched to Egypt! 162. Here is a great deal of business crowded into
the compass of a few weeks, or perhaps days; but let us examine it a
little more closely. Rigaltius, with several of the commentators, sees
in the lines above quoted a sneer at Quintilian, and he accounts for
the rhetor's silence respecting our author, by the resentment which he
supposes him to have felt at it. As this militates strongly against
Dodwell's ideas, he will not allow that any thing severe was intended
by the passage in question; and adds that Quintilian could not mention
Juvenal as a satirist, because he had not then written any satires.