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Convelle a Cumis: Satirarum ego (nî pudet illas)
Adjutor gelidos veniam caligatus in agros.

321. Rend from Cuma.] Convelle-pluck me away---by which expression Umbritius describes his great unwillingness to be taken from the place of his retreat, as if nothing but his friendship for Juvenal could force him (as it were) from it.

322. Armed, &c.] Caligatus-the caliga was a sort of harness for the leg, worn by soldiers, who hence were called caligati. It is used here metaphorically.

Rend from Cuma: I of your Satires (unless they are ashamed) An helper, will come armed into your cold fields.

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"I, (says Umbritius,) unless your Satires should be ashamed of my assistance, will come, armed at all points, to help you in 66 your attacks upon the people and manners of the times.' By this it appears that Umbritius was himself a poet.

Your cold fields.] Aquinum was situated in a part of Campania, much colder than where Cuma stood.

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END OF THE THIRD SATIRE.

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ARGUMENT.

From the luxury and prodigality of Crispinus, whom he lashes so severely, sat. i. 26-9, Juvenal takes occasion to describe a ridiculous consultation, held by Domitian over a large turbot; which was too big to be contained in any dish that could be found. The Poet, with great wit and humour, describes the senators being summoned in this exigency, and gives a particular account of their characters, speeches, and advice. After long consultation,

ECCE iterum Crispinus ; et est mihi sæpe vocandus

Ad partes; monstrum nullâ virtute redemptum

A vitiis, æger, solâque libidine fortis :

Delicias viduæ tantum aspernatur adulter.
Quid refert igitur quantis jumenta fatiget

Porticibus, quantâ nemorum vectetur in umbrâ,
Jugera quot vicina foro, quas emerit ædes ?

5

Line 1. Again Crispinus.] Juvenal mentions him before, sat. i. 27. He was an Egyptian by birth, and of very low extraction; but having the good fortune to be a favourite of Domitian's, he came to great riches and preferment, and lived in the exercise of all kinds of vice and debauchery.

2. To his parts.] A metaphor, taken from the players, who, when they had finished the scene they were to act, retired, but were called again to their parts, as they were successively to enter and carry on the piece.

Thus Juvenal calls Crispinus again, to appear in the parts, or characters, which he has allotted him in his Satires.

By no virtue, &c.] He must be a monster indeed, who had not a single virtue to rescue him from the total dominion of his vices. Redemptum here is metaphorical, and alludes to the state of a miserable captive, who is enslaved to a tyrant master, and has none to ransom him from bondage.

3. Sick.] Diseased-perhaps full of infirmities from his luxury and debauchery. Eger also signifies weak-feeble.-This sense too is to be here included, as opposed to fortis.

And strong in lust, &c.] Vigorous and strong in the gratification of his sensuality only.

4. The adulterer despises, &c.] q. d. Crispinus, a common adul

SATIRE IV.

.

ARGUMENT.

it was proposed that the fish should be cut to pieces, and so dress

ed: at last they all came over to the opinion of the senator Montanus, that it should be dressed whole; and that a dish, big enough to contain it, should be made on purpose for it. The council is then dismissed, and the Satire concludes; but not without a most severe censure on the emperor's injustice and cruelty towards some of the best and most worthy of the Romans.

BEHOLD again Crispinus! and he is often to be called by me

To his parts: a monster by no virtue redeemed
From vices-sick, and strong in lust alone:

The adulterer despises only the charms of a widow.

5

What signifies it, therefore, in how large porches he fatigues
His cattle, in how great a shade of groves he may be carried,
How many acres near the forum, what houses he may have bought?

terer, sins only from the love of vice; he neither pretends interest or necessity, like those who sold their favours to lascivious widows, in hopes of being their heirs. Sat. i. 38-42. He was too rich for

this, but yet too wicked not to gratify his passions in the most criminal manner; he would not intrigue with a widow, lest he should be suspected to have some other motives than mere vice; therefore he despises this, though he avoided no other species of lewdness.

5. In how large porches, &c.] It was a part of the Roman luxury to build vast porticos in their gardens, under which they rode in wet or hot weather, that they might be sheltered from the rain, and from the too great heat of the sun. Jumentum signifies any labouring beast, either for carriage or draught. Sat. iii. 316.

6. How great a shade, &c.] Another piece of luxury was to be carried in litters among the shady trees of their groves, in sultry weather.

7. Acres near the forum.] Where land was the most valuable, as being in the midst of the city.

What houses, &c.] What purchases he may have made of houses in the same lucrative situation. Comp. sat, i. l. 105, and

note.

135

NEMO MALUS FELIX; minime corruptor, et idem
Incestus, cum quo nuper vittata jacebat
Sanguine adhuc vivo terram subitura sacerdos.
Sed nunc de factis levioribus: et tamen alter
Si fecisset idem, caderet sub judice morum.
Nam quod turpe bonis, Titio, Seioque, decebat
Crispinum: quid agas, cum dira, et fœdior omni
Crimine persona est? mullum sex millibus emit,
Æquantem sane paribus sestertia libris,

Ut perhibent, qui de magnis majora loquuntur.

10

15

8. No bad man, &c.] This is one of those passages, in which Juvenal speaks more like a Christian, than like an heathen. Comp. Is. lvii. 20, 21.

A corrupter.] A ruiner, a debaucher of women.

9. Incestuous.] Incestus-from in and castus-in general is used to denote that species of unchastity, which consists in defiling those who are near of kin-but, in the best authors, it signifies unchaste -also guilty-profane. As in HoR. lib. iii. ode ii. 1. 29.

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In this place it may be taken in the sense of profane, as denoting that sort of unchastity which is mixed with profaneness, as in the instance which follows, of defiling a vestal virgin.

9-10. A filletted priestess.] The vestal virgins, as priestesses of Vesta, had fillets bound round their heads, made of ribbons, or the like.

10. With blood as yet alive.] The vestal virgins vowed chastity, and if any broke their vow, they were buried alive; by a law of Numa Pompilius their founder.

11. Lighter deeds.] i. e. Such faults as, in comparison with the preceding, are trivial, yet justly reprehensible, and would be so deemed in a character less abandoned than that of Crispinus, in whom they are in a manner eclipsed by greater.

12. Under the judge, &c.] This seems to be a stroke at the partiality of Domitian, who punished Maximilla, a vestal, and those who had defiled her, with the greatest severity. SUET. Domit. ch. viii. See note 2, on 1. 60.

Crispinus was a favourite, and so he was suffered to escape punishment, however much he deserved it, as was the vestal whom he defiled, on the same account.

Suet. says, that Domitian, particularly-Morum correctionem exercuit in vestales.

13. What would be base, &c.] So partial was Domitian to his favourite Crispinus, that what would be reckoned shameful, and be punished as a crime, in good men, was esteemed very becoming in him.

Titius, or Seius.] It does not appear who these were; but

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