poet, that we possess the writings of two Juvenals. That he tried at first to produce real works of art, but finally abandoned the futile effort and consciously surrendered himself to rhetorical mannerism,' and that his fire was but the blaze of rhetoric, and, being artificial, soon died down, are views resting on the hypothesis that he was nothing but a rhetorician. From his change of manner may be drawn at least one certain conclusion: that in writing the first Satires he was decidedly less under the influence of the schools of rhetoric than later. We have now, it is clear, the elements of a picture with which the Juvenal of the biography does not harmonize. The man who, in taking up his pen to castigate the vices of his time, came to his task with full knowledge gained by long personal contact with the world, who for ten years or more had been an advocate competent but handicapped by poverty, who as he assumed his new rôle had only a slur for the declamation of the schools and was far less under their universal influence than afterwards, when he had given vent to his wrath and accomplished, in the main, his original purpose-was not a gentleman of leisure, well-to-do and aimless, declaiming till middle life for self-gratification, and then turning directly from artificial themes and thoughts to the successful cultivation of satire. Beyond the simple fact stated by Juvenal himself, that he once practised declamation, there is not one word of truth in the statement of the biography: ad mediam fere aetatem declamavit animi magis causa quam quod scholae se aut foro praepararet. A false notion of the rhetorical studies of Juvenal, due largely to the fictions of the biography, has led to an equally false judgment of his character, a judgment vitally connected with the subject under consideration. It is not strange that the indignation of a purposeless declaimer should be regarded as more or less artificial, that he should be suspected of insincerity, and that his plainness of speech, measured by the standards of a different age, should be taken as a sign of prurience. When, however, we recognize in Juvenal the lawyer who had studied, it is true, in the schools of rhetoric, but for the purpose of fitting himself for active life, and who, in following his chosen calling, had battled with untoward circumstances and unjust conditions, what he says has quite a different force. We hear him speak in the manner in 1 Teuffel, Studien und Charakteristiken, Leipzig, 1889, S. 547. 2 Schanz, S. 344 f. which we should expect an advocate-poet to speak. We feel the genuineness of his indignation whether he is dealing with the present or with the past. We see before us a man who, in the spirit of an advocate, gives us one side of a picture, but whose sincerity and honesty we have no reason whatever to impugn. Having cleared the way by our discussion of the account of Juvenal's rhetorical studies, we may approach the associated question of his relationship to a rich freedman. On the threshold of our inquiry attention is arrested by the form of statement employed in the memoir. The biographer admits that he is uncertain whether Juvenal was the man's son or foster son. It has been thought' that this admission points to a conscientious spirit on the part of the writer. The inference is charitable rather than plausible. We wonder why all traces of this remarkable scrupulosity are so conspicuously absent from the rest of the memoir, judging from which we have much greater reason to infer a wavering between two conjectures and lack of all definite information on the subject. But dependence is not to be placed in divination. As before, it is only by recourse to the Satires that we can get solid ground beneath our feet. Fortunately, Juvenal has not left us in the dark concerning his sentiments toward rich freedmen. He has made this the most prominent type in his sketch of the company accustomed to gather at the rich man's door to receive the sportula. The patron bids his crier summon first the nobles, but a freedman blocks the way (1, 99 sqq.): iubet a praecone vocari ipsos Troiugenas, nam vexant limen et ipsi sed libertinus prior est. 'prior' inquit 'ego adsum. vincant divitiae, sacro ne cedat honori nuper in hanc urbem pedibus qui venerat albis, nondum habitat, nullas nummorum ereximus aras. 1 Dürr, S. II. Here Juvenal has taken pains, at the expense of symmetry and unity, to indicate by a detailed description his aversion for a class brought to the front by the power of wealth. That citizens of noble stock, that magistrates holding sacred office in the Roman state should be compelled to yield precedence to such persons offends him. And it is the class as such that he has in mind. He does not by a word assail the character of the freedman. Nor can we doubt his sincerity. He is not elaborating a theme of the schools, but introducing himself to the public in his first book, in which, if anywhere, he speaks from the heart. What is set forth in a general way in the passage quoted is illustrated by particular instances. If there was a man in all the world whom Juvenal hated, it was Crispinus the rich freedman. And he hated him as a freedman. He does not mention him without reference to his Egyptian origin (1, 26 sq.; 4, 32 sq.). It is also not improbable that the rich upstart (1, 3; 10, 226), once his barber, and the gladiators and criers, whose very sons excited his displeasure (3, 153 sqq.), are to be referred to the same class. His hostility to the rich, whoever they were, is a matter of common observation.1 A clear conception of the fixed sentiments of a man like Juvenal furnishes a basis for criticism. Conceding to him, as we have, sincerity and honesty, we must also regard him as a man of honor and justice, who had Roman ideas with respect to social distinctions, but hated hypocrites (Sat. 2), and believed in a proper return for services rendered and favors received (Sat. 7). If, now, as we are told in the memoir, he was the son of a rich freedman, or the foster son, in which case he may have been a freedman himself,' we encounter the startling anomaly, that he looked with especial aversion upon the very class from which he sprang, or to which he belonged, and to a member of which he owed his education and, in the view of the biographer, easy circumstances for half his life. This can not be attributed to Juvenal. It will not suffice to say that he was ashamed of his birth and tried to conceal it. That might be true of a snob. But Juvenal has none of the characteristics of a snob. It is not permissible to cite as parallel the case of Horace, the son of a freedman, who makes a fierce attack upon a freedman (Epode 4). Horace has in mind a particular individual personally detestable (v. 11 sqq.). He nowhere attacks freedmen as a class. Nor can 1 Friedlaender, S. 20 ff. 2 Dürr, S. 12. we entertain the view that Juvenal was the son or adopted son of a rich freedman, but, not having been provided for by his father,' had on that account reason for hating him and all freedmen. The fact that he received from his father an inheritance (6, 57) makes such a supposition anything but probable. We have found what we should have been surprised not to find in a statement that is part and parcel of the story about the poet's declamation. We should have been still further surprised to have gained the conviction that Juvenal's father, a freedman of wealth, contrary to custom (3, 153) and human nature, instead of wishing the man who bore his name to enjoy as high a social position as possible, allowed him to carry on for years, without assistance, a losing fight with poverty, and finally bequeathed to him but an insignificant estate." 2 But it has been maintained' that these statements, which we have rejected, bear the stamp of truth because they could not have been inferred from the Satires and because there is no conceivable reason why they should have been arbitrarily invented. And yet occasion enough for such inference and invention is easily discovered. It appears from the first Satire that Juvenal studied rhetoric in the schools (1, 15 sqq.) and that he had reached middle life at least (1, 25). The biographer, having no information of any military or professional career preceding that of satirist, inferred from this fact, it may be, and in a manner quite in keeping with his way of reasoning as revealed in the rest of the memoir, that Juvenal declaimed till middle life for pleasure. In that case he must have been in easy circumstances. Nothing more was needed to assign to him a rich father. But nothing was known about his father. It would follow, of course, that he was a nobody, perhaps a freedman. Had not Horace the satirist been a freedman's son? Had not the satirist Turnus been a freedman himself (Schol. ad 1, 20)? To be sure, he might just as well have been an adopted son. Between the two possibilities a decision was not made. Exactly this line of thought may not have been followed in detail, but that it was easy enough for the biographer to base his fancies on the subject-matter of the first Satire is manifest. 1 De Dompierre de Chaufepié, p. 29. 2 Cf. 6, 57: vivat Gabiis, ut vixit in agro, vivat Fidenis, et AGELLO cedo paterno. 'Friedlaender, S. 4. The biography of younger date, betraying plainly its character, presents an easier problem. According to this biography the father, as we have seen, was named Junius Juvenal; the mother, Septumeleia. They were from Aquinum, and their son was born in the consulship of Claudius Nero and Lucius Antistius (55 A. D.). Dürr himself admits, what is quite evident, that almost everything in this life is invented or derived from the Satires, or taken from other sources and arbitrarily referred to Juvenal, and aptly concludes from the general tone and character of the production that it is the work of some humanist of the fifteenth century.' To this extent the matter is not in controversy. The father's name also, it is plain, could have been transferred from that of the son. The name of the mother and sister, however, and the year of birth, it is thought, must have come from an old biography and had their source in good tradition. But first of all, though granting it as a remote possibility, we must nevertheless consider it strange that an old life containing these definite and important particulars should be in existence till the fifteenth century and not be known or used by any of the writers or revisers of the other lives. The chief characteristic of the memoir awakens still further suspicion. It shows clearly the tendency to designate by name all the prominent persons with whom Juvenal was in any way personally connected. In addition to his father, mother, sister, brother-in-law, and the consuls under whom he was born, are mentioned as his teachers or otherwise Probus of Berytus, Marcus Antonius Liberalis, Palaemon, Fronto, Lucius Gallus, and Volusius Bithynicus. That the Satires, Jerome, Martial, Macrobius or Gellius, and the other lives furnish the material for these details is evident from the thought and expression. It is clear, too, that the writer, in seeking to connect Juvenal with these men, repeatedly states as a fact what is, as he must have been fully aware, an absolute falsification. Under such circumstances we are justified in surmising that what is said of Juvenal's mother and sister and the year of his birth may be of the same character. Only one thing stands in the way. It is declared that the date of birth harmonizes admirably with all else that we know of Juvenal's life, though this has been denied, and that nothing can be discovered in the Satires or elsewhere from which that date could have been inferred or which could have occasioned its adoption. But, in fact, it is not necessary to look far to discover what is 2 Ib., S. 30. 3 Ib., S. 30. Friedlaender, S. 15. 1 Dürr, S. 29. |