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notable marvel even in these days of ours: a blind flatterer, a dire courtier from a beggar's stand, well fitted to beg at the wheels of chariots and blow soft kisses to them as they rolled down the Arician hill. None marvelled more at the fish than he, turning to the left as he spoke; only the creature happened to be on his right. In like fashion would he commend the thrusts of a Cilician gladiator, or the machine which whisks up the boys into the awning.

123 But Veiento was not to be outdone; and like a seer inspired, O Bellona, by thine own gadfly, he bursts into prophecy: "A mighty presage hast thou, O Emperor! of a great and glorious victory. Some King will be thy captive; or Arviragus i will be hurled from his British chariot. The brute is foreignborn: dost thou not see the prickles bristling upon his back?" Nothing remained for Fabricius but to tell the turbot's age and birthplace.

130"What then do you advise?" quoth the Emperor. "Shall we cut it up?" "Nay, nay," rejoins Montanus; "let that indignity be spared him. Let a deep vessel be provided to gather his huge dimensions within its slender walls; some great and unforeseen Prometheus is destined for the dish! Haste, haste, with clay and wheel! but from this day forth, O Caesar, let potters always attend upon thy camp!" This proposal, so worthy of the man, gained the day. Well known to him were the old debauches of the Imperial Court, which Nero carried on to midnight till a second hunger came and veins were heated with hot Falernian. No one in my time had more skill in the eating art than he. He could tell at the first bite whether an oyster had been bred

1 A British prince, as in Cymbeline.

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Lucrinum ad saxum Rutupinove edita fundo
ostrea callebat primo deprendere morsu,
et semel aspecti litus dicebat echini.

Surgitur et misso proceres exire iubentur consilio, quos Albanam dux magnus in arcem traxerat attonitos et festinare coactos

tamquam de Chattis aliquid torvisque Sycambris dicturus, tamquam ex diversis partibus orbis anxia praecipiti venisset epistula pinna.

Atque utinam his potius nugis tota illa dedisset

tempora saevitiae, claras quibus abstulit urbi inlustresque animas impune et vindice nullo. sed periit postquam cerdonibus esse timendus coeperat; hoc nocuit Lamiarum caede madenti.

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150

SATVRA V

Si te propositi nondum pudet atque eadem est

mens,

ut bona summa putes aliena vivere quadra ;
si potes illa pati quae nec Sarmentus iniquas
Caesaris ad mensas nec vilis Gabba tulisset,
quamvis iurato metuam tibi credere testi.
ventre nihil novi frugalius; hoc tamen ipsum

1 Richborough.

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2 The Chatti and the Sycambri were two of the most powerful German tribes, between the Rhine and the Weser. 3 Taken as a type of the ancient noble families of Rome.

at Circeii, or on the Lucrine rocks, or on the beds of Rutupiae;1 one glance would tell him the native shore of a sea-urchin.

144 The Council rises, and the councillors are dismissed: men whom the mighty Emperor had dragged in terror and hot haste to his Alban castle, as though to give them news of the Chatti, or the savage Sycambri,2 or as though an alarming despatch had arrived on wings of speed from some remote quarter of the earth.

150 And yet would that he had rather given to follies such as these all those days of cruelty when he robbed the city of its noblest and choicest souls, with none to punish or avenge! He could steep himself in the blood of the Lamiae; but when once he became a terror to the common herd he met his doom.4

SATIRE V

HOW CLIENTS ARE ENTERTAINED

If you are still unashamed of your plan of life, and still deem it to be the highest bliss to live at another man's board-if you can brook indignities which neither Sarmentus nor the despicable Gabba would have endured at Caesar's ill-assorted table-I should

refuse to believe your testimony, even upon oath. I know of nothing so easily satisfied as the belly; but even granted that you have nothing wherewith to

4 Domitian was murdered, as the outcome of a conspiracy, by the hand of a freedman, Stephanus, on September 18, A. D. 96.

5 Sarmentus and Gabba are representatives of the lowest parasite class.

defecisse puta, quod inani sufficit alvo : nulla crepido vacat? nusquam pons et tegetis pars dimidia brevior? tantine iniuria cenae,

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tam ieiuna fames, cum possit honestius illic et tremere et sordes farris mordere canini? Primo fige loco, quod tu discumbere iussus mercedem solidam veterum capis officiorum. fructus amicitiae magnae cibus; inputat hunc et quamvis rarum tamen inputat. ergo duos post 15 si libuit menses neglectum adhibere clientem, tertia ne vacuo cessaret culcita lecto,

rex,

"una simus," ait. votorum summa! quid ultra quaeris? habet Trebius propter quod rumpere

somnum

debeat et ligulas dimittere, sollicitus ne tota salutatrix iam turba peregerit orbem, sideribus dubiis aut illo tempore quo se frigida circumagunt pigri serraca Bootae.

Qualis cena tamen! vinum quod sucida nolit lana pati de conviva Corybanta videbis. iurgia proludunt, sed mox et pocula torques saucius et rubra deterges vulnera mappa, inter vos quotiens libertorumque cohortem pugna Saguntina fervet commissa lagona.

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1 i.e. the least honourable place on the least honourable of the three couches of the triclinium.

2 The name of the client whom he is addressing.

fill its emptiness, is there no quay vacant, no bridge? Can you find no fraction of a beggar's mat to stand upon? Is a dinner worth all the insults with which you have to pay for it? Is your hunger so importunate, when it might, with greater dignity, be shivering where you are, and munching dirty scraps of dog's bread?

12 First of all be sure of this-that when bidden to dinner, you receive payment in full for all your past services. A meal is the return which your grand friendship yields you; the great man scores it against you, and though it come but seldom, he scores it against you all the same. So if after a couple of months it is his pleasure to invite his forgotten client, lest the third place on the lowest couch1 should be unoccupied, and he says to you, "Come and dine with me," you are in the seventh Heaven! what more can you desire? Now at last has Trebius 2 got the reward for which he must needs cut short his sleep, and hurry with shoe-strings untied, fearing that the whole crowd of callers may already have gone their rounds, at an hour when the stars are fading or when the chilly wain of Bootes is wheeling. slowly round.

24 And what a dinner after all! You are given wine that fresh-clipped wool would refuse to suck up, and which soon converts your revellers into Corybants. Foul words are the prelude to the fray; but before long tankards will be flying about; a battle royal with Saguntine crockery will soon be raging between you and the company of freedmen, and you will be staunching your wounds with a blood-stained napkin.

3 i.e. the wine was not good enough to be used even for fomentations.

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