Think of that Stoic who killed his friend and pupil, that old wretch born at Tarsus. There is no place for a Roman here; these Greeks have got sole possession. By a few drops of the poison of calumny the oldest and most faithful clients are driven away, nor is their loss felt. 126-167. "What are a poor man's services, when praetors rush before them to do their homage to rich childless ladies? The first question at Rome is 'What is a man's wealth?' the last, 'What is his moral character?' Poverty is always laughed at - the hardest thing to bear in the poor man's lot. The poor man's tattered clothes, and his ejection from the front rows in the theatre, to make room for a crier's foppish son or a gladiator's, are a jest to his patron. What poor man gets a wife, or an inheritance, or the humblest office? All Romans true should long ago have joined to fly their country. 'Tis hard to rise where virtue is kept down by poverty; but hardest of all at Rome, where food and lodging are so dear. 168-189. "Here a man's ashamed to dine off earthenware; not so when he goes into the country. In the country both great and small appear in public in their undress tunics; in town the client must wear the costly toga. Here men live beyond their means. How much will you give to call on this grandee, or for a glance from that one? When a patron offers to some god the locks of a handsome page, and the house is full of sacrificial cakes, poor clients must fee the slaves, or they are not admitted to a share. 190-222. "In the country who fears falling houses? Rome is shored up with buttresses. I'd rather live where there are no fires nor midnight terrors. The poor man's house burns, he loses his little all, and no one will help him; the rich man receives contributions which more than replace his losses. 223-231. You may buy a house and a little garden in the country for the annual rent of a garret in Rome. 232-238. The poor cannot sleep at Rome, for the noise of the crowded streets. 239-267. "The rich man is borne through the streets in a. litter, where he may read or sleep at ease; the poor is hustled by crowds, bumped by logs of timber, trampled on by a soldier's hob-nailed boots. A client, returning home with his slave bearing his dinner in a chafing-dish, is crushed to death under a wagon-load of marble. His household is making ready to receive him; but he the while cowers on the shores of Styx, without a farthing for the ferryman. 268-277. "The night has other dangers, such as pots from lofty windows; count yourself happy if you get no more than their contents. A wise man makes his will before he walks abroad at night. 278-301. A drunken rioter meets you, who sleeps not till he kills his man. Though 'flown with insolence and wine,' he knows how to avoid the rich man's train and torches, but I am his victim, who go forth by the light of a candle or the moon. With insulting speech he picks a quarrel, if that be quarrel where one gives, the other does but take the blows. Whether you answer or not, it's all the same; he knocks you down, then (as if he were the aggrieved party) binds you over to appear in court. This is the poor man's license when he's beaten, to pray he may be suffered to carry home a few teeth in his head. 302-314. "Then when your doors are closed and barred, the robber breaks in and robs or murders you. For thieves come to Rome as their preserve. Their fetters soon will leave no iron for our tools. Happy our ancestors, for whose need one prison was enough! 315-322. "But I must go; the horses and the driver are impatient, and the sun is setting. Farewell, remember me; and when you go to Aquinum send for me, and I'll come help you write another satire." - MAYOR and MACLEANE, with modifications. 1. Confusus, distressed. Cf. Plin. Paneg. 86: quam ego audio confusionem tuam fuisse, cum digredientem prosequereris ! Amici. Juvenal calls the name of his friend Umbricius (vs. 20). We have no reason to suppose that any real person is meant. 2. Vacuis, empty, unfrequented. 3. Quod... destinet. Quod with the subjunctive is used when we state both the reason and the assertion by another party that the fact is so. (M. 357.) Because, as he tells me, etc. The infinitive after destinare is found in Caesar, Nepos, Livy, and Ovid, but becomes more frequent in the silver age. Sibylla. The Cumaean Sibyl was supposed to dwell in a large artificial cave; modern travellers are shown what may be some remains of it. Justin Martyr (cohort. 37) saw at Cumae a great basilica, hewn out of the rock, with three baths in which the Sibyl bathed. After her bath, she retired into an inner shrine, also hewn, like the baths, out of the rock, where, sitting on a lofty tribunal and seat, she gave her oracles. Mayor. 4. Janua Baiarum. The Via Domitiana, a branch of the Via Appia from Sinuessa, led to Cumae, whence travellers took an older road that led to Baiae and the principal towns on the bay as far as Surrentum, all of which were favorite resorts of the wealthy Romans. "This gratum litus was so thickly studded with houses that, according to Strabo, they looked like one town." Amoeni secessus. Genitive of quality: affording an agreeable retreat. "Un lieu d'un très agréable sejour." 5. Prochyta (now Procida) is a small island near Cape Misenum. Subura (or Suburra) was the name of a low street leading from the Esquiline to the Viminal,- the noisiest and most disreputable part of Rome. 7, 8. The many stories of the Roman houses, of which the upper (tabulata, contignationes) were of wood, the narrowness of the streets, and the wooden outhouses, all increased the risks of fire. Conflagrations were frequent and extensive. Owing to the dearness of land and cost of lodging, speculators carried their buildings to a great height, and employed very frail materials; earthquakes and inundations often undermined even more solidly built houses. Mayor. 10. Dum componitur, substitit. When dum denotes what happens while something else happens, it is usually constructed with the present, although the action be past and the perfect be used in the leading proposition. M. 336, obs. 2. Domus, his household. Reda. "A Gallic vehicle, much used at this time by the Romans. It was four-wheeled, drawn by two or four horses,— a family, and later a stage-coach, constructed to carry passengers and goods.” 11. Arcus. An aqueduct was carried on arches over the porta Capena, and the gate was called in the time of the scholiast "the dripping arch." From the porta Capena, one of the principal gates in the wall of Servius, the Appian way led to Capua. The discovery of the first milestone on the Appian way has fixed the position of the gate at the foot of mons Caelius. It is fifteen hundred yards within the porta Appia of the wall of Aurelian, now called Porta San Sebastiano. 12. Hic, here. Ubi, etc. I. e. in the lucus Camenarum (or grove of the four Latin prophetic divinities, Antevorta, Postvorta, Carmenta, and Egeria), directly before the porta Capena, on the left hand as one passed out of the city. As the grove was filled with poor Jews, Umbricius leads Juvenal farther aside into the quiet valley of Egeria, whence they could still see the Appian way. This grove, which had a fountain in it (Liv. i. 21), the poet represents as the scene of the meetings of Numa and Egeria. From the strange notion that these meetings must have been in the valley of Egeria, Jahn and Ribbeck place the five lines 12-16 after line 20, and H. A. J. Munro, while retaining the old order of the verses, offers his friend Mayor an ingenious but strained interpretation of the passage. Amicae. Egeria, one of the four Camenae; a prophetic muse, not a nymph. (Dion. Hal. ii. 60, 364.) Juvenal chooses to give a satirical turn to the tradition of Numa's interviews with this goddess. 14. The large wicker basket and the hay, which constituted the scanty furniture of the Jews to whom the grove and the aedes Camenarum had been let, were used, the first for a receptacle for their provisions and for alms, the second for a bed. 15. Mercedem, a rent. Populo, to the Roman people. 16. The wood itself is said to go a begging, as its occupants beg. 17. Notice the asyndeton. As the Muses' grove is now so uninviting, we go down at once into Egeria's valley. Speluncas. "Juvenal speaks of artificial grottoes, but does not" necessarily "mean more than one." 18. Veris, natural ones. But translate, unlike the true. Praesentius. How much nearer to us would the goddess of the spring seem to be! Another reading is praestantius. 19. Cluderet = clauderet. 20. Ingenuum, native, natural, plain, unsophisticated. Nec... violarent, and... did not wrong (spoil). 23. Res, my property, my means. Here was the form commonly used in Juvenal's time. The pronunciation of the final letter was intermediate between e and i. (Quintil. i. 4, 8.) Augustus wrote heri. 23 sqq. Eadem - aliquid," and will again to-morrow wear away something from its small remainder." Proponimus. Plural for the singular. Illuc... ubi Daedalus, etc. To Cumae. Cf. Verg. Aen. vi. 14 sqq. 27. In the Greek conception of the Moipat, who according to Hesiod were three - Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos-it was Clotho's business to spin the thread of human life. Lachesis determined the duration and condition of it, [and Atropos, "the inflexible," held the shears, and at Clotho's command cut the thread.] But, as in Horace, the three sisters are sometimes represented as spinning, and here Clotho's functions are usurped by Lachesis. Macleane. 29 sq. Artorius et Catulus. "Any two scoundrels." Strauch thinks that Juvenal chooses names which will include both nobles (Catulus) and plebeians (Artorius). 30. Qui vertunt. The indicative emphasizes the action as an actual fact. 31. Quisquibus. 31-33. Who are willing (as redemptores, mancipes, or conductores) to undertake the building or repair of temples, the dredging or embanking of rivers, the construction or clearing of harbors, the draining of the sewers, the carrying out the dead to burial; and, having made the most of their contracts, to embezzle the money, and when that is safe become bankrupt. Mayor. Some understand flumina and portus of the farming of the public revenues, and eluviem siccandam of the draining of marshes, or even of saltmaking (Tac. 13, 57). 33. And to offer themselves to be sold up, under the spear, the symbol of lawful ownership; i. e., to go into bankruptcy. Juvenal might have said praebere se venales. The expression "he is sold up' is used for "his goods are sold." The State, as creditor, had the right to put itself in possession of the goods of the bankrupt (creditor in bona debitoris mittebatur), and they were sold at auction sub hasta (signo justi dominii, Gaius iv. 16). The fraudulent debtor became infamis, and the infamia entailed the loss of status (Walter, ? 788, p. 455). Mayor; Schömann Jahrb. 99, 765-7. Others interpret this verse of contracting for the sale of slaves by auction. The custom of setting up a spear at auctions is said to have been derived from the practice followed in old times of selling prisoners and booty on the field of battle under this symbol. 36. Munera, sc. gladiatoria. Verso pollice. Those who wished the death of a conquered gladiator turned (vertebant, convertebant) their thumbs towards their breasts, as a signal to his opponent to stab him; those who wished him to be spared, turned their thumbs downwards (premebant), as a signal for dropping the sword. Mayor. 37. Populariter. "To win good will." 38. After giving the people shows, they go back to their trade, which condescends to low gains (Macleane). They farm the cabinets d'aisance; and why should they not contract for anything? 42. Poscere. I. e. to ask for a copy, to read carefully at home. Motus astrorum, etc. I am no astrologer, to promise a wicked expectant heir the speedy death of his father. 44. Ranarum viscera, etc. I have never, as an haruspex, inspected the entrails of frogs. "The superstitious consulted the entrails of animals not commonly used for the purpose." 47. Nulli comes exeo. Since I will bear no part in extortions, no governor takes me with him in his cohors into a province. That fur and comes are to be thus explained, appears from the mention of Verres (53). Mayor; and so Weidner and Lewis. Macleane says that " comes means comes exterior, the great man's walking companion." 48. Exstinctae corpus non utile dextrae, a useless trunk, with right hand destroyed. Exstinctae dextrae" is the genitive of quality or description. 49. Conscius, an accomplice. Căi. Here a dissyllable. Cf. vii. 211. 55. The Tagus was one of those rivers which were supposed to have gold in their sands. |