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SATIRA XVI.

Quis numerare queat felicis praemia, Galle,
Militiae? Nam si subeuntur prospera castra,
Me pavidum excipiat tironem porta secundo
Sidere. Plus etenim fati valet hora benigni,
Quam si nos Veneris commendet epistola Marti
Et Samia genitrix quae delectatur arena.

Commoda tractemus primum communia: quorum
Haud minimum illud erit, ne te pulsare togatus
Audeat ; immo etsi pulsetur, dissimulet, nec
Audeat excussos praetori ostendere dentes
Et nigram in facie timidis livoribus offam
Atque oculum, medico nil promittente, relictum.
Bardaicus judex datur haec punire volenti
Calceus, et grandes magna ad subsellia surae,

2 Nam] "Lucky soldiers get on very well; for, in fact, with good fortune, I should not mind serving myself. If the camp is lucky in itself, may I be taken in as a shy recruit, and find luck there; luck, I say, for fate can do more for a man in the army than an introduction to Mars from his mistress or his mother."

6 Samia] Where Polycrates, to keep the people low, had built her the largest temple known to Herodotus.

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dius vi oppressam civitatem teneret;" all his force had this purpose of preventing.

9 dissimulet] He is afraid to I have it known that he has been in a brawl, however onesided, with a soldier.

12] He has lost one eye completely, he has one left to be sure, but the doctor cannot promise to save it.

13 datur] If you go to the praetor, he assigns a centurion as 'judex,' to keep the custom of Camillus (who established a standing army, so that the soldiers could not attend to their suits in the winter).

Legibus antiquis castrorum et more Camilli
Servato, miles ne vallum litiget extra

Et procul a signis. Justissima Centurionum
Cognitio est igitur de milite; nec mihi deerit
Ultio, si justae defertur causa querelae.
Tota cohors tamen est inimica, omnesque manipli
Consensu magno efficiunt, curabilis ut sit
Vindicta et gravior, quam injuria. Dignum erit ergo
Declamatoris mulino corde Vagelli,

Quum duo crura habeas, offendere tot caligas, tot
Millia clavorum. Quis tam procul absit ab urbe?
Praeterea quis tam Pylades, molem aggeris ultra
Ut veniat? Lacrimae siccentur protinus, et se
Excusaturos non sollicitemus amicos,
Da testem, judex quum dixerit, audeat ille,
Nescio quis, pugnos qui vidit, dicere, Vidi?
Et credam dignum barba, dignumque capillis
Majorum. Citius falsum producere testem
Contra paganum possis, quam vera loquentem

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17 Justissima, sq.] The words of the imaginary litigant, Well, the centurion has a right to judge the soldier, and he is sure to judge him justly," &c.

21 curabilis] Such as need a remedy, perhaps more generally 'anxious," an anxious business.'

24 caligas] The boots of the rank and file, who are certain to take the part of their comrade even if the centurions do not; the latter wear the calceus, though it is presumably of the kind known as Bardaicus, which was adopted from the Bardaei, a people of Illyria.

25 quis-urbe] Juvenal anticipates the excuse that the civilian's friends are sure to make; though the excuse is transparent, it is not unmeaning: the praetorian camp

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was a considerable distance from the former, and most of the pleasantest and busiest parts of Rome.

26] Here Juvenal suggests their real motive for putting forward the above excuse.

31] Barbers are said to have been introduced from Sicily, B.C. 300. The date was attested by public documents at Ardea (Varro, R. R. ii. 11, § 10).

33 paganum] "A civilian." Antonius Primus (Tac. Hist. iii. 24). taunts his soldiers by this word, as Caesar subdued a mutiny by calling his soldiers Quirites. The distinction is worth noticing. The Quirites, points to the legal status of unarmed citizens, paganus it can scarcely be doubted is originally a piece of military slang.

Contra fortunam armati contraque pudorem.

Praemia nunc alia atque alia emolumenta notemus Sacramentorum. Convallem ruris aviti

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Improbus aut campum mihi si vicinus ademit

Et sacrum effodit medio de limite saxum,
Quod mea cum patulo coluit puls annua libo;
Debitor aut sumtos pergit non reddere nummos,
Vana supervacui dicens chirographa ligni:
Exspectandus erit, qui lites inchoet, annus
Totius populi: sed tunc quoque mille ferenda
Taedia, mille morae; toties subsellia tantum
Sternuntur; tum facundo ponente lacernas
Caedicio, et Fusco jam micturiente, parati
Digredimur: lentaque fori pugnamus arena.
Ast illis, quos arma tegunt et balteus ambit,

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Quod placitum est ipsis, praestatur tempus agendi,

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Nec res atteritur longo sufflamine litis.
Solis praeterea testandi militibus jus

Vivo patre datur: nam, quae sunt parta labore
Militiae, placuit non esse in corpore census,
Omne tenet cujus regimen pater. Ergo Coranum
Signorum comitem, castrorumque aera merentem,

34 pudorem] He will appeal to his honour, and face you down.

38 sacrum] An idol has been defined as a compromise between a symbol and a fetich. Hermae, Termini, Priapi, were probably nearer fetiches.

39 patulo] Flat. Originally, it was forbidden to offer bloody offerings to Terminus.

41] Repeated from xiii. 137.

42, 43] "I must wait to begin my cause for the year, whatever it is that begins everybody else's."

45] The advocates are almost ready, taking off their wrappers to shew the toga, when they find the

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172 D. J. JUVENALIS SATIRA XVI.

Quamvis jam tremulus, captat pater. Hunc labor aequus Provehit, et pulcro reddit sua dona labori,

Ipsius certe ducis hoc referre videtur,

Ut, qui fortis erit, sit felicissimus idem,
Ut laeti phaleris omnes et torquibus omnes.

57-60] Coranus deserves it; at least, it is the general's own interest to promote the bravest, and be liberal to all. One might suspect that from this point onwards we should have had a satire on abuses in the army; the connexion being that commanders do not understand their own interest. The apparent

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change of subject would not be so great as in Sat. xiv., where the subject up to 106 is education by example, from thence to the end, avarice. Another parallel would be the seventh Satire, which begins with the advantages of imperial patronage, and after v. 21 dilates exclusively on public neglect.

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