SATIRA IV. 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, it was proposed that the ECCE iterum Crispinus; et est mihi sæpe vocandus 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 has 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. Æger 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 adulterer, sins only from the love of vice; he neither pretends interest or necessity, like those who sold their favours to lascivious wi SATIRE IV. ARGUMENT. fish should be cut to pieces, and so dressed: 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 The adulterer despises only the charms of a widow. 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? NO BAD MAN IS HAPPY: least of all a corrupter, and the same Incestuous, with whom there lay, lately, a filletted dows, 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 Sanguine adhuc vivo terram subitura sacerdos. 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. -Sæpe Diespiter Neglectus incesto addidit integrum. 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 ac count. Suet. says, that Domitian, particularly -Morum correctionem exercuit in vestales. 10 15 20 tial 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 probably they were some valuable men, who had been persecuted by the emperor for some supposed offences. See this sat. 1. 151, 2. 14. What can you do, &c.] q. d. What can one do with such a fellow as Crispinus? what signifies satirizing his crimes, when his person is more odious and abominable than all that can be mentioned ? What he is, is so much worse than what he does, that one is at a loss how to treat him. This is a most severe stroke, and introduces what follows on the gluttony and extravagance of Crispinus. 15. A mullet.] Mullus-a sea fish, of a red and purple colour, therefore called mullus, from mulleus, a kind of red or purple shoe, worn by senators and great persons. AINSW. I take this to be what is called the red mullet, or mullus barbatus; by some rendered barbel. Horace speaks of this fish as a great dainty: Laudas insane, trilibrem HOR. sat. ii. lib. ii. l. 33, 4. So that about three pounds was their usual weight: that it was a rarity to find them larger, we may gather from his saying, 1. 36. His breve pondus. But Crispinus meets with one that weighed six pounds, and, rather than 13. What would be base, &c.] So par- not purchase it, he pays for it the Priestess, about to go under ground with blood as yet alive. 10 For what would be base in good men, in Titius, or Seius, became Crispinus: what can you do, since dire, and fouler than every Crime, his person is?—He bought a mullet for six sestertia, Truly equalling the sestertia to a like number of pounds, 16 As they report, who of great things speak greater. I praise the device of the contriver, if, with so large a gift, He had obtained the chief wax on the will of a childless old man. There is further reason, if he had sent it to a great mistress, 20 Who is carried in a close litter with broad windows. enormous sum of six thousand sestertii, or six sestertia, making about 467. 17s. 6d. of our money. For the manner of reckoning sesterces, see before, sat. i. 1. 106. and note. This fish, whatever it strictly was, was in great request, as a dainty, among the Romans. Asinius Celer, a man of consular dignity under the emperor Claudius, is said to have given 8000 nummi (i. e. eight sestertia) for one. See SE NEC. epist. xcv. 16. Truly equalling, &c.] That is, the number of sestertia were exactly equal to the number of pounds which the fish weighed, so that it cost him a sestertium per pound. 17. As they report, &c.] So Crispinus's flatterers give out, who, to excuse his extravagance, probably represent the fish bigger than it was, for it is not easily credible that this sort of fish ever grows so large. Pliny says, that a mullet is not to be found that weighs more than two pounds. Hor. ubi supr. goes so far as three pounds-so that probably these embellishers of Crispinus made the fish to be twice as big as it really was. 18. I praise the device, &c.] If this money had been laid out in buying such a rarity, in order to present it to some childless old man, and, by this, Crispinus had succeeded so well as to have become his chief heir, I should commend such an artifice, and say that the contriver of it deserved some credit. 19. Had obtained the chief wax, &c.] It was customary for wills to consist of two parts: the first named the primi hæredes, or chief heirs, and was therefore called cera præcipua, from the wax which was upon it, on which was the first seal. The other contained the secundi hæredes, or lesser heirs: this was also sealed with wax-this was called cera secunda. 20. There is further reason, &c.] There might have been a reason for his extravagance, even beyond the former; that is, if he had purchased it to have presented it to some rich woman of quality, in order to have ingratiated himself with her as a mistress, or to induce her to leave him her fortune, or perhaps both. Comp. sat. iii. 129, 30. and ib. 132-4. 21. Carried in a close litter.] Antrum properly signifies a den, cave, or the like-but there it seems to be descriptive of the lectica, or litter, in which persons of condition were carried close shut up. -Broad windows.] Latis specularibus. Specularis means any thing whereby one may see the better, belonging to windows, or spectacles. The specularis lapis was a stone, clear like glass, cut into small thin panes, and in old times used for glass. This was made use of in the construction of the litters, as glass is with us in our coaches and sedan chairs, to admit the light, and to keep out the weather. The larger these windows were, the more expensive they must be, and the more denote the quality of the owner. Nil tale expectes: emit sibi: multa videmus, Quales tunc epulas ipsum glutisse putemus Incipe Calliope, licet hic considere: non est 22. Expect no such thing, &c.] If you expect to hear that something of the kind above mentioned was a motive for what he did, or that he had any thing in view, which could in the least excuse it, you will be mistaken; for the truth is, he bought it only for himself, without any other end or view than to gratify his own selfishness and gluttony. 23. Apicius.] A noted epicure and glutton in the days of Nero. He wrote a volume concerning the ways and means to provoke appetite, spent a large estate on his guts, and, growing poor and despised, hanged himself. The poet means, that even Apicius, glutton as he was, was yet a mortified and frugal man in comparison of Crispi nus. Thou, Crispinus, hast done, what Apicius never did. 24. Formerly girt, &c.] q. d. Who wast, when thou first camest to Rome, a poor Egyptian, and hadst not a rag about thee better than what was made of the flags that grow about the river Nile. Of the papyrus, ropes, mats, and, among other things, a sort of clothing was made. This flag, and the leaves of it, were equally called papyrus. See sat. i. 1. 26, 7. where Crispinus is spoken of much in the same terms. 25. The price of a scale.] Squamæ, here, by synec. put for the fish itself: but, by this manner of expression, the poet shews his contempt of Crispinus, and means to make his extravagance as contemptible as he can. 26. A province, &c.] In some of the provinces which had become subject to Rome, one might purchase an estate for what was laid out on this mullet. 27. But Apulia, &c.] A part of Italy, near the Adriatic gulf, where land, it seems, was very cheap, either from the barrenness and craggy height of the mountains, or from the unwholesomeness of the air, and the wind atabulus: Montes Apulia notos Quos torret atabulus. HOR. lib. i. sat. v. 1. 77, 8. For less some provinces whole acres sell: 28. The emperor, &c.] Domitian.— q. d. What must we suppose to be done by him, in order to procure dainties? how much expence must he be at to gratify his appetite, if Crispinus can swallow what cost so many sestertia in one dish, and that not a principal one; not taken from the middle, but merely standing as a side-dish at the edge of the table; not a part of some great supper, given on an extraordinary occasion, but of a common ordinary meal. 31. A purple buffoon.] No longer clad with the papyrus of Egypt, (see note on 1.24.) but decked in sumptuous apparel, ornamented with purple. So sat. i. 27. Crispinus, Tyrias humero revocante la cernas. Though advanced to great dignity, by |