Excidet Arviragus: peregrina est bellua, cernis Luxuriam imperii veterem, noctesque Neronis Tempestate meâ. Circeis nata forent, an 127. Is foreign.] Therefore denotes some foreign conquest. 128. Spears, &c.] Sudes properly signifies a stake, a pile driven into the ground in fortifications; also a spear barbed with iron. Hence xaraxensixas, the fin of a fish. AINSW. q. d. Do you perceive his sharp fins rising on his back; they look like so many spears, and portend and signify the spears which you shall stick in the backs of vanquished foes. 129. Fabricius.] i. e. Fabricius Veiento. He was so diffuse in his harangue, that, in short, there wanted nothing but his telling where it was bred, and how old it was, to complete and establish his prophetic history of the fish. 130. What thinkest thou then? &c.] The words of Domitian, who puts the original question for which he assembled these senators, 1. 72. vis. as no pot could be got large enough to dress the turbot in, that they should advise what was to be done; this they had said nothing about; therefore Domitian asks, if it should be cut in pieces. 131. Montanus.] The glutton-See 1. 107, He concludes the debate, with expressing a dislike of disfiguring this noble fish, by dividing it, and, at the same magnus 130 135 140 145 time, by flattering the emperor, and raising his vanity. -Let a deep pot.] Testa signifies a pot, or pan, made of clay. He advises that such a one be immediately made, deep and wide enough to hold the fish within its thin circumference, (tenui muro:) by this means the fish will be preserved entire, as in such a pot it might be dressed whole. 133. Prometheus, &c.] The poets feigned him to have formed men of clay, and to have put life into them by fire stolen from heaven. Juvenal humourously represents Montanus as calling for Prometheus himself, as it were, instantly to fashion a pot on so great an occasion, when so noble a fish was to be dressed, and that for so great a prince. 134. Hasten.] That the fish may not be spoiled before it can be dressed. The clay and the wheel,] Clay is the material, and a wheel, which is solid, and turns horizontally, the engine on which the potter makes his ware. This was very ancient. Jer. xviii. 3. 135. Let potters follow, &c.] This is a most ludicrous idea, and seems to carry with it a very sharp irony on Domitian, for having called his council together on such a subject as this; but, how "Arviragus will fall: the fish is foreign; do you perceive "The spears erect on his back?" This one thing was wanting To Fabricius, that he should tell the country of the turbot, and its age. "What thinkest thou then?-Must it be cut?" "Far from 130 ❝ it be "This disgrace," says Montanus: "let a deep pot be prepared, "Which, with its thin wall, may collect the spacious orb. "A great and sudden Prometheus is due to the dish: "Hasten quickly the clay, and the wheel: but now, from this "Time, Cæsar, let potters follow your camps." The opinion, worthy the man, prevailed: he had known 135 Now half spent, and another hunger, when the lungs with Falernan Burned: none had a greater experience in eating In my time. Whether oysters were bred at Circæi, or 140 At the Lucrine rock, or sent forth from the Rutupian bottom, He knew well to discover at the first bite; And told the shore of a sea-urchin once looked at. They rise-and the senators are commanded to depart from the dismissed Council, whom the great general into the Alban tower 145 ever it might be meant, the known gluttony of Montanus, which is described, 1. 136-43. made it pass for serious advice, and as such Domitian understood it, as the next words may inform us. 136. The opinion, &c.] What Montanus had said about dressing the fish whole, was thoroughly worthy his character; just what might have been expected from him, and as such prevailed. -He had known, &c.] He was an old court glutton, and was well acquainted with the luxury of former emperors, here meant by luxuriam imperii. No man understood eating, both in theory and practice, better than he did, that has lived in my time, says Juvenal. 137. Nero.] As Suetonius observes, used to protract his feasts from mid-day to mid-night. 138. Another hunger, &c.] i. e. What could raise a new and fresh appetite, after a drunken bebauch. 140. Circai.] -orum. A town of Campania, in Italy, at the foot of mount Circello on the sea coast. 141. The Lucrine rock.] The Lucrine 143. Sea-urchin.] Echinus, a sort of crab with prickles on its shell, reckoned a great dainty. q. d. So skilled in eating was Montanus, that at the first bite of an oyster, or at the first sight of a crab, he could tell where they were taken. 144. They rise.] Surgitur, imp. the council broke up. See 1. 65. itur. 145. The great general.] Domitian, who gave the word of command for them to depart, as before to assemble. Into the Alban tower.] To the palace at Alba, where the emperor now was. The word traxerat is very expressive, as if they had been dragged thither solely against their wills. Traxerat attonitos, et festinare coactos, Atque utinam his potius nugis tota illa dedisset 146. Astonished-compelled, &c.] Amazed at the sudden summons, but dared not to delay a moment's obedience to it. Comp. 1. 76. 147. Catti.] A people of Germany, now subject to the Landgrave of HesseSicambri, inhabitants of Guelderland. Both these people were formidable ene mies. 149. An alarming epistle, &c.] Some sorrowful news had been dispatched post-haste from various parts of the empire. Little could the senators imagine, that all was to end in a consultation upon a turbot. 150 The satire here is very fine, and represents Domitian as anxious about a matter of gluttony, as he could have been in affairs of the utmost importance to the Roman empire. 150. And I wish, &c.] i. e. It were to be wished that he had spent that time in such trifles as this, which he passed in acts of cruelty and murder, which he practised with impunity, on numbers of the greatest and best men in Rome, nebody daring to avenge their sufferings. 153. But he perished, &c.] Cerdo sig Had drawn astonished, and compelled to hasten, And I wish that rather to these trifles he had given all those He had begun this hurt him reeking with slaughter of the Lamiæ. away, and afterwards put the husband to death. The Lamiæ here may stand for the nobles in general, (as before the cerdones for the rabble in general,) who had perished under the cruelty of Domitian, and with whose blood he might be said to be reeking, from the quantity of it which he had shed during his reign. He died ninety-six years after Christ, aged forty-four years, ten months, and twenty-six days. He reigned fifteen years and five days, and was succeeded by Nerva ; a man very unlike him, being a good man, a good statesman, and a good soldier. SATIRA V. ARGUMENT. The Poet dissuades Trebius, a parasite, from frequenting the tables of the great, where he was certain to be treated with the utmost scorn and contempt. Juvenal then proceeds to SI te propositi nondum pudet, atque eadem est mens, Argument, line 1. Parasite.] From wage, to, and aires, corn; anciently signified an officer under the priests who had the care of the sacred corn, and who was invited as a guest to eat part of the sacrifice. Afterwards it came to signify a sort of flatterer, a buffoon, who was invited to great men's tables by way of sport, and who, by coaxing and flattery, often got into favour. See sat. i. 1. 139, and note. 1. Of your purpose.] Your determination to seek for admittance at the tables of the great, however ill you may be treated. 2. Highest happiness.] Summa bona. Perhaps Juvenal here adverts to the various disputes among the philosophers about the summum bonum, or chief good of man. To enquire into this was the design of Cicero in his celebrated five books De Finibus, wherein it is supposed all along, that man is capable of attaining the perfection of happiness in this life, and he is never directed to look beyond it upon this principle, 5 this parasite sought his chief happiness in the present gratification of his sensual appetite, at the tables of the rich and great. -Another's trencher.] Quadra signifies, literally, a square trencher, from its form but here, aliena vivere quadra is to be taken metonymically, to signify, living at another's table, or at another's expence. 3. Sarmentus.] A Roman knight, who, by his flattery and buffoonery, insinuated himself into the favour of Augustus Cæsar, and often came to his table, where he bore all manner of scoffs and affronts. See Hor. lib. i. sat. v. 1. 51, 2. 3, 4. The unequal tables.] Those entertainments were called iniquæ mensæ, where the same food and wine were not provided for the guests as for the master. This was often the case, when great men invited parasites, and people of a lower kind; they sat before them a coarser sort of food, and wine of an inferior kind. |