Hic tamen et Cimbros, et summa pericula rerum 250 Excipit, et solus trepidantem protegit urbem. Atque ideo postquam ad Cimbros, stragemque volabant, Qui nunquam attigerant majora cadavera, corvi, Nobilis ornatur lauro collega secunda. Plebeis Deciorum animæ, plebeia fuerunt Nomina: pro totis legionibus hi tamen, et pro 255 Omnibus auxiliis, atque omni plebe Latina 260 265 249. The Cimbri.] The Teutones and Latin war, the son in the Hetruscan, Cimbri, neighbouring nations, joined and the grandson in the war against their forces, and marched towards Rome, Pyrrhus. by which they struck a terror throughout 255. Whole legions, &ce] The Romans Italy: but C. Marius, with Q. Catullus had a superstition, that if their general the proconsul, marched out against then, would consent to be devoted to death, or sustained their attack, and totally de- sacrificed to Jupiter, Mars, the Earth, feated them. and the infernal Gods, all the misfor-Dangers of affairs.] When the af tunes of his party would be transferred fairs of Italy, of Rome especially, on their enemies. This opinion was conseemed to be in the utmost danger from firmed by several successful instances, these powerful enemies. particularly two, in the persons of the 250. And alone, &c.] Though Q. Ca- Decii, father and son. T'he first being tullus was with Marius in this victory, consul with Manlius in the wars against yet Marius was the commander in chief the Latins, and perceiving the left wing, in the Cimbrian war, therefore the whole which he commanded, give back, called honour of the victory was ascribed to out to Valerius - the high priest to perhim. Comp. I. 253. form on him the ceremony of consecra251. After--the crows, &c.] And other tion, (Livy, lib. viii.) and immediately birds of prey, which, after the battle, spurred his borse into the thickest of the came to feed upon the slain. See Hom. enemies, where he was killed, and the Il. i. 5. ii. 393, et al. q. d. After the Romans gained the battle. His son afbattle was ended. See sat, iv. l. 111. terwards died in the same manner in the 252. Greater carcases.] The Cimbri war against the Gauls, with the like sucwere, in general, men of large stature. 253. His noble colleague,] Q. Catullus, 257. Suffice,] i. e. To appease, and who had been second in command, and render them propitious to the Roman was of noble birth. -Is adorned with the second laurel.] 258. More value, &c.] Such men as Received only the second honours of these are to be more highly prized than the day. all the army and people for whom they 254. The Decii, &c.] These, though thus nobly sacrificed their lives. originally of low extraction, yet gained 259. Born from a servant maid.] Serimmortal honours, by sacrificing their vius Tullius, born of the captive Oriculives for their country'; the father in the lana. But Livy supposes her to have cess arms. Yet he both the Cimbri, and the greatest dangers of affairs, 250 The souls of the Decii were plebeian, their names by them. 260 The youths of the consul himself were opening the fastenings Of the gatęs, betrayed to the exiled tyrants, and whom Some great thing for doubtful liberty might have become, Which Mutius, with Cocles, might admire, and the virgin Who swam the Tiber, the bounds of our empire. 265 been wife to a prince of Corniculum, (a have been becoming these sons of the town of the Sabines Italy,) who was patriot Brutus to have stricken some killed at the taking of the town, and his great stroke, that might have tended to wife carried away captive by Tarquinius secure the public liberty; which, under Priscus, and presented as a slave to his the new government, after the expulwife Tanaquil, in whose service she was sion of the kings, must have been in a delivered of this Tullius. doubtful and uncertain state; not as yet 259. The robe, &c.] The ensigns of roy- established. alty are here put for the kingdom, or 264. Mutius.] Scævola, who, when royalty itself; so the fasces, for the Porsenna, king of Tuscany, had entered highest offices in the state. See sat. iii. into an alliance with the Tarquins, to re128, note. store them by force, went into the -Romulus.] Called Quirinus. See sat. enemy's camp with a resolution to kill iii. 1. 67, note on “ O Quirinus." their king Porsenna, but, instead of 260. Last of good kings.] Livy says him, killed one of his guards; and, that, with him, justa ac legitima regna being brought before the king, and findceciderunt. ing his error, burnt off his right hand, as 261. Youths of the consul, &c.] The a penalty for his mistake. two sons of L. Junius Brutus, Titus and -Cocles.] Horatius, being to guard a Tiberius, who, after their father had bridge, which he perceived the enemy driven Tarquin, and his whole race, out would soon be master of, he stood and of Rome, and taken an oath of the Ro- resolutely opposed part of their army, mans never more to suffer a king, entered while his own party repassed the bridge, into a conspiracy to restore the Tar- and broke it down after them. He then quins; the sum of which was, that the threw himself, armed as he was, into the gates of the city should be left open in Tiber, and escaped to the city, the night-time for the Tarquins to enter : 265, Who swam, &c.] Clelia, a Roman to this purpose they sent letters, under virgin, who was given to king Porsenna their own hands, with promises to this as an liostage, made her escape from the effect. guards, and swam over the Tiber. King 261. The fastenings, &c.] The bars of Porsenna was so stricken with these three the city gates, which were to be betrayed instances of Roman bravery, that he to the Tarquins. withdrew his army, and courted their 262. Exiled tyrants.] The Tarquins. friendship. 263. Some great thing, &c.] It would 270 Occulta ad patres produxit crimina servus 275 266. A slave.] Vindicius, a slave who virtue of his office, was unhappily waited at table, overhearing part of the obliged to see this rigorous sentence discourse among the conspirators, went executed on his own children. See Æn. strait to the consuls, and informed them vi. 817--23. of what he had heard. The ambassa 268. First are of the laws.] i. e. The dors from the Tarquins were appre- first time this sentence had been exehended and searched; the letters above cuted since the making of the law. mentioned were found upon them, and 269. Thersites.] An ugly buffoon in the criminals seized. the Grecian army before Troy. See - Bewailed by matrons, &c.] By the Hom. Il. B. l. 216–22. mothers of such of the conspirators as 270. Achilles.] Æacides-æ, or -is, so were put to death, as the sad cause called from his grandfather Æacus, who their destruction, by accusing them to was the father of Peleus, the father of the senate. Achilles. -Produced.] Produxit-brought out, -The Vulcanian arms.] Or armour, discovered. that was made by Vulcan, at the request 267. But stripes, &c.] The proof being of Thetis, the mother of Achilles, which evident against them, they suffered the could be pierced by no human force. punishment (which was newly intro 271. Than that Achilles, &c.] The poet duced) of being tied naked to a stake, here still maintains his argument, viz. where they were first whipped by the that a virtuous person, of low and mean lictors, then beheaded : and Brutus, by birth, may be great and respectable: A slave, to be bewailed by matrons, produced their hidden crimes deduce your race from an infamous asylum. Whoever he, the first of your ancestors, was, 274 Either he was a shepherd, or that which I am unwilling to say. Your name, you whereas a vicious and profligate person, likely that he would insinuate, that none though of the noblest extraction, is de- of the Romans had much to brag of in testable and contemptible. point of family grandeur, and that none 272. However fur, &c.] Juvenal here of them could tell but that they might strikes at the root of all family-pride have come from some robber, or cutamong the Romans, by carrying them up throat, among the first fugitives to Rome, to their original. Revolve, roll or trace or even from something worse than that, back, for however many generations. if worse could be: and indeed Romulus 273. An infamous asylum.] Romulus, himself, their founder, was a parricide, in order to promote the peopling of the for he is said to have killed his brother city in its first infancy, established an Remus. asylum, or sanctuary, where all outlaws, Thus Juvenal concludes this fine Savagabonds, and criminals of all kinds, tire on family-pride, which he takes who could make their escape thither, every occasion to mortify, by shewing, were sure to be safe. that what a man is in himself, not what 275. Either he was a shepherd.] As his ancestors were, is the great matter to were Romulus and Remus, and, their be considered. bringer up, Faustulus. Worth makes the man, the want of it the - Unwilling to say.] As the poet does fellow; not speak his own meaning, it may not The rest is all but leather or prunello. be very easy to determine it: but it is Pope, SATIRA IX. ARGUMENT. Juvenal, in this Satire, exposes and censures the detestable vice then practised at Rome. Some have thought that this is done too openly. So Farnaby-Obscænam cinædorum et pathicorum turpitudinem acriter, at nimis aperte insectatur. Marshall says, that, on account of certain expressions in this Satire, Jul. C. Scaliger advised every man of probity to abstain from the whole work of Juvenal. But, surely, this is greatly mistaking the matter, and not adverting duly to the difference between such writers as exert their genius in the cause of vice, and so write upon it, as if they wished to recommend it to the imagination, and thus to the practice of mankind, (as Horace among the Romans, and Lord SCIRE velim, quare toties mihi, Nævole, tristis 5 Line 1. Nævnlus.] The poet, as an in- and misery, and now he asks him the troduction to this Satire, in which he reason of it. exposes and condemns the monstrous 2. Marsyas.} A Phrygian musician, impurities then reigning in Rome, brings who challenged Apollo, but was overto view, as an example of their evil con come by him, and flayed alive. sequences, one Nævolus, a monster of 4. Ravola.] Some impure wretch, who, vice, who appears in a most shabby and being detected with his mistress, in the forlorn condition, more like an outcast situation here described, was confounded than a member of civil society; ruined with shame at the discovery. by those very vices by which he had 5. Biscuits.] Crustula-wafers, or şuchthought to have enriched himself. Ju- like things; or little sweet cakes, which venal is supposed to have met him often, used to be given to children. So Hor. lately, in a state of the utmost dejection sat. i. 1. 25, 6. |