Betray'd one noble, and now seeks to wrest, Demetrius, the lawyer, &c. It was more probably, however, Marcus Regulus, who carried on the trade of an informer under Nero, and again under Domitian. Pliny gives an entertaining account of his cowardly apprehensions for himself after the death of the latter; and pronounces him to be the wickedest of all twolegged creatures, omnium bipedum nequissimus. The difficulty of fixing on any particular name affords matter for deep reflection. That so many people should at the same period be guilty of the complicated crimes of treachery and ingratitude, (for such is the charge,) could only be believed on the credit of concurring testimonies; and gives us a dreadful picture of the state of corruption into which Rome was now fallen. VER. 49. Whom Massa dreads,] He speaks of Babius Massa, who took up the trade of an informer under Domitian, and rose to great eminence in guilt. Tacitus calls him a pernicious enemy to all good men, and the cause of many evils to the state. He was prosecuted in his turn for malepractices in his government, (of the province of Bætica,) and condemned to refund his ill-gotten property. It seems, however, from Pliny, who was one of his prosecutors, that there was some collusion among the judges; and that the sentence was never enforced. But though Massa might be rich, he was no longer powerful: for Martial, who was never accused of temerity, attacks him without fear. Humorously exaggerating the thievish propensities of one Hermogenes, a thief by descent, he observes, that he was as great a stealer of napkins, wherever he went, as Massa was of money! VER. 50. and anxious Carus, &c.] This was Carus Metius, no less conspicuous for villainy than Massa. He did not, indeed, begin so early; for when Tacitus was writing the life of Agricola, he had obtained" but one victory;" that, probably, over the virtuous Senecio, who assisted Pliny in the prosecution of Massa. The first draught of this Satire (for it was afterwards considerably improved and enlarged) might be formed, I should think, soon after the above event: since we find Carus, infamous as he Those whom, the surest, shortest way to rise, Ye Powers!-What rage, what frenzy fires my When that false guardian, with his crowded train, was, and ready to join in the destruction of the worthiest characters, not yet so firmly established in the Emperour's favour, but that he needed the protection of a more powerful villain. Carus obtained more "victories," as Tacitus calls them, afterwards, and outlived his execrable master; when he fell into poverty and contempt. Of Latinus, or rather the mime represented by him, (for he himself had been put to death in a former reign,) I have nothing to relate with certainty. VER. 63. Or stood prepared at Lyons to declaim, &c.—It was here that Caligula instituted games of oratory. The meed of the conqueror is nowhere mentioned, but the punishment of the vanquished was to obliterate what he had written with his tongue, to be ducked in the river, &c. &c. Tyranny, like Dullness, sometimes "loves a joke," and this was a most miserable one. If Caligula himself were one of the candidates, and any other won the palm, his reward was certain death. Dio tells a curious story of Caligula's accusing Domitius Afer, the celebrated orator, in a set speech. Domitius wisely determined not to answer it; but throwing himself into an ecstacy at the beauty of the composition, he repeated parts of it here and there, affecting to be so enraptured, as utterly to forget that it was pronounced against himself. The artifice succeeded: his life was spared, because, when ordered to plead, he prostrated himself—και χαμαι κείμενος, ικετευσεν ὡς και τον έκτορα αυλον μαλλον η τον Καίσαρα φοβεμενος. Lib. LIN. c. 19. Chokes up the street, and leaves his orphan charge To prostitution, and the world at large! When, by a juggling sentence damn'd in vain, (For who, that holds the plunder, heeds the pain?) Marius to wine devotes his morning hours, And laughs, in exile, at the offended Powers: While, sighing o'er the victory she has won, The Province finds herself but more undone! And shall I feel that crimes like these demand The Horatian lyre, and yet withhold my hand, It should be added, that Caligula, sometime afterwards, joined him in the consulship with himself, an honour of which his vices made him not altogether unworthy. He was an informer. The scene of these contests, which was at the confluence of the Soane and the Rhone, had been looked on as a sacred spot from the earliest ages. After the subjection of the country, the natives built a temple and altar here to Augustus, and established, or rather renewed, the ancient festival, to which there was annually a great resort. The happy thought of instituting oratorical games at this altar, is, as I have already observed, due to Caligula. VER. 71. Marius, &c.] Proconsul of Africa: after the expiration of his government, he was prosecuted by the province for extortion and cruelty, convicted on the clearest evidence, fined, and banished from Italy. "Yet," says Holyday," reserving the greater part of his former spoils, he lived in a wanton exile ;"while the Africans returned home with the wretched consolation of having defrayed their own expenses, and seen the money levied on their oppressor, carried to the Roman treasury. Juvenal observes, that Marius was damnatus inani judicio; that is, says the Scholiast, non ademptis bonis. Now Cæsar had made a law to prevent this kind of judgment. Panas facinorum auxit (Suet. Cæs. xlii), cum locupletes cò facilius scelere se obligarent, quod integris patrimoniis exulabant. It is true, this, with other good laws, was now grown obsolete; but the Scholiast's explanation is, nevertheless, unfounded: Juvenal uses the expres sion, inani judicio, in reference to the vast wealth of Marius, which could be little, if at all, affected by the paltry sum (not quite £6000.) exacted from him by way of punishinent. I believe that we have here a tacit censure on Trajan, in the third year of whose reign this scandalous instance of lenity took place. A Yet check the avenging strain, and tell instead, Recount the flight of Daedalus again, And the rash boy, plunged in the sounding main! When treasures, which the adulterer dares not leave The wife, by law, the wittol may receive, VER. 81. When treasures, &c.] Adulterers were accustomed to bequeath their property to their mistresses: this opened a door to universal corruption, and occasioned so great a clamour amongst the injured relatives, that Domitian interfered, and by an express law rendered such infamous women incapable of receiving any bequests whatever. The ingenious avarice of the Roman husbands, however, contrived to elude this wholesome restriction: they became panders to their own wives, and the legacies were, in consequence of it, transferred to themselves! Αυτῳ τις γήμας πιθανήν τῷ γείτονι ῥέγχει, Και τρέφεται. Του την ευχολΘ εργασία. Μη πλειν, μη σκαπλειν, αλλ' ευςομάχως απορεγχειν But this was not all. If the adulterer was old and wealthy, the husband slept and snored on; if not, he watched his opportunity, and took care to wake at a moment, favourable to his views of exp torting a compromise for an attempt to dishonour him. Now I am on this subject, (far, indeed, from a pleasing one,) I will relate a little anecdote of Mæcenas. He was invited to sup per by one Galba, who had a handsome wife. The minister was at this time all-powerful, and his protection, therefore, of consequence to his host, who remarked with joy his advances to his wife, and after supper, fell fast asleep. Maecenas made use of his time; and a friend, whom he had brought with him, was proceeding to imitate him, when Galba, who had nothing to expect from this new competitor, gravely raised his head, and exclaimed, Non omnibus dormio! I don't sleep for every body! This was thought a good joke at Rome, where the expression passed into a proverb, • Domitian's interference, however, obtains no credit with Xiphilinus. Sneering at his sudden and inconsistent starts of virtue, he says that he put to death several women for adultery whom himself had debauched ! Συχνοι δε και άνδρες και γυναικός των πλυσιων επε μοιχεία εκολασθησαν, ὧν ενιαι καὶ ὑπ ̓ αυτω εμοιχεύθησαν. Lib. Lxvit c. 12. Skill'd on the roof his vacant eyes to roll, VER. 85. When he presumes, &c.] He probably alludes to Cornelius Fuscus, who fell in the Dacian war. (Sat. IV.) Fuscus had assisted Nero in his mad follies, to the ruin of his patrimony; and on that founded his claim to promotion. Hence the indignation of Juvenal. The two concluding lines of this paragraph have given the commentators some trouble: puer Automedon nam lora tenebat, "Ipse lacernatæ cum se jactaret amica." If I understand Holyday, he refers ipse to Fuscus, and amica lacernata to his "warlike mistress :" but from the mention of Automedon, the charioteer of Achilles, it should seem as if ipse was meant of the Emperour, who, while Fuscus was showing his dexterity in driving, employed himself in exhibiting his talents in some other way, to one of his favourites. If this be allowed, the amica lacernata must relate to Sporus, whom this monster of lust espoused in Greece, afterwards brought to Italy, and exhibited publickly in the streets of Rome, and elsewhere, as his wife. Hunc Sporum, augustarum ornamentis excultum, lecticaque vectum, et circa conventus mercatusque Græciæ, ac mox Romæ circa Sigillaria comitatus est, identidem exosculans. Suet. Nero. xxviii. The end of Sporus is singular enough to deserve a line. A few. years after this transaction, he was ordered by Vitellius (then Emperour) to personate a nymph, who, in some pantomime, was to be carried off by a ravisher: and this creature-branded in the face of the whole world with infamy of the deepest die, actually put an end to himself, to avoid appearing on the stage in the dress of a female! |