VIII

HOW PRIAPUS PUT WITCHES TO ROUT

HORACE lays the scene of this incident in that part of the Esquiline which lay outside the famous Agger, or Mound of Servius, on the north-east side of Rome. In this district there had long been a burial-place, used especially for criminals and paupers, where, among the tombs, witches practised their weird and infernal rites. Here, however, Maecenas, co-operating with Augustus in the work of city improvement, had laid out beautiful gardens, in which he later built himself a palace with a conspicuous tower."

The incident must be supposed to have occurred before the transformation from a squalid and repulsive site had been completed. A wooden statue, however, of Priapus, the god of gardens, had already been set up.

The gruesome story of the witches' incantations comes to a ridiculous end when the wood of the statue cracked, and the noise of the explosion drove the hags away in terror.

The Satire is closely connected in subject with Epodes 5 and 17. Virgil's eighth Eclogue may also be compared, as well as the three Priapea to be found among the minor poems attributed to Virgil. Cf. "molem propinquam nubibus arduis," Odes iii. 29. 10.

a

VIII.

Olim truncus eram ficulnus, inutile lignum, cum faber, incertus scamnum faceretne Priapum, maluit esse deum. deus inde ego, furum aviumque maxima formido; nam fures dextra coercet obscenoque ruber porrectus ab inguine palus; ast importunas volucres in vertice harundo terret fixa vetatque novis considere in hortis. huc prius angustis eiecta cadavera cellis conservus vili1 portanda locabat in arca ; hoc miserae plebi stabat commune sepulcrum, Pantolabo scurrae Nomentanoque nepoti. mille pedes in fronte, trecentos cippus in agrum hic dabat, heredes monumentum ne sequeretur.2 nunc licet Esquiliis habitare salubribus atque Aggere in aprico spatiari, quo modo tristes. albis informem spectabant ossibus agrum;

1 vilis K, II.

a

8 2 sequerentur K, II. qua Bentley.

Cf. Isaiah xliv. 10 ff., especially 17 thereof he maketh a god.'

5

10

15

"and the residue

› A wooden statue of Priapus, the garden-god, was used

as a scarecrow.

On the Esquiline Hill, just outside the Servian Wall, was a cemetery largely used for the pauper and criminal classes. Here, however, Maecenas laid out his Horti, or gardens, which became one of the beauty-spots of Imperial Rome.

d This verse may come from Lucilius. It is repeated in Sat. ii. 1. 22 and Nomentanus is mentioned in Sat. i. 1. 102.

SATIRE VIII

Once I was a fig-wood stem, a worthless log, when the carpenter, doubtful whether to make a stool or a Priapus, chose that I be a god." A god, then, I became, of thieves and birds the special terror'; for thieves my right hand keeps in check, and this red stake, protruding from unsightly groin; while for the mischievous birds, a reed set on my head affrights them and keeps them from lighting in the new park. Hither in other days a slave would pay to have carried on a cheap bier the carcasses of his fellows, cast out from their narrow cells. Here was the common burial-place fixed for pauper folk, for Pantolabus the parasite, and spendthrift Nomentanus. Here a pillar assigned a thousand feet frontage and three hundred of depth, and provided that the graveyard should pass to no heirs. To-day one may live on a wholesome Esquiline, and stroll on the sunny Rampart, where of late one sadly looked out on ground ghastly with bleaching bones. For myself,

Horace puts into verse form the common inscription, which defined the dimensions of a plot of ground assigned for burial purposes and often closed with the abbreviated formula H. M. H. N. S. (Hoc monumentum heredes non sequetur).

This is the famous Agger, an embankment and fosse of nearly a mile in length, which on the Esquiline level was a part of the Servian Wall system.

20

cum mihi non tantum furesque feraeque suetae hunc vexare locum curae sunt1 atque labori, quantum carminibus quae versant atque venenis humanos animos: has nullo perdere2 possum nec prohibere modo, simul ac vaga Luna decorum protulit os, quin ossa legant herbasque nocentis. Vidi egomet nigra succinctam vadere palla Canidiam, pedibus nudis passoque capillo, cum Sagana maiore ululantem: pallor utrasque 25 fecerat horrendas aspectu. scalpere terram unguibus et pullam divellere mordicus agnam coeperunt; cruor in fossam confusus, ut inde manis elicerent, animas responsa daturas. lanea et effigies erat, altera cerea : maior lanea, quae poenis compesceret inferiorem ; cerea suppliciter stabat, servilibus ut quae iam peritura modis. Hecaten vocat altera, saevam altera Tisiphonen: serpentes atque videres infernas errare canes, Lunamque rubentem, ne foret his testis, post magna latere sepulcra. mentior at si quid, merdis caput inquiner albis corvorum, atque in me veniat mictum atque cacatum Iulius et fragilis Pediatia furque Voranus.

30

35

singula quid memorem, quo pacto alterna loquentes 40 umbrae cum Sagana resonarint3 triste et acutum, utque lupi barbam variae cum dente colubrae abdiderint furtim terris, et imagine cerea largior arserit ignis, et ut non testis inultus

1 sint D.

2 pellere Heinsius. 3 resonarint Bentley: resonarent MSS.

a The passage is mock-heroic and based upon the famous scene in the eleventh book of the Odyssey (36 ff.), where the blood poured into a trench brought the spirits up from Erebus.

'tis not so much the thieves and beasts wont to infest the place that cause me care and trouble, as the witches who with spells and drugs vex human souls these in no wise can I bring to naught or stop from gathering bones and harmful herbs, as soon as the roving Moon has uplifted her beauteous face.

23 My own eyes have seen Canidia walk with black robe tucked up, her feet bare, her hair dishevelled, shrieking with the elder Sagana. Their sallow hue had made the two hideous to behold. Then they began to dig up the earth with their nails, and to tear a black lamb to pieces with their teeth ; the blood was all poured into a trench, that therefrom they might draw the sprites, souls that would give them answers." One image there was of wool, and one of wax, the woollen one the larger, to curb and punish the smaller; the waxen stood in suppliant guise, as if awaiting death in slavish fashion. One witch calls on Hecate, the other on fell Tisiphone. You might see serpents and hell-hounds roaming about, and the blushing Moon, that she might not witness such deeds, hiding behind the tall tombs. Nay, if I lie in aught, may my head be defiled by ravens' white ordure, and may Julius and the weakling Pediatia and the thief Voranus come to water and befoul me! Why tell each detail-how in converse with Sagana the shades made echoes sad and shrill, how the two stealthily buried in the ground a wolf's beard and the tooth of a spotted snake, how the fire blazed higher from the image of wax, and how as witness I shuddered at the words and deeds

With this passage cf. the famous witch scene in Macbeth IV. i.