[88] Such was the talk at the moment about Sejanus; such were the mutterings of the crowd. And would you like to be courted like Sejanus? To be as rich as he was? To bestow on one man the ivory chairs of office, appoint another to the command of armies, and be counted guardian of a Prince seated on the narrow ledge of Capri with his herd of Chaldaean astrologers? You would like, no doubt, to have Centurions, Cohorts, and Illustrious Knights at your call, and to possess a camp of your own? Why should you not? Even those who don’t want to kill anybody would like to have the power to do it. But what grandeur, what high fortune, are worth the having if the joy is overbalanced by the calamities they bring with them? Would you rather choose to wear the bordered robe of the man now being dragged along the streets, or to be a magnate at Fidenae or Gabii, adjudicating upon weights, or smashing vessels of short measure, as a thread-bare Aedile at deserted Ulubrae? You admit, then, that Sejanus did not know what things were to be desired; for in coveting excessive honours, and seeking excessive wealth, he was but building up the many stories of a lofty tower whence the fall would be the greater, and the crash of headlong ruin more terrific. What was it that overthrew the Crassi, and the Pompeii, and him who brought the conquered Quirites under his lash? What but lust for the highest place pursued by every kind of means? What but ambitious prayers granted by unkindly Gods? Few indeed are the kings who go down to Ceres’ son-in-law save by sword and slaughter — few the tyrants that perish by a bloodless death!
[114] Every schoolboy who worships Minerva with a modest penny fee, attended by a slave to guard his little satchel, prays all through his holidays for eloquence, for the fame of a Cicero or a Demosthenes. Yet it was eloquence that brought both orators to their death; each perished by the copious and overflowing torrent of his own genius. It was his genius that cut off the hand, and severed the neck, of Cicero; never yet did futile pleader stain the rostra with his blood!
“O happy Fate for the Roman State
Was the date of my great Consulate!”
Had Cicero always spoken thus, he might have laughed at the swords of Antony. Better verses meet only for contempt than thou, O famous and divine Philippic, that comest out second on the roll! Terrible, too, was the death of him whom Athens loved to hear sweeping along and holding in check the crowded theatre. Unfriendly were the Gods, and evil the star, under whom was born the man whom his father, blear-eyed with the soot of glowing ore, sent away from the coal, the pincers and the sword-fashioning anvil of grimy Vulcan, to study the art of the rhetorician!
[133] The spoils of war and trophies fastened upon stumps — a breast-plate, a cheek-strap hanging from a broken helmet, a yoke shorn of its pole, the flagstaff of a captured galley, or a captive sorrowing on a triumphal arch — such things are deemed glories too great for man; these are the prizes for which every General strives, be he Greek, Roman, or barbarian; it is for these that he endures toil and peril: so much greater is the thirst for glory than for virtue! For who would embrace virtue herself if you stripped her of her rewards? Yet full oft has a land been destroyed by the vainglory of a few, by the lust for honour and for a title that shall cling to the stones that guard their ashes — stones which may be rent asunder by the rude strength of the barren fig-tree, seeing that even sepulchres have their doom assigned to them!
[147] Put Hannibal into the scales; how many pounds’ weight will you find in that greatest of commanders? This is the man for whom Africa was all too small — a land beaten by the Moorish sea and stretching to the steaming Nile, and then, again, to the tribes of Aethiopia and a new race of Elephants! Spain is added to his dominions: he overleaps the Pyrenees; Nature throws in his way Alps and snow: he splits the rocks asunder, and breaks up the mountain-side with vinegar! And now Italy is in his grasp, but still on he presses: “Nought is accomplished,” he cries, “until my Punic host breaks down the city gates, and I plant my standard in the midst of the Subura! “ O what a sight was that! What a picture it would make, the one-eyed General riding on the Gaetulian monster! What then was his end? Alas for glory! A conquered man, he flees headlong into exile, and there he sits, a mighty and marvellous suppliant, in the King’s antechamber, until it please his Bithynian Majesty to awake! No sword, no stone, no javelin shall end the life which once wrought havoc throughout the world: that little ring shall avenge Cannae and all those seas of blood. On! on! thou madman, and race over the wintry Alps, that thou mayest be the delight of schoolboys and supply declaimers with a theme!
[168] One globe is all too little for the youth of Pella; he chafes uneasily within the narrow limits of the world, as though he were cooped up within the rocks of Gyara or the diminutive Seriphos; but yet when once he shall have entered the city fortified by the potter’s art, a sarcophagus will suffice him! Death alone proclaims how small are our poor human bodies! We have heard how ships once sailed through Mount Athos, and all the lying tales of Grecian history; how the sea was paved by those self-same ships, and gave solid support to chariot-wheels; how deep rivers failed, and whole streams were drunk dry when the Persian breakfasted, with all the fables of which Sostratus sings with reeking pinions. But in what plight did that king flee from Salamis? he that had been wont to inflict barbaric stripes upon the winds Corus and Eurus — never treated thus in their Aeolian prison-house — he who had bound the Earth-shaker himself with chains, deeming it clemency, forsooth, not to think him worthy of a branding also: what god, indeed, would be willing to serve such a master? — in what plight did he return? Why, in a single ship; on blood-stained waves, the prow slowly forcing her way through waters thick with corpses! Such was the penalty exacted for that long-desired glory!
[188] Give me length of days, give me many years, O Jupiter! Such is your one and only prayer, in days of strength or of sickness; yet how great, how unceasing, are the miseries of old age! Look first at the misshapen and ungainly face, so unlike its former self; see the unsightly hide that serves for skin; see the pendulous cheeks and the wrinkles like those which a matron baboon carves upon her aged jaws in the shaded glades of Thabraca. The young men differ in various ways: this man is handsomer than that, and he than another; one is stronger than another: but old men all look alike. Their voices are as shaky as their limbs, their heads without hair, their noses drivelling as in childhood. Their bread, poor wretches, has to be munched by toothless gums; so offensive do they become to their wives, their children and themselves, that even the legacy-hunter, Cossus, turns from them in disgust. Their sluggish palate takes joy in wine or food no longer, and all pleasures of the flesh have been long ago forgotten. . . .
[209] And now consider the loss of another sense: what joy has the old man in song, however famous be the singer? what joy in the harping of Seleucus himself, or of those who shine resplendent in gold-embroidered robes? What matters it in what part of the great theatre he sits when he can scarce hear the horns and trumpets when they all blow together? The slave who announces a visitor, or tells the time of day, must needs shout in his ear if he is to be heard.
[217] Besides all this, the little blood in his now chilly frame is never warm except with fever; diseases of every kind dance around him in a body; if you ask of me their names, I could more readily tell you the number of Oppia’s paramours, how many patients Themison killed in one season, how many partners were defrauded by Basilus, how many wards corrupted by Hirrus, how many lovers tall Maura wears out in a single season; I could sooner run over the number of villas now belonging to the barber under whose razor my stiff youthful beard used to grate. One suffers in the shoulder, another in the loins, a third in the hip; another has lost both eyes, and envies those who have one; another takes food into his pallid lips from someone else’s fingers, while he whose jaws used to fly open at the sight of his dinner, now only gapes like the young of a swallow whose fasting mother flies to him with well-laden beak. But worse than any loss of limb is the failing mind which forgets the names of slaves, and cannot recognise the face of the old friend who dined with him last nig
ht, nor those of the children whom he has begotten and brought up. For by a cruel will he cuts off his own flesh and blood and leaves all his estate to Phiale — so potent was the breath of that alluring mouth which had plied its trade for so many years in her narrow archway.
[240] And though the powers of his mind be strong as ever, yet must he carry forth his sons to burial; he must behold the funeral pyres of his beloved wife and his brothers, and urns filled with the ashes of his sisters. Such are the penalties of the long liver: he sees calamity after calamity befall his house, he lives in a world of sorrow, he grows old amid continual lamentation and in the garb of woe. If we can believe mighty Homer, the King of Pylos was an example of long life second only to the crow; happy forsooth in this that he had put off death for so many generations, and had so often quaffed the new-made wine, counting now his years upon his right hand. But mark for a moment, I beg, how he bewails the decrees of fate and his too-long thread of life, when he beholds the beard of his brave Antilochus in the flames, and asks of every friend around him why he has lived so long, what crime he has committed to deserve such length of days. Thus did Peleus also mourn when he lost Achilles; and so that other father who had to bewail the sea-roving Ithacan. Had Priam perished at some other time, before Paris began to build his audacious ships, he would have gone down to the shade of Assaracus when Troy was still standing, and with regal pomp; his body would have been borne on the shoulders ot Hector and his brothers amid the tears of Ilion’s daughters, and the rending of Polyxena’s garments: Cassandra would have led the cries of woe. What boon did length of days bring to him? He saw everything in ruins, and Asia perishing by fire and the sword. Laying aside his tiara, and arming himself, he fell, a trembling soldier, before the altar of Almighty Jove, like an aged ox discarded by the thankless plough who offers his poor lean neck to his master’s knife. Priam’s death was at least that of a human being; but his wife lived on to open her mouth with the savage barking of a dog.
[273] I hasten to our own countrymen, passing by the king of Pontus and Croesus, who was bidden by the wise and eloquent Solon to look to the last lap of a long life. It was this that brought Marius to exile and to prison, it took him to the swamps of Minturnae and made him beg his bread in the Carthage that he had conquered. What could Nature ever in all the world have produced more glorious than him, if after parading his troops of captives with all the pomp of war he had breathed forth his soul in glory as he was about to step down from his Teutonic car? Kindly Campania gave to Pompey a fever, which he might have prayed for as a boon; but the public prayers of all those cities gained the day; so his own fortune and that of Rome preserved him to be vanquished and to lose his head. No such cruel thing befell Lentulus; Cethegus escaped such punishment and fell whole; and Catiline’s corpse lay unviolated.
[289] When the loving mother passes the temple of Venus, she prays in whispered breath for her boys — more loudly, and entering into the most trifling particulars, for her daughters — that they may have beauty. “And why should I not?” she asks; “did not Latona rejoice in Diana’s beauty?” Yes: but Lucretia forbids us to pray for a face like her own; and Verginia would gladly take Rutila’s hump and give her own fair form to Rutila. A handsome son keeps his parents in constant fear and misery; so rarely do modesty and good looks go together. For though his home be strict, and have taught him ways as pure as those of the ancient Sabines, and though Nature besides with kindly hand have lavishly gifted him with a pure mind and a cheek mantling with modest blood — and what better thing can Nature, more careful, more potent than any guardian, bestow upon a youth? — he will not be allowed to become a man. The lavish wickedness of some seducer will tempt the boy’s own parents: such trust can be placed in money! No misshapen youth was ever unsexed by cruel tyrant in his castle; never did Nero have a bandy-legged or scrofulous favourite, or one that was hump-backed or pot-bellied!
[310] Go to now, you that revel in your son’s beauty; think of the deadly perils that lie before him. He will become a promiscuous gallant, and have to fear all the vengeance due to outraged husbands; no luckier than Mars, he will not fail to fall into the net. And sometimes the husband’s wrath exacts greater penalties than any law allows: one lover is slain by the sword, another bleeds under the lash; some undergo the punishment of the mullet. Your dear Endymion will become the gallant of some matron whom he loves; but before long, when Servilia has taken him into her pay, he will serve one also whom he loves not, and will strip her of all her ornaments; for what can any woman, be she an Oppia or a Catulla, deny to the man who serves her passion? It is on her passion that a bad woman’s whole nature centres. “But how does beauty hurt the chaste?” you ask. Well, what availed Hippolytus or Bellerophon their firm resolve? The Cretan lady flared up as though repelled with scorn; no less furious was Stheneboea. Both dames lashed themselves into fury; for never is woman so savage as when her hatred is goaded on by shame.
[329] And now tell me what counsel you think should be given to him whom Caesar’s wife is minded to wed. Best and fairest of a patrician house, the unhappy youth is dragged to destruction by Messalina’s eyes. She has long been seated; her bridal veil is ready; the Tyrian nuptial couch is being spread openly in the gardens; a dowry of one million sesterces will be given after the ancient fashion, the soothsayer and the witnesses will be there. And you thought these things were secret, did you, known only to a few? But the lady will not wed save with all the due forms. Say what is your resolve: if you say nay to her, you will have to perish before the lighting of the lamps; if you perpetrate the crime, you will have a brief respite until the affair, known already to the city and the people, shall come to the Prince’s ears; he will be the last to know of the dishonour of his house. Meanwhile, if you value a few days of life so highly, obey your orders: whatever you may deem the easier and the better way, that fair white neck of yours will have to be offered to the sword.
[346] Is there nothing then for which men shall pray? If you ask my counsel, you will leave it to the gods themselves to provide what is good for us, and what will be serviceable for our state; for, in place of what is pleasing, they will give us what is best. Man is dearer to them than he is to himself. Impelled by strong and blind desire, we ask for wife and offspring; but the gods know ot what sort the sons, of what sort the wife, will be. Nevertheless that you may have something to pray for, and be able to offer to the shrines entrails and presaging sausages from a white porker, you should pray for a sound mind in a sound body; for a stout heart that has no fear of death, and deems length of days the least of Nature’s gifts; that can endure any kind of toil; that knows neither wrath nor desire, and thinks that the woes and hard labours of Hercules are better than the loves and the banquets and the down cushions of Sardanapalus. What I commend to you, you can give to yourself; for it is assuredly through virtue that lies the one and only road to a life of peace. Thou wouldst have no divinity, O Fortune, if we had but wisdom; it is we that make a goddess of thee, and place thee in the skies.
Satire 11. Extravagance and Simplicity of Living
[1] If Atticus dines sumptuously, he is thought a fine gentleman; if Rutilus does the same, people say he has lost his senses: for at what does the public laugh so loudly as at an Apicius reduced to poverty? Every dinner table, all the baths, lounging-places and theatres have their fling at Rutilus; for while still young, active, and warm-blooded, and fit to wear a helmet, he plunges on till he will have to enrol himself — not compelled indeed, but not forbidden by the Tribune — under the rules and royal mandates of a trainer of gladiators. You may see many of these gentry being waited for by an oft-eluded creditor at the entrance to the meat-market — men whose sole reason for living lies in their palate. The greater their straits — though the house is ready to fall, and the daylight begins to show between the cracks — the more luxuriously and daintily do they dine. Meanwhile they ransack all the elements for new relishes; no cost ever stands in their way; if you look closely into it, the greater the
price, the greater the pleasure. So when they want to raise money to go after the rest, they think nothing of pawning their plate, or breaking up the image of their mother; and having thus seasoned their gluttonous delf at a cost of four hundred sesterces, they come down at last to the hotch-potch of the gladiatorial school. It matters much therefore who provides the feast; what is extravagant in Rutilus, gets a fine name in Ventidius, and takes its character from his means.
[23] Rightly do I despise a man who knows how much higher Atlas is than all the other mountains of Africa, and yet knows not the difference between a purse and an iron-bound money-box. The maxim “Know thyself” comes down to us from the skies; it should be imprinted in the heart, and stored in the memory, whether you are looking for a wife, or wishing for a seat in the sacred Senate: even Thersites never asked for that breastplate of Achilles in which Ulysses cut such a sorry figure. If you are preparing to conduct a great and difficult cause, take counsel of yourself and tell yourself what you are — are you a great orator, or just a spouter like Curtius and Matho? Let a man take his own measure and have regard to it in things great or small, even in the buying of a fish, that he set not his heart upon a mullet, when he has only a gudgeon in his purse. For if your purse is getting empty while your maw is expanding, what will be your end when you have sunk your paternal fortune and all your belongings in a belly which can hold capital and solid silver as well as flocks and lands? With such owners the last thing to go is the ring; poor Pollio, his finger stripped, has to go a-begging! It is not an early death or an untimely grave that extravagance has to dread: old age is more terrible to it than death.
[46] The regular stages are these: money is borrowed in Rome and squandered before the owner’s eyes; when some little of it is still left, and the lender’s face grows pale, these gentlemen give leg bail, and make off for Baiae and its oyster-beds — for in these days people think no more of absconding from the Forum than of flitting from the stuffy Subuva to the Esquiline. One pang, one sorrow only, afflicts these exiles, that they must, for one season, miss the Circensian games! No drop of blood lingers in their cheek: Shame is ridiculed as she flees from the city, and few would bid her stay.
Delphi Complete Works of Juvena Page 9