Latin Verse Satire

by Miller, Paul Allen

  115–16. Sumere = “take.” As Krenkel (1970) observes, this most likely refers to a stop to care for Symmachus in Capua.

  117–18. There were two gladiatorial schools in Capua. This passage is generally thought to introduce a mock battle between two gladiators similar to that found in Horace, Satires 1.5.51–70. Broncus = “bucktoothed.”

  Eminulo < eminulus, –a, –um: diminutive of eminens, “standing out.” The diminutive is ironic.

  Frgs. 7.266–67, 280

  Lucilius details in comic fullness the toilette and skills of the courtesan [6, 12]. The text is a precedent for Horace Satires 1.2 and Ovid’s Ars Amatoria.

  266–7. Subvellor = “I am plucked down below.” Desquamor = “I am scaled.” Pumicor = “I am rubbed with pumice.” Ornor = “I am adorned.” Expolior = “I am polished.” Pingor = “I am painted.”

  280. Molere = “to grind as in flour,” a common sexual metaphor. See Horace

  1.2.35. Vannere = “to winnow.” Note the continuity of the culinary metaphor with the sexual referent.

  Frg. 8.302–8

  This fragment is another representative of satire’s frank portrayal of sexuality. It shows the precedent Lucilius set for Catullus [2, 6, 12] and the elegists as well as other satirists.

  302–3. poclo = poculo < poculum, –i: “drinking cup.”

  Fictricis = genitive of fictrix: “schemer, contriver.” = a graphic sexual expression for having an erection in which the foreskin is drawn back. The explicit nature of the phrase may be one of the reasons for Lucilius’s use of Greek. Horace would later criticize his habit of mixing Greek and Latin in 1.10.20–35.

  305. Porphyrion cites this passage as a gloss on Horace 1.2.125. Diallaxon = a transliteration of the Greek διάλλαξων: “about to cross or intertwine.”

  306. A vivid sexual image taken from the world of wool-work. Fusus: “spindle,” here = phallus. Foris subteminis panus: “Outside, the threads woven together (subteminis < subtemen) are wound round the bobbin (panus).”

  307. Opus is a common sexual euphemism (Adams 1982). Lentet < lento, –are: “to bend, to ply like an oar.”

  308. laeva: understand manu. Muttoni < muto, mutonis: rare poetic term for “penis,” see Horace 1.2.68. Absterget < abstergeo, –tergere, –tersi, –tersum: “to dry by wiping.”

  Frg. 11.422–4

  This poem is a good example of early satire’s ability to lampoon prominent people by name [27–8, 35]. Quintus Opimius ille, Iugurtini pater huius: Quintus Opimius was consul in 154 BCE. His son Lucius was consul in 121. He was bribed by Jugurtha in 116 and condemned in 110 before being sent into exile. The point of the lines seems to be that while the father grew out of early bad habits, the son did not.

  Famosus = infamosus. Note the alliteration: formosus … fuit … famosus.

  Frg. 1342–54

  This is the longest continuous fragment we have from Lucilius. We do not know the book from which it is derived. It provides a rough and ready definition of one Roman ideology’s most central terms, virtus. Virtus is difficult to translate. Derived from vir, its fundamental meaning is “manliness.” From there, it often means martial courage, as one of the fundamental virtues of manliness. Lastly, it means “virtue,” i.e. the appropriate behavior for a vir or free man (slaves were pueri and by definition could not possess virtus). What follows is not a philosophical examination, but a list of examples.

  1342–3. The basic structure is virtus est potesse persolvere pretium verum. Potesse = posse. Quis in both cases = quibus. Albinus cannot be securely identified. In this first definition, virtus is defined not only as paying one’s debts, both fiscal and moral, but also as having the ability to do so. It should be recalled that to be a member of the equestrian or senatorial order, those whom Cicero refers to as the boni or “good men,” it was necessary to have a certain census or “net worth.” There was, then, in traditional Roman ideology very little differentiation between the external markers of virtue and its internal manifestations. This lack of differentiation is the basis of Horace’s attempt to redefine terms such as libertas, nobilitas, and ingenuitas in 1.4.

  Res here and throughout the fragment means both “a business transaction” and “a situation or affair.”

  1344–6. In this section, virtus is defined as knowledge. Virtus thus is knowledge of how to size up a situation and of what it is proper to do and not to do.

  1347. Virtus is to know moderation in seeking.

  1348. This line essentially repeats the first two. It represents the stylistic laxity that drove Horace to distraction in 1.4 and 1.10. Divitiis adds the idea of paying from one’s own store, of being self-sufficient.

  1349. Honos means both “honor” and “office,” maintaining the parallel between abstract virtue and social hierarchy, or the internal and external dimensions of virtus.

  1350–1. One of the standard maxims of Greek practical ethics, submitted to a painful dissection by Plato at the beginning of the Republic: “to be a friend to a friend and an enemy to an enemy.”

  1352. Hos magni facere: “to hold in high esteem.” Magni is genitive of value.

  1353–4. These last sentences are standard Stoic sentiments repeated almost verbatim by Cicero at De Officiis 1.17.58.

  HORACE

  1.2

  Satire 1.2 is a diatribe [40–1, 66] often entitled either “Moderation in All Things” or “On Adultery.” This duality reflects not only the shifting focus of Horace’s rant, but also a certain asymmetry between the putative message of the satire and the eccentric position it constructs for its audience. The majority of the satire consists of a series of vignettes that narrate (on the denotative level) an oscillation between what Freud would call the pleasure and the reality principles—between the desire for pleasure and the attempt, in the name of pleasure, to avoid pain. After the first twenty-four lines, this elusive search for moderation narrows to the realm of sexuality, in general, and to adultery in particular.

  The basic structure of an alternation between extremes is repeated throughout the satire. No real hope for moderation exists, since people in pursuit of the pleasure principle inevitably overcorrect in their encounter with the reality principle: vitant stulti vitia, in contraria currunt (24). A set of alternatives is presented, but always with a moment of excess, a moment of obscene enjoyment that cannot be folded back into the simple logic of alternating contraries and an ideal middle point. Nil medium est. Maltinus wears his tunic too low, his opposite number too high. What “sticks out” is precisely the inguen obscenum (26). The search for moderation leads us to images of albi cunni (36), anal rape (44), talking penises (68–72), as well as an admonition to rape a slave boy or girl whenever a raging erection threatens (116–18). In each case, the denotative lesson contains a surplus of sadistic enjoyment for the audience that affirms its separation from the overt limits marked out by the narrative and invites it to take pleasure in that very distance. The audience is not so much to be convinced by Horace’s street-corner preacher as it is invited to laugh both at the target of his lampoons and his own excessive nature.

  1. Ambubaiarum < ambubaia, –ae: “Syrian flute girl.” A comically grotesque word with which to begin the satire. Flute girls were synonymous with promiscuity. Horace anticipates the sexual theme of the second part of the satire. The juxtaposition of this word with collegia, a formal term used of priests and poets, is designed to provoke hilarity.

  Pharmacopolae < pharmacopola, –ae: “a seller of drugs, a quack.” The bracketing of the good Latin word collegia by the Syriac derived ambubaiarum and this Greek term, plunges us into the world of immigrants, freed slaves, cheap entertainers, sex workers and mountebanks that was both Tigellius’s home and satire’s frequent setting. Compare the openings of Juvenal 1 and 3.

  2. Balatrones < balatro, –onis: “jester.” A word found only twice more in classical literature, both times in Horace. Compare Satire 2.8.21.

  3–6. Tigelli = Hermogenes Tigellius, the subject of the
opening of Satire 1.3 as well. There he is portrayed as a man who always goes to extremes. Here he is the immoderate patron of flute girls and jesters, in contrast to the man (contra hic) who is stingy to his amicus, lest he be called a spendthrift, prodigus. The proper model is the man of means who controls his desires while being generous to the deserving in the manner of Maecenas.

  There is a submerged literary polemic pursued in these lines. Tigellius was a musician known to Caesar, Cicero, Cleopatra, and Octavian, who, according to the scholiast, Porphyrion, had criticized Horace’s metrics and was an advocate of the neoteric poet Calvus. Tigellius is also the subject of satire in the more specifically literary sermones 1.4 and 1.10. His lifestyle as lampooned here also serves as a metaphor for his lack of restraint in poetics.

  Some distinguish two Tigellii, a father and son or a master and freedman: the earlier one whose death is recounted here and the later critic of 1.4 and 1.10. This distinction, according to many commentators, helps to clarify the chronology of composition, since the coarse tone of 1.2 is often taken to mark it as an early effort. External evidence for two separate Tigellii is lacking (Freudenburg 1993).

  Frigus, –oris: neuter noun.

  7. Hunc: Most argue that this person cannot be the same stingy person described above (hic), in spite of the potential confusion caused by applying the same pronoun to both.

  8–9. Stringat < stringo, –are: “to strip” as the leaves from a tree.

  Ingluvie < ingluvies, –ei: “maw” used of animals, metonymy for “gluttony, greed.” Note the low provenance of the imagery.

  Coemens < coemo, –emere: “to buy in large quantities.”

  Obsonia < obsonium, –i: “a dish eaten with bread and wine.” The Greek term from which it is derived can also mean “salary” or “payment.” Greed is dehumanizing. The spendthrift is transformed into a wild animal that swallows up vast quantities of money and comestibles.

  Conductis … nummis = “hired” and hence “borrowed” money as Porphyrion confirms.

  10. Here begins the response to Horace’s indirect question in lines 7–9. Quod is postponed.

  Parvi … animi: genitive of description. The opposite of being magnanimous.

  12. Fufidius: unknown. Vappa and nebulo both denote a lack of substance. There is a deliberate ambiguity between the moral and material meanings of these terms.

  13. Positis in faenore nummis: “money loaned at interest.” Horace shifts into the colloquial language of business.

  14. Quinas hic capiti mercedes exsecat: “He deducts 5% of the principle.” The regular rate of interest was 1% per month. Fufidius charges the usurious rate of 5% and takes his first payment out of the principle of the loan, effectively loaning his client only 95% of the principle while charging him the full amount of interest.

  15. Perditior: “in arrears.”

  16. Nomina: “debts” from the names written on the promissory notes. Sector is frequentative of sequor.

  Veste virili = toga virilis, assumed by the age of sixteen.

  17. Tironum < tiro, –onis: “a beginner.” Young men on tight allowances would be easy prey for the unscrupulous loan shark.

  17–19. The entire quotation should be taken together. By breaking it up across three lines, Horace produces an excited, exclamatory tone.

  19. Pro quaestu: “in proportion to his income.”

  20–2. “You would scarcely believe how this man lived, worse than Menedemus in Terence’s Heautontimorumenos,” who lived like a poor man in the midst of great riches in mourning for a son he had chased away (gnato …. fugato) because he fell in love with a poor woman’s daughter. Fufidius and Tigellius are mirror images of excess. Freudenburg (1993) see this passage as a subtle acknowledgement of the comic nature of Horace’s speaker. Compare 1.4.45–52.

  Inducit … vixisse = “represents to have lived.”

  23–4. This end-stopped couplet sums up the first part of the satire: “foolish people fall into excess to avoid vice.” The last part of the satire focuses on sexual excess and adultery.

  25–7. Maltinus, Rufillus, and Gargonius are unknown. Malta, however, Rudd (1982: 143) notes, is a word found in Lucilius meaning “effeminate fop.”

  25. The alternation between extremes extends even to fashion. Tunicis demissis = “with garments trailing.” Flowing tunics were a sign of effeminacy. See Cicero, In Catilinam 2.17–23.

  Est qui = “there is another.”

  26. Subductis: understand tunicis.

  27. Pastillos < pastillus, –i: an ancient breath mint.

  28–9. The ultimate violation of the principle of moderation is represented by those who only lust after women wearing the instita, a flounce sewn on around the edge (subsuta) of the stola. This is the dress of the respectable matrona.

  30. Fornice < fornix, –icis: an arch or arcade where cheap prostitutes hawked their wares and hence metonymy for a brothel.

  31–5. The mixture of high and low registers is part of the humor. Cato the elder (234–149 BCE) was known as an advocate of stern traditional morality. While serving as censor, he had a senator expelled for embracing his wife in the daylight.

  Notus implies an individual of some stature in the community.

  Macte < mactus, –a, –um: “honored,” in the vocative an expression of congratulations. The use with virtus was conventional, but the association of virtus (derived from vir) with virility adds to the fun.

  Esto: third person future imperative.

  Dia < dius, –a, –um: “godlike, inspired.”

  Permolere: the image of “grinding” is at once graphic and good humoredly rustic.

  36. Cunni … albi: “white cunt,” metonymy for a woman dressed in white and hence a matrona. Prostitutes wore dark togas. The graphic image, however, drives the point of the exercise home. The obscenity is deliberate and direct.

  Cupiennius: a speaking name derived from the participle cupiens. Note the alliteration with cunni. Porphyrion suggests a reference to C. Cupiennius Libo, a friend of Octavian, which does not eliminate the pun.

  37–40. A parody of Ennius’s Annales frag. 465 (Vahlen 1967): Audire est operae pretium procedere recte / qui rem Romanam Latiumque augescere vultis [“The cost of proceeding in the proper manner is for all of you who wish the Roman commonwealth and Latium to prosper to listen.”] The mixture of the high epic register with low comic material produces a humorous effect, while recapitulating on a formal level the convergence of extremes that is the burden of the poem’s opening argument.

  Moechis = dative.

  41–6. Adulterers must always fear the revenge of wronged husbands. This passage contains a catalog of the dangers. Praedonum < praedo, –onis: robbers.

  Hunc perminxerunt calones: a commonly described form of revenge for adultery is to have your servants rape the offender. Within the Roman sexual system, the humiliation would be double: the adulterous man is penetrated like a woman and subjected by his social inferiors (Parker 1997).

  Demeteret < demeto, –ere: cut off. Cauda is slang for penis. Testis = accusative plural.

  Galba = a jurist dissenting from the common opinion that adulterers receive these punishments justly (iure). It is unknown whether the name refers to a real person. Horace is parodying legal discourse.

  47–9. Freed women (libertinae) constitute the second class after the respectable wives of citizens.

  Sallustius is thought by most commentators to be the nephew of the historian, but some object on the ground that the same person has a very complimentary ode addressed to him (2.2). As Catullus’s poetry demonstrates, however, obscene raillery hardly precludes personal affection. On the other hand, as Rudd (1982) points out, it may well be the historian himself.

  Non minus insanit: even in permitted vices, excess is possible.

  49–53. But if fortune (res) and reason (ratio) persuaded, he would wish to be known as good and generous, paying not so much as would do harm to himself or be unbecoming (dedecori). On benignus, see line 4.


  53–4. Verum hoc se amplectitur uno = “but he prides himself on this one thing alone.” Even in his moderation, Sallustius tips over into ridiculous excess.

  55–7. Marsaeus is unknown, but Originis was an actress of Cicero’s time. Actresses were all libertinae.

  Fundumque laremque: he would give away the very material and religious symbols that constituted his family’s claim to Roman identity. The Lares are primitive gods whose origins are shrouded in mystery. The Lar familiaris was a household guard of the hearth.

  58–9. The suggestion that his fama brought forth a graver/heavier malum than did his reduced fortune (res) presents an oxymoronic conflation of the material and the spiritual. The lighter his fortune, the lower his reputation sinks.

  59–61. The earlier pairing of res and fama is here paralleled in the fool’s desire to avoid the role (persona) of moechus (understood), as opposed to steering clear of all harm that lies in his way (officit).

  Evitare: predicate of satis est. Its direct object is personam. The hyperbaton, i.e. the disturbance of normal word order, is harsh but highlights the contrast in meaning between evitare and officit. Again, the notion of trying to avoid one vice by embracing another (line 24) is the unifying theme of the poem.

  62. Malum est ubicumque: this is the strict corollary of nil medium est (line 28). It is not only that no one exhibits the aurea mediocritas, but also that the mean seems not to exist.