Latin Verse Satire

by Miller, Paul Allen

  6–8. “When the crowd roils, what will you say to it when a momentary calm settles?” Plebecula: the diminutive is contemptuous.

  Bile: see 3.8–9.

  Fert animus … fecisse silentia = “the spirit bids you to have brought forth silence,” ironic epic periphrasis.

  Calidae: “hot with anger.”

  8–9. “Will you say ‘citizens of Rome (Quirites), don’t think the former is just, the latter bad, but prefer the latter instead’?” One of Socrates’s points throughout the Alcibiades I is that his beloved should not presume to advise the Athenian assembly when he does not himself know what is just and unjust. The conflation of Greek and Roman settings and institutions is found throughout the satire. See introductory note.

  10–13. “You know how to weigh right and wrong,” heavily ironic. Lance < lanx, lancis: “platter, pan,” as in lanx satura [12], but here referring to the pan of a scale.

  Ancipitis < anceps, ancipitis: “two-sided.”

  Rectum discernis ubi inter / curva subit vel cum fallit pede regula varo: a complex metaphor derived from carpentry. Rectum here, as in line 9, means primarily “right,” but Persius also plays upon the literal meaning, “straight.” Thus inter curva denotes the difficulty of discovering the “straight path” in a world of curves, while the regula refers to a carpenter’s norma, a square made up of two feet (pede) placed at right angles. In short, though sometimes our rule is not true to what needs to be measured and squared, Alcibiades’s powers of ethical perception are so keen that he can discover the straight even when forced to use a crooked rule. The reference is to situations in which one’s normal ethical canon is not fitted to the task at hand.

  Nigrum vitio praefigere theta = “to place the black mark of death before a man’s name for vice.” The practice refers to a judge placing a θ before a man’s name. θ stands for θάνατος. It is unclear whether this was a Roman practice at the time this satire was written—though it certainly later came to be—or whether this is a bit of Athenian local color.

  14–16. The irony of Socrates’s previous compliments becomes clear as he shifts to direct abuse. “Why don’t you stop prancing before the people and take a good stiff draught of hellebore instead?” Summa … pelle decorus = “handsome on the surface of your skin.” Alcibiades is decorus only in a superficial sense.

  Ante diem: in the Alcibiades I he is not quite twenty years old and not yet eligible to address the assembly, but already making grand political plans (105A7–B7).

  Blando … popello: the seduction of political power. Popello is a contemptuous diminutive for populus.

  Iactare caudam: the scholiast sees a reference to a dog wagging his tail. This is possible, in which case it refers to Alcibiades’s fawning for the people’s affection. However, given the later graphic sexual vocabulary of the satire and the fact that caudam can mean penem, there is also a reference to a lewd dance. Translate “to shake your tail.”

  Anticyras < Anticyra, –ae: a town in Phocis famous for its hellebore, a purgative used for madness and dropsy (see 1.51 and 3.63).

  Sorbere: see sorbitio, line 2.

  Meracas < meracus, –a, –um: “pure, unadulterated,” compare merus.

  17–18. “Do you think the highest good is to laze about and eat dainties?” Summa is a substantive with vixisse and cuticula (another contemptuous diminutive) in apposition.

  Uncta … patella = “a sumptuous dish” (Harvey 1981).

  19. “This old woman would reply no differently”: Persius asks us to imagine a Socratic street scene.

  19–22. “Brag about your lineage and good looks all you like. Baucis, the herb seller, knows as much as you do.” “Dinomaches ego sum” = “I am the son of Dinomache,” Alcibiades’s mother. As most commentaries observe, she was an Alcmaeonid, and it was from her that Alcibiades inherited his connection to the traditional Athenian aristocracy and Pericles. Yet the construction is unusual and, as Kissel rightly notes (1990), alludes directly to a passage in the Alcibiades I where Socrates pictures the amused reaction of Amestris, the mother of the Great King of Persia, to the news that Alcibiades proposes to compare himself to her son (123C5–7). As Denyer notes (2001: 187–8), the use of the matronymic is very rare in Greek. In poetry, it refers either to the sons of the gods or to children without fathers. Hence, the formulation, which Persius has Socrates ironically cast as a vaunt, subtly calls into question Alcibiades’s legitimacy.

  Pannucia = “shriveled.”

  Ocima = “basil,” considered an aphrodisiac by the Elder Pliny (Historia Naturalis 20.48), hence the slave to whom Baucis hawks her wares is bene discincto (see 3.31).

  23–41. Many commentators assume a change of speakers here, since these lines do not follow the Alcibiades I as closely as the initial twenty-two. There are a number of objections to this. First, as discussed in the introductory note, the two vignettes found in this section do in fact parallel a sequence in the Alcibiades I, likewise the end of the poem directly recalls the end of the dialogue. Second, the figure of the sunbather in the second vignette (lines 33–41) has been anticipated in line 18 and so must refer to Alcibiades. Jenkinson (1980) as well as Dominick and Wehrle (1999) solve this problem, by attributing lines 23–32 to Alcibiades. But, as Hooley (1997: 126–7) observes, it is difficult to imagine that Alcibiades would be assigned the summary statement, ut nemo in sese temptat descendere, nemo, / sed praecedenti spectatur mantica tergo, which in many ways stands for the whole satire. If any character should utter this pronouncement it should be Socrates. Indeed, the whole burden of Socrates’s demonstration both in lines 1–22 and throughout the Alcibiades I, is to indict Alcibiades’s lack of self-knowledge. Third, the use of the second person singular to introduce both vignettes (quaesieris, cesses) naturally lead the reader to expect a continuation of the dialogic situation introduced in the first line. It is better then to follow Dessen (1968: 58–70) and Harvey (1981) and assume that the Socratic figure continues as the main speaker.

  23–4. in sese … descendere: note the image of profound interiority. The Delphic oracle’s commandment to “know yourself” makes no such assumption about the mystery of our inner nature or the need to delve “deep” inside.

  Praecedenti … mantica tergo: an allusion to the Aesopic fable in which the gods assigned men two packs, one worn on the front with the faults of others and the other on the back with our own.

  25. Quaesieris: potential subjunctive. The speaker introduces an imaginary dialogue to sketch his caricature of Vettidius.

  Nostin = nostine.

  Vettidi = otherwise unknown.

  26. Curibus = locative of Cures, a Sabine town with a reputation for frugality.

  Quantum non = plus quam.

  Miluus = “the kite,” proverbially long of flight.

  27–32. “Do you mean that miser who dines worse than his slaves?” Vettidius so values his praedia that his life has become wretched.

  28. An obscure reference to the Compitalia, a holiday honoring the gods of the crossroads (compita). The scholiast takes compita, here, as a reference not to the crossroads but to the shines found there. Pertusa, he says, refers to the fact that these shrines were open on all four sides.

  More problematic is what iugum … ad compita figit means. It should refer to affixing the yokes to the shrines themselves. The scholiast argues that this indicates a dedication of broken yokes, but there is nothing in the Latin to support that reading nor any evidence that such breakages were regular occurrences. Many assume that the reference is to hanging up the yoke as a sign of rest for the holiday, but then why Vettidius would affix it (i.e., with a nail) ad compita is difficult to explain. Kissel points to a satiric purpose: the miser fears thieves (1990). While clever, such a reading is difficult to prove. In the end, we must side with Harvey, “P.’s words are still some way from being understood” (1981).

  29–32. The miser fears to give his slaves their festive rations while he dines on inferior food. Seriolae = diminutive of seria:
a large jar. The diminutive is appropriate for a miser. Slaves were normally given extra wine on holidays. The fact that Vettidius must scrape off the veterem … limum tells us that it has been some time since he last dipped into his supply.

  “Hoc bene sit”: a common formula in toasts, here used as a blessing for the perilous enterprise of this modest feast. Note the agonized tone of ingemit.

  Cepe = “an onion.” Tunicatum = “with the skin on.”

  Pueris plaudentibus = ablative absolute. The slaves applaud their farratam … ollam: a porridge made from spelt. This was plain fare, but a holiday luxury chez Vettidius.

  Pannosam faecem morientis … aceti: “The wine was not very good which could be called ‘the ragged dregs of dying vinegar’” (Hart 1896: 58).

  33–41. Here the young Alcibiades, whose political aspirations have been deflated by Socrates’s biting irony at the beginning of this satire, is pictured as sunning himself naked when a stranger suddenly compares the youth’s efforts at depilation to those of a man unsuccessfully weeding his garden. The use of the verb figo for the rays of the sun introduces a veiled image of penetration.

  35. Hi mores recalls Cicero’s O tempora, o mores! at the beginning of the first Catilinarian, a reminiscence reinforced by Alcibiades’s political ambitions. Penemque illustrates how far a satire of Alcibiades in the age of Nero was removed from the moral condemnation of Catiline in the time of Cicero. The young, dissolute aristocrat is no longer threatening to overturn the republic, but has become emperor in the person of Nero.

  36. The interlocutor accuses Alcibiades of displaying his depilated private parts to the general public. The verb pando, is used in the same context in Catullus 6, where the poet demands that Flavius display his latera ecfututa. Pando is not widely used and is found nowhere else in Latin literature in an explicitly sexual context. Thus Persius’s usage is striking and the sentence penemque arcana lumbi / … marcentis pandere vulvas can be read as an allusion to its lone literary predecessor. Marcentis … vulvas = “shriveled hollows.” The use of vulva for masculine anatomy is unparalleled. The scholiast assumes it refers to the anus, but remarks on the unusual usage. The plural is likewise difficult to explain except as a poeticism inapt for this plain speaking context and metrically unnecessary. Nonetheless, the theme of effeminacy is a constant throughout Persius and this image merely takes it to its logical conclusion.

  A second Catullan allusion can be seen in 41. The plough that the inter-locutor claims will not be able to tame the brush that grows round Alcibiades’s anus (non … ullo mansuescit aratro) recalls Catullus’s evocation of Lesbia at the end of poem 11. There, her voracious, phallic sexuality is compared to the traditionally masculine image of the plough, and Catullus himself is portrayed as the effeminized flower that is her victim (“flos … tactus aratro est”). In both Persius and Catullus the central point of the image is the inversion of expected gender relations; neither Catullus nor Alcibiades should be ploughed. But whereas the image in Catullus is pathetic, since he is portrayed as the victim of Lesbia’s brutality, in Persius, Alcibiades is merely perverse. Yet, his cinaedic desires will remain unfulfilled. Depilate as he might, no plough will penetrate that bracken.

  The Catullan and Ciceronian allusions in this passage provide an implicit republican context for this description of Alcibiades. The tissue of republican literary allusions that Persius deploys here shows that on every level Alcibiades is an absurd and degraded figure. He not only lacks the stature of a statesman such as Cicero, he does not even have that of a villain like Catiline. These references to the literary past, therefore, create a subtle counterpoint that reinforces the condemnation of Alcibiades.

  36–41. A series of agricultural metaphors runs throughout the passage. Beginning with runcantem (“weeding”), continuing with gurgulio (“worm,” also spelled curculio), plantaria (“seedlings” or “hair”), labefactent (“loosen as with a plough,” see Vergil, Georgics 1.264) and finishing with filix (“hedge”) and aratro (“plough”), Alcibiades’s groin is consistently allegorized as a field of weeds. Compare also Georgics 1.238–41. Yet this profusion of vegetative growth gives no hint of a harvest to be enjoyed. The closest the reader comes to a feast is the boiling (elixas) of Alcibiades’s buttocks, preparatory to the failed attempt at depilation. For more on this topic, see Harvey (1981), Kissel (1990), and Hooley (1997: 149–50).

  37. Maxillis < maxilla, –ae: “jaw.”

  Balanatum = “anointed with balsam,” hence “perfumed.”

  Gausape = “fleece,” and hence “beard,” but compare Horace 2.8.11.

  39. Palaestritae = “trainers.”

  40. Nates = “buttocks.”

  Forcipe adunca = “hooked tweezers.”

  42–52. The satire ends with a lamentation at the universal lack of self-knowledge, even among those who would point out the faults of others (including the satirist). We can take neither the compliments nor the derision of others at face value, but must descend within ourselves.

  42–3. Even as we engage the enemy in close combat (caedimus), we leave ourselves open to an attack by distant archers.

  43–5. Each of us bears an inner wound that we try to shield with a protective belt (balto). The reference is to a gladiator who tries to hide his injury from an opponent.

  45–6. Decipe nervos / si potes: you can hide your wound, but not escape its pain. Literally, “deceive your strength, if you can.”

  46–7. Alcibiades finally responds. “Why should I not believe it when the neighborhood calls me exceptional?”

  47–50. “If you have not practiced virtue, then you lend the people your thirsty ears to no purpose.” Viso si palles … nummo: compare 3.109.

  In penem ironically substituted for in mentem. Compare 3.110.

  Amarum / si puteal multa cautus vibice flagellas: this passage has long been much disputed. The standard interpretation, which almost every commentator admits is inadequate, has been that puteal refers to the Puteal Libonis, the place in the Forum where the money-changers gathered, and that this passage therefore refers to whipping-up interest rates or to some other fashion of making money. Yet, this interpretation involves a needless allegorical reading and is an unnecessary repetition of the point made in 47. The most basic meaning of puteal is the rim around a well or other hole in the ground. Kissel (1990) has seen correctly that a more straightforward interpretation, and one more consonant with the structure of the poem as whole, can be obtained by recognizing here a reference to Alcibiades’s desire for homoerotic anal penetration (see lines 35–41). Translate: “if you slyly beat the fruitless hole with many a blow.”

  51–2. See introductory note. Cerdo = “the common man.” This last couplet echoes the end of Satire 3 (lines 107–11), where the young student protests to the doctor of philosophy that he is not ill, but the comes responds, “just wait till you see a beautiful woman or a pile of money.”

  JUVENAL

  1

  How can anyone not write satire today? Juvenal in his opening programmatic satire explains why, unlike Lucilius (line 165) he will only attack the dead (lines 170–1). The burden of the poem is that vice has so overrun Rome that Juvenal can no longer remain silent. Each vice is lovingly sketched in its own individual vignette. One scene’s relation to the next is sometimes tangential, but the power of the individual images and their accompanying sententiae obscures the relative lack of narrative and argumentative development [10–13, 39, 75]. The effect is cumulative. “Every new figure he sees rouses him to fresh fury, for every new figure typifies a different kind of outrage on moral feeling” (Highet 1961: 50).

  The basic thesis is that the traditional Roman virtues of fides and virtus cannot exist in a city such as that described in the first catalog of vices (lines 22–80) (Anderson 1982: 197–254). The root of this moral rot is two-fold [75]. In the first instance, it is the result of an influx of foreigners, mostly but not exclusively from the Greek east. Rome is no longer Roman in either values or bloodline. This
is a theme that will be dealt with at some length in Satire 3. Yet, lest we oversimplify, as the opening of Satire 6 makes clear, the Romans themselves were never all that Roman. Or at least the good old days were not quite as good as they sometimes seem. So here in poem 1, we see Pyrrha portrayed as a procuress before the waters of the flood that was supposed to have wiped out human iniquity were even dry (line 84).

  The second cause of moral decline is related to the first: social mobility. As Rome has become a more and more cosmopolitan city, the specter of the wealthy foreign freedman came to haunt the imagination of the city’s disenfranchised. One need only think of Trimalchio’s feast in the Satyricon to conjure the libertinus bogeyman in all his seeming vulgarity. Native Romans were in competition with freedmen and foreigners for the generosity of the wealthy. At the same time, in the absence of republican political institutions, the wealthy had less and less need of the services of the poorer classes either as voters in elections or to demonstrate their potential political power (lines 127–46). The material basis for relations between patron and client, which traditionally had bound the upper orders to their less fortunate confreres, had begun to erode with the establishment of imperial government. The result, as Juvenal depicts it, is a commodification of traditional power relations: clientes were seen less as amici and more as expenses (lines 97–101).

  The fact is that the traditional class structure of an inherited senatorial élite, supported by wealthy equestrian gentry, had come under greater and greater strain during the first two centuries of imperial rule. Social mobility represented the antithesis of this old order (see Horace 1.4), and the wealthy foreign interloper crystallized the worst fears of the aristocracy and those who depended on it. At the same time, this image was in many ways a false one. The empire itself had destroyed the economic and social basis of the republican aristocracy, not freed slaves of foreign birth. The few wealthy freedmen who actually did emerge were symptoms, not the cause, of this disenfranchisement of the traditional élite.