Latin Verse Satire

by Miller, Paul Allen

  165–6. On Lucilius, compare Horace 2.1.39–41 for the same image and Persius 1.114 for a cognate idea. Infremuit < infremo, –ere, –ui: “to growl.”

  167. Sudant praecordia: a striking image. Their chests begin to sweat.

  168–70. Think it over before you enter battle. Voluta < voluto, –are: “to tumble about, turn over, consider.”

  Tubas = “battle trumpets.”

  Galeatum < galeo, –are: “to cover with a helmet.”

  Duelli = archaic for belli, giving a mock epic tone.

  170–1. In that case, let’s see what the dead will allow. Flaminia and Latina: understand via. The via Latina ran south, as the via Flaminia ran north. All the main roads leading from Rome were lined with tombs.

  3

  Umbricius is leaving Rome for Cumae, Aeneas’s initial landing spot in Italy. Rome is no longer a fit place for a Roman. It is overrun by Greeks, just as Troy was when Aeneas fled. Besides, the streets are unsafe, and living in the tenements leads to an early death (Freudenburg 2001: 267).

  This satire is the model for Samuel Johnson’s “London.” In many ways, it is Juvenal’s most stinging, and certainly his most complete, indictment of contemporary Rome. It is also one of the most rhetorically ambiguous poems in the corpus. Juvenal deliberately separates himself from the speaker, and he does not join Umbricius in his decision to leave Rome.

  Umbricius, whose name is derived from umbra, meaning “shade” or “shadow,” is a parody of the figure of the satirist, a shadow of Juvenal himself. He represents a set of traditional Roman values that is out of place in the imperial metropolis. As such, he serves as both an indictment of that metropolis and a candid admission of the satirist’s own anachronism. There is something more than a little quaint and contradictory about his old-fashioned moral outrage expressed in rhetorically crafted hexameters and declaimed in the grand style. Umbra was also used of the hangers-on to great men, those who “shadowed them.” Umbricius thus represents the archetypical displaced cliens of the Roman imperial metropolis. Lastly, umbra refers to the soul of a dead man, his shade. Umbricius is both someone who is already dead to Rome and someone who is moving from the scene of life (Rome) to a kind of rural netherworld. Cumae is where Aeneas made his entrance into the underworld.

  We might say that Umbricius, then, represents the ghost of satire past [32, 75–6]. He is a figure who no longer has a place in contemporary Rome, except as the unwelcome hanger-on of great men. We are a long way from Lucilius! Still there is no going back to a mythical Golden Age, as Juvenal admits in his own decision to stay in Rome. Thus, beneath the simplicity of Umbricius’s moral outrage lies a much more sophisticated and ambiguous appreciation of the second-century CE Rome, one not that far removed from Ovid’s famous quip in the Ars (2.277–8), Aurea sunt vere nunc saeculae: plurimus auro / venit honos [“This truly is the Golden Age: most honor comes from gold”]. The satirist both condemns, and founds his identity on, the venality that surrounds him. It is the source of his indignatio and of his and the reader’s enjoyment.

  1–3. “Although I am saddened by the departure of my old friend from Rome, I praise his decision.” Cumis = locative of Cumae, the place where Aeneas and his Trojans first made landfall in Italy. It is also the site to which Daedalus fled when escaping Crete and the location of one of the entrances to the underworld. Ironically, Daedalus represents precisely the kind of versatile Greek that Umbricius seeks to flee by leaving Rome. Cumae was the oldest Greek colony in Italy. At this time, it had become somewhat depopulated, but hardly abandoned (Braund 1996a).

  Sybillae = the Sybil, a wise woman and prophet who escorted Aeneas on his journey to the shades below (Aeneid 6).

  4–5. Umbricius has found the proverbial locus amoenus of pastoral—the opposite of Rome’s urban bustle—on the doorstep (ianua) of Rome’s poshest resort, Baiae, proverbial for sexual license (see Propertius 1.11). Is this the simple life or an urbane caricature?

  Secessus = genitive of description.

  5–9. “I’d prefer a desert island to the Subura.” Note the way the enumeration of the dangers of life in the city moves from the concrete, material, and real (incendia, lapsus tectorum) to the abstract and ridiculous (Augusto recitantes mense poetas). This kind of deliberate anticlimax is one of Juvenal’s favorite rhetorical strategies.

  Prochytam = Prochyta (modern Procida), a barren island off the coast of Baiae.

  Subura = a street leading from the Forum to the Esquiline gate. It was notorious as Rome’s red-light district.

  Incendia: compare lines 197–222. Fire was a constant danger amid Rome’s tightly packed tenements (insulae), as were collapses (lapsus: see lines 190–6). On poetry recitations (recitantes … poetas), see 1.1.1–14.

  10–11. As Umbricius’s household goods are packed into a cart, he pauses. Raeda = “a four-wheeled coach.” See Horace 1.5.86.

  Veteres arcus madidamque Capenam = the arches of the aqua Marcia, which ran above the porta Capena, one of the southern gates leading to the via Appia. It was the first aqueduct to make extensive use of arches. Arcus = accusative plural.

  12–18. Here we descend into the valley where Numa once met Egeria, and where now Jewish beggars live. The descent from past mythic greatness and nostalgic fantasies of ethnic purity to present poverty and xenophobia is emblematic of Umbricius’s perception of Rome as a whole.

  Numa = the legendary second king of Rome, to whom is attributed the basic structure of Roman civic religion. In some traditions he is portrayed as an early adherent of Pythagoras, in others he receives instruction from the water nymph Egeria who was worshipped with Diana at Aricia, one of the oldest shrines in Latium. As one of the Camenae, she would have been identified with the Roman equivalent of the Greek Muses. Juvenal, in a typical ironic, deflating move, portrays Egeria as Numa’s amica or “girlfriend,” thereby granting little credence to Rome’s fantasies of divine foundation even as he uses their borrowed grandeur as a foil to present decadence. This is a sophisticated satire that consistently devours its own assumptions, without ever retracting its assertions.

  Nemus = “sacred wood.” Delubra < delubrum, –i: “shrine, temple.” The reference is to a shrine to the Camenae located neat the porta Capena.

  Locantur < loco, –are: “to place, set; to lease, invest.”

  Iudaeis: with the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE, Rome’s Jewish population increased substantially. Many would have been refugees and beggars. Their refusal to participate in Roman civic religion was met with fear and mistrust. Ancient religion was by and large syncretistic rather than exclusive. This made monotheism appear to be a rejection of communal values.

  Quorum cophinus fenumque supellex = “whose possessions are a hamper and hay.” The reference is obscure, but is thought to refer to a box designed to keep food warm on the Sabbath when cooking was prohibited, though, others citing Martial, see it as a reference to eggs being sold (3.47.14). They would be packed in straw for protection.

  15–16. These lines are quite difficult, although the gist seems clear. The whole wood has now been ordered to pay rent to the people (as the Jews do to the central treasury for the use of the wood) and has consequently been reduced to beggary. Mendicat silva = a bold personification. Eiectis … Camenis = ablative absolute.

  17–18. Speluncas dissimiles veris: artificial grottoes had replaced the formerly pristine setting of Numa’s nocturnal encounters.

  18–20. The artificiality of the now marble-lined shrine is lamented. Tofum < tofus, –i: “tufa.” Does the fact that the numen of the waters is not praesentius indicate to us that the speech delivered by Umbricius, which takes up the rest of the satire, is lacking the inspiration of the Camenae?

  21–8. Umbricius begins: “in a city where there is no place for honest skills, we propose to flee to where Daedalus once rested his tired wings.” The absurdity of Umbricius’s elevated diction and his use of epic periphrasis is to be savored at the opening of a speech that purports to lament the loss of trad
itional Roman simplicity.

  Artibus … honestis: the term is an oxymoron, since the man who is truly honestus, “noble, honorable,” practices no ars, “trade, technical skill, profession,” in the strict sense. It is the descendant of Daedalus, the esuriens Graeculus, who is the practitioner of a thousand skills or technai. See lines 75–8.

  Eadem modifies res, which is the subject of est, fuit, and deteret. Deteret < detero, –terere, –trivi, –tritum: “rub away.” The object is aliquid. Exiguis = ablative of separation. “My means today are less than they were yesterday and tomorrow they rub away something from what little is left.” The final clause is oddly reflexive but not unprecedented. See Courtney’s discussion (1980).

  Nova canities = only an apparent oxymoron, “the first dusting of grey hair.”

  Lachesi = the Fate who spins (torqueat) the wool that is the thread of a man’s life.

  Bacillo < bacillum, –i: “a small staff.”

  29–33. “Only those who can turn black into white can live in Rome. There’s no place for an honest man.” Artorius … et Catulus are unknown. They are, however, traditional Roman aristocratic names but are here portrayed as practicing trades. As Cato and Cicero agree, such occupations are inherently dishonest and hence not to be practiced by a Roman aristocrat, who is to live off his rents or, as in the case of Juvenal and Umbricius, depend on patronage [75].

  Aedem conducere, flumina, portus, / siccandam eluviem: then as now public works contracts were assumed to be opportunities for graft.

  Portandum ad busta cadaver: being an undertaker was a servile occupation, unfit for a free man let alone an honestus.

  Hasta = “spear.” Auctions were held “under the spear” as a sign of the transfer of dominium, the practice was a relic of sales of the spoils of war. Artorius, Catulus, and the like are metaphorically selling themselves into slavery, but the possibility of a literal sale is not foreclosed. Another example of Juvenal punctuating a rhetorical series with an ironic climax.

  34–8. While the once respectable sell themselves into virtual slavery, the former companions of gladiators now give lavish games and are the toast of the town. Cornicines < cornicen, –cinis: “horn player,” a player of music that accompanied gladiatorial displays.

  Comites: these horn players traveled with the troop of gladiators. They are not only the companions of the lowest of the low, but also provincials to boot.

  Buccae: their cheeks are puffed out from blowing the trumpets.

  Munera: the technical term for gladiatorial games, which were conceived as a gift to the populus, originally associated with aristocratic funeral games.

  Verso pollice: the crowd would signal the fate of a fallen gladiator by either pressing their thumbs down (premere pollicem) to save his life or by turning them up (vertere pollicem) to condemn him. The exact nature of the gestures denoted by these phrases is debated, but not their significance.

  Populariter = “by the will of the people.”

  Conducunt foricas et cur non omnia = “they lease the public toilets and why not everything else.” These men hold the concession on the pay toilets and collect the revenues. In short, in spite of their spectacular ascent, they still take on the lowest jobs. Why should there be any limits?

  38–40. Read: cum sint quales [quos] ex humili magna ad fastigia rerum extollit … Fortuna. Fastigia < fastigium, –i: “the top of a gable or pediment, the summit.”

  Iocari = deponent.

  41–8. What is an honest man like me to do at Rome?

  Motus = accusative plural. I am no astrologer who can promise the early death of a father to an expectant heir.

  Ranarum < rana, –ae: “frog,” either a form of divination or the harvesting of poison or both. See 1.70.

  Quae mittit = the presents the adulterer sends.

  46–8. The context shifts to corruption in provincial administration, which will be the central topic of the next ten lines. Comes exeo: a technical term for accompanying a governor to his province. Me … ministro = “with me as his servant.”

  Mancus < mancus, –a, –um: “maimed, infirm, crippled.”

  Extinctae … dextrae = genitive of quality modifying corpus non utile.

  49–50. No one is picked for such missions unless he is a willing accomplice.

  51–2. Honest confidences bring one nothing.

  53–4. If you want to be dear to the corrupt, you need to be able to blackmail them. Verres was a corrupt governor famously prosecuted by Cicero.

  54–7. All the gold of the Tagus should not be worth your loss of piece of mind in blackmailing your patron (magno … amico). Tagus = a river in Spain and Portugal famed for its gold. Tanti = genitive of value. Opaci = “shady” as Martial 1.49.15–16 attests.

  Ponenda = “which will have to be given up,” because of either subsequent betrayal or death. The gerundive also has the force of obligation. Another level of meaning, then, would be “which should be given up.” These are not mutually exclusive translations.

  58–125. This section deals primarily with Rome being overrun by Greeks and those from the Greek east. There is no longer room for a Roman in Rome.

  58–61. Quirites = Roman citizens, a traditional term ironically juxtaposed with Graecam urbem. Urbs, as often, = Rome.

  Quamvis quota portio faecis Achaei? = “And yet, what part of the dregs is actually Achaean?” Umbricius’s point is that he is talking less about mainland Greeks, the descendant of Homer’s Achaeans, than about the assorted flotsam of the Greek-speaking east that flooded into Rome.

  62–5. “We are overrun with a flood of Orientals!” Orontes = the main river in Syria.

  Chordas obliquas = the sambuca, a type of harp.

  Gentilia tympana: small drums used in the worship of Cybele, the Phrygian Great Mother goddess. They are native (gentilia) to the east. She was worshipped by castrated priests (Galli).

  Circum = Circus Maximus, a common place for prostitutes (prostare) to be found.

  66. Barbara lupa = “foreign prostitute.” Lupa was a common slang term. Mitra = “turban.”

  67–8. “Romulus, even your native stock dons strange garments.” Trechedipna = a Greek compound meaning “run to dinner.” It seems to denote a kind of shoe, but is used in this sense only here. In Greek, the term regularly refers to parasites who cadge free dinners. It is clearly pejorative. Note the way in which traditional Latin terms are interwoven with rare Greek words in these lines to reproduce on the linguistic level what Umbricius claims is occurring on the social level.

  Quirine = Romulus in his divinized form.

  Ceromatico < ceromaticus, –a, –um: “rubbed with ceroma.” Ceroma was a compound of wax, dirt, and oil used by Greek athletes in the palaestra, where they wrestled in the nude. Romans traditionally looked down on the practice.

  Niceteria = “prizes given for athletic victories,” another Greek term.

  69–72. They flock from round the world to the Esquiline and Viminal hills. Sicyon = a town in the Peloponnese. Amydon = a town in Macedonia. Andros and Samos = islands in the Aegean. Tralles and Alabanda = towns of Asia Minor.

  Esquilias = the “Esquiline hill.” The Esquiline is elsewhere in Juvenal portrayed “as a pleasant place (11.51) where rich patrons live (5.77–8)” (Braund 1996a).

  A vimine collem = periphrasis for the unmetrical Viminalis: “the Viminal hill.” Vimen = “willow.” The Viminalis was the site of a number of grand houses.

  Viscera = “heart and soul” (Courtney 1980), generally taken as predicate nominative with dominique futuri. It may also be a direct object of petunt, in which case dominique futuri would be genitive singular. In the first reading, the Greeks come to occupy pride of place in the houses of the great, thereby displacing the Roman clientes, and eventually coming to inherit the house, fortune, and social position of their former masters. In the second reading, they are portrayed as parasites who attack the vitals of the great houses (compare Catullus 77) and worm their way into the heart of the house’s future
heir. The two readings, while grammatically mutually exclusive, are ideologically complementary. The grammar is ambiguous, and the ambiguity is poetically productive.

  73–4. Understand est huic. Audacia perdita = “criminal daring.”

  Isaeo = Isaeus, an Assyrian rhetorician who came to Rome in 97 CE, noted by Pliny for the fullness of his delivery.

  74–8. “Just say what you want him to be. The hungry Greek can be anything.” Versatility is not a positive value in ancient societies that placed a premium on the preservation of traditional roles. See Plato’s insistence in the Republic that each person only play one role in his ideal polis.

  Aliptes = “masseur.”

  Schoenobates = “tight-rope walker.”

  Graeculus: the diminutive is pejorative.

  Iusseris: understand si.

  79–80. “It was not a Moor, a Sarmatian, or a Thracian who learned to fly, but a native Athenian!” The reference is to Daedalus. In summa = “in sum.”

  81. Conchylia = neuter plural, referring to clothes dyed purple with a compound made from conch shells. They were considered exotic signs of luxury, just like the word itself.

  81–3. “Will that one brought by the same wind as the imported groceries be better received in the houses of the wealthy than I?” Signabit = “will affix his seal.” Witnesses to wills and contracts affixed their seals in order of social importance.

  Toro meliore: the seating order at Roman dinner parties was strictly hierarchical. See Horace 1.4.86–91 and 2.8.

  Pruna et cottana = “plums and figs,” neuter nouns. Understand advecta sunt.

  84–5. “Is it worth nothing that my childhood was nourished by the Sabine olive?” Hausit caelum = “drank in the air.”

  Aventini = the Aventine, the most southerly of Rome’s seven hills.

  Baca … Sabina: the Sabines were proverbial for their rough simplicity.

  86–93. “The Greekling is the consummate flatterer.” Quid quod = “what of the fact that?”

  Adulandi gens prudentissima = “a people with a genius for flattery.” The construction prudens + genitive gerund is attested in Tacitus (Annales 3.69).