Longum invalidi collum cervicibus aequat / Herculis: “Hercules is the bull-necked type, short and thick” (Courtney 1980).
Antaeus was a giant and son of Earth. He was defeated by Hercules who would not let him touch his mother’s body, the source of his strength.
90–1. This final comparison is awkward and difficult. As usual in Juvenal, the last item in a series is a rhetorical anticlimax. The flatterer favorably compares his patron’s thin voice (vocem angustam) to that of a cock who bites the hen (gallina) in the course of mating (Courtney 1980). Gallina, however, recalls Gallus, the term for the castrated priests of Cybele. Hence, Martial (13.64.1–2) makes a similar pun, succumbit sterili frustra gallina marito. / hunc matris Cybeles esse decebat avem. Marito in Juvenal is attracted into the relative clause, when logically it goes with ille.
93–7. “The Greek is a flexible actor who can play all the women’s parts.” While it is true that men played female parts in the ancient theater and that most actors were foreign-born, there is a clear sexual innuendo in these lines as well. There were three main female parts in New Comedy: meretrix (Thais); uxor; and ancilla or maid (Doris).
Palliolo < palliolum diminutive of pallium: “cloak.” The image works on two levels. On the one hand, the pallium was an outer garment that was frequently discarded when there was work to be done. On the other, the Greek actor is so good (or so effeminate) he can play a woman even without his/her clothes on, as the next lines make clear.
Tenui distantia rima = “parted by a thin crack.”
98–100. “This is not a trick mastered by a few well-known names. It’s a nation of actors.” Antiochus, Stratocles, Demetrius, and Haemus are all the names of famous actors from the period.
100–3. “He can display whatever thought or emotion is needed. He can even sweat (sudat) on command.” Cachinno < cachinnus, –i: “giggle.”
Nec dolet: “it’s all an act.”
Endromidem < endromis, –idis: a rough cloak worn after exercise, the equivalent of a sweatshirt.
104–8. “We can’t compete with people who are able to throw up their hands in praise every time their protector has burped loudly or peed in a straight line.”
Trulla = “drinking cup.” The sound comes from polishing off the last drops as it’s tipped up (inverso … fundo). Other explanations have been advanced, but none carry much conviction. When in doubt, the most literal reading is to be preferred.
109–11. “Nothing holy is safe from the randy Greek’s crotch.” The exact reading of the line is in dispute. Most manuscripts have aut after nihil, which is metrically impossible. The general sense is clear. Willis’s (1997) illi et gives good sense and makes paleographic sense.
Inguine: see Horace 1.2.26.
Laris: the Lar stands as metonymy for the domus.
Sponsus = “betrothed, bridegroom.” It is less the fact that the Greek seduces both men and women that offends than that he violates the sacred boundaries of the domus. See Horace 1.2.116–19.
Levis = “smooth, effeminate, beardless.”
112. “If he can’t get these, he’ll bend his own patron’s grandmother over.”
113. This line is universally believed by recent editors to be an interpolation, even though it is attested in all manuscripts. It appears to be a gloss on the motivation behind the Greek’s sexual conquests by an unimaginative scholiast who combined lines 52 and 57 (Ferguson 1979; Courtney 1980; Braund 1996a; Willis 1997: xxi–xxii).
114–15. “And while I’m on the subject of Greek vice!” Transi and audi = imperatives.
Gymnasia: we’ll pass over the scandalous things that happen in the place where the Greeks exercise in the nude.
Abollae < abolla, –ae: a heavy woolen cloak favored by certain Greek Cynic and Stoic philosophers, although worn by other people as well. The phrase presents something of a conundrum. One of the scholiasts cites it as proverbial, but it is not repeated elsewhere. The real question is whether maioris abollae is genitive of possession or value. The answer in this case is both. The crime is both that of a philosopher who is more important (maioris) than the mid-level fops we have been discussing so far—taking abolla as metonymy for the person wearing it—and of greater weight.
116–18. “A Stoic informer (delator), nourished on the shores of the river Cydnus, killed his patron Barea.” Ad quam Gorgonei delapsa est pinna caballi: represents a complex figure. The reference in the first place is to P. Egnatius Celer from Berytus who, according to Tacitus (Annales 16.21–33), was called as a witness against his patron and pupil (discipulum) Barea Soranus. Egnatius appears to have been educated in Tarsus, a major center of philosophical study. Tarsus, on the banks of the river Cydnus, “was supposed to owe its name to [a] τασóς (feather or hoof) of Pegasus which fell there” (Duff 1970). Pegasus was born from the blood of the Gorgon Medusa when Perseus beheaded her.
The same line is also a gloss on Persius Prologue 1, Nec fonte labra prolui caballino, in which the satirist claims not to have the Greek learning that characterizes Egnatius and that Umbricius here disclaims. The Hippocrene too was said to have been created by the hoof of Pegasus.
119–22. “There is no place for a Roman here where the Greek reigns supreme.” Protogenes, Diphilus and Hermarchus are generic names as aliquis indicates.
Partitur = deponent.
Gentis vitio = “on account of the national vice,” greed?
122–5. “He fills the great man’s ear with slander and all other clients are shown the door.” Facilem: “note how the indictment of the plausible Greek includes an indictment of the gullible Roman aristocrat” (Ferguson 1979).
Exiguum + de + ablative, instead of the more usual exiguum + partitive genitive.
Nusquam minor: understand quam Romae.
Iactura = “a throwing away, disposal.”
126–89. In Rome today, the poor man has no chance. Money talks and character counts for nothing. The satiric target in this sections shifts from foreign to domestic menaces. Poverty is demeaning and the rich no longer meet their obligations to the poor. With the collapse of the republican political system, patronage was no longer central to aristocratic success, but became a burden. What had once been a complex personal, political, and social relationship between unequal partners, had become a financial liability to the wealthy.
126–30. “Furthermore, what can the duty or merit of the poor man be here, if he always comes running lest his fellow client, the praetor, beat him to the morning salutatio?” Rome has become a rat race. Porro = “furthermore.”
Ne nobis blandiar = “lest I flatter us [Romans]” in comparison to the Greeks just discussed.
Curet nocte togatus / currere = “takes the trouble to run before dawn, already dressed in his toga.” Roman citizens were expected to wear the toga to the morning salutatio.
Cum = “since.”
Lictorem: lictors carrying the fasces accompanied official magistrates. It was their job to clear the way. Here the praetor uses his official entourage to go legacy hunting and to best the dutiful client in seeking the patronage of a wealthy childless magnate.
Dudum vigilantibus = “long since awake.”
Orbis < orbus, –a, –um: “childless.”
130. This line is replete with ironies. First, Albina and Modia are otherwise unknown, childless women. Women were not normally the objects of the morning salutatio, but these are wealthy widows. It is impossible to tell the gender of orbis until you reach these names. The natural assumption from context, however, is that it would be masculine until these proper names are reached. Second, collega is a technical term used for a fellow office-holder, but here may be taken to mean a fellow cliens or captator (“legacy hunter”). However, Umbricius and the praetor are anything but colleagues. The whole point of this passage is the image of the rich and powerful beating the poor and honorable in the race for patronage. Yet to what extent does the poor man deserve the meritum accrued from his officium, if he is not attending a great man but cruising
the wealthy widows in search of a bequest? There is more than a touch of sexual innuendo. Alternatively, collega may refer to the other praetor, in which case Umbricius and his lot have even less of a chance.
131–6. “Here, rank, birth, and character subordinate themselves to money.” This is the world upside-down. On the one hand, people subject themselves to slaves for money. On the other, huge sums are spent on high-class mistresses (Horace 1.2.28–30). This leaves little for the needy client.
Cludit latus = a military term that originally meant to cover the flank. This would normally be on the left-hand or shield side, so that right hand might work freely with the sword. It became a phrase meaning “to accompany respectfully.” The irony here is that it is not the great man himself who is escorted but his slave. Thus, the freeborn son of freeborn parents (ingenuorum filius) subordinates himself to a slave (servo).
Alter = “the other of two,” hence the slave.
Quantum in legione tribuni: tribunes were well paid, though we do not have exact figures for the period. Money that in the past would have gone to benefit the community by paying a military tribune is now going to the sexual indulgences of slaves.
Calvinae vel Catienae = aristocratic names. A Junia Calvina was condemned for incest with her brother under Claudius (Tacitus, Annales 12.4.8).
Illam palpitet: a degrading image that serves to deflate the aristocratic aura created by the upper-class names in the previous line.
134–6. Meanwhile, you and I can hardly afford the services of a common streetwalker. Vestiti … scorti: not the lowest class of hooker who was displayed naked on the street. Scortum nonetheless is a harsh word. Juvenal does not here refer to a refined meretrix.
Chionen: a Greek accusative meaning “Snow-White.” As Martial attests, it was a common name for prostitutes.
Sella = a type of couch associated with brothels as early as Plautus. The verb deducere leads us to believe it was used for display purposes, not the act itself.
137–46. “The poor man’s testimony is not even accepted in court, though he be as honest as Numa himself.” Hospes numinis Idaei = Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica. In the second Punic War, the Sybilline books said Rome would be saved if the Great Mother goddess, Cybele, were brought from Mount Ida in Phrygia to Rome. Scipio was chosen as her escort owing to his reputation for outstanding purity.
Numa: see line 12.
Qui / servavit trepidam flagranti ex aede Minervam = Lucius Caecilius Metellus who as Pontifex Maximus in 241 BCE rescued the Palladium from the burning temple of Vesta. He lost his sight in the attempt.
Censum = “net worth.”
Paropside < paropsis, –idis: “a dish.”
Iures = subjunctive from iuro, –are: “to swear.”
Licet = “although.”
Samothracum < Samothraces: “the inhabitants of Samothrace,” home of a mystery cult second in fame only to that at Eleusis in this period.
Dis ignoscentibus ipsis = “with the gods themselves forgiving” because, as Courtney (1980) observes, the pauper “perjures himself through necessity, not wickedness.”
147–51. The poor man’s attire is the source of callous laughter. Quid quod = “what of the fact that?”
Hic idem = the pauper.
Toga sordidula: togas were difficult to keep spotlessly white in Rome’s muddy streets and having them cleaned was expensive.
Calceus = “shoe.”
Consuto volnere = ablative absolute: “when the wound has been sewn up.” In the first instance, this refers to the hole in the shoe, but it also refers to a deeper wound to the poor man’s dignity.
Crassum / atque recens linum = “a sloppy new set of stitches.” Recens is an adjective in one termination.
Non una cicatrix = “more than one scar.”
152–3. One of Juvenal’s most brilliant and penetrating epigrams.
153–8. People born of equestrian stock who have fallen on hard times are displaced in the theater by the sons of whores and pimps. Inquit = “someone says.”
De pulvino … equestro: i.e., from the seats reserved for the equestrian order in the theater.
Res legi non sufficit: equestrians were required to have a census worth 400,000 sesterces.
Fornice: see Horace 1.2.30.
Pinnirapi = “feather snatcher,” a Juvenalian coinage for the gladiator fighting the Samnite who wore a plumed helmet. Iuvenes here = filios. Cultos is ironic, inasmuch as gladiators were generally thought to represent the dregs of society.
Lanistae = “a trainer of gladiators.”
159. In 67 BCE, L. Roscius Otho passed the lex Roscia theatralis that reserved the first fourteen rows behind the senators for the equestrians. It was revived by Domitian. Vano here = “foolish, empty-headed.”
160–2. “Three indignant questions highlighting the pre-eminence of wealth and the neglect of the ‘poor’ in their exclusion from the conventional ways of increasing one’s property (marriage, inheritance and patronage) in Rome (hic)” (Braund 1996a).
Gener = predicative: “as a son-in-law.”
Sarcinulis = diminutive of sarcina: “luggage,” i.e., the wealth the girl brings to the household. The periphrasis and diminutive indicate an informal usage.
Consilio = the aedile’s group of advisors and assessors who aided him in his duties as superintendent of weights and measures, traffic regulations, water supply, and public order.
162–3. The poor citizens of Rome should have left long ago. Agmine facto = en masse: an allusion to the secessions of the plebs in the fifth century BCE and the proposal to move the city to Veii after the Gauls’s sack of Rome circa 387 BCE.
Tenues = “poor.”
164–7. Umbricius here parodies Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics on the difficulty of the poor man exercising virtue due to lack of means. Emergunt < emergo, –mergere, –mersi, –mersum: “to cause to rise up, to rise, to come to the top.”
Domi = locative.
Conatus, –us: “the attempt.”
Magno = ablative of cost. Note the insistent repetition.
Hospitium = “hospitality,” and by metonymy “guest quarters, a room.”
Servorum: note that Umbricius and Juvenal are members of the genteel poor, not the urban proletariat. They still have slaves, if only a few. Compare Horace 1.6.116.
Frugi is an indeclinable adjective, meaning “frugal,” modifying cenula (< cena). The diminutive indicates that this is not a lavish affair.
168–70. “Although you will make a show of homely virtue, it is embarrassing to eat off simple crockery.” A Roman gentleman needed to keep up appearances if he was not to lose face. Fictilibus < fictilis, –is: “earthenware.”
Negabis: note the use of the indicative. This is not a conditional construction. Juvenal or Umbricius’s imaginary interlocutor is thus actually translatus, which must mean he is “transported” in his mind, i.e., he imagines himself in the midst of, and thus makes a show of, traditional Italic simplicity.
Marsos: the Marsi were a rustic tribe that served as an archetype of ante-diluvian simplicity.
Sabellam = Sabine, another type of primitive frugality.
Contentusque … Veneto duroque cucullo: the scholiast remarks that Veneto refers either to the fact that this hood (cucullo), which would not be worn in the city, comes from the northern province of Venetia or to its dark blue color. As Friedländer observes (1962), a thriving wool production was found throughout Cisalpine Gaul. Several commentators note that dark blue cloaks were the conventional dress of poor men in comedy. Duro indicates that the fabric was coarse.
171–2. In most of Italy, “the toga is only worn for your funeral.”
172–9. Umbricius calls forth a scene of pastoral simplicity in which peasants celebrate a festival with homespun theatricals in an atmosphere of equality and innocence. Herboso … theatro = a simple stage set up in a field.
Si quando = “if ever,” sometimes written as one word.
Pulpita = “platform, stage.”
Exodium = “a farce,” probably of the native Italian, Atellan type, despite the Greek term. Compare 6.71. Notum indicates that the same piece was played each year. Sophisticated city dwellers demanded more variety.
Personae pallentis hiatum = “the gaping mouth of the whitened mask.” Actors in all Roman drama, except mime, wore masks.
Habitus < habitus, –us: “condition, style.”
Orchestram = the semicircular space between the stage and the audience. Originally the dancing floor for the chorus, in Roman times it became the place where the senatorial order sat.
Clari velamen honoris = “as the garb of glorious office.” The irony of clarus indicates that Umbricius’s idealized rural magistrates do not take themselves more seriously than their office admits. Compare Horace 1.5.34.
Tunicae as opposed to togae.
180–3. In Rome, however, people go into debt just for their clothes. Vires = “means.”
Nitor = “splendor.”
Arca = “cash box.”
Ambitiosa paupertate: a wonderful oxymoron.
183–5. At Rome everything has its price. Cossum = a noble whose slaves one apparently had to bribe just to be admitted to the morning salutatio. A man by the same name was consul in 60 CE.
Veiiento = nominative, a noble named at 4.133. A bribe is necessary to get him to look at you, without even speaking (clauso … labello).
186–9. Ille … hic: there is controversy over whether these pronouns refer to the slaves one has to bribe in lines 183–5 (Ferguson 1979) or their noble owners (Friedländer 1962; Braund 1996a). Parallelism with the previous lines as well as sense favors the latter solution.
Metit barbam: understand amati. Cossus of course did not trim his favorite’s beard but arranged for its ceremonial first clipping. This was a traditional celebration for Roman boys. The extension to house slaves is a clear perversion of what would have been normal practice in the time of Cato.
Crinem: wealthy Roman households often kept good-looking slave boys who served at table. Their hair was kept long. When they reached manhood, it was cut with some ceremony.
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