Conche < conchis, –is: “a type of bean.”
Sectile porrum = “green leeks,” cut before they grow to a head.
Sutor = “cobbler,” an icon of the lower classes.
Elixi vervecis labra = literally “the lips of a boiled castrated ram.” It is metonymy for boiled sheep’s head. But the literal meaning ensures the reader’s repugnance. Vervex was also a slang term for “blockhead.” The thug manages to slip in an implicit insult against the victim and his host. The ram’s impotence mirrors the victim’s.
Calcem < calx, –cis: “heel” and hence “kick.”
Proseucha = “synagogue,” a Greek term.
297–9. “Whether you speak or remain silent, you still take a beating.” Vadimonia … faciunt = “make the victim post a bond that he will appear in court,” i.e., the thug charges the victim with assault.
299–301. A bitter epigram. Libertas [21–32] was the property of the upper classes during the republic. Nonetheless a concept of basic legal rights was part of what it meant to be civis Romanus. Now it means the freedom to ask that you return (reverti) home with a few of your teeth (paucis … dentibus).
302–4. After the muggers come the burglars. Qui te spoliet = relative clause of characteristic: “the kind of man who would loot you bare.”
304 is a golden line of the ABCAB variety, with interlaced participles flanking the verb on one side and nouns on the other. The high-flown rhetoric contrasts markedly with the content.
Compago = the shutters that closed street-front stores in Rome. They were locked with a chain and were quite noisy. The burglars come out only once the shutters fall silent.
305–8. “The bandits have all come to Rome, after they’ve been chased from the swamps and the forests.” Grassator = “robber.”
Palus Pomptina = the Pomptine marshes southeast of Rome, a desolate refuge for bandits and criminals.
Gallinaria pinus = the Gallinarian pine forest near Cumae, a known assembly point for pirates.
Vivaria = “game preserves.” The brigands, chased from the countryside, once they reach Rome are like the proverbial fox in the chicken coop.
309–11. We risk having to forge so many manacles that we shall run short of ploughs and hoes. “How is it that heavy chains are not in the forge (fornace), how not on the anvil (incude)?”
Marra = “a mattock.”
Sarcula = “hoes.”
312–14. “Happy was Rome when it was satisfied with a single jail.” Prison was not a common punishment in Rome. Incarceration’s main use was as a way-station on the road to execution.
Proavorum atavos = “the great-great-great-grandfathers of the great-grandfathers,” i.e. remote ancestors. Atavos and saecula are accusatives of exclamation.
Regibus = the seven kings of early Rome.
Tribunis = the period from 445–367 BCE when military tribunes with consular power were appointed on occasion.
315–22. “I could go on and on, but it’s getting late. I’ll come to listen to your satires the next time you retreat to the countryside.” Umbricius departs. Iumenta = the pack animals pulling his cart, not an allusion to pastoral as some suggest.
Mulio = “mule driver,” the final o is short.
Aquino: Aquinum is generally taken to be Juvenal’s birthplace [73].
Helvinam Cererem: Ceres was the goddess of grain. This phrase probably refers to a temple built by the Helvii, a prominent family from the area. A local inscription (CIL x 5382) refers to a dedication to Ceres by a Juvenal [73].
Converte = imperative < converto, –ere, –i, –versum: here, “invite.”
Saturarum: Umbricius here portrays himself as the ideal auditor of Juvenal’s satires. The whole of Satire 3 thus becomes a self-reflexive (and hence ironic) project in which the ideal image of satire’s audience, as projected by the genre, becomes the speaker.
Caligatus = “wearing hobnail boots” of the kind worn by soldiers and (as Courtney 1980 shows) rustics.
6
These excerpts present the highlights (or lowlights) of Juvenal’s book-length satire on women. Satire 6 is without doubt one of the most misogynistic poems ever produced. It is also one of the funniest. The poem presents a distinct challenge to the modern reader: how do we reconcile our enjoyment with the frequently offensive content?
We cannot simply say: “It’s a joke, Juvenal didn’t mean it.” Roman humor is rife with misogyny (Richlin 1984 and 1992). Fear and hatred of women are deeply rooted in Roman culture, as they were in most of the ancient Mediterranean. It is no accident that the basic meaning of virtus is “manhood” and only secondarily “courage” and “virtue.” Juvenal 6, therefore, merely makes us deal in a more concentrated manner with an aspect of the culture that is present in every artifact we possess from the ancient world.
Yet Roman misogyny and this poem are not simple matters. Both are complex structures that perform multiple and sometimes competing functions within the culture. Thus, as Barbara Gold has observed, Satire 6 is at least as much about deviant men as it is about women (1998: 382):
This Satire […] is usually entitled “Against Women,” “The Legend of Bad Women,” “Roman Wives,” “The Ways of Women,” or the like. True, many different types of women are pilloried in this diatribe, but there are as many men who act/dress/look/think/like women here and elsewhere in Juvenal’s Satires. Moreover, when women themselves are described, it is in the language of, by analogy, or in relation to men. The satirist’s primary fascination seems to be with men who act like women (or, at least, who do not act like men) or women who appropriate and imitate normatively male behavior; he has a special horror of disintegrating gender codes and holes in the net of the system.
Likewise, as Peter Green notes (1974: 25), the satire is also at least as much about the breaching of class boundaries as it is about gender. It is less the fact that women might be unfaithful than that they might be so with members of the lower classes that is particularly offensive to the satirist. Misogyny turns out to be a complex term that encodes a variety of social and behavioral expectations not just concerning women, but equally (in fact more so) men. What we see in Satire 6, on one level, is satura functioning as a tool of social discipline in much the same ways as it does in Lucilius [20, 29, 75].
Yet, the poem itself is no simple exemplar of an ideological truism, it is also an elaborately staged rant. While one cannot discount its misogynistic venom, neither can one take its statements at face value. They are characterized throughout by hyperbole, self-canceling propositions and rhetorical anticlimaxes. The speaker of this poem is not the voice of reason. He is an extremist who frequently undercuts his own arguments [76]. This is part of the humor.
The poem thus begins with an evocation of the Golden Age when Pudicitia still walked the earth. The most memorable scene of this little homily, however, is not a lost world of female virtue, but the image of the primitive acorn-belching husbands who ruled the roost. By the same token, one must take none too seriously the satirist’s claim to his friend Postumus that since marriage is unthinkable there are only two alternatives: pederasty or suicide (lines 30–7). The very extremity of the position can hardly have been intended to convince the average Roman of its veracity, but rather to draw attention to its artistic and rhetorical construction: the more outrageous the claim, the greater the skill of the writer who presents it in a plausible manner.
1–20. “In the Golden Age when Saturn ruled, Pudicitia (‘Chastity’) still walked the earth and women were poor but faithful to their unkempt, acorn-belching husbands. All that changed when Jupiter began to rule.” Juvenal’s Golden Age is a harsh primitive time, not one of spontaneous plenty such as that found in Tibullus. On the myth of the five ages (Gold, Silver, Bronze, Heroic, and Iron) see Hesiod’s Works and Days 109–201. In the Augustan period, the return to the Golden Age was widely evoked, as it was later in Neronian poetry (see Calpurnius Siculus 1.42–5). But as Winkler notes (1983: 30), for Juvenal “this precise satiric vigne
tte of earliest human society with its picture of horribly unattractive, uncouth people shows that the old traditional view of life in the Golden Age no longer carries any value for Rome’s modern times.” In sum, the Golden Age was not a time before the fall, nor a time when justice prevailed. It was, instead, a time when people were too poor and too miserable to have the energy or opportunity to pursue vice. Adultery is reserved for those sophisticated enough to enjoy it, a Cynthia or a Lesbia; the montana uxor is not so much an image of virtue as one of disgust and repugnance.
1–10. The elaborate opening period announces that this will be satire in the grand style.
Montana … uxor: Juvenal’s faithful woman is a grotesque hag living in a cave with her husband and livestock.
Sterneret < sterno, –ere, stravi, stratum: “stretch out.”
Culmo < culmus, –i: “straw.”
Cynthia is the name of Propertius’s elegiac beloved. She is portrayed as beautiful, sophisticated, and unfaithful.
Tibi, cuius / turbavit nitidos extinctus passer ocellos = Lesbia, the beloved of Catullus, generally thought to be the Clodia Metelli that Cicero caricatured in the Pro Caelio. The allusion is to Catullus 3 on the death of Lesbia’s sparrow (passer).
Ructante < ructo, –are, –vi, –atum: “to belch.”
11–13. Juvenal gives two myths for the origins of humans: they were either born from oaks (robore nati) or made by Prometheus out of clay (luto).
14–18. Juvenal concedes that there might have been traces (vestigia) of Pudicitia’s former presence in the salad days of Jupiter’s reign. Aut aliqua qualifies multa … vestigia.
Graecis iurare paratis / per caput alterius: Romans traditionally swore on their lives or on something dear to them, and hence called down the wrath of the gods if they failed keep their oath. The perfidious Greeks, however, Juvenal says, swear by the head of someone else. See 3.58–125.
Caulibus = “cabbages”: indirect object like pomis. The vegetarian diet hints at the simplicity of the Golden Age.
Aperto … horto: i.e., without a wall.
19–20. Astraea = a daughter of Zeus and the personification of justice. She was said to be the last of the immortals to leave the earth. She became the constellation Virgo.
Hac = Pudicitia.
21–37. The focus now shifts to the satirist’s friend, Postumus, whose contemplation of marriage ostensibly occasions the satire.
21–2. Postumus is otherwise unknown. Vetus, an adjective in one termination = neuter substantive like anticum.
Concutere = “to shake or rattle,” and hence implicitly to commit adultery.
Fulcri < fulcrum, –i: “headboard.”
23–4. “Before the Iron Age brought forth any other crime, the Silver saw adultery.”
25–7. “Knowing this are you still preparing to get married?” Sponsalia = the contract of betrothal.
Nostra modifies tempestate.
Pignus here = “engagement ring.”
29. “What sort of demon has driven you to this?” Tisiphone = one of the three Furies. They had snakes (colubris) for hair.
30–2. “Can you bear a wife when suicide is a perfectly reasonable alternative?” Restibus < restis, –is: “rope.”
Caligantes = “dizzying.”
Aemilius pons = the main bridge over the Tiber.
33–4. “Why not try pederasty?” Pusio = “little boy.”
35–7. “It’s really so much easier.” Note, however, that pederastic poetry such as Tibullus 1.4 complains that boys make the very demands that Juvenal here denies. The irony would not have gone unnoticed.
Lateri < latus, lateris: “flank,” i.e. “groin.”
Anheles < anhelo, –are: “to pant.”
38–59. “Ursidius was famed for his adulteries, but now he wants heirs and a chaste wife.” There is disagreement among the commentators on whether he is to be identified with Postumus. The use of the second person in line 42 indicates, however, that the person addressed is not Ursidius and hence the latter should not be identified with Postumus.
38–40. Lex Iulia = lex Iulia de maritandis ordinibus (18 BCE). It provided legal and financial incentives for marriage and the production of heirs.
Turture < turtur, –ris; “turtle dove,” a delicacy.
Iubis < iuba, –ae: “mane,” or in this case, the “beard” of a mullet (mullus), another delicacy.
Captatore = “legacy hunter,” the person who would have been providing these treats before an heir came into the picture. It is in apposition to macello < macellus, –i: “market.” The legacy hunters have served Ursidius as a veritable delicatessen. See 1.37–9.
41–4. “If Ursidius, the most notorious of adulterers, gets married, what will happen next?” Maritali … capistro = “the marital halter,” the image is that of a horse extending its neck to assume the harness.
Texit < tego, –ere, texi, tectum: “to cover, hide.”
Cista = “chest.” Latinus was an actor in adultery mimes who often portrayed a character who hid in a chest to avoid being caught (see 1.36).
45–6. “Call the doctors, he’s gone mad. He seeks a girl of old-fashioned virtue.” Pertundite venam: Juvenal orders the doctors to bleed him.
47–9. “You will need the help of the gods to find such a girl!” Delicias hominis: accusative of exclamation.
Tarpeium limen = The Capitoline temple of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva. The legend of the Vestal, Tarpeia, who broke her vow of chastity for love of the Sabine Tatius, comes to mind in this context (see Propertius 4.4).
Auratam … iuvencam = a heifer with beaten gold wrapped round its horns, an extraordinary sacrifice.
Iunoni: goddess of marriage.
Capitis … pudici: “could be a periphrasis for pudica, ‘chaste’ but the following lines (50–1) turn this into a joke about the os impurum (mouth contaminated by oral intercourse): a whole group of these jokes revolved around the idea that people who engage in oral intercourse (a) have bad breath and (b) contaminate all they touch […]. The Romans customarily greeted each other with a kiss” (Richlin 1986).
50–1. The reference in the first line is a bit obscure. The vittas are ribbons worn either by the celebrants (Richlin 1986) or placed on the cult statue (Courtney 1980) in a celebration of the fertility goddess Ceres. In either case, abstention from sexual relations was required for participation in the rites. Understand sunt.
51–2. Customary decorations for a marriage ceremony. Corymbos = clusters of flowers or ivy berries.
53–4. The ideal Roman woman was only married once (univira), although in the late republic and early empire among the upper classes this was an ideal more realized in the breach than in the observance. Hiberina is otherwise unknown.
55–9. “Country girls have a great reputation for chastity, but who knows what goes on in those hills and caves.” Gabiis and Fidenis = locatives, small towns outside Rome.
Agello = diminutive of ager, “little farm.”
Iuppiter et Mars: famed for their rapes of wandering maidens. The shift to the mythological is more bathetic than sublime. The two monosyllables draw the line up short.
60–113. “Women today are obsessed with lower-class and disreputable characters: actors, mimes, and gladiators.” Respectable Roman citizens did not appear on stage and most gladiators were slaves. Lines 60–77 concern the theater, 78–113 the arena.
60–1. Porticibus = the covered walkways that Ovid recommends in the Ars Amatoria as good places to pick up girls.
61–2. Cuneis < cuneus, –i: “a seating section in the theater,” another hunting ground recommended by Ovid.
Quod … quodque: note the contemptuous neuter.
63–5. “The dancers and mimes cause female spectators to wet themselves and squeal with orgasmic delight.” Chironomon < chironomos, –i: “mime,” a Greek term in apposition to Ledam.
Molli = “effeminate, lascivious.”
Tuccia and Apula = otherwise unknown.
Vesicae = “bladde
r.”
Gannit < gannio, –ire: “to yelp or squeal.”
65. This line is often bracketed, but there is no compelling reason. The transmission is all but unanimous. Some late manuscripts print subitum in place of subito, making the syntax more parallel, but this is hardly necessary and a scribe is more likely to “correct” subito to subitum than the other way around. Two texts omit et, which is metrically plausible, but again hardly necessary. Translate, “just as in an embrace, suddenly and at wretched length.”
66. Thymele was an actress in adultery mimes. Even she can learn a thing or two watching Bathyllus. See 1.36. Rustica = feminine nominative.
67–70. “Others, who prefer more highbrow fare, sadly fondle Accius’s dramatic paraphernalia between theatrical seasons.” Juvenal contrasts the tragic theater, with the more titillating mime described in the previous lines.
Aulaea = “curtains,” of a theater. On the Roman stage, the curtain came down at the beginning of the performance and went up at the end.
Recondita = “out of sight again.”
Sonant fora sola: serious theatrical performances were held as part of the games on holidays. During this period, the legal business of the Forum shut down. In between the games—here the Plebeian (November 4–17) and the Megalesian in honor of the Magna Mater (April 4–10)—only the law courts provided entertainment.
Personam = “theatrical mask,” from personare.
Thyrsum = symbol of Bacchus, god of theatrical performances. It was a suitably phallic rod with a pine-cone on the end.
Subligar = “loin cloth,” part of the tragic actor’s uniform. Note the Juvenalian rhetorical anticlimax. We move from the dramatic mask, to the divine sponsor, to women fondling underwear.
Acci = an otherwise unknown actor.
71–2. “Aelia loves Urbicus in the Atellan farces.” Urbicus = an otherwise unknown actor.
Exodio < exodium, –i: a comic piece performed after a serious dramatic work, such as the tragedies alluded to in lines 67–70. Atellan farces were native Italian works, as opposed to comedies based in the Greek tradition [18]. Atellanae is genitive of definition with exodio.
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