Bigarum = “a two-horse chariot.” This was a triumphal statue. Many such statues of Sejanus existed. In the imperial period, only members of the royal household were allowed to celebrate triumphs, although the lesser ovatio was still granted to successful generals.
Inpacta < impingo, –ere, –pegi, –pactum: “strike.”
Securis = “axe.”
Caballis = a low word. See Horace 1.6.56–60, 100–4 and Juvenal 3.118.
61–4. “Then all gather round to watch the head of the one-time beloved of the people melt in the flames of the forge.” Follibus atque caminis = “bellows and forges.”
Adoratum = “having received cult honors.”
Seianus = L. Aelius Seianus, an equestrian who was made prefect of the Praetorian Guard (20 CE). He became Tiberius’s proxy after the latter’s retirement to Capri in 26. Sejanus engineered a series of prosecutions that eliminated his rivals. Tiberius denounced him in a letter to the senate in 31 when he had been made consul and was at the pinnacle of power. He was subsequently prosecuted and executed along with his wife, children, and adherents.
Urceoli, pelves, sartago, matellae = “pitchers, basins, a frying pan, chamber pots.”
65–7. “Let there be a great celebration: Sejanus’s body is dragged out on a hook.” Cretatumque = “whitened with chalk”; only a pure white animal can be offered to Jupiter.
Unco < uncus, –i: “hook,” especially that used by the executioner to drag the body of dead malefactors to the Tiber.
67–70. The fickle crowd turns on their darling. Delator = “informer.” Sejanus made liberal use of paid informants.
71–2. Tiberius’s letter, as recorded in Dio Cassius 58.9–10, was read aloud in the senate by Macro, Sejanus’s successor as praetorian prefect. Sejanus was expecting fresh honors but, as the lengthy letter unfolded, his doom was sealed. Nil plus interrogo: it’s dangerous to ask too many questions.
74–7. “The populus Romanus is completely fickle as to whom they give their allegiance.” Nortia = Etruscan version of Fortuna. Sejanus, who was born at Volsinii in Etruria, kept a statue of Fortuna in his house.
Oppressa < opprimo, –primere, –pressi, –pressum: “to press down, crush, take by surprise.”
Secura = “off-guard.”
Augustum: i.e. proclaim him “emperor.”
77–81. “But the people have long since (ex quo) ceased to sell their votes and today wish only for two things: bread and circuses.” Juvenal, in a typical move, simultaneously criticizes republican electoral corruption (vendimus) and laments the loss of the people’s role in electing magistrates. In 14 CE, Tiberius ended popular elections and gave the senate control over appointing officials on his recommendation. Effudit curas = “has thrown off its burden,” the subject is populus.
Panem et circenses: one of Juvenal’s most famous lines.
81–7. An overheard conversation in the crowd about coming executions.
82. Fornacula = ironic diminutive of fornax: “oven, furnace.” The whole expression is colloquial and is the equivalent to “it’s getting pretty hot.”
82–3. Bruttidius = Bruttidius Niger, aedile 22 CE. There is a joke in calling him pallidulus. “Mr Black is a little pale.”
84–5. Victus ne poenas exigat Aiax: a common theme of the rhetorical schools. Ajax competed with Odysseus for the arms of Achilles and lost. As a result, he tried to kill the Achaean leaders but, in a fit of madness, slew instead a flock of sheep. Ajax here stands for Tiberius who, in his rage at Sejanus for poorly defending his interests, the speaker fears, may target others. Bruttidius was in the habit of declaiming in the schools.
86. The subject of iacet = Sejanus.
87–8. Everyone joins in desecrating the body of the fallen prefect lest their watching slaves inform on them. In this world turned upside-down, masters fear their slaves.
90–4. “Would you really want to trade places with Sejanus?” Salutari = “to receive the morning salutatio.”
Illi … illum = “this fellow … that fellow.”
Angusta Caprearum in rupe = “the narrow rock of the Goats,” the modern island of Capri, to which Tiberius retired. There is a joke in picturing the reclusive emperor as a shepherd on a small island surrounded by a flock of astrologers (cum grege Chaldaeo).
95. Egregios equites = the equites illustres, equestrians that possessed the senatorial census and were entitled to wear a broad purple fringe on their toga.
Castra domestica = the praetorian guards, the only troops billeted in the city. Sejanus brought them into a single barracks.
96–7. A direct quotation of Plato, Gorgias 466 B11–C1, where Polus asks who would not want the power of a tyrant.
99–102. “Who would prefer to put on his robe of state as opposed to being a minor official in small town?” Qui trahitur: see ducitur unco, line 66.
Praetextam: see lines 33–5.
Fidenarum Gabiorumque: see 6.55–9.
101–2. See Persius 1.126–34. Pannosus = “ragged.”
Ulubris = Ulubrae, a town in Latium near the Pontine marshes.
103–7. Sejanus proves, “the bigger they are, the harder they fall.” Seianum is the subject of ignorasse in indirect discourse, dependent on fateris.
Tabulata: see 3.199.
Praeceps = neuter substantive and inmane = predicate adjective with esset.
108–9. “History shows his fall is not unique.” The case cited is the first Triumvirate: Crassus, Pompey, and Caesar. M. Licinius Crassus was one of the richest men in Rome. In 60 BCE, he joined with the two powerful military leaders, Caesar and Pompey, to form a de facto junta. When Crassus died in an unsuccessful expedition against the Parthians (53 BCE), the arrangement quickly devolved into a rivalry between the two generals leading to civil war and Caesar’s dictatorship. Crassos … Pompeios = men like Crassus and Pompey.
Flagra = poetic plural for flagrum: “a whip or scourge” used on slaves.
110–11. “Such great men fall, because they rise to power on prayers offered to malign deities.”
112–13. “Kings and tyrants don’t die in their beds.” Generum Cereris = an ironic name for Pluto, who kidnapped Persephone to be his bride.
Sicca morte = one without blood or poison.
114–32. People wish for eloquence as well as power, but this too brings a harvest of woe.
114–17. “Every school boy wishes for the fame and eloquence of Demosthenes and Cicero.” Demosthenes was the greatest of the Athenian orators (384–322 BCE). His Philippics, delivered against Philip of Macedon, were the inspiration for Cicero’s speeches by the same name delivered against Marc Antony. The latter cost Cicero his life in 43 BCE [23–4, 30]. Demosthenes ended his life by committing suicide after he was condemned to death. Totis quinquatribus = ablative of time within which: the festival of Minerva, March 19–23, goddess of wisdom and hence patron of oratory. It was a school holiday.
Uno … asse: a regular contribution given to the treasury of the temple, collected by the teacher.
Parcam: the schoolboys worship Minerva on the cheap.
Custos: see Horace 1.6.81–2. Vernula = diminutive of verna: “house-born.”
Capsae = a cylindrical container for carrying books.
118–19. The image of the waves of the fountain of genius delivering both men to death is extraordinary.
120–1. Cicero’s hands and head were cut off and nailed to the rostra in the Forum as a warning to anyone who would presume to speak against members of the second triumvirate (Antony, Octavian, and Lepidus).
Causidici … pusilli = “no-account pleader.”
122–4. Juvenal quotes Cicero’s most infamous line from his fatuous and self-glorifying De Consulatu Suo. If Cicero had been as bad an orator as he was a poet he would have had nothing to fear.
124–6. Divina Philippica = vocative.
Volveris a prima quae proxima = “which you will have unrolled right after the first,” a mocking epic periphrasis for “second.” The second Philip
pic was considered Cicero’s best.
126–8. The focus shifts to Demosthenes. Torrentem et … moderantem frena: there is a change of metaphor, but the notion is clear. Demosthenes was a master of control.
Theatri = a common place of political assembly.
129–32. Demosthenes’s father was the owner of a sword factory, but the orator’s rivals portrayed him as the son of a blacksmith. Massae = “lump” of metal.
Fuligine < fuligo, –inis: “soot.”
Lippus: see Horace 1.5.27.31.
Carbone < carbo, –onis: “charcoal.”
Incude < incus, –udis: “anvil.”
Luteo Volcano = “the grimy smoke” of the forge.
Ad rhetora: i.e. to the teacher of rhetoric.
133–87. Others wish for military glory.
133–7. “Many believe the trophies of war are of superhuman worth.” Exuviae = “spoils.”
Truncis … tropaeis: “the epithet refers to the simplest form of a trophy, erected on the field after a victory: this was the stump of a tree, stripped of the leaves and branches, and then covered with captured weapons and pieces of armour” (Duff 1970).
Lorica = “a cuirass.”
Casside < cassis, –idis: “a metal helmet.”
Buccula = “a cheek-piece.”
Curtum temone iugum = “a yoke cut from a chariot pole.”
Triremis = “a trireme, warship.”
Aplustre = “the stern ornaments of a ship.”
Arcu = “a triumphal arch.”
137–41. “From this it can be seen that the thirst (sitis) for fame is greater than the thirst for virtue.” Induperator = archaic for imperator.
Discriminis = “distinction.”
141–2. A bitter epigram: this has been the central concern of ethics since Plato’s Republic.
142–6. “The ruin of the country is traded for a few lines on a tombstone (saxis cinerum custodibus).” Quae: the antecedent = saxis.
Discutienda < discutio, –ere, –cussi, –cussum: “to strike asunder, shatter.”
Sterilis … fici = the caprificus or “wild fig.” It, like fame, is incapable of propagating itself. Its roots can shatter solid stone. See Persius 1.25.
147–8. “Put Hannibal on the scale: what do you get?” Hannibalem = the great Carthaginian general who crossed the Alps from Gaul in the second Punic War and led an assault on Rome itself. He was definitively defeated at the battle of Zama in 202 BCE by Scipio Africanus [53].
148–50. “He whom Africa itself could not contain.” Mauro … oceano = the Atlantic.
Rursus ad = “back to”
Aliosque elephantos: i.e., not Indian.
151–2. In the process of consolidating Carthage’s holdings in Spain, Hannibal first came into conflict with Rome.
153–4. Note the vivid present tense verbs. Montem rumpit aceto: Livy 21.37 tells how Hannibal removed boulders by heating them with fire and dousing them with vinegar. Modern experiments show this works (Ferguson 1979).
155–6. Hannibal wishes to plant his standard (vexillum) in the Subura, Rome’s red light district. See 3.5. Acti = partitive genitive.
157–8. The irony fairly drips from these lines. Gaetula … belva = epic periphrasis for “elephant.”
Luscum: Hannibal lost an eye in crossing the Arno.
159–62. After the war, Hannibal was the object of intrigues by both the conservative faction in Carthage and the Romans. He fled to Ephesus, before winding up in the court of Prusias, king of Bithynia, where he committed suicide (circa 181 BCE) to avoid being handed over to the Romans. Praeceps = “immediately”; in fact Hannibal did not leave Carthage until 195 BCE.
Cliens = Hannibal becomes just another abused Roman client waiting to pay his patron the required morning salutatio.
Praetoria = “palace.”
163–6. Res humanas miscuit = “disturbed the lives of all men.”
Cannarum = locative of Cannae, the battle at which Hannibal, though vastly outnumbered, defeated the Roman consuls L. Aemilius Paullus and C. Terentius Varro (216 BCE).
Anulus = a ring with poison in it.
166–7. The ultimate in trivialization: Hannibal’s decision to cross the Alps became a topic of suasoriae in the rhetorical schools.
168–72. Juvenal’s next exhibit is Alexander the Great. Pellaeo = “from Pella,” the Macedonian city of Alexander’s birth.
Gyarae … Seripho = two small Aegean islands used as places of exile. See 1.73–6.
A figulis munitam … urbem = “the city built from bricks,” Babylon, the place of Alexander’s death.
173. Quantula … corpuscula: the double diminutive reinforces the sharply pointed epigram.
173–8. The final exhibit is Xerxes. A side target is Herodotus, the Greek historian in whose chronicle of the Persian Wars these stories are found. Plutarch disputed Herodotus’s title, “the father of history,” calling him instead “the father of lies.” Nonetheless, both marvels referred to in this passage appear to have been real. Athos = a mountain standing on a promontory in the north Aegean. After a Persian fleet had wrecked there in 492 BCE, Xerxes cut a canal through the peninsula. Hence, the mountain is velificatus: “sailed.”
Constratum … suppositumque … solidum mare: Xerxes bridged the Hellespont with boats. Thus he made the mountain into the sea and the sea into land. Constratum < consterno, –sternere, –stravi, –stratum: “to cover by strewing,” of a ship “to cover with decking,” hence the neuter substantive can mean “flooring, deck,” an appropriate image of the sea decked over with boats.
Rotis = the wheels of the chariots.
Epota = “drank up.” Herodotus says only the largest rivers were not drained (7.21).
Prandente = “while lunching,” a wonderful comic detail.
Sostratus is unidentified. The scholiast claims that his armpits (alis) are dripping with the strain of recitation. Others see the wings (alis) of inspiration as wet with wine (a common meaning of madidus, see 6.295–7). We need not choose. The one represents the poet’s aspiration, the other the sordid reality.
179–85. “Xerxes had the winds flogged, but he returned home in a single boat.” Salamine: the naval battle of Salamis (480 BCE) was the decisive engagement in Xerxes’s invasion of Greece. The Athenians routed the Persian fleet, ending the Persian threat to the mainland Greeks and establishing Athens as the dominant naval power in Greece.
Corum atque Eurum = the Northwest and Southeast winds. Herodotus records Xerxes ordering the flogging of the Hellespont. Here he whips the winds.
Flagellis = diminutive of flagra: see line 109.
Aeolio … carcere = Aeolus’s prison: the cave in which the god of the winds kept them locked.
Ennosigaeum = “The Earthshaker,” a Homeric epithet for Poseidon. When a storm destroyed Xerxes’s first bridge across the Hellespont, he not only had it whipped, but also had manacles (conpedibus) thrown in.
183–4. A sarcastic, satirical aside. “To be sure (sane), it was rather kind, since he did not also think him worthy of branding.” Herodotus records that he heard that Xerxes actually did brand the sea (7.35). Servire deorum: a fine ironic juxtaposition.
185–6. Una nave = a post-Herodotean hyperbole.
187. A final epigram summarizes the section.
188–288. Many pray for long life.
189. Recto voltu: the opposition with pallidus and a comparison with recta facie at 6.401 makes it clear that this phrase refers to when you are composed, as opposed to when you are pale (pallidus) with worry. In the first case, (i.e. when you are composed) you pray for longevity (among other things); in the second case (i.e. when you are pale with worry) longevity is the only thing for which you pray.
191–5. The humbling deformities of old age.
194. The exotic epic description cleverly delays the rhetorical anticlimax of the final line. Thabraca = a town on the coast of Numidia.
Saltus < saltus, –us: “forest.”
195. Apes were considered pr
overbially ugly.
196–200. “While youth enjoys many distinctions, old age has but one face.”
197. Ille is widely obelized or emended by recent editors (Clausen 1956; Ferguson 1979; Courtney 1980; Willis 1997), although among those of previous generations it was generally left unchanged (Pearson and Strong 1892; Friedländer 1962; Labriolle and Villeneuve 1964; Duff 1970). It is omitted in some of the earliest manuscripts. The vulgate is readable but awkward. Finding none of the emendations persuasive, I have left the daggers to indicate a disturbance in the tradition.
199. Leve = “smooth,” the first e is long.
Infantia = a return to helplessness.
200. Misero = dative of agent.
Inermi = “toothless.”
201–2. Captatori: see 6.38–40. Cossus is unknown.
203–6. Wine, food, and sex no longer bring joy. Ramice < ramex, –icis: “rupture.”
Nervus: see 9.33–7.
209. Adfectat = “to strive after.”
209–10. Partis … alterius = “another part,” the ear as it turns out, but the periphrasis leads us to expect another sexual excursus.
210–12. Eximius = “distinguished.” Seleucus is otherwise unknown.
Aurata … fulgere lacerna: “to shine in a golden cloak,” elaborate costumes are regularly attested for musicians.
213–15. Cornicines: see 3.34–8.
Concentus = “harmony.”
215–16. Puer = “slave.”
Quot nuntiet horas: Slaves were assigned to watch sundials to ensure that their masters were on time.
217–26. “His bloodless body is never warmed except by fever and is wracked by a legion of diseases too numerous to name.” Promptius expediam = “I would more quickly set out.”
Oppia = otherwise unknown, she appears again in 322.
Themison = the name of a famous doctor from the Augustan period.
Basilus = unknown.
Socios = “business partners.”
Hirrus = unknown.
Exorbeat = ex-sorbeat: “drank dry.” See 6.307.
Inclinet: see 9.22–6.
Hamillus = unknown.
226. A repetition of 1.25, a fine anticlimax that takes us back to Juvenal’s first published poem.
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