Latin Verse Satire

by Miller, Paul Allen

  Other fragments mention men’s calumny and insensitivity to abuse, possibly in a political situation (8–9, 63). There is also praise of Scipio Africanus in the manner of his separate encomiastic poem entitled Scipio (10f.).

  It is sometimes impossible to tell the difference between the description of a situation from real life and the retailing of a speech or scene from comedy: malo hercle magno suo convivat sine modo (1) (he is stuffing himself to the back teeth; let him damn well suffer for it): the language is that of comedy; the subject may be a greedy contemporary or a stage parasite.33 The proverbial dum quidquid, des celere (2) (what you give, give quickly) may have a similar context. The language of drama is also found in a four-line fragment in which Ennius uses the word frustra and its cognate verb frustrari nine times (59–62). There is a similar tour de force of repetitiveness in a higher genre in the soldiers’ chorus in his Iphigenia.34 A complaint about people who get in the way recalls scenes in comedy of the servus currens finding his path obstructed.35

  There are certain elements of philosophy and moralizing in the saturae:

  contemplor

  inde loci liquidas pilatasque aetheris oras (3f.)

  (from there I gaze on the bright and compacted edges of the upper air)

  The words in themselves may suggest the language of philosophical speculation, for the closest verbal parallel is part of an exposition of Stoic beliefs in Cicero.36 It is also possible that in the satura the solemn words may be deceptive and need not imply a consistently serious poem. Another fragment comments on the resemblance between man and monkey ‘ugliest of beasts’ perhaps in order to show the difference between appearance and reality.37

  Moralizing may be present in a satura by Ennius in which Mors and Vita are introduced in debate, but nothing is known of the substance of this work. Quintilian instances it as an illustration of personified abstracts.38 There is no known example in Greek of personified Life and Death in conjunction, but antithetical pairs of personified abstracts are found debating in both drama and rhetorical prose. Epicharmus wrote some plays in which such a conflict was one of the most important elements: Land and Sea probably expounded in debate the benefits they give to mankind.39 There is in Aristophanes’ Clouds a debate of personified abstracts, the Just and Unjust Arguments. In a work by the fifth-century Sophist Prodicus the young Herakles is confronted by two women, Pleasure and Virtue, who propounded rhetorically the advantages of the ways of life represented by them.40 In Latin Novius composed an Atellan play with the title Mortis et Vitae Iudicium.41 What, if anything, Ennius owed to some such theme we do not know; as he adapted a work attributed to Epicharmus in one of his miscellaneous poems, there is slight support for the influence of Epicharmus here. If the debating abstracts in Epicharmus’ plays are any guide to the contents of Ennius’ satura, Life and Death disputed over the benefits they brought to men. How the debate was resolved we do not know: some character may have decided between the two, or perhaps as in the Agon of Aristophanes’ Clouds one of the contestants withdrew defeated.

  The Aesopic fable with its attractive codification of simple folk wisdom provided writers of many kinds with a framework for moralizing. A fragment of Ennius begins the fable of the man who tried to catch fish by piping to them. Herodotus had applied the same story politically to the Eastern Greeks who refused to dance to Cyrus’ tune, but we have no evidence about Ennius’ context.42 There is also found in Ennius’ saturae the fable of the crested lark that moves its young from the ripe cornfield only when the farmer, having sought help in vain from those who might have been expected to give it, decides to do the work himself. Gellius paraphrases Ennius’ fable in prose and quotes verbatim the two verses that point the moral; it is also possible to reconstruct from his paraphrase some of the phrasing of Ennius’ trochaic lines.43 ln the Aesopic verses the story is developed in two stages; in Ennius there are three, for help is sought in vain from kin as well as from friends and the tale is expanded like a children’s story with careful description of the trepidation of the nestlings. This simple manner of narration is in the tradition of the Aesopic verse fable, but it is very different from the subtle contrivance of Callimachus’ fable of the olive and laurel interrupted in their argument by the bramble bush. Ennius does not seem to have taken anything from elaborate Hellenistic poetry or from the sophisticated telling of fable such as is found in Plato.44 It is more likely that he is reproducing an Aesopic fable transmitted orally or from a simple school collection. The convention of retailing in verse simple folk tales with a moral application is found as early as Archilochus.

  We may have some other traces of Ennius’ saturae. Style suggests that the reference to Lunai portum (quoted by Persius, Sat. 6,9) belongs to them and subject matter suggests the same for the description of a walk with Galba.45

  Ennius also wrote a number of minor poems with individual descriptive titles, which some scholars wish to include among the saturae.46 These works are of two types: occasional pieces and adaptations of Greek originals. Scipio and Ambracia are composed in a particular political context and are obviously original.47 The rest, based for the most part on minor Greek works, seem to have been written as they took the poet’s fancy or as copies came to hand, e.g. Sota, a poem of virulence in keeping with the reputation of Sotades, its scurrilous Alexandrian source; the fragments referring to fornication, excrement and possibly human discontent;48 and Hedyphagetica, an adaption, probably not a close translation, of a didactic work on gourmandizing by Archestratus, a fourth-century Sicilian writer.49 But there is a weighty objection to including these poems among Ennius’ saturae. Ancient authorities refer to these miscellaneous works by their proper names, but it is unlikely that this would have happened had they been part of the saturae. Where saturae have individual descriptive titles as with Varro’s Menippeans, grammarians almost always cite by title and not vaguely in saturis. Two methods of quotation are never used for the same author. Had Ennius’ miscellaneous works been part of the saturae, they would have been cited not by individual title but by the designation saturae with or without a book number. It may therefore be concluded that the saturae and varia are different works.

  To what extent Ennius knew earlier personal poetry such as that of Archilochus and Hipponax either directly or through Hellenistic intermediaries we cannot tell. As discussed in the previous chapter, Posidippus’ Soros may well have provided a model for Ennius’ metaphorical title, but Callimachus’ Iambi must have been the most famous precedent for a collection of poems on a wide range of themes in a variety of metres. Ennius owed much to Callimachus, who helped inspire the solemn introduction to the Annals and offered weighty precedence for writing in many different genres. But while the example of Callimachus’ Iambi may have helped to induce Ennius to compile his own collection of miscellaneous poems, there is no evidence and little likelihood that he adapted them in detail, for many of their subjects are recherché and their style so artificial and oblique as to have provided later Greek theorists with textbook examples of allegorical expression and irony.50 As Greek readers required commentaries for these works, Ennius would not have been able to introduce them to a Roman public.51 His themes were taken from his own personal experience as well as from a wide range of reading.

  3 Transmission and significance

  We have little certain knowledge of the extent of the circulation in antiquity or of the quality of the ancient transmission of Ennius’ saturae. When the text of Ennius was emended soon after his death by the grammarian Octavius Lampadio it is likely that the saturae were not neglected.52 Horace’s friend, the civil servant and satirist Julius Florus, made a selection from them along with pieces from Lucilius and Varro either as a commonplace book for his own easy reference or as an anthology for contemporaries.53 ln the general neglect of archaic poetry in the first century A.D., it is likely that copies of the saturae became increasingly scarce. In the following century Fronto made a de luxe copy of Ennius’ Sota for the emperor; this may suggest that good
copies of the minor works were by then not numerous. Gellius in his unbounded enthusiasm for the old-fashioned, visited learned libraries and painstakingly verified readings in Ennius; he seems to have had a complete edition of the saturae before him.54 After the literary vogue had waned they became, like other archaic poetry, linguistic source-books for grammarians. Nonius in the early fourth century A.D., though having access, as it seems, to a complete text, sometimes excerpted inaccurately from such writers as Gellius, but after this time references to the saturae become still rarer.55 The magniloquent Annals failed to survive the dark ages; it is not surprising that the unspectacular saturae fared no better.

  The place of Ennius’ saturae in the history of Roman satire is somewhat uncertain. To Diomedes and also by implication to Quintilian the Ennian stage of satura was in some ways a false start, and it seems likely that it had a very limited influence on later satirists. Lucilius in his earliest works takes over variety of metre but there is little other demonstrable indebtedness. None the less Ennius was the creator of more than the name of literary satura. It is perhaps a paradox that this rough-hewn genius sought a precedent for a collection of miscellaneous personal poems in highly sophisticated works from a mature stage of Greek civilization. To what extent the enterprising talent was able to overmaster the deficiencies of a crude literary technique we cannot know.56 But although his saturae were probably worthy of the respect of the historian of literature rather than of its critical reader, it is unlikely that they were untouched by the power of his vigorous personality.

  Notes to chapter 1 (The genre)

  1 The only serviceable general handbook on Roman satire is that of U. Knoche. Die Römische Satire (Göttingen, 19713). The thorough rewriting of the second edition was unfortunately terminated by the author’s death: the contents and pagination of the chapters on Lucilius to the end are the same as in the second edition and further bibliography has been added by the editor W. Ehlers. Of great value is the introduction to O. Weinreich’s translations, Römische Satiren (Zürich and Stuttgart, 19622), vii–civ, perhaps the best single essay on Roman satire. G. Highet, The Anatomy of Satire (Princeton, 1962), provides a wide-ranging study of fundamental principles. J.-P. Cèbe, La caricature et la parodie dans le monde romain antique des origines à Juvénal (Paris, 1966), is a catalogue of great thoroughness. D. Korzeniewski, Die Römische Satire, Wege d. Forschung 238 (Darmstadt, 1970), gathers a number of the most important articles on the subject from 1920. W. S. Anderson has provided useful bibliographies: for 1937–55, C.W. 50 (1956), 33–40; for 1955–62, C.W. 57 (1964), 293–301, 343–8; for 1962–8, C.W. 63 (1970), 181–94, 199, 217–22.

  A succinct and reliable history of the period during which all the satirists except Ennius and Juvenal wrote is provided by H. H. Scullard, From the Gracchi to Nero (London, 19703). R. Syme, The Roman Revolution (Oxford, 1939) is the fundamental historical study of the times of Horace’s satires. The Cambridge Ancient History X, The Augustan Empire 44 B.C.–A.D. 70 (Cambridge, 1934) and XI, The Imperial Peace A.D. 70–192 (Cambridge, 1936), though the chapter on Hadrian is undistinguished, are valuable surveys of the Principate. A. Garzetti, transl. J. R. Foster, From Tiberius to the Antonines (London, 1974), covers the whole of the relevant imperial period in detail, emperor by emperor.

  For the background of social history see J. P. V. D. Balsdon, Life and Leisure in Ancient Rome (London, 1969). J. Carcopino, Daily Life in Ancient Rome (revised edn, Harmondsworth, 1956) is concerned with life in the early empire; it is entertaining but not wholly reliable. The second part of W. Kroll, Die Kultur der ciceronischen Zeit (Leipzig, 1933) is valuable; for the early empire the copious study by L. Friedlaender, transl. J. H. Freese and L. A. Magnus, Roman Life and Manners, 4 vols. (London, 1908–13), is unsurpassed in the plenitude of its material but is cumbersome in its arrangement. J. Marquardt–A. Mau, Das Privatleben der Römer (Leizig, 1886) is a work of wide range with a full literary and epigraphical documentation that is conveniently presented for easy reference.

  2 Quint. 10,1,93. On the meaning of the words see (against W. Rennie, C.R. 36 (1922), 21) G. L. Hendrickson, C.Ph. 22 (1927), 60. On Quintilian’s judgement see also C. A. Van Rooy, Studies in Classical Satire and Related Literary Theory (Leiden, 1965), 117–23.

  3 There is an authoritative interpretation of the difficult sentence alterum illud etiam prius saturae genus, sed non solo carminum varietate mixtum condidit Terentius Varro (10,1,95) by M. Winterbottom, ‘Problems in Quintilian’, B.I.C.S. Supp. 25 (1970), 191: ‘The other well-known type of satire – one that arose even before Lucilius (i.e. the Ennian satire of varied metre) – was exploited by Varro, but now with a variety given not merely by metrical changes (but by an admixture of prose to the verse).’ See further D. A. Russell and M. Winterbottom (ed.), Ancient Literary Criticism (Oxford, 1972), 380–400.

  4 Note Quintilian’s censure of Afranius for introducing paederastic episodes into his togatae (10,1,100). On Quintilian’s treatment of satire see Weinreich viii and on Quintilian in general G. Kennedy, Quintilian (New York, 1969), esp. ch. 5: Quintilian as a critic (101–22).

  5 See also Quint. 10,2,22. For Aristotle’s broad classification see his Poetics, 1447a8 and 16, 1448b24–1449a6, and D. W. Lucas, Aristotle, Poetics (Oxford, 1968) on the passages. A. E. Harvey, C.Q. 5 (1955), 157–75, examines the subtle distinctions of Hellenistic theory with reference to the ‘kinds’ of lyric poetry. R. Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship (Oxford, 1968), 203–7, traces the Hellenistic beginnings of canons of accepted authors; see also L. E. Rossi, B.I.C.S. 18 (1971), 69–94.

  6 O. Regenbogen, ‘Theophrastos von Eresos’, R.E. Supp. 7, 1530; G. A. Kennedy, H.S.C.Ph. 62 (1957), 93–104; P. Hibeh 2,183 and discussion by E. G. Turner. On decorum see also M. Pohlenz, ‘τò ππον’, N. G. Göttingen (Berlin, 1933), 53.

  7 Accius Didasc. frg. 13 (Morel) = Gramm. Rom. Frg. (Fun.) 27; Leo, Gesch. 386–91.

  8 Horace discusses generic distinctions and propriety in A.P. 73ff.; note esp. 86–8 and 92. See C. O. Brink, Horace on Poetry 2 (Cambridge, 1971), on the whole passage. On Roman criticism by kinds, on hierarchy of genres and the notion of decorum associated with it, D’Alton 398–426.

  9 In the imagery of his tragedies there are occasional lapses from the high style (e.g. solvendo non es (you are bankrupt), Oed. 942, where Gronovius’ emendation is almost certainly right). Pliny (Epp. 6,21,4) describes the dilettante activities of an insignificant writer who wrote in the manner of both Old and New Comedy, distinguishing carefully between the conventions of the one and the other.

  10 Mart. 12,94. Contrast his orderly list there with his haphazard list at 3,20 and with that of Statius, Silv. 1,3,101–4.

  11 See particularly the very important study of the hierarchy of genres in the choice of appropriate vocabulary by B. Axelson, Unpoetische Wörter (Lund, 1945).

  12 Pers. 1,114–8; Juv. 1,19f. and 51.

  13 It is assumed here with Housman, Duff and Knoche (among others) against Clausen and probably the ancient scholiast that 634–7 are a vehement rhetorical question and not an ironical statement. Juvenal uses operum lex (7,102) of the historian’s literary conventions.

  14 Johannes Lydus, Mag. I,41R. This passage obviously derives in part from Hor. Sat. 2,I,If. and Juv. 6,635; see also F. Leo, Hermes 24 (1889), 82 (= Leo, Ausgew. kl. Schr. I 297f.) and Marx, I xii.

  15 Lucilius’ level of verbal obscenity may be deduced from 1186M. futuo, Hor. Sat. 1,2,127: the verb is continuative present: ‘While I am actually on the job’; cunnus, Hor. Sat. 1,2,36 and 70; 1,3,107. Neither word occurs in the later satirists, though both are common in Martial. Fello in the obscene sense is not found in any satirist but is common in Martial and the writers of graffiti at Pompeii; see also A. E. Housman, Hermes 66 (1931), 408 n. 2 (= Class. Papers III 1180 n. 3). Penis, which is an obscene word to Cicero (Fam. 9,22,2) occurs in Horace only in an epode (12,8); it occurs twice in the violent denunciation of Persius’ fourth satire (4,35 and 48) and twice in Juvenal, the witt
y sneer at 6,337 and the shock tactics of the brutal question at 9,43 (cf. the revolting expression at 2,33). On the avoidance of obscene words see further Cic. Off I,128f., Quint. 8,3,39, and Kroll 111f.

  16 Mart. 5,78, 10,48; Hor. C. 1,20 (see Nisbet and Hubbard, A Commentary on Horace Odes Bk I, 244ff.); see in general the important study by F. Cairns, Generic Composition in Greek and Roman Poetry (Edinburgh, 1972); note esp. p. 6. On the topic of the invitation to the frugal meal see ch. 7 n. 76.

  17 W. H. Auden, in conversation with Richard Crossman on BBC television, 28 Jan. 1973, talked of ‘Opera, the last refuge of the high style’. Graham Hough, An Essay on Criticism (London, 1966), 84, vindicates the value of a theory of kinds: ‘the true and necessary principle that each literary species offers its own satisfaction, operates on its own level and has its own proper principle.’

  18 J. Wight Duff, Roman Satire (Cambridge, 1937), 106–14; N. Terzaghi, Per la storia della satira (Turin, 19442), 99–154. On problems of dating see B. E. Perry, Babrius and Phaedrus (Loeb’ Classical Library, 1965), intro. lxxix n. 1.

  19 Apul. Apol. 10. The supremacy of the abusive force of iambi is mentioned by Porph. on Hor. C. 1,16,22–4. Note Catull. frg 3: at non effugies meos iambos.

  20 On coarse army songs see e.g. Pliny N.H. 19,144; Schanz-Hosius I4 21f. On primitive rude verses see also Gell. 15,4,3 and Fraenkel 58; on Octavianus’ Fescennines see Macr. Sat. 2,4,21. On Ovid’s Ibis see A. E. Housman, Journ. Phil. 35 (1920), esp. 316–18 (= Class. Papers III 1040–2).