Poetry Supplement Rome, the Roman Republic, and the U.S. Constitution Prof.

David Post Summer, 2012 Beasley School of Law

 There is no better way to understand ancient Rome than through her poets. Rome has left us a legacy of some of the most remarkable poetry ever written, and even were it not wonderful reading on its own, it is worth knowing something about because of its profound impact on the entire Western canon, from Dante to Shakespeare to Milton to virtually every great writer from the Renaissance forward. It is, among other things, extraordinarily modern a great deal of the best Roman poetry reads as though it was written last year. (If you dont believe me, start with the excerpts from Martial, below.) What follows is an idiosyncratic collection of some of the poems that I like most from among this great body of work, in chronological order: Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Martial, and Juvenal. I have put it together just in the hope that it may stimulate some of you to encounter more of this material on your own.

Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro was born on October 15, 70 BCE, in Andes, a hamlet near Mantua in Cisalpine Gaul, now know as Lombardia. His parents, people of respectable means, came from peasant stock and were farmers. Educated first in Mantua, Cremona, and Milan, he went south to Rome at the age of seventeen and not long thereafter to Naples, where he lived for much of his life. His studies, which included Latin, Greek, rhetoric, and mathematics, were precisely those that would appeal to any young man enamored of words and the music they make. His broad command of Latin and Greek literature, both poetry and prose is documented by his poems, which refer to, translate, incorporate, and conflate lines and ideas from an amazing range of literary treasures. He was intimately acquainted with he work of his literary predecessors, from Homer and Hesiod, Greek epic poets who flourished around 800 BCE, to Roman writer, including not only poets, playwrights, and orators but also Marus Porcius Cato (234 - 49 BCE) and Marcus Terentius Varro (116 - 27 BCE). Virgil died in 19 B.C. In his comparatively short life Virgil became the supreme Roman poet; his work overshadowed that of his successors, and his epic poem, the Aeneid, gave Homeric luster to the story of Romes origins and its achievement: the creation of an empire that gave peace and the rule of law to all the territory surrounding the Mediterranean, to what are now Switzerland, France, and Belgium, and later to England. Yet when Virgil was born in the village of Andes, near Mantua (Mantova), he, like all the other Italians living north of the Po River, was not a Roman citizen. Full Roman citizenship had been gradually conceded over the centuries to individuals and communities, but in the years 91 to 87 B.C. those communities still excluded fought a successful civil war against Rome, which ended with the grant of full Roman citizenship to all Italians living south of the Po River. The territory north of the river continued to be a provincia, ruled by a proconsul from Rome, with an army. Full Roman citizenship was finally granted to the inhabitants of the area by Julius Caesar in 49 B.C., when Virgil was already a young man. He is the pre-eminent poet of the horrors of civil war. In his Georgics, he writes movingly about the weather signs that the farmer must recognize as prophecies of what is to come, sometimes evil, as he ends the book with memories of the recent civil wars, of Roman blood shed on the fields of Greece, and with a finale that is a prayer and a dark vision of the future: Gods of our fathers, Heroes of our land Do not prevent at least this youthful prince From saving a world in ruins For right and wrong change places; everywhere So many wars, so many shapes of crime Confront us; no due honor attends the plow. The fields, bereft of tillers, are all unkempt throughout the world Impious War is raging. (1.498-511)

 Janet Lembke's translation of the Georgics has an insightful discussion of Virgils place among Roman poets (and why Virgil would have devoted so much effort to a book of poems about farming, which is what the Georgics consist of): Georgics -- the word means 'farming.' The poem is indeed a love song to almost everything that grows or grazes on the land. . . . but like many lovers, virgil was also filled with doubts and blamed passion itself for much that may go awry. Despite our best human efforts, the most diligent, unremitting hard work, the world in which we live has never been made perfect. and virgil's coming of age was filled with dispiriting, chaotic events -- widespread political power grabs, corruption, civil wars, assassinations -- which he was helpless to counter except in the singing of his poems. Why write on farming? To understand Virgil's probable motives in composing a long poem on the subject, it is necessary to look more closely at the itmes in which he lived. For more that a century before he was born, the Roman Republic, founded in the 3th century BCE, had been moribund, and when Virgil arrived in the world it had entered its drawn-out death throes. Power struggle followed on power struggle for control of the State as the consservative, anciently empowered aristocrats of the Senate waged political and civil wars with the nouveau-rich knightly class made wealthy by trade, agribusiness, and war. Roman expansion throughout the Mediterranean was a prime cause of governmental instability, for the entrenched senatorial class found itself unable to deal with the concomitant economic, social, and military problems. The citizen-soldier of the Republic, lotal to the state, was being shoved aside by the professional, faithful not to the state but to commander, cohort, and the opportunities for plunder. By the end of the 2d century BCE, the army had become a war machine. the issues of the day included extending citizenship to all of Italy's inhabitants, redistributing land to small farmers, and providing cheap grain for the lowest classes, whose numbers had been dramatically increased by landless veterans and dispossessed peasants. the city of Rome suffered from a dangerous urban bloat. Even those who are now distant from the study of ancient history will remember many of the names of the belligerents. Though members of an aristocratic clan, the statemsen Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus worked for agrarian reform in the last third of the second century BCE. In 132 BCE, Tiberius was murdered by men who supported (and, in some cases, were actually members of) the Senate. In 121, his brother, in imminent danger of being overthrown, committed suicide. Slightly later, the reformer Marius (155-86 BCE) and the conservative Sulla (138-78 BCE) fought bloody battles. Not long after, the "Social War" raged from about 90 BCE to 89 BCE, when Rome's allies in both northern and southern Italty, demanding compensation for military service, revolted against the capital. After two years of terrible carnage, the war's resolution brought Roman citizenship to more than half a million italians and gave political unity to the peninsula south of the Po River. But it did not bring an end o the bloodshed. And citizenship would not be extended to Italians living north of the Po for another forty years - in 49 BCE, the year Virgil turned twenty-one.
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 One of the next convulsions occurred when Julius Caesar (?100?- 44 BCE) and the aristocrat Pompey (106 - 48 BCE), though allied by politics and marriage, waged a protracted civil war int eh middle years of the first century. Who should be consul and thus rule over Rome? Only blood could decide. In 49 BCE -- the year Virgil became a Roman citizen -- Caesar, who had consolidated control over Gaul, famously led his army across the Rubicon -- the boundary between Cisalpine Gaul to the north and Italy to the south. It was a hasty march home meant to bring a halt to what he regarded as Pompey's usurpation of power. By reentering Italy with his troops, he broke the law forbidding a general to lead his solders out of the province to which he had been assigned. "Crossing the Rubicon" thus came to mean "taking irreversible steps." After three years of internecine fighting in Italy, Spain, Greece, Numidia and Egypt, Caesar prevailed, assuming the dictatorship in 46 BCE. At that time, it was clear that he who commanded the army commanded all power. but two years later, of course, Caesar was killed by Cassius, Brutus, and their co-conspirators, who hoped to restore the Republic. In the subsequent squabbling, Cassius and Brutus busied themselves carving up Roman territories, including Macedonia dn syria. both were defeated in 42 BCE by Marcus Antonius (Mark Antony) (82 - 30 BCE) and Caesar's great-nephew, Gaius Octavius (63 BCE - AD 14) at the battle of Philippi on the west coast of Greece. On Caesar's death, Antony had nominated himself Caesar's successor. Caesar's will, however, had named his great-nephew as his heir and specified that his name be changed to Octavian. The civil wars finally ended in 31 BCE, when virgil was thirty-nine years old. The end was occasioned by Octavian's decisive defeat of Antony in a naval battle at Actium in northwestern Greece. For the first time in more than 200 years, peace settled on the land. What does this have to do with farming? A great deal. The simplest reason that Virgil chose such a subject is, of course, that he bore a love for the land deep in his very marrow -- he had been born to it. His Georgics is also an act of homage to Hesiod. But more important, he understood what happened to the land when smallholders were dispossessed. People went hungry when it became an unproductive kingdom of weeds. along with many others, his own family is said to have lost its acreage near Mantua when the property was awarded, after the battle of Philippi in 42 BCE, as compensation to some of Antony's veterans. Virgil supposedly regained it through the influence of acquaintances who were well-connected to Octavian. Even if this story is not true, Virgil certainly knew farm families who had been made homeless and landless. the georgics, ignited by deeply felt personal experience, is in many respects a heartfelt cry for homecoming, for returning landholders and their families to the fields and pastures they had lost through no fault of their own. the poem is not in any sense, however, a political polemic, designed to sway opinion and brig about the repopulation of rural Italy. But it may well provoke a contemporary reader to think wistfully of the disappearance of family farms across North America, though the reasons are far different from those of Virgil's day.
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Virgil, from the Georgics (Janet Lembke, trans.) [from Book 1] . . . the sun shall give you signs. Who dares to say the sun deceives? And more: he often warns that secret insurrections press close, that treachery and hidden wars make ready to burst forth. He also, Caesar's life extinguished, took pity on Rome when he covered his shining face with iron's rusty darkness and an impious age feared that night would never end. Yet in that time, Earth also and the surface of Ocean, the obscene dogs and rude birds of ill omen all granted signs. How often we have seen pulsing Etna pour the contents of her ruptured furnaces over the coast of Sicily, rolling out balls of fire and molten rock! Germany heard the clash of battle roll throughout the sky; struck by extraordinary earthquakes, the Alps shuddered. A huge voice that all could hear rang loud through the silent groves, and pallid phantoms in astounding numbers flickered in the darkness of the night. Flouting nature, cattle spoke! Streams stood still, fields split open, in the temples ivory statues all shed mournful tears and bronze images broke out in sweat. In a swirl, the Po, king of rivers, washed away forests with his raging high waters and bore away over the fields the cattle, along with their pens. At that same time, ominous threads appeared in the guts of the victims, and blood poured from wells, and the hill towns echoed through the whole night with the high, drawn-out howling of wolves. Never did more thunderbolts stike earth out of a clear sky, nor ill-boding comets, blazing, streak by so often. So, once again, Philippi saw Romans in battle lines join combat between themselves with weapons equal, and the broad Balkan plains were twice made fertile by Roman blood. A time shall surely come when, in those countries, the farmer working the soil with his curved plow shall discover javelins corroded and scabrous with rust, or clank on empty helmets with his heavy hoe and wonder at the huge bones found in uncovered graves. Gods of my country, homeland gods, Romulus, mother Vesta,
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who protect the Tiber's Tuscan source and the young man's hilltop abode, do not prevent him from succoring an age in ruins. We have atoned long enough with our blood for Laomedon's false promise to the gods at Troy. And heaven's courts have slighted you long enough, Caesar, charging that you concern yourself with human triumphs. Here the good and evil have changed places: so many wars in the world, so many forms of wickedness, no honor for the plow, farmers conscripted, the mournful fields untilled, and curved pruning hooks are beaten into unbending swords. Here Euphrates, there Germany goes to war; neighboring cities, flouting the laws they've both agreed on, take up arms; The unholy god of war rages over the whole world, just as when a chariot bursts out of the starting gates, gaining speed as it goes, and the driver futilely yanking the reins is borne willy-nilly by horses out of control. Virgil, the Aeneid [In Book 6 of the Aeneid, the hero Aeneas has to travel to the Underworld to see his recently-buried father, Anchises, to hear from him the prophecy of the future founding of Rome. Anchises brings Aeneas to the banks of the river Lethe, where the souls of the recently dead prepare themselves to re-enter the world in new bodies (the river is the river of forgetfullness from which the souls must drink, ensuring that when they return to life they will remember nothing of their former lives). By describing the life that each of these souls is going to lead, Anchises is able to tell Aeneas the story of the future greatness of Rome though of course, to Virgils readers, the events he describes are in the past]. Anchises, silent a moment, drawing his son and Sibyl with him into the midst of the vast murmuring throng, took his stand on a rise of ground where he could scan the long column marching toward him, soul by soul, and recognize their features as they neared. So come, the glory that will follow the sons of Troy through time, your children born of Italian stock who wait for life, bright souls,future heirs of our name and our renown: I will reveal them all and tell you of your fate. There, you see that youth who leans on a tipless spear of honor? Assigned the nearest place to the world of light,
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the first to rise to the air above, his blood mixed with Italian blood, he bears an Alban name. Silvius, your son, your last-born, when late in your old age your wife Lavinia brings him up, deep in the woodsa king who fathers kings in turn, he founds our race that rules in Alba Longa. . . . . Here, a son of Mars, his grandsire Numitors comradeRomulus, bred from Assaracus blood by his mother, Ilia. See how the twin plumes stand joined on his helmet? And the Father of Gods himself already marks him out with his own bolts of honor. Under his auspices, watch, my son, our brilliant Rome will extend her empire far and wide as the earth, her spirit high as Olympus. Within her single wall she will gird her seven hills, blest in her breed of men: like the Berecynthian Mother crowned with her turrets, riding her victors chariot through the Phrygian cities, glad in her brood of gods, embracing a hundred grandsons. All dwell in the heavens, all command the heights. Now turn your eyes this way and behold these people, your own Roman people. Here is Caesar and all the line of Iulus soon to venture under the skys great arch. Here is the man, hes here! Time and again youve heard his coming promisedCaesar Augustus! Son of a god, he will bring back the Age of Gold to the Latian fields where Saturn once held sway, expand his empire past the Garamants and the Indians to a land beyond the stars, beyond the wheel of the year, the course of the sun itself, where Atlas bears the skies and turns on his shoulder the heavens studded with flaming stars. Even now the Caspian and Maeotic kingdoms quake at his coming, oracles sound the alarm and the seven mouths of the Nile churn with fear. Not even Hercules himself could cross such a vast expanse of earth, though its true he shot the stag with its brazen hoofs, and brought peace to the ravaged woods of Erymanthus, terrorized the Hydra of Lerna with his bow. Not even Bacchus in all his glory, driving his team with vines for reins and lashing his tigers down from Nysas soaring ridge.
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Do we still flinch from turning our valor into deeds? Or fear to make our home on Western soil? . . . Wait, would you like to see the Tarquin kings, the overweening spirit of Brutus the Avenger, the fasces he reclaims? The first to hold a consuls power and ruthless axes, then, when his sons foment rebellion against the city, their father summons them to the executioners block in freedoms noble name, unfortunate man however the future years will exalt his actions: a patriots love wins out, and boundless lust for praise. . . . But you see that pair of spirits? Gleaming in equal armor, equals now at peace, while darkness pins them down, but if they should reach the light of life, what war theyll rouse between them! Battles, massacresCaesar, the brides father, marching down from his Alpine ramparts, Fortress Monaco, Pompey her husband set to oppose him with the armies of the East. No, my sons, never inure yourselves to civil war, never turn your sturdy power against your countrys heart. You, Caesar, you be first in mercyyou trace your line from Olympus born of my blood, throw down your weapons now! . . . Who, noble Cato, could pass you by in silence? Or you, Cossus? Or the Gracchi and their kin? Or the two Scipios, both thunderbolts of battle, Libyas scourge? Or you, Fabricius, reared from poverty into power? Or you, Serranus the Sower, seeding your furrow? You Fabii, where do you rush me, all but spent? And you, famous Maximus, you are the one man whose delaying tactics save our Roman state. Others, I have no doubt, will forge the bronze to breathe with suppler lines,
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 Eclogue IX: The Dialogue of Lycidas and Moeris Lycidas: Where are you heading, Moeris? To town, where the path leads? Moeris: O Lycidas, weve lived to see the time when a stranger, owner of our land, could say (as we never thought could happen): These lands are mine: you old tenants move on. Now sad and defeated, since chance overturns all, we send him these kids (may no good come of it). Lycidas: Surely Id heard that your Menalcas, with his songs, had rescued all your land, from where the hills end, where they descend, in a gentle slope, to the water and to the ancient beeches, with shattered tops? Moeris: You heard it, and that was the tale: but our songs are as much use, Lycidas, among the clash of weapons, as they say the Chaonian doves are when the eagles near. So that if a raven hadnt warned me from a hollow oak on the left hand side, to cut short the dispute somehow, neither Menalcas himself, nor your Moeris, here, would be alive. Lycidas: Ah, can such evil happen to anyone? Ah, was our solace in you nearly torn from us, along with yourself, Menalcas? Who would sing the Nymphs? Whod sprinkle the ground with flowering herbs or clothe the springs with green shade? And what of those songs of yours I secretly heard the other day, when you were celebrating Amarayllis, our delight? Tityrus feed my goats till I return (the road is short),
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draw from the block of marble features quick with life, plead their cases better, chart with their rods the stars that climb the sky and foretell the times they rise. But you, Roman, remember, rule with all your power the peoples of the earththese will be your arts: to put your stamp on the works and ways of peace, to spare the defeated, break the proud in war. ***********

and drive them to the water when theyve grazed, and Tityrus, mind not to get in the he-goats way (he butts with his horn). Moeris: Yes, and those hes not yet perfected he sang to Varus: Varus, singing swans will bear your name to the stars above us, if only Mantua is left to us, Mantua, alas, too near to wretched Cremona. Lycidas: If you have anything to sing, begin: as you would have your bees flee Corsican yews, and your cows browse clover, and swell their udders. The Muses have made me a poet too, and I too have songs: the shepherds call me also a singer: but I dont put any trust in them. Since, as yet, I dont think my singing worthy of Varius or Cinna, but cackle like a goose among melodious swans. Moeris: Thats what Im doing, Lycidas, discussing it silently with myself to see if Im able to recall it: its no mean song. O Galatea, come: what fun can there be in the waves? Here is rosy spring, here, by the streams, earth scatters her varied flowers: here the white poplar leans above the cave, and the clinging vines weave shadowy arbours: Come: let the wild waves strike the shores. Lycidas: And what of your singing alone, I heard, in the clear night? I remember the tune, if I can recall the words. Daphnis, why are you watching the ancient star signs rising? See Caesars comet, born of Dione, has mounted, that star by which the fields ripen with wheat, and the grape deepens its colour on the sunny hills. Graft your pears, Daphnis: your grandchildren will gather their fruit. Moeris: Time takes away all things, memory too: often, as a boy, I remember spending long days singing: now all my songs are forgotten: even my voice itself fails Moeris: the wolves see Moeris first. But Menalcas will repeat your songs often enough to you. Lycidas:
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You deflect my passion with endless excuses. And now the calm waters are silent, and see, every whisper of murmuring wind has died. Half our journey lies beyond: since Bianors tomb is coming in sight: here where the labourers are lopping the dense branches, here, Moeris, lets sing: Set the kids down here, well still reach the town. Or if were afraid that night will bring rain before, we might go along singing (the road will be less tedious): Ill carry your burden, so we can go on singing. Moeris: No more, boy, and press on with the work in hand: then well sing our songs the better when he comes.

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Horace Horace (65 BC 8 BC) was the pre-eminent Roman lyric poet, and my personal favorite; his simplicity of style and lack of pretension make Horace a poet very difficult to resist. Like Virgil, his career coincided with Rome's momentous change from Republic to Empire. An officer in the republican army that was crushed at the Battle of Philippi in 42 BC, he was befriended by Octavian's right-hand man in civil affairs, Maecenas, and became something of a spokesman for the new regime. For some commentators, his association with the regime was a delicate balance in which he maintained a strong measure of independence (he was "a master of the graceful sidestep")[2] but for others he was, in John Dryden's phrase, "a well-mannered court slave." His Odes, Epistles, Satires, and Epodes rank among the greatest short poems ever written; of all the Roman poets, hes almost certainly the one who would be the most fun to invite to dinner. Ode I.2 The Fathers sent enough dread hail and snow to earth already, striking sacred hills with fiery hand, to scare the city, and scare the people, lest again we know Pyrrhas age of pain when Proteus his sea-herds drove across high mountains, and fishes lodged in all the elms, that used to be the haunt of doves, and the trembling roe-deer swam the whelming waters. We saw the yellow Tibers waves hurled backwards from the Tuscan shore, toppling Numas Regia and the shrine of Vesta, far too fierce now, the fond river, in his revenge of wronged Ilia, drowning the whole left bank, deep, without permission. Our children, fewer for their fathers vices, will hear metal sharpened thats better destined for the Persians, and of battles too.
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Which gods shall the people call on when the Empire falls in ruins? With what prayer shall the virgins tire heedless Vesta? Whom will Jupiter assign to expiate our sins? We pray you, come, cloud veiling your bright shoulders, far-sighted Apollo: or laughing Venus Erycina, if you will, whom Cupid circles, or you, if you see your children neglected, Leader, you sated from the long campaign, who love the war-shouts and the helmets, and the Moors cruel face among his blood-stained enemies. Or you, Mercury, changing shape on earth to human form, and ready to be named as Caesars avenger: Dont rush back to the sky, stay long among the people of Quirinus, no swifter breeze take you away, unhappy with our sins: here to delight in triumphs, in being called our prince and father, making sure the Medes are punished, lead us, O Caesar. ode 1,11 Leucono, dont ask, we never know, what fate the gods grant us, whether your fate or mine, dont waste your time on Babylonian, futile, calculations. How much better to suffer what happens, whether Jupiter gives us more winters or this is the last one, one debilitating the Tyrrhenian Sea on opposing cliffs. Be wise, and mix the wine, since time is short: limit that far-reaching hope. The envious moment is flying now, now, while were speaking: Seize the day, place in the hours that come as little faith as you can. ode 1,35 To Fortune O goddess, who rules our lovely Antium,
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always ready to lift up our mortal selves, from humble position, or alter proud triumphs to funeral processions, the poor farmer, in the fields, courts your favour with anxious prayers: you, mistress of ocean, the sailor who cuts the Carpathian Sea, in a Bithynian sailing boat: you, the fierce Dacian, wandering Scythian, cities, and peoples, and warlike Latium, mothers of barbarous kings, tyrants, clothed in their royal purple, all fear you, in case you demolish the standing pillar with a careless foot, or the tumultuous crowd incite the peaceful: To arms, to arms, and shatter the supreme authority. Grim Necessity always treads before you, and shes carrying the spikes and the wedges in her bronze hand, and the harsh irons and the molten lead arent absent either. Hope cultivates you, and rarest Loyalty, her hands bound in sacred white, will not refuse her friendship when you, their enemy, desert the great houses plunged in mourning. But the disloyal mob, and the perjured whores vanish, and friends scatter when theyve drunk our wine to the lees, unequal to bearing the heavy yoke of all our misfortunes. Guard our Caesar whos soon setting off again against the earths far-off Britons, and guard the fresh young levies, wholl scare the East in those regions along the Red Seas shores. Alas, the shame of our scars and wickedness, and our dead brothers. What has our harsh age spared? What sinfulness have we left untried? What have the young men held their hands back from, in fear of the gods? Where are the altars theyve left alone? O may you remake our blunt weapons on fresh anvils so we can turn them against the Scythians and the Arabs. odes, 2 14
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Oh how the years fly, Postumus, Postumus, theyre slipping away, virtue brings no respite from the wrinkles that furrow our brow, impending old age, Death the invincible: not even, my friend, if with three hundred bulls every day, you appease pitiless Pluto, jailor of three-bodied Geryon, who imprisons Tityos by the sad stream, that every one of us must sail over, whoever we are that enjoy earths riches, whether were wealthy, or whether we are the most destitute of humble farmers. In vain well escape from bloodiest warfare, from the breakers roar in the Adriatic, in vain, on the autumn seas, well fear the southerly that shatters our bodies: Were destined to gaze at Cocytus, winding, dark languid river: the infamous daughters of Danaus: and at Sisyphus, son of Aeolus, condemned to long toil. Were destined to leave earth, home, our loving wife, nor will a single tree, that you planted here, follow you, its briefly-known master, except for the much-detested cypress. A worthier heir will drink your Caecuban, that cellar a hundred keys are protecting, and stain the street with a vintage wine, finer than those at the Pontiffs table. ode 3,6 Romans, though youre guiltless, youll still expiate your fathers sins, till youve restored the temples, and the tumbling shrines of all the gods, and their images, soiled with black smoke. You rule because you are lower than the gods you worship: all things begin with them: credit them with the outcome. Neglected gods have made many woes for sad Italy. Already Parthians, and Monaeses and Pacorus, have crushed our inauspicious assaults, and laugh now to have added
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our spoils to their meagre treasures. Dacians and Ethiopians almost toppled the City, mired in civil war, the last feared for their fleet of ships, and the others who are best known for their flying arrows. Our age, fertile in its wickedness, has first defiled the marriage bed, our offspring, and homes: disasters stream has flowed from this source through the people and the fatherland. The young girl early takes delight in learning Greek dances, in being dressed with all the arts, and soon meditates sinful affairs, with every fibre of her new being: later at her husbands dinners she searches for younger lovers, doesnt mind to whom she grants all her swift illicit pleasures when the lights are far removed, but she rises, openly, when ordered to do so, and not without her husbands knowledge, whether its for some peddler, or Spanish ships captain, an extravagant buyer of her shame. The young men who stained the Punic Sea with blood they were not born of such parentage, those who struck at Pyrrhus, and struck at great Antiochus, and fearful Hannibal: they were a virile crowd of rustic soldiers, taught to turn the furrow with a Sabine hoe, to bring in the firewood they had cut at the instruction of their strict mothers. when the sun had lengthened the mountain shadows, and lifted the yokes from the weary bullocks, bringing a welcome time of rest, with the departure of his chariot. What do the harmful days not render less? Worse than our grandparents generation, our parents then produced us, even worse, and soon to bear still more sinful children. ode 4,5 To Augustus Son of the blessed gods, and greatest defender
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of Romulus people, youve been away too long: make that swift return you promised, to the sacred councils of the City Fathers, Blessed leader, bring light to your country again: when your face shines on the people, like the shining springtime, then the day itself is more welcoming, and the sun beams down more brightly. As a mother, with vows and omens and prayers, calls to the son whom a southerly winds envious gales have kept far from his home, for more than a year, lingering there, beyond the waves of the Carpathian Sea: she who never turns her face away from the curving line of the shore: so, smitten with the deep longing of loyalty, the country yearns for its Caesar. Then the ox will wander the pastures in safety, Ceres, and kindly Increase, will nourish the crops, our sailors will sail across the waters in peace, trust will shrink from the mark of shame, the chaste house will be unstained by debauchery, law and morality conquer the taint of sin, mothers win praise for new-born so like their fathers, and punishment attend on guilt. Wholl fear the Parthians, or the cold Scythians, and wholl fear the offspring savage Germany breeds, if Caesars unharmed? Wholl worry about battles in the wilds of Iberia? Every man passes the day among his own hills, as he fastens his vines to the waiting branches: from there he gladly returns to his wine, calls on you, as god, at the second course: He worships you with many a prayer, with wine poured out, joins your name to those of his household gods, as the Greeks were accustomed to remembering Castor and mighty Hercules. O blessed leader, bring Italy endless peace! Thats what we say, mouths parched, at the start of the day, thats what we say, lips wetted with wine, when the sun sinks to rest under the Ocean. ode 4, 15 To Augustus
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Phoebus condemned my verse, when I tried to sing of war and conquered cities, lest I unfurled my tiny sail on Tyrrhenian seas. Caesar, this age has restored rich crops to the fields, and brought back the standards, at last, to Jupiter, those that weve now recovered from insolent Parthian pillars, and closed the gates of Romulus temple, freed at last from all war, and tightened the rein on lawlessness, straying beyond just limits, and has driven out crime, and summoned the ancient arts again, by which the name of Rome and Italian power grew great, and the fame and majesty of our empire, were spread from the suns lair in the west, to the regions where it rises at dawn. With Caesar protecting the state, no civil disturbance will banish the peace, no violence, no anger that forges swords, and makes mutual enemies of wretched towns. The tribes who drink from the depths of the Danube, will not break the Julian law, the Getae, nor Seres, nor faithless Persians, nor those who are born by the Dons wide stream. On working days, and the same on holy days, among laughter-loving Bacchus gifts to us, with our wives and our children well pray, at first, to the gods, in the rites laid down, then, in the manner of our fathers, bravely, in verse, thats accompanied by Lydian flutes, well sing past leaders, well sing of Troy, Anchises, and the people of Venus.

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Ovid

Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso) was born in 43 BC in a small town east of Rome, and became (along with Virgil and Horace) one of the three giants of Roman poetry during the Age of Augustus. He attained great fame through publication of his Art of Love, a light-hearted and somewhat tongue-in-cheek look at Roman sexual habits during the early days of the Empire (published around 6 BC). Metamorphoses, published around 8 AD, ranks as one of the two or three most influential poems ever written; most of what we know about Greek mythology comes from its pages, and its influence on later writers (not least of whom was Shakespeare, whose debt to Metamorphoses is apparent on virtually every page of his plays) was prodigious. In 8 AD, Augustus banished him from Rome and ordered him to the Black Sea outpost of Tomis (in modern-day Romania). There is much speculation, and little hard evidence, about the causes of the banishment. Ovid himself, in one of his later poems, speaks of having committed a poem, and an error the poem, most surmise, is the Art of Love, of which Augustus apparently disapproved; the error may have had something to do with Augustuss granddaughter Julia, who was exiled at the same time as Ovid and who was notorious for her sexual proclivities. As the critic Robert Hughes has noted: No Roman writer, and few later ones, wrote as stylishly about sexual intrigue as Ovid. Here he is giving his advice to a girlfriend: And once you get to the bedroom Fill it with every delight; lets have no modesty there. Once you are out of there, though, abandon abandonment, darling Bed is the only place where you can act as you please. There it is no disgrace to fling your dress in a corner, There it is no disgrace lying with thigh under thigh, There it is proper for tongues, as well as for lips, to be kissing, There let passion employ all the inventions of love. There use all of the words, the helpful cries, and the whispers, There let the squeak of the bed appear to be keeping in time. Augustus believed in restraint; Ovid did not. Anyone who has ever had hot sex on a hot afternoon is his co-conspirator. In comes his Corinna: Sheer though it was, I pulled the dress away; Pro forma, she resisted, more or less. It offered little cover, I must say, And why put up a fight to save a dress? So soon she stood there naked, and I saw, Not only saw, but felt, perfection there,
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 Ovid spent over a decade in exile, and though he begged Augustus to relent, he died in Tomis. His poems from exile are among the most heart-rending works I know of his longing to return to the Rome that he loved (and the people in Rome whom he loved) is palpable and painful at times to read. Metamorphoses, Book 1 (Apollo and Daphne) Phoebus Apollos first love was Daphne, daughter of Peneus, and not through chance but because of Cupids fierce anger. The god had seen the boy bending his tightly strung bow, and said Impudent boy, what are you doing with a mans weapons? That one is suited to my shoulders, since I can hit wild beasts of a certainty, and wound my enemies. You should be intent on stirring the concealed fires of love with your burning brand, not laying claim to my glories! Venuss son replied You may hit every other thing Phoebus, but my bow will strike you: as all living creatures are less than gods, by that same degree is your glory less than mine. He spoke, and striking the air fiercely with beating wings, he landed on the shady peak of Parnassus, and took two arrows with opposite effects from his full quiver: one kindles love, the other dispels it. The first is golden with a sharp glistening point, the other blunt, with lead beneath its shaft. With the second he transfixed Peneuss daughter, but with the first he wounded Apollo piercing him to the marrow of his bones. Now the one loved, and the other fled from loves name, taking delight in the depths of the woods, and the skins of the wild beasts she caught, emulating virgin Phoebe, a careless ribbon holding back her hair. Many courted her, but she, averse to being wooed, free from men and unable to endure them, roamed the pathless woods, careless of Hymen or Amor, or whatever marriage might be. Her father often said Girl you owe me a son-in-law, and again often Daughter, you owe me grandsons.
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Hands moving over beauty without flaw, The breasts, the thighs, the triangle of hair.

But, hating the wedding torch as if it smacked of crime she would blush red with shame all over her beautiful face, and clinging to her fathers neck with coaxing arms, she would say Dearest father, let me be a virgin for ever! Dianas father granted it to her. He yields to that plea, but your beauty itself, Daphne, prevents your wish, and your loveliness opposes your prayer. Phoebus loves her at first sight, and desires to wed her, and hopes for what he desires, but his own oracular powers fail him. As the light stubble of an empty cornfield blazes; as sparks fire a hedge when a traveller, by mischance, lets them get too close, or forgets them in the morning; so the god was altered by the flames, and all his heart burned, feeding his useless desire with hope. He sees her disordered hair hanging about her neck and sighs What if it were properly dressed? He gazes at her eyes sparkling with the brightness of starlight. He gazes on her lips, where mere gazing does not satisfy. Her wrists and hands and fingers, her arms bare to the shoulder . . . And all that is hidden, he imagines more beautiful still. But she flees swifter than the lightest breath of air, and resists his words calling her back again. Wait nymph, daughter of Peneus, I beg you! I who am chasing you am not your enemy. Nymph, Wait! This is the way a sheep runs from the wolf, a deer from the mountain lion, and a dove with fluttering wings flies from the eagle. Everything flies from its foes, but it is love that is driving me to follow you! Pity me! I am afraid you might fall headlong, or thorns undeservedly scar your legs and I be a cause of grief to you! These are rough places you run through. Slow down, I ask you, check your flight, and I too will slow. At least enquire whom it is you have charmed. I am no mountain man, no shepherd, no rough guardian of the herds and flocks. Rash girl, you do not know, you cannot realise, who you run from, and so you run. Jupiter is my father. Through me what was, what is,
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and what will be, are revealed. Through me strings sound in harmony, to song. My aim is certain, but an arrow truer than mine, has wounded my free heart! The whole world calls me the bringer of aid; medicine is my invention; my power is in herbs. But love cannot be healed by any herb, nor can the arts that cure others cure their lord! He would have said more as timid Daphne ran, still lovely to see, leaving him with his words unfinished. The winds bared her body, the opposing breezes in her way fluttered her clothes, and the light airs threw her streaming hair behind her, her beauty enhanced by flight. But the young god could no longer waste time on further blandishments, urged on by Amor, he ran on at full speed. Like a hound of Gaul starting a hare in an empty field, that heads for its prey, she for safety: he, seeming about to clutch her, thinks now, or now, he has her fast, grazing her heels with his outstretched jaws, while she, uncertain whether she is already caught, escaping his bite, spurts from the muzzle touching her. So the virgin and the god: he driven by desire, she by fear. He ran faster, Amor giving him wings, and allowed her no rest, hung on her fleeing shoulders, breathed on the hair flying round her neck. Her strength was gone, she grew pale, overcome by the effort of her rapid flight, and seeing Peneuss waters near cried out Help me father! If your streams have divine powers change me, destroy this beauty that pleases too well! Her prayer was scarcely done when a heavy numbness seized her limbs, thin bark closed over her breast, her hair turned into leaves, her arms into branches, her feet so swift a moment ago stuck fast in slow-growing roots, her face lost in the canopy. Only her shining beauty was left. Even like this Phoebus loved her and placing his hand against the trunk, he felt
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her heart still quivering under the new bark. He clasped the branches as if they were parts of human arms, and kissed the wood. But even the wood shrank from his kisses, and the god said Since you cannot be my bride, you must be my tree! Laurel, with you my hair will be wreathed, with you my lyre, with you my quiver. You will go with the Roman generals when joyful voices acclaim their triumph, and the Capitol witnesses their long processions. You will stand outside Augustuss doorposts, a faithful guardian, and keep watch over the crown of oak between them. And just as my head with its uncropped hair is always young, so you also will wear the beauty of undying leaves. Paean had done: the laurel bowed her newly made branches, and seemed to shake her leafy crown like a head giving consent. . . . Tristia (Poems from Exile), Book X Three times the Danubes frozen with the cold, three times the Black Seas waves have hardened, since Ive been in Pontus. Yet I seem to have been absent from my country already for as long as the ten years Troy knew the Greek host. Youd think time stood still, it moves so slowly, and with lagging steps the year completes its course. For me the summer solstice hardly lessens the nights, and winter cant make the days any shorter. Surely natures been altered, in my case, and makes all things as tedious as my cares. Or is time running its course in the usual way, and its more this period of my life thats hard? Im trapped by the shore of the Euxine, that misnomer, and the truly sinister coast of the Scythian Sea. Innumerable tribes round about threaten fierce war, and think its a disgrace to exist without pillage. Nowheres safe outside: the hill itselfs defended by fragile walls, and the ingenuity of its siting. The enemy descends, when least expected, like birds, hardly seen before theyre taking away their plunder.
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Often when the gates are shut, inside, we gather arrows that fell in the middle of the streets. So the man who dares to farm the fields is rare, one hand grips the plough, the other a weapon. The shepherd plays his reed-pipe glued with pitch, under a helmet, and frightened sheep fear war not wolves. Were scarcely protected by the fortresss shelter: and even the barbarous crowd inside, mixed with Greeks, inspire fear, for the barbarians live amongst us, without discrimination, and also occupy more than half the houses. Even if you dont fear them, youd hate the sight of their sheepskins, their chests covered by their long hair. Those too, who are thought to descend from the Greek colony, wear Persian trousers instead of their ancestral clothing. They hold communication in the common tongue: I have to make myself understood by gestures. Here Im the barbarian no one comprehends, the Getae laugh foolishly at my Latin words. and they often talk maliciously to my face, quite safely, taunting me perhaps for my exile. As is usual they think theres something wrong about my only nodding no or yes to what to they say. Add to all this that the sharp sword dispenses justice unjustly, and wounds are often dealt in the forum. Oh harsh Lachesis, when I have such adverse stars, not to have granted a shorter thread to my life. That Im deprived of the sight of my country, and of you, my friends: that I sing of existence among the Scythian tribes: both are a heavy punishment. However much I deserved exile from the city, I didnt perhaps deserve to exist in such a place. Madman! What am I saying? In offending Caesars divine will, I also deserved to lose life itself. . . . . . I confess my strength of mind is weakened by misery.
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No one doubts Ulysses worldly wisdom, but even he prayed that he might see the smoke of his ancestral hearth again. Our native soil draws all of us, by I know not what sweetness, and never allows us to forget. Wheres better than Rome? Wheres worse than cold Scythia? Yet the homesick barbarian will still flee the City. Though Pandions daughter is fine, shut in her cage, she yearns to return to her woodlands. Bulls seek the pastures they know, and lions despite their wild natures seek their lairs. Yet you hope, by your palliatives, to remove the pangs of exile from my mind. Ensure that you and yours are not so dear to me, then it will be that much less painful to miss you. And, I suppose, though Im distant from my native land Ive still managed to end among human society. . . . . . Im here, abandoned, on the furthest shores of the world, where the buried earth carries perpetual snowfall. No fields bear fruit, or sweet grapes, here, no willows green the banks, no oaks the hills. Nor can you celebrate the sea rather than the land, the sunless waters ever heaving with the winds madness. Wherever you look are uncultivated levels, and the vast plains that no one owns. A dreadful enemys near to left and right, terrifying us on all sides with fear of our neighbours. One side expects to feel the Bistonian spears, the other arrows from Sarmatian hands. So quote the example of ancient heroes to me, ones who endured their fate with firm minds. . . . . . Accept this greeting, Severus, dear to my heart, sent to you by Ovid whom you loved. Dont ask how I am. If I told you all, youd weep.
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Its enough if you have a summary of my troubles. I live amongst endless conflict, deprived of peace, while the quiver-carrying Getae make cruel war. Of all those banished its I who am soldier and exile: the rest, I dont begrudge them, live in safety. And my books are more deserving of consideration, in that youre reading verses written while on watch. An old city stands on the banks of Hister, Danubes other name, barely vulnerable because of its walls and site. Aegisos the Caspian founded it, and gave it his name, if we can believe what its people tell of themselves. The fierce Getae captured it after they had destroyed the Odrysii in a shock war, taking arms against the king. He, remembering the mighty race his virtue adds to, arrived there at once supported by a vast army. He did not leave until hed crushed the bold spirit of that people, by a justified slaughter of the guilty. Bravest king of our times, may it be granted you to always wield the sceptre in your noble hand. What more could I ask on your behalf, than that, as now, warring Rome, and mighty Caesar, should approve of you? But remembering where I started, I complain, dear friend that savage warfares added to my troubles. The Pleiades, rising, announce the fourth autumn since I, thrust down to the shores of Styx, lost you. Dont think its so much the comforts of city life that Ovid looks for, though he does still seek them, for I recall in thought my sweet friends sometimes, sometimes I think of my dear wife and daughter: and I revisit the sites of the lovely city from my home, and my mind surveys it all with its own inward eye. Now the fora, now the temples, now the marbled theatres, now I think of each portico with its levelled grounds. Now the grassy Campus that faces the lovely gardens, the ponds and the canals, and the Aqua Virgo. But I suppose, the pleasures of the city being snatched away in my misery, that I should at least enjoy all this countryside!
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Its not so much that my heart desires the fields I lost, the noble landscapes of the Paelignian country, or those gardens sited on the pine-clad hills that view the junction of Via Clodia and Via Flaminia. I dont know who Ive cultivated them for: I used to add spring water to the beds myself, Im not ashamed to say: if theyre still living, there are certain trees there my hand planted, but Ill not be gathering their fruit. Despite those losses I wish it were possible to have a plot of ground at least to cultivate in my exile! If only I could Id like to be shepherd to the cliff-hanging goats: leaning on my staff, Id like to guard the grazing sheep myself. I myself would lead the oxen through the fields under the plough so my heart would not be fixed on its familiar sorrows, and learn the words the bullocks understand and go shouting the customary warnings to them. Id control the handle of the heavy ploughshare myself and try my hand at scattering seed in the furrowed earth. I wouldnt hesitate to clear the weeds with a long hoe, and supply the water that the thirsty garden drinks. Yet how, when theres only the thinnest of walls and a barred gate between me and the enemy? But the fatal goddesses, and it makes me rejoice with all my heart, spun strong threads at your birth. You have the Campus, or a colonnades dense shade, or the forum in which you spend so little time. Now Umbria calls you home, or the Appian Way leads you to the country on flashing wheels heading for your Alban estate. There perhaps you wish that Caesar might temper his anger, and your villa entertain me as a guest. Ah, my friend you ask too much: choose something less demanding, and trim the sails of prayer I beg you. I only desire a place nearer home, not exposed to war: then a major part of my troubles would be eased. . . . . .
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I dont beg to return to Rome, though we believe the great gods have often granted more than that prayer. If you granted me a milder, closer place of exile a large part of my punishment would be eased. Thrust among enemies, patiently I suffer the extremes, no exiles more distant from his native land. Im the only one sent to seven-mouthed Histers delta, Im crushed beneath virgin Callistos icy pole the Ciziges, the Colchi, the hordes of Teretei and Getae, are barely held back by the deep flood of the Danube and while others have been banished with greater cause, no ones assigned a remoter place than mine. Theres nothing further than this, except frost and foes, and the sea closed by the binding cold. So far north Rome extends, west of the Euxine Sea: the Basternae and the Sarmatians hold the nearby region. This is the furthest land subject to Italian law, barely clinging to the edges of your Empire. So, a suppliant, I beg you to banish me somewhere safe, so that peace as well as my home arent taken from me, so as not to fear the tribes the Danube scarcely checks, so your subject cant be captured by the enemy. Justice forbids any man of Roman blood to suffer barbarian chains while Caesars live.

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Martial

Marcus Valerius Martialis, the father of the epigram and the greatest of epigrammatists, was born at Bilbilis, in what was then Hispania Tarraconensis (now Spain), around 38-41 AD. His parents were probably not rich, but they gave the future poet a good education, a fact he afterwards acknowledges -- somewhat bitterly, having regard to its uselessness in that corrupt age as a means of making money. Somewhere around A.D. 63 or 64 he came to Rome in the last days of Nero, and led, apparently, the ordinary life of the needy client dependent on rich patrons, and he never ceases to complain of the weariness of levees to be attended, complimentary duties to be discharged at unreasonable hours and in all weathers, and of the insolence and stinginess of wealthy men. After his collection of peoms (Liber Spectacolorum) was published in AD 80, and with several other collections of epigrams published in 84 or 85, he became an important literary figure in Rome as he himself says, "known all over the world," and also widely plagiarised. At the end of his thirty-five years' residence in Rome, either as recognizing the fact that the new regime under Nerva or Trajan was not favourable to adulation of emperors, or from that general weariness of City life of which he constantly complains, and a longing to see again his native Bilbilis on the rough hill-side, he returned in A.D. 100 to Spain. He was destined never to return to Rome again; his death is dated around A.D. 104. Martial may well be the funniest serious poet who ever lived if you dont at least smile when reading some of the following, you have a sense of humor very different from mine. His picture of the world of clientela and of Rome at the turn of the first century AD is alternatively pornographic, hilarious, and informative. De Spectaculis: Rome restored Just here, where Neros skyey colossus sees stars, and the scaffolding towers up high, right in the way, once shone the nasty halls of that cruel king, and only the one Golden House in all of Rome. Just here, where the Amphitheatres honoured pile rises, towering before our eyes, was Neros lake. Just here, where we gaze at Tituss thermal baths, swift gift, proud acres razed the poor mans roof. Where the Claudian colonnade spreads wide its shade, that golden palaces outermost corner came to an end. Caesar, Romes back to herself, now youre in charge, and the masters pleasures are the peoples now.
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 1,34 Lesbia, why are your amours Always conducted behind open doors? Why do voyeurs please you more than your lovers? Why is pleasure no pleasure when it's under the covers? Look, whores use a curtain, a bolt, or a porter To bar the public -- ain't no chinks in the red-light quarter. Go ask the pros how to prepare a room: Even the cheapest tart conceals her business in a pseudo-tomb. If I seem too hard on you, remember my objection Isn't to fucking, but to detection. 1,38 They're mine, bt when a fool like you recites My poems, I resign my author's rights. 1,46 When you say "Quick! I'm going to come!" Hedylus, I go limp and numb. But ask me to hold back my fire And the brake helps to accelerate desire. Dear one, if you're in such a hurry Tell me to slow down, not to worry. 1,47 Diaulus, recently the physician, Has set up now as a mortician. No change, though, in the client's condition. 2,11 Observing Selius pacing to and fro And up and down Europa's portico Late in the day, brow clouded, listless air Hinting at secret sorrows, grotesque nose Grazing the gorund, hand clutching at his hair Or pummelling his breast -- you might suppose He'd lost a friend or brother. But the fact Is that his sons are flourishing - long life
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to both of them! -- his property's intact, His slaves are in good health, likewise his wife, His tenants pay, his bailiffs don't cheat. What's wrong with him? No one asks him out to eat. 2, 18 I angle for your dinner invitations (oh, the shame Of doing it, but I do it!). You fish elsewhere - so we're the same. I attend your morning levee, and they tell me you're not there, But gone to wait on someone else. We make a perfect pair. I'm your spaniel, I'm the toady to your every pompous whim. You court a richer patron. I dog you, and you dog him. To be a slave is bad enough, but I refuse to be A flunkey's flunkey, Maximus -- my master must be free. 2,27 When Selius spreads his nets for an invitation To dinner, if you're due to plead a cause In court, or give a poetry recitation, Take him along, he'll furnish your applause: "Well said!" "Hear, hear!" "Bravo!" "Shrewd point!" "That's good!" Till you say: "Shut up now, you've earned your food." 3, 68 Madam: my little book, so far, In its entirety Up to this point, has been for you; From now on, it's for me. The gym, the locker-room, the baths Are next; you'd better skip This part and go away, my dear, The men are going to strip. My muse is love-struck, staggering From all the wine and roses, She lays aside her shame and starts Assuming naughty poses, In no ambiguous terms she names Quite openly, that Thing Which haughty Venus welcomes
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In the rituals, in spring, That Thing which stands in gardens Scaring thieves with its great size, Which virgins peek at modestly With almost-covered eyes. . . . I know you, Madam: you were tired and just about to quit my lengthy little book: Now, you'll Devour all of it! III.72 You want a fuck, Saufeia But not the hot-tub larks. Something is very queer. Is it sagging boobs? Or is it just stretch marks? A gaping gash from overuse? A clitoris that's hanging loose? None of these. Stripped, you'd turn on guests And you'd look real cool. You have a worse fault, though - You are just a fool. iv.21 "God doesn't exist, there's no one in the skies," Says Segius. If it's justice he denies, He's right - would he be so wealthy otherwise? iv.49 Quite clueless, Flaccus, all these sorry folks Who brand short poems mere badinage and jokes. Want to know who's more idle? The big boys, Our Epic Poets, who rehearse the joys Of serving human flesh up la carte Tereus' bloody banquet or the huge tart
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Chez Thyestes ("It's a little gristly!"). Or they serve us crap, like how remissly Daedalus madewith wax, imagine!wings For his poor doomed son. Then Big Epic sings Of arms and thenot "man"one-eyed giant? Polyphemus: his brain was far from pliant, So Homer made him watch sheep in Sicily. Pardon me for carping so pissily, Flaccus, at insults to my epigrams, So far from the bloated whimsy that crams Our big-assed epics. All men blare in praise of these "classics," you say, and bask in their rays. I will not disagree, but mark my word: Some day, far off, a wise man will be heard To say, "Classics we all want to have read, Never to read." My books get read instead! vi.60 All Rome is mad about my book: It's praised, they hum the lines, shops stock it, It peeps from every hand and pocket. There's a man reading it! Just look - He blushes, turns pale, reels, yawns, curses, That's what I'm after. Bravo, verses! vii.90 Matho's one-word review of my small book: "Uneven." I'm supposed to get all shook! The scribblings of Calvinus and Umber Are very "even". . . yet how they lumber. I swear to you, Creticus, I thank God My gift is for being quite frankly "odd." vii.69 Rigidly classical, you save Your praise for poets in the grave. Forgive me, it's not worth my while
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Dying to earn your critical smile. ix.4 Galla'll be fucked for two pieces of gold. She'll do something more for two more, I'm told. Aeschylus, why does she get ten from you? Her blow jobs come cheaper. What then? Silence, too? We all know Galla's services as a whore Cost two gold bits; throw in a couple more And you get the fancy extras, too. Why, then, Does your bill, Aeschylus, amount to ten? She sucks off for far less than that. What is it You pay her for? For silence, after your visit? ix.50 You pontificate my talent is small, Gaurus, because my epigrams are all Just puny trifles. Yet they seem to please, I'll confess. They're a veritable breeze Compared to your epic tome, which rattles, In twelve mortal books, o'er Priam's battles. That makes you big man on campus? Oh no! As statuettes of master carvers glow With life, so do my tiny dramas boast Vital creatures. Your giants? Clay, at most. ix.81 Read or recited, my verse is much praised, Aulus, yet one poet opines: "Ill-phrased." I couldn't care less! When I set a table, My guests, not the cooks, should say I'm able. x.59 A whole damned page crammed with verseso you yawn!
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If a poem's too long you move swiftly on; "Shorter the better!" is your golden rule. But markets are scoured to make the tongue drool; A groaning board's setrich sauces for days And yet, dear reader, you want canaps? But I don't hunger for diners so prude: Hail meat and potatoesscrew finger food!

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Juvenal
Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis, known in English as Juvenal, was a Roman active in the late 1st and early 2nd century AD and the author of the Satires. Few details of his life are known with any certainty. He was born in Aquinum around 55 AD and died around 135 AD; he spent time as a pupil of the poet Quintillian, and apparently became an accomplished rhetorician. His career as a satirist began at a fairly late stage in his life; while he was not the originator of this most Roman of poetic forms (the Greeks, from whom the Romans adopted so many of their literary forms, had no equivalent to the Satires), he is today considered to be their greatest practitioner, and the Satires cover an encyclopedic range of topics across the Roman world and are a vital source for the study of ancient Rome from a vast number of perspectives. III Though Im disturbed by friend Umbriciuss departure, still I approve his decision to set up home in vacant Cumae . . . After all, is there anywhere thats so wretched and lonely You wouldnt rather be there than in constant danger of fire, Of collapsing buildings, and all of the thousand perils Of barbarous Rome, with poets reciting all during August! Now, while his whole house was being loaded onto a cart, He lingered there by the ancient arch of sodden Capena. We walked down to Egerias vale with its synthetic grottos. . . . Here it was that Umbricius spoke: Theres no joy in Rome For honest ability, and no reward any more for hard work. My means today are less than yesterday, and tomorrow Will wear away a bit more, thats why Im resolved To head for Cumae, where weary Daedalus doffed his wings. While my white-hairs are new, while old age stands upright, While Lachesis has thread left to spin, and I can still walk, On my own two feet, without needing a staff in my hand, Ill leave the ancestral land. Let Arturius, let Catulus live In Rome. Let the men who turn black into white remain, Who find it easy to garner contracts for temples, and rivers, Harbours, draining sewers, and carrying corpses to the pyre, Who offer themselves for sale according to auctioneers rules. Those erstwhile players of horns, those perpetual friends Of public arenas, noted through all the towns for their
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Rounded cheeks, now mount shows themselves, and kill To please when the mob demand it with down-turned thumbs; Then its back to deals for urinals, why not the whole works? Since theyre the ones Fortune raises up to the highest sphere Out of the lowest gutter, whenever she fancies a laugh. Whats left for me in Rome? I cant tell lies, I cant praise A book thats bad, beg a copy; Ive no notion of the motion Of stars; I cant and I wont prophesy someones fathers Death; Ive never guessed a thing from the entrails of frogs; Carrying to some adulterous wife whatever her lover sends, Whatever his message, others know how to do; Id never Help out a thief; and thats why Im never one of the boys, More like a cripple, with useless body and paralysed hand. Who is esteemed now unless hes someones accomplice, His mind seething with things that should never be told? Theres nothing they think they owe, theyll give nothing, To a person whos only their partner in harmless secrets. Verrus only cares for those who can make a case against Verrus whenever they wish. May the sand of Tagus mean Less to you, with all its gold that is washed down to the sea, Than lost sleep, and the sadness of taking regular bribes, And thus being forever afraid of some powerful friend. . . . . . That race most acceptable now to our wealthy Romans, That race I principally wish to flee, Ill swiftly reveal, And without embarrassment. My friends, I cant stand A Rome full of Greeks, yet few of the dregs are Greek! For the Syrian Orontes has long since polluted the Tiber, Bringing its language and customs, pipes and harp-strings, And even their native timbrels are dragged along too, And the girls forced to offer themselves in the Circus. Go there, if your tastes a barbarous whore in a painted veil. See, Romulus, those rustics of yours wearing Greek slippers, Greek ointments, Greek prize medallions round their necks. Hes from the heights of Sicyon, and hes from Amydon, From Andros, Samos, they come, from Tralles or Alabanda, Seeking the Esquiline and the Viminal, named from its willows. To become both the innards and masters of our great houses.
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Quick witted, of shamelessly audacity, ready of speech, more Lip than Isaeus, the rhetorician. Just say what you want them To be. Theyll bring you, in one person, whatever you need: The teacher of languages, orator, painter, geometer, trainer, Augur, rope-dancer, physician, magician, they know it all, Your hungry Greeks: tell them to buzz off to heaven, theyll go. Thats why it was no Moroccan, Sarmatian, or man from Thrace Who donned wings, but one Daedalus, born in the heart of Athens. Should I not flee these people in purple? Should I watch them sign Ahead of me, then, and recline to eat on a better couch than mine, Men propelled to Rome by the wind, with the plums and the figs? Is it nothing that in my childhood I breathed the Aventine air, Is it nothing that in my youth I was nurtured on Sabine olives? And arent they the people most adept at flattery, praising The illiterate speech of a friend, praising his ugly face, Likening a weak, scrawny neck to that of brave Hercules, When he lifted the massive Antaeus high above earth, And lost in their admiration for a voice as high-pitched As the cockerel when he pecks at his hen as they mate? We too can offer praise in just the same way: but they Are the ones believed. What comic actors better at playing Thais, the whore, or the wife, or Doris, the slave-girl, out Without her cloak? Its as if a woman were speaking not Merely a mask: youd think all was smooth and lacking Below the belly, and only split there by a slender crack. . . . . . Theyre a nation of comics. Laugh, and theyll be shaken With fits of laughter. They weep, without grief, if they see A friend in tears; if you pine for a little warmth in the winter They don a cloak; if you remark its hot theyll start to sweat. So were unequal: theyve a head start who always, day or night, Can adopt the expression they see on someones face, Whore always ready to throw up their hands and cheer If their friend belches deeply, or perhaps pisses straight, Or gives a fart when the golden bowls turned upside down. Besides, nothings sacred to them or safe from their cocks Not the lady of the house, or the virgin daughter, not Even her smooth-faced fianc, or the unbroken son. Failing that, theyll have the friends grandma on her back. They like to own the secrets of the house, and so be feared.
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 Then, not to flatter ourselves, what office or service is left For a poor man here, even if he dons his toga and dashes About in the dark, given the praetors hurrying his lictor Already, to run on with a morning greeting to rich Albina, Or childless, sleepless Modia, lest his colleagues there first? Here, a freeborn son is detailed to escort a rich mans slave: The latter can hand out gifts, worth as much as a military Tribune earns, to aristocratic Calvina or Catiena, just To writhe around on top of her once or twice; while you In love with the look of Chiones finery, halt in your tracks Hesitant about helping a whore descend from her high horse. Find me a knight in Rome as holy as Nasica, who escorted The image of Cybele, let Numa advance, or Caecilius Metellus, Who rescued Minervas fire-threatened statue, from Vestas temple: His character would be the very last thing discussed: money first. How many slaves does he own? How many acres of farmland? How extravagant are his banquets, how many courses served? The number of coins a man keeps in his treasure chest, thats All the credit he earns. Swear your oath on the altars of Rome Or Samothrace, theyll maintain, as youre poor, youll just flout The divine lightning bolt, with the gods themselves acquiescing. And what of the fact that the same poor beggar provides them all With matter and cause for amusement, if his cloaks dirty and torn, If his toga is weathered and stained, one shoe gaping open where The leather has split, or when theres more than one patch showing Where a rent has been stitched, displaying the coarse new thread? Theres nothing harder to bear about povertys wretchedness Than how it leaves you open to ridicule. Off you go theyll say, If youve any shame: dont dare sit here on a knights cushion, If youve insufficient wealth under the law, but theyll sit there All those sons of pimps, born in some vile brothel or other, Here the auctioneers slick son can sit to applaud the show, Beside the well-dressed lads of the gladiators and trainers. Thats how that fool Otho was pleased to dispose of us all. What prospective son-in-law can pass the test, here, if his wealth Is less, or his luggage worse than the girls? What pauper inherits? When do aediles vote them onto the council? The indigent citizens Should all have assembled, long ago, and migrated from the City. Its hard to climb the ladder when constricted private resources Block your talents, but at Rome the effort is greater still:
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Theyre expensive, wretched lodgings; expensive, the bellies Of slaves; and a meagre supper is just as expensive too. Youre ashamed to dine off earthenware plates, though you Would feel no disgust if suddenly spirited off to a Sabellan Or Marsian table, content in a poor mans coarse, blue hood. . . . . . What more can I say? Everything in Rome comes at a price. What do you not pay so you can say: Good morning, Cossus, So Veiento will condescend to give you a tight-lipped glance? This slaves beard is clipped, that ones lock of hairs dedicated; The house is full of celebratory cakes youve paid for: take one And keep your frustration to yourself. Clients are forced to pay Such tribute-money, and supplement the savings of sleek slaves. Who fears, or ever feared, that their house might collapse, In cool Praeneste, or in Volsinii among the wooded hills, Or at unpretentious Gabii, or the sloping hills of Tibur? We inhabit a Rome held up for the most part by slender Props; since thats the way management stop the buildings Falling down; once theyve covered some ancient yawning Crack, theyll tell us to sleep soundly at the edge of ruin. The place to live is far from all these fires, and all these Panics in the night. Ucalegon is already summoning a hose, Moving his things, and your third floors already smoking: Youre unaware; since if the alarm was raised downstairs, The last to burn will be the one a bare tile protects from The rain, up there where gentle doves coo over their eggs. Cordus had a bed, too small for Procula, and six little jugs Of earthenware to adorn his sideboard and, underneath it, A little Chiron, a Centaur made of that very same marble And a box somewhat aged now, to hold his Greek library, So the barbarous mice gnawed away at immortal verse. Cordus had nothing, who could demur? Yet, poor man, He lost the whole of that nothing. And the ultimate peak Of his misery, is that naked and begging for scraps, no one Will give him a crust, or a hand, or a roof over his head. If Assaracuss great mansion is lost, his mothers in mourning, The nobles wear black, and the praetor adjourns his hearing. Then we bewail the state of Rome, then we despair of its fires.
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While its still burning, theyre rushing to offer marble, already, Collect donations; one man contributes nude gleaming statues, Another Euphranors master-works, or bronzes by Polyclitus, Or antique ornaments that once belonged to some Asian god, Here books and bookcases, a Minerva to set in their midst, There a heap of silver. Persicus, wealthiest of the childless, Is there to replace whats lost with more, and better things. Hes suspected, and rightly so, of setting fire to his own house. If you could tear yourself from the Games, you could buy A most excellent place, at Sora, at Fabrateria or Frusino, For the annual rent you pay now, for a tenement in Rome. There youd have a garden, and a well not deep enough To demand a rope, so easy watering of your tender plants. Live as a lover of the hoe, and the master of a vegetable bed, From which a hundred vegetarian Pythagoreans could be fed. Youd be somebody, whatever the place, however remote, If only because youd be the master of a solitary lizard. Many an invalid dies from insomnia here, though the illness Itself is caused by partially digested food, that clings tight To the fevered stomach; for, where can you lodge and enjoy A good nights sleep? You have to be filthy rich to find rest In Rome. Thats the source of our sickness. The endless traffic In narrow twisting streets, and the swearing at stranded cattle, Would deprive a Claudius of sleep, or the seals on the shore. When duty calls, the crowd gives way as the rich mans litter, Rushes by, right in their faces, like some vast Liburnian galley, While he reads, writes, sleeps inside, while sped on his way: You know how a chair with shut windows makes you drowsy! Yet, he gets there first: as I hasten, the tide ahead obstructs me, And the huge massed ranks that follow behind crush my kidneys; This man sticks out his elbow, that one flails with a solid pole, This man strikes my head with a beam, that one with a barrel. Legs caked with mud, Im forever trampled by mighty feet From every side, while a soldiers hobnailed boot pierces my toe. Do you see all the smoke that rises, to celebrate a hand-out? Theres a hundred diners each followed by his portable kitchen. . . . . . And now lets consider all the other varied dangers, at night: What a long way it is for a tile from the highest roof to fall On your head; how often a cracked and leaky pot plunges down
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From a sill; what a crash when they strike the pavement, chipping And cracking the stones. If you go out to dinner without making A will, youre thought of as simply careless, dismissive of those Tragic events that occur: there are as many opportunities to die, As there are open windows watching you, when you go by, at night. So Id make a wretched wish and a prayer, as you go, that theyll Rest content with simply emptying their brimming pots over you. The impudent drunks annoyed if by chance theres no one at all To set upon, spending the whole night grieving, like Achilles for His friend, lying now on his face, and then, turning onto his back: Since its the only way he can tire himself; it takes a brawl or two To send him to sleep. But however worked up he is, fired by youth And neat wine, he steers clear of him in the scarlet cloak, who issues A warning as he goes on his way, with his long retinue of attendants, And plenty of torches besides and lamps of bronze. Yet despises me, As I pass by, by the light of the moon, as usual, or the flickering light Of a candle, whose wick I take great care off, and cautiously regulate. Take note of the setting awaiting a wretched fight, if you call it a fight Where one of us lashes out, and the other one, me, takes a beating. He stands up, and he tells me to stop. Ive no choice but to obey; What can you do, when a madman is giving the orders, whos stronger Than you as well? Whereve you been? he shouts, Whose sour wine And beans have you been downing? Which shoemakers were you at, Filling your face with boiled sheeps head, gorging it on fresh leeks? Nothing to say? Youd better speak up fast, or get a good kicking! Tell me where youre staying: what far field are you praying in? If you try to say something, or try to retreat in silence, its all the same: Hell give you a thumping regardless, and then still full of anger, say Hes suing you for assault. This is the freedom accorded to the poor: When theyre beaten, knocked down by fists, they can beg and plead To be allowed to make their way home afterwards with a few teeth left. And thats not all we need to fear; therell be no shortage of thieves To rob you, when the houses are all locked up, when all the shutters In front of the shops have been chained and fastened, everywhere silent. And, ever so often, theres a vagabond with a sudden knife at work: Whenever the Pontine Marsh, or the Gallinarian Forest and its pines, Are temporarily rendered safe by an armed patrol, the rogues skip From there to here, heading for Rome as if to a game preserve. Where is the furnace or anvil not employed for fashioning chains? The bulk of our iron is turned into fetters; you should worry about An imminent shortage of ploughshares, a lack of mattocks and hoes. You might call our distant ancestors fortunate, fortunate those ages Long ago, when lives were lived under the rule of kings and tribunes,
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Those generations, that witnessed a Rome where a single prison sufficed. I could add a host of other reasons to these, but the beasts of burden Are braying, the sun is setting. Its time for me to leave; the muleteer Has been waving his whip, to signal hes been ready to go for a while. So farewell, keep me in your memory, and whenever Rome sends You hastening back, for a rest in the country, to your own Aquinum, Invite me from Cumae too, to visit the Ceres of Helvius, and your Diana. Ill come in my nail-shod boots, Ill come and visit your chilly Fields, and, if theyre not totally shameful, Ill listen to your Satires. Satire XI: . . . . If Atticus, the wealthy, dines well, hes the height of elegance, If Rutilus does so, hes mad. What sparks louder laughter in The public than a bankrupt gourmet?Every dinner-party, Every bathhouse, square, and theatre is talking of Rutilus. While his limbs are young, they say, and strong enough, for Him to fight in a helmet, while his blood still burns hotly Hes about to sign up to the code of the gladiatorial school, With its royal decrees, free of the tribunes pressure or veto. You can find plenty like him, whose only reason for living Is to satisfy their palate, whose creditors, barely eluded, Frequently lie in wait for them at the gate of the market. The most poverty-stricken gourmet will dine in choicest And richest style, though facing ruin; the cracks apparent, Hell still be searching the four elements for appetisers, Price no obstacle to his desire; indeed, if you watch closely, He delights all the more in whatever proves most expensive. Hell not hesitate for a moment about raising liquid funds By pawning the silver, or melting down mothers statue. Hell not hesitate a moment to spend four thousand in gold Spicing his gourmet dishes; only to eat stew with the gladiators. It depends who holds the feast, then; Rutilus spells extravagance, But the expense in Ventidius case is laudable and his wealth Increases his fame and reputation.Its right to despise the man Who knows how superior Mount Atlas is in height to the other Towering summits of Libya, yet hasnt the least idea how small His purse is compared with a treasure chest thats bound in iron. The saying know yourself is of heavenly origin,
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It should be fixed in the memory, dwelt on in the heart, whether Youre seeking a wife, or aim for a place in the sacred Senate; Thersites had no wish to win the contest for Achilles armour, That breastplate in which Ulysses made an exhibition of himself. If its you who affect to defend a difficult and highly important Case, then take counsel with yourself, askyourself what you are, A powerful orator, or merely a windbag, like Curtius or Matho? You must know your measure, and be conscious of it in great Things and in small, even for instance when youre buying fish; No point in desiring mullet, if your purse only runs to gudgeon! Think of the fate that awaits you, as your wallet grows leaner While your appetite increases, when youve sunk your paternal, Inheritance, your property, your silver plate, all of that heavy Stuff, with all your fields and herds, in your spacious stomach. With spendthrift lords the last to go is the Roman knights gold Ring, after which Pollio ends by begging with a naked finger. Its not a premature demise, an early funeral, the extravagant Should fear, but old age, that is more to be feared than death. Theres the usual progression: theyll borrow money in Rome And squander it in the lenders face; then, while theres still A small amount left theyll flee for Baiae and its oyster-beds. Its no worse these days to be declared bankrupt, than move The other way, to the Esquiline from the seethe of Subura. The only grief they experience fleeing the City, their only Regret, is having to miss a year of races in the Circus. Theres not a trace of a blush on their faces: Shame is Mocked as she hastens from Rome, few seek to detain her. Now youll discover, Persicus, whether I live up to this fine talk In reality, in my style of living and my behaviour, or whether Though singing the praises of beans, Im really a gourmet at heart, Ask my slave for porridge in public, but whisper tart in his ear? Now youve promised to be my guest, Ill be your King Evander, While youll be Hercules, hero of Tiryns, or that lesser guest Aeneas, who could still count a goddess in his family tree. Listen to what Ill serve, without recourse to the market. From my Tiburtine farm comes a little kid, the most tender, The plumpest, of the herd, thats as yet unacquainted with Grazing, that hasnt yet dared to nibble the hanging willow Shoots, theres more milk than blood in its veins; then wild Asparagus, picked by my stewards wife when shes finished
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Her weaving; large eggs, still warm, wrapped in wisps of hay, Accompanying the hens themselves; and grapes kept for half A year, still as good as they were when they hung on the vine; Syrian and Signian pears; and in the same baskets of fruit Fresh-smelling apples equalling those from Picenum; dont Fret, their autumnal juice has been tempered by frost, And theyve shed that dangerous lack of ripeness. In the Old days, this would already have seemed a luxurious feast To the Senate. Manius Curius Dentatus would cook humble Greens, picked in the garden, on his modest hearth, now Every squalid ditch-digger in the chain-gang would refuse it, While reminiscing about the tripe he ate in some steaming diner. It was the tradition long ago to hang a side of salted pork From the wide-barred rack ready for festive occasions, and To serve your relations a birthday meal of bacon, with fresh Meat too, if you received a cut from the sacrificial victim. Even a relative, three-times consul, whod held the office Of dictator, and whod commanded armies, would still Hurry back for such a feast, earlier than usual, carrying His spade on his shoulder, from some hillside hed tamed. In the days when they trembled before the Fabii and Scauri, Fabricius, and stern Cato, when the strict censors rigid Moral code caused even his colleague to shiver with fear, No one pondered, as a matter for serious consideration, What species of tortoise swimming the Oceans wave, Might make a fine and notable headrest for the elite; Their couches were modest with bare sides, the bronze Front displaying an asss head garlanded with vines, Around which the playful rural children would frolic. Their homes and their furniture matched their cuisine. Then soldiers were simple men, ignorant of Greek art, And theyd break up cups made by great craftsmen, Their share of the spoils from some conquered city, So their horses could be decked with the trappings, And their helmets be studded with scenes their foes Might gaze at, as they died; fate commanding the wolf To be tame, that sucked Romulus; or the twins in the cave; Or their father, Mars, descending, no shield or spear. And thus they served their porridge in Tuscan bowls: Their silver served solely to make their armour gleam.
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You could envy all that, if you were the envious sort! And the power of the shrines was more tangible then, A voice in the depths of night echoed in silent Rome, When the Gauls were on the march from the Ocean shore, And the gods acting as prophets.Such, Jupiters warning, Such the protection he offered Latium, when his image Was fashioned from pottery, not tarnished by gold. In those days you saw home-made tables crafted from Our own trees; the wood was stacked for use, if some Ancient walnut tree was overturned by an easterly wind. But now the rich get no pleasure from dining; the turbot, The venison are tasteless; the roses and fragrances foul, Unless the great round tabletop is held up by a massive Ivory pillar, a rampant snarling leopard made of tusks Imported from Aswan, Gate of Syene, by the swift Moors, or the Indian traders, even more dark-skinned; Tusks that the elephants drop in the glades of Nabatea, When they prove too large and heavy.It stirs the appetite, And strengthens the stomach; a pedestal made of silver, Would be like a plebeian iron ring on the finger. So I Avoid the snobbish guest, who compares me to himself, And despises my meagre resources. I own not an ounce Of ivory, neither dice nor abacus beads made of the stuff, Even the handles of my knives are fashioned out of bone. Yet theyve never made the fish or bread I serve rancid, Nor is the chicken I carve any the worse for that reason. . . . . . All my slaves dress alike, their hair is cut short and straight, And its only been combed today because of the dinner I give. This ones a tough shepherds son, this ones fathers a drover. That one sighs for the mother hes not seen for so many days, Pines for his little cottage, and the goats that he knew so well, Hes a noble face, and his sense of honour is noble, both are Fit to adorn those who are clothed in the glowing purple toga; His voice hasnt broken, he doesnt display his teenage balls At the baths, he hasnt yet offered his armpits for plucking, Nor does he nervously hide his swollen cock with an oil-flask. The wine hell serve you was casked in the very same hills He comes from, and below whose summits he played. Perhaps youre expecting the sound of tunes from Cadiz,
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To set you going, dancing girls shimmying to the floor, Wiggling their bottoms around to appreciative applause. Young wives watch such, reclining beside their spouses, Even though you may be too embarrassed to describe it. It has the effect of arousing jaded desire, fiercely too, Like stinging nettles; swelling more and more, until With its sights and sounds, the pent up liquid flows. My humble home excludes such nonsense. Let the man Enjoy the clacking castanets; words from which even The naked slave, for sale in a rank brothel, will abstain; Let him delight in filthy language and pornographic art; Whose spat out wine-dregs oil his Spartan marble floor; My dinner today will offer another kind of enjoyment: Well have recitations from Homer, and Virgils verse Resonating on high, each challenging for supremacy. What matter whose voice delivers such words as those? But now relinquish care, put business aside, and treat Yourself to a pleasant interlude, in which you may Idle the whole day away. Therell be not a mention Of payments due; nor shall you let your wife arouse Your silent anger, though shes out from dawn to dusk, Though she comes back in the dark, her flimsy dress Clinging to her, and suspiciously wrinkled, her hair All over the place, and her face and ears still aglow. Throw off whatever annoys you at my door, leave House and slaves behind, whatever theyve smashed Or lost, and forget above all your friends ingratitude. Here the rows of spectators celebrate the Idaean rites, And the Megalesias starting flag; the praetors already Seated there in triumph: hes paid for the teams, and if I Dare say so, without offending the vast, the excessive Crowd, the Circus contains the whole of Rome today; That ear-splitting noise tells me the Greens have won. For if theyd lost youd see this City of ours muted And in mourning, as when the consuls lost their battle In Cannaes dust. Let the youngsters watch, theirs is The clamour, the daring bets, a stylish girl at their side: My wrinkled hide would rather drink the spring sunlight, And shed its toga. You can head for the baths already,
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With a clear conscience, though its an hour till noon. Its not something you will do every day of the week, Since even this sort of life grows excessively boring: Our pleasures are deepened by less frequent indulgence. Satire XIII: Setting a bad example wont make the perpetrator feel pleased. Thats the first manner in which life takes its revenge, that no One whos guilty absolves themselves, in their own judgement, Though he be a praetor whos corrupt influence rigged a vote. So why should anyone be surprised, Calvinus, at recent events, The wicked crime, a matter of trust betrayed? Its not as though Youre a person of such slender means the weight of this modest Loss will sink you, nor is your experience something thats rarely Known: its the kind of bad luck familiar to many a person, banal These days, a card thats plucked from fortunes outspread hand. Put an end to your excessive grief. Ones indignation should not Burn more fiercely than fitting, nor be greater than ones injury; Yet you can scarcely endure the slightest, the least, the tiniest Particle of hurt, youre all in a blaze, with your innards seething, Because your friend wont return that sacred sum of money you Entrusted to him. Why should that surprise someone with sixty Years behind him, a man who was born in Fonteius consulship? Have you gained not an ounce of profit from all your experience? Surely those precepts are fine which the sacred books of wisdom Offer; the wisdom to overcome fate, and yet we also consider Those people fortunate, who have learned from lifes teachings To endure unpleasant things, and to bow and not resist the yoke. What day is so full of good luck it fails to produce theft, fraud, And betrayal, and the benefits gained by other sorts of crime, The wealth thats gained through the sword or the poison chest? The good are rare: count them, there are scarcely as many as There were gates to Thebes, or mouths draining the rich Nile. Its the ninth century of Rome now, an era even worse than The age of iron, and Nature herself can find no name for its Wickedness, she has no baser metal left to provide a label. Whats the point of invoking the aid of men and gods, with The clamour Faesidius noisy crew makes, cheering him on, For a handout? Say, old man, for whom a lads gold charms More fitting, dont you know the lure of other peoples cash?
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Dont you know how your simplicity moves the crowd to Laughter, when you demand no one perjure himself, when You seek divinity in lofty temples, on blood-stained altars? The natives once lived that way, until Saturn was forced to Forsake his crown, and grabbed the rustic sickle as he fled; Back then, when Juno was but a child, and Jupiter lived as A private individual in the caverns of Cretan Mount Ida; There were no heavenly banquets then above the clouds No Ganymede, no Hebe, Hercules wife, as cupbearers, No Vulcan, once the nectar was poured, wiping his arms, Black with soot from his Liparean forge and workshop. Each god dined alone, nor was there the crowd of gods That exists today; the heavens being content with only A handful of deities, and weighing more lightly on Atlas Shoulders; grim Pluto had not yet drawn his lot, winning His kingdom in the depths, wedding Sicilian Proserpine; No Ixions wheel, no Furies, no Sisyphean rock, or dark Vultures for Tityos; just happy shades, no infernal rulers. In that age wickedness was greeted with astonishment. They thought it a primal sin, one punishable by death, If a young man refused to defend his elders, or a boy To defend anyone with a beard, even if his own home Did possess more berries, or a larger heap of acorns; So revered was even four years seniority, and the first Signs of a beard were the equivalent of sacred old age. These days if a friend fails to renege on your agreement, And returns your purse to you with all its rusting metal, Its a marvel of fidelity, a portent fit for the prophetic Etruscan books, or the sacrifice of a garlanded lamb. If I come across an outstandingly honest man, I rank It with some monstrous embryo, or a fish turned up, Amazingly, by the plough, or a pregnant mule; as Stunned as if it rained stones, or as if a hive of bees Had swarmed in a great cluster on the roof of a shrine, Or as if a swift-flowing eddying river of milk, with its Whirling vortices, had rushed precipitously to the sea. . . . . . Who believes that the world goes on its way without guidance, And that nature brings on the succession of days and years; Who will therefore touch any altar you like without concern,
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Others believe the gods exist, yet still commit perjury, saying To themselves; Isis may choose to do what she wishes with My body; let her strike me blind with an angry shake of her Rattle, so long as, sightless, I keep the cash Ill deny receiving. Lung disease, or festering abscesses, or even the loss of a leg Are worth it. Though Ladas, the runner, were poor, he should Still have no hesitation, unless hes mad or dying, in praying For the rich mans gout; for what does the glory of swiftness Bring after all, or thirsting for that wreath of Olympian olive? Though the gods anger is great, its slow indeed to take effect. How long might it take before they trouble me? I may even Find the powers that be are indulgent; ready to forgive all this. The same crimes are committed but with very different results: One mans prize for his sins is crucifixion, anothers is a crown. His heart trembling in terror at his vile trespass, this is how he Calms himself. When you summon him to the sacred shrine, Hes ahead of you, drags you there, ready to vex you further; When the cause is ill, given endless audacity, such confidence Appear highly convincing. Hes acting out a farce, like that Fugitive jester in Catulluss witty mime, while you, wretched Fool are roaring, loudly enough, it would seem, to out-do Stentor, Just as Mars roars in Homers Iliad: Jupiter, can you hear all this, Yet not utter a word: surely you must speak out, though your lips Be made of marble or bronze? Why else do we unwrap the incense So piously, or the sliced calfs liver, or the pieces of white pork-fat To add to the glowing coals? As far as I can see theres not a jot of Difference between your statue and one of big-mouthed Vagellius. Alternatively, accept this solace, worthy of being offered even By one whos not read the Cynics; or the dogmas of the Stoics, Distinguishable from the Cynics by their shirts; or delighted With Epicurus, happy with the plants in his miniscule garden. Difficult illnesses should be cared for by the greatest of doctors: But even one of Philippus students would do to take your pulse. If theres no more detestable crime you can point to in the whole Of the world than this, Ill be silent, I wont stop you beating Your chest with your fists, or smacking your face with the flat Of your hand. After all, after a loss you close the doors; cash Is mourned, throughout the house, with a louder moaning and Wailing than a death; no one feigns grief in such a matter, or Remains content with merely ripping the hems of his clothes, Or simply making his eyes sore with his simulated weeping; When its money thats gone astray we grieve with real tears.
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However, if every court you see is full of similar complaints, If when a documents been pored over ten times by the other Party, the signature is later declared false, and the whole thing Worthless, condemned by ones very handwriting, ones seal, That prince of sardonyx stones, kept secure in an ivory chest, Why do you, O precious creature, think your case should be Judged extraordinary? What? Are you the child of a white hen, While we are common chicks hatched from misfortunes eggs? Its a minor thing youve experienced, it calls for modest anger, One youve cast your eyes on more serious crimes. Compare The hired thief, or the deliberate fire thats started with matches, The front door revealing the first effect of the flames; Compare Those who steal huge venerable rusted chalices from the ancient Temples, given us by nations, or crowns once dedicated by kings; If those valuables are lacking, some lesser vandal appears wholl Sacrilegiously scrape the gold from Hercules thigh or Neptunes Face, or go stripping the thin gold leaf from the statue of Castor; Compare the manufacturers and dealers in poison, the parricide Who deserves to be thrown in the sea in an ox-skin, along with The ill-fated ape, an innocent, but nevertheless sewn in as well. Thats but a part of the wickedness Gallicus, Prefect of the City, Hears all day, from the morning stars setting to that of the sun! A single courtroom is sufficient if you want to understand the Behaviour of humankind; spend a few days there, then dare to Call yourself unfortunate, once youre far away from the place. Whats so surprising about goitre in the Alps, or about a breast In Meroe, beside the Ethiopian Nile, bigger than its fat baby? Who gapes now at those blue-eyed Germans with their yellow Hair, with their greasy curls all twisted into their pointed braids? Imagine a Pygmy warrior in miniature armour who suddenly Runs towards a raucous cloud of Thracian birds and is grabbed By a savage crane in an instant, and carried off through the air In its curved beak, no match for his enemy. If you saw that here, Among the crowd, then you might shake with laughter; but there, Where the whole armys no more than a foot tall, no one laughs.

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