WHAT?  Am I always to be a listener only?  Am                 
I never going to get to pay back for having been so
often annoyed by the Theseid ¹ of the ranting Cordus?
Shall this one have spouted to me his comedies, and
that one his love ditties, and I be unavenged?  Shall
I have no revenge on one who has taken up the
whole day with an interminable Telephus,² or with
an Orestes,² which, after filling the margin at the top
of the roll and the back as well, hasn't even yet
come to an end?  No one knows his own house so ^T                            
well as I know the groves of Mars, and the cave of
Vulcan near the cliffs of Aeolus.  What the winds                                       
are brewing; whose souls ^T Aeacus ³ has on the rack;
from what country another guy ⁴ is sneaking off with
that little golden fleece; ^T how big are the ash trees
which Monychus ⁵ hurls as missiles: these are the
themes with which Fronto's ⁶ plane trees and marble
halls are forever ringing until the pillars quiver and
quake under the continual recitations; such is the
kind of stuff you may look for from every poet,
greatest or least.  Well, I too have withdrawn my hand
from under the cane; I too have counselled Sulla to

retire from public life and sleep ^T more deeply;¹ when
you jostle against poets at every corner, it is a foolish 
forbearance to spare paper that will be wasted
anyway.  But if you can give me time, and will listen
quietly to reason, I will tell you why I prefer to run
in the same course over which the great son of
Aurunca ² drove his horses.
    When a soft eunuch takes to matrimony, and
a woman, holding a spear with breast exposed,
to piercing boar in Tuscany; when a fellow under whose
razor my stiff youthful beard used to grate ³ challenges,
with his single wealth, the whole nobility; when a                                       
guttersnipe of the Nile like Crispinus ⁴ --a slave-born
denizen of Canopus ⁵ --hitches a Tyrian cloak on to
his shoulder, while on his sweating finger he airs a
summer ring of gold, unable to endure the weight of
a heavier gem--it is hard not to write satire.  For
who can be so patient with this monstrous city, so
made of  iron, as to contain himself when the brand-
new litter of the lawyer Matho comes along, filled
with his huge self; and after him one who has informed
against his noble patron and will soon sweep away
the remnant of our nobility already gnawed to the
bone--one whom Massa ⁶ dreads, whom Carus ⁶
appeases by a bribe, and to whom Thymele ⁷ was
sent by the terrified Latinus;⁷ when you are
thrust aside by men who earn inheritances by night,
and are raised to heaven by that now royal road to
high preferment--the favours of an aged and
wealthy woman?  Each of the lovers will have

   ¹ Referring to the retirement of Sulla from public life in
B.C. 79.  Such themes would be prescribed to schoolboys as
rhetorical exercises, of the kind called suasoriae.  See Mayor's
n. and Sat. vii. 150-170.
   ² Lucilius, the first Roman satirist, B.C. 180-103 [born in Aurunca].
   ³ Some barber who had made a fortune [i.e. nouveau rich].
The line is repeated in Sat. x. 226.
   ⁴ A favourite aversion of Juvenal's as a rich Egyptian
parvenu who had risen to be princeps equitum .  See Sat. 
iv.   1, 14, 108.       
   ⁵ A city in the Nile Delta  [known for its immorality].
   ⁶ Notorious informers under Domitian [apparently even
these informers had to fear this other informer].
   ⁷ Both actors: the allusion is not known [The acting profession
was associated with prostitution so a sexual bribe may have been
the intent].

his share; Proculeius a twelfth part, Gillo eleven
parts, each in proportion to the magnitude of his
services.  By all means let each take the price of his
own blood, and turn as pale as a man who has trodden
upon a snake bare-footed, or of one who awaits his
turn to orate before the altar at Lugdunum.¹
    Why tell how my heart burns dry with rage
when I see the people hustled by a mob of retainers
attending on one who has defrauded and debauched
his ward, or on another who has been condemned by
a futile verdict--for what matters infamy if the cash
be kept?  The exiled Marius ² carouses from the
eighth hour of the day and revels in the wrath of
Heaven, while you, poor Province, win your cause
and weep!
    Must I not deem these things worthy of the
Venusian's ³ lamp?  Must I not have my fling at them?
Should I do better to tell tales about Hercules, or Dio-
mede, or the bellowing in the Labyrinth, or about the
flying carpenter ⁴ and the lad ⁵ who splashed into
the sea; and that in an age when the compliant
husband, if his wife may not lawfully inherit,⁶ takes
money from her lover, being well trained to keep
his eyes upon the ceiling, or to snore (though awake
with his nose in his wine cup; an age when one who
has squandered all his family fortune on horse
stalls ^T thinks it right and proper to look for the
command of a cohort?  See him flying in his chariot
at break-neck speed like a very Automedon,⁷ along
the Flaminian way, holding the reins himself, while
he shows himself off to his great-coated mistress!

   ¹ Alluding to a rhetorical contest instituted at Lyons by
Caligula (Suet. Cal . 20).  Severe and humiliating punishments
were inflicted on those defeated in these contests.  [It was
believed sexual indulgence caused loss of blood/paleness]
   ² Condemned for extortion in Africa [the "poor Province"] in
A.D. 100.  ["paid an inadequate fine"  Miller  - hence the "futile
verdict"]    
   ³ Horace was born at Venusia B.C . 65.  [A lamp was used to
write at night.]
   ⁴ Daedalus.          ⁵ Icarus.
   ⁶ i.e. be legally incapacitated from taking an inheritance.
   ⁷ The charioteer of Achilles.

    Would you not like to fill up a large note-book
at the street crossings when you see a forger borne
along upon the necks of six porters, and exposed to
view on this side and on that in his nearly unveiled
litter, and reminding you of the lounging Maecenas:
one who by help of a scrap of paper and a moistened
seal has converted himself into a fine and wealthy
gentleman?
    Then up comes a lordly dame who, when her
husband wants a drink, mixes toad's poison with his
mellow Calenian,¹ and improving upon Lucusta ²
herself, teaches her unsophisticated neighbours to brave
the talk of the town and carry forth to burial the black-
ened corpses of their husbands.  If you want to be
anybody nowadays, you must dare some crime that
merits narrow Gyara ³ or a prison; honesty is praised
and then feels the cold of neglect.  It is to their crimes
that men owe their pleasure-grounds and palaces, their
fine tables and antique silver goblets with goats standing
out in relief.  Who can sleep for thinking of the greedy
seducer of his daughter-in-law, of shameful brides,
or of juvenile adulterers?  If natural ability denies me,                                                         
still indignation will  prompt my verse, of whatever                     
kind it be--such verse as I can write, or Cluvienus! ⁴
    From the day when the rain-clouds lifted up the
waters, and Deucalion climbed that mountain in his
ship to seek an oracle--that day when stones grew
soft and warm with life, and Pyrrha showed maidens
in nature's garb to men--all the doings of mankind,
their vows, their fears, their angers and their pleasures,
their joys and goings to and fro, shall form the motley
subject of my little book.  For when was Vice more

   ¹ Calenian and Falernian were two of the most famous
Roman wines.
   ² A notorious poisoner under Nero.
   ³ A small island in the Aegean Sea on which criminals
were confined.
   ⁴ Unknown; some scribbler of the day.

rampant?  When did the purse of Avarice gape wider?
When was gambling so reckless?  Men come not now
with purses to the hazard of the gaming table, but with
a strong-box beside them.  What battles will you
there see waged with a treasurer for armour-bearer!
Is it a simple form of madness to lose a hundred
thousand sesterces, and not have a shirt to give to a
shivering slave?  Which of our grandfathers built
such numbers of villas, or dined by himself off seven
courses?  Look now at the meager dole set down
upon the threshold for a toga-clad mob to scramble
for!  Yet the patron first peers into your face, fearing
that you may be claiming under someone else's name:
once recognized, you will get your share.  He then
bids the crier call up the blue-blooded nobles--for
they too besiege the door as well as we:  "The
Praetor first," says he, "and after him the Tribune."
"But I was here first," says a freedman who stops
the way; "why should I be afraid, or hesitate to
keep my place?  Though born on the Euphrates --a
fact which the effeminate loopholes in my ears would                                 
testify to though I myself denied it--yet I am the owner
of five shops which bring me in four hundred thou-
sand sesterces. ¹  What better thing does the Broad
Purple ² bestow if a Corvinus ³ watches over rented
sheep in the Laurentian country, while I possess
more property than either a Pallas or a Licinus?" ⁴
So let the Tribunes await their turn; let money
carry the day; let the sacred office ⁵ give way to one
who came but yesterday with whitened ⁶ feet into

   ¹ The temple of Concord, near the Capitol.  Storks built
their nests on the temple.
   ² A statue of Apollo in the Forum Augusti.
   ³ Probably an allusion to Julius Alexander, a Jew who was
Prefect of Egypt A.D. 67-70.

sea, lying alone upon an empty couch; yes, at a
single meal from their many fine, large and antique
tables they devour whole inheritances.  Before
long no parasite will be left !  Who can bear to
see luxury so mean?  What a huge gullet to have
a whole boar--an animal created for conviviality--
served up to it!  But you will soon pay for it, my
friend, when you take off your clothes, and with
distended stomach carry your peacock into the bath
undigested !  Hence sudden deaths and old men
without wills:^T the new but not unhappy tale runs the
round of every dinner-table, and the corpse is carried
forth to burial amid the cheers of enraged clients! ^T
    To these ways of ours Posterity will have no-
thing to add; our grandchildren will do the same
things, and desire the same things, that we do.  All
vice is at its height; ¹ so up with your sails and shake
out every stitch of canvas!  Here perhaps you will
say, "Where to find the talent to match the theme?
Where to find that freedom of our forefathers to write
whatever the burning soul desired?  ' What man is
there that I dare not name?  What does it matter
whether Mucius forgives my words or not? ² '  "But
just describe Tigellinus ³ and you will blaze amid                        
those faggots in which men, with their throats
fixed fast, stand and burn and smoke, ^T and you ⁴ will
trace a broad furrow through the middle of the arena

    What?  Is a man who has administered poison
to half a dozen uncles to ride by and look down
on us from his swaying feather-pillows?  "Yes;
and when he comes near you, put your finger to your
lip: he who but says the word, ' That's the man! ' will
be counted as an informer.  You may set Aeneas and
the brave Rutulian ¹ a-fighting with an easy mind;
it will hurt no one's feelings to hear how Achilles
was slain, or how Hylas ² was searched for when
he tumbled after his pitcher.  But when Lucilius roars
and rages as if with sword in hand, the hearer, whose
soul is cold with crime, grows red; he sweats with
the secret consciousness of sin.  Hence wrath and
tears.  So turn these things over in your mind before
the trumpet sounds; once the helmet is donned, it is
too late to turn back from the battle."  Then will I
try and say what I might about those notables whose
ashes lie under the Flaminian and Latin ³ roads.

cohort: "A body of about five or six hundred soldiers; the tenth part of a legion."

And after he had spoken, they resolved
to ask the aid of sacred oracles,--
and so they hastened to Cephissian waves
which rolled a turbid flood in channels known.
Thence when their robes and brows were sprinkled well,
they turned their footsteps to the goddess' fane :
its gables were befouled with reeking moss
and on its altars every fire was cold.
But when the twain had reached the temple steps
they fell upon the earth, inspired with awe,
and kissed the cold stone with their trembling lips,
and said; “If righteous prayers appease the Gods,
and if the wrath of high celestial powers
may thus be turned, declare, O Themis ! whence
and what the art may raise humanity?
O gentle goddess help the dying world!”

Moved by their supplications, she replied;
“Depart from me and veil your brows; ungird
your robes, and cast behind you as you go,
the bones of your great mother .” Long they stood
in dumb amazement: Pyrrha , first of voice,
refused the mandate and with trembling lips
implored the goddess to forgive--she feared
to violate her mother's bones and vex
her sacred spirit. Often pondered they
the words involved in such obscurity,
repeating oft: and thus Deucalion
to Epimetheus ' daughter uttered speech
of soothing import; “ Oracles are just
and urge not evil deeds, or naught avails
the skill of thought. Our mother is the Earth,
and I may judge the stones of earth are bones
that we should cast behind us as we go.”

"1.The fourth of a penny; a small copper coin of Great Britain, being a cent in United States currency.

2.A very small quantity or value.[Obs.] "