SATIRE II

Juvenal

MORALISTS WITHOUT MORALS

I WOULD gladly flee beyond Sarmatia and the frozen
Sea when people who ape the Curii ⁴ and live like
Bacchanals dare talk about morals. In the first place,
they are unlearned persons, though you may find their
houses crammed with plaster casts of Chrysippus;⁵
for the most accomplished of them is the man
who has bought a likeness of Aristotle or Pittacus,⁶

⁴ A famous family of early Rome.
⁵ The eminent Stoic philosopher, pupil of Cleanthes.
⁶ One of the seven wise men of Greece, b. circ . B.C . 652.

or bids his shelves to keep originals ^T of Cleanthes ¹
and his kind. Men's faces are not to be trusted;
does not every street abound in gloomy-faced
perverts? And do you rebuke foul practices,
when you are yourself the most notorious delving-
ground among Socratic fairies? Hairy limbs,^T
and arms stiff with bristles, give promise of a manly
soul: but sleek is your anus when the grinning
doctor cuts into the swollen piles. Men of your
kind talk little; they glory in taciturnity, and cut their
hair shorter than their eyebrows. Peribomius ² him-
self is more open and more honest; his face, his walk,
betray his distemper, and I charge Destiny with
his failings. Such men excite your pity by their
frankness; the very fury of their passions wins them
pardon. Far worse are those who denounce evil
ways in the language of a Hercules; and after dis-
coursing upon virtue, prepare to practise vice.^T
"Am I to respect you, Sextus," quoth the infamous
Varillus, "when you do as I do? How am I worse
than yourself ?" Let the straight-legged man laugh
at the club-footed, the white man at the blackamoor:
but who could endure the Gracchi railing at sedi-
tion? Who will not confound heaven with earth,
and sea with sky, if Verres denounce thieves, or
Milo ³ cut-throats? If Clodius condemns adulterers,
or Catiline upbraids Cethegus;⁴ or if Sulla's three
disciples ⁵ inveigh against proscriptions? Such a
man was that adulterer ⁶ who, after lately defiling
himself by a union of the tragic style, revived the
stern laws that were to be a terror to all men--yes,

¹ Pupil and successor of Zeno, founder of the Stoic School,
from about B.C. 300 to 220. Famous for his poverty and
iron will.
² Some villainous character of the day [a homosexual].
³ Alluding to the faction-fights between Clodius and Milo,
B.C . 52. Clodius violated the rites of the Bona Dea ; see vi
314 -341 and note on p. 24.
⁴ A partner in the Catilinarian conspiracy, B.C. 63.
⁵ i.e . the second triumvirate (Octavius, Antony, and
Lepidus) who followed the example of Sulla's proscriptions.
⁶ The emperor Domitian. Domitian was a lover of his
niece Julia, daughter of his brother Titus.

even to Mars and Venus--at the moment when Julia
was relieving her fertile womb of so many abortions
and the lumps displayed the likeness of her uncle
Is it not then right and proper that the very worst
of sinners should despise those who pretend to be
like the Scauri,¹ and bite back when bitten?
Laronia could not contain herself when one of
these sour-faced notables cried out, "What of you,
Julian Law? ² What, gone to sleep?" To which
she answered smilingly, "O happy times to have you
for a censor of our morals! Once more may Rome
regain her modesty; a third Cato has come down to
us from the skies! But tell me, where did you buy
that balsam juice that perfumes your hairy neck?
Don't be ashamed to point out to me the shopman!
If laws and statutes are to be raked up, you should
cite first of all the Scantinian:³ inquire first into the
things that are done by men; men do more wicked
things than we do, but they are protected by their
numbers, and the tight-locked shields of their
phalanx. Male effeminates are well joined
together; never in our sex will you find such
loathsome examples of evil . . . .
"Do we women ever plead in the courts?
Are we learned in the Law? Do your court-houses
ever ring with our bawling? Some few of us
are wrestlers; some of us eat meat-rations: you
men spin wool and bring back your tale of work
in full baskets when it is done; you twirl round the
spindle big with fine thread more deftly than

¹ One of the most famous families of the later Republic.
² In reference to the law passed by Augustus for encourag-
ing marriage (Lex lulia de maritandis ordinibus).
³ A law against unnatural crime.

Penelope, more delicately than Arachne,¹ doing
work such as an unkempt drab squatting on a log
would do. Everybody knows why Hister left all
his property to his freedman, why in his life-time
he gave so many presents to his young wife; the
woman who sleeps third in a big bed will want for
nothing. So when you take a husband, keep your
mouth shut; precious stones ² will be the reward of a
well-kept secret. After this, what condemnation can
be pronounced on us women? Our censor absolves
the raven and passes judgment on the pigeon!"
While Laronia was uttering these plain truths,
the would-be Stoics made off in confusion; for what
word of untruth had she spoken? Yet what will
not other men do when you, Creticus, dress yourself
in garments of gauze, and while everyone is mar-
velling at your attire, launch out against the Proculae
and the Pollittae? Fabulla is an adulteress; condemn
Carfinia of the same crime if you please; but how-
ever guilty, they would never wear such a gown as
yours. "O but," you say, "these July days are so
sweltering!" Then why not plead without clothes?
Such madness would be less disgraceful. Yours is
a pretty garb in which to propose or expound laws to
our countrymen flushed with victory, and with their
wounds yet unhealed; and to those mountain rustics
who had laid down their ploughs to listen to you!
What would you not exclaim if you saw a judge
dressed like that? Would a robe of gauze sit be-
comingly on a witness? You, Creticus, you, the keen,
unbending champion of human liberty, to be clothed
in a transparency! This plague has come upon us
by infection, and it will spread still further, just as
in the fields the scab of one sheep, or the mange of

¹ A Lydian maiden who challenged Athene in spinning
and was turned into a spider.
² Cylindrus, a cylinder, is here used for a precious stone
cut in that shape.

one pig, destroys an entire herd; just as one bunch
of grapes takes on its sickly colour from the aspect
of its neighbour.
Some day you will venture on something more
shameful than this dress; no one reaches the
depths of turpitude all at once. By degrees you
will be welcomed by those who in their homes put
long fillets round their brows, swathe themselves with
necklaces, and propitiate the Bona Dea with the
stomach of a porker and a huge bowl of wine, though
by an evil usage the Goddess warns off all women
from entering the door; none but males may approach
her altar.¹ "Away with you! profane women" is
the cry; "no booming horn, no she-minstrels here!"
Such were the secret torchlight orgies with which
the Baptae ² wearied the Cecropian ³ Cotytto. One
lengthens his eyebrows with some damp soot staining
the edge of a needle, and lifts up his fluttering eyes to
be painted; another drinks out of an obscenely-
shaped glass, and ties up his long locks in a gilded
net; he is clothed in blue checks, or smoothed green;
the attendant swears by Juno like his master. An-
other holds in his hand a mirror like that carried by the
effeminate Otho: a trophy of the Auruncan Actor,⁴ in
which he gazed at his own image in full armour when
he was just ready to give the order to advance--a
thing notable and novel in the annals of our time, a
mirror among the kit of Civil War! It needed, in truth,
a mighty general to slay Galba, and take care his of

¹ None but women could attend the rites of the Bona Dea.
Hence the scandal created in B.C. 62 by Clodius when he
made his way into the house of Caesar, where the rites were
being celebrated, disguised as a woman. Hence Caesar put
away his wife Pompeia, as "Caesar's wife must be above
suspicion." In the present passage Juvenal refers to some
real or imaginary inversion of the old rule, by which none
but males, clothed in female dresses, were to be admitted to
the worship of the Goddess.
² Worshippers of the Thracian deity Cotytto.
³ i.e. Athenian, Cecrops being the first king of Athens.
⁴ The words Actoris Aurunci spolium are a quotation from
Virg. Aen. xii 94. The suggestion seems to be that Otho
was as proud of his mirror as if it had been a trophy of war,
like the spear which King Turnus captured from Actor.

skin; it needed a citizen of highest courage to ape
the splendours of the Palace on the field of Bebria-
cum,¹ and plaster his face with dough! Never did the
quiver-bearing Samiramis ² do this in her Assyrian
realm, nor the despairing Cleopatra on board her
ship at Actium. No decency of language is there
here: no regard for the manners of the table. You
will hear all the foul talk and squeaking tones of
Cybele; a white-haired frenzied old man presides
over the rites; he is a rare and notable master of
mighty gluttony, and should be hired to teach it.
But why wait any longer when it were time in
Phrygian fashion to lop off the superfluous flesh?
Gracchus has presented to a cornet player--or
perhaps it was a player on the straight horn--a
dowry of four hundred thousand sesterces. The
contract has been signed; the benedictions have been
pronounced; a crowd of banqueters seated, the new
made bride is reclining on the bosom of her husband.
O ye nobles of Rome! is it a soothsayer that we need,
or a Censor? Would you be more aghast, would you
deem it a greater portent, if a woman gave birth to a
calf, or a cow to a lamb? The man who is now array-
ing himself in the flounces and train and veil of a bride
once sweated as he carried one of the sacred, wavering
shields ³ of Mars by its mysterious thong !
O Father of our city, whence came such wickedness
among thy Latin shepherds? From where came this
stinging nettle, O Gradivus , to strike your grandchildren?
Behold ! Here you have a man of high birth and wealth

¹ The battle in which Otho was defeated by Vitellius.
² Mythical founder of the Assyrian empire with her
husband Ninus.
³ Gracchus was one of the Salii, priests of Mars who had
to carry the sacred shields of Mars (ancilia) in procession
through the city.

being handed over in marriage to a man, and yet you
don't shake your helmet, nor smite the earth with
your spear, nor protest to your Father? Away with
you then; begone from the austere broad expanse
of that Martial Plain ¹ which you have forgotten!
    " I have a ceremony to attend," says one, "at
dawn tomorrow, in the Quirinal valley." "What is
the occasion?" "No need to ask: a friend is taking
to himself a husband; quite a small affair." Yes, and
if we only live long enough, we shall see these things
done openly: people will wish to see them reported
among the news of the day. Meanwhile these would-
be brides have one great trouble: they can bear no
children with which to hold fast their husbands; well
has nature done in granting to their desires no power
over their bodies. They die unfertile; nothing stored
in the medicine-chest of the bloated Lyde helps, nor
does it help to hold out their hands to the blows of
the swift-footed Luperci ! ²
    Greater still the portent when Gracchus, clad
in a tunic, played the gladiator, and fled, trident in
hand, across the arena--Gracchus, a man of nobler
birth than the Capitolini, or the Marcelli, or the
descendants of Catulus or Paulus, or the Fabii:
nobler than all the spectators in the podium;³
including him who gave the show at which that
net ⁴was flung.
    That there are such things as Manes, and kingdoms
below ground, and the river Cocytus, and Stygian
pools with black frogs, and all those thousands cross-
ing over in a single little boat--these things not even

¹ i.e. the Campus Martius.
² The Luperci were a mysterious priesthood who on certain
days ran round the pomoerium clad in goat-skins and struck
at any woman they met with goat-skin thongs in order to
produce fertility.
³ The podium was a balustrade, or balcony, set all round
the amphitheatre, from which the most distinguished of the
spectators witnessed the performance.
⁴ For the disgrace incurred by Gracchus in fighting as
a retiarius against a secutor, see the fuller passage Sat. viii.
199-210 and note.

boys believe, except such as have not yet had
their penny bath. But just imagine them to be
true--what would Curius and the two Scipios think?
or Fabricius and the spirit of Camillus? What would
the legion that fought at the Cremera ¹ think, or the
young manhood that fell at Cannae; what would all
those gallant hearts feel when a spirit of this sort
comes down to them from here? They would wish
to be purified; if only sulphur and torches and wet
laurel were to be had. Such is the degradation to
which we have come! Our arms indeed we have
pushed beyond Juverna's ² shores, to the new-
conquered Orcades and the short-nighted Britons;
but the things which we do in our victorious city
will never be done by the men whom we have
conquered. And yet they say that one Zalaces, an
Armenian more effeminate than any of our youth, has
yielded to the ardour of a Tribune! Just see what
foreign relations do ! He came as a hostage:
but here they become men. Give them a
long sojourn in our city, and lovers will never fail
them. They will throw away their trousers and their
knives, their bridles and their whips, and thus carry
back to Artaxata the manners of our Roman youth.

¹ The battle in which 300 Fabii were killed.
² lreland.

^T originals: archetypos : I follow Braund's suggestion on how to handle the plural; "originals of Cleanthes and his kind." The originals are often thought to be busts or other likenesses and it sounds more probable that the likenesses were of different individuals than of the same individual.

^T limbs: membra: It sounds a little redundant to say "limbs" and than "arms." I see "membra" can refer to the male organs so it might be a double entendre meaning "hairy testicles" as well.

^T vice: clunem agitant ; literally "shake their hindquarters" or more colorfully translated.

^T do: ceventem ; literally "moving your 'haunches in a lewd or effeminate manner'" or again, something more colorful.

Sarmatia and the frozen Sea; "The Sauromatae (also called Sarmatae) lived round the Sea of Azov, on the edge of the known world. The Ocean was thought to surround the entire inhabited world; the 'icy Ocean' is the Arctic and Baltic." Braund. Somehow I find it incongruous for someone to say that the area by the Sea of Azov is "on the edge of the known world" and then say that Juvenal was talking about the Arctic Ocean which figures to be part of the unknown world. Green seems to take even further license in translating the frozen Sea as the "frozen Polar ice-cap". The modern gist of Juvenal's statement might indeed be "I would gladly live at the North Pole." Such a figurative expression is better than the rigid and technical "Polar ice-cap" for it would seem so doubtful that anyone at that time could have known of a Polar ice-cap or that the concept of a pole relates to the idea of a round planet spinning on its axis. I read how the Sea of Azov is "frozen for four to six months every year" and this could perhaps qualify as the "frozen Ocean." Ramsay's notes in Satire XV state that Thule is "The most distant land or island to the N.; probably N.W. Norway rather than Shetland or Iceland" and "The palus Maeotis was the sea of Azov." While the Sea of Azov isn't ruled out it seems quite possible that he is referring to some place further North like the Baltic Sea, North Sea, or Norwegian Sea.

Bacchanal : "The Dionysia were celebrated at Rome under the name of Bacchanalia.... The most horrible immoralities were practised, the wildest frenzy indulged in. Men flung themselves about as if possessed, and uttered frantic prophecies; women dressed as Bacchanals with dishevelled locks, ran down to the Tiber and plunged into the water torches which, composed of a mixture of sulphur and lime, were not extinguished in the waves. The initiated were a vast number, including many of high birth, both men and women. To secure the complete subjugation of the votaries a rule was made that none should be admitted who were not under twenty years of age, a time at which the judgment is weak and the passions strong. For some time, although the existence of these rites was generally known, not only by report, but also by the clanging of cymbals and the howlings of the devotees by night, their real nature was not suspected. But in B.C. 186, the lewd and criminal character of the meetings was brought to the knowledge of the consuls...." Peck

Laronia : decadent upper class woman it appears.

evil : a bit about men performing oral sex on their own while women don't is omitted here. Ramsay has this sentence beginning "Male effeminates agree wondrously well among themselves." In translating so I think he misses what I believe is a double entendre and have thus altered the translation accordingly. Green is better when he translates "queers stick together like glue," but still this may not be conspicuous enough if this is indeed meant to be a double entendre.

It seems to me that throughout the Satires translators are failing to pick up on these plays on words, and while the reader is spared a lot of gross descriptions of homosexual behavior Juvenal's artistry is not presented either. For example in the next paragraph, without even examining the Latin, a person might suspect there is a sexual inference in the words "wrestlers" and "eat meat-rations". The meat-rations I think should be better translated "choice bits of meat" or "loin pieces." Wool could mean pubic hair; the Latin Ramsay translates as "spin" seems to be better translated "pull out" or "draw out" and after examining a         couple other Latin works I don't see trahitis being used for "spin." Then getting to the really gross it appears that "full basket" could also be translated as "milk container bursting full," then there is the obvious phallic imagery brought out by "spindle" (which Green translates as "swelling spindle".) The paragraph begins by talking about law; here any double entendre is not so conspicuous, iura, "law", can also mean "gravy" or "sauce." The words "learned in the law" we see it again in Satire I referring to Apollo ( the Latin used is actually different, Apollo is peritus (skillful at) while here it is novimus (knowledgeable of). In Satire VI we read how: "Others again, when the stage draperies have been put away; when the empty theaters are closed, and all is silent but the law courts .. " Now either court cases are being held really late or there is extracurricular activity going on in or around the law courts. The Latin used for "ring" and "bawling" are broad enough to accommodate sexual activity. And since the main theme here is denying particular low forms of sexual activity for women denying a knowledge of law would seem to fit (and Apollo with "cunning lyre" was indeed skillful ). I could be reaching to far with all this and have to await an expert opinion.

In the part preceding this Juvenal has Laronia listing "plain truths" such as about women not pleading in the law courts; this is amusing because he writes in Satire VI:

     "There is hardly ever a case in court in which the quarrel was not started by a woman. If Manilia is not a defendant, she'll be the plaintiff; she will herself frame and adjust the pleadings; she will be ready to instruct Celsus himself how to open his case, and how to urge his points."

There is no direct contradiction here because the woman is only the instigator and not the practitioner (although she does everything but and a few women actually did conduct cases.) I have commented elsewhere on this site on the connection between feminism and legalism, here, I will just point to the gall and irony of men being turned into tools and then be criticized by a woman for doing what women made them do.

paelex : "mistress (installed as rival/in addition to wife), concubine; male prostitute" Whitaker.

Gracchi : Tiberius and Gaius Grachus; Tribunes, 2nd cent. B.C.; what we might call liberal or democratic reformers today; the younger Gaius resorted to armed insurrection and was killed while Tiberius usurped a foreign policy matter reserved for the Senate; a mob of Senators and others then killed him as well "to save the Republic."

Verres : "Gaius. A Roman quaestor in B.C. 82 ... Praetor Urbanus in 74, and afterwards propraetor in Sicily, where he remained nearly three years (73-71). The extortions and exactions of Verres in the island have become notorious through the celebrated orations of Cicero. No class of the inhabitants of Sicily was exempted from his avarice, his cruelty, or his insults. The wealthy had money or works of art to yield up; the middle classes might be made to pay heavier imposts; and the exports of the vineyards, the arable land, and the loom he saddled with heavier burdens. By capricious changes or violent abrogation of their compacts, Verres reduced to beggary both the producers and the farmers of the revenue. His three years' rule desolated the island more effectually than the two recent Servile Wars and than the old struggle between Carthage and Rome for the possession of the island. So diligently did he employ his opportunities that he boasted of having amassed enough for a life of opulence, even if he were compelled to disgorge two-thirds of his plunder in stifling inquiry or purchasing an acquittal." Peck

needle : The general idea of what is going on here is obvious but I have some question about the Latin. Acu can mean needle but also can refer to other pointed objects; it is a factual question whether eyebrow liner was applied this way. The same question is involved when you ask whether the staining is being done to the needle or the eyebrows. Either way the word obliqua, meaning "slanting", does not seem accounted for. Ramsay writes "slanting pencil", and though it might sound ambiguous it seems more likely that the line the pencil is making is slanting rather than the pencil itself.

absolves the raven and passes judgment on the pigeon : Absolves the guilty and passes judgment on the innocent. Sounds like a standard saying of the time. Green writes: "This aphorism about ravens and doves contains an appropriately obscene allusion, since ravens were popularly supposed to both copulate and bring forth their young by the mouth."

Proculae and the Pollittae: Plural of women's names (although Whitaker shows that proculas, among other things, can mean "gigolos," and while perhaps unlikely, could be another double entendre .) Apparently these women were guilty of some sort of sexual misbehavior; either adultery or wearing provocative clothing or both.

green : galbina : pale green, greenish yellow, or yellowish color that was considered effeminate.

Juno : "women swore by Juno" Green.

Actium : scene of naval battle where Augustus defeated Marc Antony and Cleopatra.

Cybele : Phrygian "Great Mother" goddess who was introduced into Rome.

gluttony : This reads like another non sequitur; Green has "glutton for meat" even though the word for meat is not used. I see two possibilities that are related; the first where Green is right and meat refers to the "superfluous flesh" {see below}; in the second, I see Whitaker has "throat" as the first entry for gutturis and since the passage is talking about the kind of vocal sounds they make ... Since these squeaky noises are the result of neutering the "teaching" may consist of the neutering; either way it points to the same thing and as Juvenal is so fond of double entendres ...

Phrygian fashion to lop off the superfluous flesh: castration, which then can play into the phrase "new made bride" in the homosexual marriage lampooned in the next paragraph.

dowry of four hundred thousand sesterces : an amount frequently referred to in the Satires, it is the amount needed to quality as a knight.

crowd : ingens : Whitaker has "not natural ... vast ... remarkable " for this word, so "large" or just "large" may not be all that Juvenal was aiming at.

Gradivus : a name for Mars.

Quirinal valley : The Quirinal hill was in northern Rome, the valley referred to here may have been beside it.

Lyde: " ... the name of some back street quack." Rudd. The word "bloated " makes it sound like the person is pregnant and there is old story of a Lyde and a Satyr (which makes the story fertility related) so it sounds like of a woman knowledgeable about making women fertile.

Manes : "(Rom. Antiq.) The benevolent spirits of the dead, especially of dead ancestors, regarded as family deities and protectors." Perseus Project.

Cocytus: One of the five rivers of Hades.

There is disagreement on the reading of the Latin here; some see contum (punt-pole) instead of Cocytum (the river Cocytus) .

Punt 1. To propel, as a boat in shallow water, by pushing with a pole against the bottom; ... Livingstone.

not yet had their penny bath: i.e. young boys.

Cannae : Famous battle where Hannibal defeated the Romans with large casualties.

shade : "The soul after its separation from the body; -- so called because the ancients [thought] it to be perceptible to the sight, though not to the touch; a spirit; a ghost; as, the shades of departed heroes.

purified : A religious procedure with the items mentioned.

Orcades : Orkney Islands.

short-nighted : If I have my geography right, nights are short in the Northern Hemisphere during summer and long during the winter. Italy is farther South than (now) Great Britain so days and nights are more even during the year; it figures a military campaign would be carried out during the summer and hence this perspective.

Artaxata : Armenia's capital.

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