SATIRE III

by

Juvenal

    ALTHOUGH dismayed by the departure of my old
friend, I commend his intent to fix his home at Cumae,
and to give the Sybyl there one citizen at least.  It is
Baiae's gate, a sweet retreat upon a pleasant shore; I
myself would even prefer Prochyta ¹ to the Subura! ²                        
For where has one ever seen a place so dismal and
so lonely that he would not prefer it still to the
perpetual dread of fires and falling houses, and
the thousand perils of this terrible city, and poets
spouting off in the month of August!
    Meantime, while all his goods and chattels were ^T
being packed upon a single wagon, my friend halted at
the dripping archway of the old Porta Capena.³  From
there we go down to the Valley of Egeria, and into the
artificial looking caves: how much closer to us
would be the spirit of the fountain if its waters were
fringed by a green border of grass, and there were
no marble to outrage the native tufa !  Here Numa
drew up laws at night with his patron and mistress;
but now the holy fount and grove and shrine are
rented to Jews, who possess a basket and a truss
of hay for all their furnishings (For as every tree
nowadays has to pay a price to the people, the Muses
have been ejected, and the wood has to go a-begging.)                                   
    Here spoke Umbricius:-- "Since there is no
room," said he, "for honest callings in this city, no
reward for labour; since my means are less today
than they were yesterday, and tomorrow will rub
off something from the little that is left, I propose to
go to the place where Daedalus took off his weary
wings while white hairs are new, while vigor is left
in my advancing years, and while Lachesis has
something left to spin, and I can support myself
on my own feet without the need of a cane.  Fare-
well my country!  Let Artorius live there, and

Catulus; let those remain who lie and say black is ^T
white, to whom it comes easy to take contracts for
temples, rivers or harbours, for draining floods, or
carrying corpses to the pyre, or to put up slaves
for sale under the authority of the spear.¹  These
men once were trumpeters, who went around to
every provincial show, and whose puffed-out cheeks
were known in every village; today they hold shows
of their own, and win applause by slaying whomsoever
the mob with a turn of the thumb ⁵ bids them slay;
from that they go back to contract for cesspools,
and why not for everything else, seeing that
they are of the kind that Fortune raises from the
gutter to the mighty places on earth whenever she
wishes to enjoy a laugh?
    " What can I do in Rome?  I cannot lie; if a
book is bad, I cannot praise it, and beg for a copy;
I am ignorant of the movements of the stars; I am
not willing or able to promise someone their father's                      
death; I have never examined the entrails of a frog;
I must leave it to others to carry to a bride the
presents and messages of a paramour.  No man will
get my help in robbery, and therefore no governor
will take me on his staff: I am treated as a maimed
and extinguished body with a useless right hand.
What man wins favour nowadays unless he be an
accomplice--one whose soul seethes and burns with
secrets that must never be disclosed?  No one who
shares with you an innocent secret thinks he owes
you anything, or will ever bestow on you a favor;
but dear to Verres will be the one who is willing

and has the chance to bring charges against Verres.
Ah!  Let not all the sands of the shady Tagus, and
the gold which it rolls into the sea, be so precious in
your eyes that you should lose your sleep, and accept
gifts, to your sorrow, which you must one day lay
down, and be forever a terror to your mighty friend !
     " And now let me speak at once of the race which
is most dear to our rich men, and which I avoid above
all others; no shyness shall stand in my way.  I cannot
abide, Quirites [Romans], a Rome of Greeks; and yet
what fraction of our dregs comes from Greece?  The
Syrian Orontes has long since poured into the Tiber,                                          
bringing with it its lingo and its manners, its flutes
and its slanting harp-strings;¹ bringing too the tim-
brels of the breed, and the harlots who are bidden to
ply their trade at the Circus.  Away all of you that
delight in foreign strumpets with painted headdresses!
Your country clown, O Romulus, now trips to dinner
in Greek-fangled slippers, ² and wears niceterian ²
ornaments upon a ceromatic ² neck!  One comes
from lofty Sicyon, another from Amydon or Andros,
others from Samos, Tralles or Alabanda; all making
for the Esquiline, or for the hill that takes its name
from osier-beds;³ all ready to worm their way into
the houses of the great and become their masters.
Quick of wit and of unbounded impudence, they are
as ready of speech as Isaeus,⁴ and more torrential.
Say, what do you think that fellow there to be?                               
He has brought with him any character you please;
grammarian, orator, geometrician; painter, trainer,
or rope-dancer; augur, doctor or astrologer:--

       'All sciences a fasting monsieur knows,
        And bid him go to Hell, to Hell he goes ! ' ⁵

   ¹ Referring to the sambuca , a kind of harp, of triangular
shape, producing a shrill sound.
   ² Trechedipna , "a run-to-dinner coat"; ceromaticus , from
ceroma , oil used by wrestlers; and niceterium , "a prize of
victory"--all used to ridicule the use of the Greek forms.
   ³ i.e . the Mona Viminalis, from vimen , "an osier."
   ⁴ An Assyrian rhetorician: not the Greek orator Isaeus.
   ⁵ From Johnson's London.

To sum up, the man who took to himself wings ¹ was
not a Moor, nor a Sarmatian, nor a Thracian, but one
born in the very heart of Athens!
    " Must I not make my escape from purple-clad
gentry like these?  Is a man to sign his name before
me, and recline upon a couch better than mine, who
has been wafted to Rome by the wind which brings
us our damsons and our figs?  Is it to go so utterly
for nothing that as a babe I drank in the air of the
Aventine, and was nurtured on the Sabine berry?
    " What of this again, that these people are
experts in flattery, and will praise the talk of an
illiterate, or the beauty of a deformed friend, and
compare the scraggy neck of some weakling to the
brawny throat of Hercules when he lifted Antaeus ²
high above the earth; or go into ecstasies over a
squeaky voice not more melodious than that of a cock
when he pecks his spouse the hen?  We, no doubt, can
praise the same things that they do; but what they
say is believed.  Could any actor do better when he
plays the part of Thais, or of a matron, or of a Greek
slave-girl without her cloak?  You would never
think that it was a masked actor that was speaking,
but a very woman, complete in all her parts.  Yet, in
their own country, neither Antiochus ³ nor Stratocles,³
neither Demetrius ³ nor the delicate Haemus, ³ will be
applauded: they are a nation of play-actors.  If you
smile, your Greek will split his sides with laughter; if
he sees his friend drop a tear, he weeps, though with-
out grieving; if you call for a bit of fire in winter-time,
he puts on his cloak; if you say 'I am hot,' he breaks
into a sweat.  Thus we are not on the same level, he
and I; he has always the best of it, being ready at any
moment, by night or by day, to take his expression

   ¹ Daedalus [who climbed higher than he should have].
   ² Hercules slew Antaeus by raising him from the ground,
making him no longer invincible [which the giant remained
as long as he was in contact with his mother Terra - the Earth].
   ³ Names of Greek actors.

from another man's face, to throw up his hands and
applaud if his friend belches well or urinates straight,
or if his golden basin makes a gurgle when turned
upside down.
    " Besides all this, there is nothing sacred to his
lusts: not the matron of the family, nor the maiden
daughter, not the as yet unbearded son-in-law to be,
not even the as yet unpolluted son; if none of these be
there, he will debauch his friend's grandmother.  These
men want to discover the secrets of the family, in order
to make themselves feared.  And now that I am speak-
ing of the Greeks, let us pass over the schools, and
hear of a outrage with a wider cloak; the old Stoic ¹
who informed against and slew his own friend and dis-
ciple ² Barea was born on that river bank ³ where the
Gorgon's winged nag fell to earth.  No: there is no room
for any Roman here, where some [Greek] Protogenes,
or Diphilus, or Hermarchus rules the roast--one who by
a defect of his race never shares a[n influential] friend,
but keeps him all to himself.  For once he has dropped
into an easy ear one particle of his own and his
country's poison, I am thrust out the door, and all
my long years of servitude go for nothing.  Nowhere is
it so easy as in Rome to throw an old client overboard.
    " And besides, not to flatter ourselves, what
value is there in a poor man's service here in Rome,
if he is at pains to hurry along in his toga before
daylight, seeing that the praetor is bidding the
lictor to go full speed lest his colleague should
be the first to salute the childless ladies Albina and
Modia, who have long ago been awake?  Here in

Rome the son of free-born parents has to give way
to some rich man's slave; for that other will give as
much as the whole pay of a legionary tribune to
enjoy the chance favours of a Calvina ¹ or a Catiena,¹
while you, when the face of some gay-decked harlot
takes your fancy, are reluctant to hand her down
from her lofty chair.  At Rome you may produce a
witness as unimpeachable as the host of the Idaean
Goddess.² --Numa himself might present himself, or
he who rescued the trembling Minerva from the
blazing shrine ³ --the first question asked will be about
his wealth, the last about his character: ' how many
slaves does he keep? '  ' how many acres does
he own?'  ' how big and how many are his dessert
dishes? '  A man's word is believed in exact pro-
portion to the amount of cash which he keeps in his
strong-box.  And therefore, though he swears by all
the altars of Samothrace or of Rome, the poor man
is believed to care nothing about Gods and thunder-
bolts, but the Gods themselves forgive him.
    " And what of this, that the poor man gives food
and occasion for jest if his cloak be torn and dirty;
if his toga be a little soiled; if one of his shoes
gapes where the leather is split, or if some fresh
stitches of coarse thread reveal where not one, but
many a rip has been patched?  Of all the woes of
luckless poverty none is harder to endure than this,
that it exposes men to ridicule.  ' Out you go!  for
very shame,' says the marshal; 'out of the Knights'
stalls, all of you whose means do not satisfy the law.'
Here let the sons of panders, born in any brothel,
take their seats; here let the spruce son of an
auctioneer clap his hands, with the smart sons of a
gladiator on one side of him and the young gentle-

men of a trainer on the other: such was the will of the
numskull Otho who assigned to each of us his
place.¹  Who ever was approved as a son-in-law if he
was short of cash, and no match for the money-bags
of the young lady?  What poor man ever gets a
legacy, or is appointed assessor to an aedile?  Romans
without money should have marched out in a body
long ago!
    " It is no easy matter, anywhere, for a man to
rise when poverty stands in the way of his merits:
but nowhere is the effort harder than in Rome,
where you must pay a big rent for a wretched lodg-
ing, a big sum to fill the bellies of your slaves, and
to buy a frugal dinner for yourself.  You are ashamed
to dine off earthenware; but you would feel no shame
if you were transported suddenly to a Marsian or
Sabine table, where you would be pleased enough to
wear a cape of coarse Venetian blue.
    " There are many parts of Italy, to tell you the truth,
in which no man wears a toga until he is dressed for
burial.  Even on festival days, when the village show
is made in a theater of grass, and when the familiar
comedy is shown once again; when the rustic babe
on its mother's lap shrinks back frightened at the                                         
gaping of the pale masks, you will see those in the
front rows dressed like the rest of the people, and the
aediles content with white tunics as a dignified covering
for their high office.  Here in Rome, we spend beyond
our means for our flashy clothes, and here someone
dressing beyond what is necessary is sometimes living
out of another man's pocket.  This failing is universal
here: we all live in a state of pretentious poverty.  To
put it shortly, nothing can be had for nothing in Rome.
How much does it cost you now and then to greet

what sleep is possible in such a lodging?  Who but
the wealthy get sleep in Rome?  There lies the root of
the disease.  The crossing of wagons in the narrow
winding streets, the shouting when herds are forced
to a halt, would make sleep impossible for a Drusus ¹
--or a sea-calf.  If duty calls, the mob makes way for                           
the rich man as he is sails swiftly over their heads in
a huge litter.  He writes or reads or sleeps inside as he
goes along, for the closed window of the litter induces
slumber.  Yet he will arrive before us; hurry as we
may, we are blocked by a surging crowd in front,
and by a dense mass of people pressing in on us
from behind: one man digs an elbow into me,
another a hard sedan-pole; one bangs a beam, an-
other a wine-cask, against my head.  My legs are
beplastered with mud; soon huge feet trample on
me from every side, and a soldier plants his hob-                                        
nailed boot firmly on my toe.
    " See now the smoke rising from that crowd
which hurries as if to a dole: there are a hundred
guests, each followed by a kitchener of his own.²
Corbulo ³ himself could scarce bear the weight of all
the big vessels and other gear which that poor little
slave is carrying with head erect, fanning the flame
as he runs along.  Newly-patched tunics are torn
in two; up comes a huge fir-log swaying on a wagon,
and then a second larger wagon carrying a whole
pine-tree; they tower aloft and threaten the people.
For if that axle carrying Ligurian marble breaks, and
pours its towering overturned heap onto the crowd,
what is left of their bodies?  Who can identify the

   ¹ Probably the somnolent Emperor Claudius is meant.
    ² The hundred guests are clients; each is followed by a
slave carrying a kitchener to keep the dole hot when received.
    ³ The great Roman general under Claudius and Nero,
famed for his physical strength.

limbs, who the bones?  The poor man's crushed
corpse wholly disappears, just like his soul.  Mean-
while, an unsuspecting household is washing the
the dishes, blowing to get the fire going, clattering 
over the greasy flesh-scrapers, filling the oil-flasks
and laying out the towels.  But while each of them
is thus busy over his own task, their master is already
sitting, a new arrival, upon the bank of the Styx, and
shuddering at the grim ferryman: but the poor man ^T
has no copper in his mouth to tender for his fare,
and no hope of a passage over the murky stream.
    " And now regard the different and diverse perils
of the night.  See how high it is to that towering
roof from which a pottery piece falls crack upon
upon my head every time some broken or leaky
vessel is pitched out of a window!  See with what
a smash it strikes and dents the pavement !  There's
death in every open window as you pass along at
night; you may well be deemed a fool, careless
of sudden accident, if you go out to dinner without
having made your will.  You can but hope, and send
send up a piteous prayer from your heart, that they
may be content with only pouring down on you the
contents of their slop-basins!
    " Your drunken bully who has by chance not
killed anyone passes a night of torture like that of
Achilles when he bemoaned his friend [Patroclus],
lying now upon his face, and now upon his back;
he will get no rest in any other way, since some men
can only sleep after a brawl.  Yet however reckless
the fellow may be, however hot with wine and young
blood, he gives a wide berth to one whose scarlet cloak
and long retinue of attendants, with torches and brass
lamps in their hands, bid him keep his distance.  But to
me, who am accustomed to be escorted home by the
moon, or by the scant light of a candle whose wick I
shelter with due care, he pays no respect.  Hear how
the wretched fight begins--if fight it can be called
when you do all the thrashing and I get all the blows!
The fellow stands in my way, and tells me to halt;
obey I must.  What else can you do when attacked by
a madman stronger than yourself?  ' Where are you
from? ' shouts he; ' whose sour wine, whose beans
are you swelled up with?  With what cobbler have you
been munching cut leeks ¹ and boiled sheep's head?
--What, sir, no answer?  Speak out, or take that on
your shins!  Say, where is your beggar-stand?  In
what prayer-shop ² shall I find you? '  Whether you
venture to say anything, or make off silently, it's all
the same: he will thrash you just the same, and then,
in a rage, take bail from you.  Such is the liberty of 
the poor man: having been pounded and cuffed into
jelly, he begs and prays to be allowed to return home
with a few teeth in his head!
    " Nor are these your only terrors.  When houses
everywhere are shut, and shops chained fast, and
all is silent, you will be robbed by a burglar; or per-
-haps a cut-throat will do you in quickly with cold
iron.  For whenever the Pontine marshes and the
Gallinarian forest are secured by an armed guard,
all that tribe flocks into Rome as if into a fish-preserve.
What furnaces, what anvils, are not groaning with
the forging of chains?  That is how most of our
iron is used; and you may well fear that before long
none will be left for plough-shares, none for hoes
and mattocks.  Happy were our great-grandfathers

and their forbears, happy the days of old which under
Kings and Tribunes beheld Rome satisfied with a single
jail !
    " To these I might add more and different rea-
sons; but my cattle call, the sun is sloping and I
must go away: my muleteer has long been signalling to
me with his whip.  And so farewell; forget me not.
And if ever you run over from Rome to your own
Aquinum ¹ to recuperate, summon me too from
Cumae to your Helvine ² Ceres and Diana; I will 
come over to your cold country in my thick boots
to hear your Satires, if they think me worthy of that 
honor."

    ¹ Aquinum was Juvenal's birthplace.
    ² The origin of this name of Ceres is unknown.

"Baiae is the famous coastal watering hole, overbuilt with country villas, to which wealthy Romans escaped from the heat and stench of Rome in the summer."

Tu"fa(?), [It. fufo soft, sandy stone, L. tofus, tophus... ]   (a) A soft or porous stone formed by depositions from water, usually calcareous; -- called also calcareous tufa . (b) A friable volcanic rock or conglomerate, formed of consolidated cinders, or scoria.

O"sier(?), n.[F. osier: cf. Prov . F. oisis, Armor. ozil , aozil , Gr. , , , L. vitex , and E. withy .] (Bot.) (a) A kind of willow (Salix viminalis ) growing in wet places in Europe and Asia, and introduced into North America. It is considered the best of the willows for basket work. The name is sometimes given to any kind of willow. (b) One of the long, pliable twigs of this plant, or of other similar plants.

"The Sanctuary of the Great Gods is located half a kilometer inland from the N coast of Samothrace ...

In the 6th century B.C. the political power of Samothrace reached its peak, but it was in the 5th century, when the island was subject to the Delian League, that the Sanctuary of the Great Gods began to grow in international repute.

During the Hellenistic and Roman periods the sanctuary grew to its largest extent and became the chief religious site in the N Aegean region. The fame of the cult of the Mysteries at Samothrace was surpassed only by that at Eleusis ."     Perseus Site Catalog.

Mat"tock(?), n.[AS. mattuc ; cf. W. matog.] An implement for digging and grubbing. The head has two long steel blades, one like an adz and the other like a narrow ax or the point of a pickax.

Romulus : Actually it says Quirine (Quirinus): "The Sabine name of Mars, as the god who brandished the lance (from the Sabine curis = Latin quiris , the lance). The Sabines worshipped him under this name as the father of the founder of their old capital, Cures, just as the Romans honoured Mars as the father of Romulus . When the Sabines migrated to Rome, they took the cult and the name of the god of their race to their new home on the Quirinal Hill. In this way Quirinus, though identical with Mars, had a distinct and separate worship on the slope of the Quirinal. He possessed a temple with priests (see Flamen; Salii ) and a special festival. When, in the course of time, their connection was forgotten, Quirinus was identified with the deified Romulus , the son of Mars. The name is also applied to the Ianus or something in the Forum, which it seems to designate as the “ Ianus of the Roman people” ( Suet. Aug.22)."    Peck.