Post-Augustan Poetry From Seneca to Juvenal Part 48

701. xi. 190, xii. 87.

702. _Vita_ 1.

703. There are, however, allusions to Domitian as dead in ii.

29-33, iv. 153.

704. Ap. Sid. ix. 269.

705. Joh. Mal. _Chron._ x, p. 341, _Chilm._

706. _Vita_ 7. Schol. ad vii. 92.

707. _Vita_ 6.

708. _Vitae_ 1, 2, 4, 7. Perhaps an inference from _Sat._ xv. 45.

709. See 708.

710. _Vitae_ 5 and 6. If the inscription (see p. 288) refers to the poet, this view has further support.

711. Joh. Mal., loc. cit.

712. Trajan had, however, a favourite in the _pantomimus_ Pylades. Dio.

Ca.s.s. Ixviii. 10.

713. The simplest suggestion is that Juvenal was at some time banished, that the reason for his banishment was forgotten and supplied by conjecture. Cp. Friedlander's ed., p. 44. There is no real evidence to prove that Juvenal was ever in Egypt or Britain. His topography in _Sat._ xv is faulty, and allusion to the oysters of Richborough (_ostrea Rutupina_, iv. 141) would be possible even in a poet who had never visited Britain.

714. i. 1-3, 17, 18 (Dryden's translation).

715. i. 79.

716. Ib. 85.

717. Ib. 147-50.

718. i. 165-71.

719. x. 356-66 (Dryden's translation).

720. There is nothing in this satire to suggest that Juvenal had or had not visited Egypt. The legend of his banishment to Egypt may be true, but it is quite as likely that this satire caused the scholiast to localize his traditional exile in Egypt. The theme of cannibalism was sometimes dealt with by the rhetoricians. Cp. Quintilian, _Decl._ 12.

721. e.g. Claudius Etruscus, who held the imperial secretarys.h.i.+p of finance under Nero and Vespasian, and Abascantus, the secretary _ab epistulis_ to Domitian. Stat. _Silv._ iii. 3, v. 1.

722. For a fine picture of the exclusive Roman spirit, cp. _Le procurateur de Judee_, by Anatole France in _L'etui de nacre_.

723. iii. 60-125.

724. xiv. 96 sqq.

725. i. 130 sqq, and the whole of xv. Above all, he hates the Egyptian Crispinus, cp. iv. 2.

726. i. 102 sqq.

727. For the tradition of coa.r.s.eness see chapter on Martial, p. 263.

728. It has been pointed out that the epigrams of Martial addressed to Juvenal are disfigured by gross obscenities. It is, however, a little unfair to make Juvenal responsible for his friend's observations.

729. The sixth satire abounds throughout its great length with sketches of the most appalling clearness and power, though they tend to crudeness of colour and are few of them suitable for quotation.

730. xiii. 120 sqq.

731. x. 346 sqq.

732. xiii. 180.

733. ix. 32, xii. 63.

734. vii. 194 sqq., ix. 33.

735. xiii. 192-249.

736. xii. 3-6, 89 sqq.

737. Such obscurity as he presents is due almost entirely to the fact that we have lost the key to his topical allusions. He has a strong affection for ingenious periphrases (e.g. v. 139, vi. 159, x. 112, xii.

70), but they are as a rule effective and amusing.