The Satires of Juvenal, Persius, Sulpicia, and Lucilius: Literally translated into English prose, with notes, chronological tables, arguments, &c.Persius
General
The Satires of Juvenal, Persius, Sulpicia, and Lucilius: Literally translated into English prose, with notes, chronological tables, arguments, &c.
Persius
Juvenal -- Translations into English; Verse satire, Latin -- Translations into English
[1144] _Pythagoras._ iii., 228, "Culti villicus horti unde epulum
possis centum dare Pythagoreis." Holding the doctrine of the
Metempsychosis, Pythagoras was averse to shedding the blood of any
animal. Various reasons are assigned for his abstaining from beans;
from their shape--from their turning to blood if exposed to moonshine,
etc. Diog. Laert. says (lib. viii. cap. i.), τῶν δὲ κυάμων ἀπηγόρευεν
ἔχεσθαι διὰ τὸ πνευματώδεις ὄντας μᾶλλον μετέχειν τοῦ ψυχικοῦ--καὶ τὰς
καθύπνους φαντασίας λείας καὶ ἀταράχους ἀποτελεῖν. In which view Cicero
seems to concur: De Div., ii., 119, "Pythagoras et Plato, quo in somnis
certiora videamus, præparatos quodam cultu atque victu proficisci ad
dormiendum jubent: Faba quidem Pythagorei utique abstinuere, quasi
vero eo cibo mens non venter infletur." Cf. Ov., Met., xv., 60, _seq._
See Browne's Vulgar Errors, book i., chap. iv. (Bohn's Antiquarian
Library): "When (Pythagoras) enjoined his disciples an abstinence
from _beans_, ... he had no other intention than to dissuade men from
magistracy, or undertaking the public offices of the state; for by
beans was the magistrate elected in some parts of Greece; and after his
days, we read in Thucydides of the Council of the Bean in Athens. It
hath been thought by some an injunction only of continency."
SATIRE XVI.
Who could possibly enumerate, Gallus,[1145] all the advantages that
attend military service when fortunate? For if I could but enter the
camp with lucky omen, then may its gate welcome me, a timid and raw
recruit, under the influence of some auspicious planet. For one hour of
benignant Fate is of more avail than even if Venus'[1146] self should
give me a letter of recommendation to Mars, or his mother Juno, that
delights in Samos' sandy shore.[1147]
Let us treat, in the first place, of advantages in which all share; of
which not the least important is this, that no civilian[1148] must dare
to strike you. Nay, even though he be himself the party beaten,[1149]
he must dissemble his wrath, and not dare to show the prætor[1150]
the teeth he has had knocked out, and the black bruises on his face
with its livid swellings, and all that is left of his eye, which the
physician can give him no hopes of saving. If he wish to get redress
for this, a Bardiac[1151] judge is assigned him--the soldier's boot,
and stalwart calves that throng the capacious benches of the camp, the
old martial law and the precedent of Camillus[1152] being strictly
observed, "that no soldier shall be sued outside the trenches, or at a
distance from the standards."
Of course, where a _soldier_ is concerned, the decision of the
centurion will needs be most equitable;[1153] nor shall I lack my just
revenge, provided only the ground of the complaint I lay be just and
fair.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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