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
But in the first Satire, the allusions extend over so wide a period,
that unless we may suppose, as in the case just cited, that other
persons are intended under the names known to history, to whom his
readers would apply immediately the covert sarcasm, we can hardly
imagine that they could _all_ at any one given time serve to give point
to the shaft of the Satirist. Thus Crispinus, mentioned l. 27, was made
a senator by Nero, and lived probably under Domitian also. The barber
alluded to in l. 25 (if, as the commentators suppose, Cinnamus is the
person), must have lost all his wealth, and been reduced to poverty,
somewhere about A.D. 93, the date of Martial's seventh book of Epigrams
(who mentions the fact, and advises him to recur to his old trade, Ep.
VII. lxiv.). Massa and Carus (l. 35, 36) are mentioned by Martial as
apparently flourishing when he wrote his twelfth book, which was sent
to Rome A.D. 104. Again, line 49 seems to refer to the condemnation of
Marius as a recent event; but this took place in A.D. 100. And in that
same year M. Cornelius Fronto was consul with Trajan; and may have been
the proprietor of the plane-groves, mentioned l. 12. But then, again,
we hear of Julius Fronto in A.D. 129, and Hadrian's conduct toward
Antinous in that and the following year, might well have given occasion
to the 60th and following lines; and if we are right in applying line
40 to Plotina's manœuvring to secure the succession to Hadrian, it will
furnish an additional argument for supposing these passages to have
been added some time after. We may therefore offer the conjecture, that
the first Satire was written shortly after the year A.D. 100, as a
preface or introduction to the book, and that a few additions were made
to it, even so late as thirty years subsequently.
The second Satire was, in all probability, the first written. The
allusion in the first line to the Sarmatæ, may perhaps be connected
with the Sarmatian war, which took place A.D. 93, and in which
Domitian engaged in person. And this date will correspond with the
other references in the Satire by which an approximation to the time
of its composition may be obtained. In A.D. 84 Domitian received the
censorship for life (l. 121), at the same time that he was carrying on
an incestuous intercourse with his own niece Julia. This connection
was continued for some years. Shortly after the death of Julia, the
Vestal virgin Cornelia was buried alive, A.D. 91. These are alluded
to as _recent_ events (l. 29, "nuper"). Agricola, too, the conqueror
of Britain, died A.D. 93 (cf. l. 160), whose campaigns are spoken of
as recent occurrences, "modo captas Orcadas." The mention of Gracchus
also connects this with the eighth Satire, part of which at least was
probably written soon after the consulship of Lateranus in A.D. 94. We
may therefore conjecture that the Satire was composed between the years
A.D. 93 and 95.
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