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
[2] I have adopted Dodwell's chronology. "Sic autem (he says) se rem
illam totam habuisse censeo. Exul erat Juv. cum Satiram scriberet
xv. Hoc confirmat etiam in v. 27, scholiastes. 'De se Juv. dicit,
quia in Ægypto militem tenuit, et ea promittit se relaturum quæ ipse
vidit.'" Had not Dodwell been predisposed to believe this, he would
have seen that the scholium "confirmed" nothing: for Juvenal makes
no such promise. "Proinde rixæ illi ipse adfuit quam describit." So
error is built up! How does it appear that Juvenal was present at the
quarrel which he describes? He was in Egypt, we know; he had passed
through the Ombite nome, and he speaks of the face of the country
as falling under his own inspection: but this is all; and he might
have heard of the quarrel at Rome, or elsewhere. "Tempus autem ipse
designavit rixæ illius cum et 'nuper'[12] illam contigisse dicit, et
quidem 'Consule Junio.' Jun. duplicem habent fasti, alium Domit. in x.
Consulatu collegam App. Junium Sabinum A.D. lxxxiv.; alium Hadriani
in suo itidem consulatu III. collegam Q. Junium Rusticum. Quo minus
prior intelligi possit, obstant illa omnia quæ in his ipsis Satiris
occurrunt Domitiani temporibus recentiora." Yet, such is the capricious
nature of criticism! Dodwell's chief argument to prove the late period
at which Juvenal was banished, is a passage confessedly written under
Domitian, and foisted into a satire published, as he himself maintains,
many years after that emperor's death! "Posteriorem ergo intellexerit
oportet. Hoc ergo anno (CXIX.) erat in exilio. Sed vero Roma illum
ejicere non potuit Trajanus, qui ab anno usque CXII. Romæ ipse non
adfuit; nec etiam ante CXVIII. quo Romam venit imperator Hadrianus. Sic
ante anni CXVIII. finem, aut CXIX. initium, mitti vix potuit in exilium
Juvenalis: erat autem cum relegaretur, octogenarius. Proinde natus
fuerit vel anni XXXVIII. fine, vel XXXIX. initio." Annal. 157-159.
I have made this copious extract from Dodwell, because it contains
a summary of the chief arguments which induced Pithæus, Henninius,
Lipsius, Salmasius, etc., to attribute the banishment of the author to
Hadrian. To me they appear any thing but conclusive; for, to omit other
objections for the present, why may not the Junius of the fifteenth
Satire be the one who was Consul with Domitian in 84, when Juvenal, by
Dodwell's own calculation, was in his 47th instead of his 80th year.
[3] "Deinde paucorum versuum satira non absurde composita in Paridem
pantomimum, poetamque Claudii Neronis" (the writer seems, in this and
the following clause, to have referred to Juvenal's words; it is,
therefore probable that we should read Calvi Neronis, _i. e._ Domitian;
otherwise the phrase must be given up as an absurd interpolation),
"ejus semestribus militiolis tumentem: genus scripturæ industriose
excoluit." Suet.
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