That there are departed spirits, and realms beneath the earth--that Charon's pole exists, and the foul frogs in the Stygian whirlpool--and that so many thousand souls cross its waters in a single bark, not even boys believe, save those as yet too young to be charged for their bath.[97] But do thou believe them true! What does Curius feel, and the two Scipios, what Fabricius and the shades of Camillus, what the legion cut off at Cremera, and the flower of Roman youth slaughtered at Cannæ--so many martial spirits--what do they feel when such a shade as this passes from us to them? They would long to be cleansed from the pollution of the contact, could any sulphur and pine-torches be supplied to them, or could there be a bay-tree to sprinkle them with water. To such a pitch of degradation are we come![98] We have, indeed, advanced our arms beyond Juverna's shore, and the Orcades[99] recently subdued, and the Britons content with night contracted to its briefest span. But those abominations which are committed in the victorious people's city are unknown to those barbarians whom we have conquered. "Yet there _is_ a story told of one, an Armenian Zalates, who, more effeminate than the rest of his young countrymen, is reported to have yielded to the tribune's lust." See the result of intercourse with Rome! He came a hostage! Here they learn to be _men_! For if a longer tarry in the city be granted to these youths, they will never lack a lover. Their plaids, and knives, and bits, and whips, will soon be discarded. Thus it is the vices of our young nobles are aped even at Artaxata.[100] FOOTNOTES: [83] Alluding to the comic exclamation, "O Cœlum, O Terra, O Maria Neptuni." Vid. Ter., Adelph., v., i., 4. Cf. Sat. vi., 283. [84] _Nuper._ The allusion is to Domitian and his niece Julia, who died from the use of abortives (cf. Plin., iv., Epist. xi.: "Vidua abortu periit"), cir. A.D. 91. This, therefore, fixes the date of the Satire, which was probably one of Juvenal's earliest, and written when he was about thirty. Cf. Sat. xiii., 17. [85] Cf. vi., 368. [86] _Vexantur._ E somno excitantur, alluding to "Lex Julia Dormis?" Cf. i., 126. [87] The whole of this ironical defense contains the bitterest satire upon the women of Rome, as all these crimes he proves in the 6th Satire to be of every-day occurrence. [88] _Puellæ._ Cf. Sat. ix., 70, _seq._ [89] _Cylindros_, called, vi., 459, "Elenchos." Cf. Arist., Fr., 300, ἑλικτῆρες. [90] _Nudus_, i. e., in the Roman sense, without the toga. [91] _Cotytto_ herself, the goddess of licentiousness, was wearied with their impurities. [92] _Actoris._ Æn., xii., 94. [93] _Bebriacum_, between Verona and Cremona, where the deciding battle was fought between Otho and Vitellius. [94] _Gracchus._ In the same manner Nero was married to one Pythagoras, "in modum solennium conjugiorum denupsisset." Tac., Ann., xv., 37. He repeated the same act with Sporus.