Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/841

JUVENAL 807 This seems more probable than that he should have used such famous names as those of Statius and Quintilian to signify some poet or rhetorical professor of a later time ; although probably like Horace he may have availed himself either of false names, or names belonging to a former time, for his satiric nomenclature. The combination of the impressions, and, perhaps of the actual compositions, of different periods also explains a certain want of unity and continuity found in some of them. There is no reason to doubt that the sixteen satires which we possess were given to the world in the order in which we iind them, and that they were divided, as they are referred to in the ancient grammarians, into five books. A minute examination of the various satires composing these books enables us to form at least a probable conjecture as to the intervals at which they appeared, and to con ceive the changes of mood through which, the poet passed during these intervals. Book I., embracing the first five satires, is written in the freshest vigour of the author s powers, and is animated with the strongest hatred of Domitian. The publication of this book belongs to the early years of Trajan. The mention of the exile of Marius (49) shows that it was not published before the year 100 A.D. In the second satire, the lines 29 sq., "Quails crat nuper tragico pollutus adulter Concubitu," show that the memory of one of the foulest scandals of the reign of Domitian was still fresh in the minds of men. The third satire, imitated by Johnson in his London, presents such a picture as Rome may have offered to the satirist at any time in the 1st century of our era ; but it was under the worst emperors, Nero and Domitian, that the arts of flatterers and foreign adventurers were most success ful, and that such scenes of violence as that described at 277 sq. were most likely to occur j 1 while the mention of Veiento (185) as still enjoying influence is a distinct reference to the court of Domitian. The fourth, which alone has any political significance, and reflects on the emperor as a frivolous trifler rather than as a monster of lust and cruelty, is the reproduction of a real or imaginary scene from the reign of Domitian, and is animated by the profoundest scorn and loathing both of the tyrant himself and of the worst instruments of his tyranny. The fifth is a social picture of the degradation to which poor guests were exposed at the banquets of the rich, but many of the epigrams of Martial and the more sober evidence of one of Pliny s letters show that the picture painted by Juvenal, though perhaps exaggerated in colouring, was drawn from a state of society prevalent during and immediately subsequent to the times of Domitian. 2 The second book contains the most elaborate of the satires, that which by many critics is regarded as the poet s masterpiece, the famous sixth satire, directed against the whole female sex, which shares with Domitian and his creatures the most cherished place in the poet s antipathies. It shows certainly no diminution of vigour either in its representation orits invective. If it is desirable that such a subject should be treated in the spirit in which Juvenal has treated it, it may be regarded as fortunate that it has been done once for all with such power, with such free dom from the restraints imposed either by modesty or humanity, and with, apparently, such intimate knowledge, that no writer of later ages has attempted to rival it. The time at which this satire was composed cannot be fixed with certainty, but some allu sions (lines 502, 407-11, 205, 555 3 ) render it highly probable that it was given to the world in the later years of Trajan, and before the accession of Hadrian. The date of the publication of Book III., containing the seventh, eighth, and ninth satires, seems to be fixed by its opening line "Etspes et ratio studiorum in Ca?sare tantum," to the first years after the accession of Hadrian. If the seventh satire stood alone, we might, from the notices of Statius, Quintilian. &c,, regard it as probably belonging to the age of Domitian ; nor is it unlikely that much of it was written then, and that the con dition of poets and men of letters there described, with more of fellow-feeling than is apparent in most of his satires, is drawn from the life at Home with which the poet was first familiar. But it is inconceivable that the complimentary language applied to "Caesar" in the opening lines could have been meant for Domitian ; and the new hopes which are held out for the neglected race of poets would naturally be suggested by the change from the rule of a great soldisr, whose thoughts were chiefly bent on foreign conquest, to that of an accomplished lover of art, like Hadrian. In the eighth satire another reference is made (line 120) to the misgovermnent of Marius in Africa as a recent event (nuper), and at line 51 there may be an allusion to the Eastern wars that occupied the last years 1 Cf. Tacitus, Annals, xiii. 25. 2 Pliny s remarks on the vulgarity as well as the ostentation of his .host imply that he regarded such behaviour as exceptional, at least iu the circle in which he himself lived (JSp., ii. 6). 3 See Mr Lewis s edition, p. 317. of Trajan s reign. The ninth has no allusion to determine its date, but it is written with the same outspoken freedom as the second and the sixth, and belongs to the period when the poet s power was most vigorous, and his exposure of vice most uncompromising. In the fourth book, comprising the famous tenth, the eleventh, and the twelfth satires, the author appears more as a moralist than as a pure satirist. In the tenth, the theme of the "vanity of human wishes " is illustrated by great historic instances, rather than by pictures of the men and manners of the age ; and, though the declamatory vigour and power of expression in it are occasionally as great as in the earlier satires, and although touches of his saturnine humour, and especially of his misogyny, appear in all the satires of this book, yet their general tone shows that the white heat of his indigna tion is abated; and the lines of the eleventh, already referred to (199 a?. >, " Spectent juvcnos quos clamor et audax Sponsio, quos cultse dccet assedissc put Ila; : Nostra Ubat vernuni contracta cuticula solem," leave no doubt that he was well advanced in years when they were written. Two important dates are found in the last book, comprising satires xiii.-xvi. At xiii. 16 Juvenal speaks of his friend Calvinus ""as now past sixty years of age, having been born in the consul ship of Fonteius." 4 There was a C. Fonteius Capito consul in ( 59 A.D., and L. Fonteius Capito in 67. If it is accepted that the different books of the satires appeared at different intervals, that the third book was given to the world after Hadrian s return to Rome (118 A.D.), and that some time must have elapsed b;tween the appearance of the third and fourth books, and again between that of the fourth and fifth, the date referred to -must be the latter of these, and thus the fifth and last book could not have been pub lished till after the year 127 A.D. Again at xv. 27 an event is said to have happened in Egypt " nuper consule Junco," for which some editions read "Jnnio." There was a Junius consul in 119 A.D. Even if he were the person referred to, the word nuper (as at ii. 29, viii. 120) might well indicate a date of some ten or twelve years earlier than that of the composition of the satire. Recent investi gations, however, make out that there was a L. ^Emilius Juncus consul suffectus in 127 A.r>. (see Mayor s note on the passage). The fifth book must therefore have been published some time after this date. More than the fourth, this book bears the marks of age, both in the milder tone of the sentiments expressed, and in the feebler power of composition exhibited. The last satire is left incomplete, and the authenticity both of it and of the fifteenth has been questioned, though on insufficient grounds. The general conclusion arrived at is that the satires were published at different intervals, and for the most part, composed, under Trajan and Hadrian, between the years 100 and 130 A.D. , or a year. or two later, but that the most powerful in feeling and vivid in conception among them deal with the experience and impressions of the reigu of Domitian, occasionally recall the memories or traditions of the times of Nero and Claudius, and reproduce at least .one startling page from the annals of Tiberius. 5 The same overmastering feeling which constrained Tacitus (Ayric., 2, 3), when the time of long endurance and silence was over, to recall the "memory of the former oppression," acted upon Juvenal. There is no evidence that these two great writers, who lived and wrote at the same time, who were animated by the same hatred of the tyrant under whom the bei-fc years of their manhood were spent, and who both felt most deeply the degradation of their times, were even known to one another. They belonged to different social circles, Tacitus to that of the highest official and senatorial class, Juvenal apparently to the middle class and to that of the struggling men of letters ; and this difference in position had much influence in determining the different bent of their genius, and in forming one to be a great national historian, the other to be a great social satirist. If the view of the satirist is owing to this circumstance more limited in some directions, and his taste and temper less conformable to 4 Frieclliinder supposes that, as Juvenal has hitherto addressed Calvinus in the second person, the " hie " refers to himself, and that in the words " Fonteio Consule natus " we have the date of the poet s own birth. But elsewhere we find the poet changing suddenly from the second to the third person when there can be no doubt that they both refer to the same individual, e.g. (v. 18-) " Votorum summa! quid ultra Quajris 1 habet Trebius, propttr quod," <fec. 5 x. 56-107.