JUVENAL, SATIRE VIII
SATIRE VIII
Stemmata quid Faciunt?
What avail your pedigrees? What boots it, Ponticus, to be valued for one's ancient blood, and to display the painted visages of one's forefathers—an Aemilianus[1] standing in his car; a half-crumbled Curius; a Corvinus who has lost a shoulder, or a Galba that has neither ear nor nose? Of what profit is it to boast a Fabius on your ample family chart, and thereafter to trace kinship through many a branch with grimy Dictators and Masters of the Horse, if in presence of the Lepidi you live an evil life? What signify all these effigies of warriors if you gamble all night long before your Numantine[2] ancestors, and begin your sleep with the rise of Lucifer, at an hour when our Generals of old would be moving their standards and their camps? Why should a Fabius, born in the home of Hercules,[3] take pride in the title Allobrogicus,[4] and in the Great Altar,[5] if he be covetous and empty-headed and more effeminate than a Euganean[6] lambkin; if his loins, rubbed smooth by Catanian[7] pumice, throw shame on his shaggy-haired grandfathers; or if, as a trafficker in poison, he dishonour his unhappy race by a statue that will have to be broken in pieces? Though you deck your hall from end to end with ancient waxen images, Virtue is the one and only true nobility. Be
- ↑ Alluding to the younger Scipio, son of L. Aemilius Paulus, who according to rule took the name of Aemilianus after his adoption by P. Cornelius Scipio (son of Scipio Africanus major).
- ↑ Scipio the younger was called Numantinus after the capture of Numantia, B.C. 134.
- ↑ The Fabii pretended to be descended from Hercules.
- ↑ Alluding to Q. Fabius Maximus Allobrogicus (B.C. 121).
- ↑ The ara maxima of Hercules, near the Circus.
- ↑ Fine pasture land in Venetia, where dwelt the Euganei.
- ↑ From Catana near Mount Aetna.
