JUVENAL, SATIRE IX
Mucius or Cocles,[1] or by the maiden[2] who swam across the river-boundary of our realm—were for traitorously loosing the bolts of the city gates to the exiled tyrants. It was a slave—well worthy he to be bewailed by matrons—who revealed the secret plot to the Fathers, while the sons met their just punishment from scourging and from the axe then first used in the cause of Law.
260I would rather that Thersites were your father if only you were like the grandson of Aeacus,[3] and could wield the arms of Vulcan, than that you should have been begotten by Achilles and be like Thersites. Yet, after all, however far you may trace back your name, however long the roll, you derive your race from an ill-famed asylum: the first of your ancestors, whoever he was, was either a shepherd or something that I would rather not name.
SATIRE IX
The Sorrows of a Reprobate
I should like to know, Naevolus, why you so often look gloomy when I meet you, knitting your brow like a vanquished Marsyas.[4] What have you to do with the look that Ravola wore when caught playing that dirty trick with Rhodope? If a slave takes a lick at the pastry, he gets a thrashing for his pains! Why do you look as woe-begone as Crepereius Pollio
- ↑ Horatius Cocles, who "kept the bridge so well"; Mucius Scaevola, to show his courage, put his hand into the flames in Porsena's camp.
- ↑ Cloelia, the hostage who escaped by swimming across the Tiber.
- ↑ Achilles is called Aeacides as he was the grandson of Aeacus.
- ↑ Flayed by Apollo when beaten in a musical contest.
