Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History Book100. Ponticus, to whom the Satire is addressed, may be the person to whom Martial refers in his twelfth book, which was written A.D. 104. There are two allusions by which we may form a conjecture as to the date of the ninth Satire. Crepereius Pollio is mentioned as nearly in the same circumstances of profligate poverty (l. 6, 7) as is described in the eleventh Satire (l. 43), which was undoubtedly written in Juvenal's later years; and he alludes (l. 117) to Saufeia, in very much the same terms in which he speaks of her in the sixth Satire (l. 320), which we suppose to have been written in his old age. The internal evidence, supplied by the sustained majesty and dignified flow of language of the tenth (as well as of the fourteenth) Satire, without taking into consideration the philosophical nature of the subject of both, is quite sufficient to prove that they must have been the finished productions of a late period of a thoughtful life. We are therefore quite prepared to admit the conjecture that the allusion in line 136 is to the column of Trajan, erected in the year A.D. 113. The repetition of the line (226) also connects this with the first Satire, which it probably preceded only by a short interval. The 203d line of the eleventh Satire fixes its date to the later years of Juvenal's life. It breathes, besides, throughout the spirit of a calm and philosophic enjoyment of the blessings of life, that tells of declining age; cheered by a chastened appreciation of the comforts by which it is surrounded, but far removed from all extraneous or meretricious excitement, and utterly abhorrent of all noisy or exuberant hilarity. An additional argument is mentioned in the Chronology for referring it to the date A.D. 124. The twelfth Satire contains nothing by which we can fix its date with any certainty. If, however, as the commentators suppose, the wife of Fuscus, in the 45th line, be Saufeia, it will be connected with the sixth, ninth, and eleventh Satires, and may probably be considered the work of his advanced age. The thirteenth Satire is fixed by line 17 to the year A.D. 118, the 60th after the consulship of L. Fonteius Capito. This is the only Satire to which Mr. Clinton has assigned a date. The argument applied to the tenth Satire will apply with nearly equal force to the fourteenth. We are therefore prepared to admit the plausibility of the conjecture, that l. 196 refers to the progress of Hadrian through Britain, which would fix the date to A.D. 120; a very short time previous to the composition of the following Satire. The event recorded in the fifteenth Satire occurred shortly after the consulship of Junius, l. 27, "nuper consule Junio gesta." This was, in all probability, Junius Rusticus, who was consul with Hadrian A.D. 119. The 110th line also probably refers to the influx of Greeks and other foreigners into Rome, in the train of Hadrian (to which we have alluded in discussing the date of the third Satire), which took place in the preceding year. The sixteenth Satire may have either been the draft of a longer poem, commenced in early life (as l. 3 _may_ imply), which the poet never cared to finish; or an outline for a more perfect composition, which he never lived to elaborate. The mention of Fucus may connect it with the twelfth Satire. But though there is quite enough remaining to warrant us in unhesitatingly ascribing the authorship to Juvenal, there is too little left to enable us to form even a probable conjecture as to the date of its composition. It is hardly necessary to add, that, after a careful examination of the foregoing Chronology, it must be evident to every novice in scholarship, that the whole life of Juvenal, as usually given, is a mere myth, to which one can not even apply, as in many legendary biographies, the epithet of poetical. L. E. ARGUMENTS OF THE SATIRES OF JUVENAL. SATIRE I. This Satire seems, from several incidental circumstances to have been produced subsequently to most of them; and was probably drawn up after the author had determined to collect and publish his works, as a kind of Introduction. He abruptly breaks silence with an impassioned complaint of the importunity of bad writers, and a resolution of retaliating upon them; and after ridiculing their frivolous taste in the choice of their subjects, declares his own intention to devote himself to Satire. After exposing the corruption of men, the profligacy of women, the luxury of courtiers, the baseness of informers and fortune-hunters, the treachery of guardians, and the peculation of officers of state, he censures the general passion for gambling, the servile rapacity of the patricians, the avarice and gluttony of the rich, and the miserable poverty and subjection of their dependents; and after some bitter reflections on the danger of satirizing living villainy, concludes with a resolution to attack it under the mask of departed names. SATIRE II. This Satire contains an animated attack upon the hypocrisy of the philosophers and reformers of the day, whose ignorance, profligacy, and impiety it exposes with just severity. Domitian is here the object; his vices are alluded to under every different name; and it gives us a high opinion of the intrepid spirit of the man who could venture to circulate, even in private, so faithful a representation of that blood-thirsty tyrant. SATIRE III. Umbritius, an Aruspex and friend of the author, disgusted at the prevalence of vice and the disregard of unassuming virtue, is on the point of quitting Rome; and when a little way from the city stops short to acquaint the poet, who has accompanied him, with the causes of his retirement. These may be arranged under the following heads: That Flattery and Vice are the only thriving arts at Rome; in these, especially the first, foreigners have a manifest superiority over the natives, and consequently engross all favor--that the poor are universally exposed to scorn and insult--that the general habits of extravagance render it difficult for them to subsist--that the want of a well-regulated police subjects them to numberless miseries and inconveniences, aggravated by the crowded state of the capital, from all which a country life is happily free: on the tranquillity and security of which he dilates with great beauty. SATIRE IV. In this Satire Juvenal indulges his honest spleen against Crispinus, already noticed, and Domitian, the constant object of his scorn and abhorrence. The introduction of the tyrant is excellent; the mock solemnity with which the anecdote of the Turbot is introduced, the procession of the affrighted counselors to the palace, and the ridiculous debate which terminates in as ridiculous a decision, show a masterly hand. The whole concludes with an indignant and high-spirited apostrophe. SATIRE V. Under pretense of advising one Trebius to abstain from the table of Virro, a man of rank and fortune, Juvenal takes occasion to give a spirited detail of the insults an |