Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History Bookypt, we know; he had passed
through the Ombite nome, and he speaks of the face of the country
as falling under his own inspection: but this is all; and he might
have heard of the quarrel at Rome, or elsewhere. "Tempus autem ipse
designavit rixæ illius cum et 'nuper'[12] illam contigisse dicit, et
quidem 'Consule Junio.' Jun. duplicem habent fasti, alium Domit. in x.
Consulatu collegam App. Junium Sabinum A.D. lxxxiv.; alium Hadriani
in suo itidem consulatu III. collegam Q. Junium Rusticum. Quo minus
prior intelligi possit, obstant illa omnia quæ in his ipsis Satiris
occurrunt Domitiani temporibus recentiora." Yet, such is the capricious
nature of criticism! Dodwell's chief argument to prove the late period
at which Juvenal was banished, is a passage confessedly written under
Domitian, and foisted into a satire published, as he himself maintains,
many years after that emperor's death! "Posteriorem ergo intellexerit
oportet. Hoc ergo anno (CXIX.) erat in exilio. Sed vero Roma illum
ejicere non potuit Trajanus, qui ab anno usque CXII. Romæ ipse non
adfuit; nec etiam ante CXVIII. quo Romam venit imperator Hadrianus. Sic
ante anni CXVIII. finem, aut CXIX. initium, mitti vix potuit in exilium
Juvenalis: erat autem cum relegaretur, octogenarius. Proinde natus
fuerit vel anni XXXVIII. fine, vel XXXIX. initio." Annal. 157-159.
I have made this copious extract from Dodwell, because it contains
a summary of the chief arguments which induced Pithæus, Henninius,
Lipsius, Salmasius, etc., to attribute the banishment of the author to
Hadrian. To me they appear any thing but conclusive; for, to omit other
objections for the present, why may not the Junius of the fifteenth
Satire be the one who was Consul with Domitian in 84, when Juvenal, by
Dodwell's own calculation, was in his 47th instead of his 80th year.
[3] "Deinde paucorum versuum satira non absurde composita in Paridem
pantomimum, poetamque Claudii Neronis" (the writer seems, in this and
the following clause, to have referred to Juvenal's words; it is,
therefore probable that we should read Calvi Neronis, _i. e._ Domitian;
otherwise the phrase must be given up as an absurd interpolation),
"ejus semestribus militiolis tumentem: genus scripturæ industriose
excoluit." Suet.
[4] "Et tamen diu, ne modico quidem auditorio quicquam committere ausus
est." Suet. On this Dodwell observes: "Tam longe aberant illa a Paridis
ira concitanda, si vel superstite Paride fuissent scripta, eum irritare
non possent, cum nondum emanassent in publicum," 161. He then adds that
"Martial knew nothing of his poetical studies,[13] who boasted that
he was as familiar with Juvenal as Pylades with Orestes!" It appears,
indeed, that they were acquainted; but I suspect, notwithstanding the
vehemence of Martial's assertions, that there was no great cordiality
between minds so very dissimilar. Some one, it seems, had accused the
epigrammatist to the satirist, not improbably, of making too free
with his thoughts and expressions. He was seriously offended; and
Martial, instead of justifying himself (whatever the charge might be),
imprecates shame on his accuser in a strain of idle rant not much above
the level of a schoolboy. Lib. vii. 24.
But if he had been acquainted with his friend's poetry, he would
certainly have spoken of it. Not quite so certainly. These learned
critics seem to think that Juvenal, like the poets he ridicules, wrote
nothing but trite fooleries on the Argonauts and the Lapithæ. Were the
Satires of Juvenal to be mentioned with approbation? and, if they were,
was Martial the person to do it? Martial, the most devoted sycophant of
the age, who was always begging, and sometimes receiving, favors from
the man whose castigation was, in general, the express object of them.
Is it not more consonant to his character to suppose that he would
conceal his knowledge of them with the most scrupulous care?
But when Domitian was dead, and Martial removed from Rome, when, in
short, there was no danger of speaking out, he still appears, continue
they, to be ignorant of his friend's poetic talents. I am almost
ashamed to repeat what the critics so constantly forget--that Juvenal
was not only satirist, but a republican, who looked upon Trajan as a
usurper, no less than Domitian. And how was it "safe to speak out,"
when they all assert that he was driven into banishment by a milder
prince than Trajan, for a passage "suspected of being a figurative
allusion to the times?" What inconsistencies are these!
[5] "Mox magna frequentia, magnoque successu bis ac ter auditus est; ut
ea quoque quæ prima fecerat, inferciret novis scriptis,
'Quod non dant proceres dabit histrio,' etc.
Sat. vii., 90-92.
Erat tum in delitiis aulæ histrio, multique fautorum ejus quotidie
provehebantur. Venit ergo in suspicionem quasi tempora figurate
notasset; ac statim per honorem militiolæ, quanquam octogenarius, urbe
summotus, missusque ad præfecturam cohortis in extrema parte tendentis
Ægypti. Id supplicii genus placuit, ut levi atque joculari delicto
par esset. Verum intra brevissimum tempus angore et tædio periit."
Suet. Passing by the interpolations of the old grammarians, I shall,
as before, have recourse to Dodwell. "Recitavit, ni fallor, omnia,
emisitque in publicum CXVIII. (Juvenal was now fourscore!) postquam
Romam venissit Hadrianus quem ille principem à benevolo ejus in hæc
studia animo, in hac ipsa satira in qua occurrunt verba illa de Paride
commendat." 161. Salmasius supposed that the last of his Satires only
were published under Hadrian; Dodwell goes farther, and maintains that
the whole, with the exception of the 15th and 16th[14] ("si tamen
vere et illa Juvenalis fuerit"), were then first produced! "Illa in
Paridem dicteria histrionem, in suum (cujus nomen non prodidit auctor)
histrionem dicta interpretabatur Hadrianus. Inde exilii causa. Scripsit
ergo in exilio Sat. XV. Sed cum 'nuper Consulem Junium' fuisse dicat,
ante annum ad minimum CXX. scribere illam non potuit Juv. Nec vero
postea scripsisse, exinde colligimus, quod 'intra brevissimum tempus'
perierit." 164. Such is the manner in which Dodwell accommodates
Suetonius to his own ideas: which seem, also, to have been those of
a much higher name, Salmasius; and, while I am now writing, to be
sanctioned by the adoption of the learned Ruperti. I never affected
singularity; yet I find myself constrained to differ from them all:
but I will state my reasons. In his 7th Satire, after speaking of
Quintilian, Juvenal adds,
"Si fortuna volet, fies de rhetore consul:
Si volet hæc eadem fies de consule rhetor."
Which, taking it for a proverbial expression, I have loosely rendered,
Fortune can make kings of pedants and pedants of kings. Dodwell,
however, understands it literally. "Hæc sane cum Quintiliani causa
dicat, vix est quin Q. talem ostendant è rhetore nimirum 'nobilem,
senatorium, consularem,' et quidem illis divitiis instructum, quæ
essent etiam ad censum senatorium necessariæ." 152. Now, |