Frederick Jones - Juvenal and The Satiric Genre

Juvenal and the Satiric Genre
Classical Literature and Society

Series Editor: David Taylor
Classics and the Bible: Hospitality and Recognition

John Taylor
Culture and Philosophy in the Age of Plotinus

Mark Edwards
Homer: The Resonance of Epic

Barbara Graziosi & Johannes Haubold

Frederick Jones
Ovid and His Love Poetry

Rebecca Armstrong
Pastoral Inscriptions:
Reading and Writing Virgil’s Eclogues
Brian Breed
Silent Eloquence: Lucian and Pantomime Dancing

Ismene Lada-Richards
Thucydides and the Shaping of History

Emily Greenwood
JuvenalSatiric.qxd 30/07/2007 18:33 Page iii
CLASSICAL LITERATURE AND SOCIETY
Pagan and Christian

Juvenal
Gregor andinthe
McLennan
Religious Change Early
Satiric
MedievalGenre
Europe
story of sociology
a first companion to social theory
David Petts
Frederick Jones
Bristol Classical Press
Duckworth

This electronic edition first published in 2011 by

Bristol Classical Press
An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc

www.bloomsburyacademic.com
Copyright © Frederick Jones 2007
The right of Frederick Jones to be identified as the author of this work

has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988

All rights reserved. You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce
or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any
form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital,
optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise),
without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who
does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable
to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

CIP records for this book are available from the British Library and the
Library of Congress

ISBN (pb) 978 0 07156 3 6862
ISBN ePub 978 1 8496 6 7807
ISBN e-book PDF 978 1 8496 6 7791

Visit www.bloomsburyacademic.com to find out more about our authors
and their books. You will find extracts, authors interviews, author
events and you can sign up for newsletters to be the first to
hear about our latest releases and special offers.

Contents
Editor’s Foreword vii

Preface ix
1. The Satirists on Satire and its Models 1

2. The Generic Landscape 25
3. Names and Naming in Satire and Other Genres 48
4. Major Roles in Horace and Juvenal 76
5. The Satirists and Epic 95
6. Other Genres in Satire 117
7. Juvenal and Performance 133
8. Juvenal’s Satiric Identity 145
Appendix: Names in Satire and Related Genres 155

Glossary 157
Notes 166
Bibliography 197
Index 207
This page intentionally left blank
Editor’s Foreword
The aim of this series is to consider Greek and Roman literature primarily
in relation to genre and theme. Its authors hope to break new ground in
doing so but with no intention of dismissing current interpretation where
this is sound; they will be more concerned to engage closely with text,
subtext and context. The series therefore adopts a homologous approach
in looking at classical writers, one of whose major achievements was the
fashioning of distinct modes of thought and utterance in poetry and prose.
This led them to create a number of literary genres evolving their own
particular forms, conventions and rules – genres which live on today in
contemporary culture.
Although studied within a literary tradition, these writers are also
considered within their social and historical context, and the themes they
explore are often both highly specific to that context and yet universal and
everlasting. The ideas they conceive and formulate and the issues they
debate find expression in a particular language, Latin or Greek, and
belong to their particular era in the classical past. But they are also fully
translatable into a form that is accessible as well as intelligible to those
living in later centuries, in their own vernacular. Hence all quoted
passages are rendered into clear, modern English.
These are books, then, which are equally for readers with or without
knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages and with or without an
acquaintance with the civilization of the ancient world. They have plenty
to offer the classical scholar, and are ideally suited to students reading for
a degree in classical subjects. Yet they will interest too those studying
European and contemporary literature, history and culture who wish to
discover the roots and springs of our classical inheritance.
The series owes a special indebtedness and thanks to Pat Easterling,
who from the start was a constant source of advice and encouragement.
Others whose help has been invaluable are Robin Osborne who, if ever we
were at a loss to think of an author for a particular topic, almost always
came up with a suitable name or two and was never stinting of his time or
opinion, and Tony Woodman, now at Virginia. The unfailing assistance of
the late John W. Roberts, editor of the Oxford Dictionary of the Classical
World, is also gratefully acknowledged. Deborah Blake, Duckworth’s inde-
fatigable Editorial Director, has throughout offered full support, boundless
enthusiasm and wise advice.
vii
Finally, I pay tribute to the inspirational genius which Michael

Gunningham, fons et origo of the series and an editor of consummate skill
and phenomenal energy, brought to the enterprise. His imprint is every-
where: sine quo, non.
David Taylor
viii
Preface
This book is about Juvenal and his place in the corpus of Roman satirical
writing, about his place within a generic tradition. It is at the same time
about how he positioned satire in relation to other literature.
Although there were historically conditioned differences from genera-
tion to generation, nonetheless Roman poets were very much aware of
generic models, and the Roman satirists were particularly explicit about
this. In their poems they discuss their own places both within the satiric
tradition – in particular by reference to a generic founder-figure, Lucilius
– and also in relation to other genres, and especially epic.
Lucilius is presented as the originator of the genre by Horace, and one
after another he and each of the later extant satirists all refer to Lucilius
as the prime generic model. In this capacity they all refer to him as a fierce
and fearless moral critic, which implies that this is an important aspect of
the satiric tradition. Now, it is clear even from the fragments we have of
Lucilius’ satires that this is a tendentious characterisation. He was a much
more varied and inclusive poet than this, and it therefore comes as a
surprise that in various ways Horace, Persius and Juvenal all play down
this element in their own satires. It seems that they choose a figurehead
and paint it in a way that is both misleading in itself, and at best only
ambiguously related to their own practices.
Then there is the issue of the satirists’ relation to other Roman poetry.
They contribute to the same overall picture as other poets. There is, that
is to say, a literary field divided up into different poetic categories – elegy,
bucolic, epic and so on – each of which has its own subject matter and its
own way of representing it. It is not, however a level field. Epic dominates.
It has a loftier style, its characters are grander, more heroic, often semi-
divine, its themes are not mundane as those of other genres are. Other
writers repeatedly claim to be unequal to its demands. Increasingly,
however, the satirists claim more than difference and inferiority; they take
an oppositional, even a polemic, stance against epic. Epic is, they suggest,
absurd in its remoteness from the real world. The satiric critique of epic
comes close to making the claim that its own ostensibly pedestrian genre
is better than epic.
Satire redefines the traditional generic hierarchy and erodes the values
upon which it was based. There is a problem here, however. The picture
that we get of epic from the satirists is one to which, arguably, actual epics
ix
over and again fail to correspond. In fact this needs to be seen as part of
the broader picture of which satire too is part. Crudely, the idea of bucolic
concerns the inhabitants of an ideal and harmonious landscape whose
lives centre on song and love. In practice, however, there are various
complications in the lives of the bucolic shepherds. Their lands may be
threatened, love may be painful, and song may not after all be much of an
alleviation. Likewise, ‘elegy’ is about love, but an elegy is about how the
poet’s experience of love and the elegiac mistress is unsatisfactory.
Arguably, there is always a tension between the universal and the specific
(Barchiesi 2000, 167). At any rate, as regards epic, the genre should be
about heroism, but real epics turn out to be about the cost or the problems
of heroism. Epics are about the inadequacy of the epic ideal or their own
failure to live up to the idea of epic (Hinds 2000). In the Aeneid, for
example, the archetypally epic ideal of heroism, i.e. Homeric heroism, is
felt to be glamorous, but inadequate for the Roman situation – and
Aeneas’ new and more self-effacing heroism is itself problematic.
In its self-definition satire points particularly towards earlier satire
(Lucilius) and towards epic. However, the pictures it constructs of both are
far from straightforward. On the other hand, it is clear that the business
of self-definition is extremely important. We need, therefore, to consider
what the satirists say about satire, but to do so with some way of control-
ling the perspective.
An analysis of the concept of genre1 has a contribution to make in
resolving these issues. But it is not enough to look at an author only in the
light of preceding writers of the same genre: at each temporal layer the
satirist exists in relationship to an individual assemblage of past and
contemporary writers, and these patterns change with time. Throughout
the period in which satire is written epic is a key genre (this will need qual-
ification below). Other genres continually react to it in distinctive ways,
even while they are themselves metamorphosing. Satire, like any other
genre, also tries to make itself different from other genres, but like other
genres satire is not static. The Lucilian model is repeatedly re-interpreted
and to each generation this provides new possibilities until we reach
Juvenal and the end of Roman verse satire. We finish the story with a
satirist who moulds an imaginary alternative Rome out of the literature of
the past, peopling it with the famous dead whose tombs line that
Flaminian way where Automedon sports his chariot even as the poet scrib-
bles it down on his wax tablets at the crossword.
I am grateful to a number of people for helpful comments and reactions,
particularly: Dr B.J. Gibson, Prof. N. Rudd, Prof. H.M. Hine, Prof. K.M.
Coleman, Prof. J.K. Davies, Mr R.J. Seager, Dr F. Hobden. I am also
grateful to my colleagues in the Classics and Ancient History Section of
the University of Liverpool for shouldering the burdens of teaching and
administration for the year 2004-5, while work on this opus proceeded.
x
1
The Satirists on Satire and its Models
Roman satire is a distinctive and problematic genre. Uniquely, it claims to

lack a Greek model; it sets itself up in strong contrast to other genres, but
its own character is protean: the extant satirists are very different from
each other in tone, scale, and content.1 Within this messy tradition, Horace
and Juvenal each show a persistent and high level of formal innovation
over their successive books. That is to say, each satirist has a new starting-
point, but, in addition, satire can change continuously even as a satirist is
writing. There are issues, then, about what kind of thing satire is.
Each of the extant satirists, Horace, Persius, and Juvenal, provides a
considerable amount of programmatic material – material explicitly about
the topic of what kind of poetry they are writing.2 Each in turn cites
Lucilius as predecessor (and Persius and Juvenal cite Horace too). Horace
and Juvenal use the term satura for their work as though it was a stan-
dard name for a particular kind of writing. Horace and Juvenal use the
term lex (‘law’)3 as though there were a concept of generic rules applying
to satire (and, by implication, to other genres as well).4 Horace, moreover,
sets satire in a generic field, also specifying other genres in it (Sat. 1.10.40-
8). Satire, of all Roman genres, seems most interested in defining itself
openly and in relation to other genres.5 Straight away we come into diffi-
culties.
Lucilius is an important reference-point in the definition of satire for
each of the following satirists. He is held up as the founding-figure of
Roman satire and is described in turn by Horace, Persius, and Juvenal. All
the descriptions, however, are tendentious. They have more to do with the
kind of satire the later writers say they are writing than with giving a real
impression of what Lucilian satire was like. However, what the satirists
say they are doing in their satire does not square neatly with what they
actually seem to be doing there. There is a further complication in the way
some models come from outside satire. Horace in particular signals a
number of other models. In this role he uses Graeco-Roman comedy,
Callimachus, Socratic dialogue, and, outside literature altogether, his own
father. Horace’s complex game with generic models needs, therefore, some
consideration. Although later satirists do not parade such a motley assem-
blage of explicit allegiances, they do persistently hold on to a posture of
being somehow outside literature.
1
We need, then, to look at what the satirists say about satire, and how
the later satirists present Lucilius and other models. My discussion will
use the following arrangement.
a. Lucilius’ programme
b. Horace’s depictions of Lucilius

c. Horace’s presentation of other models
d. Horace’s treatment of satire and other genres
e. Persius’ depiction of Lucilius and Horace

f. Persius’ presentation of other models
g. Persius’ treatment of satire and other genres
h. Juvenal’s depiction of Lucilius and Horace

i. Juvenal’s presentation of other models
j. Juvenal’s treatment of satire and other genres
a. Lucilius’ programme
The satires of Lucilius are badly mangled. There are, however, a good
number of fragments and clusters of fragments that seem to give us clues
about what the founder of the genre thought about satire.
There is an unplaced fragment (1131W)6 in which Lucilius uses the self-
deprecatory word schedium (‘makeshift’) for his poetry (cf. the modesty
assumed at 791-2), but in book 30 he (or so it seems) longs to drink from
the Muses’ springs (1061), and is entrusted with their strongholds by the
Camenae, the Italian Muses: he is on that score definitely writing poetry.
In book 267 there is a declaration about the kind of audience Lucilius
wants (like that at the end of Hor. Sat. 1.10), and there are assertions that
he wants to be no one but himself (perhaps an answer to an interlocutor
who suggests he follow some other course than he is); there are lines about
writing poetry from the heart, an interlocutor’s claim that Lucilius
divulges secrets, and Lucilius’ antipathy to writing history (although his
interlocutor does, and perhaps advises Lucilius to do so too). It is possible
that these are traces of a dialogue akin to Horace’s with Trebatius (Sat.
2.1).8
In book 27 there is a programmatic utterance (791-2), suggesting an
ethical purpose. There are also possibly corroboratory references to the
early Greek iambic poet Archilochus (786) and to Socratic pages (788-9).9
The import of these references is not at all clear, but Archilochus is
mentioned by Horace (Sat. 2.3.12), in a possibly programmatic context,
and Horace certainly found an ethical application for the Socrates-role in
his satiric writing. There are also traces of an argument between Lucilius
2
1. The Satirists on Satire and its Models
and someone else about poetry, criticism, and slander.10 If we look at frag-
ments 1, 2 and 3-4 we may be inclined to see a sort of recusatio and an
interest in human follies.
In sum, we see in what seem to be programmatic contexts assertions of
the centrality of Lucilius himself in the poetry, a concern for follies and
ethical issues, and an awareness of aesthetic and literary values. Within
the fragments more generally, there is a good deal of material that squares
with this picture. However, the ethical concerns repeatedly attributed to
Lucilius by later satirists are clearly only a part of the Lucilian
programme, and also only a part of what we actually find in the body of
the fragments. On the other hand again, it is worth emphasising here the
way this material resembles what we shall see in Horace’s programme
satires – and also how Lucilius’ self-deprecations resemble those of the
later poet Catullus.11
b. Horace’s depictions of Lucilius

Three of Horace’s satires deal with his views on satire: Sat. 1.4, 1.10, and
2.1. Each of these contains a description or characterisation of Lucilius.
The three pictures, however, are significantly different from each other.12
In the first picture (Sat. 1.4.1-13) Horace seems primarily concerned
with stylistic matters: Lucilius’ rough and ready verse-making, his wit and
sharpness. The issue of what satire is for, however, lies just beneath the
surface. When Horace derives Lucilius from Greek old comedy, he is
clearly suggesting that a defining characteristic of his poetry is the
outspoken identification and pillorying of wrong-doers. Although Lucilius
is subject to criticism on stylistic grounds, his role is presented primarily
in social terms. Horace’s picture of the Greek comedians here has a
Roman political colouring and this provides Lucilius with something of the
aspect of a Roman censor.13 Lucilian poetry has a significant public role in
Roman society.
Horace’s own relationship to Lucilius is not stated openly.14 The reader
perhaps infers that Horace is claiming this kind of social function for his
own Satires too; however, the reader – who has read Horace’s first three
satires by this time – will have noticed that this ‘criticising by name’ does
not actually seem to be a conspicuous feature in Horace.
In the second of the programmatic poems (Sat. 1.10) Horace’s presen-
tation of Lucilius again involves stylistic issues and the character of old
comedy. Now, however, Lucilius is presented much more explicitly as a
poet.
At the start of the satire, Horace reminds his audience of the earlier
stylistic criticisms of Lucilius and of the praise for Lucilius’ ‘public
role’.15 Now, however, there is a new emphasis; effectively, Horace
presents a manifesto of literary requirements (Sat. 1.10.7-15). Horace
3
conveys the impression that the qualities he lists (brevity, variety,

pacing, and so on) are those without which a work cannot count as poetry.
The literary role of satire is much more present in this picture of
Lucilius than in the one in Satires 1.4. Despite his failings, Lucilius is
given a specific place in the field of poetry at lines 40ff. Satire here
belongs in a list which includes comedy, tragedy, epic, and pastoral.
Lucilius, furthermore, is the (unnamed) originator of the genre (Sat.
1.10.48) which Horace is choosing.
Later in the poem, the satirist Lucilius is even more explicitly presented
as a poet (Sat. 1.10.64-7).16 Indeed, the stylistic criticisms made against
him earlier almost evaporate. By the standards of his own day Lucilius’
verse was polished, and if he were writing now he would be as polished as
Horace demands (Sat. 1.10.64-71). Satire, then, has a public role, an abra-
sive and critical one, but is nonetheless a kind of poetry as valid as other
kinds, and subject to the same set of aesthetic values.
As we can see from the fragments this is a slanted picture of Lucilius.
There is a great deal more in them than this characterisation covers –
there is material on the spelling of Latin words, social behaviour, personal
idiosyncrasies, and so on. On the other hand, the very satire in which
Horace, we are told (Porphyrio on Sat. 1.5.1), emulates a particular satire
of Lucilius seems remote from the sphere of public pronouncement (even
though it is about public figures like Maecenas and Mark Antony), and
appears to lack any real abrasiveness.
Horace’s third programme piece (Sat. 2.1) introduces the second book
of Satires. Lucilius appears again, but the picture we are given is consid-
erably different. In this poem there is a discussion between Horace and
Trebatius.17 Trebatius warns of the dangers of writing this kind of poetry
and recommends a different kind – a safe kind, dealing with Caesar’s
triumphs (Sat. 2.1.10-12). Horace takes this to mean epic, but Trebatius
actually cites Lucilius as a model (16-17).18 Horace’s satiric flagship has
been hi-jacked and turned against him (just as at the end of the poem
Horace turns a legal point against the lawyer Trebatius).
Horace reclaims Lucilius for himself some lines later, but the image has
become not so much that of a satirist as of a sort of confessional poet: ille
velut fidis arcana sodalibus olim / credebat libris, neque si male cesserat
usquam / decurrens alio, neque si bene; quo fit ut omnis / votiva pateat
veluti descripta tabella / vita senis (Sat. 2.1, 30-4; ‘Of old he entrusted his
secrets to his books as if to reliable friends, not resorting elsewhere if
things had gone badly, nor if they had gone well. So it is that the old man’s
whole life lies open as if painted on a votive tablet.’). This is a strikingly
reformed image from that of an outspoken public critic,19 but it is part of
Horace’s argumentative stance at this point to take attention away
(however ambiguously) from the abrasive aspects of satire. It is also odd,
however, that the autobiographical Horace tends rather to feature in the
4
first book (and later the first book of Epistles) than the book in which this
picture of Lucilius occurs.20
The fearless Lucilius reappears later (Sat. 2.1.62-76), but again in new
colours. When Trebatius warns Horace about how dangerous writing
aggressive poetry is, Horace calls up the example of Lucilius as a defence.
This Lucilius is a courageous figure, but he is no longer like a Roman
censor. His concern for the disparity between people’s glossy exteriors and
ugly interiors here makes him more at home in the context of Roman
moralising literature. As the passage proceeds Lucilius incorporates more
roles: he is on the one hand a private individual of some rank and a friend
of important people (even indulging in frolics sometimes), but he also
dauntlessly lays hold of the Roman people, irrespective of class, tribe by
tribe, a friend only to virtue. The scale of his opposition to virtue’s enemies
has something of a prophetic force. There is again, however, a sense of
paradox, since such force may seem even more lacking in Horace’s second
than in his first book of satires.
In conclusion, Horace describes Lucilius repeatedly, but the descrip-
tions are misleading, and over and again their relationship to Horace’s
own writing is not straightforward.
c. Horace’s presentation of other models

In the fourth satire of book 1 Horace describes Lucilius as muddy and
carrying a lot of silt (Sat. 1.4.11). The Roman reader would naturally be
reminded of Callimachus’ programmatic water imagery – most obviously
the muddy river scorned by Apollo at the end of the Hymn to Apollo (105-
12). The allusion, though fleeting, is enough to suggest the importance to
Horace of the Callimachean values of craft, learning, concision, and style.
This is reinforced very strongly at the start of the second book. Here (Sat.
2.1.4ff.) Horace uses a demythologised recusatio (‘refusal’), that form in
which a poet refuses to write epic but desires to go on writing his own
slighter genre. Roman poets treat the recusatio as in itself an allusion to
Callimachus. In Horace’s poem Trebatius takes the role of Apollo, whose
epiphany often leads into a recusatio. Callimachus appears in Horace
again. In a passage dealing with true and false prayers, Horace’s prayer to
Mercury (2.6.14-15; pingue pecus domino facias et cetera praeter / inge-
nium, ‘Make the flock fat for its master, and everything except his wits’)
alludes to a programmatic passage of Callimachus’ Aetia (praef. 21ff.). The
Roman reader would recognise the passage as the same one that Virgil
uses programmatically in the Eclogues (6.1-5).21 The allusion is not just to
Callimachus, but to Callimachean ideals as realised in (some) contempo-
rary Latin poetry.22
Another model is brought forward in Satires 1.4. Horace, fending off a
charge of muck-raking, pleads with flagrant inconsequentiality that he is
5
not really a poet (Sat. 1.4.38ff.). He develops this line of argument through
the example of comedy. Satire and comedy are both verse-forms, but (says
Horace) use a non-literary style. Horace calls it the language of prose or
conversation (sermo at Sat. 1.4.42 and 48). Furthermore, just as satire
characteristically criticises ethical misdemeanour, so too, says Horace,
does comedy (Sat. 1.4.48-52). This is, of course, an extremely selective
impression of comedy, but it is constructed to serve two particular func-
tions. First, it implies that Horace’s subject matter is concerned with the
ethical issues of real life;23 second, the comic father figure (48-56) prepares
for the introduction later in the poem of another father figure.
The comic father (already foreshadowed earlier in the book, in the
Terentian comparison at Sat. 1.2.20-2) prefigures a lengthy account of
Horace’s own father (Sat. 1.4.105-31).24 Here Horace presents his father
as a formative influence on his moral sensibility. Horace’s father, he
writes, pointed out both good and bad examples (the latter are prepon-
derant) and thereby shaped his character. This is (he also explains) how he
got the habit of speaking a little freely and jokily (103-5). Although this
statement is not pointed specifically at his writing, it is most definitely
implied that Horace’s father was an effective moral teacher, and further-
more that Horace’s poetry is modelled on his father’s manner. Horatian
satire, therefore, is not just muck-raking, but is a morally educative tool,
and has besides a more than literary dimension. The extra-literariness of
this model is, indeed, emphasised by allowing his father to make his own
programmatic statement, one which lays great stress on the values
inscribed in the actual experience of life: sapiens, vitatu quidque petitu / sit
melius, causas reddet tibi: mi satis est si / traditum ab antiquis morem
servare … possum (Sat. 1.4. 115-19, ‘A philosopher will give you reasons
why this is better to avoid and this to seek. For me it is enough if I can
keep the way handed down by our ancestors’). The satirist Horace is, then,
like a father to his poetic audience.
Although Horace’s father disavowed philosophy for himself, Horace’s
own position is more complex. We know from his own work of his philo-
sophical education in Athens (Epp. 2.2.43-5), and his poetry is filled with
the ethical concerns of the schools of philosophy (the list of questions at
Sat. 2.6.73-6 and the programme at Epp. 1.1.10-19 are pointers in this
direction). Furthermore, it is evident that Lucretius’ Epicurean didactic
poem, De Rerum Natura (‘Concerning the Nature of Things’), was a major
influence on the Satires. In his debut satire Horace claims the right to tell
the truth with a smile, just as teachers give cakes to their pupils so that
they learn their ‘first elements’ (elementa prima, 26). Lucretius had used
the same image in a similar programmatic claim (1.936ff.), but in addition
Horace’s elementa prima, while meaning letters here, also reminds us of
Lucretian terminology for atoms. Later in the same satire the turn from
Tantalus, who stands for the object of the satire (Sat. 1.1.68), to the audi-
6
ence itself (mutato nomine de te / fabula narratur; Sat. 1.1.69-70, ‘Only

change the name: the story is about you’) is a Lucretian gambit:
Atque ea nimirum quaecumque Acherunte profundo

prodita sunt esse, in vita sunt omnia nobis.
nec miser impendens magnum timet aere saxum
Tantalus, ut famast, cassa formidine torpens;
sed magis in vita divom metus urget inanis
mortalis, casumque timent quem cuique ferat fors. (Lucr. 3.978-83)
And certainly whatever is fabled to be in deep Acheron, all of it exists for us

in life. No wretched Tantalus, as the story goes, fears a great rock hanging
over him in the air, frozen with vain terror, but rather in life a substanceless
fear of the gods presses mortals, and they fear the fall which chance may
bring to each.25
On a larger scale, but still in the same satire, Horace must have had the
illustrious earlier poet in mind when he explains human restlessness as
stemming from greed or envy – Lucretius had explained it in his third
book as the result of fear of death.26 Lucretian tones and ideas appear and
reappear throughout the Satires,27 perhaps especially in the first three
satires of book 1. This is particularly striking as the programme poem, in
which Horace signals an allegiance to Lucilian satire, follows rather than
precedes this group.
Lucretius is not explicitly presented as a model, but there is a good case
for seeing him as one. Another more or less philosophical role-model,
though not an author as such, is Socrates. The second book of the Satires
consists of poems every one of which is, is in part, or reports, a dialogue.
Horace makes the Platonic connotations of the format inescapable by
modelling the fourth satire of the book on the opening of Plato’s Phaedrus,
and the eighth on Plato’s Symposium. In addition to this, in the course of
rebuking Horace for his laziness as a writer, one of Horace’s interlocutors,
Damasippus, asks (Sat. 2.3.11-12) what was the point in Horace’s bringing
to the country (conventionally a place where poetic inspiration is easier)
Plato, Menander, Eupolis, and Archilochus. The authors are clearly
intended to signify the kinds of poetry Horace was promising to embark
upon. Archilochus the aggressive iambist probably suggests Horace’s
Epodes (cf. Hor. Epp. 1.19.23ff.) rather than the Satires, and connections
between satire and both old (Eupolis) and new (Menander) comedy were
established in Satires 1.4. Horace includes Plato in this list, in a program-
matic pointer in precisely that book of satires which, unlike the first, is so
heavily dependent on the dialogue form. Indeed, in the satires of this book
Horace presents himself as a Socrates,28 or perhaps a rather inadequate
would-be Socrates. In this case (see Chapter 4 below) the Platonic Socrates
is not so much the poet’s as the poet’s shadow’s model. In this case there
7
would be an irony in the extent to which the ‘Horace’ in the poem fails to
live up to the model.
Another figure who needs to be mentioned in the context of Horace’s
models is Catullus. Horace makes passing mock of an ‘ape learned only at
chanting Calvus and Catullus’ (simius iste / nil praeter Calvum et doctus
cantare Catullum, Sat. 1.10.18-19). Despite the apparently slighting refer-
ence, there is a Catullan aspect at least to Satires 1.9. The poem gives an
urban anecdote in which Horace is rescued from an embarrassing situa-
tion. At its beginning Horace describes himself as strolling along the Via
Sacra composing some trifle or other (nescio quid meditans nugarum, Sat.
1.9.2). Not only is the general situation rather like, for example, that in
Catullus 10, but the word Horace uses for his poetry (nugae, ‘trifles’) is
one Catullus uses for his (Cat. 1.4).29
A final figure needs some consideration: Bion, a third-century Greek
moralising speaker and writer.30 Horace does not refer to him in the
Satires themselves, but in the Epistles (2.2.60). In what resembles a brief
review of his poetic corpus, Horace writes that different people have
different tastes; one likes lyric, another iambic, a third favours Bionian
conversations and black wit (Bioneis sermonibus et sale nigro), so what
should he produce? ‘Bionian conversations’ may refer either to the Satires
alone or to the Satires and Epistles,31 and – however problematic it is to
define it32 – the diatribe tradition with which Bion is associated is quite a
strong presence especially in the more lecture-like satires.
Only fragments of Bion survive, probably the remains of lectures. We
can observe some general stylistic features: rhetorical pointedness, traces
of dialogue, lively comparisons and metaphors (especially using everyday
material), historical or mythical comparisons, direct address of the audi-
ence, quotations and parodies of poetry. His subjects include philosophy,
ethical concepts, religion and mythology, avarice, envy and wealth, friend-
ship and outspokenness, love, old age, and death. Formal philosophical
allegiance is rejected. Much of this certainly resembles Horatian satire.
However, we are not looking at a writer of poetry, nor an author or thinker
of particular importance, and there are besides numbers of more or less
similar figures, such as Teles, Timon of Phlius, and the Rhinthon whose
comic hexameters (according to John the Lydian: Mag. 1.41) Lucilius
followed. Something like dialogue form, often with a butt, seems to have
been quite widely used. All in all, Horace’s use of Bion’s name in the
Epistles seems to be a way of catching and conveying something of the
character of a kind of poetry rather than (retrospectively) identifying Bion
as a specific model for the Satires.
In conclusion, the non-Lucilian models Horace holds up for himself vary
between presenting the Satires as – on the one hand – a form of literature
subject to literary values, and – on the other – a type of discourse which
has a direct and extra-literary purchase on experience. This ambivalence
8
appears also specifically in connection with philosophy: Horace owes some

allegiance to Lucretius and Socrates, but in addition his father’s way of
teaching by pointing out real-life examples shows that there is also a direct
route to traditional ethical rules. Indeed there is something of this ambiva-
lence also in the way Horace’s presentation of Lucilius varies.
d. Horace’s treatment of satire and other genres

Horace’s three programme satires purport to say a good deal about what
Horatian satire actually is.
In the first (Sat. 1.4) Horace is hard to pin down. Lucilius is presented
as being like the old comedians; they in their turn resemble Roman
censors. However, while this gives Lucilius a public function, Horace’s
timidity (he says) bars him from such a role (Sat. 1.4.22-5). In addition,
Horace persistently avoids proclaiming himself to be a satirist. He is, he
insists, a mere versifier; he is like a writer of comedy, a writer in a pedes-
trian mode; he is not a poet at all. While these misleading disclaimers are
being made, Horace is unobtrusively making some other – and stronger –
claims. First, his poetry is part of his life; it is a thing he happens to do,
and something that involves a relationship between himself and his audi-
ence analogous to the real-life relationship of a father and son. Real life,
moreover, is also the substance of this poetry. Second, the moral or ethical
dimension is important. If Horace does abuse people, it is not for malicious
reasons. Effectively, it is not abuse, as such, at all, but part of a sort of
ethical instruction. Third, this form of writing most certainly is poetry. It
is a passing joke to argue that any abuse in Horace’s verse is no threat to
anyone because he is not a poet, and the clinching moment comes at the
end of the poem, when Horace invokes in his defence a great band of poets
(multa poetarum manus; Sat. 1.4.141-2). Why else would they defend him
unless he were one of their company? Indeed, by using the first person
plural (sumus, ‘we are’; 1.4.142) he incorporates himself grammatically
into this aggressively cohesive throng of poets.
In the second programme satire (1.10) Horace sharpens the focus on the
poetic values to which he subscribes. Real poetry needs variety and pacing,
and an awareness of the audience (Sat. 1.10.9-14); it needs a purity of
diction measured against real-world experience (20-30). A brief review of
the literary field (40-8) shows that there are different kinds of poetry, and
satire is one of them. Horace emphatically places himself in a Lucilian
tradition within a literary matrix. After some further literary concerns
(especially craft and polish), Horace closes the poem by constructing an
ideal audience. The composition of this audience – poets and other literary
types, men of the world, public figures – reinforces the idea that Horace’s
poetry is strongly and variously connected with the real world. In this
satire the two assertions – that Horace is writing poetry and that this
9
poetry is in multiple contact with the real world – assume much more
importance than the role of criticism in satire.
The third programme poem (2.1), takes up the issue of criticism and
aggression to an extent that has not been in evidence before. This may
seem paradoxical. After all, such criticism as we find in the second book is
veiled in layered tissues of irony. However, the surface value of the argu-
ment (concerning the dangers of writing satire) in the programme poem is
so flawed that it seems to be a sort of cover story for a different set of
points. Perhaps the opening lines of the poem suggest that the audience’s
concern for whether the criticism in Horace’s satire is too sharp or too
weak is actually beside the point.33
Horace’s discussion with Trebatius turns on the dangers involved in
writing satire.34 Trebatius turns the exemplar of Lucilius on its head by
citing him as a model for panegyric (16-17), but it is not long before Horace
reclaims him. What happens here, however, is interesting, for Lucilius is
presented as a confessional or autobiographical poet rather than as a
satirist (30-4). When, immediately after this, Horace depicts himself as
though following the Lucilian model, it is, after all, in a decidedly warlike
manner: Horace is like the natives of his birth-place (Venusia) of old,
stationed in defence of Rome against incursions (34-9). Horace begins to
talk of his writing as a self-defensive weapon: his pen is a sword which will
stay sheathed, and indeed he wishes that it might rust away unused. But
this is nonsense: we can imagine abusive shouting as a form of defence, or
the threat of publication of sensitive material being used as a preventative
strategy, but clearly writing and publishing satiric verse is very remote
from any form of self-defence. Nonetheless, Horace proceeds with this
idea, giving a list of examples to show that to each there is a natural
weapon, the wolf’s tooth, the poisoner’s concoction, and so on. Thus then
Horace: ‘Whether tranquil old age await me or Death flies around with
black wings, rich, poor, at Rome or – if Fortune so orders it – an exile,
whatever will be the colour of my life, I will write’ (Sat. 2.1.57-60, seu me
tranquilla senectus / exspectat seu Mors atris circumvolat alis, / dives
inops, Romae seu fors ita iusserit exsul, / quisquis erit vitae scribam color).
This, however, says much less than it purports to, for, instead of verse as
a weapon, we merely find that no matter what the circumstances are
Horace will continue writing.35 This both detracts from the earlier sugges-
tion that Horace’s pen is a tool required only for self-defence, and also
gives an impression of Horace as an autobiographical or confessional poet
(like the Lucilius earlier in the poem). It also emphasises once again that
Horace’s poetry is to do with the stuff of experience. The ‘natural
weapons’ lines, seem in retrospect to say no more than that Horace is a
poet and writing poetry is natural to him.
In the course of his programmatic utterances, Horace also relates his
kind of writing to other genres. We have seen how he treats satire as a
10
cognate of comedy in the fourth satire of the first book, and how he sets
satire in a generic grid along with comedy, tragedy, epic, and bucolic in the
tenth satire. This positioning is free from value judgements on the genres
themselves; instead, Horace asserts equal legitimacy and status for
Lucilian satire, even though, unlike the others, it lacks current writers of
distinction.
That is not all there is to be said, however, for Horace’s satiric
programme is not only distinctly un-epic; it is positively set against epic.
This is particularly clear in Satires 1.4. Here, Horace makes much of
saying that he is not a real poet, contrasting himself with the writer of
epic. The way he expresses this contrast, however, leaves room for ques-
tion. Horace writes that if his poetry (or Lucilius’) were rearranged so as
to remove the verse metre, it would not be the same as subjecting epic
verse to the same procedure.36 In that case one would still find the limbs
of a dismembered poet (Sat. 1.4.62, disiecti membra poetae). Since Horace
has already clearly indicated that his kind of poetry has manifold connec-
tions with the experience of real life, the picture of epic may be less
flattering than at first appears: another way of putting it would be to say
that it is only the trappings of metre that prevent epic from being revealed
as a heap of disjointed members (something not unlike the absurd hetero-
geneous painting described at the beginning of the Ars Poetica as an
analogy for bad writing).37
Numbers of other genres are incorporated into the satires as part of the
texture of the discourse rather than as the subject of comment or evalua-
tion.38 We may perhaps take this generic inclusiveness (and the indications
of antagonism to epic) as supporting the claims of connectedness with real
experience – we may take it, perhaps, as implying a claim of superiority to
other genres. Horatian satire says all that need be said about all that
needs anything said about it.39
e. Persius’ depiction of Lucilius and Horace

Persius provides his small corpus of satiric poetry with both a programme
satire and a short poem in a different metre (choliambics). There is also a
programmatic introduction to the fifth satire. It is the first satire, partly
modelled on Horace (Sat. 2.1), that contains the reference to Lucilius as a
model. Persius adds also a depiction of Horace as an additional model.
Persius’ account of Lucilius is very brief (1.114-5).40 In itself it is fairly
straightforward, but how it fits into its context is less so. Persius has, up
to this point, been mocking contemporary literature. An interlocutor
suddenly interjects (as Trebatius does at Sat. 2.1.60-2) with a warning
about offending sensitive ears. Persius immediately and ironically capitu-
lates. Warned not to go defecating on the monument of literature,41 he
decamps (discedo, Pers. 1.114). At this point he introduces (as Horace did)
11
the savage Lucilius, and in addition the sly Horace himself, as exemplars.
He then asks, ‘Am I forbidden to whisper – to myself – to a ditch – to
anything?’ (Pers. 1.119, me muttire nefas? nec clam? nec cum scrobe?
nusquam?). It is as though he concedes that such audacity as Lucilius had
is obviously no longer possible, that even Horace’s toned-down approach
is no longer viable, before resorting to burying the secret of Rome’s
corrupt taste in his book. The book, however, is made of papyrus, and just
as the reeds in the story of Midas eventually whisper the truth about King
Midas’ ears, so too Persius’ reed-book will speak to those that read it. The
whole passage is an elaborate dance around the idea of safety and secrecy,
and the characterisations of both Lucilius and Horace are shaped to lead
up to the misleading self-portrait as a timid whisperer not even daring to
aspire to a human audience.
The pictures of Lucilius and Horace ought to be positive, at least on the
whole,42 but it is possible that the posture of timidity that Persius assumes
colours one or both characterisations with a degree of negativity. The drift
of the satire so far leads one to read the two descriptions as portraying
Lucilius and Horace as being able (like Persius) to see through false
semblances and (unlike Persius) to point out flaws. Lucilius hacks at the
city and highlights individuals by name (that is the implication of the
apostrophe of Lupus and Mucius in line 115). The cutting operation
Lucilius performs (secuit Lucilius urbem, ‘Lucilius hacked at the city’;
114) is reminiscent of his abrasive role in one of Horace’s pictures (sale
multo / urbem defricuit, ‘He scoured the city with much wit/salt’; Sat.
1.10.4-5), but seems very curiously conflated with another passage, a
description of envy’s failure to get its teeth into Horace (Sat. 2.1.77-8,
invidia … fragili quaerens illidere dentem / offendet solido, ‘Envy, seeking
to dash its tooth on something fragile, will run up against something
hard’), for Persius goes on to say that Lucilius ‘broke his molar tooth’ on
his targets (genuinum fregit, 115). Commentators try to dissociate the two
passages and to downplay the self-destructive aspect of the savagery, but
there is no reason why we should not allow Persius an element of self-
dramatisation here: he plays the role of a sneaking retailer of whispers,
envious and therefore resentful of Lucilius’ freedom. We should again
remember that the fragments of Lucilius (and indeed Horace’s depictions
of him also) show a much more varied poet than this passage implies.43
As to the new element in the programme, Horace, Persius’ picture is
one of a much less aggressive critic, though critic he still is: omne vafer
vitium ridenti Flaccus amico / tangit et admissus circum praecordia ludit,
/ callidus excusso populum suspendere naso (Pers. 1.116-18, ‘sly Horace
touches every fault while his friend is smiling, and once let in he plays
around the heartstrings, clever at blowing his nose and dangling the popu-
lace on it’). This description is of a milder, more sociable satirist, whose
humour allows him to reach his target without alienating him.44 This
12
seems to be an acute judgement of how Horace works, especially in the

epistles of book 1, unlike the rather tendentious portrayal of Lucilius.
Horace’s overall picture of Lucilius had been complex because the
emphases of his portrayals did not remain the same. Persius’ picture is
much simpler. It retains only the single element of vigorous public criti-
cism by name. Some complexity, however, is brought back by the addition
of a picture of Horace, with its different sort of criticism. The description
of Horace also reduces the emphasis on naming, and indeed when Persius
comes eventually (we have been waiting since line 12) to whisper his secret
in line 121 it is entirely generalised.
There is both a degree of simplification in the picture of what satire is,
at least as far as this passage (and especially Lucilius) is concerned, and
also a degree of evasion in the downplaying of the element of naming.
There is, however, a different complication. In describing his ideal audi-
ence a few lines later, Persius rejects the kind of person who is eager to
mock (ludere) oddities of clothing and disabilities, the kind of person who
gives himself airs for breaking (fregerit) some unfair measures as a minor
local official, and the kind of rogue (vafer) who laughs (risisse) at geomet-
rical figures traced (secto) in sand. All the words I have given in brackets
are found in the passage describing Lucilius and Horace as well as in these
lines (Pers. 1.126-34). There is some kind of connection, but it appears to
be a messy one. It is not simply that the critical attitudes of the satirists
are reflected (or contrasted) in some way by the philistine louts described
here,45 for while the lout, who like Horace is a vafer, laughs (132) as
Persius would like to himself (122), it is not Horace, but his friend-victim
who laughed earlier, and, while Lucilius is the cutter in line 114 (secuit),
in the later passage the cutting (secto, 131) is what the victim of the
mockery does to the dust while drawing his figures. Ambivalent also, if
slightly differently, is the ignorant local official who breaks some measures
in line 130, for, while Lucilius broke something in line 115, that something
was his own tooth: it is less than clear that one can say whether Lucilius
is like the official or like the object of the official’s action. In the section at
large there is a conflation of satirists and vulgar mockers, but also of
vulgar or satirical mockers and their victims.46
f. Persius’ presentation of other models

The texture of Persius’ verse is as allusive as that of Horace’s, but he does
not have the same explicitness about his models. This is in keeping with
his manner generally, always ready to suppress explicit connections. He
cites Lucilius and adds Horace to the list of satiric predecessors, but there
is little else. Near the end of the first satire, in the course of indicating his
preferred audience, Persius suggests that a reader who is devoted to
Cratinus, Eupolis, and Aristophanes will be an appropriate reader for him.
13
Horace had listed the same three writers of old comedy as Lucilius’
starting point (Sat. 1.4.1ff.), and although Persius transfers the applica-
tion of the reference from model to reader there is still a programmatic
indication, if an indirect one. It suggests that Persius is a direct follower
of Horace’s version of satire. Persius also has, in the fifth satire, a figure
performing the role of moral teacher who serves in some degree as a
parallel to the role played by Horace’s father in Satires 1.4. Cornutus,
however, although he is presented as one who can tell the real from the
specious (Pers. 5.24-5), who shaped Persius (Pers. 5.36-40), and with
whom Persius has a special bond (Pers. 5.45-51), is nonetheless not
presented as a model as such.
g. Persius’ treatment of satire and other genres

What Persius says of satire is chiefly found in the first and the beginning
of the fifth satires, although there is also the brief poem in choliambics to
consider.
In the choliambic poem47 Persius distinguishes himself from writers of
poetry in the grand manner, writers he characterises with the trappings of
the fountain of the Muses, dreams of inspiration on Parnassus, and ivy-
garlanded busts (as in libraries)48 – writers of epic, that is to say, or writers
in the epic manner. Somewhat like Horace in Satires 1.4, he is neither
quite a poet nor not a poet: he offers song (carmen), but only as a ‘half
clansman’ (semipaganus, 6). In the second half of the poem Persius says
that poets (and he uses the same mock-elevated language as in the first
half) are no more than parrots learning tricks to earn their food. Perhaps
this is another Horatian posture, for Horace claimed to have started
writing poetry for financial reasons (Epp. 2.2.51-2). Throughout this poem
Persius expresses contempt for a kind of poetry which is portrayed mock-
ingly as vacuous, corrupt, and full of elevated absurdities. The negative
expression implies a sort of positive programme, one to do with real expe-
rience.49
In his programmatic poem, Persius places himself in a tradition defined
by depictions of Lucilius and Horace as moral critics. Although his self-
portrait is of one too timid to be comfortable with that role, he cannot help
laughing, he says (122), or even guffawing (12) at the false surfaces of
contemporary society. The laughter is like that of the old comedians
(1.123-5), ‘bold Cratinus’ (audaci Cratino), ‘angry Eupolis’, and the ‘grand
old man’ (Aristophanes). As well as the way these three iconic figures are
characterised, we are meant to remember Horace’s description of the same
three (Hor. Sat. 1.4.1-5). Criticism may be expressed in laughter, but it has
a moral aim. It is not mere abuse, and there is no place for easy targets
like one-eyed men or geometricians (127-33).
As in the Horatian programme style is an issue as well as criticism. In
14
this regard Persius makes a quite different claim from Horace. His satire
is not like conversation (Hor. Sat. 1.4.42), but difficult and concentrated
(125-7). If it is not actually unreadable, it is certainly as good as unread (2-
3). Although the content is partly to blame for this, the contrast with the
smoothness of other verse in the rest of this satire makes it clear that the
stylistic issue is important. Indeed, the two are interwoven, since Persius
treats style as symptomatic of moral state.
In the fifth satire the comic element is again applied in a context of
moral criticism: pallentis radere mores / doctus et ingenuo culpam defigere
ludo (Pers. 5.16, ‘scraping pallid habits and nailing fault with unservile
wit’). However, what is striking (and quite different from his model,
Horace) in the introduction to this satire and in the first satire, is the
extent to which Persius does not define what he does directly, nor by
assimilating satire to another literary form. Rather, he does so in terms of
a thorough-going critique of other literature. In this satire, tragedy and
epic50 are rejected in an assemblage of metaphors as airy, windy, nebulous,
raucous, burdened, fumous, heated crowings and over-rich cannibalistic
fare cramming the mouth, and the ethical dimension is brought out by the
emphatically contrasting portrayal of Persius as both using a more down-
to-earth style (‘words that wear the toga’, verba togae; Pers. 5.14),51 and as
having a moral purpose, moulded by his teacher, Cornutus.
The opposition to other kinds of literature is more pervasive and more
morally loaded than in Horace. In the first satire bad literary taste
(frequently depicted in terms derived from physical processes, particularly
eating and homosexual sex) is symptomatic of a defective ethical sense.
Persius parodies and mocks various aspects of contemporary style
(metrical fluency, archaising manner, rhetorical figuration) and especially
mythological poems in the new epic manner (the Aeneid is defended
against its modern detractors).52
Finally, a group of points concerning Persius’ satirical practice needs to
be made. Although Persius lists both Horace and Lucilius as predecessors,
he allots more space to Horace. The description of Horace, however,
reduces the importance of naming, and it is very clear that Persius is
extremely sparing with names. Apart from his addressees, Macrinus,
Cornutus and Caesius Bassus, he does not name a single contemporary
individual. Indeed in this respect (and a good number of others too) a page
of Persius might seem to have other affiliations than satire altogether,
were it not for one fact. On the one hand, Persius’ poetry resembles very
much indeed what we think of as diatribe. Although this term needs
handling with care, there is a body of material coming from various
generic backgrounds which has a number of characteristics in common.
These include the use of anecdote, a somewhat hectoring and pointed
manner, elliptical turns of thought, the use of moral sententiae and
commonplaces, abrupt changes of address, a free use of interlocutions, and
15
frequent snippets of dialogue or mimesis. We see this in the letters of

Seneca, Roman declamation, the Diatribes of Epictetus – oral deliveries in
Greek which we know from Appian’s record of some – various works of
Lucian such as the Nigrinus, and Dio Chrysostom’s Orations. On the
other hand, the Satires are densely packed with phrases, expressions,
themes, and indeed whole structures drawn or adapted from one poet in
particular, Horace,53 and predominantly the Horace of the Satires and
Epistles.54 It is as though Persius is a satirist chiefly because he writes in
verse and reworks Horatian material.
h. Juvenal’s depiction of Lucilius and Horace

Juvenal’s satires contain a good deal of material about his predecessors,
satire, and other literature. The first book is headed by a poem we recog-
nise to be in the format already used by Horace (Sat. 2.1) and Persius
(Pers. 1) for programme poems. Although their use of the dialogue form is
less fully-fledged and personalised than Horace’s, both Persius’ and
Juvenal’s first satires show a clear dependence on his discussion with
Trebatius about the dangers of writing satire. Juvenal also refers here, as
Persius did before him, to Lucilius and to Horace.55 Elsewhere there is also
an amount of programmatic material (nowhere so clearly linked to book
structure).56
Juvenal’s depiction of Lucilius is a simplified and distorted one. Lucilius’
role as a figurehead for an established genre has by now become
entrenched, just as the argumentative structure in which he appears has
itself become formalised. The elements of naming and criticism, important
in Horace’s and Persius’ depiction of Lucilius, have a perhaps stronger
presence in Juvenal’s (1.153-4). On the other hand, the Lucilian variety we
can still glimpse in Horace’s depiction of him is lacking in Juvenal’s and
Persius’. So too the explicit discussion of Lucilius’ style which is so impor-
tant in Horace does not appear at all in the later satirists. However, there
is a stylistic dimension to the way in which Juvenal presents his Lucilius.
In Horace’s depiction Lucilius is wordy and careless, but – as Horace is too
– conversational; Juvenal’s picture is very different: at the beginning and
end of his programme satire, Lucilius appears emphatically as an epic hero.
Close to the opening of the poem (1.19-21) Juvenal puts the question of
why he chooses satire rather than another kind of writing in this form:
cur tamen hoc potius libeat decurrere campo,

per quem magnus equos Auruncae flexit alumnus,
… edam
Why I would rather charge down this plain over which the great scion of
Aurunca steered his horses … I will say.
16
‘The great scion of Aurunca’ is a quasi-epic periphrasis, and charging over

a plain in a chariot is symptomatic of the epic warrior.57 Later, when
Juvenal tries to use Lucilius as a precedent in the discussion of safety, he
writes (1.165-70):
ense velut stricto58 quotiens Lucilius ardens

infremuit, rubet auditor cui frigida mens est
criminibus, tacita sudant praecordia culpa.
inde irae et lacrimae. tecum prius ergo voluta
haec animo ante tubas: galeatum sero duelli
paenitet.
Whenever ardent Lucilius thundered with his sword drawn, the listener
whose mind is icy with crimes, whose heart sweats with unspoken guilt, goes
red. Thence anger and tears. So ponder this first before the trumpets: the
helmed repent too late of war.59
In the first of these passages (19-21), Juvenal is himself charging over the
same plain as Lucilius had done before him: he too is an epic warrior. The
second (165-70) prepares for an ironic back-down in which Juvenal (trying
out what he can get away with against the dead)60 becomes less completely
assimilated to his model. It is definitely implied that Lucilian satire is
epical in manner.
There is ambivalence about the extent to which Juvenal can aspire to
follow his image of Lucilius, but the ideal satirist is clearly presented in
epic terms, and indeed there is something distinctive about the relation-
ship between Juvenal’s satire and epic. However, this picture of Lucilius is
not only a pronounced distortion, but is also the very distortion that
proves problematic for Juvenal. Had he used an idea from Horace (Sat.
2.1.30-3) and shown Lucilius, for example, as a poet who wrote about all
sorts of everyday matters, the issue of danger need not have arisen.
However, drawing Lucilius as heroic and unafraid virtually ‘forces’
Juvenal to a more extreme way out than either Horace’s or Persius’.
Juvenal can be as ‘brave’ as his picture of Lucilius only if he writes about
dead people – people who cannot fight back. This corner, into which
Juvenal has backed himself, is, of course, an artificially constructed one. It
is simply not the case that Lucilius was like this and that therefore
Juvenal must try to follow as best he can. Rather, Juvenal’s satires are
how they are meant to be, and Juvenal’s picture of Lucilius is shaped to
lead us into them. If this picture is a more extreme one than we saw in
Horace and Persius, that is because Juvenal’s satire is going to be more
extreme than Horace’s and Persius’. If Juvenal writes about the dead, it is
not because that is the best he can do; he pretends that is the best he can
do in order to do it at all – to what end remains to be seen.
Horace, too, is brought into Juvenal’s programme poem. Just as
17
Lucilius is referred to by means of a geographical periphrasis near the

beginning of the satire, so too, shortly afterwards, is Horace:61 haec ego
non credam Venusina digna lucerna? (1.51, ‘Am I not to believe this
deserving of a Venusine lamp?’). Horace called himself Venusinus at
Satires 2.1.34-5 in a passage claiming that he is a warlike follower of
Lucilius. That is appropriate for the aggression Juvenal is here attributing
to his own response to the life that surrounds him, but there is a contrast
between the two poets as well. The Horatian ‘lamp’ clearly implies the
study and the literary craftsmanship that was essential, in Horace’s view,
for the production of poetry; this is a very different picture from that of
Juvenal racing to fill his wax tablets in the streets. It is also remote from
the idea of a heroic public role. Juvenal is not interested in tracing a
literary history from Lucilius, through Horace, to himself: these contrasts
and similarities are position markers in his less than straightforward defi-
nition of himself. Juvenal creates a heroic and open-air Lucilius to try to
follow and a studious and indoor Horace to be braver than. In both ways
he creates an image of what satire ideally might now be like, but which his
own satire actually is not like.
Juvenal is using his predecessors as ciphers here. Of course Horace was
a literary craftsman, but so is Juvenal. Juvenal uses these figurations of
Lucilius and Horace to emphasise his own posture of being directly
engaged with the experience of real life. There is obviously something
paradoxical in the use of literary indices to measure unliterariness, but it
is precisely this tension that we see embodied in the satires.
Juvenal refers, apparently, to a third satirist in this poem: Cluvienus, of
whom we know nothing (1.79-80).
si natura negat, facit indignatio versum

qualemcumque potest, quales ego vel Culvienus.
If nature says no, indignation will make the verse

such as it can, like mine or Cluvienus’.
It is possible, as Richard Lafleur suggested, that ‘Cluvienus’ is a third

geographical periphrasis (after Auruncan and Venusine), meaning ‘the
man from Cluvium’. This does not help us identify the man, however, and
it is likely that Juvenal’s audience were not familiar with either Cluvienus
or a satirist from Cluvium. It is certainly appropriate that the culminating
claim of the paragraph – that even if nature refuses, still anger will itself
produce verse – should be tied to a reference to an ‘anybody’. The impli-
cation that things are so bad that satire would be anyone’s automatic
reaction supports the extra-literary pose of Juvenalian satire.
Juvenal’s use of Lucilius and Horace in the first satire is a labelling of
the first book as satire rather than an indication of any specific relation-
18
ship with either of those satirists. The names are used iconically, and
proclaim that we are reading satire, but they only give us partial or
misleading clues. It has become traditional to observe (cf. 1.155-7) that
criticising individuals is too dangerous to be possible. This seems at first
to presuppose that such criticism is actually part of the nature of satire,
but the satirical struggle to get round the danger is so mannered and auto-
matic that it seems performative rather than actual.62
i. Juvenal’s presentation of other models

Juvenal is arguably the most literary of the three extant satirists, and yet
he is the least inclined to present any other form of literature in the role
of model.
Near the beginning of the first satire he tells us that he too has had an
education, that he has done the standard exercises of Roman declamation
(see glossary), as though this is qualification for him to become a poet
(1.15-18). It is, of course, true that the Satires are pervaded by the influ-
ence of declamation, but Juvenal is not here telling us that declamation is
the generic starting-point for the satires; he is simply expending irony on
contemporary poetry.
In the tenth satire Juvenal holds up the figures of Democritus and
Heraclitus, the laughing and weeping philosophers, as symbols of the
tragic and comic perspective. Again, we are not looking at a pair of models
so much as an indication that both the comic and the tragic view are easy
targets for levity. Gone is the allegiance to Greek old comedy that Horace
and Persius claimed.
There is no figure in Juvenal to correspond to the role of Horace’s
father, or of Cornutus in Persius’ satires. Late in the satires Juvenal writes
of experience as something one can learn from (13.19-23), but his praise of
philosophy is perfunctory enough even before it is dismissed later in the
same satire (13.120-5).
Juvenal reduces the content of the labels ‘Lucilius’ and ‘Horace’; he
abstains from presenting other models, ironically suggesting that a stan-
dard education is enough to qualify one as a poet, and lays emphasis on the
role of indignatio in the generation of his kind of poetry. In all this he
intensifies and concentrates the satiric posture, already visible in Horace
and Persius, of being in direct, unmediated contact with real experience.
j. Juvenal’s treatment of satire and other genres

Other literature is densely woven into Juvenal’s Satires, but as part of the
texture rather than as subject-matter. He mentions the fabula togata
(comedies with Roman settings) and (as Persius did; 1.51) elegy caustically
in the first satire (1.3-4), and he is ironic at the expense of a range of poets
19
in the seventh satire (62-97; the satire also contains sections making fun
of historians and orators: 98-104 and 105-49). The burden, however, of
what he says about poetry concerns satire and epic.
What Juvenal says about satire, both in the programme satire to the
first book, and at the end of the sixth satire, is, at least at first sight, quite
clear. The references to previous satirists are more automated, the distrac-
tions are fewer, and the concern with subject matter seems more direct.
Certainly this will turn out to be misleading, but it is, all the same, what
seems at first to be the case.
In the first satire, Juvenal claims to explain why he wants to write
satire. edam, he says (1.21): ‘I will tell you.’ The answer is channelled into
two sections (22-80 and 81-146), the latter giving rise to the interlocutions
about how safe it is to write like this which are derived from the Horatian
programme satire. The two sections present similar material in rather
different formats. The whole of the first is based on the structure, ‘When
x happens, how can one not write satire?’ Within this there is clear
patterning: references to Lucilius, Horace, and Cluvienus frame and halve
the section, and each half is halved again by the question of writing satire;
30 and 63-4. The content builds up to a picture of the circumstances under
which satire is almost inevitably produced. The subject matter, then, of
satire is the social and sexual topsy-turvy world of the city of Rome,
depicted in grotesque cinematic vignettes and touched up with sensational
sententiae. The cast is full of rapidly, nightmarishly even, changing walk-
on roles. Many are named, though not with names that mattered in
Juvenal’s day. The writing has some of the sensationalist effect of parts of
Tacitus’ historical writing. Juvenal, however, writes (1.79-80) that in
despite of talent, anger will produce satire, whereas historians, Tacitus
included, professed to write without anger.63
The second paragraph is still part of the explanation launched in line
21, but it begins with a fresh programmatic statement. The topic of his
‘little book’ (libellus), Juvenal writes (1.85-6), is
quidquid agunt homines, votum, timor, ira, voluptas,

gaudia, discursus
All human activity, prayer, fear, anger, pleasure, joy, toing and froing.
This more or less universal inclusiveness (suggesting a philosophical

perspective) is matched by an epic chronological scope,64 but the broad
subject matter is rapidly summarised as vice, and specifically greed (87-8).
The expansion of this topic in the rest of the paragraph is structured as a
set of concentric rings65 with the virtual apotheosis of money at the centre.
Overall, then, we have in the first satire a full and clear statement of
what Juvenal is doing, much the clearest offered by any of the extant
20
satirists. Juvenalian satire is an outpouring of indignation at vicious

greed. However, it is not really as simple as that. We have already seen how
Juvenal’s proposed material (enshrined in the last two lines of the satire)
resembles that of historiography. Juvenal’s self-proclaimed lack of impar-
tiality, however, flies in the face of the programmatic professions of the
historiographers. It may be, of course, that the impartiality of the histori-
ographers is as suspect as Juvenal’s anger,66 but the similarity of material
and the disparity of the programmatic professions combine to prevent the
audience from easily gauging its response. In addition, the issue of naming
has been, as in Horace and Persius, circumvented.
The sixth satire occupies a book to itself. There is nothing like this in
earlier extant satire. Obviously it cannot contain a programme satire, let
alone one coming at the beginning of the book. Perhaps our impression of
the conventionality of initial programme poems is over-fertilised by the
high visibility of those in Horace’s second book, in Persius, and in
Juvenal’s first book. Nonetheless, the inclusion of programmatic remarks
in the concluding paragraph seems a striking innovation.67 In any case,
they are emphasised by their climactic position. Here Juvenal talks as
though he might be suspected of transgressing the rules of the genre, the
lex priorum as he calls it (6.635-8):
fingimus haec altum satura sumente coturnum

scilicet, et finem egressi legemque priorum
grande Sophocleo carmen bacchamur hiatu,
montibus ignotum Rutulis caeloque Latino?
nos utinam vani.
You think we’ve made this up? That my satire has put on the tragic buskin?
That it’s gone outside the bounds and law of those who’ve gone before, and
my great song is a bacchic riot issuing from a Sophoclean maw, alien to
Rutulian mountains and a Latin sky? I wish it were a dream!
There are several things to be said about this. First, we can see in the blur-
ring of the boundary between tragedy and satire an echo of the blurring of
epic and satire in the first satire. Second, the question itself of whether
Juvenal has exceeded the bounds of satire (satura at 634) is phrased in
words reminiscent of Horace’s statement that some people thought he was
doing precisely that (Sat. 2.1.1-2; sunt quibus in satira videar nimis acer
et ultra / legem tendere opus, ‘There are those to whom I seem to be too
sharp in my satire, and to stretch the work beyond its law’). There is a
tension here between the idea of Juvenal’s satire transgressing the generic
boundary, and the implication that it is built into satire that it trans-
gresses its boundaries. Third, there is the matter of how Juvenal’s
question fits into its context. The sixth satire is packed with social and
21
sexual inversions, woven through with luxury, decadence, and outrage;

when he reaches the topic of mothers killing their own children, Juvenal
asks if his satire is turning into tragedy. Within a few lines he is suggesting
that his satire-tragedy is actually even more monstrous than tragedy itself
(because the crimes in satire are committed for money (643ff.; cf. also
8.215, 15.29) rather than for mad and furious passion). In this sense
Juvenal’s verse is doubly transgressive; it crosses its own limits and those
of tragedy too. Of course it is absurd to say that every street contains a
latter-day Clytaemnestra (656), but we should see this as a figure putting
the stuff of Greek tragedy into Roman streets and thereby questioning
both the realism of Greek tragedy and the sensationalism of Roman
moralising.68
The genre that Juvenal implicates in this competition is, by ancient
convention, a lofty one, on a level with epic, and we should bear in mind
his hostility to that genre too. The first satire begins69 as an irate response
primarily to epic. In the course of his argument that modern life makes
writing satire almost inevitable (1.30; 51; 63f.; 79f.), Juvenal momentarily
raises the suggestion that he write epic, but only as though the idea would
be self-evidently ridiculous (52-4). Finally, his interlocutor suggests that
epic is a safe thing to write (1.162-4).70 There are critical comments in
other satires too. In the introduction to the seventh satire (7.1-35),
Juvenal suggests that would-be poets – he seems to have epicists primarily
in mind – may expect patronage from Caesar. Caesar is looking for mate-
rial to expend indulgence on (20-1). This is hardly a positive picture of epic
poetry. Juvenal suggests that imperial patronage is a causative factor in
the current decline of literature, and the supply of epics (like those mocked
in the first satire) is one of its symptoms. In the main body of the seventh
satire, in the section devoted to the inadequacy of poetic patronage (36-
97), the main impetus is again writers of epic (though Rubrenus Lappa
represents tragedy; 7.72-3) and nothing suggests that any worthwhile
poetry is produced. Little or nothing suggests it would be even if there
were better patronage. The language Juvenal uses for the epics-in-
progress of Telesinus71 and the like, writing merely on the expectation of
patronage (22-9), is mocking.72 Even Virgil, representing (along with the
lyricist Horace) a time when there were (allegedly) generous patrons, is
ambiguously praised at best (7.62-71).73
On the other hand, Juvenal presents Lucilius as an epic hero (1.19-20,
165ff.). His satiric targets include, into the bargain, a distinctly epic-style
charioteering Automedon (1.60-2), the epicised Domitian in the fourth
satire, and a Virro with epic trappings in the fifth. In relation to his prede-
cessors Juvenal increases the intensity of the critique of epic, but at the
same time he also transforms himself as a satirist into a writer of some-
thing that can be confused with epic/tragedy,74 except that its content is
real – or at least something that can be claimed to resemble reality.
22
Juvenal’s antagonism to epic and tragedy is much more violent than

Horace’s opposition, and at least as strong as Persius’. His reasons,
however, are not all the same. They lack the moralising component of
Persius’ critique. On the other hand, he shares with Horace the feeling
that epic is remote from real experience. To this, however, he adds the idea
that this makes epic safe for writing in imperial society.
The emphasis on real life appears in other contexts too. It is involved in
the critique of education in the seventh satire. It lies also behind the pref-
erence for the lessons of experience to those of philosophy (13.19), and,
especially, the suggestion that satire is an immediate direct reaction to
experience that is repeatedly emphasised in the first satire.
… difficile est saturam non scribere. nam quis iniquae

tam patiens urbis, tam ferreus ut teneat se, … (1.30-1)
it is hard not to write satire. For who can endure such an unfair city, so iron-
souled as to contain himself …?
nonne libet medio ceras inplere capaces / quadrivio …? (1.63-4)75
Don’t you want to fill up capacious tablets right at the crossroads …?
facit indignatio versum (1.79)
Indignation itself will make the verses
However, the aspiration to realism, the hostility to epic and the claim to
realism are in tension with a number other features of Juvenal’s satire.
Thus, the annexation of epic ground for satire is a paradoxical expression
of hostility to epic. In addition, it makes Juvenal’s satire seem more
literary than directly concerned with real life. The resolve to write against
the dead, too, can be seen as a paradoxical way of dealing directly with
experience, and the suggestion that a declamatory education qualifies
Juvenal to write about real life is perhaps an inspired comic touch. We
arrive, yet again, at a puzzle rather than an answer.
Conclusion
The satirists talk repeatedly as though satire is a constant form in which
a defining characteristic is the public criticism by name of those who
transgress society’s rules. They also talk repeatedly as though this ideal
has somehow become dangerous and can no longer be practised in the way
it once was. The satire cannot be public, it must be whispered; it cannot
name living malefactors, it must be poetry and not itself. There is a
23
suggestion that Roman verse satire is a kind of old comedy in disguise.

However, Lucilius, who acts as the link between old comedy and verse
satire, is tendentiously represented by all the later satirists. It looks as
though the issue of criticism by name is a sort of charade under whose
cover quite other concerns are expressed. Over and again the satirists
define themselves, at least in part, in relation to epic. There is always a
contrast and usually, or perhaps always, a degree of hostility. Over and
again the disagreement claims to turn on the relative distances between
the two genres and real experience, and all the satirists claim to deal with
real life. We might have accepted this without too much question coming
from Horace, but in Juvenal we are given pause for thought. In both cases
(and in that of Persius), that extra thought allows us to recollect how
extremely literary the satirists are, as though their concern is less with
reality itself (as if that were possible) than actually testing the ‘realities’
of different genres against each other. This may still allow ethical interests
to be aired; although the permission to fulfil satire’s ‘obligation’ to criti-
cise has, we are given to understand, been withdrawn, nonetheless a
qualified permission to indulge in certain sorts of subject matter remains.
What, however, the satirist makes of this remains to be seen.
24
2
The Generic Landscape
The pronouncements of the satirists themselves are evasive. Nevertheless,

the satirists are explicitly concerned with the relationship between their
own kind of literature and at least one other, epic. Other genres, moreover,
come into play by way of allusion, imitation, parody, and so forth. Because
of both of these factors, the evasiveness and the relationships with other
genres, it is necessary to supplement the satirists’ programmatic
comments with an investigation into the matter of genre.
A book cannot be read in isolation. It plays on the reader’s knowledge
of the world, the reader’s personal experience, and that experience
includes literature, however broadly defined. The author, naturally, cannot
have a very precise idea of what the audience knows or has read, but some
basic minima can be taken for granted.1 Thus (for example), a Roman
writer of the early Empire would make the implicit assumption, because
of the sociology of literacy and literature-reading, that his audience would
have been exposed to Virgil. Such assumptions are harder for the contem-
porary English-language writer, since the book-reading public is far more
diverse and diffuse. Even so, the author makes assumptions about the
common coinage of human experience. Furthermore, the author may have
a fairly well-defined primary audience in mind, which would allow a
greater degree of effective play on shared cultural knowledge.
Speech has a density provided by the non-verbal context of its occasion.2
With literature the audience is a much more complex and nebulous entity.
Literature tends to be removed from such direct connection with a speech-
situation and needs to use a wide range of language resources to make up
the deficit. This is more than a matter of grammar and vocabulary: it
involves tone, figures of thought, concealed presuppositions, resonances
with cultural background and so on, and the way round the problem of not
knowing exactly what the audience has read and experienced is (as Pliny
describes in Ep. 1.20.12; cf. 2.5.7) to load the text, like a blunderbuss, with
a calculated variety of projectile, and aim it at the core of the target audi-
ence. One category of projectile would be nuggets of intertextuality.
The concept of intertextuality is, of course, useful in the process of
explaining a text, but it does not dispose of the need to be aware of a
generic framework. To be more specific, the relationship between Juvenal
and the works of contemporary authors (especially Tacitus, Lucan,
25
Martial, declamation, the moralising tradition) is not just a matter of the

web of links between texts, but one of exemplary kinds of text, or the
frames in which texts are read.3
The basic problem with discussing genre is (again) that there are
different ways of cutting the literary cake – there are different kinds of
‘kind’.4 There is also the complication that the cake itself can be defined
with different degrees of inclusiveness. As well as epic and satire, say, one
might or might not include letters, graffiti, and legal documents,
depending on immediate purpose. All, however, are verbal or linguistic
manifestations. Although this is obvious, it is also fundamental, and the
issue of genre needs to be set in the context of language-use more gener-
ally before coming to grips with the specifically literary genres of Roman
poetry.
Speech-act genres
We speak long before we write (and thereafter speak more than we write).
But we are already learning about the shape of the world before we speak.
Not only are powerful pre-verbal cognitive structures and patterns built
into language, but social structures and dynamics, themselves partly
shaped by and modelled on natural patterns and cycles, are also reflected
in the language we learn. Given these patterns, speech situations are
inevitably patterned and in various degrees become conventionalised. This
works at a multiplicity of levels. Social dynamics are reflected in levels of
formality in grammar, vocabulary, and name-usage. Information
conveying of all kinds is shaped by a pattern of moving from the known or
given towards the new elements. There may, of course, also be a struggle
to say something in a new way: the standard may be varied in all sorts of
ways and for all sorts of reasons, but there are recognised standard situa-
tions and ways of handling them in speech. Greetings, congratulations,
commiserations, conversations, stories, jokes, lectures, and so forth, all
have recognisable gambits and devices and as such may be seen as proto-
genres which we assimilate and internalise from infancy.5
In literature, especially as we get further from forms which intend
direct effects in the real world (e.g. Ciceronian defence speeches), there is
a further layer of complexity due to the relationship with a more complex
and less direct audience, and with already existing literary objects (some
of which may belong to a very different time or place). Nonetheless, liter-
ature draws on experience and our spoken lives as well as on other
literature and so there is clear room for fertilisation from these proto-
genres. Moreover, since our brains are wired by education, rearing, and
the experience of life to produce and respond to social genres, and to recog-
nise deviations from the standard, the same mental processes cannot but
apply to the production and reception of literature.
26
2. The Generic Landscape
A concept of kind, then, requires a considerable degree of fluidity, for

the boundaries between literature and language are not clear-cut. In the
literary sphere, although there are historically bounded genres with some
degree of fixity and clarity of outline (Greek tragedy, say, the Icelandic
saga, or the modern novel), it is only a relative degree of fixity. The kinds
are never altogether static. There are, moreover, false starts and dead
ends. There are works which have only opaque relationships to any previ-
ously existing set of characteristics. Ovid’s Fasti, though in elegiacs, is not
what we think of as Roman elegy, and there are classical examples of
genres that die young (arguably, for example, Socratic dialogue, Roman
fiction, and Menippean satire). Nonetheless, just as culturally bounded
social genres arise and change, and have different life spans and degrees
of formalisation, so there is an evolutionary aspect to forms of literature.
In this regard those genres which have a degree of relative fixity are
particularly important.
Generic fixity and the dominant genre

In the Augustan period we see a number of genres (chiefly poetic, although
historiography is also beginning to make itself felt) with marked and indi-
vidual features: epic, elegy, lyric, satire, bucolic, didactic. There is in this,
and in the programmatic statements of the poets, a new emphasis on being
the first to find and transfer Greek genres into Latin.6 This may suggest a
rather exaggerated picture of Greek poetry neatly laid out on a generic
grid, but there are unevennesses in the real situation in Latin. It is true
that there was an extended and acknowledged background in Greek (and
Latin) for epic, and we know of other writers of epic besides Virgil. Much
the same can be said of didactic, and perhaps of epigram. On the other
hand, we know of a number of elegists, but the apparent background
(apart from the formal aspect of metre) is very much less obviously
related. What we may see as a clearly defined genre soon loses that defin-
ition as Propertius shifts the areas of interest and Ovid starts playing
radical games over and over again with content and form (in the Heroides,
Ars Amatoria, Fasti, and the exile poetry).
To some extent Roman love elegy may be considered a genre because
there was a succession of elegists, but there is another reason which can
be seen more clearly in the more extreme case of Latin lyric. Latin lyric
has, as usual, a Greek model; like love elegy it has no real Latin
antecedents, but unlike love elegy it also has no real succession either.7
Horace’s Odes, arguably, constitute the entire corpus8 and might be said
to belong to a genre chiefly because of the nature of the wider literary
scene. They are written in a context in which there are exemplar genres
(as, for example, reviewed in Sat. 1.10.40ff.) and in which the idea of genre
and a genre-system (i.e. the Greek literary body) is important.
27
This is even more true in the case of satire: it avowedly lacks a Greek
model, and had lain in virtual disuse since Lucilius. Thereafter it goes
through huge changes with each satirist. Furthermore, although Lucilius
is the satiric figurehead, there is – as we have seen – a problematic rela-
tionship between what he did and what his successors did. Nevertheless,
these successors clearly write as though satire were a recognisable and
defined genre, distinct from other genres. It is important to emphasise
again that this is deeply involved with the perception of a genre-system
which included clear paradigm-genres and also to observe that the list of
genres which really have the required fixity of form to play this role is
actually very small. It consists chiefly of epic and its cognate, didactic.9
Epic underpins the genre-system as it applies to verse. Other genres
have a greater degree of fluidity and transience. They also show in various
– sometimes antagonistic – ways the continual influence of epic material.
This agrees with the Russian Formalist proposition that in any age there
is a dominant (sometimes called royal) genre which shapes and colours the
surrounding genres.10 Such genres can become worn out (‘habitualised’
and ‘automatised’ are frequently used in this context) and sometimes
their vigour can be renewed by change of manner or content, usually by
absorbing what is seen as lower grade material. This process (which may
be associated with parody) reveals a tension between the dominant genre
and those around it, for when epic material is reformulated for ostensibly
lower genres (as, say, in the Cynthia poems in the fourth book of
Propertius’ Elegies) the contemporary setting makes (however complex) a
revaluation of the annexed material. In elegy and satire especially we see
epic openly under attack, from different points of view. On the other hand,
although epic also receives material from other genres (perhaps most
anarchically in Ovid), when it does so there is, as Stephen Hinds has
shown,11 a tendency for the new material to be marked as alien – generi-
cally alien, that is to say.
Seeing a genre: alternative categories

Because the concept of the genre-system is so strong, the composition of
apparently didactic poems in elegiacs (Ars and Remedia Amoris,
Medicamina Faciei Femineae, and so on), or the implication that even an
epic might have elegiacs in it are still (intentionally) astonishing.12 How
would it look if one were to publish an edition of the Metamorphoses with
a coda in elegiacs at the end, as Ovid himself suggests at Tristia 1.7.33-
40)?13 However, although lists based on a genre classification are not
infrequent,14 sometimes an emphasis on subject matter suggests a way of
looking at literature from a rather different perspective.
When Juvenal pairs Lesbia and Cynthia (6.7-8) as representative of the
spirit of the age, he conjures up a picture of a particular kind of poetry,
28
identifiable by its own salient characteristics, and one which redefines

standard generic boundaries. Love poetry, irrespective of narrowly defined
genre, is also the point when Propertius (2.34.81-94) joins his poetry to a
tradition comprising poets whose subject was a single dominating beloved,
Varro of Atax15 in his slighter works, Catullus, Calvus, and the elegist
Gallus.16 Admittedly we know little of Gallus, but the same point is made
again, and for us more clearly because of the inclusion of Tibullus, when
Calvus and Catullus, whom we think of as neoterics, are joined by the
elegist Gallus to greet the newly dead elegist Tibullus in some Elysian
glade in Ovid (Am. 3.9.59-66). Elsewhere Ovid’s list of authors for women
to read to make themselves mentally attractive (AA 3.321ff.) is
Callimachus, Philetas, Anacreon, Sappho, Menander, Propertius, Gallus,
Tibullus, Varro’s Argonautica, and Virgil’s Aeneid. In this context, this too
must be read as a cross-generic corpus of erotic literature.17 Ovid has
another cross-generic list of erotic poets, this time to justify his own erotic
poetry, in the Tristia (2.427ff.). The list includes Catullus, Calvus and
others, Sisenna’s translation of the obscene (or so it was said) Aristides,
and the elegists.18 Pliny too lists authors of erotic poetry as self-justifica-
tion (Pliny Ep. 5.3). His list is of Romans of high social standing who also
wrote unchaste poetry (including Cicero, Calvus, Asinius Pollio, M.
Messala, and Seneca, and imperial figures including Julius Caesar and
Augustus)19 and then broadens to include quality poets not necessarily of
high social standing (Virgil, Nepos, Ennius, Accius).
More striking, but perfectly natural, is Ovid’s cross-generic list of poets
and works that he liked (Trist. 4.10.41ff.). The variety of the list is very
noticeable: Macer’s didactic poem on snake-bites and their cures,
Propertius, Ponticus for epic, Bassus for iambic, Horace for lyric. After
mentioning that he only saw Virgil he adds, specifically as a group of
elegists, Gallus, Tibullus, and Propertius, and puts himself chronologically
in fourth (quartus, 54) place after them.20 Here, then, we have an inter-
play of different kinds of division.21 The features that might help make
distinctions between authors or between kinds of literature, features such
as form, content, style, tone, are not subject to a single fixed and all-
purpose hierarchy: individual factors obtrude. We see, then, a matrix in
which a number of more or less clearly defined genres stand out – one in
particular, epic – but it is a matrix whose boundaries are fluid and
pervious.
The ‘new’ genre and audience reaction

Literary categorisations can be unorthodox or individual. Stephen Hinds
argues that Ovid, for example, by the way he reshapes the Aeneid in his
own epic (Met. 13.623-14.582), presents it tendentiously as a ‘hesitant
precursor of the Metamorphoses’.22 We have already seen how Propertius
29
and Ovid can use lists of poets to annex Catullus as a proto-elegist. In the
more idiosyncratic lists we are close to conceptual anthologies and the
miscellanies that might go into the formation of a new genre. This point
can be strengthened by thinking of Virgil’s Eclogues.
Virgil’s Eclogues owe an explicit allegiance to Theocritus, but behind
this lies a more complicated reality: Virgil models the Eclogues predomi-
nantly, but not entirely, not on the Idylls,23 but on the bucolic poems of
Theocritus together with some non-bucolic poetry by Theocritus, and with
the addition also of the kind of poetry produced by Bion and Moschus – an
anthology in other words. Other kinds of literature from Virgil’s own time
form part of the picture too, notably Gallus’ elegies (especially in Eclogue
10). There is always a tension between being part of a tradition, subjec-
tively defining that tradition, and reshaping it in the light of one’s own
internal pressures.
Catullus’ polymetrics provide further illumination of the subjective
element here. We do not know for sure exactly what the little book
(libellus) dedicated in Carm. 1 was,24 but the pointers in this program-
matic dedication suggest it was like what we know as 1-60, or 1-61, and
what we have here is a blend of three different and otherwise distinct
generic strains: iambic, hendecasyllabic, and lyric.25 That this variety of
metre was really an important aspect of the collection seems to be corrob-
orated by the picture of an afternoon of impromptu verse-making with
Licinius Calvus (Carm. 50), a picture which strongly suggests the concept
of a polymetric libellus.26 Crudely, one might expect of iambic that it be
abusive,27 that hendecasyllables be witty epigrams,28 that lyric poems be
somewhat more elevated in tone, language, and content. However, each of
Catullus’ shorter poems shows its own level and pattern of stylistic misce-
genation. For example, the loftier manner associated with lyric appears
also in the hendecasyllabic Carm. 46, and the tone of iambic colours the
second half of 11, which is in a lyric metre. Indeed, as we know, the level
of Catullus’ language can vary wildly within the scope of a single poem.
Given the novelty, how did Catullus expect his audience to react to a
collection in which a vision of a radiant but lost love (8, 11) rubs shoulders
with ludic frivolities about other people’s girls (6, 10), partings and
returns of friends (9, 46), petty theft (if even that is not an exaggeration)
of napkins or writing tablets (12, 42), a comic metamorphosis (13), the
death of a bird (3), social manners, versification, nice places (31, 44),
nettles, casual sex, a rickety bridge, and vigorous abuse?
By serving this miscellany, Catullus might perhaps suggest that the
lyric tone which extends beyond the confines of those poems in lyric
metres is a subjective illusion for the universally comic situation of love.
Carm. 8, for example, is like a Plautine monologue and in a metre which
had definite comic, even burlesque, connotations. However, perhaps there
is another possibility: is the suggestion rather that life is a mixture of all
30
sorts of odds and ends, and that this mélange can be invested at any time
with an importance beyond that which the serious old men of Carm. 2
might allow? The cramming of poems of different generic allegiance into
one body of work creates a new genre, but at the same time removes the
guideline of the familiar.
Literary context and social change

If we are to get out of this impasse we need to consider Catullus’ poetry in
a broader context than that of its antecedents alone.
We can trace vertical lines of influence as within Roman verse satire, for
example, or Latin epic or love elegy. By extension one can trace more
tendentious lines, such as a line of polymetric epigram-based occasional
‘realistic’ verse (Catullus, Martial, Statius’ Silvae), but this overlooks
something important, namely the way the set of inter-generic relation-
ships work. We would need, in other words, to consider the issue of
Catullan subjectivity in the light of the context of Lucretius’ Epicurean
didactic, Caesar’s autobiographical prose, and Cicero’s extensive writ-
ings.29
Social change is a major factor in genre-development: in the republican
period we see social values being violently transformed, and the struggle
being reflected and waged in the literature of the time. It should also not
be forgotten that the Roman literary world of the late Republic was a
small one. Catullus, Caesar, Cicero, and Lucretius had mutual connec-
tions. They knew who each other were and what they stood for, and so did
their audiences: this gives a sense of urgency to the contrasts of perspec-
tive among these authors. Essentially, public values and duties are
prioritised in Cicero’s works, whereas it is at the heart of Lucretius’ De
Rerum Natura to argue that happiness can come only from a programme
of withdrawal into private purposes. Nonetheless, the argument is given
in terms accessible to the other point of view. Caesar’s works, on the other
hand, concentrate their view, as Cicero’s do, on external political realities,
but there is clearly a different equation between individual ambition and
the general public good.
In this context we see the importance of Catullus’ non-conventional
treatment of what might otherwise seem merely the amusing and
ephemeral trivia of epigram. The material of his poetry, all of it, is
presented as a game,30 but a game that merits a high value judgement, just
as in Carm. 5 the game of counting kisses has a high value attached to it
in contrast to the business of counting money. We see the combination of
frivolity and emotional engagement in Carm. 50 too. Here Catullus
describes a playful day of poetry-writing with Calvus. Otiosi, lusimus, deli-
catos, ludebat, and iocum all emphasise the game-like quality of the
writing-process, in particular the writing in various metres, but the imita-
31
tion of the language of love and the symptoms of pining away in the second
half of the poem suggest, however whimsically (part of the game), that
there can be a passionate emotional energy in precisely this sort of poetry.
There are, of course, two aspects to the picture of inter-relationships
between the literature of any given period, the one based on how they lie
at a hypothetical ideal moment in the period itself, the other based on how
the set of inter-relationships changes from period to period. In the larger
context of this study, the particular importance this has is that Roman
verse satire appears from time to time over a period of roughly 400 years.
Although it purports to be the same thing, or to try to be the same thing,
there is an element of fiction in this.
The value of the individual raises itself as an issue through a variety of
literary forms in the late Republic. The answers, if one may be so
simplistic, provided by Catullus, Cicero, Lucretius, and Caesar contrast
vigorously with each other. There is something quite individualistic about
their mutual differences. The poetry of the next generation of poets is
profoundly different. There are (as always) elements of continuity or
inertia as well as changes and discontinuities. The same polar tension
between the values of the public and private spheres is at work in
Augustan literature, but the issue has a different profile. It is more prob-
lematic for the Augustans. The relative value of the individual animal is
weighed against that of the herd in Virgil’s Georgics, just as personal loss
and public gain are balanced both in the Aeneid and on Horace’s smaller
scale in a satire like 1.5 or an ode like 3.14. Over the spread of literary
forms, ideological commitment is generally more in the air, but ideological
differences are present more equivocally. In their different ways Virgil,
Horace, and Tibullus reflect and illuminate social values favourable to the
Prinicipate, and represent the ruling élite in positive lights. Only
Propertius seems to stand out (this will need consideration further below),
and so the pattern of antagonism is clearly very different from that in the
late Republic.
Lucilius and Catullus: the centrality of ‘self’

Lucilius, coming before the transition from Republic to Empire, is an
important index for gauging literary change: especially one points here to
the aggressive individuality of his verse, his republican libertas, which he
shares with Catullus rather than his generic progeny.
Although later satirists portray Lucilius as an outspoken and fearless
moral critic, the fragments and testimonia show how selective a picture
this is. Certainly we see criticism of numbers of individuals, but often it is
clearly comic or personal in tone. Often, indeed, Lucilius seems to be
preparing the way for Catullus. Both poets have the author’s ‘self’ at the
heart of their writing, a ‘self’ reflected in a broad sample of material.
32
In Lucilius other people’s ways of speaking are made fun of (e.g. 83-
93W), as they are in Catullus (84). One of the books of Lucilius’ Satires,
according to Porphyrio (on Hor. Odes 1.22.10), was called ‘Collyra’ after
Lucilius’ mistress, because that was its theme.31 Another fragment (1041-
2W) seems to come from a speech of erotic persuasion like that of
Anacreon 417. Perhaps there was a narrative context, and perhaps the girl
replied, turning Lucilius (if he it was) down in 1043-4W. In this case we
would have a comic32 autobiographical tale comparable to that in Catullus
10. According to Varro (LL 6.69, cf. 898-9) there was a scene in which
Lucilius persuaded a woman called Cretaea to undress. Again, books 22 to
25 appear to have contained epigrams and epitaphs in elegiacs on
freedmen and slaves known to or owned by Lucilius. Autobiographical
anecdotes appear (a journey to Sicily in book 3) as they do in Catullus.
Among traces of other anecdotes, we see, in book 11 according to Gellius
who quotes them, the lines, conicere in versum dictum praeconis volebam
/ Grani (448-9W; ‘I wanted to put into verse a saying of Granius the
auctioneer’). This bears a general but clear resemblance to the gambit in
Carm. 6: volo te ac tuos amores / ad caelum lepido vocare versu (6.16-17, ‘I
want to call you and your love to the heavens with witty verse’). Here
Catullus teases Flavius about his activities with a girl, supposedly a rough
one (in fact, the evidence that there was anything but an imaginary girl
conjured up to tease Flavius is merely circumstantial). Perhaps Lucilius’
mockery of Granius was more abrasive (so it would seem from Granius’
appearance in book 20), but the similarity remains. There is also a simi-
larity between Lucilius and Catullus at a more general level, namely that
Lucilius’ presence, and that of his friends and enemies, in the verse rein-
forces his centrality as the viewpoint through which we read the satires
(cf. 650-1W).33 In both authors, furthermore, there is a resemblance to the
variety of content and manner we presume on the basis of Cicero’s letters
to have been part of the everyday life of the Roman of the reading class,
and in both a suggestion that this ephemeral content has some claim to
longer-term value.
Horace belongs on the other side of a major social and political water-
shed. His poetry could not have been the same as either Lucilius’ or
Catullus’. However, despite the problems caused by presenting Lucilius as
a fierce moral critic, he chose to write satire and to present his model in
that light. If we ask whether Horace could simply have made his Lucilian
nugae (‘trifles’, Sat. 1.9.2) by expanding such Lucilian nugae34 as Catullus
10, and played a Lucilian game with Catullus’ variety of metre by using
only the hexameter – the metre used by Lucilius, but not by Catullus’
libellus – the answer surely has to be yes. What then did he gain by sailing
under Lucilian colours? Genres, like masks, express as well as conceal;
they permit certain kinds of expression, allow possibilities. Among these,
in this case, we might number the precedent for mocking epic, the scope
33
for looking at other genres, a pose of libertas (‘liberty’) implying that

libertas still existed (and therefore supporting the propaganda elements of
the poems), an appeal to Roman self-image, and perhaps scale. Perhaps
also the rather unrestricted subject matter of Lucilian satire might have
attracted the unromantic realist and the ethical essayist.
Competitive inclusiveness and generic antagonism

The self-centredness of Lucilius and Catullus is something later poets
(outside epic) aspire to, and their various attempts manifest the pressures
of social change. Consistently, we see a pattern in which there are succes-
sions of surrounding genres reacting in different ways to the elevated
mass of the dominant genre, epic.
This is not a simple one-way process: real epics are not monolithically
uniform, and epics themselves are affected by the surrounding genres.
They incorporate material which remains distinct and indeed problematic.
Hinds (2000) has shown how the love element which keeps appearing in
Roman epic remains generically alien, indeed transgressive, no matter
how regularly it happens. Elegiac colours are difficult in epic. Dido, for
example, represents a crisis for Aeneas (and dies); in Ovid’s
Metamorphoses (in book 11) the elegiac figure Alcyone does not fit in
Ceyx’s epic world and their deaths result.35 The abstracted idea of a genre
is expressive and genres, however much they mix, remain antagonistic. We
do not, as Midas and Marsyas do, gain asses’ ears or have our skin
removed for our judgements about kinds of literature, but the questions
involved are real ones of some weight. Does love count for more than
Caesar or vice versa? An elegist pursues an unheroic (unepic) course after
the ideal of what elegy might be – a celebration of the private sphere and
the life of love as opposed to the public sphere and all that the life of the
citizen implies. Perhaps the beloved is unsatisfactory and the lover there-
fore seems mad – well, just what are we to make of that?
I would like to answer this question in terms of what I will call compet-
itive inclusiveness (a concept that will apply particularly to Juvenal’s use
of other literature). We see epic incorporating alien material, and we also
see non-epic forms taking on epic colours or incorporating epic narratives
and characters. To some extent we can understand this as a feature of how
authors try to write something new starting from a given framework. How
the different elements measure up against each other, or what the chem-
ical reaction of the mixture produces, are questions which may ultimately
have only individual answers, but we can, at any rate, see in this process
of exchange a broadening of tone or emotional resonance.
The antagonism I have referred to may thus be explained partly as a
matter of a general aspiration to inclusiveness. It has been suggested that
authors desire to produce a body of work which attains a clear level of
34
completeness or fullness of utterance, to say something about what it is to

be human, to catch a broad swathe of experience in their nets.36 In an
obvious sense the large scale of epic gives room to fulfil this need; in an
epic one can say something big about important aspects of the human
condition. But there is also the element of competition to be taken into
account. Aggressive competition is evident on a large scale in the workings
of Roman society and politics. Although it is very obvious at the end of the
Republic, it is by no means confined to that period. In the literary sphere
it is something of which that kind of writing which hovers between theo-
retical and practical discussion is explicitly aware.37 One needs a model,
but one needs to try and outdo the model even only in order to equal its
quality. One needs to be aware of what features can be imitated and what
are worth imitating, and that one must make the product somehow one’s
own. There is always a tension between following a model and writing
something of one’s own. This competitiveness, however, does not appear in
the sphere of imitation or model-following alone. It works both within and
across genres. To return briefly to Virgil and Ovid, we could argue that the
incorporation of non-epic material has a different character in each. At the
risk of gross oversimplification I would say that when Virgil draws colours
and phrases from Catullus and other erotic poetry, it is to give credibility
to his critique of the passions. Love (as also other strong individual
emotions) is dangerous in the Aeneid: it subverts and distracts. It makes
carrying this message the more effective if the new picture of love has a
clear connection with that kind of literature which prominently (in terms
of its thematic make-up and of its recentness in the poetry-reading audi-
ence’s field of vision) deals with love. On the other hand, when we see Ovid
using the language and ideas of Roman love elegy in his epic, the
Metamorphoses, it is rather that he is using this as one of a range of ways
of subverting the notion of what an epic is. Whereas Virgil uses transgres-
sive material in order to give firmness to his demonstration of its dangers,
Ovid uses it to produce a transgressive epic.38
This competitive inclusiveness works within and across generic bound-
aries in various ways. Within genres there can be a posture of the current
writer’s being inferior to his model, but we also find pointed inclusion of
new subject matter. Within genres, though, the antagonism remains
tempered because the current writer needs the generic model to stray
from. Across genres the antagonism can be more open, as when Horace in
his lyric poetry repeatedly suggests that love elegy is nothing more than
protracted whining, or when Persius or Juvenal mock it in their satires.
The antagonism shows most clearly and explicitly, however, in the rela-
tionship between epic and other genres.
Other genres frequently make an issue of the difference between epic
and themselves by contrasting their own slightness to the grandeur of
epic. Despite the posture of inferiority, however, there is a recurrent point
35
made against epic which pulls in a different direction: that epic fails to
make contact with what life feels like, it deals with unreal figures in extra-
ordinary circumstances. This point is made emphatically by Horace in
Satires 1.4, but it is also explicit in various degrees in the other satirists,
and in the epigrams of Martial. A rather different point against epic is
made in love elegy.
Subjectivity and Propertian politics

Love elegy and satire are the genres most openly antagonistic to epic, and
of the elegists Propertius perhaps most of all. As suggested earlier,
Propertius stands out among his contemporaries and raises (again) issues
of subjectivity and genre. There is another reason for spending some time
on him here, and that is that his use of literature outside his own genre
will provide an interesting analogue for Juvenal.
If we wanted to believe in Propertius as an Augustan poet we could
regard his corpus as dramatising the madness of a thoroughly unsatisfac-
tory citizen. Much of Roman elegy is inherently devoted to the madness of
the lover, but for the rhetorically trained Roman audience empathy with a
Propertius hopelessly torn between the attractions of Cynthia and the
thought that if people regarded him as mad they could be right need not
have entailed subscribing to the same view. However lamentable Dido’s
fate in the Aeneid is, still, in the context of the themes of the Aeneid, she
must be wrong to let her feelings for Aeneas distract her from the building
of Carthage, just as Aeneas is wrong to let himself be distracted by Dido.39
Again, it is sad that birds have their homes chopped down in the Georgics,
but farmers must have farms. It is, furthermore, never in the air that a
reader might take seriously the anti-Roman speeches of defiant natives
that are found repeatedly in Caesar, Sallust, Livy, and Tacitus, however
rhetorically powerful their expression.
Nevertheless, it remains difficult to be convinced about a Propertius
politically sanitised in this way. Certainly the public and private spheres
are also weighed against each other in all the major poets of Propertius’
time, and for Virgil and Horace love is a dangerous distraction, and not
something that can rightfully claim for itself the terms of the Roman
public value-system (fides ‘good faith’, foedus ‘contract’, amicitia ‘friend-
ship’ etc). In this they clearly react against Catullus (who wrote, of course,
on the other side of a political and social watershed). Indeed, insofar as
Catullus has a profile in these writers, he tends to be rather negatively
regarded. Propertius, on the other hand, in choosing Catullus as a model
seems to align himself with Catullan values. It is difficult to see this choice
of model as a signal in itself of comic madness (i.e. a sign that we need to
read all the apparently anti-Augustan hints as actually anti-anti-
Augustan); rather, it seems to tend the other way. Propertius very clearly
36
follows on from the Catullus of the short poems, a body of work which
explicitly pits public against private and puts the higher value on the
private sphere. It is one thing for Catullus to do that in the vigorous
literary rough and tumble of the late Republic, but for an author in the
next generation and in a very different political and social climate to
revive and develop precisely this aspect in a solid body of work is a very
different thing indeed. On the other hand, this does not mean we have to
believe in a radically subversive political Propertius. Perhaps, rather, the
poet, attracted to the tones and possibilities of the Catullan corpus, might
in pursuing them have been fumbling uncertainly between ‘Cynthia’ and
‘Caesar’, or might not have realised fully what the implications would
mean. Genres have their own momentum and individual artists are not
necessarily fully in control; the genre itself has a measure of power over
what is said and what it means.40 Furthermore, the cumulative weight of
such a body of work might well have its own effect: indecision, doubt, and
madness can all be contagious, and the dissemination of its expression
could be seen as subversive.41
We need also to consider what light Propertius’ allusions and references
to epic throw on this matter. In the Aeneid Virgil borrows and transforms
elements of personal poetry: in the new context their values must,
however regretfully, be replaced by other more public priorities. What,
then, of Propertius’ borrowings from epic? Do they make a similar but
reverse judgement about epic?
Propertius and epic

At the most obvious level we observe the recurrent polarity of epic and
elegy (construed as love poetry and regularly ‘denigrated’ as soft – mollis),
and how epic stands also for public responsibilities and Augustan ideals.42
This has very much the air of two ideologies being weighed against each
other, and the fact that Propertius recognises that his own particular love
story could be seen as foolish, scandalous even, merely puts the opposition
in an extreme form (since it envisages the possibility of such an unsocial
love not being unhappy).43
There is more than this. The two Cynthia poems in book 4 draw their
narrative framework from, respectively, the Iliad and the Odyssey and
create a unity out of the two disparate poles that have been reverberating
through the first three books. A unity, but not exactly a resolution, for the
love story in these two poems is perhaps more deglamorised and unro-
manticised than anything in the earlier books. It would be too simple, of
course, to take this as Propertius showing up the sordid realities of
modern life by reference to an idealised legendary past, but equally it
would also be too simple to believe that Propertius was showing up the
absurd unreality of the legendary past by filling its narrative frameworks
37
with modern characters. The effect is much more subtle. Reality is

complex and layered and contains our awareness of intertextualities
between literature and life; the epic intertextuality Propertius applies to
his fictional reality gives it a resonance and discordant complexity that
echoes that of real life.
To sum up what has been said about Propertius’ love elegy: we look at
Propertius as writing in the elegiac tradition (in itself problematic since so
much is lost, especially Gallus), a tradition which puts at its vanguard the
crazed and/or heroic lover, and allows the poet to contrive and play with
certain kinds of colour and ornament. There is however, no such thing as
pure elegy and Propertius the elegist does not write in hermetic isolation
from writers of other genres, nor is he read in that way. For both writer
and audience the ethos or persona, that is to say the colour the poems are
to be seen in, is conditioned partly by the conventions of the genre. Here
the colour hovers between ‘This is the mad stuff that besotted lovers do’,
and ‘How romantic!’ It is also conditioned by the larger generic matrix,
and above all by the tension between the dominant genre, epic, and that
genre’s other antibodies.
Generic labelling; generic space and the generic grid

No work is generically pure. The admixture of other voices is complex and
there is probably always a certain residual indeterminacy of inter-
pretability. However, some analogies may be helpful in trying to
understand how to read generic mixture.
It is perhaps not too naïve to think of a writer choosing a target genre
and adding other ingredients as though the target genre were some kind
of container. It may be additionally helpful to think of this process as
related to anthologising. The author is also, like others, a reader, one with
tastes and predispositions. Like other readers, the author has an inter-
nalised anthology of things he likes or that have attracted his attention;
the anthology may be fluid, and will certainly be polygeneric. If we think
of this anthology as a mental wardrobe, we can easily imagine the author
wanting to produce an overcoat with some of the features of a cardigan,
for example.
Although my analogy here is a non-verbal one, it gives a constructive
emphasis in that it promotes consideration of form, style, tone, material
and so forth rather than meaning, which is better regarded as a product
or epiphenomenon. There is another aspect of generic signalling which is
relevant to this, namely generic labelling or identification.
Because the Eclogues are in some sense a new thing in Latin literature,
they could be regarded as belonging to a genre of ‘New annexations from
Greek’ (of which there were other Augustan and pre-Augustan examples)
rather than bucolic (for which there was no recent Latin background). In
38
that sense, Virgil’s Eclogues might have an ambiguous generic status:

Virgil would then become the first writer of Latin bucolic only retrospec-
tively, after a successor has appeared, except to the extent that he can have
expected his audience to be able to infer from the appearance of his collec-
tion that there had already been, as it were, a blank space in the Roman
generic field labelled ‘bucolic’.44
That Virgil could have had such an expectation is indicated by a number
of considerations. First, Horace’s review of genres in Satires 1.10.40ff.
suggests clearly that there is, conceptually speaking, a generic grid, and a
grid in which Horace himself claims to be looking for a pre-labelled but
vacant space, a grid, furthermore, in which already Virgilian bucolic occu-
pies one such defined space.45 Second, one of the functions of the
recusationes in which writers of ‘lesser’ genres purport to excuse them-
selves from writing epic is surely to write their own genre into
relationship, via epic, with the rest of the generic field, to create a space.
Third, allusions outside the home genre can be seen as a way of extending
the range of the home form, and of stitching together areas of the generic
field or negotiating the boundaries. Such allusions both assert and ques-
tion the boundaries, in other words. Fourth, in the Augustan period
literary output seems to differ markedly from that of the preceding period
in that it appears as a whole to be channelled into a set of clearly distin-
guished genres with distinct profiles and leaving little or no remainder.
However, it actually turns out on closer inspection that a significant
number of the examples of ‘writing in genres’ are to some degree self-
defining novelties (eclogue, elegy, lyric, and perhaps – despite Lucilius –
Roman verse satire).
Circularity of genre – genre as permission

These considerations imply that ‘genre’ in this period is implicated in a
sort of circular argument. Something is an eclogue, or a satire, or an elegy
because it creates for itself a space among other genres, implicitly an
already labelled space, and then negotiates with the audience exactly what
its definition and transformation of this alien form might mean.
Transformation comes into the picture because there is always a
struggle: the generic model provides a manner and content that attract
the new author, but the genre itself wants to say certain things while the
author, by virtue of being a polygeneric reader and living social being, also
has his own axes to grind. The resulting mixture allows different voices or
ways of seeing to be set against each other. The new work is the product
of this tension, a composite entity which, although ‘intended’ by the
author in only limited senses, nonetheless has the author’s imprimatur. To
look at this from a slightly different angle, the generic model enables the
author to say certain things, or certain things in a certain way. From the
39
audience’s point of view the generic label provides as it were a shared

starting-point for understanding the transformation. The new work may
say things which can be taken in different ways, or be hard to see through,
but this is true also of live utterances in ordinary speech situations; it is a
natural condition of human communication.
Juvenal: sample passages

These issues of ambiguity and relationship to the generic field are peren-
nial in Latin literature. Satire changes. Each of the extant satirists is very
different in some ways from the preceding ones, and each has his own
contemporary social and literary context, his own way of fitting into it. As
a harbinger of what is to be said later about Juvenal, I would like now to
point to three sample passages, rather to flesh out the question of
Juvenal’s relationship with his predecessors and with other genres than to
solve it in advance. These passages concern Umbricius and the prostitute
Chione (3.131-6), the account of a crushed pedestrian (3.257-67), and the
passage dealing with provincial government in Satires 8 (87-139).
In the first of these three passages (3.131-6) Umbricius, the speaker
(apart from an initial introductory section), conjures up a figure, called tu
and addressed in the second person, to stand for a certain type. From a set
of contrasts in the passage, it is clear that the type this character stands
for is indistinguishable from that of Umbricius himself (freeborn Roman
male). In this passage, then, we see through Umbricius’ eyes the appar-
ently lamentable predicament of a decent Roman citizen unable to hire a
prostitute without worrying about the expense.
divitis hic servo cludit latus ingenuorum

filius; alter enim quantum in legione tribuni
accipiunt donat Calvinae vel Catienae,
ut semel aut iterum super illam palpitet; at tu,
cum tibi vestiti facies scorti placet, haeres
et dubitas alta Chionen deducere sella.
Here a son of free-born Romans concedes the inner position to a rich man’s
slave; he gives Calvina or Catiena what a legionary tribune gets in a year to
judder on top of her once or twice, whereas you, when you like the face of a
whore with clothes on, you stop and hesitate to lead Chione down from her
lofty seat.
It is a matter of indignation that some rich man’s slave (a Greek, we infer)

can afford to spend huge amounts merely to have sexual intercourse once
or twice with some aristocratic Roman lady or other. Here the miscegena-
tion and the social boundary-crossing are felt to be disgusting, as too is the
degradation of the Roman ladies accepting money for sex. By contrast,
40
however, Umbricius presents his stand-in as the same kind of decent

Roman who is his implied audience throughout his speech; if we take the
passage out of context (as, arguably, we should do with the Martial
epigram (3.30) from which the idea comes), we could perhaps observe –
from our own socio-cultural perspective – mitigating factors. The
Umbricius figure is at least attracted by the face of an individual girl,
unlike the other figure who appears indifferent as to who his sexual
partner is. It is not clear what alta deducere sella means exactly (literally:
‘lead down from a lofty seat’), but given the systematic set of contrasts in
the passage it is perhaps meant to be different from semel aut iterum (once
or twice). Perhaps then the Umbricius figure envisages some temporary
but quasi-marital arrangement, allowing the possibility of a level of
personal engagement. Although not all of us would accept this and some
might see it in any case as a spurious sentimentality thinly masking the
exploitative financial relationship, we could perhaps put the passage back
into the socio-cultural context of Juvenal’s contemporaries and argue,
possibly rather simplistically, that their attitudes to slavery and prostitu-
tion would allow a sympathetic attitude to the Umbricius figure; we could
believe that Juvenal prompts us in this direction by reminding us (with
the name Chione) of Martial’s sympathetic take on the same situation
(Mart. 3.30). If, however, we put the passage back into the larger context
of the satire from which it comes, we observe a very different kind of atti-
tude to prostitution, a strongly moralistic one – and one with a distinct
history in the Roman moralising tradition – earlier in Umbricius’ speech
(3.62-6). Dual standards have to be involved, but whosever these are, and
whether Umbricius is a satiric target for his hypocrisy or a figure more or
less identifiable with the author’s viewpoint, on either reading the poem
begins to look, at least on one level, like a jumble of inconsistent liftings
from different genres. We ought also to ask another question in this
context: if we are persuaded that Umbricius is a satiric target for his
spurious sentimentality, how far should we revalue our assessment of the
Greek slave? Is he, say, refreshingly honest, and to what extent are we
alive to the possible excitement of casual sex across social and racial
boundaries? That is to say, to what extent are condemnation and incite-
ment implicated in one another in ostensibly condemning language?
My second key passage (3.257-67) also turns on apparent inconsistency.
nam si procubuit qui saxa Ligustica portat

axis et eversum fudit super agmina montem,
quid superest de corporibus? Quis membra, quis ossa
invenit? obtritum volgi perit omne cadaver
more animae. domus interea secura patellas
iam lavat et bucca foculum excitat et sonat unctis
striglibus et pleno componit lintea guto.
haec inter pueros varie properantur, at ille
41
iam sedet in ripa taetrumque novicius horret

porthmea nec sperat caenosi gurgitis alnum
infelix nec habet quem porrigat ore trientem.
For if the axle which is carrying Ligurian rock collapses and pours an over-
turned mountain on the crowds, what will survive of the bodies? Who will be
able to find the limbs and bones? The whole corpse perishes utterly, just like
the soul. Meanwhile his household is not worried; it washes the dishes and
rouses the fire by puffing, resounds to the oiled scrapers, and arranges
towels and fills oil flasks. The slaves are bustling about all this, but he is
already sitting on the bank, a novice terrified of the loathsome ferryman
without a hope of a barque for that muddy hole, unhappy man, having no
coin in his mouth to offer.
Umbricius’ dystopic picture of the city includes possible fatalities due to

traffic. One unnamed citizen is buried under building materials carried by
a kind of articulated wagon we know also from Seneca (Ep. 90.9). His
death is handled in two ways, first in terms of Epicurean materialistic
physics, in the manner of Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura perhaps,46 and
then, quite incompatibly, in terms of the standard poetic iconography of
the River Styx. This second treatment, furthermore, involves a further
complication, for it incorporates a Homeric reminiscence (the domestic
household business carrying on in ignorance of his death reminds us of the
death of Hector as described in Iliad 22.437-8) which has in turn some
play against the way earlier in the poem the account of a tenement block
burning down incorporates a Virgilian allusion (Aen. 2.311-12).
Umbricius’ description of Rome alludes to the two most familiar epic
accounts touching on the fall of Troy, the figureheads of the epic tradition.
Were Juvenal’s audience meant to be swept away by this rhetoric and to
see their living city as an epic nightmare? Were they to see some similarity
between Umbricius and Suetonius’ picture of Nero singing an Iliou Persis
(‘Sack of Troy’) as Rome burned?47 The picture is made more complex
again with the incorporation into this Roman fire-scene of an adaptation
of an epigram on suspected fraudulent arson by Martial, the self-
proclaimed collator of real life (Mart. 3.52).
The third key passage comes from the eighth satire and concerns
provincial government. Here the literary background is essentially
twofold. First, the format Juvenal uses in his address to Ponticus depends
on a long tradition of advice to rulers in epistolary form.48 It is a form of
panegyric and the advice is really advice in form only, its function being
rather to characterise the kind of rule in which the recipient (allegedly)
engages or will engage. Such addresses tend strongly to suggest both that
power is a responsibility, and that the recipient is responsible in its exer-
cise. Second, there is the content, for which Juvenal draws on the kind of
material found repeatedly in Roman historiography, in the anti-imperial
42
speeches of non-Roman princes.49 These speeches regularly characterise

Roman rule as a cruel and devastating tyranny, but they are, of course, to
be read in terms of their context. They are not critiques of Roman power,50
but dramatisations of the more or less worthy opponents of Rome. Their
content is in that way denatured by the generic context. In Juvenal’s
poem, however, this context has been replaced by that of the form of
worthy advice to governors. It seems that the mixture of the two genres
could be genuinely subversive.
Difference and genre

It is legitimate to have used the term ‘genre’ here, although the one was a
specific type of epistolary literature, the other a thematic element within
the bounds of historiographical writing, albeit a thematic element marked
out in formal terms (as speech within the narrative frame). We have seen
that anthologising can have a role in the creation of potential genres, as
evidenced by the formation of Virgil’s Eclogues. In that case we were
dealing with an ‘anthology’ whose constituents were whole works, but, by
re-using the term employed earlier in this discussion, kinds, one could
remind oneself that there are different kinds of kind. What we need to
make ourselves aware of now is how a kind is identified. The mind is prone
to pick out similarities and make patterns and categories, and does so by
picking out or observing distinctive features. The level of subjectivity or
objectivity with which this is done is varied and depends on many things.
In this context the difference between a whole work in a clearly labelled
genre and, say, a passage within a work is merely a question of degree: the
classification of an amount of text as belonging to a particular kind –
whether new or established, whether even quite ad hoc – depends upon
the perception of distinguishing features. These may be quite subjective:
there is no exhaustive check-list of differentiating features, any three or
five of which constitute a member of category x. There is no hierarchical
package whereby, say, three out of five features from list A and any four
from list B bestow membership. The beholder may see a feature that has
not otherwise or before been remarked upon and emphasise it so that it
becomes generically constitutive.
We can list some of the areas in which differences are important, but
must remain aware that combinations of differences are the rule.
(i) Form: Under this heading formal features can distinguish such
kinds of writing as epistolary, narrative, dramatic, discursive, listing. Epic
is not the only genre in which narrative is used, but it is pre-eminently the
narrative verse-genre. Satire does not have a distinctive form in this sense,
though its variety of form in this sense is characteristic.
(ii) Content: Under this heading various sorts of distinction can be
43
made, as between historical and fictional or mythical, perhaps tragic and

comic. It is important to note that differences in thematic material (for
example love, war, tricks, beekeeping, social behaviour) do not necessarily
quadrate with formal (or indeed generic) differences. On the other hand,
the insertion on any sort of large scale into epic of material from lower
genres would encourage a different classification.
(iii) Manner/style: In classical literature there is a clear stylistic differ-
ence between comedy and tragedy, and between other genres felt to be
aligned with these two figureheads. If, say, an epic story were told in a
style either not marked by standard epic stylistic features, or were clearly
marked with other features, one would feel that a generic transformation
was being effected. Juvenal’s relationship with epic comes under this
heading and will be treated later (see Chapter 5).
(iv) Size: It is deeply entrenched in Western literature that ‘epic’
demands a certain largeness of scale. Diminishing that scale generates
other differences too. The epyllion is not the same as the epic. It has
different emphases and values; Ovid’s shortened version of the Aeneid
(Met. 13-14) is a tendentious interpretation of what the Aeneid might
have been.51 Juvenal’s ‘Domitianic epic’ – the fourth satire – is about
scale in more ways than one. Contrariwise, expanding the scale of an
anecdote or epigram implies certain raised aspirations, broader parame-
ters (as, for example, in elegiac expansions of epigram, or Juvenal’s huge
sixth satire).
(v) Function: We are used to generic speech acts (greetings, commis-
eration, congratulation); these clearly form a model for larger scale and
more literary functions such as praising, recording, instruction,
lamenting, and listing. It will be observed that some of these functions are
inherently bound to specific forms. Recording events in the past is bound
to have some narrative element. In addition, we can observe a number of
literary genres with strong connections to such speech-act or proto-genres:
the praise poems of Greek lyric, the narrative of epic, the abuse of iambic,
and (according to its claim) the blame of satire.
(vi) Metre: Under this heading one should also include the distinction
between prose and verse. In classical literature history is in prose and epic
in verse (although there are clearly similarities between the functions of
the two genres). Furthermore, specific metres or types of metre tend to
have pregiven colours (as very clearly with the vulgar comedy generally
implied by scazons). However, it is not immediately obvious what one
should make of the fact that epic, didactic, bucolic, and satire are in hexa-
meters (or that we do indeed find Ovid writing ostensible didactic in
elegiacs).52
(vii) Structure: One can conceive of many kinds of structural variety
and difference, as in the use or non-use of ring composition, topic
sentences, ordering by categories or chronology, but it is clear that differ-
44
ences under this heading only sometimes imply generic distinctions (as
between history and biography).
(viii) Allusion: It is widespread that allusion and reference is used in a
programmatic function. Thus Horace refers in the Odes to Alcaeus and
Sappho, the satirists to Lucilius, Virgil in the Georgics to Hesiod. Such
references may be supported by less explicit allusions. Allusion is,
however, a much broader phenomenon. Virgil’s cumulation of allusions to
the Homeric poems, for example, do not only signal a modelling of the
Aeneid on Homer, but a transformation of the epic genre. His allusions to
Catullus, as we have seen, imply a thematic revisionism. Allusion in the
satirists is particularly wide-ranging and this is a generically distinctive
feature, as will be seen in more detail in successive chapters.
(ix) Naming: Name types, formats, distributions, and frequencies tend
very strongly to be generically distinct. This is perhaps particularly the
case in classical literature where the names of bucolic are not those of epic,
the names of satire are not those of elegy, and so on. There is an overlap
here with other features: the fact that bucolic names stem ultimately from
Theocritus (and therefore act as a generic marker) can be considered a
particular form of intertextuality or allusion. The high frequency of
naming in Horace’s and Juvenal’s satires seems to have a connection with
their Lucilian programme of criticism by name, but it is also at a different
level an aspect of both the content and the supposed function of satire.
This topic will receive extended discussion in the next chapter.
(viii) Miscellaneous: It is of the nature of observation that noticing
similarities and differences involves an empirical and unsystematic
element. Nevertheless, miscellaneous features can be important, as, for
example, the numbers in Catullus’ polymetrics. Playing with numbers and
the idea of counting is more part of the texture of Catullus’ polymetrics
than most classical literature. There are mathematical poems in the Greek
Anthology, and one could also point to the counting that can be seen in the
Homeric catalogues of ships and heroes in the second book of the Iliad
(and its successors in Herodotus and Thucydides). But there must also
have been children’s counting games, and counting must have been an
important part of the grown up world of Roman banking, trade, provincial
government, and inheritance. This must have provided a resonant back-
ground for the games in Carm. 5 and 7. In this pair of poems Catullus
divides the world into two polarised camps, the inhospitably serious one of
‘old men’, and another – one of childplay for consenting adults.
Author-reader contract
Depending on one’s intention or interest any of these – or many other
things, such as the number of colour-terms, kin-terms or dialect – might
assume a particular importance. But the poet writes for the poetry reader,
45
not for the antiquary or the linguist, or the scholar interested in the soci-
ology of sex, and, furthermore, those are the terms on which the reader
reads. There is an implied agreement in the act of reading, to the effect that:
(i) There are different kinds of literature, a certain number of which are
named and have a number of quite well-defined characteristics.
(ii) These named kinds imply the possibility of other kinds, effectively
creating invisible spaces in a generic grid, spaces which may be activated
by a modification or specialisation of prior genre(s) sufficient to justify a
claim to being a new genre.
(iii) The features outlined above contribute to a sort of menu which will
enable genre identification. Not that genre x has to be marked with a
specific entry under each and every of the headings listed above, rather
that under a sufficiency of those headings, sufficiently distinctive features
are applied either to assign a generic label, or to locate the new work in
relationship to other genres.
(iv) The genre of a particular work, its relationship to other genres,
provides some basic indication of the way in which it should be read,
although this does not exclude the possibility of a good degree of residual
ambiguity.
Different literatures are literary in different degrees, and before

returning to Juvenal and Roman satire it is worth setting the question in
a very general light. What if we assume that the world is by its own
nature multiple, pluralist and confusing? A literary artefact with any
relationship to such a world could fly off in all directions, even if a partic-
ular direction were the author’s intended starting-point. The resulting
brew of genres, whatever else it did, would wrestle with its own literary
inheritance and with its audience’s cultural identity. It might assert, but
would certainly also probe, that identity. In this way we come round in a
circle: the claim to engagement with real or non-literary life made by all
the satirists seems to be belied by their wildly eclectic literary pilfering,
an intense involvement with issues of style, and a polemic engagement
with the chief of genres; but at the same time this can actually amount to
an engagement with the plurality of ways in which we see the world.
There is, of course, a range of possibilities and degrees. While some
ancient authors were directly concerned with immediate effects in the
real world (Cicero’s speeches for acquitting clients, for example), this is
only one point on a gradient and others had more consciously literary
concerns. We find indications of this not only in the literariness of Roman
verse, but also (and explicitly) in the declarations we find in the poets of
being the first to annex this or that Greek genre into Latin. It is built into
Juvenal’s comment on the ubiquity of Graeco-Roman culture (15.110).
Given, then, a gradient of degrees of purposefulness and literariness, we
46
are right to ask to what extent the satiric frame, of all genres the most
eclectic in its pilferings from others, can provide an organising viewpoint
(an ethos in ancient terminology) and limit what sometimes seems an
anarchic patchwork, or how far its concerns might really have been with
issues of literary culture.
47
3
Names and Naming in Satire and Other Genres
Horace, Persius, and Juvenal, as we have seen, make an issue of criticism

by name in their programmatic satires. Although the obvious significance
of their pictures of Lucilius, in which this is a defining element, is evaded,
names are still important. Not only do they remain an issue in satire, but
we also see such distinctive patterns in how they are used in classical liter-
ature that their patterns may be construed as generic indicators.1 Since –
as with other features – it is the set of differences between practice in one
genre and practices in others that counts towards generic differentiation,
it will be necessary to consider the naming-practices of the satirists in the
context of the broader literary field.
There are various problems involved in profiling the name-assem-
blage of individual genres (not least being that there is no absolute
norm).2 Nonetheless one can see at the crudest level that the name-
profiles found in both Greek and Roman epic, in Greek and Roman
tragedy, in old and new comedy, Greek and Roman bucolic, and of course
satire itself, are generically distinct. The names of heroes in epic and
related genres3 are not those of classical Greece or Rome,4 nor by and
large of bucolic (which draws its names primarily from earlier bucolic);
the place names used in bucolic are very different from those in love
elegy; the eclectic mix of names in old comedy is very different from the
naming habit found in new comedy. Historical and fictional narratives
are different kinds of narrative and differences in naming are integrally
connected with these differences. Historical narrative, for example, has
more bodies of troops, fewer innkeepers (named or unnamed); the
personages in ancient fictional narrative do not belong in advance to the
audience’s knowledge-pool: they do not have the same resonance, and
need to be brought into the discourse in more explicit or more
consciously artful ways.5 Many more named characters of some impor-
tance in the narrative are found in historical than in fictional ones.
Direct address and naming generally are more frequent in new comedy
than in tragedy, as are terms of abuse. It is cumulatively a most striking
feature of the names in the Eclogues that they circulate in kaleidoscopic
amatory conjunctions, thus contrasting with the Catullan and elegiac
tradition of addressing or musing about a single beloved, but resembling
the patterns of erotic epigram and Horace’s Odes. This impression of the
48
3. Names and Naming in Satire and Other Genres
generic distinctiveness of manner is increased if we bring didactic into

the picture, since its generalised instructions go hand in hand with a
particularly low incidence of names.
Leaving epic and its closer relations aside, and tragedy, comedy, and
bucolic, we come to a set of genres whose name-profile, human and
geographical / topographical, is certainly variegated, but whose strong
contrast with those other genres is very striking. Here we find charac-
teristically urban (Roman) and contemporary names and settings:
epigram, iambic, love elegy, lyric, and satire itself. In this list we should
also be including the poems of Catullus (whether under epigram or
iambic), Horace’s Epistles and Statius’ Silvae. With this group we are
unlikely to find sets of features that line up to create neat subdivisions;
various features – explicit rejection of epic, epic parody, political commit-
ment, panegyric elements, criticism, and formal considerations like
length (for example) – all form different patterns from each other.6
However, the contrast between the apparent contemporaneity of a
predominance of names in these genres clearly does set the group apart
from the larger genres (epic, didactic, tragedy, and comedy),7 and we can
begin to see a core of more closely bonded genres surrounded by a more
loosely linked penumbra. We see, for example, criticism in epigram,
iambic and satire, rejection of epic in epigram, elegy, lyric, and satire,
political commitment in lyric (Horace), some elegy and some satire
(Horace), and an explicit claim to a purchase on real life in epigram,
elegy, and satire.
Although we can see numbers of these features combining in suggestive
ways, anomalies cannot be ironed out. While the high rate of naming (and
the kind of names used) in the satires of Horace and Juvenal fits well with
recurrent elements in the programmes of the extant satirists – the explicit
rejection of epic’s absurdity, and the claim to ‘realism’ – Persius, despite
being a satirist (and writing in a genre which claims criticism by name is
important) is very low on names. On the other hand, in Catullus, espe-
cially the Catullus of the polymetrics, we see some sort of resemblance to
Lucilius and to Horatian satire. It emerges that what we seem to be
looking at is a group interlaced with family resemblances which some-
times fall together in otherwise identifiable strands, but sometimes show
contamination across strands or outside the group altogether. It is there-
fore necessary to consider, even if sometimes very briefly, this body of
material quite broadly in order to see the context in which differences
between the satirists need to be gauged. In pursuit of this I shall be
making two general distinctions, one between real-world names (human
and topographical) and mythological names, the other between those
authors who aim at the texture of life and those whose concerns are
filtered through an amatory perspective (though clearly not everything
fits even this distinction with complete tidiness).
49
Human and topographical names in Lucilius8

While it is true that Lucilius’ satires are fragmentary, we can observe
that the fragments suggest free use of anecdotal material about contem-
porary individuals and a considerable variety of frameworks –
narratives, dialogues, verse letters, a council of the gods, a parody of a
trial, and so forth. We can also see that the characters involved often or
mostly belong to the contemporary Roman world and that the setting is
often Rome, but also reaches out with considerable freedom into the
wider Roman world, and sometimes further afield into more imaginary
spheres, as in the divine council in book 1 or the parody of Odyssean
material in book 17. In general, the selection of names as far as we can
see concentrates on more or less aristocratic Romans, though names
suggesting lower status, sometimes Greek or servile, are also found. For
what it is worth, in the fragments of books 26 to 30 there are some 40
human (mainly male) names, and 15 geographical names; in the frag-
ments of books 1-21 there are some 70 human (mainly male) names and
some 40 geographical names. Over and again in social and geographical
settings and in formats we see foretastes of a Catullan character. Book 5
included a verse letter of complaint to one who let Lucilius down; book
14 seems to have contained an anecdote about a bad provincial quaestor;
book 3 contained a verse letter to a friend about a journey to Sicily; book
9 contained an account of a walk and various sights in Rome; book 11
seems to have been made up of five or six anecdotes about contempo-
raries of Lucilius, some mocking, others more or less celebratory,9 and
this variation between abuse and celebration of contemporaries particu-
larly brings Catullus to mind.
Human and topographical names in Catullus

When we look at the shorter poems of Catullus – especially the so-called
polymetrics – we feel that the corpus, like Lucilius’ satires, is liberally
dosed with contemporary Roman names, especially male ones, and with
places of the Roman world – Rome, that is to say, and after that places
in Italy and beyond. In the 848 lines of the first 60 poems there are 122
human names (107 male) and 93 place names. If we add the short elegiac
poems the impression of a well-populated poetic tract is reinforced,10
though the sense of place is considerably less specified. In the 320 lines
of poems 69-116 there are 67 human names (53 male) and 14 place
names. The people of Catullus’ world include poets, friends, personal
enemies, public figures known to Catullus (including Memmius, Caesar,
and Cicero). Of course, there is a very significant difference from
Lucilius’ satires in the presence in Catullus’ poems of Lesbia.11 Here we
have a female character with a role unlike any in Lucilius: although it is
50
true that there were apparently autobiographical erotic escapades in

Lucilius’ satires, Catullus’ Lesbia is a sole-beloved (more or less)12 in an
intense drama sustained over a number of poems. This difference derives
a good part of its strength and significance from the way Catullus’
mistress is integrated into the ‘real world’ of the rest of the poems,13 a
world which seems real in part because of its generic affiliation to that
of Lucilius’ satires.14
Human and topographical names in Horace’s Epodes

We might have thought that Horace’s Epodes belong to the same genre as
Catullus’ polymetrics (both are called iambi by their authors, and
Quintilian calls both Catullus and Bibaculus iambists at 10.1.96), but
Horace claims to have been the first Latin iambist. More precisely, he
claims in the Epistles to have been the first to transfer Archilochean
iambic into Latin (Epp. 1.19.23-5), and Archilochus is in his writing kit as
described in the Satires (Sat. 2.3.12). If we are to believe that Horace’s
claim has any substance (as with his claim to be the first Latin lyricist,
discounting Catullus as a precedent) the emphasis on Archilochus ought
to be important.15 Despite obvious differences between Horace and his
Greek model, there are resemblances. David Mankin draws an
Archilochean picture of Horace as follows:16 ‘His audience, where he indi-
cates it, is either his fellow citizens (7, 16) or his friends in the context of
a symposium (3, 9, 11, 12, 13). These friends are real people, but his
“enemies” , like those in early iambus, are mostly “stock figures” …. He
speaks in his own person but also poses as an “Alfius” … and frequently
says the worst things about himself (4, 6, 8, 11, 12, 14, 15, 17). Most of the
poems pretend to be “direct speech”, but there is a “blame narrative” (5)
and a “dialogue” that suggests this may also have been a technique of
early iambus (17). Within other poems there is considerable use of narra-
tion and “talking characters” (4, 7, 11, 12, 13, 15).’
We may notice that two in particular of these resemblances between
Horace and Archilochus are not shared with Catullus. Catullus’ enemies
(unlike Horace’s) are like his friends in that they too are real people, and
Catullus (unlike Horace) does not pose as a character with a name other
than his own. In fact neither factor may be so important. Catullus could
have read Archilochus as biographical (and naming real enemies as a
generic feature), and while Catullus does not pose as an ‘Alfius’ he does
present himself in comic poses (as for example in Carm. 8 with its roots in
Menander and Plautus). We should probably conclude that in view of
Horace’s emphasis on Archilochus in his claim about Latin precedents, the
range of Archilochean metres he used must be significant. There is,
however, another difference between Horace and Catullus, namely the
kind of engagement with the world of the state that they show is different:
51
where Catullus refers to contemporaries of public standing it is not in

their public capacity that he is interested. There is no allegiance to a polit-
ical programme. Catullus celebrates and mocks people that belong to his
world, whereas Horace celebrates Maecenas, Caesar, and a personal
friend, Pettius, the addressee of Epodes 11, and mocks a number of named
but unimportant ‘enemies’ – Alfius, Canidia and her witch-accompanists
(Sagana, Veia, and Folia), and Mevius.17 The prominence of Caesar and
Maecenas, and of political themes, is striking (and at least arguably
Archilochean in a kind of way).18
There is another important difference between Catullus and Horace’s
Epodes. Whereas Lesbia has a strong presence in Catullus, Horace’s love-
interest in the Epodes (as the Odes) is more plural and transient. Inachia,
Lyciscus, Phryne, and Neaera are named, and there is the horrible woman
of Epodes 8 and 12.
In general, the human names, as in Catullus, assert realism, though
there are considerably fewer: 40 human names, of which nearly half are
accounted for by a small group of individuals: four are accounted for by
Maecenas (distributed over four poems), four by Caesar (distributed over
two poems), four by Canidia (distributed over three poems), and three by
Inachia (distributed over two poems). The comparative lack of variety is
startling and throws Caesar and especially Maecenas into prominence
(and significance). Canidia, too, is prominent, but rather – like the anony-
mous horrible lady and the unnamed addressee of Epodes 6 – as a generic
marker than in a politically meaningful way.
Human and topographical names in Horace’s Satires

Turning to Horace’s Satires, we feel a remarkable similarity to the
Lucilian Catullus (the Catullus left behind when the proto-elegist is
filleted out), and to Lucilius. One again receives the impression that the
world of the poems is tricked out with circumstantial detail, including the
names of people and places, and that this amounts to or is part of an
assertion of a distinctive identity and difference. It would not be reason-
able to try to produce a list of genres from which this difference is
asserted. Inclusion or exclusion would be subject to too many opportuni-
ties for special pleading; very soon it would become a matter of
accumulating comparisons and contrasts piecemeal. Thus there is a clear
contrast between Horatian satire and epic, and a different contrast
between Horatian satire and elegy, and a different contrast again between
Horatian satire and bucolic (and so on). However, laying these contrasts
end to end one can gather a set of descriptors for Horatian satire: it is
urban, contemporary, unromantic, politically committed. One could prob-
ably go on, but even now it begins to seem that most of these descriptors
have a cumulative direction: they point towards what we (though the
52
Romans had no word for it) would call realism, and do so as though this
characteristic was part of the basic raison d’être for, or defining self-image
of, the genre.19
We need to look at the selection and distribution of names in Horace’s
Satires in rather more detail now. We find – as in Catullus – some friends
(especially if we include the Epistles), poets, public figures (especially, as in
the Epodes, Maecenas), but also a good number of names of unimportant
figures as targets for criticism – moralists, freedmen, upstarts, money
lenders – and people with typical or significant names.20 As with Lucilius
and Catullus the cumulative impression is one of contemporary Roman
society peopled with various individuals.
Some crude21 statistics will flesh this out. There are 181 human names
as against 27 divine or mythological names in the first book of Horace’s
satires (a total of 208 in 1030 lines) and 133 human as against 46 divine
or mythological names in the second (a total of 179 in 1083 lines. There
are significant distributions of place names in Satires 1.5 and 1.9 (both
forms of travel poem) and 2.4 and 2.8 (both involving the provenances of
foodstuffs). We see straightaway that the overall selection confirms the
impression of social and geographical realism.22 We see also that uneven-
nesses of distribution are clearly visible. The dense cluster of names
making up the list of the kind of readers Horace would like (Sat. 1.10.81),
for example, reinforces the importance of a personal circle within a larger
frame. Similarly, the distributions of place names in the four satires
mentioned above contribute a sense of geographical rootedness to the
whole of the two books in which they occur. On the other hand, the
unevenness visible between the two books is both striking and suggestive
of a shift in overall mode. While the number of names goes down a rather
small amount, the number of human names goes down perceptibly
whereas the number of divine or mythological names goes up quite consid-
erably (largely due to the mythological setting of Sat. 2.5 and the
mythological scenes in Sat. 2.3). This argues that concern with direct
contact with the perceived human world is slightly less important in the
second book than in the first. This difference goes hand in hand with the
general difference between the two books which can be associated with the
use of the dialogue form in the second, whereby Horace moves away from
direct satire and towards more complex concerns with different ways of
talking about the world.23
Although there is a difference between the two books of Horace’s
Satires, it is small compared with the differences between the satires on
the one hand, and epic, didactic, bucolic, elegy, and lyric respectively on
the other. The concern with a sort of realism visible in the poetry and
discussed in the programme poems aligns the Satires rather with Lucilius
and Catullus. Against this background the level of political commitment
expressed in the Satires is quite striking – and especially so since it is
53
rather criticism than praise that makes the strong appearance in the
satiric programme.
Human and topographical names in Persius

In the 650 lines of Persius’ Satires there are 62 human names, propor-
tionally already a somewhat low figure, including names of earlier writers,
social type names, colourless praenomina, and historical names. The
residue of contemporary-style Roman names is very small indeed. In this
regard, Persius’ satires resemble passages of declamation, the letters of
Seneca, or the Diatribes of Epictetus rather than any of the other Roman
satirists – or indeed other Roman verse writers generally; his satires, that
is to say, resemble those kinds of literature with some claim to have a
strong interest in general ethical issues, and which have a thematic
interest in the appearance-reality polarity. ‘Realism’ – if we can call it that
– does not interest them because they have another reality to attend to.
There is also no one in the Satires corresponding to Horace’s Maecenas –
despite his Stoicism, Persius is politically quietist.
Human and topographical names in Martial

With Martial we see a profile more like that of Lucilius, Catullus, and
Horace, although the number of human names (predominantly type-
names of various kinds, for Martial claims to have no taste for personal
criticism) is very large.24 This high frequency suits the realism Martial
proclaims (10.4), especially the collage-like realism produced by collections
of large numbers of small poems low in the literary hierarchy (12.94). The
number of place names is also high, if not exceptional (though the number
of names of locations within Rome is higher than found elsewhere). All
this squares well with Martial’s subscription to a sort of anti-epic realism
like that of the satirists (see 10.4). We should note also that the proportion
of female names is rather higher in Martial, but this is in line with the
tradition of epigram, where women are a frequent subject.25
Human and topographical names in Statius’ Silvae

Statius’ Silvae may seem remote from Juvenal’s Satires, but they have a
similar aristocratic population and both have a special relationship with
epic. Both, moreover, use material from epigram. In some ways, we could
see Juvenal’s Satires as inversions of Statius’ Silvae.
The Silvae, despite their considerably greater scale, resemble epigrams,
especially in their occasional nature, in the element of flattery, and in their
metrical diversity. This diversity is not present in books 3 and 5. On the
other hand, it is noteworthy, if slight, in the first two books and quite
54
arresting in the fourth book. This metrical evidence suggests that Statius
is asserting a sort of continuity from Catullus and Martial to himself.26 As
to the content, we have (for example) a marriage poem (1.2), the death of
a parrot (2.4), a dinner party (4.2), villas (1.3; 2.2), the baths of Claudius
Etruscus (1.5), Rutilius Gallicus’ recovery from an illness (1.4), the dedi-
cation of Flavius Earinus’ hair (3.4), a table statue (4.6), the tale of a tree
on Melior’s estate (2.3), and the playful hendecasyllables to Plotius
Grypus (4.9, recalling Catullus 14 and perhaps 50). As themes, these and
others reflect the texture of everyday experience in a way analogous to the
thematic consistency of Catullus’ polymetrics.27 There is a difference,
though one which is perhaps easy to overstate: the variety of Catullus’
subject matter is only superficially centrifugal – Catullus himself domi-
nates centre-stage of the corpus (as with Lucilius), whereas Statius’
variety clearly has much to do with the interests and circumstances of his
patrons. As regards Martial, according to Bright (1980: 10-11), ‘Dozens of
Martial’s epigrams touch on the same themes, events, and even individ-
uals as the Silvae.’ In return, Statius refers to two of the Silvae as written
like epigrams (praef. 2.16, referring to 2.3 and 2.4).
However, while there is evidently much in common between Catullus,
Martial, and Statius in terms of metre, spontaneity (whether real or
apparent) of approach and content, and while Statius uses the language
of Catullan modesty in the prefaces to the first four books,28 nevertheless
the profile of name selection and distribution is very different – and
different in a very significant way. Although the poems of the Silvae
(except 5.4, to Sleep) are addressed or dedicated to individual contempo-
raries of the poet, living or deceased, and the poems are themselves
framed around the person of the recipient, we rarely find in any of them
other individuals (except occasionally Caesar, a wife or other relative).
The result of this is that the poems individually are not populous in the
way a satire of Horace, say, or even a very short poem by Catullus or
Martial, or an ode of Horace, can be. Nevertheless, since the poems are
moulded around the person, interests, and circumstances of the recipi-
ents, those individuals have considerable presence and the books (rather
than individual poems) acquire something of the same well-peopled char-
acter. This is strengthened by the prefaces to the books, in which Statius
reviews the poems contained and references to the individual addressees
are gathered together. In addition, topographical names are very frequent
indeed and help establish settings for these addressees both individually
and collectively (there is also an element of stylistic elevation, especially
in the use of geographical epithets – as we shall see in Horace’s Odes too).
On the other hand, we meet in the Silvae a phenomenon quite dispro-
portionate to anything in the other non-epic genres – a huge presence of
mythological and divine names – indicating that a major generic contam-
ination is going on.
55
Human and topographical names in Juvenal

With Juvenal we return to a satiric author. The immediate impression is
that there are considerably more names in Juvenal than in either Horace
or Persius. This is true in a superficial sense, for there are 331 names in
Juvenal’s first book of satires, whereas in Horace there are 265 in the first
book, and 276 in Epistles 1, and in Persius’ Satires there are 146.29 These
figures include both human and mythological / divine names, but although
this is true the sheer number probably still contributes a considerable
amount to one’s feeling about the crowdedness of the respective authors’
poems. Separating out the non-mythological human names gives a rather
less clear impression. Ranking by (human) names per book and names per
1000 lines produces somewhat different results, but neither is straight-
forward.30 However, one can see a tendency for naming frequency to tail
off in Juvenal’s later books, and the same tendency (though less marked)
in Horace’s Satires and Epistles 1.
There is, however, a difference between Juvenal and Horace. One
should bear in mind that a good number of the names in Horace are names
of friends and other favoured persons and that many of these are signifi-
cantly clustered – the writers of other genres in Satires 1.10, the potential
readers at the end of 1.10, the fellow travellers in 1.5, and so forth. The
world of Horatian satire is a world in which most people are, ethically
speaking, more or less adequate, and where the socially and morally
dysfunctional are made to seem clearly exceptional. The Satires of Juvenal
create a very different world. Here the dysfunctional are in the ascendant,
with the decent man a perplexed spectator at the side of the road – an
impression nurtured by memorable street scenes (such as 1.37, 63-4;
3.236ff.). Over and above the impression of crowdedness, however, one
needs to bear in mind two things: the nature of this population, that is to
say the sources from which Juvenal’s names come, and the degree to
which Juvenal’s practice varies.31
As to the question of variation, there are inequalities which are clearly
related to thematic issues, such as the proliferation of Greek names in the
third satire,32 a satire in which the protagonist, Umbricius, complains
vigorously and at length about Greek infiltration into Rome. In compar-
ison with the proportional figures for other satires of the first book, the
figure in the third satire is not particularly high, but the satire is unusu-
ally rich in the names of both small Italian towns (coming in clusters, for
example, at 169ff., 190ff., 223ff.), and Greek places. The Italian towns
represent a sort of idealised vision of escape from what Rome has become,
whereas the Greek place-names suggest the multiplicity of the sources of
the tide of infiltrating Greeks. Another theme-related inequality is the
mass of aristocratic names in the eighth satire, which concerns the value
of lineage as against virtue. Place names, too, are high in the eighth satire,
56
because of the thematic element of governing provinces. In the ninth

satire the unusually low frequency of personal names is perhaps to be
explained by the fact that the bulk of the satire is delivered by Naevolus
and he is characterised as thoroughly concerned with his own circum-
stances. Place names stand out again in the tenth satire, in the paragraph
dealing with Hannibal, Alexander, and Xerxes, because of their expan-
sionist aspirations. There are the names of the gods in the thirteenth
satire, concerning belief in the gods’ role in punishing badness. Similarly,
and in a quite straightforward way, the names of the councillors in the
fourth satire reflect that satire’s account of an imperial council.
Additionally, of course, there is a point made by the partial overlap with
the councillors’ names in a fragment of Statius’ epic, de Bello Germanico,
four lines of which were preserved in the scholiast’s comments on this
satire. Also in this satire there is the thematic proliferation of names for
the Emperor.33 Analogously, the frequency of Virro’s name makes a point
in the fifth satire, where he is the addressee’s grand – quasi-imperial – but
calculatingly mean patron.
There is a perhaps more complex case in the tenth satire, in the section
dealing with old age (10.188-288). This is the longest part of the satire and
falls into two roughly equal parts. The first (188-239) has a Roman and
contemporary setting. In it the exemplification of age is (very remarkably
in Juvenal) virtually anonymous: the only name integral to the description
in these lines is Phiale, the prostitute who will disinherit the old man’s
proper heirs (236-9).34 By contrast, the other half of the section (240-88),
while it ends with a flurry of historical (and almost entirely Roman)
rhetorical examples, is in the main elaborately decked out with names
from the world of epic – Antilochus, Peleus, Achilles, Assaracus, Hector,
Cassandra, Polyxena, and Paris. Two others are given epic-style alterna-
tive names, Nestor (Pylius at 246), and Odysseus (Ithacum at 257). The
anonymity of the Roman half of the section seems strongly to intensify the
content of the paragraph – the anonymity and sameness of old people,
their lack of identity and memory. The poetic names of the Greek half are
harder to explain. There are evident touches of humour in these lines:
Odysseus did not die before his father, but returned to be reunited with
him. He is therefore a flagrantly inappropriate example. More strikingly
comic is the image of Hector and his brothers bearing the corpse of Priam
at 259-61. The cinematic use of the ‘part for whole’ figure in cervicibus
(the ‘necks’ are the salient features of pall-bearers) invites literal visuali-
sation of the 50 brothers lined 25 on each side with their necks straining.
We might be tempted to take the two ‘old age’ sections to represent tragic
and comic presentations, the grim Roman section as tragic and the whim-
sical Greek section as comic. Equally, however, since some of the Greek
poetic names recall tragedy as well as epic, and since for the Romans real
life was the stuff of comedy, we might take the tragic-comic polarity to be
57
reflected the other way round. Probably, since the polarity is ambiguously
treated in the introduction to the tenth satire (10.28-53), the ambivalence
here is intended.35
On the other hand, Juvenal’s frequency of naming does not always
respond to thematic considerations. The low number of names in the fifth
book seems to be such an instance. Although the Egyptian material might
be a partial explanation for the low number of individual human names,
this material does not fill the whole satire, and the figures for the book as
a whole are very low. It looks as though we are dealing with a formal
change in Juvenal’s approach to satire, and one emphasised by the propor-
tionally high incidence of the names of philosophers and ancients rather
than contemporary-style Roman names.
There are, then, different factors involved in the inequalities of name
selection and organisation in the Satires. Cumulatively, this helps distin-
guish Juvenal and Horace. In Horace’s Satires and Epistles we meet
contemporary living figures, including Horace’s friends. Although there
are some major figures like Maecenas, most are minor and often ludicrous.
We also meet the recently dead (they are not usually marked as such) and
here too most are minor and ludicrous. There are Lucilian characters, type
characters with significant names, type characters whose names indicate
their roles (Davus, Dama, and various stereotyped mythological names).
In a number of unproven cases we may possibly be looking at pseudony-
mous contemporaries.36 Turning to Juvenal we find, as in Horace, type
characters with significant names,37 names indicating social level or role
(Greek names, for example, names of actors, gladiators and other
performers, and generalised aristocratic names), a large number of
literary names from various sources (including Catullus, Propertius,
Virgil’s Eclogues, and Martial, the epigrammatist from whom Juvenal also
took other material).38 There is, as with Horace, no significant evidence of
cover-names or pseudonyms. On the other hand, there are features which
sharply distinguish Juvenal from Horace: we miss a patron figure analo-
gous to Maecenas (or the patrons in Martial and Statius, or Cornutus in
Persius), or any names of people who could convincingly be called friends.
Second, and this gives Juvenal’s satires a very distinctive character, we
find a considerable number of historical names.
We could describe the source of the historical names in terms of period
– Juvenal uses Greek history, early Roman history, republican and impe-
rial history. This may, however, be a rather misguided way of looking at the
provenance of these names. Some were by Juvenal’s time standard rhetor-
ical examples (Sulla and Hannibal, acknowledged as such by Juvenal
himself) or had become widely disseminated commonplace figures
(Socrates, Brutus, Curius, Fabricius, Decius, Catiline, Cicero), others come
more specifically from the genre of historiography (Sejanus, Corbulo,
Gracchus, Junius Silanus). The councillors in the fourth satire come – at
58
least in part – very specifically from Statius’ epic. We are also bound to
notice how these historical names are intermingled irrespective of time
and place, and indeed attacked as though they were Juvenal’s contempo-
raries.39 In a single paragraph the poet treats Cicero and Demosthenes as
almost interchangeable icons (10.114-32), and in the next he treats
Hannibal, Alexander the Great, and Xerxes in the same way. Indeed the
Carthaginian Hannibal is, it seems, used as a Roman example (Graius in
138 corresponds to Alexander, barbarus to Xerxes, leaving Romanus
surprisingly for Hannibal). It is part of the role of all five of these exam-
ples that they ultimately died because of their ambitions, and their death
is therefore part of their portrayal. This, however, is by no means always
the case: the literary figures in the seventh satire are required merely to
end up poor because of the meanness of patrons, and so Lucan (Neronian)
and Statius (Domitianic) are able to share the stage in a satire in which
Quintilian (prominent under Vespasian) and Remmius Palaemon (a
Tiberian and Neronian figure) too are equally present.40 Continually we
notice that the historical names in the satires are blended timelessly both
with each other and also with other kinds of names.
Some samples will be illustrative. In a paragraph of the first satire (22-50)
we have: the unnamed social stereotype of the eunuch (22); Mevia, a presum-
ably aristocratic, but otherwise unknown woman appearing in the
amphitheatre (22); Crispinus, probably an Egyptian who took a Roman name
and was favoured, officially or unofficially, by Domitian and flattered by
Martial (7.99; 8.48); a corrupt lawyer, Matho (see also Sat. 7.106; 11.34),
referred to several times (coincidentally) by Martial;41 an atmospherically
unnamed pair, the informer and the important ‘friend’ he informed against
followed by a sample list of his frightened potential prey, Massa and Carus
(notorious informers under Domitian referred to by Martial, Pliny and
Tacitus);42 the Domitianic mime-performers Thymele and Latinus
mentioned by Martial, who here stand for two unnamed Roman citizens; two
unknowns, Proculeius and Gillo (40); two unnamed criminals (46-8), and – as
a comparison – Marius, successfully prosecuted for extortion by Pliny and
Tacitus in AD 100 (a case recently celebrated by Pliny himself; Ep. 2.11).
Here the cumulative effect is of names from the Domitianic pages of
Pliny and Tacitus mixed in with names from other sources, including
Martial, and the low theatre, and perhaps from more recent scandal too.43
They are, however, all constructed as passing like a tableau vivant before
the poet’s eyes as he writes.
In the next section of the poem, there is a noticeable change in both the
density and sources of the names. We find an unnamed husband profiting
from his wife’s adultery in a rather Horatian scene (cf. Odes 3.6.21ff.); the
young overwealthy show-off mockingly called an Automedon and his anony-
mous girlfriend; we find someone else who is reminiscent of Maecenas (a
name familiar from Horace, of course, and historians, but also the moral-
59
ising of Seneca; Ep. 114.4-8); a powerful matron who is worse than the
Neronian poisoner, Lucusta – a figure known from Suetonius (Nero 33),
Tacitus (Ann. 12.66, 13.15), and Juvenal’s satiric predecessor, Turnus.
This section is really very spare in named and present figures:
Maecenas and Lucusta are brought in as comparative material, and
Automedon is used as a mocking appellative. Nonetheless the Homeric,
Augustan and Neronian flavours diffuse themselves into the larger
context, a context which is – as in the preceding section – presented as
actually there before Juvenal’s eyes as he stands in the street. The same
sense of equal presentness is even more striking at the end of the satire,
where the Lucilian Mucius and the Tacitean (or Neronian) Tigellinus are
equally present as potential satiric targets. A few lines later the epic
figures Aeneas, Rutulus (= Turnus), Achilles, and Hylas are paraded as
safe targets, rather as though both they and the Neronian (or Tacitean)
Tigellinus and the Lucilian Mucius are all waiting in the wings to come on
stage and it is simply for Juvenal to choose which ones he wants.
In conclusion: although there is in Juvenal a tendency for a Domitianic
preponderance to assert itself often enough, it is both spasmodic and
rarely or never pure. People from all periods of history mingle in the
satires. This is, of course, inherent in the exemplifying manner of Roman
rhetoric and rhetorical theory. It gives the historical names overall a sort
of literary aspect. Many were traditional rhetorical exempla, and the
Domitianic figures in particular had been given something of a literary
reincarnation by the appearance of the books of Pliny, Tacitus, and
Suetonius. If we consider the intermingling of figures from Catullus, elegy,
Martial, and epic against this background we may feel that what we are
seeing is part of the generic play that is especially present in the satires of
Horace and – above all – Juvenal. We are faced with a constant shuffling
of names from ostensibly immiscible genres. There are, of course, also the
unknown names. They can be type names and may sometimes be signifi-
cant,44 but the reader tends naturally to take them to be, if not actually
the names of contemporaries, at least giving that impression. We have
seen a range of genres – including satire, where it is repeatedly part of the
generic programme – which use contemporary or contemporary-sounding
names as an index of their connection with reality. In Juvenal these two
elements, literariness and ‘realism’, are in strong tension with each other.
We may believe that the ‘realistic’ use of names is, in Juvenal, another
generic marker in the polygeneric amalgam of his satires.
Divine and mythological names

Over and above the appearance of human figures in this strand of Roman
literature we have to take account also of the use of divine and mytholog-
ical personages.
60
There is, of course, no straightforward distinction between the two

categories of figure: heroes have divine ancestries or parentage, some
become gods, and there are, in any case, different classes of divine figure
(Jupiter, Priapus, and Circe, for example, are very different kinds of god).
The gods of heroic legend may have the same names as the gods of cult
and everyday exclamations, but have a different field of operation. In
addition, the texts embodying the myths sometimes contain named minor
characters introduced by the author. Despite all this, there is a recognis-
able core of characteristic names from the Graeco-Roman mythological
story pool which includes well or even very well known ones such as
Achilles, Agamemnon, and Ajax as well as much more esoteric ones.
Outside epic, didactic, and tragedy, the natural home of such figures,
these and names like these are mainly used to refer to the poetic person-
ages whose names they are. When Horace (in the Odes), or one of the
elegists, say, uses such names, he is simply drawing on the repertoire of
poetic language.45 This is not exactly, or not always, true in satire. The
names, it is true, normally refer to the usual gods, demigods, and heroes,
but there is a tendency for the transfer into the new genre to be accom-
panied by an element of deflation, sometimes strong, which we tend not
to find in the elegists or Horace’s Odes (or in Statius’ Silvae). As well as
this, however, there is also a not very frequent, but very distinctive, usage
to be found in satire, the practice of using such names as appellatives for
non-mythological humans. The ‘Homeric’ Automedon riding the streets
of Rome in Juvenal’s first satire is a good example. Certainly, there are
cases of such a usage outside satire – Cicero’s armoury of insulting substi-
tutes for names includes it (as for example his use of ‘Palatine Medea’
(Cic. pro Cael. 18) for Clodia),46 and we find occasional similar cases in the
Horace’s Odes (Charybdis and Chimaera in Odes 1.27; melior Venus at
1.33.13), but in satire it gains strength and achieves something of a
thematic value from the critique of epic that is concurrently being
conducted. This is, therefore, one of the features that differentiates satire
from other poetic genres.
In the elegists too there is a negative attitude to epic, but that is
because of their ideological game with its warlike aspects; the elegists
are still free to infiltrate their own amorous world with names from epic.
There may sometimes be an element of nostalgia, a sense that the world
is different now, but even then allusion often bestows a patina of
glamour on the contemporary context. By contrast, for the satirists there
is a distinct tendency to a more complex, certainly a more open, tension:
the reference to Automedon (1.61) mentioned above encapsulates the
absurdly glamorised self-image of the contemporary delinquent,
mocking it not only because of his distance from any heroic, epical world,
but also because the ideal itself has something about it of a ludicrous and
risible dream.
61
Divine and mythological names in Lucilius

As well as the diffusion of contemporary and contemporary type names
throughout the satires of Lucilius (Lupus, for example, or Hortensius,
Postumius, Nomentanus, and L. Cotta), mythological names too show up,
though more rarely. Given the state of the text, it is no surprise that their
functions are by no means always clear, although the leavening of tragic
parody that we find throughout Lucilius provides a sort of supportive
framework. There is, in any case, evidence of some variety in the way
Lucilius uses divine and mythological names. In the fifth book there is a
clear example of one being applied to a contemporary type when Lucilius
describes ‘some Tiresias’ as old and coughing and groaning at the dining
room doors (228-9W; cf. 230-1). An explicit comparison between someone
and the ‘Tridentipotent’s’ (= Apollo’s) Hyacinthus is denied (i.e. made,
presumably) in 311-12. There is also the straightforward mockery of
people’s belief in Homeric monstrosities like Polyphemus (520-3). Evidence
of use of divine figures on some scale comes in the first book, where
contemporary Roman life is viewed through the format of a mock-council
of gods (where divine names would have a natural place, and a few are
visible in the fragments). Elsewhere there is a good deal less clarity. In the
third book, for example (the base for Horace’s journey to Brundisium),
Tantalus appears (136-7), possibly in connection with some discreditable
incident on the way. We are told that in this book especially (Porphyrio on
Hor. Sat. 1.10.53) Lucilius attacked, or made fun of, or scored points
against the tragedian Accius, and this may perhaps be relevant here. In the
sixth book an analogy is made between the situation in hand (whatever
that was) and a Homeric rescue by Apollo when Lucilius quotes a half line
from the Iliad (20.443).47 In the fourth book, Tisiphone has brought oil
cooked out of the lungs and fat of Tityos (162-3W); other fragments suggest
various possible contemporary settings. Some camp-beds date from the age
of Deucalion in a fragment (284) in the sixth book. Rather more revealing,
perhaps, is the parody of Odyssean material of which we can see traces in
book 17: here Penelope (we infer) is addressed directly and Ulysses is
named (565-6) and another fragment (567-73W) uses Alcmena and Helen
in the course of deriding the possibility of absolute, unflawed beauty.48
Some of these examples, clearly, are trivial and clichéd. Instances like the
parody of the council of gods must have included considerable play with
divine figures, but mostly it looks as though Lucilius favoured variety too
much to generate a large divine or mythological presence.
Divine and mythological names in Catullus

Mythological names figure hardly at all in the polymetrics of Catullus and
not at all in the shorter elegiacs. Divine names are occasionally present in
62
both sets, more commonly in the polymetrics. Where they are found they
are witty stylistic elegances, ornamentations (as Castor and Castor’s
brother in the mock-dedication of Catullus’ boat in the fourth poem, or
‘either Neptune’ – salt or fresh, that is to say – in Carm. 31). The emphasis
of the corpus falls strongly on the human participants – as it must have
done in Lucilius. The lyric hymn to Diana (34) accounts for nine and the
mock-epic search for Camerius in hendecasyllables (58b) another four: else-
where Venus, Amor, and Jupiter make up a good part of the total. These too
are part of the stylistic mélange which is one of the fundamental features
of Catullus’ wit, though they are more recurrent and – at least in a sense –
immediately functional. Venus and Amor (and the occasional Cupids) are
poetically decorative, but they are also an obvious part of the iconography
of love; the element of teasing incongruity in their use in such anthropo-
morphic poems is analogous to the whimsical use of formal generic patterns
of some elevation such as the prayer (Carm. 2, 17, 31, 36, and 44), the dirge
(3), and the sacral dedication (4). It is true that such symptoms of formal
and stylistic elevation are unevenly spread through the polymetrics, but
not that they are confined to the lyric poems. The libellus contains strands
of distinct stylistic levels, but also each poem itself – iambic, hendecasyl-
labic, or lyric – contains a different mix of stylistic levels. There is in this
an element of delight in variety and decoration for its own sake, and clearly
wit is a strong factor. Symptoms of elevation, however, are also a sort of
backdrop to the human configurations in the poems, pointing them up in
different lights. This effect depends upon a sense of generic differences
without expressing a strong or consistent animus against higher literary
forms, for although elevated touches are often mocking in one way or
another, they are so in varying degrees and sometimes (as in the elevation
of tone in the hendecasyllabic Carm. 46) not at all.
Divine and mythological names in Horace’s Epodes

The number of human names in Horace’s Epodes is small (as we have
seen). The number of divine or mythological names is not large compared
to Catullus, say, but the proportion of divine to human names seems to be.
In fact, this is largely due to the high figure in Epodes 17 (where it adds to
the comic afflatus of the dialogue between the unnamed ‘Horace’ and the
witch Canidia). Elsewhere in the Epodes, these names may elevate the
poetical tone (Epod. 9, 13 [cf. Odes 1.7], 16), or suggest a degree of unre-
alistic exaggeration (Epod. 15). The usage is largely that also of the Odes.
Divine and mythological names in Horace’ Satires

Horace’s Satires, especially the first book, are sparser in this category of
names than Catullus’ polymetrics, but their presence is more varied in
63
function and in prominence. Some are very slight and quasi-proverbial,

such as the reference to Lynceus’ eyesight (Sat. 1.2.91) or the antiquity of
Evander (Sat. 1.3.91). Marsyas, i.e. the statue of Marsyas, is hardly more
than a location in Rome (Sat. 1.6.120) except for the whimsical personifi-
cation. ‘Memnon’ (Sat. 1.10.36) represents a contemporary epic,
personified as an epic hero. On the other hand, there is a number of more
significant appearances of divine and mythological figures in the first book,
integrated in various ways into the everyday fabric of the discourse, and to
whose general effects such slighter or more fleeting references add support.
In the opening section of the first satire a god makes a rather conver-
sationally told and hypothetical appearance, offering to those dissatisfied
with their occupations an instant and complication-free change, and
thereby calling their bluff. This imaginary god, who turns out to be Jupiter
(in line 20) and provides the momentum for the development of the rest of
the satire, is on one level little more than an extension of everyday
language, but at the same time we are aware that the episode is, nonethe-
less, a sort of depoeticised divine epiphany. Later in the same satire we see
something rather analogous happen with the transformation before our
eyes of Tantalus from a mythological figure, safe and amusing, into a
contemporary Roman Anyman (Sat. 1.1.68ff.). Later again there is
another similar move. After the quasi-programmatic treatment of
Tantalus, it needs only a light touch for a scene of ostensibly recent
scandal to become a demythologised version of the Agamemnon story, with
the wealthy Ummidius playing Agamemnon to his freedwoman-
Clytemnestra. The cumulative irony of these passages suggests that
everyday life is not experienced in epic colours, that epic needs changing
before it can really apply to us.
The distance between epic and life is also reduced in a way which tends
to undermine epic pretensions in other satires of the first book. The
squalid delinquencies of primeval humans differ from the behaviour of
Homer’s Helen only in that their names and stories are unrecorded. The
cause of the Trojan war, Helen that is, becomes here no more than cunnus
(‘cunt’; Sat. 1.3.107ff.).49 It is unusual to see the epic-poetic world
compared with the time before rather than the time after, but the reduc-
tive effect is perhaps stronger as a result.50 In the second satire the idea of
swapping epic names that has already been seen with Tantalus in the first
satire is given another twist. This time a real-world girl who is presentable
and free of complications becomes (in Horace’s bed) ‘Ilia’ or ‘Egeria’ – or
any name he pleases (Sat. 1.2.125-6) – and thereby turns Horace into Mars
or Numa. There is a double-edged effect here as though the poetic glamour
of these names is sufficiently strong to bestow some of its magic on quite
unpoetic sexual encounters, but at the same time the one kind of narrative
is not too different from the other for some mud not to stick.
The same tension is visible in a scene in the fifth satire (Sat. 1.5. 82ff.).
64
One night on his trip to Brundisium, the surely rather predatory and
would-be fast operator Horace makes a fool of himself (stultissimus) by
waiting for a girl to show up and have sex: when she does not arrive, still
intent on Venus (that typical poeticism for love or sex) Horace falls asleep
and ejaculates during the course of a dream. In the same satire, a little
earlier, the travellers’ host nearly burns his house down by accident, and
for a moment the scene resembles the fall of Troy with Vulcan (fire, of
course) slipping out of the old stove and licking the roof (Sat. 1.5.71ff.).
This is a more openly comic play with the epic cast-list, certainly, but,
together with the invocation to the Muse (1.5.53) and the foundation-myth
reference to Diomedes (92), not to mention the absurd ‘Cyclops’ who does
not quite appear (63) in the exchange between Sarmentus and Messius
Cicirrus, it contributes to an overall impression that the world of experi-
ence is a low-flying place remote from the loftiness of epic. This idea is
extended further in the eighth satire where two more poetic gods, Hecate
and Tisiphone, enter the world of the Satires only to seem as cheap and
second-rate as the minds of the two poor and ignorant witches who call on
them as they scrabble in a Roman bonefield.
The epic pastiche in the fifth satire is sufficiently recurrent to have a
strong cumulative effect. It is, however, already prepared for quite force-
fully by Jupiter’s ‘epiphany’ and the Tantalus section in the opening
satire, not to mention the programmatic discussion of epic in the fourth.
Subsequently there is the mock-epic basis of the seventh satire (slight as
that satire may be) with Hector son of Priam, Diomedes, and Glaucus
vying as models for the human heroes, so that by the time we reach the
ninth satire we are ready to see Apollo’s epiphany at the end of the poem
not just as a closural allusion, but as (on one level of course) epicising the
whole narrative of the poem as a heroic battle and divine rescue.51 Of
course, it is not really like epic, and Horace portrays himself as a rather
feeble presence: the rescue is amusing because of the disparity between
the narrative and its epic para-narrative, but it is also a suitable culmina-
tion for all the earlier not-quite epiphanies in the book – Jupiter’s at the
beginning of the first satire, the speaking penis in the second, the gods at
the end of the fifth, Priapus (and in a different way Tisiphone and Hecate)
in the eighth, and even the pest himself at the beginning of the ninth. The
whole of the first book, although it is sparing in characteristically epic
names, nonetheless uses them (along with epic pastiche and discussion) to
keep epic alive in the reader’s mind as a sometimes amusing, sometimes
rather ludicrous shadow.
The second book of the satires has a noticeably lower total figure for
human names, but the epic subset actually has a considerably higher
figure. The increase in the latter class is almost entirely due to their
concentration in two places: the sermon Damasippus serves on Horace
(Sat. 2.3), and the dialogue between Ulixes and Tiresias (Sat. 2.5).
65
The mythological names and scenes in Damasippus’ sermon, like its

content and manner in general, reflect the way of popular philosophy – a
manner we can exemplify from the later Greek Diatribes of Epictetus. We
might believe that this manner is being parodied here (and in Davus’
sermon in the seventh satire) and feel that corroboration comes from the
fact that Damasippus’ thoughts are second-hand (Sat. 2.3.33-6), coming
besides from the Stertinius whimsically paired with Empedocles in the
Epistles (Epp. 1.12.20) and author of an unhoratian 220 books into the
bargain.52 The reductive treatment of epic characters in the Tiresias
dialogue may show this up.
In the Tiresias dialogue we see an inverse image of the usual infiltra-
tion of epic features into contemporary discourse – here by contrast
contemporary names, characters, and features infiltrate the ‘epic’ world of
the poem. This is not just in the case of the ‘prophecy’ which draws the
Roman story of Coranus and Nasica into the future tense of the Homeric
scene, for even in the dialogue’s present, so to speak, Ulixes is shocked at
the idea of showing deference to a ‘Dama’ (Sat. 2.5.18; 101) and Tiresias
advises him to play the role of a (cross-generic) comic ‘Davus’ (Sat. 2.5.91)
and to make ingratiating use of names like the obviously Roman
praenomina Quintus and Publius (Sat. 2.5.32). Moreover, Tiresias
describes winter in a pseudo-epic periphrasis in which a personification of
Winter is substituted for by the Roman poet Furius (M. Furius Bibaculus).
Although Horace is later prepared to make localised and ad hominem
moralising use of Homer (Epp. 1.2),53 it would seem to be strongly rein-
forced here that epic cannot be used in moral discourse in a
straightforward way, like that of Damasippus, but only in a radically
altered state. This seems to be given a corollary by the extreme rarity of
mythological names (there are some divine names in Satire 2.6, relevant
in a poem where prayers are a structural and thematic motif) in the rest
of this very human-perspectived book.54
There is, then, a difference between the two books of Horace’s satires,
a difference of which his use of names acts as a kind of index. In the first
book epic is something of a figure of fun, its sometimes ludicrous afflatus
more or less concealing the essential lack of difference between its inhab-
itants and us, and also providing an entertaining decorative colour. On the
other hand, the second book has less time for epic, and seems to have
embedded in it a more astringently formed attitude.
Divine and mythological names in Persius

In the satires of Persius the high figure for mythological names (especially
in view of the low figure for human names) seems at first sight to be very
striking, but it is almost entirely due to the concentrations in the program-
matic first satire and the programmatic part of the fifth satire. It goes
66
hand in hand with the case against grandiose literature. There is a

handful of divine names in the second, where it is part of the thematic
consistency of the poem – about prayers and true piety. In general, Persius
is sparing alike with both human and epical names, and uses the latter
only in the context of expressions of generic antagonism against epic and
tragedy. It is a position which looks like Horace’s (and Juvenal’s for that
matter) boiled down to an extreme degree. Only the use of Callirhoe (Pers.
1.134) stands out, suggesting both the name of a contemporary poem55 of
the kind mocked in the rest of the satire and the name of a prostitute (the
name is attested in Roman inscriptions and belongs to the right sort of
class). This neat double meaning encapsulates Persius’ critique of epic and
related genres.
Divine and mythological names in Martial

Martial, it will be remembered, is very liberal indeed with human names.
Mythological and divine names, already infrequent in comparison with the
other authors under review here, are very infrequent in comparison with
the human figure. In the numbered books the flurry of eleven such names
in 10.4 is exceptional, but is actually part of the expression of a rejection
of epic substance and an espousal of an anti-epic realism like that of the
satirists. In the De spectaculis divine and mythological names are consid-
erably more frequent, contributing to the ornamental figuration of the
panegyric (e.g. 15, 26, 27). Sometimes (e.g. 5, 8, 16b) there is a connection
with the mythological charades of the amphitheatre56 which can in turn be
combined with the conceit of Titus as attended and served by gods (6, 16b).
This use of mythological figures, quite distinct from that of the numbered
books, resembles what we find in Statius’ Silvae.
Divine and mythological names in Statius’ Silvae

With Statius’ use of divine and mythological names in the Silvae we find
an alignment with epic, lyric, and elegy rather than with the satirists and
epigrammatists. The numbers alone are striking, but in addition one must
consider how the whole collection is deeply interwoven with epic allusions,
colours, figures, gambits, and comparisons, not to mention Statius’ own
awareness of his status as a writer of epic.57 I suggested above that the
Silvae might be seen as expansions of epigram after Catullus and Martial,
but it is clear that there is a thoroughgoing contamination with epic at
work. The scale of the poems of the Silvae is one indication of this
(Martial’s longest epigram, 1.49, is 42 lines long, and the vast majority are
much shorter). The metre (predominantly hexameters) is the metre of
epic. Of course, it is the metre of bucolic and satire too, but while connec-
tions with both genres have been suggested,58 neither fits terribly closely,
67
whereas to a reader aware of Statius as a writer of epic (something he

draws the reader’s attention to himself, e.g. at Silv. 4.4.53-5, 88-100)59 the
hexameter must have primarily epical connotations, as also the invoca-
tions to the Muse (always an epic or mock-epic gambit) at Silvae 1.2.46-9,
to Erato at 4.7.2 (where the associations are explicitly with epic content)
and the sea gods addressed at 3.2. As a poet, moreover, Statius is in direct
contact with Apollo (Silv. 4.6.1-2).
In this context, the frequency of mythological and divine names, and
the foregrounding of numbers of the epic figures in the poems in which
they appear, are strongly suggestive. Janus addresses Domitian at some
length and prophesies eastern victories for him at Silvae 4.1.17-43.60 The
river god Volturnus honours him in 4.3.67-95. In the same poem the
Cumaean Sybil greets him as Jupiter come to earth (4.3.114-63).61
Against this sort of background the presence of Hercules becomes imma-
nent in the statuette at Novius Vindex’s table (4.6), and the comparison
of the people in the poems to epic heroes becomes more than decorative:
it is a generic assertion. At Silvae 1.1.52-4 Statius compares Domitian’s
horse-statue to Arion and Cyllarus; at 5.2.48-50 he compares Bolanus to
Telamon; at 4.4.103-5 Vitorius Marcellus will outdo Theseus and
Achilles; at 3.2.95ff. Statius imagines himself as Phoenix. In addition,
the places associated with Statius’ addressees flatteringly embody their
presence and properties (just as material possessions are made to do),
but they are also given names, associations, and colours that make links
to epic.
There are analogues for the mythological presence in the Silvae in
Hellenistic panegyric, and in Martial and the Eclogues of Calpurnius
Siculus, and there are foreshadowings in some of the Odes of Horace, but
the Silvae stand out among the works under review here as making the
most thorough and unqualified assimilation of the contents of both a real
world and an epic context.
Divine and mythological names in Juvenal

There is a stark contrast here with Juvenal, for he of all the satirists is
the most antagonistic to epic. Perhaps there are political implications in
this contrast. Epic was the most highly regarded poetic genre, and was
repeatedly presented as capable of the most significant allegiance to the
current political power; to attack epic may also imply an attack on the
language of power (the fact that elegy had made epic its peculiar target is
probably in some degree corroborative of this). Along with this more
antagonistic position, however, we find in Juvenal a greater freedom with
mythological and divine names than the other satirists. We can see this
as a weapon in his satire on epic (as in the contemptuous review of
mythological topics in the first satire and in the poets’ section of the
68
seventh), but also as part of the framework of the satires. From the time
of Pyrrha and Deucalion, as Juvenal says in the first satire, or from the
time of Saturn’s fall as he says in the sixth – this is the framework within
which we are invited to view Juvenal’s use of mythological examples. As
we have seen, he uses names freely from literature and history, and from
a broad sweep of Greek and Roman history at that: the admixture of
examples from the world of epic (as in the tenth satire) is perhaps a way
of reducing epic to just another genre.
Juvenal repeatedly subjects both historical and mythological Golden
Ages to levity (e.g. 3.12; 5.57ff.; 6.1ff, 287ff.; 11.78ff.; 13.38ff.), as though
the past is like the present (if generally harsher to live in), and the
slighting of mythological names carries this on beyond the actual confines
of such passages. This erosion of the standard contrast, together with the
extended timeframe provided in the programmatic first satire, gives a
home to a distinctive feature of the Satires, namely Juvenal’s use of
mythological names as appellatives for the ordinary ‘contemporary’ popu-
lation of the satiric world. We have already met the Automedon who shows
off in front of his mistress in a chariot on the Flaminian Way (1.61-2).
Here he is again:
… fas esse putet curam spectare cohortis

qui bona donavit praesepibus et caret omni
maiorum censu, dum pervolat axe citato
Flaminiam puer Automedon? Nam lora tenebat
ipse, lacernatae cum se iactaret amicae. (Juv. 1.59-62)
… the man who has given his substance to stables and lacks all the wealth
of his ancestors still thinks it right to hope for the command of a cohort.
There he goes, spinning his axles and flying along the Flaminian Way, a boy
Automedon – for he’s holding the reins himself while he shows off to his
great-coated girlfriend.
There is some precedent for this in Lucilius (the Tiresias at 228-9W) and
Horace (see Proteus in Hor. Sat. 2.3.71),62 and, as already observed, it
resembles a usage found in Ciceronian correspondence.63 In satire,
however, the usage is particularly characteristic of Juvenal. Here is
Umbricius’ neighbour in Rome, whose name (Ucalegon) comes from Virgil
(Aeneid 2.312):
… iam poscit aquam, iam frivola transfert

Ucalegon, tabulata tibi iam tertia fumant:
tu nescis; … (Juv. 3.198-200)
Ucalegon’s already shouting for water and carrying out his last64 odds and
ends, but below you the third floor is already smoking. You still don’t know!
69
Later we find an Achilles who cures his insomnia by stalking the streets
at night:
ebrius ac petulans, qui nullum forte cecidit,

dat poenas, noctem patitur lugentis amicum
Pelidae, cubat in faciem, mox deinde supinus. (Juv. 3.278-80)
Drunk and truculent, the man who happens not to have beaten anyone up is
paying for it now, enduring the night of Achilles mourning his friend – he lies
on his face, then on his back …
Then there is the use of Atrides for the Emperor in the fourth satire (4.65),65
the Prometheus needed to make the fish kettle in the same satire (4.133),
and an African Ganymede serving wine to Trebius in the fifth (5.59).66 The
Paris left by Eppia in the sixth satire (6.87) is the mime artist, a figure
belonging to the Roman world, but we can clearly see the other Paris, the
Homeric one, behind him – and therefore behind Eppia Helen as well.
immemor illa domus et coniugis atque sororis

nil patriae indulsit, plorantisque improba natos
utque magis stupeas ludos Paridemque reliquit. (Juv. 6.85-7)
Ignoring her home and husband and sister, without a thought for her
country, the wicked woman left her weeping children and (the real surprise!)
the games and Paris.
Later there is a Psecas (6.494) who takes part in the morning beautifica-
tion of her Roman mistress, just as another Psecas takes part in the
bathing of her mistress Diana in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (3.172). Thus the
anonymous Roman lady – ironically enough – is a sort of Diana. The
Hyacinthus at line 110, Bromius at 378, and perhaps the corruptible Osiris
at 541 provide more fleeting cases. The same satire ends with a climactic
cluster of such figures: Belides and Eriphylas, and Clytemnestra and her
victim-Atrides people the contemporary Roman world and turn it into an
epic and tragic battlefield in which (one imagines) Juvenal courses around
on his Lucilian chariot.67
In scale, chronological sweep, and geographical range, and in its
personnel, Juvenal has set satire up as a transformed epic, and marked
epic itself as just another genre like elegy, epigram, history, and bucolic, to
be ground up and recooked.
Names in love elegy and lyric68

Lyric and love elegy share the urban and contemporary setting of satire
and their differences from it further illuminate the generic patterning of
70
name profiles. They are more sparing of human names than most satire,
but they are freer with mythological or divine names (in elegy’s case
despite an anti-epic programme). There is an amount of erotic content
which has a widespread effect on the name profile. Topographical names
and epithets are also used to reinforce the impression of reality, but often
additionally contribute to stylistic elevation.
The comparative paucity of human names is largely a factor of the
concentration of the poems in these collections on individuals, often
addressees, who occupy the foreground in their poems. In elegy the rela-
tively new figure of the elegiac mistress looms large, and the plurality of
minor figures in satire finds little place in the intensity of the poet’s erotic
obsession.69 Such other figures as we find are largely foils to what the
beloved stands for – a wayward life of passion – and represent a life
attuned to public (especially military) duties, the poetry of war (epic) as
opposed to the poetry of love (elegy), or the temptations of infidelity.70 In
Horace’s Odes the individual addressees are likewise foregrounded, and
here too there is an ideological element at work, though of a different kind,
for Horace’s use of the male addressees persistently adumbrates Augustan
ideals and values.71 Here the potentially subversive element of elegiac
eroticism is rejected. Horace does not follow the post-Catullan pattern of
immersion in a private sphere dominated by a single woman (more or
less), but upholds the more conventional erotic attitudes of Lucretius and
Cicero, and the older-fashioned variety of female names found in erotic
epigram (and perhaps Lucilius).72 Indeed, Horace is persistently involved
in a polemic critique of elegy which reinforces the idea that the erotic
element in literature has now become ideologically charged.
Mythological names are comparatively high in frequency in love elegy
and lyric. They variously intermingle the everyday world and the world of
myth, and assert a degree of stylistic elevation. They both define them-
selves as not epic, typically in the recusatio, but show they are happy to
draw on the epic tradition for material, decoration, scenes, narrative
elements, figures, and stylistic features. In elegy this is sometimes a
complex and uneasy matter because of its strongly voiced opposition to
epic, and particularly so when the poet’s eyes are most open to the imper-
fections of his beloved. In lyric it is more natural: Greek lyric was a
complex amalgam of various kinds of poetry including hymns, praise
poems, wedding songs, and courtly symposiastic entertainments, and styl-
istic elevation, indeed grandeur, was part of its make up.
Here we see two distinct genres with clear affinities in their thematic
consistency, which nonetheless react against each other precisely within
that area, i.e. in their handling of the core themes of love and the political
context. In this we see something rather unusual: for the most part other
genres react to epic (as indeed lyric and love elegy themselves do), but
independently as it were. Here we see a more or less explicit admission of
71
in-fighting amongst the surrounding genres. Nonetheless, the idea that

generic distinctions are reflected in naming profiles is again reinforced,
and we can begin to see how all genres stand out in various ways from each
other and from epic.
Conclusion
Three issues have a high profile in this chapter: criticism, the experience
of the contemporary world, and the relationship to epic.
Criticism or mockery linked with the use of names seems to be an
important element in satire, Catullus, and Martial.73 This is not, however,
a completely straightforward matter, for criticism by name is – to say the
least – limited in Horace, downplayed in Persius, and equivocal in Juvenal.
On the other hand, there were clearly also elements of praise or celebra-
tion in Lucilius and the Satires of Horace. Mockery with names, it is true,
has a strong presence in Catullus in the form of personal abuse, but this
is really only part of something else, namely the centrality of Catullus’
own personality in the poems, where celebration is at least as important
an element. By contrast, criticism has only a rather peripheral presence in
elegy, where it is an index of dissatisfactions with the beloved, and its
connection with naming is much weaker.
The issue of everyday life is also tied to the use of names, for the pres-
ence of contemporary or contemporary-style names is an index of concern
with contemporary society. We see this in all the material here under
review (and as an element in Virgil’s Eclogues as well). There are, of
course, differences. In the satirists the use of names purports to be part of
a critical look at contemporary reality, whereas in Catullus (and the same
is true in some degree of Lucilius) the issue is framed in much more indi-
vidual terms. In Horace’s Odes the use of names in general bears a strong
resemblance to that of Catullus, except that there is a pronounced ideo-
logical element in the selection and organisation of the names. The male
names are not just those of friends, but have a political significance as
well. They revolve around the figure of Augustus and their presence allows
contemporary social issues some airing. There is quite a strong analogy in
this with the way in which the names (and not only the human ones) in
elegy function as foils to the beloved (and again allow the airing of ideo-
logical issues). This ideological organisation may also apply in some degree
to Statius (although the recipients should be seen as patrons rather than
figures chosen for ideological symbolism; the political subtext is clearly
more intended and functional in Horace and the elegists).
Apart from the Emperor and Statius’ family, Statius honours ‘neo-
patricians, a novus consular, an immigrant (African) equestrian magnate,
provincial Italian aristocracy, great and minor freedmen, new families
advanced swiftly by Vespasian after the Flavian victory, Domitian’s
72
younger appointees, and older senators and equestrians living in glit-

tering retirement’ (Hardie: 1983, 69). Statius (unlike Martial) is
interested rather in formal praise of the public, official existence than in
the private social lives of his addressees. Apart from the Emperor and his
own family, seven of the 18 people honoured in the Silvae are senatorial,
generally young men at the outset of their careers. Apart from Rutilius
Gallicus none are imperial governors or advisers, but in about half the
cases they are associated with Epicurean retirement or quies (which had
in this period distinct political overtones, connoting acceptance of the
political status quo).74 The varied collection of lives implied by the Silvae
could be construed as a set of models for living under an (or ‘the’)
Emperor – rather an inverse of the cumulative effect of the major names
in Juvenal (see Chapter 4).
As regards the relationship with epic, mythological and divine names
have a special role. In the satirists it is quite largely a matter of generic
antagonism. Lucilius, Horace, Persius, and Juvenal all indulge in epic
parody and use names in pursuance of this. They all suggest that epic is
remote from the real world, and (with different degrees of force) that
writing epic is (therefore) safe. There are differences of emphasis, for
Persius’ moralising critique of contemporary literature is unique to him,
and the suggestion that there actually never was a glamorous world corre-
sponding to the epic manner is hinted at in Horace, but very strong in
Juvenal. Both Horace and Juvenal suggest that epic deserves no pre-
eminence, but is just one of a range of genres, but it is Juvenal who insists
on this in the most multi-layered way, and his introduction of epic names
into his polygeneric population is one of the means used. In the elegists
antagonism to epic is a different matter; despite their generic antagonism,
the elegists yearn to invest their world with the glow – and parts of the
apparatus – of epic, even if the real world of their affairs is often resistant
to successful glamorisation.
The mythological element in Horace’s Odes and Statius’ Silvae is quite
different. Horace is not without irony (as in the Homeric teasing in Odes
1.6 or 2.4), but on the whole the mythological names embody generic alle-
giance to the concept of Greek lyric. They elevate the poetic aspirations of
the poems and the presentation of the people in them. In this we could see
a contrast with the elegists Tibullus and Propertius, whose attempt to use
myth as a frame is (generically, because this is elegy and about selfish
mistresses) bound to fail. We could also see (as with the human names) a
foretaste of Statius’ panegyrics.
The Silvae, it is true, resemble Horatian lyric (and include poems in
Horatian metres), but there is more to Statius’ mythological names than
just that. We might argue that the presence in force of mythological and
divine names along with the preponderance of the hexameter in these
avowedly impromptu pieces in different metres is analogous to the incor-
73
poration of a lyric element in the corpus of Catullus’ short poems. Statius

is bringing into post-Catullan epigram a new scale and new material and
this comes (and Statius lets it be known that it does) from epic. In contrast
to the satirists and Martial, Statius’ mixture of the texture of real life and
epic does not express antagonism. Clearly the poems of the Silvae are not
epics or parts of epics, but they can be seen as expanded and epicised
epigram.75
We have seen how naming profiles are involved in patterns that express
and draw their significance from the attribution of difference. Elegy says
it is different from epic, and so does satire, but differently. Horace’s Odes
and Statius’ Silvae say they are like lyric and epic, but the Odes say they
are different from elegy. These differences are generic, and we see here
genres defining themselves in terms of generic labels.
There are, of course, other kinds of difference. If we consider political
allegiances, for example, we see more similarities between cross-generic
pairs like Catullus and Lucilius, or Horace (in all his works) and Virgil, or
Persius and Seneca, than between writers belonging to different times
within the same generic tradition. A domestic interior by Vilhelm
Hammershøi is very different from a superficially similar domestic inte-
rior by his model, Vermeer. In terms of the three areas under discussion,
criticism, the experience of the contemporary world, and the relationship
to epic, we have seen that the element of criticism by name is avowed by
the satirists, but with at least a degree of speciousness. The human names
in satire certainly express an interest in realism and the real world, but
not always a straightforward one. Horace’s satires have a strong panegyric
element not in Persius or Juvenal. Juvenal’s eclectic collection of different
kinds of literary names evinces an interest in a very literary concept of
‘realism’. There is, however, an element of criticism which we see repeated
throughout the history of Roman satire, and that is the criticism of other
genres, and above all epic.
Epilogue: self-naming
Sufficiently broad outlines have been drawn to make sense of another
special category of names in verse: those of the respective authors them-
selves. We do not find this in narrative epic. In didactic, we find it in
Hesiod’s poetic initiation near the beginning of the Theogony (Theog. 22),
and in personalised conclusions in Virgil and Ovid (V. Georg. 4.563; Ov. AA
2.744, 3.812). These are related to the convention of the sphragis, the final
poem or section in which an author gives some autobiographical material
as a kind of signature. We find self-naming in Ovid’s Remedia Amoris
(‘Cures for Love’) too, as a marker of his status as an authority (RA 71, 72,
558).76 Outside the didactic tradition, we find self-naming in Lucilius,
Catullus’ short poems, Horace’s Satires, Epodes, and Odes, the love-
74
elegies of Tibullus, Lygdamus, Propertius, and Ovid, Ovid’s exilic elegies,

and the epigrams of Martial.77 It is absent from the poems of Statius’
Silvae and from bucolic poetry.78 On the whole, the usage is characteristic
of the more comic, urban-realistic, and autobiographical modes. Amongst
the satirists we find self-naming only in the fragments of Lucilius and
Horace.79 The absence of self-naming in Persius is perhaps not the same
as it is in Juvenal; Persius’ Satires do and Juvenal’s do not otherwise
include quasi-autobiographical material, and in Juvenal the absence is in
keeping with the rhetoric of anger (which excludes or does not require the
presence of personal details) of the earlier satires, but outlasts it too.
Juvenal’s own presence in the Satires remains invisible.
75
4
Major Roles in Horace and Juvenal
The preceding chapter was preparatory to a discussion of Juvenal’s rela-

tion to epic and other genres. There is, however, a group of named figures
in the satires who merit an account of their own first. These are the
figures who have some significant role in individual satires as a whole,
rather than merely local or contributory roles in the texture of the verse.
Such figures, in formal terms, are primarily addressees and interlocutors,
but narrative characters are also found in this role. Not every addressee
has this kind of organic function in a satire (Fuscinus, Volusius
Bithynicus, and Gallius in the last three satires clearly do not), but there
is a significant number of cases in which one might say that such figures
frame the satires in which they are found.
It will already be clear that there is some precedent for this in
Propertius and to some extent in Tibullus, where part of the function of
both the beloved and of the other addressees is to surround the poet (the
poet as the dramatic character implied by the ‘I’ of the poems) with
strongly contrasted viewpoints and to act as foils to each other. In the case
of the elegists the different perspectives centre on the friction between the
public and private spheres, and this is integral to the elegiac collections.
There is also the example of Horace’s Odes, where numerous addressees
have a significance both in the odes in which they occur and also in the
collection at large. All this can be seen as an evolution from the formal use
of addressees in (particularly) epigram and Catullus.
As well as this, there is the satiric tradition. There are large-scale char-
acters in the satires of all the extant satirists whose roles hover sometimes
rather ambiguously between foil and mouthpiece. The extent to which
such figures are used varies. They are least visible in Persius (where we
may think, perhaps, of Cornutus in the fifth and Alcibiades in the sixth
satire), but almost omnipresent in the second book of Horace’s Satires,
and quite frequent in Juvenal. There is also a formal aspect to be consid-
ered, since they may figure as addressees, substitute speakers,
interlocutors in dialogues, or characters in narrative.
Lucilian satire uses a variety of approaches – dialogue, epistle, narrative
– and the characters that people these forms contribute a major element
to the individuality of Lucilius’ use of these forms. Horace uses an equally
broad range of formats, but in a more systematised manner. His first book
76
4. Major Roles in Horace and Juvenal
of satires includes discursive and narrative satires, his second relies

heavily on dialogue-form; the first book of the Epistles contains twenty
poems in the form of letters, and the second two (or three, if the Ars
Poetica belongs to Epistles 2) longer ones. It is particularly in the second
book of Satires and first book of Epistles that one sees the presentation of
individual characters having a major role in individual poems. Here the
respective interlocutors and addressees and their points of view are
seminal to the meaning of the poems. In the Satires of Juvenal we see
variety of form and person contributing as much as it does in Horace, but
not in the systematised manner of Horace. Rather, we return to the
Lucilian farrago of manners. I shall review the use of such major charac-
ters in Horace and Juvenal in turn.
Major roles in Horace

Horace uses individual figures around which to mould his moralising
hexameter poems, chiefly in the dialogues of Satires 2 and the ‘letters’ of
Epistles 1. Most of the figures have names that Horace’s contemporaries
would recognise and know something about, and this knowledge would
have made a contribution to their understanding of the poems. In addition
to this there is the characterisation provided in the poems themselves; the
poems depend on the interaction between what the audience already
knows and how Horace presents and reacts to the figures.
First, then, the characters of the dialogue-satires. Seven of the eight
poems in Horace’s second book of satires are dialogues or reports of
dialogues (Sat. 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5, 2.7, 2.8). In one case neither of the two
speakers is Horace (2.5) and in all the others apart from the first the main
speaker is the interlocutor rather than Horace. The remaining satire (2.6)
contains a significant dialogue scene in which Horace’s presence is implied
and another speaker has the dominant role, telling the story of the Town
Mouse and Country Mouse. The significant others in these poems are
Trebatius, Ofellus, Damasippus, Catius, Tiresias (the other figure in this
poem is Ulixes), Cervius (2.6.77), Davus, and Fundanius and Nasidienus
Rufus.1 Horace’s audience would have known something from outside the
Satires about Trebatius, Damasippus, Catius, Tiresias, Davus, and
Fundanius, and about Maecenas and Varius who have supporting roles in
the eighth satire.2 Catius, Damasippus, and Trebatius appear in Cicero.
Damasippus and Trebatius may have still been alive. Fundanius was a
contemporary and writer of comedy, Davus is a stereotypical name for a
comic slave, and Tiresias stems from Homer and Greek tragedy. These
would have been sufficient to give the audience a starting-point in a sense
of reality, or familiarity, especially as the Trebatius who occupies the
opening poem is probably the least distorted, parodic, or artificial in
presentation. Ofellus is introduced in his satire as though he would not be
77
familiar to the audience, but Horace’s assertion (Sat. 2.2.112) that as a boy
he knew Ofellus brings him into line.
The treatment of these figures has to be seen first of all in the context
of the tradition of dialogue-writing. In the recent past Cicero had written
philosophical and literary-theoretical dialogues involving real people.
Here, as in Horace, the conversations were not historical.3 The tradition
goes back to Plato’s Socratic dialogues, and Platonic models are visible for
Horace’s fourth and eighth satires, and in a more generalised way for the
dinner conversations exemplified in the tale of the two mice in the sixth.
There is also the reference to Plato at the beginning of the third satire in
the context of literary models (it is unlikely that the comedy writer is
meant here). Taking this into consideration with the posture Horace takes
in the dialogues in which he is one of the actors, it has seemed compelling
to see Socrates as Horace’s role model4 (adding to and/or replacing the
other role models brought up at various points in the satires: Lucilius,
Horace’s father, etc.). However, although it is commonly taken that
Horace is Socrates, there is no guarantee that he is an adequate Socrates.
I will be suggesting that the interlocutors are not necessarily so very
laughable. Rather than the interlocutors enacting the role of the Platonic
stooges whose inadequacies are revealed by Socrates’ ironically non-judge-
mental questions, I would say that in writing these satires Horace
presents himself as a man assuming a Socratic posture, but one whose
adequacy for the role is variable. Satiric themes, indeed sometimes the
same themes as in the first book, are thus given an ambivalent treatment.5
Satires 2.1
This ambivalence is weakest in the opening satire of the book. Here
Horace has a discussion about writing satire. The interlocutor is C.
Trebatius Testa,6 a iurisconsultus (legal adviser) and friend of Cicero (Cic.
ad Fam. 7.6-22). His legal persona and his sense of humour7 go a long way
towards explaining the Horatian dialogue in which he appears. It is
framed as a legal consultation. Whimsically, this is converted into both a
medical consultation (Sat. 2.1.5-9), and a Callimachean recusatio in which
Trebatius takes Apollo’s role.
As Muecke points out (1995: 209), Trebatius’ short replies are prac-
tical and lawyer-like, but Horace continually goes off on other tacks –
indeed he seems to have the flimsiest case possible, peppered with loop-
holes and weak arguments. In formal terms, Horace outwits Trebatius
at the end of the poem by means of an equivocation on a point of law;8 it
is part of the fun of the poem that Trebatius has already outwitted
Horace on a point of poetics earlier in the poem by turning Horace’s
programmatic figurehead around, using Lucilius as a model not for
satire, but for praise-poetry.9
78
Satires 2.2
It is with the second satire that the ambivalence of the ‘Socratic’ method
begins to emerge. Here is a figure whose historical reality the audience has
to take on trust, and who is therefore entirely dependent on Horace’s
presentation of him. What Ofellus says himself is confined to the final
section of the poem (Sat. 2.2.116-36), a small but important section which
gives a perspective for viewing the rest. All the preceding part is Horace’s
second-hand report of Ofellus’ precepts (cf. Sat. 2.2.2-3). We might rather
take Horace’s disclaimer (nec meus hic sermo est; ‘It isn’t me speaking
here’) as a device to soften the message by suggesting that it is one Horace
needs to come to grips with as well as the audience. Ultimately, however,
we may feel that this draws attention to the difference between Horace’s
reproduction of Ofellus’ views and the direct presentention in Ofellus’
‘own words’ at the end. I would like to suggest that Ofellus’ account of the
simple life acquires credibility from the realistic circumstances it
describes. It is, moreover, a congenial picture because of its emphasis on
sociability. There is both fun and endurance here. Ofellus’ ‘simple life’
makes Horace’s version look like a rather idle and luxurious town-
dweller’s half-baked attempt to rehash some clichés. The satire is perhaps
less about the excessively luxurious lifestyle than about derivative moral-
ising.10 When Horace wishes that he could have lived in the old days when
boar was eaten high (because it was better to keep it for a late guest than
eat it on one’s own while still fresh; Sat. 2.2.92-3), the reader may suspect
that self-deception lies behind the nostalgia, and recall the way dissatisfied
people hankered after other lives at 1.1.3-19. The reader may also be
aware that later in the book Davus accuses Horace of precisely this.
Satires 2.3 and 2.7

The third and the seventh satires need to be considered together. In each
a named character lectures Horace on a Stoic paradox. In each the lecture
becomes a direct criticism of Horace himself. Damasippus, according to
Cicero, was an agent in the purchasing of estates and works of art (ad Att.
12.29, 33, ad Fam. 7.23). According to Horace he was ruined, but saved
from suicide by a lecture from Stertinius the Stoic, a lecture which he
purveys (with what accuracy we are left ignorant) in turn to Horace.
Davus is a stock name for a comic slave (cf. Sat. 2.5.91); Davus has
learned some material from the Stoic Crispinus’ porter and has been
waiting for the courage to say it to Horace. Both characters have some-
thing comic or absurd about them in Horace’s presentation, and neither’s
lecture is original – indeed we might expect both to be parodies in part or
whole of Stoic moralising.
There are, however, curiosities. In the first place, both Damasippus and
79
Davus use the Horatian manner specifically of the Horatian lectures that
open the first book. Damasippus uses the same kind of lecturing gambits
as are found there11 – analogies, anecdotes, examples, fable, and myth.
Davus uses an indirect introduction with examples as Horace does in all
three of the opening satires of the first book. Davus’ contrary Priscus is
very like Horace’s changeable Tigellius (Sat. 1.3.1ff.). He turns to the
subject of his speech via an intervention from Horace, just as Horace turns
to his subject via interlocutions at Satires 1.2.23 and 1.3.19-20 (and, for
that matter, Horace’s version of Ofellus’ discourse at 2.2.7). Davus’
opening shot against Horace is like Horace’s argument at 1.1.19ff. Both
Damasippus and Davus are images of Horace as satirist. Not only that, but
when they criticise Horace he resents it just as the victims (and potential
victims) of satire do in his own apologies for satire (Sat. 1.4, 2.1): having
tried to silence Damasippus with increasing irascibility, he finally does so
only by pretending to concede; as for Davus, he had better leave off,
Horace says at the end of the poem, or he will (as slave – and despite the
freedom of the Saturnalia) be punished.12
In these two poems in particular moral judgements are made and
invited, but they prove tricky to pursue. The ethical critic, generally
speaking, has a tactical problem. If he criticises us (the audience) directly,
we evade the point by thinking his criticism unrealistic – the satirist is
too good to be of this world. On the other hand, if he criticises other
people, we are free to go along with the criticism and accept the scapegoat
provided by it. Our own sense of being better than other people in some
respect at least, and therefore good enough to get by, is reinforced. In
these two poems Horace puts himself in the role of the audience of the
first book of his Satires, and thereby makes himself a figure for the audi-
ence to identify with: to the extent that we have doubts about his attempt
to evade criticism we begin (potentially) to question our own moral
imperviousness.
Satires 2.4
In the fourth satire the Platonic model is clear, for the teasing of Catius –
in particular about the authorship of the lecture he goes on to deliver – is
reminiscent of the Phaedrus.13 This puts Horace in a very clear Socratic
stance and we are invited to think that Catius is somehow unsatisfactory
– too devoted to food perhaps, or materially obsessed.
There was a long tradition of instructional literature in Greek and
Latin, and more particularly with regard to this poem a long tradition of
instructional poetry. Standard subject matters include farming and astro-
nomical phenomena, but there are many more areas covered, such as
snake-bites and atomic physics. There had also long been a broad strain of
food-related material in Roman literature, especially in moralising litera-
80
ture,14 and these two strains, the didactic and the culinary, are blended in
this poem. We could look at the poem in formal terms like these and see it
as a Latin experiment in form and content,15 but the context of the book
in which it comes, and the broader generic background, lead us to expect
some ethical element.
Can we, then, see Catius as purveying an unbalanced key to the ques-
tion of life? The content of Catius’ lecture, on its own terms, appears to be
quite unobjectionable. What Catius says is generally orderly (reflecting the
course of a Roman dinner) and apparently sound enough.16 An interest in
food, its preparation and presentation, is, in itself, quite innocuous. In
terms of didactic literature, one presumably did not need to be excessively
interested in snake-bites to be part of Nicander’s intended audience for his
didactic poem on the subject, nor in astronomy to read Cicero’s version of
Aratus’ Phaenomena. It is perhaps no more than amusing that Catius’
claim to be the first to serve Alban grapes with apples and wine-lees and
tartar, and white pepper and black salt on little dishes (Sat. 2.4.73-5),
could almost be a parody of the frequent (and often tendentious) claims to
be the first to write this or that kind of literature in Latin that we find in
this period – including Horace’s own later claim to be the first to have
transferred lyric and iambic into Latin.17 This, however, is a long way from
making Catius a symptom of flaws in society. If Horace is a Socrates in this
Socratic dialogue, he falls short of anything more than a possibly amiable
tease.18 The poem may, however, also be a joke at the expense of the food-
moralising which is part of its background.19
Satires 2.5 and 2.6

Tiresias and Ulixes (Sat. 2.5), and the minor figure Cervius (2.6.77),
need little comment. As regards the Homeric satire it is enough to say
here that Tiresias’ advice is cynical (although sound in its own terms),
and that the naïve Ulixes is more or less ready to accept it: there is no
figure in the poem who acts as an ironic Socrates allowing the other to
reveal his own inadequacies. As regards the other satire, Cervius is not
such a large-scale character as the others in the second book, but he still
has his significance. He tells the paradigmatic concluding tale of the
Town and Country Mouse. The idea of the simple life is blended with the
element of the Town-Country contrast which is conventional in Roman
moralising and important throughout this particular poem,20 and
Cervius’ tale illustrates the moral. Although it has a sophisticated
humour in its telling,21 that (of course) is Horace’s work. If we look at
how Horace presents Cervius’ telling of it, we notice that Cervius is old
(the name suggests the proverbial longevity of stags – cervi – in Latin; cf.
Juv. 14.251) and tells anilis fabellas (Sat. 2.6.77-8, ‘old wives’ tales).
This particular old wives’ tale is a fable – as though Cervius is close to
81
his second childhood – and there is a hint that he regularly trots out this
and other such tales. There is also a discrepancy with the preceding
context: Horace has said that at his place in the country the conversa-
tion is not about fripperies such as other people’s town and country
houses (Sat. 2.6.71); however, despite its moral dimension, that is what
Cervius’ tale is, both at the superficial level of its content, and at the
level of its being a response to comments about someone’s money (78).
Yet again in the dialogue part of this poem we find the direction of the
apparent moral content less precise in its aim than we expect.
Satires 2.8
The last poem of the book is the most deeply evasive, and therefore
deserves a fuller treatment. In a replay of the basic outline of Plato’s
Symposium,22 Horace meets a friend, Fundanius, who reports the events
at a drinking and dinner party given by one Nasidienus Rufus. Fundanius,
we know, was a comic poet (Hor. Sat. 1.10.41) and we know too how
Horace presents satire and comedy as related (Sat. 1.4). We might, there-
fore, expect that Fundanius represents a point of view like Horace’s,23 and
that his negative presentation of Nasidienus justifies our trying to make
additional negative inferences. Following this line we might see
Nasidienus as analogous to the social manipulator in Sat. 1.9.24
The setting of the poem reinforces the reader’s desire to see the poem
from an ethical angle: the dinner party is often a symbolic element in
Roman literature.25 Food, moreover, is an important element in Roman
moralising, and in this book of satires. As a literary motif the dinner is
significant because of its social function and symbolism. Intimately tied in
with the workings and expression of amicitia (‘friendship’), the occasion
embodied the gathering together of fellow-citizens to share food; by the
seating arrangement it embodied also both social unity and social grading.
The dining room was further within the house than the hall – which those
who came to the morning salutatio26 would enter – and therefore repre-
sented a privileged place.27 Over and above this, since the figure of
Maecenas is integrally linked with the theme of amicitia in (especially)
Satires 1.5, 1.6, 1.9, and 2.6, a dinner poem in which Maecenas appears
inevitably suggests that amicitia will be important in the poem. These
considerations make it even more tempting to take Nasidienus as one who
attempts to use the bonds of amicitia improperly, i.e. for his own self-
advancement.
There is, indeed, irony at the expense of Nasidienus, but it is less than
clear that it is that kind of irony, or that it is the only level of irony in the
poem. Certainly it is ironic that when the awning collapses on top of the
meal it does not appear to be the attempts of his own supporter (2.8.25-6)
that cheer up the weeping host (although Fundanius says so at 59-61), but
82
the ironic rhetorical consolation-speech of Maecenas’ ‘shadow’ Servilius

Balatro (Sat. 2.8.64ff.). It is clear that Nasidienus is too imperceptive to
tell that he is the object of mockery, but it is less clear how justified the
mockery is. Nasidienus’ dinner is neither mean nor careless. He explains
things about the food and its preparation very much in the manner of
Catius in the fourth satire;28 this may not make him a good or entertaining
host (and, indeed, this rather than the food itself is what Fundanius criti-
cises at 92-3), but it does not make him a culpable social manoeuvrer.29 It
is true that Fundanius tells Horace (us) that Nasidienus bewailed the
apparent demise of his dinner party as though it were the untimely loss of
a son (58-9), but it is part of the comedian Fundanius’ manner to exag-
gerate comic effects (as when the collapse itself is dressed up as a
mock-epic incident; 54-6). On the other hand, both of Maecenas’ shadows,
Vibidius and Balatro, may seem to us boorish in their attitude to the host’s
wine (33ff.; cf. 81ff.) and both are mocking at 81ff. Fundanius himself iden-
tifies with the mocking attitude and at the end of his account describes the
guests’ desertion of the unfinished dinner merely as revenge (93).
Maecenas himself, although the occasion is a dinner and conversation is a
generic expectation, says nothing – according to Fundanius’ account –
even when addressed by Nasidienus (16-17).
In the very last lines Fundanius says, ‘We got our revenge, getting away
without tasting anything, as if Canidia had breathed on it worse than
African snakes.’ Canidia appears in the Epodes (3, 5 and 17) and the first
book of Satires: Fundanius’ use of her name here suggests either that
Fundanius assumes that Horace and he will take the same point of view,
or that Horace has put the name in Fundanius’ mouth as a seal of
approval.30 It is, however, hard for us not to feel that the behaviour of
Fundanius and the other fugitives is less than ideal,31 unless we construe
it as a comically exaggerated tale told by Fundanius at his own expense. In
this case we could interpret the comic approach as allowing the lack of
ethical simplicity to represent a form of realism. The apparent absence of
satirical criticism may defy the reader’s expectations of food satire, but the
reader’s expectations have surely been defied throughout the second book.
Horace’s multiple perspectives

The dialogue form in the second book of satires allows other points of view
to be set against Horace’s, with the result that the contents are refracted
in a complex way. As we have seen, the characters involved would all be
familiar to the audience in one way or another (in the case of Nasidienus
one has to assume this to be so), and most were real people. In their indi-
vidual dramas and in their differences from each other and from Horace,
they emerge as abrasive and the conflict of viewpoints is dynamic. We are
not entitled to extract simple straightforward moral lessons, perhaps espe-
83
cially in the case of Fundanius, whose poem ends the collection, and whose
viewpoint – which Horace makes us think he shares – is comic and not
moralising. In all this we may feel that contact with real experience is an
issue, that different literary decorums – especially comic and moralising –
are being put in the scales against each other. This process can be seen as
a development from the more singular perspective of the first book (espe-
cially if we look at Damasippus’ and Davus’ lectures using the format of
Saires 1.1-3 against Horace). It can also be seen as fulfilling the implica-
tions of the opening lines of the second book about the difficulty of getting
the degree of criticism right, and is carried still further in the first book of
the Epistles, where the main themes (friendship, philosophy, poetry, and
the town versus country contrast) are set in the multiple and mutually
interacting perspectives of the different personalities and attitudes of the
addressees.32
Major roles in Juvenal

Persius does not use major figures as filters or refractors in his satires to
any significant degree. Bassus and Macrinus do not have more than a
formal or local significance in their satires, though they do show that the
format of the Horatian epistle (specifically as found in the first book) has
been naturalised in satire; Cornutus’ importance is mainly confined to the
introduction of the fifth satire; we are left with the way in which
Alcibiades acts as a foil to Persius’ Socrates in the fourth satire. In the
importance of the role of the addressee and interlocutor Juvenal (as in
various other respects), shows more similarity to Horace, for there is a
good number of persons whose identity, name or presence affects the way
the relevant satire needs to be read. There is a difference, however: Horace
followed the tradition of the prose dialogue, using (predominantly) real
contemporary or near-contemporary figures for his dialogues (and epis-
tles).33 The significant figures in Juvenal’s Satires are less consistently
drawn from specific individuals, more likely to be types or historical
figures.34 The names of Juvenal’s major characters are more in line with
his use of names generally.
The following list includes both such major figures, and also other
figures who have a formally equivalent status. The more important will
emerge in the course of discussion.
Satire 3 Umbricius
Satire 4 Crispinus and the councillors
Satire 5 Trebius and Virro
Satire 6 (?Ursidius) Postumus
Satire 7 Telesinus
Satire 8 Ponticus, Rubrenus Lappa
84
Satire 9 Naevolus and Virro

Satire 11 Persicus
Satire 12 Corvinus and Catullus
Satire 13 Calvinus
Satire 14 Fuscinus
Satire 15 Volusius Bithynicus
Satire 16 Gallius
Juvenal Satires 3
Umbricius is the interlocutor in the third satire, a dialogue of some three
hundred lines. Umbricius’ (single) speech occupies the bulk of the piece
and Juvenal remains silent at the end. In formal terms this structure
resembles one of Horace’s dialogues in particular, the third satire of book
2, which is roughly of the same length (it is Horace’s longest) and in which
Damasippus does the bulk of the talking (although in this case Horace
does get the last word, albeit a rather lame one). Moreover, although
Damasippus is sometimes interrupted by Horace, his speech is essentially
a lecture or sermon, i.e. a continuous unity, just as Umbricius’ speech is
essentially a declamatory exercise, i.e. a continuous unity.
One has to ask how we are meant to take Umbricius, and how we know.
Is he, say, simply a mouthpiece for Juvenal, or actually a satiric target?
There are three overlapping issues to concentrate on: the way in which he
is set up by the poet; the content of his speech; and finally his name.
As to the first issue, we note that we are told in the first lines that he is
an amicus, that Juvenal is upset by his departure, and that he is leaving
Rome for Cumae (close, Juvenal points out, to Baiae). All these pieces of
evidence are important. The opening statement, quamvis digressu veteris
confusus amici / laudo tamen, … appears to mean something like
‘Although upset by the departure of my old friend, still I praise him …’,
but amicus is thematic in the first book, reaching its culmination in the
last word of its last satire (5.173);35 if it were assimilated to the thematic
use it would mean ‘client’ rather than ‘friend’ – and how exactly might we
justify not doing this? Laudo when used elsewhere by Juvenal is virtually
always ironic,36 and confusus might as well mean ‘confused’ or ‘bewil-
dered’ as ‘upset’.37 Umbricius’ destination itself is ‘doorway’ to Baiae – but
Baiae had had a bad reputation since the late Republic.38 Of course,
Umbricius is actually going to Cumae, but since his speech makes much of
fleeing Greeks and vice, the fact that Cumae was the oldest Greek colony
in Italy and still Greek in influence contrasts oddly with the numerous
small Italian towns Umbricius mentions wistfully in his speech.39
As to the content of Umbricius’ speech, we note that in matter and
manner the speech resembles a declamatory exercise.40 The remains of a
declamation by Papirius Fabianus which are preserved for us in Seneca’s
85
Controversiae (2.1.10-13) have much in common with the latter parts of

Umbricius’ speech. In corroboration of this we may observe that
Umbricius’ name – which we learn immediately before his speech begins –
suggests umbra (‘shade’) and both that word itself and various derivatives,
all meaning ‘shade’ or ‘shady’ (umbraculum, umbratilis, umbraticus,
umbrosus) can all connote the unreality of the rhetorical schools and,
furthermore, that at the very opening of Umbricius’ speech, in the same
line that we learn his name, he refers to ‘the decent arts’ (artibus honestis;
3.21), which means that sort of education.41
Other authors (and Juvenal himself) deride declamation for its lack of
contact with reality,42 and perhaps we are tempted to read Umbricius’
speech as the product of one who has listened to too much of it. There is,
however, a curious fact about the poem’s introduction which leads us to
qualify this. The speech falls into two halves, the first concerning inade-
quate returns (21-189), the second a nightmare picture of the physical
dangers of living in Rome (190-267). The themes of the first half are intro-
duced in Umbricius’ speech itself (21-8) and not in the poet’s introduction;
the themes of the second half are introduced by the poet (6-9) and not by
Umbricius himself. This may encourage us neither to swallow nor to reject
Umbricius’ views whole.
The body of the speech certainly contains oddities. After Juvenal’s
mocking reference to Cumaean myth (2-3) and Numa (12), Umbricius’
opening literary ornamentation, including another Cumaean myth and
the three Fates, stands out. His attitudes to prostitution – as suggested in
Chapter 2 – seem to indicate different generic allegiances or double stan-
dards. Of course not everyone who left Rome for the Campanian coast was
vicious. Silius Italicus and Statius retired there,43 and the area had long
been one associated with Epicurean quietism,44 but we have already seen
also that if Umbricius claims to flee Greeks and vice, his destination is not
only wrong on either count, but also wrong in terms of his lists of small
Italian towns. So Umbricius is marked out for us by the poet as a speaker
whose words cannot be taken at face value. Of course it remains true that
the rhetorical manner is typical of Juvenal, especially in the first two
books, and the patchwork of incompatible generic borrowings is equally
not confined to this satire. Why, then, might Juvenal need to use such a
figure as Umbricius as the main speaker if he could have made the same
kind of satire in his own versipellic voice?
We should answer this question by saying that Juvenal did not need
to do so, but that doing so nonetheless presented him with a satisfactory
number of opportunities. For one thing, it allowed him to use the
dialogue form for variety. It also allowed some rhetorical absurdities to
be enjoyed, absurdities such as the ridiculous opening of Umbricius’
speech, or Umbricius’ losing track of his situation and addressing the
citizen body (60) instead of Juvenal. It allowed, furthermore, a dramatic
86
situation which itself provided further opportunities. The departure, for

example, permitted an inverted game with Aeneas’ arrival in Cumae on
his way to Rome, and another game with the end of Virgil’s first eclogue.
Umbricius in this satire embodies the satiric inconcinnities that we find
elsewhere in Juvenal; the discordant patchwork of literary voices that
flows from his mouth is, in effect, both the medium and the target of the
satire. In a way Umbricius is Roman literature,45 a melting pot in which
different generic strains jostle to reveal themselves,46 and his name and
place in relation to the poem’s thematic structure give the reader an
interpretative key.
Juvenal Satires 4
The bearing of the fourth satire47 is more straightforwardly directed
against large-scale characters: The characterisation of the councillors is an
important part of the satiric strategy of the poem, as is Domitian’s
looming presence and the double appearance of Crispinus both within and
outside the imperial council.
Eleven councillors (or ‘friends’ – amici – cf. 4.75) appear in the fourth
satire: (Plotius) Pegasus (77), (Q. Vibius) Crispus (81), Acilius (perhaps M’.
Acilius Aviola, consul AD 54) and his son (M’. Acilius Glabrio), Rubrius
(Gallus) (195), Montanus (107), Crispinus (108), Pompeius (110),
(Cornelius) Fuscus (112), (Aulus Didius Gallus) Fabricius Veiiento (113),
and (Lucius Valerius) Catullus (Messalinus) (113).48 We have, thanks to
the scholiast (commenting on Juv. 4.94) four lines of an epic, the otherwise
lost De Bello Germanico (‘About the German War’), by Statius which lists
three of the same people, Crispus, Veiiento, and Acilius. The fragment
appears to be part of a longer list, and is likely to be part of a prelude to
an account of a council-meeting. Evidently Statius’ list had a different
order from Juvenal’s, but it is very likely that Juvenal has this poem in
mind in his epic parody. However, it is not just epic parody that is in hand
here, for what Juvenal says of the councillors amounts to a critique of the
various accounts of how one could survive (and maintain integrity) under
an Emperor which we have from Pliny and especially Tacitus.
The political thought of the period shows a small number of stereotyp-
ical ways of surviving under the Empire. There are the many plotters,
self-advancers, and manipulators who often, but by no means always,
overreach themselves and end up badly (like Sejanus), and appear over
and again in Tacitus’ historical works. There are those who flagrantly
oppose the Emperor, people like Helvidius Priscus and Thrasea Paetus,
who doom themselves as a result, and about whom Tacitus and Pliny
clearly feel uneasy.49 There are by contrast those who escape the
dangerous notice of the Emperor by indulging in luxuries or pretending to
be stupid.50 There are, finally, those held up as creditable examples, who
87
conducted their public affairs unobtrusively yet efficiently, thereby serving

the state without incurring the enmity of the Emperor.51 Of this group
Tacitus’ father-in-law, Agricola, is the prime example, accorded by Tacitus
a biography of his own, the Agricola, and it is clear that he stands for
Tacitus and those like him.
Of these ways of surviving under the Empire, the first is plainly exem-
plified in Juvenal’s satire by Veiiento, Catullus, and Pompeius. Those who
oppose the Emperor are not only conspicuously absent, but the issue
receives explicit notice in the description of Crispus (and at some length)
precisely as a useful adviser if any opposition were possible under
Domitian (84-93). Those who escape attention by pretence are represented
by Juvenal in the person of the younger Acilius (99), as we can see from
the comparison with the archetypal Brutus who pretended to be mad to
escape Tarquin’s attention.52 But of course it is not possible to pretend to
perform in the arena, and Juvenal is here playing on doubts expressed in
other authors about this mode of survival.53 The final category, the decent
people who keep a low profile, do not appear in Juvenal’s poem, or rather
it is clear that they are subsumed under other headings, the compliant,
however reluctant, like Pegasus and (especially) Crispus, and the quietists
like Rubrius and Montanus, or even Crispinus (who has a low profile in
the meeting). The distinction, indeed, between the quietists who indulge
their loyal epicurean quies and those who are merely self-seeking is very
hard to define. The core of Tacitus’ – rather defensive – political thought
is undermined by Juvenal’s transformation of the typology as embodied in
his parade of councillors.
Domitian is present at the council, of course, but remains silent, an
ominous and frightening presence. All the councillors appear to race to the
call,54 but only three dare to speak (the blind but murderous (113)
Catullus, facing the wrong way, at 119-20, the prudent (113) Veiiento at
124-8, and the slow, fat (107) Montanus at 130-5) in what resembles a
competition (cf. non cedit Veiiento, ‘Veiiento did not yield’, 123). The fear
– explicitly referred to at 75 – shown by the haste and the predominant
silence as well as the competitiveness presents an indirect characterisa-
tion of Domitian. At a different level, a contribution is also made by the
epic parody in which the narrative is framed, with its due invocation of the
Muse at the beginning (26-36), the subject matter of a council, and the
similarity to a catalogue.55 Imperial epic suggests an equivalence between
Jupiter and the Emperor,56 and divine councils are a recurrent feature of
epic. In a way this too is a divine council, for Domitian is like a god (70-1),
and is flattered as such by the suggestion that he have a Prometheus in
attendance (133), and by the idea that the fish on which the satire is hung
presented itself to be caught (69), for this idea resembles the symptom of
Domitian’s divinity in an epigram by Martial – that the fish in a fishpool
at Baiae answer his call (Mart. 4.30).57 Juvenal incorporates parody of
88
imperial epigram with a parody of imperial epic to make a point about the
Emperor’s effect on literature.
There is, however, another point inherent in the use of mock-epic in this
poem, and it is to do with the contrast in tone between the two sections,
the opening one dealing with Crispinus, the other dealing with Domitian’s
council. Whereas the comparatively trivial figure of Crispinus is treated to
a tone of angry satire, the very different figure of the Emperor is treated
in a mock-epic manner. The contrast questions the efficacy of anger, for if
Crispinus deserves anger, how can one cope with Domitian, but since
Domitian is so much worse than Crispinus, the anger expended on the
latter is seen to be out of perspective.58 It is as though Domitian is so bad
that the anger he generates needs an easier outlet.59
The remaining character of importance in the fourth satire is
Crispinus. He has a role in both parts of the poem, and a very different role
at that. In the opening section he is a monstrosity (monstrum, 2), and his
monstrous behaviour is touched on sufficiently to make him seem like a
sort of replica, if on a smaller scale, of a Caesar.60 His single-handed
consumption of a large fish in the first part is paralleled by Domitian’s
receipt of a vast – almost global61 – fish in the second. By very strong
contrast he is a rather insignificant figure in the council description of the
second part of the poem – neither the best, whatever little that amounts
to, nor the worst. If, however, we turn the question round and imagine
what the deadly Pompeius or Catullus might have been like outside the
court we can see how pointed the difference between Crispinus’ two roles
is. Domitian tyrannises the court; outside, the courtiers – even slight ones
– mimic his role; below that level, the fear ramifies as even the shores are
filled with informers and seaweed inspectors (47-9).
Juvenal Satires 5
In the fifth satire two figures contribute: the addressee, Trebius, and his
rich amicus (‘friend’), Virro. Trebius is, Juvenal imagines (12), invited to
dinner by Virro. Juvenal pictures to Trebius what the dinner will be like,
finally revealing (156ff.) to his angry but abject addressee that what moti-
vates his rich patron’s cruelty is not meanness, but sheer pleasure in
humiliating his poorer friend. We should think of Roman society as strat-
ified and in the form of a pyramid. Although there were, of course,
friendships between social equals, the dynamic force is the vertical binding
of contiguous layers through exchange of favours and social observances.
The relationship of amicitia (‘friendship’) which was expressed by these
observances, was a fundamental social force in Roman society. Juvenal’s
presentation of it in the fifth satire is concentrated on a pair of amici; both
sides of the relationship are represented, and this makes the satire an
appropriate conclusion for the first book, in which amicitia is a recurrent
89
theme. It is also appropriate that the setting of the poem should be a

dinner, for as we have seen food and particularly the dinner have strong
connections both in literature and in life with the values of amicitia.
The two chief springs from which the dynamism of the poem comes are
the dramatic inter-relations of the speaker, the addressee, and the third
figure (Virro), and the associations woven around the two-tier menu of the
dinner.62 Virro is set up as a regal figure by the unequal distribution of
food (and the connotations applied to Virro’s), and by the use of rex (5.14,
130, 161) and dominus (5.49, 71, 81, 92, 147).63 Trebius, by contrast,
emerges as an insignificant figure who aspires to Virro-like condition
(137ff.).64 Juvenal’s strategy as Trebius’ addressor is to show him a picture
of what dinner with Virro will really be like in order to rouse Trebius from
his abjectness to positive indignation. He does so by describing the two
contrasting menus that will be served to Virro and to Trebius, and by
weaving around them the contrasting sets of associations just referred to.
At the point at which Trebius is served the most loathsome sounding item
of the meal (and therefore the point at which his endurance ought to
break), Juvenal himself apostrophises the host, but addresses him not in
terms of anger, but of restraint (5.107-13). However, Trebius does not rise
to the prompt: the next course, a Meleagrean boar for Virro (115ff.) and
nothing at all for Trebius, is an insult which in the dramatic structure of
the poem recognises that Trebius has failed to meet the challenge – an
insult dressed up by the artful cutting and slicing of the meat Trebius does
not receive so that no indignity may be lacking (see 120). Indignation, that
other theme of the first book, does not work and Trebius deserves his
friend (170-3), a fit culmination of the first book’s theme of friendship, and
its steady exposure of the inadequacy of indignatio.65
Juvenal Satires 6
The addressees of the sixth, seventh and eighth satires can be seen as
framing and colouring devices rather than fully functional dramatic roles.
Postumus is the recipient of a rhetorical set-piece on marriage, i.e. a
progymnasma.66 It is folly to marry, says Juvenal in grotesquely exagger-
ated terms (6.30ff.). Nowhere – not even in the country – is there anyone
worth marrying. The poem is not, however, as simplistic as this para-
phrase makes it sound. First, there is the obvious fact that in the various
pictures presented to us through the poem, the husbands do not always
emerge very creditably. We could, of course, dismiss that as a blind spot on
the author’s part, but there is also the fact that the author has taken pains
to indicate that the addressee is aligned with Ursidius, the (apparently)
notorious adulterer. Finally, we should be aware of the different voices
that make themselves heard through interplay with other genres (partic-
ularly elegy, mime, historiography, and tragedy).
90
In the opening sections of the poem we are frequently reminded of elegy

(or perhaps more precisely love poetry, since Catullus’ non-elegiac sparrow
poems are included). Within a few lines of the beginning we are shown the
repellent chastity of our troglodyte antiquity, and – in strong contrast –
the elegant, sophisticated, and emotionally cultured society of modern
literature (7-8):67 civilisation includes adultery. Other allusions to
Propertius follow68 and there may also be an ironic allusion in the
addressee’s name69 to the proverbially faithful pair, Postumus and his
wife, celebrated by Propertius (Prop. 3.12). There is, moreover, an echo of
Ovid’s Ars Amatoria (‘Art of Love’):70 looking in the places recommended
by Ovid will not produce wife-material. This parallelism surely makes the
reader question his own attitude to both the Ovidian and to the moralising
view of sex and marriage.
The apparent substance of the sixth satire is questioned at the outset
by refraction through the filter of erotic poetry (later through other
genres), but the figure and name of the addressee may well be contribu-
tory elements in this. If one’s audience is a Postumus like Juvenal’s there
is little point in serious moralising. To put it another way: what kind of
‘moralising’ would work on this kind of Postumus?
Juvenal Satires 7
In the seventh satire a piece of dissuasive rhetoric arguing that literary
pursuits bring little or no returns is addressed to a Telesinus. The cate-
gories dealt with in the main body of the satire are poets, historians, and
legal orators, and the two kinds of teacher, the more advanced (rhetores)
and the elementary (grammatici). The decline in quality of literary output
was frequently dealt with71 and usually in terms of paucity of patronage,
and this satire bears that as its surface meaning; throughout the satire,
however, the irony directed at the practitioners suggests they have insuf-
ficient talent to produce anything different in any case. The teachers are
also implicated, the rhetores for continually having their pupils rehash
declamatory exercises mocked so often for remoteness from real life,72 the
grammatici for their obsession with esoteric mythological detail which can
lead only to the kind of mythological poetry Juvenal mocks in this poem
and elsewhere.
We may now ask how Telesinus fits in with this. The introductory para-
graph in which he appears (7.25) deals with poetry and patronage
(imperial and other), and is largely a pastiche of the gambits of imperial
court poetry.73 ‘Caesar’s search for material for patronage (cf. 7.21)
reminds us that Telesinus’ epic may suggest that it is not the absence of
imperial patronage that causes the poor quality of modern poetry, but its
presence: imperial epic is – as Juvenal indicates in the fourth satire – flat-
tering and, as he says already in the first, safe compared to other forms of
91
writing. We know nothing of an epic writer of the name Telesinus (and the
language of 7.24-7 clearly portrays him as an epic writer), but mention of
a poet in Telesinus’ position would have meant little or nothing to
Juvenal’s audience. Telesinus is a fiction. Apart from a few and obviously
irrelevant other personages, the rare name had one holder of at least some
prominence, the consul of AD 66.74 This Telesinus was apparently a
philosopher and not a poet,75 but that does not matter. In a paragraph
referring to the hope that might be had in imperial patronage, the name
of a writer (even if a philosopher rather than a poet) forced to leave Rome
for his writing by the Emperor (Domitian)76 is highly suggestive about just
how safe or unsafe different kinds of writing are.
Juvenal Satires 8
Ponticus is the addressee of a poem about the relative values of merit and
birth. The cognomen is not very common,77 and for us its flavour is not
wholly clear. In Roman verse it occurs elsewhere only in Propertius, Ovid,
and Martial, in the first two as a friend (Prop. 1.7.1, 12; 1.9.26; Ov. Trist.
4.10.47), and in Martial in eight epigrams,78 mainly in discreditable
contexts, but none seemingly relevant. Highet believed the name, like
other geographical cognomina, reflected a triumphal ancestor, but lesser
persons also ‘annex cognomina of this type’, as Syme puts it,79 and the
name was not borne by any of the old (and in any case now largely defunct)
aristocracy.80 On the other hand, there is a Cn. Domitius Ponticus who was
legate to the proconsul of Africa in 77/8 and, Syme suggests, may have
been a new senator from Bithynia-Pontus.81 Although there is nothing to
suggest that this Ponticus is Juvenal’s, the evidence of the name suggests
that Juvenal might have it in mind to suggest a member of a relatively
new aristocracy, a suitable type for receiving advice on the importance of
merit rather than ancient lineage. If this is speculative, it is, on the other
hand, most important to observe that Ponticus is portrayed as imminently
expected in the province (unnamed) which will accept him as governor
(8.87-8) for this allows Juvenal to project upon him the lesson cast in the
form of advice to governors (and other such) which forms the heart and
centre-piece of the satire (8.71-145).82
Juvenal Satires 9
With the ninth satire Juvenal returns to the dialogue form, and the char-
acter of his interlocutor is the peg upon which the entire satire depends.
Naevolus83 can be seen as a more extreme version of Umbricius or
Trebius, and the connection is reinforced by the reappearance of Virro
(9.35) from the fifth satire as Naevolus’ rich amicus. Naevolus does the
bulk of the talking, but not in one single span (as Umbricius did); rather
92
he is enticed by the other speaker’s interjections into delivering four more

or less independent and predominantly angry speeches relating to his
unkind situation. The undermining of indignatio visible in the first book
proceeds further here, as Naevolus’ anger does nothing to prevent him
from being an utterly self-centred and self-pitying creature with rather too
grand ideas about his place in the universe. The mixture of voices gener-
ated in this satire by the interaction between Naevolus and the other
speaker is remarkable: Naevolus sees himself in terms that are an absurd
mixture of the grandly didactic (9.27f.), the Priapic (43ff.), elegiac (125ff.),
and epical (135ff.). Juvenal treats him as comedy (1-26) and as a self-
deceiving would-be bucolic figure, a ‘Corydon’ (9.102).
Juvenal Satires 11, 12, 13

The addressees of the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth satires are different
from those we have seen up to this point. They have more integrated roles
in the satires in which they appear than do Postumus, Telesinus, and
Ponticus, but they are not dramatic roles in the manner of Trebius or the
interlocutors of the dialogues, Umbricius and Naevolus. Their characterisa-
tion may seem generally thinner, but this is because it is split or fragmented
by the purposes Juvenal has for these figures, a purpose involving a new and
more complex relationship with the audience. Further discussion of the
issue of performance will be given in Chapter 7, but some basic points can
be made here. First, these three addressees are required by the formal
rhetorical genres that their three satires are modelled on: the invitation
(11), the sôtêria (12),84 and the consolatio (13). The three satires all concern
issues of wealth and lifestyle, and the names of the addressees are in various
ways suggestive. Persicus’ name has connotations of luxury and gourman-
dising85 which fit the simple meal to which he is invited with ironic effect.
The twelfth and thirteenth satires both concern what might be called
moderate disasters in comparison with the wealth of the victim, and
Calvinus’ name (appropriately) suggests considerable wealth.86 Catullus,
the victim of the storm in the twelfth satire, also has a possibly ominous
name. It may have a bad colour from the murderous Catullus (the one
appearing in the fourth satire), but it may also suggest something farcical or
mimic (after the Catullus who wrote mimes) about the whole adventure (cf.
the tone of 12.22ff., 81-2). The addressee, Corvinus, has a plainly suspect
name in a poem touching conspicuously on will-hunting, since corvus
(‘crow’) is a frequent metaphor in such contexts (notably Petr. 116).
The remaining satires

The remaining satires too are all addressed, but the role of the addressee
is different again. Fuscinus (despite a verbal play on his name),87 Volusius
93
Bithynicus, and Gallius (at least as far as one can see) are barely if at all
more than formal markers of epistolary format. The addressees in earlier
satires do not all have equally integrated roles in their satires: Postumus,
Telesinus, and Ponticus are more tangential than Trebius, Persicus, and
Calvinus, and Juvenal may have felt that he had finished both with the
dramatised major figures of the earlier satires (including Umbricius and
Naevolus), and with the kinds of experiment with the role that we find in
the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth satires.
Conclusion
We have seen how Horace’s major figures are used to refract the themes
of the satires of the second book, and how they would have been in greater
or lesser degree familiar or readily comprehensible to his audience. The
names of Juvenal’s more prominent characters may seem rather less
patent, but, as we have begun to see, some sort of case can generally be put
forward. Persicus combines a range of verbal, historical, and social conno-
tations. Umbricius’ name recalls metaphorical senses of umbra and
related words, Corvinus suggests a metaphorical sense of corvus, and
perhaps the meaning of naevus (‘blemish’) is relevant to Naevolus. The
characters of the fourth satire were well-known recent historical figures,
and Telesinus’ name may make a point by way of reference to a particular
historical individual. Trebius’ and Calvinus’ names may be marked for
social level, perhaps Ponticus’ too. At the weaker end of the argument
there is some opacity about the names of Catullus in the twelfth and Virro
in the fifth and ninth satires.
The use of major characters, addressees, interlocutors and narrative
figures that we have seen in this chapter has antecedents and analogues
in non-satiric literature – in the Odes of Horace, the Elegies of Propertius,
even the Silvae of Statius – but to some extent we are still seeing a
phenomenon connected with the satiric programme of realism. In Horace
this is connected specifically with the dialogue form with its implied affil-
iation to the Socratic figure and to comedy. In Juvenal there is more of a
suggestion that the poems are different from their more flattering
analogues (perhaps especially Statius, and perhaps one should include
Pliny’s letters as well here).
94
5
The Satirists and Epic 1
The three satirists whose work has survived in complete books are very
different from each other in style, thematic consistency, and structure.
We can tell also that they were very different from Lucilius. However,
there is a persistent admixture of other genres in their works (and
Lucilius’), which is the more striking because (as we have seen) the
satirists all claim in one way or another to have an extra-literary
purchase on reality. We need, therefore, to look at how the satirists use
other literature. Although it is a feature of the satirists to blend a multi-
plicity of other genres into their satire, we have seen how the satirists are
prone to comment more explicitly on the presence in the literary field of
epic than they tend to be of other genres, and so their use of epic is an
appropriate starting-point for discussion.
The review of the naming practices in non-epic verse provided some
evidence for the idea that epic was a key figure in the generic field, a domi-
nant genre, and that reaction to it helped shape and colour the
surrounding genres. Within this picture, satire and elegy claim different
kinds of special relationship with epic – both antagonistic, but on different
grounds. Elegy resents its warlike ideology, but tries to hold on to its grand
poetic savour. Satire rejects it as divorced from reality in terms of content
and style. Nevertheless, Horace purports to accord epic the respect of
counting it as ‘real’ poetry, and Persius claims the right to redeem the
language of epic’s affiliate, tragedy, by using it for a particular topic (his
feelings for his tutor, Cornutus). More strikingly still, Juvenal while
mocking actual examples of epic portrays himself (via his picture of
Lucilius at the outset of the first satire) as an epic hero, and claims the
right to epic territory in his satire. He does this most explicitly at the end
of the sixth satire, but it is clearly already implicit in the use of epic
language in the fourth. Through all this, we may see satire setting itself
up not just as anti-epic, but at the same time as a sort of para-epic. There
is, of course, a degree of paradox in this: Roman epics, particularly those
of Ovid, Lucan,2 and Statius, contain their own subversive elements – Ovid
above all, in whose epic one finds parodic elements, burlesques, and the
use of concentrations of typical epic features as a stylistic index to differ-
entiate one passage or tale from another.3 Nonetheless, the epic-writers
were negotiating with a notion of what an epic might be, and in doing so
95
subscribed to an ideal, however unrealisable, of what epic is. The opposi-

tion of other genres towards epic is to this extent an opposition towards a
fiction, but a fiction accepted by the writers of epics.
As well as what they say about it, there is the matter of how the satirists
use epic, for epic names, scenes and tones are in varying degrees woven
into the poetic fabric of the satirists.4 Such allusions allow us to draw a
crude picture of what epic is for the satirists.
Satire’s ‘typical’ epic

First, however, we should be aware of references to paradigmatic epic
writers – above all Homer and Virgil, but also Ennius. Varius too appears
in this role (Hor. Sat. 1.10.43; Odes 1.6) and Horace pairs him with Virgil
(Epp. 2.1.246, AP 54). Virgil is repeatedly cited in this capacity and his
role was constantly reinforced by his place in Roman education, and
further entrenched by his afterlife in quotations in other works.
Quintilian puts him as outstandingly at the head of Roman epic in his
review of literature.5
Juvenal’s Telesinus could also be counted as a paradigmatic composer
of epic: although he was presumably unknown to the Romans as an epic
writer, Juvenal characterises him as typical. Epic authors can be gener-
alised to the point of anonymity. So with the authors presented as typical
in Persius’ first satire, and those at the beginning of Juvenal’s first satire.
Such references exemplify the kind of thing that falls under the heading of
epic. They tend to show a broad general notion of a genre that is concerned
especially with war and mythological heroes.6
Apart from these explicit targetings of epic in satire, we find allusions
and parodies which allow us to build up a picture of the satiric construct
of epic. It is especially characterised by loftiness of style, and marked by a
number of linguistic features such as vocabulary, apostrophe, effects of
word order,7 use of similes, certain kinds of metaphor, personification,
periphrasis and metonymy (particularly the use of the names of gods for
that for which they stand, as Mars for war, Ceres for bread, Bacchus for
wine and so on). All these features can be seen in (and mark) satiric uses
of epic colour. Mannerisms such as the invocation of the Muse, formulaic
ways of introducing and closing speech,8 and the formal descriptive figure
known as the ecphrasis9 might be mentioned here, of which the first two
are parodied by satirists. Among the satirists Juvenal’s fourth satire
shows perhaps the most persistent use of the epic manner and on the
largest scale (although one might also mention Hor. Sat. 2.5, the dialogue
between Tiresias and Ulysses).10
In the poetry of the satirists this loftier style always stands out as
different. In its new context the style reveals itself, as it were, as somehow
inappropriate for the world of experience: it becomes absurd, or appro-
96
5. The Satirists and Epic
priate only in an ironic sense. This viewpoint is shared by epigram, and

generally by Catullus’ polymetric corpus. The situation is different in
other poetric genres. These tend in varying degrees towards greater eleva-
tion of language; stylistic features which would stand out in satire do not
necessarily do so in lyric or elegy,11 or in didactic, tragedy, or Statius’
Silvae, or even in bucolic (despite its affirmation of lowliness: V. Ecl. 6.5,
8, 10). Rather, the loftier mannerisms we find in those genres are parts of
a poetic language which is to some extent held in common.
‘Typical’ epic content

As well as style there is content. For us one of the core features of classical
epics (and parodies, such as the Batrachomyomachia, ‘The Battle of the
Frogs and Mice’) is the centrality of war. We have already seen how it is
particularly characteristic of elegy to present epic as having war as its
chief concern, typically in the recusatio, and to make this the basis of a sort
of ideological antagonism. We have also seen how satire, equally antago-
nistic to epic, concentrates rather on its unrealism. For the satirist, war is
part of what epic is,12 but it is not an issue for the satirist in the same way
as for the elegist.13 However, the concept of the warrior-hero does have
some programmatic import for both the elegist and the satirist. In elegy
this has the form of the ‘soldier of love’ figure, whereby the elegiac lover
becomes a sort of generically modified hero. In satire we see Horace
describing himself as in terms of a brave sword ready-for-defence (Sat.
2.1.34ff.), a sturdy Lucanian or Apulian, and we see Juvenal present
Lucilius as an epic charioteer in the first satire, and use epic colourings for
the would-be satirist’s role at the end of the satire.
The satirist as epic warrior is, however, not a completely unambiguous
figure. In the ninth satire of Horace’s first book, when Apollo rescues
Horace from a tricky predicament in the streets of Rome, Horace himself
is turned into a hero, but a distinctly comic one. Lucilius, moreover, is not
the only epic charioteer in Juvenal: there is also the dissipated Automedon
ridiculously flaunting himself in front of his mistress (Juv. 1.60).
Of course there is also the other strand of epic, the Odyssean, in which
heroes make a sea-journey. Sea journeys are programmatically rejected by
elegists. They become part of the symbolism of the public sphere against
which the elegist weighs his private world. In satire, however, the sea-
journey has a very small role. It is that part of the political mission in
Horace’s Brundisium journey (Sat. 1.5) which Horace, rather conspicu-
ously, does not describe since his part is by then over (and the poem’s
narrative finished). For Horace the barge (11ff.) is quite enough. This
presents Horace – as he presents himself elsewhere – as small beer in the
public world. In a number of places in all three extant satirists sea-
voyaging is part of the iconography of the materialistic merchant,14 and
97
there is in Juvenal the adulterous wife who – while accompanying her

loutish lover – is happy to handle the ropes on board ship, but who would
be seasick if her husband were there (6.98-113), and some Odyssean allu-
sions are made by Naevolus (9.64-5, 149-50). In short, satire has little use
for journeying as an epic index.15
By contrast, the cast list of epic heroes has widespread currency in
revealing a generally shared notion of the epical. There is (yet again) a
distinctiveness about satire. Whereas for other genres the epic characters
are part of the poetic repertoire, for the satirists they embody epic’s ludi-
crously exaggerated representational manner. Juvenal refers dismissively
to typical potential epics as Heracleids and Diomedeids (1.52-3), and goes
on to mock elements of the Theseus and Icarus stories (1.53-4).
There is too the whole epic machinery of the gods.16 This plays little role
in satire’s picture of what epic is (though enough to mark it out as a recog-
nisable epical feature), but a quite noticeable one in elegy. In epic, Gods
appear and intervene in the mortal sphere; outside epic too17 there is a
kind of divine epiphany – in which Apollo appears to a poet and prevents
him from writing epic, but encourages or obliges him to continue in his
proper course. This is typically a scene of elegy and lyric (in Ovid Apollo is
replaced by Cupid: Amores 1.1) and very much part of the polarisation of
epic on the one hand and the ostensibly slighter genre on the other:18 in
Horace’s satire, however, it becomes shorn of its divine trappings (Sat. 2.1;
cf. 1.10.32ff.). There is also, of course, Apollo’s rescue of Horace at the end
of Sat. 1.9, but even here the real rescuer19 is human and the divine one is
figurative.20
Moving rather further from the epic divine machinery to the use of the
gods more broadly, other gods besides Apollo have a role in the slighter
genres. Pan along with Apollo presides over Arcadia21 (and the Muses can
be addressed in bucolic); Bacchus, Priapus, Amor, Cupid, and Venus have
considerable roles in elegy (the cast is rather different in lyric with its
hymnal antecedents); and other gods appear in elegy too. It is not just
that the love deities can be prayed to (though they can); they appear to be
able to grant or refuse prayers, to protect the lover walking the streets at
night. In general, the gods often have an immanence in the elegiac world
which is different from their presence in epic, but very unlike their mani-
festation in the world of satire.22 In various ways, then, the gods
distinguish both satire and elegy from epic, but without at all aligning
them with each other.
Content also covers the use of generic set pieces: battles, storms,
funeral games, teichoscopies (scenes in which a spectator formally views
the prospect from a city wall), hunts, serpentine monsters, lineages, cata-
logues, councils of the gods. Perhaps one might list speeches here,
although they are marked by form rather than content. The list is not, of
course, exhaustive and not all of its members are (or could ever be) of
98
equal importance. They are somewhat like the features that contribute to
family resemblances in that it is not required that a particular uncle
should have a particular feature in order to partake of the family likeness,
and noses or eyes probably outweigh ears on the scales. In terms of epic
features, frequency, appearance in more or less canonic authors, and
importance in the dynamics of a particular epic all contribute to the
perception of an element as characteristically epic.
Most of the generic set-piece elements listed here appear in one or more
than one of the satirists, in the more or less travestied form that particu-
larly suggests that the original is a characteristic feature. The epic
battle-scene is parodied in Horace’s Brundisium satire (1.5.51ff.) and rele-
vant in Juvenal’s fifteenth satire. Storms23 are a thoroughly rehearsed
strand in the epic tradition (and that of tragic messenger’s speeches),
pilloried in Juvenal’s first (1.8-10) and parodied in his twelfth satire, most
explicitly where he compares the storm in his poem with a poetic (i.e. epic)
storm (12.22-4). Lineages are a regular feature of heroic speeches like that
of Glaucus’ scale model of an epic in Iliad 6 (144-211), and Horace uses
this in his mock-epic battle on the journey to Brundisium. There is also a
very brief jibe in Juvenal’s seventh satire (7.234-5). Otherwise, lineage is
a theme in Horace (Sat. 1.6), Persius (6), and Juvenal (8). In all three cases
the burden of the message, however complicated in the detail, is that
lineage should count for less than merit, and contemporary social realities
are more at issue than epic resonance. Councils of the gods are burlesqued
in Lucilius (book 1) and in Juvenal’s fourth satire (with Domitian
replacing Jupiter).24 There may be a particular connection between
Lucilius’ divine council and one in Ennius, and there certainly is between
the councils in Juvenal’s fourth satire and Statius’ lost epic on the
German war.
Speeches are found in satire, especially Horace’s, but generally have
other antecedents than epic. Speeches of some length and often marked
with formulaic or quasi-formulaic headers and footers are characteristic
of epic, but not of elegy, lyric, or didactic. Although bucolic poetry has
speeches, the characteristic formats differ. In bucolic, the amoebean
dialogue, competitive exchanges of ‘songs’,25 and the presentation of
much of the speech as song and/or dialogue marks it off from epic. Satire
too differs from epic in the way it handles speech: the format, scale,
manner, and content all tend to be markedly different. The considerable
amount of speech in the ninth satire of Horace’s first book or the
dialogues of the second (even the Homeric parody of Sat. 2.5) show this
very clearly, even more so the rapid and unmarked fluctuations of voice
in Persius. There are, however, moments when the epic speech is visible
behind the satiric texture, as in the mock-epic exchange of abuse before a
fight (that does not actually materialise) in Horace’s Brundisium satire
(Sat. 1.5), which parallels the vaunting before a pair of epic heroes fight
99
each other in battle, or the epic combat-speech lying behind the squabble
between Horace’s Rupilius Rex and Persius (Sat. 1.7). There are also
occasional epic formulations such as at Graecus (‘But the Greek <said>,
…’, opening a speech at 1.7.32), Nasidienus ad haec (‘To this Nasidienus
<replied>, …’, 2.8, 75), the speech formula unde et quo Catius (‘Whence
and whither <are you going>, Catius’, 2.4.1; cf. also Plat. Phaedr. 227a),
or the closing motif used by Lucilius (18W), but by and large the epic
speech does not feature largely outside epic (and, perhaps, its successor
historiography). Of course, the comparative scale of epic and satire is a
contributory factor here.
Funeral games, teichoscopies, and serpentine monsters figure little if
at all in satire. Hunting features in one of Varro’s Menippean Satires
(the Meleagers) and there are amphitheatrical references in Juvenal
(1.22-3; 4.99-101) which may convey ironic allusions to the motif.26
Catalogues, however, are especially iconic of epic – they even find their
own parodies inside the genre, as with Ovid’s catalogue of dogs that
killed Actaeon interposed just as the story of Actaeon’s end gathers
momentum (Met. 3.206-25). We think of the Homeric catalogue of ships,
but not a book of the Iliad lacks catalogue material, and the form rami-
fies through all classical literature, often with intent to make a Homeric
connection (as in Herodotus and Thucydides). Epic’s half-brother
didactic is another natural home for listing. Now, it is true that cata-
logues and catalogue-like forms are found in Juvenal especially of the
satirists, but the form ramifies so endlessly in classical literature that it
is not at all clear that epic resonances are felt in them. Juvenal’s fourth
satire, for example, has a sequence of named personages brought on.
Perhaps this is rather an epic ‘parade of heroes’ than a catalogue as
such, but still the context of mocking Statian epic – and a council scene
at that – gives us some sort of connection anyway. However, although we
certainly find categorised organisation of material often enough – as for
example the follies in Damasippus’ and Davus’ speeches in Horace (Sat.
2.3, 2.7), fitfully echoed in two of Persius’ satires (Pers. 3, 5), the cate-
gorical divisions of Juvenal’s seventh and tenth satires, and the four
catalogues that make up the immense sixth satire, it would perhaps be
better to call these cases listings rather than catalogues, and not think
of them as necessarily epical in form.27
There is an illustrative case in Juvenal’s tenth satire:
… circumsilit agmine facto

morborum omne genus, quorum si nomina quaeras,
promptius expediam quot amaverit Oppia moechos,
quot Themison aegros autumno occiderit uno,
quot Basilus socios, quot circumscripserit Hirrus
pupillos, quot longa viros exorbeat uno
100
Maura die, quot discipulos inclinet Hamillus;

percurram citius quot villas possideat nunc
quo tondente gravis iuveni mihi barba sonabat. (Juv. 10.218-26)
… a regiment of every kind of disease dances round; if you asked their names
I could more easily run through how many adulterers Oppia has loved, how
many of the sick Themison has killed in one autumn, how many partners
Basilus, how many minors Hirrus has cheated, how many men tall Maura
soaks up in a single day, how many pupils Hamillus bends over; I could more
quickly run through how many villas he owns, the one at whose shaving my
youth’s thick beard sang.
The passage as a whole resembles the widespread ‘as many as’ poeticism.28
The motif is disseminated widely and details – most obviously the compar-
isons and the number of comparisons – vary. Juvenal’s comparisons involve
seven categories, which makes them like a list, especially since most exam-
ples of the motif are more sparing. The passage is not a catalogue, but one
may still consider its relation to an epic format. The remarkable passage
which ushers in the Homeric catalogue of ships has six comparisons (fire,
flocks of birds, leaves and flowers, swarming flies, herdsmen and flocks of
goats, a bull among cattle; Iliad 2.455-83), of which two in particular
(leaves and flowers, and swarming flies) illustrate the huge numbers of the
Greeks. Elsewhere Achilles speaks of ‘gifts as numerous as sand’ (Iliad
9.385). The language of leaves may suggest transience rather than numer-
ousness as such (Iliad 6.146-9; cf. Mimnermus fr. 2), but contributes to the
spread of a poetic mannerism. Virgil, enumerating the varieties of vines in
the Georgics (2.103-8) conflates Catullus’ innumerable sands (7.3-6;
61.199-201) with Apollonius of Rhodes’ (Arg. 4.214-15) or Theocritus’
(16.60-1) waves. Ovid’s exile poetry (in elegiacs) uses sand, fish, fish eggs,
flowers, ears of corn, apples, and snow (Tr. 4.1.55-60), and ears of corn,
thyme, birds, and fish (ex Pont. 2.7.25-30) to illustrate the profusion of his
troubles. Although we see this motif crossing generic borders,29 it is clearly
always one of an elevated poeticism – even when the poet plays with it as
Catullus and Ovid do. Juvenal’s language is distinctly un-epic, but it has
been put into a template that can still be felt to have an epic resonance. The
result is astonishing: there is some similarity to the multiple comparisons
for woes in Ovid’s exile poetry, but the gratuitous unpleasantness of
Juvenal’s comparisons and their accumulated dysfunctionality militate
strongly against the poetic register the format suggests.
Absent features; size, love, history, and didactic

There is variety in the extent to which epic features are represented in
satire. There remain three or four features, and ones of some importance,
which are quite absent from the satiric image of epic.
101
Most obviously, there is the matter of size. Epics are large. Since satire
is on a much smaller scale there is little scope for reflecting this, though it
can be mocked, as in the opening of Juvenal’s first satire.30 It is, however,
perhaps part of the background to the unparalleled size of the sixth, but
apart from this the hugeness of epic is largely taken as read by the
satirists.
Second, there is love. This is a major element in the Aeneid and bulks
large in Ovid, Valerius Flaccus, and Statius, but it does not figure to any
extent in the satirists’ picture of epic. Indeed, love is largely absent also
from the lyric and elegiac showing of epic (since they are about love and
are at pains to maintain a defining distance between themselves and epic).
In the Remedia Amoris (‘Cures for Love’) Ovid asks fortia Maeonio
gaudent pede bella referri: / deliciis illic quis locus esse potest? (373-4;
‘Bold wars rejoice to be reported in hexameters: what place is there there
for love’s delights?’). However, even within epic itself love is treated as
generically alien material, stuff that does not really belong.31 In this
matter, satire, lyric and especially love elegy conspire to accept an image
of epic that is unreal, but is also an image to which epic itself contributes.
The attack is on what epic aspires to, not on what particular epics happen
to be like.32
Third, there is history. Among references to paradigmatic epicists,
Homer and Virgil have priority, and the comparatively low profile of even
Ennius, certainly of Silius Italicus and Lucan, is striking. Historical epic33
is largely absent in the satirists’ picture of epic (though it figures in
Horace’s and Persius’ recusationes – Hor. Sat. 2.1.13-5; Pers. 1 – and
Juvenal parodies one in the fourth satire), and one concludes that overtly
historical epic is not seen as belonging to epic’s archetypal form. It
certainly appears to be the minority form, and therefore a weaker and less
significant target, and indeed if the satirists’ charge is the absurd distance
between epic and real life, to read mythological epic as central to the genre
sharpens the criticism.34
Finally, there is the matter of didactic poetry. It too feeds its influence
into satire (and it has its own tendency to show satiric characteristics), but
although it is treated by Quintilian and others as one of a kind with epic
(see Quint. 10.1.85-92),35 satire does not include (nor do elegy and lyric)36
didactic in their picture of epic. One might indeed feel that the influence
of Lucretius is so pervasive in Horace, especially in his first three satires,
that he is almost being presented retrospectively as a kind of satirist – or
Horace himself as a kind of didactic poet.
‘Typical’ epic in satire and elsewhere

In all this material we face a complex set of positionings. Both satire and
elegy set themselves against epic (on different grounds). Both, however,
102
claim some ground from epic. Satire maintains an increasingly aggressive

mocking stance, but elegy, although its opposition to epic is presided over
by Apollo, god of recusationes, admits gods for wider purposes than this,
and also admits epic narratives (as does lyric too),37 and translates epic
scenarios into contemporary urban settings.38 Although satiric references
to elegy are few (though derisive in Persius and Juvenal),39 it is perhaps
not so ironic, even given the opposition elegy claims to epic, that, such as
they are, these references associate rather than distinguish the two.
In the satiric construction of epic reviewed above (which is of course
simplified here, since the different satirists are not yet separated) there is
clearly an element of ‘bottom up’ analysis shown in the empirical obser-
vation of detail or feature (evidenced in parodies and so forth). The
naming of characteristic authors and listing of typical themes indicates
there was also a ‘top down’ element, a general notion of what broad
outlines epic might have. To this extent, the way the satirists’ idea of epic
seems to have been formed appears to resemble the way in which we
imagine any contemporary reader’s idea was formed. The idea that a genre
is somehow a real thing independent of individual examples is frequently,
but perhaps over-rigorously, criticised;40 readers often think of genre like
this, and to that extent the perception has a psychological reality.
It is important to consider how the literate audience perceived epic,41
and if we ask, as we should do, to what extent this notion of epic really was
general, we can point both to the use by Cicero of the word heros for men
such as Cato (ad Att. 1.17.9), Cassius and Brutus (14.6.1), Plato and
Aristotle (Rep. 3.8), and (ironically) Clodius (ad Att. 4.3.5), and also to the
criticisms made of the frivolousness of Ovid’s epic by Quintilian and
Seneca.42 There is also the fact that similarities between the picture of epic
both in satire and in elegy and lyric clearly emerged in the discussion
above. There were, of course, different emphases: satire’s attack empha-
sises the distance between epic and real experience, whereas elegy is more
concerned with making love and war into opposing themes representing
elegy and epic respectively. Epic is cast as the poetry which has no room
for love, and therefore as in direct ideological opposition to elegy. It was
also beginning to emerge that from their different positions the different
groups of genres get different things out of epic. Touches of epic style, for
example, are always felt in satire to stand out as consciously different,
separate from real experience, and often thereby amusing or ridiculous
(even in Juvenal whose use of the epic manner is more pervasive), whereas
elegy implies a yearning that the loftier style should somehow be appro-
priate or that the elegiac experience should live up to the style. These
qualifications, however, only show that the outlying genres have different
perspectives on epic; to a large extent their pictures of the genre are
strongly compatible.
We may now survey the satirists in turn.
103
Lucilius and epic

We know very little indeed about the satiric writing of Ennius43 and virtu-
ally nothing about that of Pacuvius. We can see, however, that in his
satires (and in some of the possibly satiric minor poems) Ennius used a
mixture of high and low style, and parodied the lofty manner of his own
Annales.44 In any case, it is Lucilius who is persistently held up as the
founder of the genre. Even here we are still on uncertain ground because
of the fragmentary nature of the remains of Lucilius’ Satires. Nonetheless,
it is possible to make some observations. We find, first of all, a broad range
of levels of style mimicked and parodied.45 We repeatedly find parody and
mockery of tragedy and tragic language. We find epic language, as in the
speech-closing motif at 18W (cf. V. Aen. 1.81; 6.76) and the use in Greek of
a Homeric half-line (267-8W = Iliad 20.443). According to Horace, more-
over, Lucilius found fault with Ennius (but as one not claiming to be any
greater himself).46 We find, besides, mockery of Homeric fancies (520-3),
the presence of mythological figures,47 and the use of mythological names
(mockingly) for contemporary types (Tiresias at 228-9, 230-1). More strik-
ingly, we find a council of the gods used as the basis for a whole satire –
perhaps even for a whole book.48 Servius (at Virg. Aen. 10.104ff.) writes
that the whole Virgilian passage (totus hic locus) is transferred from
Lucilius.49 There must be some exaggeration in this (and other such state-
ments), but it may point towards Lucilius’ council being of some scale.50 It
may also be of significance that Ennius’ epic had a divine council about
Rome’s foundation in his book 1, whereas Lucilius has his divine council
in the first hexameter book (book 1), but about the Rome’s destruction.51
Above this, there is the fact that, after his first five books of satires (26-
30), Lucilius settled on the hexameter as his satire’s exclusive metre. This
may indicate a claim to a special relationship between satire and epic. The
hexameter, it is true, was already used for didactic and bucolic poetry, but
there are two considerations which go a long way towards removing this
as an objection. First, these were Greek rather than Latin genres at this
time, with a lower profile in the Latin literary field as a result. Second,
epic and didactic are clearly related (from some points of view they may be
regarded as parts of a single genre), and bucolic may be seen as a human-
ised reaction to epic. Morgan therefore has reasonable grounds for arguing
that Lucilius’ apparently crude hexameters are constructed as both an
assault on epic aesthetic values (matching the thematic assault), and as
part of Lucilian satire’s ‘obsessive self-definition vis-à-vis epic’.52
Horace and epic

With the later satirists we move on to drier ground. We have already seen
how in his first programme poem Horace sets satire and comedy on the
104
one hand and epic on the other against each other (Sat. 1.4) as part of a
programmatic discussion that has a sort of weight that applies over at
least the whole of book 1, and by a sort of inertia probably over book 2 and
the Epistles as well (although the moral function of epic is re-evaluated
somewhat in Epp. 1.2). Epic tones, scenes, and characters are woven into
both books of the Satires. On the larger scale there are the Odyssean
parody of Satires 2.5, and the construction of Satires 1.9 (looking back-
wards from the Homeric final line) as a divine rescue from the field of
conflict.53
On a smaller scale, but arguably just as important, Horace’s Tantalus
reference in the opening satire of the first book deserves to be mentioned
again. Although the passage derives from a didactic poem (cf. Lucretius’
De Rerum Natura 3.980), the boundary between didactic and epic is not
constant, and the passage is a programmatic one which makes a show of
setting the poetic mythological world side by side with the ordinary world
of the audience. The same idea is extended by Horace’s alter-satirist,
Damasippus, with Orestes (Hor. Sat. 2.3.132-41), and, with less explicit
scaffolding, Ajax (Sat. 2.3.187-213). On a smaller scale again, but still
significant in proportion to the size of the satire that contains it, there is
the epic parallel to the quarrel between the paltry pair Rupilius Rex and
Persius in Satires 1.7.11-18.
At a more local level there is, as well as the sprinkling of mythological
names dealt with earlier, a range of allusive effects. We shall see this well
by looking at the range of phenomena visible in one satire.
Horace Satires 1.5

Egressum magna me accepit Aricia Roma
Hospitio modico: rhetor comes Heliodorus,
Graecorum longe doctissimus; inde Forum Appi,
Differtum nautis, cauponibus atque malignis. (Hor. Sat. 1.5.1-4)
Aricia received me – having set out from great Rome – with modest lodgings.
With me the teacher Heliodorus – by far the most learned of Greeks. Then
Forum Appi, stuffed with bargees and evil inn-keepers.
Horace begins the fifth satire of the first book in a way calculated to sound
deeply unepic; unepic in rhythm, phrasing, vocabulary, and content. This
effect, however, is soon punctuated with a very different sounding line and
a half: iam nox inducere terris / umbras et caelo diffundere signa parabat
(Sat. 1.5.9-10, ‘Already Night was preparing to draw shadows over the earth
and sprinkle stars in the sky’). We have here an epic-style time periphrasis,
whose main purpose is to (un)prepare us for the plunge back into the world
of barges and their sailors, and quarrels and common talk in loud voices.
105
The tone raises itself again for a line (24) when the travellers disembark: ora
manusque tua lavimus, Feronia, lympha (‘we wash our faces and hands in
your spring, Feronia’). Here we notice the divine apostrophe, the sacral
ritual, the use of the poetic lympha for water. Again there follows a plunge
to a lower level, but this time it is different. First, the previous passage of
heightened language was background description, whereas here the trav-
ellers are doing something (washing) which has a similarity to sacral acts.
Second, the tone falls, but more briefly, for line 26 – impositum saxis late
candentibus Anxur (‘Anxur, set on far-shining rocks’) – has that chiastic
arrangement of nouns and epithets favoured especially by hexameter poets
(proper ones, that is, rather than satirists like Horace). This elevation of
poetic temperature preludes the expected arrival of Maecenas. The temper-
ature rises again with the arrival of Horace’s special friends Plotius, Varius,
and Virgil (Sat. 1.5.39-44), with excited language and explicit affirmations of
friendship and joy. This is the centre of the poem.
Shortly after this there is an interlude, an anticlimactic spat between
two freedmen (51-69) which is given the apparatus of epic battle narrative
– an invocation (modified) to the Muse, (un)heroic lineages, and
antiphonal vaunting. The abuse contains whimsical allusions to a human-
ised and bucolic (pastorem, 63) version of the epic Cyclops which is filtered
through the medium of a comic dance, and to tragedy. Sarmentus needs no
tragic mask because he is facially disfigured. That is Cicirrus’ joke, but the
audience can play with other ideas – Sarmentus needs no tragic mask
because he is real, not a dramatic figment; he needs no tragic mask
because he is ridiculous and pretensions to tragedy would be absurd.
When this episode is over, it is only a few lines before there is another
pocket of epic.
At the next town there is an accident in the kitchen and the host nearly
goes up in flames (arsit, 72; cf. ardet, V. Aen. 2.311), nam vaga per veterem
dilapso flamma culinam / Vulcano summum properabat lambere tectum
(73-4, ‘For Vulcan slipped through the old kitchen and errant flame
hastened to lick the top of the ceiling’). Here there is the poetic use of a
god’s name for his attribute, Vulcan for fire (but the god is put into the
comic setting of an old kitchen), and the personification of the flame
encased in that hexameter stylism, the insertion of the verb (here proper-
abat lambere) between a noun and its epithet.54 There is a similar case
soon after that escapade, in the passage in which Horace makes a fool of
himself by waiting for a girl who does not turn up, and whom he
rancorously or ruefully calls mendacious (82). His eager anticipation
breeds dreams and his solitary ejaculation during a sexual dream is, in
terms of poetic hierarchies, the low point of the poem. All the more
striking that the word Horace uses for sex is another (poetically cliché)
divine periphrasis (‘Venus’, 84).
Morgan has argued that the town that cannot be named in hexa-
106
meters (87) – the next town along the route, 24 miles further on – is an
allusion to Lucilius, and that both satirists are making a show of the way
their subject matter is inimical to the epic metre and to the genre it
stands for.55 The next town on the journey, Canusium (91), allows Horace
another fleeting epical touch. The reference to the town’s founding
allows Diomedes of Homeric fame to be mentioned, and in addition we
remember that foundation myths were part of the substance of epic
(culminating later in the Aeneid). This is the location for the departure
of Varius and the emotional temperature once again rises and is once
again marked by one of the stylisms of serious hexameter poetry
(primarily epic, that is to say), a combination of the chiastic arrange-
ment of nouns and epithets with a centrally located verb (93, flentibus
hinc Varius discedit maestus amicis, ‘Hence departed Varius sadly, to the
weeping of his friends’).
Ordinary, perhaps even bathetic, details about the road and the weather
occupy a few lines and then another foundation myth – of sorts – makes a
more obviously mock-epic play. ‘Gnatia, on whose construction the water-
nymphs scowled’ (Rudd’s translation for Gnatia Lymphis / iratis exstructa,
97-8) characterises the water of this town as bad (information about the
water is something of a thematic leitmotif in this travel poem; cf. Sat.
1.5.7, 88-9) by substituting the water-nymphs for a founding deity of any
stature, and by then substituting their anger for an appropriately founda-
tional smile. The entertainment unwittingly provided by this town, its
claim that incense melts spontaneously on the temple steps, leads to the
distinctly Lucretian (cf. Lucr. De Rerum Natura 5.83, 6.56) profession of
rational humanism. This touch has a perhaps rather whimsical solemnity
about it – especially in the light of the throw-away quality of the next (and
final) line of the poem – but it remains a profession with quite a powerful
resonance in a period of possibly imminent civil war.
We have in this poem a satire filled with epic touches, mostly comic, but
not always at the same level, nor the same sort of comedy. Some of it may
mock romantic pretensions (as the use of ‘Venus’ at 84). Some of it may
actually provide a warming of the poetic temperature for quite other
purposes, as for the heralding of the arrival or departure of friends (friend-
ship is both thematic and at the heart of this poem). Perhaps all of it builds
up to an elegant literary entertainment which contributes to a character-
isation of Horace in his capacity as Maecenas’ friend – i.e. to the
characterisation of Maecenas in turn as a potential audience for such
entertainment and as the friend of poets (of whom there are three on the
journey with him). Maecenas is not, we infer, the tool of a barbarous aspi-
rant to tyranny. Perhaps all (or most) of it also emphasises by contrast the
observation of the real world of experience, which in this poem is both
exceptionally broad (for satire) in geographical reach, and precisely that
world which is threatened by the possibility of civil war.
107
Persius and epic

Despite his programmatic espousals of quite other subject matter, epic
resonance is frequent in Horace’s satires. It is mostly marked as different
from the satiric (or real-world) context, though it is also in a number of
ways part of it too. With Persius we see a different picture, although in
other respects he is so markedly Horatian. As we have seen, epic names
are largely concentrated in Persius in the first and the programmatic part
of the fifth satires. So too with epic allusion more generally. Outside those
two places and the short choliambic prologue, the reference to Ennius and
his dream of being Homer in the sixth satire (6.10-11) is quite exceptional.
Here Persius quotes a line of Ennius praising the port of Luna; cor iubet
hoc Enni, postquam destertuit esse / Maeonides Quintus pavone ex
Pythagoreo (‘So said Ennius the wise, after he snored off being Quintus
Homer descended from Pythagoras’ peacock’). The reference is to the
prologue to Ennius’ epic, the Annales, where, apparently, Ennius had a
vision of Homer, who claimed to have been a peacock and to have passed
his soul to Ennius (see Ann. 13, 14W). We do not know whether the line
comes from Ennius’ epic or his Satires (or elsewhere), but perhaps we
have here a piece of anarchic Persian humour: Ennius needed to sleep off
his mad epic-induced dreams before he could get down to the ordinary
world of sensible satire.
Such inspirational dreams have already been mocked and dismissed in
the prologue (Prol. 2ff.) in a parody of high poetic learning. This is where
Persius makes his claim to be a poetic outsider, and it is of a piece with the
programmes expressed in the first and fifth satires. The epic infusion
there begins with Persius’ use of ‘Polydamas and the Trojan ladies’ (Pers.
1.4) to denote those who would read Labeo’s inept (so we are told by the
scholiast) translation of the Iliad56 rather than Persius’ verse. There is of
course an ironic appropriateness in the use of a Homeric name for the
readers of Homeric-type poetry. In addition, Persius uses the ‘Trojan
ladies’, to make a preliminary hit at the moral effeminacy of the Roman
audience and (its corollary) their taste in literature. This taste is further
pilloried by means of metaphors of food and sex, by caricatures of the
readers, and by parody of what is read.
The peopling of contemporary Rome with all those Polydamases and
Trojan ladies gives a strong initial impetus to the idea of the moral conta-
mination having epic or epic-related forms as a particular symptom. This
is topped up periodically throughout the course of the poem. Persius
mimes for us a poetry reading (different from the one he is giving us) in
which the effeminate poet performs what he has composed in private,
poetry which gropes and tickles another orifice as much as – or through –
the ear. The lofty seat from which the poet reads (sede leges celsa, 17)
probably combines a continuation of the sexual innuendo (cf. the alta sella
108
at Juv. 3.136) with an epic resonance (see V. Aen. 8.541, 11.301,

Albinovanus Pedo 12, Luc. 5.16, Stat. Theb. 2.385).57 Friction between
these two levels surfaces again with the rather Ennian, but stuffed,
Romulids (31)58 whose enquiries about divine poetry are answered by an
effeminised poet’s Phyllises or Hypsipyles (34). Phyllis and Hypsipyle
appear in Ovid’s elegiac game with epic material, the Heroides (2 and 6),
and Hypsipyle appears in the epics of Apollonius (Arg. 1), Valerius Flaccus
(Arg. 2), and Statius (Theb. 5). Those, Persius says, or some other senti-
mental bardic stuff (vatum … plorabile siquid, 34).59 The epic manner has
by this time, Persius implies (and with some truth), become pervasively
eroticised. The audience, Persius goes on, assent: adsensere viri (36) is a
distinctly epic formulation (cf. V. Aen. 2.130).60
Some lines later Persius tilts at Attius’ (probably the Labeo of line 4)
Iliad and in a parallel move the little elegies (elegidia) dictated by crudi …
proceres (‘dyspeptic chieftains’, 50-2). A number of points are scored with
economy here: with the eroticisation of epic, it and elegy have become
practically the same thing (a point implicit in the Phyllises and Hypsipyles
of 34) and this suits the taste of the aristocratic audience – an audience
which sees itself as somehow epical in grandeur (this is the point of the
poetic word proceres), but an audience which has gluttonously swallowed
its poetic food too quickly (crudi).61
There is further mockery of muddle when Persius satirises the obses-
sion with smoothness (63ff.) which unfoundedly believes itself capable of
epic. Persius’ anarchically mimetic language, however, imitates the confu-
sion of such perfectionists, and the description of epic sounds skewed – in
mores, in luxum, in prandia regum dicere (‘on the customs, the splen-
dours, the dinners of kings’) could almost be a way of describing satire –
and it is the following res grandes (‘great themes’), Musa (‘Muse’), and
especially heroas sensus (‘heroic thoughts’) that confirm it is a form of epic
that is Persius’ particular target. A passage parodying antique tragedy, or
rather mocking the contemporary taste for it, leads yet again to an image
of the sexual excitement with which the noble audience responds (82). The
poets are incapable of producing anything other than a debased form of
epic, a form which reveals their moral inadequacy and which is accepted
with enthusiasm by its equally rotted audience.
There is more parody of the contemporary manner in the next section
(92ff.), in which epic or epicising is again at issue. Persius’ parodic ‘quota-
tions’ imply that these feeble new poets are epicising in manner and
content (especially lines 93 and 99-102; cf. the names at 105), and it is
ironic that Persius should indicate their insufficiency by using a phrase
which Horace self-deprecatingly used to liken his satiric verse to Lucilius,
and to contrast it with epic (cludere versum, 93; cf. Hor. Sat. 1.4.40 and
2.2.28). Persius, in his own way (and as Horace did in his) is turning the
tables on the standard hierarchy with epic at the top and satire in a
109
different league. The impression we are given is of vacuous smoothness,

and indeed Persius mimes the smooth poets’ antipathy to Virgil’s epic as
based precisely on the aspect of smoothness (96-7), for the metrical
features we see in Persius’ parodies of these new poets can all be paralleled
in Virgil, except their fashionable avoidance of elision (see Barr, 1987). If
we also notice a feel of the Catullus of the Ariadne epyllion or the Attis
poem, or of Ovid, about some of the phrases Persius uses in his parodies62
this is doubtless because of the persistence of post-Catullan new poetry.63
The opposition Persius shows to smoothness without content matches the
same opposition in terms of behaviour elsewhere in his satires: throughout
the corpus there are recurrent images of testing surfaces to find out what
is below or real. As regards verse, the point is primarily aimed at contem-
porary literature irrespective of genre, but the picture is heavily coloured
with epic and the epicising manner. True, the Aeneid is excused, but that
belongs to a different time.
The final epic flourish is in the transformation of Persius into Midas’
barber (see Ov. Met. 11), digging a hole and whispering into it – digging
with his stylus in the papyrus, itself about to whisper, of his book – some-
thing better than any Iliad (119-23). We think immediately, of course, of
Attius’ Iliad, but nulla (‘not any’) is more inclusive than this: Persius’
satire is better than any Iliad. Persius claims a down-to-earth and compul-
sive honesty by way of his digging-barber act, a claim made by all the
satirists, and to the detriment of epic.
The fifth satire begins with the fanfare of an epic commonplace – the
need for a hundred mouths64 to do justice to the poetry (Pers. 5.1-2) –
except that Persius tells us it is used by epic writers and tragedians alike,
as though there is no difference. Epic is denoted by rewriting part of the
epic pastiche Horace had used in his rejection of epic (Sat. 2.1.15). The
following lines burlesque the content of tragedy, adding a snipe at the
drawing of inspiration from Helicon’s poetic spring (cf. Prol. 4), mingling
a handful of its names along the way, and transforming the mouth motif
into a dense stew of metaphors. The charge here amounts to the unseri-
ousness of the tragic-epic axis: hidden behind a grand surface it amounts
to no more than mist, air, puffed up cheeks and lungs, the blare of trum-
pets. It would respond to Cornutus’ testing with a hollow sound.
Persius’ campaign against grand literature is different from the antag-
onism we see perhaps in Ennius, certainly in Lucilius, Horace, and (as we
shall see) Juvenal. First, it is concentrated very heavily in programmatic
chunks rather than woven into the whole fabric of the corpus. Second, the
opposition is more ethically polarised: in Persius the epic-tragic dyad is a
symptom of moral decay rather than merely disjunct from experience.
Persius is more single-mindedly hostile than Horace, who praises Varius as
an epic writer (Sat. 1.10.43-4), enjoys seeing life resemble a comic version
of an epic (Sat. 1.5), and is happy to be a sort of hero rescued by Apollo
110
(Sat. 1.9). Persius’ hostility may be matched by Juvenal’s, but the latter’s
objections are more multi-dimensional and set within the context of a
more wide-ranging critique of literature.
Juvenal and epic; contemporary epic?

Juvenal prominently parodies Statius’ lost de Bello Germanico (‘About
the German War’) of c. AD 90 (Juv. 4), and refers to the Thebaid (Juv.
7.82ff.), published around AD 91. He refers also to Lucan (7.79), who died
in AD 65. He may allude to the Argonautica (1.7ff.) of Valerius Flaccus,
who died in AD 92 or 93. Apart from these figures, all predating the
Satires by at least twenty years, Juvenal refers or alludes to ‘typical’ epics
– the unknown Cordus’ Theseid (1.2) – and ‘typical’ subject matter –
Heracles, Diomedes, Icarus (1.52-4), Aeneas, Achilles, and Hylas (1.162-
4). Although it is convenient sometimes to refer to some of these figures
as Juvenal’s contemporaries, we know very little about the poetry of the
time in which Juvenal was writing. During the second century we know
only of one more or less conventional epic, and that from after c. AD 160,
an Alexander-poem by Clemens.65 This paucity of evidence is made more
troubling because our picture of subsequent Latin literature suggests a
drastic change in literary taste had been at work in the intervening
period. There is a case for suggesting that, just as Juvenal’s names come
largely from the past, so too the epic literature he draws on is a timeless
cultural inheritance from the past.
Epic paraphernalia in Juvenal

We may begin to review Juvenal’s use of epic by recalling his distinctive
use of mythological names, as for example the Automedon on the
Flaminian Way (1.61-2), the Ucalegon in Rome (3.199), the African
Ganymede (5.59), or the Eriphylas and Clytemnestras.66 As well as this we
find Juvenal using mythological names in direct speech to contribute to
making the speaker sound absurd (3.25, 27; 9.135-6). Individually and
cumulatively these cases contribute to a friction between Juvenal’s satire
and epic. We found, too, epic characters used in their own person as exam-
ples (including a large cluster in the old age section of the tenth satire;
10.246ff.). The cumulative effect these references have is to reinforce the
impression that the population of Juvenal’s satires is a polygeneric
literary cocktail. In some of these cases there are at least ambivalent
touches. When the repellent Naevolus decorates his situation with
Homeric allusions (9.37, 64-5, 149-50) or refers to his fate with didactic
(9.27ff.) or mythological (135-6) grandeur we may wonder what it would
take for epicisms really to apply to any ordinary life. In any case we see
mockery of mythological subjects as material for poetry in the program-
111
matic opening of the first satire (and, along with their role in education,
in the seventh), and elsewhere, for example in the burlesque of Odyssean
material in the fifteenth satire (15.13-26). Gods are especially prone to
slighting references. There are small-scale cases (for example Mars and
Venus at 2.31, Jupiter and Mars 6.59), but there are also passages which
by their size or location acquire a larger significance. The divine apparatus
is mocked in the concluding section of the second satire (2.149ff.), and the
introductory paragraph of the sixth (6.1-20). In the latter passage Juvenal
makes fun of the golden age myth (which can be traced back to Hesiod and
is given a complex transformation in Virgil’s Georgics), but in the thir-
teenth satire he manages to make light of the golden age and its successor
at the same time (see especially 13.38-52).67 In terms of thematic consis-
tency this connects with the irony expended on ‘the good old days’ which
is a recurrent motif throughout the corpus, and with the secular sensi-
bility visible prominently in the tenth (see especially 10.346-66) and
thirteenth (see especially 13.78ff.). As well as this, however, we can look at
the importation of these easily ridiculed epic figures into the satiric world
as an ironical reflection of the golden age when men and gods mixed freely.
There is more epic paraphernalia besides. Morton Braund notes the use
of epic imagery in the programmatic first satire ‘when the speaker urges
himself to action at 1.149-50 with the words utere velis, totos pande sinus
(“use your wings, open the sails right out”) and when he depicts Roman
wives as creatures swept along by the power of their emotions with an
epic-style simile (6.649-50)’.68 Not all similes are epic, but Gillo’s pallor at
the prospect of earning from a rich old lady his reward for sexual services
is described with a pair of contrasting similes (itself an epic feature), one
of which comes from the Aeneid (Juv. 1.42-4; cf. V. Aen. 2.379ff.), and in
many of Juvenal’s similes there is an epic element.69 Editors also observe
the appearance of the Underworld at the end of the second and in the
course of the third satires (2.150-1; 3.265-6), and the reworking of
Achilles’ grief at Patroclus’ death in an episode also in the third satire
(3.278-80). In fact, the third satire reworks epic scenarios repeatedly, with
Umbricius mirroring Aeneas’ arrival at Cumae, Rome miming the fall of
Troy according to both Virgil and Homer, and frequent other allusions.
The fourth satire is permeated with epic and epicisms, and the fifth has
Virro’s food decorated with epic allusions that provide a running contrast
to the connotations supplied for Trebius’ food. Virro’s apples, for example
(5.150-2), are like those of the Phaeacians (‘you might believe them filched
from the African sisters’ as Juvenal ironically calls the Hesperides).70 The
whole of the first book is set in an epic time-frame by the use of Pyrrha
and Deucalion as a point of origin in the first satire (1.81-4). There is also
the characterisation of Lucilius as an epic charioteer, which in turn makes
the whole satiric world of the book a field for the heroic satirist, Juvenal.
Of course the content of these scenes and frames registers a difference
112
between the epic and the satiric worlds, but also claims a relationship
between the two genres – not necessarily a reciprocal one, as we shall see
later. The claim, so far as we have considered it till now, works on two
levels, that of more or less explicit programmatic assertions and that of the
cumulative effect of the material briefly rehearsed above. The program-
matic assertions give a context for the material, but are not entirely
straightforward: they contain both a critique of epic – its safeness, its
political fawning, its irrelevance – and an appropriation as well. The
satirist is presented as an epic hero, and Juvenal questions whether his
subject matter trespasses on epic territory. There is clearly a tension
between these two directions, and it is reinforced at the level of style.
Juvenal and the grand style – epic and declamation

It has long been held that Juvenal writes in a grand style71 and evidence
is provided in various forms, but the matter is not as simple as it first
appears. We recognise first of all that Juvenal is a highly allusive poet and
so we can find embedded echoes of a range of genres, both prose and verse,
in varying degrees of loftiness. In this sense Juvenal could be deemed poly-
stylistic rather than grand in style, unless one set of allusions clearly
dominated the others.
However, if we were to take Juvenal’s programme and his use of mytho-
logical names as giving the epic strain this kind of dominance, there would
still be problems. When he adopts features of the epic manner Juvenal is
using the epic style for a purpose of his own, and we should decide whether
he is using epic as a moral benchmark against which to judge the discrep-
ancies of his satiric subjects, as a tone to solemnise his attack on
degeneracy, or for some quite other purpose. Second, there is the sheer
weight of the presence of declamation in the satires – in phraseology and
phrasing, rhetorical figures and tones, themes, commonplaces, and overall
structures.72 We might see this influence as so pervasive that we would be
tempted to see Juvenal’s verse as a web of polygeneric allusion suspended
in a basically declamatory mode.
It is, however, not this simple either. Juvenal writes in hexameter verse
and this entails stylistic choices which are simply not relevant in decla-
mation, a point to which I shall return shortly. In addition, for all the
declamatory features that are plain to see,73 the basic arrangement of too
many satires clearly belongs to Latin satire. For, example, the first satire
is in the tradition of programme satires, the third – however declamatory
Umbricius’ speech is – is a dramatic dialogue after the model of Horace’s
dialogue satires, and the fourth (at least in large part) is a mock-epic
narrative also with Horatian antecedents. The subject matter of the fifth
satire – a horrible dinner – belongs especially to the realm of satire. As
well as this, Juvenal’s use of declamatory themes and tones is itself too
113
often a little suspect. The moral sententiae that are part of the declama-
tory style are rife in the Satires, but are quite often followed by
undercutting irony (maxima debetur puero reverentia, si quid / turpe
paras at 14.47-8, for example; ‘A child is owed the utmost respect – if you
have something shameful in mind’).74 Moreover, the exempla that are so
much a part of the rhetorical manner in general are sometimes so
flagrantly out of place (Quintilian at 7.186ff., Ulixes’ father at 10.278) or
inappropriately treated (Hector and his brothers carrying Priam’s body
at 10.258) that one has to see them as having some sort of comic function.
There are clear signposts, too, that Umbricius’ speech is itself a parody of
declamatory themes and the declamatory manner (Braund argues the
same for the sixth satire).75 Finally, the indignatio programmed in the
first book is a rhetorical construct – it suits pathos, the fiery emotion due
to outrageous crime, and goes hand in hand with the grand rhetorical
style, the genus grande – but we have to recall that Juvenal treats this
indignatio to increasingly ironic or negative presentations. Umbricius,
already a target of parody, is angry, as is Trebius, who seems rather more
plainly abject and deserves what he gets (5.173). Juvenal’s interlocutions
highlight Naevolus’ already flagrant anger, and he is an even more
obvious satirical target. When we reach the thirteenth satire, Calvinus is
openly being mocked for his anger (13.11-17). Juvenal uses a broad range
of declamatory features, but essentially his position seems to lie some-
where between fellow-traveller and parodist. Nonetheless, unless we
believe that epic has actually taken over the declamatory manner for
itself,76 the declamatory elements provide too much contamination for us
to see Juvenal’s manner too simply as epical.
Juvenal and stylistic impurity

A number of features, according to Powell (1999), erode the validity of
describing Juvenal’s style as grand. He points to a persistent stylistic cont-
amination, the mingling with more elevated features of various prosaic
elements such as diminutives, unlofty vocabulary, and certain turns of
phrase. He concludes that in general Juvenal belongs with the pedestrian
satirists and that epic features in his poetry stand out against this back-
ground as different. He goes on to say that ‘epic’ passages in Juvenal may
indeed be infiltrated by the lower style of the linguistic matrix in which
they are set: ‘some passages … appear to shift about so quickly from the
everyday world to the world of epic and back again that the unwary reader
might get an impression of a chaotic mixture of stylistic levels’ (1999, 327).
While this is broadly true, it does need qualification. Juvenal’s metre is
the hexameter, the metre of epic. The hexameter, however, is capable of
great variety. One could argue that Horace’s hexameters (as he admits) are
more prosaic than those of the Aeneid. Persius’ hexameters are distinctly
114
rough. However, while Juvenal’s hexameters are rougher than those of the
epics of his approximate contemporaries,77 I would suggest78 that they are
less so than either Horace’s or Persius’ are than those of theirs. In his own
context, Juvenal’s verse tends to be less unliterary than that of his satiric
predecessors.
None of the satirists is uniform. In Juvenal, the effect is most
pronounced in the earlier books of his Satires, least pronounced in book 4.
Horace’s hexameter books make a fairly steady progression upwards from
the pedestrian level of Satires 1. At the local level, individual passages of
any of the satirists show fluctuations of stylistic level, but one might think
of the satirists as using a more or less ‘normal’ stylistic level as a base from
which to diverge for special effects. On the other hand, in such a heavily
contaminated manner as Juvenal’s it is difficult to find what one might
think of as ‘pure’ Juvenal, free of stylistic mixture. Even the final section
of the tenth satire, where the thought seems as direct as anything in
Juvenal, the vocabulary, tone, and manner are still hybrid. Furthermore,
individual instances of elevated or poetic word order, for example, cannot
automatically be registered as ironic or parodic. At the beginning of the
sixth satire there is an unusual concentration of elevated stylistic features.
Even here, however, it is too simple to talk of parody. Modern civilisation
is shown as adulterated at the same time as the poeticised Golden Age is
revealed as uncouth. This is what the standard poetic Golden Age looks
like viewed through the contaminated eyes of the post-Golden era, the
‘Ninth Age’ (Juv. 13.28). The complex mixture of styles mirrors the
complexity of the perspective we are invited to share.
Overall, one has to remember that Juvenal’s plainness, such as it is, is
a pose – essentially the same pose as the claim of being untaught by philo-
sophy (13.120-5), and of having been exposed only to a simple declamatory
education (1.15-7) – and the plainness, highlighted by the literariness of
the fragments it contains, is a generic marker which in turn draws atten-
tion to the literariness which highlights it. We see this in Horace – who has
a good deal to say about style, simplicity, variety, and being different from
epic – and in Persius with his programme of cleverly juxtaposed words in
everyday dress, and we see it from the very opening words of Juvenal’s
first book:
semper ego auditor tantum? numquamne reponam

vexatus totiens rauci Theseide Cordi?
Am I always to be just in the audience? Never to get my own back, though

vexed so often by hoarse Cordus’ Theseid?
What these lines reveal is that this is satire (what else could the first four
words begin?), and that it wants to turn the tables on epic (and other liter-
115
ature). What is different about Juvenal is that his antagonism to epic is

more extreme than Horace’s, and more persistent – but also part of a
broader critique of literature – than Persius’, as we shall see in the next
chapter.
116
6
Other Genres in Satire1
Surrounding genres variously react to, and try to incorporate elements

from, epic. Satire and elegy tend to be the most explicit in this, but
satire’s literariness, despite claims to an extra-literary purchase on
reality, goes far beyond this. A wide range of the content, personnel, and
manners of other kinds of literature is woven into the poetry of all the
extant satirists. To a large extent, other literature is a good part of the
substance of Roman satire.
All the satirists imply or state some degree of hostility to epic, but this
has to be set in the context of their treatment of other literary forms. In
this they are very distinct from one another. Persius is, by and large,
narrower in scope, though perhaps more distilled, than Horace or Juvenal.
Neither Persius nor Juvenal put forward as diverse a range of extra-satiric
models as Horace does. Finally, the profiles of diatribe, declamation,
didactic, and elegy differ in the works of the three satirists.
Other genres in Horace

We have already considered the Socratic element in Horace’s second book
of satires. Direct allusion to Plato’s Socratic dialogues is closest in two
particular satires (2.4 and 2.8), but the Socratic influence pervades the
whole book, manifesting itself in the use of the dialogue form, the
everyday subject matter, and Horace’s self-presentation throughout the
book. Horace stands in for Socrates although he leaves his adequacy for
this role questionable. There is also a conflation with comedy which
becomes explicit in the final satire of the book, the conversation with the
comic writer Fundanius. Horace’s ethical concerns are advertised by the
shadow of Socrates, but wrapped in layers of ambiguity, of which the comic
contamination is one sign.
An ethical concern is also implicit in the presence of diatribe and
Lucretian didactic. The first three satires of the first book have the form
of impromptu philosophical discourses.2 They share the framework of a
reason-nature polarity in which generally reason and nature urge in the
same direction, but – especially in the third – nature sometimes needs a
corrective from reason. The Aristotelian concept of the Golden Mean is
also worked into the body of the arguments. The indirect introductions
117
(using pairs of contrasting examples) further build up the sense that the
three satires make up a single organic group, and give weight, besides, to
the presence of ethical concerns in the rest of the book. We find the same
format in the second book, but this time Horace is subjected to the moral
discourses by others – others who have in a number of cases themselves
heard the discourses from others – and the question of how seriously they
can be taken becomes, as we have seen, subject to a comic overview.
Lucretius, although he is not cited as a model, contributes to what
amounts to a programmatic utterance in the first satire (1.1.25-6, cf. Lucr.
1.936f.), and not infrequently Lucretian passages are reworked or a
Lucretian tone is sounded. In a spirit of ingenuity Horace transfers
Lucretius’ satiric passage on lovers’ blindness (De Rerum Natura
4.1160ff.) from the satire in which it might almost have been expected
(Sat. 1.2) to the following one, where its point is translated into one about
moral judgements (Sat. 1.3.44-8). Although some of the allusions to
Lucretius may seem lighthearted, or even frivolous, there is nonetheless a
sense in which Horace is claiming a parallel status for his satires in an
unstated programme.3 Horatian satire – especially if we think of the
portrayal of Horace’s father as teacher – can be seen as a form of didactic.
Horace Satires 1.2

Horace’s generic mixture covers a much broader range than just this, of
course, as a sample satire will show effectively. The second satire of the
first book begins (1-4) with an extraordinary carnival:
ambubaiarum collegia, pharmacopolae,

mendici, mimae, balatrones, hoc genus omne
maestum ac sollicitum est cantoris morte Tigelli.
quippe benignus erat.
The colleges of Syrian music-girls, drug-salesmen, beggars, show-girls,

clowns – all people of that sort are sad and troubled at the death of Tigellius
the singer. He was that generous.
The opening is strikingly un-epical in metre, syntax, and vocabulary. The

first line is a three-word hexameter with a five-syllable word at the end.
The first sentence is a list, colloquially summed up in hoc genus omne (‘all
that sort’) and leading to a prosaic statement. The first word is an oriental
import not paralleled elsewhere in Latin until Petronius (74.13) and
Suetonius (Nero 27), and the last word of the line is Greek. Both words –
and the others in the list – indicate low and disreputable social levels.4 The
ragbag mixture of various kinds of waif and stray who are said to lament
Tigellius turn the carnival impression into that of a sort of funeral proces-
118
6. Other Genres in Satire
sion, so that there is a tension between vulgarity and an imaginary solem-

nity. This bizarre flurry sets the level against which subsequent variations
of literary provenance and tone are gauged.
Immediately the manner settles into that with which the reader is
familiar from the preceding satire, with contrasting examples, comments
on how people justify to themselves the pursuit of extreme and dysfunc-
tional ways of life, vivid interlocution, and at lines 20-2 the application of
a model from Terentian comedy. A ‘Where is this leading?’ gambit (23; cf.
1.1.14-15, 1.3.19-20; 2.7.21-2) brings on an Aristotelian maxim (the
Golden Mean, 28) illustrated with an anecdote. This brief tale (What Cato
said on catching a Well-known Man leaving a Brothel) is doubtless unhis-
torical, and may have been attached to other names in its history.5 It
makes most sense if we read it as an interlocution, to which Horace’s
answer is another quotation (What Cupiennius says). Already we can see
Horace’s argument proceeding by way of the friction between different
voices, voices from different kinds of literature, and the next line of the
poem moves the argument to a general level through a grotesquely re-
applied piece of Ennian epic (Sat. 1.2.37-8, cf. Enn. Ann. 471-2W).6 The
citation of a legal opinion (46) extends the range of sources even further,
and it is extended even more at lines 68ff. Here the diatribe-interlocutor’s
role is handed over to the infatué’s penis, a motif drawn from Priapic
epigram (cf. Anth. Pal. 12.232; Carm. Priap. 83) and reappearing variously
(Hor. Sat. 1.8; Ov. Am. 3.7.69ff.; Petr. 132). Priapic epigram is a slight
form, marked by the expenditure of ingenuity and various degrees of
craftsmanship and stylistic elegance on the recalcitrant subject matter,
despite which the solemnity of vocabulary7 in prognatum consule (‘sprung
from a consul’) is surprising and all the more incongruous in its depen-
dence on the very low word cunnum (‘cunt’).
Comedy, anecdote, and Priapic epigram are the sources of good sense so
far. In what follows more elevated poetry stands for folly. The reference to
Cerinthus (81) as a point on a beauty-scale probably alludes to the puer
delicatus (‘fancy boy’) of erotic epigram. Erotic epigram, however, is
certainly the point of the parodies of Philodemus (Anth. Pal. 5.132) and
Callimachus (31, Anth. Pal. 12.102) at 92ff. and 105ff. For Horace – as for
Lucretius in his fourth book – this kind of poetry does more than repre-
sent the folly of erotic obsessions: it is part of the culture of erotic
sensibilities, their supporting framework.8 Supporting this critique is a
general comic colouring; the business of the mendacity of beauty and the
use of good features to distract from weaker points has much in common
with comic material preserved in Athenaeus (see 13.568-9). Lines 125-7,
moreover, strongly resemble a fragment of the choliambic mime writer
Cercidas (P.Oxy. 1082).9
Philodemus appears once more, at 120ff., but this time he is cast in a
supporting role for Horace’s unpoetic, unromantic position: Horace’s
119
argument proceeds by a patchwork of not necessarily consistent borrow-

ings from a wide spectrum of literary levels. The poem ends (Sat.
1.2.127-33) with a return to the depths: the vulgar entertainment of the
mime-shows, with their farcical adulterous action and abrupt endings.
Horace’s imaginary discovery by a returning husband is presented as
just such a mimeshow. In this case, the lowness of the genre reinforces
the argument: a Roman of social standing would not want to be the
object of vulgar laughter, however much he might – as Augustus did –
enjoy watching the mimes. Cicero somewhat similarly alludes to the
mime in order to ridicule the prosecution in his defence of Caelius,10 but
Horace uses this kind of knockabout ending elsewhere with less direct-
ness. The closest comparison is with Satires 2.6, but 1.9 and 2.8 have
some similarity too.
The plots of the mime were well-known and often alluded to (e.g. Cic.
Phil. 2.65; Ov. Tr. 2.513-4), but are not always used, in their literary
transformations, for ridicule. The adulterer’s escape11 may lie behind this
scene in Horace, but may also, and less farcically, be felt in Propertius
(Prop. 2.23) and Ovid (Ov. Am. 3.4). Likewise, the interrupted or ruined
party may lie behind the end of Horace’s Town and Country Mouse tale
(Sat. 2.6) and Nasidienus’ dinner (Sat. 2.8; cf. also Trimalchio’s dinner at
Petr. 53, 78), but may also be felt in the more emotionally complex lonely
party Propertius has in his fourth book (Prop. 4.8). It is clear that
Horace’s use of mime is part of a broader context than techniques of
ridicule.12 Rather, it is part of the broadness of the spectrum of allusion
that he seeks. If we compare this satire, the second of the first book, with
its multiplicity of vulgar elements, with, say, the journey to Brundisium
with its frequent drawings on epic, we see very clearly the extreme
variety of Horace’s farrago and the importance of this element in the
consistency of the Satires.
Other genres in Persius

Persius is a very different poet. The Life of Persius tells us that he started
writing satires in response to reading Lucilius’ tenth book. There are very
few fragments left of this book – hardly more than ten lines – but from the
fragments and some of the comments of those who preserve them it is
clear that the book (or a satire in it) had literary concerns and contained
a modified degree of criticism of Ennius and at least a mention of Accius.
Since the Life further tells us that it was after reading this book of Lucilius
that Persius eagerly set about composing satires in which he meant to
disparage first himself and then the generality, and to harass recent poets
and orators, it would seem to follow that this picture should reflect some-
thing of the character of the tenth book. It certainly reflects something of
the character of Persius’ first satire, and we will remember that Persius is
120
said to have begun the first satire with an allusion to Lucilius’ first book.
However, while it is true that our knowledge of Lucilius is fragmentary,
and we do not know what we are missing, nevertheless Persius’ obvious
indebtedness to Horace is so strong that there does not seem enough room
left for a significant input from Lucilius too.
Other literature is insignificant in comparison. The piece of Terentian
comedy that Persius uses in the fifth satire (161ff.) comes not direct, but
through Horace (Sat. 2.3.259ff.). Moreover, as we have seen, even Persius’
attack on the grander genres is largely confined to programmatic pieces –
the choliambic prologue, the first satire, the opening of the fifth. In
contrast, Persius’ indebtedness to Horace exists at the level of phrase,
passage, and whole satire. It is not, however, limited to Horace’s Satires,
or indeed his hexameter poetry at large, but covers the whole Horatian
corpus irrespective of generic boundaries. From our small knowledge base
it seems exceptional that one of a satirist’s prime models, perhaps the
prime model, should be a poet’s oeuvre rather than a purely satiric corpus,
but Persius’ indebtedness is curious in another way too. Horace’s philo-
sophical eclecticism includes a strong tendency to make fun of Stoic
positions, whereas Persius uses the text of Horace as a medium for a
strongly Stoic position.13 I suggested earlier that the Stoic sermons of
Damasippus and Davus to which Horace is subjected in two satires (Sat.
2.3, 2.7) deserve more credence than is usually allowed, but they are
clearly not free of doubt: Persius, on the other hand, uses these sermons
as the base for two of his own (Pers. 3 and 5), but turns, as it were, a blind
eye to any questionability.
This matter of philosophical allegiance has a further connection with
Persius’ use of literature, for philosophical literature is clearly of very
great importance. Horace, as we have seen, characterises his hexameter
poetry as ‘Bionian’, and some of the satires show diatribe-like features,
but Persius goes considerably beyond this. His reworkings of the sermons
of Damasippus and Davus are more single-minded than Horace’s original
presentation of them. There are, moreover, striking resemblances between
Persius and Epictetus.14 Epictetus’ oral moralising discourses were in
some way recorded by Arrian. Since they are later than Persius, in Greek,
and not in verse, we infer that conventional material is being channelled
into different forms quite widely disparate in time, profile, and language.
What adds to this impression is the more general, but still rather striking,
resemblance between Persius’ satires and his contemporary Seneca’s
moralising letters (in Latin prose), moralising passages of Roman decla-
mation (improvised oral rhetorical demonstrations with a fictive legal
framework), and various works in later Greek, especially Lucian and Dio
Chrysostom, which differ from Epictetus in having a more self-consciously
literary context. This similarity is not just one of ethical content, but also
of general manner – the frequent use of other points of view, the appar-
121
ently almost improvised sequence of thought, the importance of the

section, the level of generalisation and so forth. The sparseness of contem-
porary names in Persius’ satires suits this context rather than that of his
own genre, satire.
However much Persius draws on Horace, and however much Juvenal
seems a radically different poet from Horace, it begins to look as though
Persius is further from anything we might see as a mainstream Roman
verse satirist. On the surface he has the same concern to locate himself in
contrast to other literature, but Horace and Juvenal – Lucilius too, the
fragments seem to show – carry this much further and more broadly into
the texture of their work. All four poets claim a direct purchase on real
experience, but the medium of moralising discourse may have seemed to
the apparently bookish Persius to provide precisely that.
Other genres in Juvenal; declamation

Juvenal’s web of allusion is broad.15 It includes epic, didactic, elegy,
epigram, lyric, bucolic, declamation, moralising and philosophical litera-
ture, literary-critical discourse, and historiographical writing, and works
them into complex amalgams. His debt to declamation is well known.16
Declamatory turns of thought and phrase abound, as do declamatory
sententiae, and declamatory topics (as especially in 3, 6, and 13). The
hectoring rhetorical persuasion typical of declamation is seen often (as for
example in 5 and 6). There is, however, a good case for making a clear
distinction between Juvenal’s use of declamation and Persius’ use of the
Stoic moralising tradition. For one thing, Juvenal is mocking in his refer-
ences to declamation (1.16-17; 7.150-75). Then, it is by no means clear that
his use of declamatory topics and figures is straightforward. Here we seem
to face a graded scale. The tenth satire contains strongly declamatory
passages and turns (compare, for example, 10.168 with Sen. Suas. 1.5),
and presents a straightforward case which seems quite incontrovertible.
Prayers can be granted and may result in disaster for the beneficiary.
Therefore pray, if for anything, not for uncertain goods, but for that which
will enable you to bear whatever Fortune brings you, a sound mind and
healthy body. The treatment may be leavened with frivolity, but it is diffi-
cult to see how the core argument can be deflected. On the other hand, if
we look at the sixth satire on its own we can see that Juvenal cannot have
been serious about all that is expressed therein (better to commit suicide
than marry?), and that it is at least to some extent a parodic patchwork of
literary attitudes, but without an indication of what the poet’s own views
were. In the case of the third satire the position is somewhat clearer, in
that Juvenal’s introduction prepares us to see Umbricius’ speech as shot
through with inconsistency. Declamation is part of the character of the
age, and Juvenal absorbs it into his manner, perhaps more fully than many
122
others, but he is not a versifying declaimer: Juvenal’s use is too ambiva-

lent for that.
Juvenal and Martial

Also well known is the reworking of material from Martial’s Epigrams.17
Here too there is a certain ambivalence. Sometimes, as with the case of the
fraudulent burning of Persicus’ house in the third satire (cf. Mart. 3.52),
Juvenal seems merely to rework the same idea. In this case Martial’s
doubt is removed (et merito iam / suspectus, says Juvenal; ‘and already
deservedly suspected’, 3.221-2), and what was a self-contained epigram
has now been provided with a context with which it interacts in a rather
complex way. However, there is no sense that Martial’s perspective is
exposed to irony. On the other hand, the treatment of Chione earlier in the
same satire (cf. Mart. 3.30) is implicated in a set of connections with the
immediate context, and with the preceding paragraph, so that Umbricius’
Martial-like attitude becomes suspect. Cumulatively, one gets the idea that
Juvenal’s subject matter is a blend of material taken from declamation,
Martial, and historiography, and that the mixture claims a real life prove-
nance, but is implicated in quite anarchic dissonances.
Juvenal and historiography

Historiography deserves a few comments. Again, Juvenal’s attitude is not
straightforward. As we have seen, Juvenal’s names are often historical
names, and would have had a degree of currency from the appearance of
Tacitus’ Histories and Annals.18 The mixture of these names with the
others in the satires produces an overall effect of literariness and may also
suggest timelessness and – in a more complicated way – realism. On the
other hand, historians are mocked in the seventh satire (98-104), and,
although the fourth satire has in the foreground a specific link with
Statius’ poem on the German War, the satire can also be seen as a vigorous
critique of the political thought most cogently embodied in Tacitus. In
rather the same way in the eighth satire Juvenal subverts (by combining
them) the sub-genres of epistolary advice on provincial governorship and
historiographical ‘anti-imperial’ speeches of revolting natives.19
Juvenal and the moralising-philosophical tradition

Before proceeding to verse genres, we may also mention the philosophical
and moralising tradition. This is of considerable importance in different
ways in Horace and Persius. Juvenal disavows philosophical professions.
In this he is distinct from Persius, who parades his education at the Stoic
Cornutus’ hands, and Horace, whose father may have disavowed formal
123
philosophy, but whose own philosophical education is revealed in the

Epistles, and whose interest is clear throughout the hexameter poetry.
Nonetheless, Juvenal does draw on the moralising philosophical tradition,
notably in the section on friendship in the third satire, in the tenth, in the
consolatory moves in the thirteenth, and in the section on the develop-
ment of civilisation in the fifteenth. In the first of these cases, there is a
clear element of parody, but a parody which suggests rather that friend-
ship has become a parody of what it ought to be rather than that
friendship literature is particularly ludicrous. In the tenth satire, at the
other extreme, Juvenal seems to have a conventional message and not to
undercut it.
On the other hand, the thirteenth satire, where he again draws on
philosophical moralising literature, is also where Juvenal disavows philo-
sophical knowledge as unnecessary and unhelpful. Elsewhere, he is
mocking of various philosophers: maybe Socrates, certainly Democritus
and Heraclitus, and perhaps Seneca. Juvenal’s attitude is, as with decla-
mation, Martial, and historiography, perhaps well described as
opportunistic. We have already considered how in the death-in-the-street
scene in the third satire he puts in unresolved juxtaposition both a mytho-
logical and an Epicurean materialist view of death. He is not so much
interested in what really happens, so much as the jarring inconcinnity of
the two views. We see the same kind of discord in the parallelism between
prostitution as seen through the medium of Martial (Juv. 3.131ff.) and as
seen through the medium of the moralistic tradition (Juv. 3.65ff.).20
Juvenal and bucolic

When we turn to Juvenal’s attitude to other verse genres we tend to see
the same sort of ambiguous opportunism. Bucolic is a good example. Three
passages are noteworthy: Satires 3.315-22, 7.1-3, 27, and 9.102. In the
first of these Umbricius is saying farewell as he leaves Rome with its
Greeks and vice for Cumae, convenient for Baiae. The situation also
reminds the reader of the end of Virgil’s first eclogue. Here the not unat-
tractive character Meliboeus has lost his place in ‘Arcadia’ and Tityrus
offers him, even if rather belatedly and absent-mindedly, the respite of
brief hospitality. In Juvenal’s poem the absence of any such response – or
any response at all – is noticeable and perhaps contributes to the under-
mining of Umbricius’ credibility. In any case this is yet one more genre
added to those from which Umbricius cobbles his speech together. For
Umbricius life is so packaged in literature that the contents are quite
inscrutable. In addition to this, the language of the end of Umbricius’
speech reminds the reader quite strongly of some lines at the end of one of
Calpurnius Siculus’ Eclogues (5.119ff.).21 In this didactic-influenced poem
the aged Micon gives his foster son advice after the manner of the Georgics
124
about how to take over the business of tending plants and animals. The
situation has a sort of inverse appropriateness to Umbricius’, for his
departure from his home breaks any such sense of continuity as they enjoy.
In addition, their rural context is quite different from either the place
Umbricius is leaving or the place he is going to.
In this set of correspondences and contrasts we see no particular
animosity towards bucolic, but this may not be so true in the next case. At
the beginning of the seventh satire Juvenal has a pastiche of an appeal for
imperial patronage. A number of poems addressed to Augustus do not
address him directly, but use a formal substitute:22 Juvenal imitates this
protocol by placing Caesar at the head of the poem while formally
addressing Telesinus as a potential candidate for patronage. In the first
lines we may be reminded of Calpurnius Siculus (4.97-8) and at line 27 we
recall Calpurnius again (4.23).23 There are other more disparate echoes.
Behind materiam and indulgentia in line 21 we may perhaps see respec-
tively Ovid (Tr. 2.32, 382, perhaps even AA 1.49) and Statius (Silvae
3.4.64, 5.2.125ff.) or the like. Behind the sleepless (vigilata) hard work
required for producing poetry we glimpse, among others, Ovid (Fasti
4.109; cf. Stat. Theb. 12.811; Ciris 46). Mixed in with this we also see (in
line 29) Persius’ sarcasm about poetry produced for patronage (Prologue
5-6). This last is the incongruous element that subverts the cocktail of
conventional imperial flatteries. Juvenal uses Calpurnius here, and this
time with distinct antipathy, but not as a bucolic writer as such. Rather his
satire constructs and mocks a genre of ‘imperial-flattery literature’.
Juvenal Satires 9; bucolic and other genres

Bucolic surfaces again, and much more explicitly, in the ninth satire. Here
Juvenal begins one of his responses to Naevolus (9.102) with an address
drawn directly from Virgil’s Eclogues (2.69). The connection between the
two contexts is quite a powerful one. Both Naevolus and Corydon are
engaged in dramatic dialogues (Naevolus with an unnamed interlocutor,
Corydon with himself) in which they berate in their absence their male
beloveds (so to speak) for some kind of ill-use, real or imagined. Virgil’s
Corydon finally tries to call himself to his senses – perhaps rather uncon-
vincingly – to forget the beautiful but scornful Alexis, and set his hand
belatedly to at least some of his Arcadian duties. His sensible inner voice
does this beginning with the words a Corydon, Corydon, quae te dementia
cepit? (‘Ah Corydon, Corydon, what madness has taken you?’). Juvenal’s
Naevolus has no such sensible inner voice: that role is taken by his inter-
locutor, who similarly tries to call Naevolus to his senses, beginning with
the words o Corydon, Corydon.24
Naevolus is as deluded as Corydon, which draws attention to the differ-
ence between the two situations and the two beloveds. Alexis is beautiful
125
and scornful, whereas Naevolus mocks Virro for believing himself young
and beautiful (Juv. 9.46-7). Corydon would offer his beloved Alexis
presents; in Juvenal’s poem Naevolus expects presents from his ‘beloved’
Virro (9.54ff.). Alexis scorns Corydon’s desires, whereas Virro requires the
gratification Naevolus puts such effort (he says) into providing. Corydon
desires Alexis unrequitedly, whereas Naevolus has physical relations with
Virro, but for pecuniary reward. Just as Alexis does, Virro exerts power
over his lover, a control which allows his Corydon no more satisfaction
than Alexis’ does his. The parallelism hints strongly at how abstracted
from any reality the Eclogues is (eclogues are), but Naevolus is content to
accept the application of this poetic colouring to his own circumstances
(see 9.124), just as in the rest of the satire he is ready to use various poetic
colours for them himself.
Here, as in the previous case, it is not enough to consider Juvenal’s (or
Naevolus’) use of bucolic in isolation. What we have is a poem with a comic
frame in which different voices are set incongruously and in various
mixtures – epic, didactic, Priapic verse, elegy, and bucolic. Interwoven also
is the satiric voice of the interlocutor.
The interlocutor (Juvenal, if we like) begins by asking about Naevolus’
wretched appearance. The extended and exaggerated commentary on
Naevolus’ manifest change bespeaks comic banter,25 and his former (or so
Juvenal infers from his appearance) promiscuity is dealt with in terms
that remind us of Ovid’s Ars Amatoria26 and Juvenal’s Ursidius (6.42-4),
who is himself conceived of as a character in an adultery mime. Naevolus’
reply jarringly draws on much loftier literature. In utile et hoc multis vitae
genus (‘This way of life too is useful to many’, 9.27) Juvenal suggests
didactic: utile multis recalls Ovid (AA 1.159 and 2.642), utile et hoc genus
suggests the kind of catalogue which has a natural place in didactic
instruction, and vitae genus suggests the lists of ways of life which had a
long lineage in serious and elevated poetry.27 In addition nullum operae
pretium (‘no reward for one’s labour’) may have a slight Ennian flavour.28
Naevolus’ ostentatiously small list of gifts received interrupts this solem-
nity with a colour possibly reminiscent of Martial’s Epigrams,29 but he
returns immediately to a loftier philosophical strain (32ff.). Not for long,
however, as this application of a cosmic level of understanding fate30 to the
workings of Naevolus’ private parts (33) contains within itself the
inconcinnity we see throughout this more or less didactic reply to
Juvenal’s mimic question (an oscillation of tone which repeats itself over
and again in the rest of the poem: cf. especially 124ff., 135-6).
The complexity of the passage does not end there. In nil faciet longi
mensura incognita nervi (34, ‘the unparalleled scale of your long member
will achieve nothing’) we are doubtless led (even after the pointer in part-
ibus illis / quas sinus abscondit, ‘those parts hidden by the clothes’) to
expect something more like the tempora longi / servitii of Umbricius’
126
speech (3.124-5, ‘the timescale of my long service’). Juvenal here conflates

a satiric thought and phraseology with a Priapic one (cf. Priap. 80.3). The
condemnatory tone of the one has its ground shifted by the context of the
other; though the line remains condemnatory, its effect is quite different.
Juvenal plays a similar game with the audience’s expectation a few lines
later, when kinaidos (approximately = ‘sodomite’) replaces sidêros (‘iron’;
Od. 16.294, 19.13) in the quotation at line 37.
In the next lines a wild fluctuation goes on. The imaginary interjection
at line 39 resembles in a general way the lively mimesis Horace extracts
from Greek erotic epigram (Philodemus) at Satires 1.2.120 or that at Ov.
RA 301, but computat et cevet (‘he counts up and wiggles his tail’) is
strongly derogatory and satiric (cf. Juv. 5.14-15, 6.651, and for cevet cf.
Pers. 1.87, Juv. 2.21). This is followed by language which points at the
amoral world of comedy, Martial, and Priapic epigram (see Plaut. Cas. 455,
Priap. 25.6, 52.8, Mart. 1.92.11-12, 11.88, 13.26): an facile et pronum est
agere intra viscera penem / legitimum atque illic hesternae occurrere
cenae? / servus erit minus ille miser qui foderit agrum / quam dominum
(Juv. 9.43-6, ‘Or is it that simple, that easy to exercise your lawful penis
right up in his entrails, and run up against yesterday’s dinner? The slave
who hoes the field is less wretched than the one who hoes his master’).
In the whole of the opening of Naevolus’ first speech the generic affili-
ations of his comments are constantly shifting and blending. Extremes of
level are juxtaposed and contaminated repeatedly. At one level one could
talk as though Naevolus has a moral and literary colour-blindness and is
unaware of the absurdity of seeing himself in grand terms. Alternatively,
one could describe what is going on by saying that there are two frames
here. The first and more proximate frame is the Priapic one of Naevolus’
situation. Within this context, moralising and non-moralising literary
colours fluctuate and are destabilised. The second, or outer, frame is the
comic-mimic one of Juvenal’s introduction, through which we view this
literary mélange. Juvenal’s Virgilian allusion later in the poem (102)
contributes to this mixture by, so to speak, talking Naevolus’ language.
Bucolic is revealed as yet another attractively coloured lens through which
Naevolus and his like can see themselves (we can see ourselves).
We come back, in other words, to the old question whether Juvenal has
any interest in moral issues. The answer has to be yes in one sense at least,
that the subversive pitting of different kinds of literature against each
other questions their moralities, and therefore the morality of the society
that produces and reads them. We can, however, take this further.
Morality and literature; Juvenal and love elegy

Naevolus’ speeches reveal him as a character we might feel it easy to judge
harshly. His lack of interest in anyone’s point of view but his own, his
127
mercenary core, his calculated impregnation of Virro’s wife, his saccharine

and poetic self-pity all contribute to this. The comic frame of the satire,
moreover, does nothing to prevent us from doing this. It does, however,
help Naevolus remain someone other, someone who is not ‘us’. Even
taking Roman attitudes to masculinity and homosexuality into account,
his distastefulness makes him fair game as a scapegoat. Nevertheless,
there is something in the application of features of Priapic verse to the
fundamental Roman social value of amicitia, which is less easy for the
audience to divert. The poem becomes more than a comic picture of
Naevolus and Virro and their pecuniary sexual arrangement; it becomes
the circle in which the audience is forced to ask how good the fit is between
a picture of a mercenary sexual arrangement and one of how (Roman)
society works.
The discussion of Juvenal’s treatment of bucolic necessarily expanded
to take in other genres too, but it is still worth while giving some account
in itself of Juvenal’s treatment of elegy, both because it has more presence
than bucolic, and because elegy’s own anti-epic programme might seem to
put it in the arena directly with – or against – satire.
The main impetus of the satirists’ attack on literature is against epic.
Elegy is a marginal target in the programmatic passages of Persius and
Juvenal (see Pers. 1.51, Juv. 1.4), and does not figure in Horace’s satiric
programmes at all. Outside the programmatic context it has no significant
presence in the satires of Horace or Persius,31 but it does make itself felt
in those of Juvenal. Its absence from Persius requires no special explana-
tion, since his concern for other literature is centred on the programme
pieces. On the contrast between Horace and Juvenal, however, a little does
need to be said.
Both Horace and Lucretius (in DRN 4) satirise the role of erotic litera-
ture in the moving toyshop of the heart, and it may seem odd that Horace
confines himself to using erotic epigram rather than also making fun of
elegy in Satires 1.2, especially given Horace’s literary opportunism and
range in the Satires. There is a strong contrast with the Odes, where
Horace frequently hits out at elegy. Although the Odes are indeed later
than the Satires, the contrast largely persists into the Epistles and seems
to show there is more than chronology at work. It does not seem enough
to suggest that elegy grew from insignificance between the Satires and the
Odes (Horace returns to silence over love elegy in the Epistles and Ars
Poetica).32 The question may, however, have more to do with the greater
need of the Odes to distinguish themselves from elegy than with Horace’s
Satires as such.
Love elegy had ceased to be of any great significance as a living genre
in Juvenal’s time, but its appearance in the texture of his satires is ana-
logous to his eclectic and atemporal use of names. Elegy still belonged to
Roman literature and was still read; there is no reason why it should
128
have been excluded from the literary mixture of Juvenal’s Satires, nor
treated in a meaningfully different way from, say, bucolic, and indeed
Juvenal is at least as ambivalent with the one as with the other. We have
already seen how at the beginning of the sixth satire Juvenal constructs
a parodic vision of the Golden Age in which the crudity and ugliness of
the early and innocent inhabitants are mercilessly subjected to the
perspective of the audience which reads Catullus and Propertius.
Juvenal is not simply satirising the sophisticated love poetry of the
Romans33 as morally inadequate. Both here and as the poem proceeds,
very different literary voices are played against each other in such a way
that we are obliged to contemplate how alluring we actually find such
Lesbias and Cynthias. Comparatively few of us are murderers, but adul-
tery is at least within the reach of most of us, and in this area our moral
judgements tend to be heavily compromised by the proximity of our own
vested interests.
Drama lets us identify – at a safe remove – with the flawed and the
compromised. It does so through the interplay of character and situation.
In Juvenal dramatic voices are replaced by a cast of literary voices.
Juvenal’s apparently moralising attack on elegy at the beginning of the
sixth satire is partially and productively undermined by this quasi-
dramatic complexity, leaving the reader not quite sure what he is
swallowing. Juvenal’s other elegiac references are susceptible to the same
sort of treatment. At the end of the ninth satire, for example, Naevolus
provides a wish list, neither a very modest nor a grotesquely luxurious
one, and despairs of even such good fortune as ever to become ‘poor’
(pauper, 147). Fortune fails to respond to his prayers, and uses wax from
the ship which, unhearing, escaped the Sirens. The rococo decoration of
the simple thought is flagrantly poeticising and recalls Homer via
Propertius (Sirenum surdo remige adisse lacus, ‘to approach the Sirens’
pool with unhearing oarsmen’, Prop. 3.12.34). The line is part of an
Odyssean synopsis which predicts the faithful husband Postumus’ return
to his faithful wife Galla after his military service. This broader context,
however, is not relevant to the actual point of comparison – Fortune
ignoring Naevolus. The most that can be said is that it has an indirectly
ironic resonance with Naevolus’ promiscuous and calculating character. It
is inappropriate in a way which is not unlike the other literary borrowings
in his speeches.
Another Propertian allusion, in the third satire, is embedded with other
allusions. Umbricius begins his tirade against Greek interlopers by
sounding Roman notes: the address to the citizen body (Quirites, 60,
picked up by Quirine at 67) and the reminiscence of Aeneas’ journey
towards the Graia (poetic) urbs (V. Aen. 6.98) of antique Rome built into
Umbricius’ fleeing of the Graeca (unpoetic) urbs of his own Rome. He goes
on to unfold what ‘Greek’ means:
129
quamvis quota portio faecis Achaei?

iam pridem Syrus in Tiberim defluxit Orontes
et linguam et mores et cum tibicine chordas
obliquas nec non gentilia tympana secum
vexit et ad circum iussas prostare puellas.
ite, quibus grata est picta lupa barbara mitra. (Juv. 3.62-6)
Yet what portion of the dregs is really Achaean? Syrian Orontes has long
been discharging into the Tiber its language, its ways, cross-string harps and
flute-players, its native drums, and the girls ordered to take their stand at
the Circus. Go there, all you who fancy barbarian whores in embroidered
headgear.
The rhetorical association of music and vice goes back to Scipio,34 and the
word faecis (‘dregs’) makes a connection with a passage in Lucan’s epic,
the Bellum Civile (‘Civil War’; see especially 7.404-5).35 Another very
different echo also stands out, from Propertius’ celebration of foreign
prostitutes (2.23.21-2, et quas Euphrates et quas mihi misit Orontes, / me
iuverint; ‘I’m for the girls the Euphrates and Orontes send’). Propertius’
poem is a reaction against Cynthia’s waywardness and pretends to its own
morality (not unlike that of Hor. Sat. 1.2), but even though Umbricius is
mocking those who take pleasure in exotic prostitutes, the contact
between his moralising and Propertius’ posturing is very uneasy indeed.
To accept fully and whole-heartedly Umbricius’ echo of Scipionic moral-
ising one would have to relinquish the poetry of Propertius, poetry which
Juvenal insistently reminds us of. The reader is pushed into wondering
just how hard that might be – as he will be again with the Propertian
reference at the beginning of the sixth satire. To add to the complexity we
should realise that this part of Umbricius’ speech already contains in its
mixed tones the seeds of the tensions that are developed when he returns
to the topic of prostitution from a quite different angle at 3.131ff.
A final elegiac example comes from the second satire. Towards the end
of the poem Juvenal conjures up a picture of the Underworld, complete
with Styx and its traditional paraphernalia, in order to contrast the dead
of the past with the debased newly dead. Juvenal’s esse aliquos manes
(‘That there are spirits’, 2.149) clearly recalls Propertius’ sunt aliquid
manes ( ‘The spirits exist’, 4.7.1). That is how Propertius begins his
account of the abrasive dream-visit he receives from the dead Cynthia.
What has a love story blended of discordantly sordid and sentimental
elements and written up in a complex literary amalgam to do with the
desperate moral degeneracy Juvenal parades before us? Within moments
Juvenal tells us that not even children believe all this, and his picture of
the underworld is dismissed with such contemptuous brevity, and then
resurrected so perfunctorily (sed tu vera puta, ‘But suppose it’s true’, 153)
that it is hard to take at all seriously the subsequent account of ancient
130
heroes lining the far bank of the Styx and watching the new arrivals come
across in Charon’s boat. When we throw out the Ferryman’s bathwater,
just how much baby can we keep hold of? We are not sure how much of our
mental library we have to rethink, how much of it is just childish stuff.
As we have seen, the stylistic difference between satire and epic is part
of the programme of all the extant satirists. Other genres are parodied or
burlesqued, chiefly by Horace and Juvenal, but less consistently and
without the back-up of explicit programmatic comments. The treatment of
other genres is differentiated. Didactic, for example, shows up rather
differently in the three satirists, elegy is perhaps surprisingly unnoticed in
Horace’s Satires,36 and epigram has a quite different profile in the Satires
of Horace and Juvenal. We need now to look at the generic interrelations
at a more general level.
The generic field; non-reciprocal pairs and gradience

A writer in any given genre has the antecedents of previous writers in that
genre. Of course, much may have changed since even the latest prede-
cessor wrote, and the extent to which this is obvious varies according to
genre. However, there is always an additional relationship, and that is
with a sort of detemporalised idea of epic. This is clear in hexameter verse,
i.e. didactic, bucolic, satire, and even the Statius of the Silvae (although
the Silvae is not a purely hexameter collection); each of these reacts differ-
ently to epic. However, the picture extends beyond the hexameter poets,
for both elegy and lyric admit epic narrative material, and each admits a
programmatic relationship with epic. Satire and elegy stand out amongst
the others in that their antipathies to epic are explicitly flagged up, but
they do not significantly relate themselves to each other, either as mutu-
ally hostile or as allies against epic. What we have here is a core genre and
a stellar system of rivals and derivatives which largely ignore each other –
a system, in other words, of genre-pairs in which epic is always one of the
members of the pair.
These pairs are asymmetrical, or non-reciprocal, in that in each case the
other member reacts to epic in some way, be it rejection or inclusion, but
epic – at least ostensibly – does not react in return. Of course epic changes
in reaction to the surrounding literary context – it becomes more evidently
eroticised for one thing – but it continues to regard material derived from
outside as alien and transgressive.37
Another point needs to be made in order to clarify the set of inter-
generic relationships. We can list literary features and try to assign them
to genres, but this is not straightforward. There is no clear-cut matching
even of sets of features and specific genres. Assemblages are indeed
handed down, but individual features may be found scattered across
generic boundaries. Thus, the wide-ranging generic miscegenation that
131
seems more characteristic of satire than of other verse genres can also be
seen in Seneca’s Apocolocyntosis (‘Pumpkinification of Claudius’) and
Petronius’ Satyrica. Another case in point is the opposition to epic which is
not located in one genre, but shared between elegy and satire. Indeed the
various features by which surrounding genres make any sort of claim on
epic belong here too. In considering genres as assemblages of generic
features, we could legitimately talk of gradience in the sense used in
linguistics to describe the lack of discrete boundaries between nouns, verbs,
adjectives, and other such ‘parts of speech’. Typical generic assemblages of
features are an abstraction – there is no example of a ‘typical’ epic – but the
idea of a typical assemblage is, nonetheless, of the greatest importance in
reading specific examples of a genre with all their contaminations.
This point is particularly relevant to the literariness of elegy and satire.
Both distance themselves from epic, and a case can be made for seeing
both Propertius and Ovid as trying increasingly to include and assimilate
epic material in their own genre, rather as one might claim for Horace and
Juvenal. What makes these apparent similarities actually part of the
difference between the two genres is the mental map of sets of generic
features. Thus the epic question is, in elegy, part of the politicised opposi-
tion of love and war, personal and public, whereas in the satirists it is
rather part of a wide-ranging critique of literature, dramatising the
literary voices of the satirist’s age in a sort of polyphony.38 This mimetic
variety is one feature in the menu of features available for satire, but a
recurrent and especially important one.39
All Roman literature, of course, is allusive. This is not the place for an
account of the literariness of other genres, but some further soundings
will help narrow the focus on the satirists. We know that Virgil constantly
replays earlier literature (including, of course, earlier epic), but there is a
sense in which we feel these voices are in their new context subordinated
to an epic vision. Likewise, Seneca in his epistles uses a wide range of allu-
sion, but these are harmonised into the philosophy of the new context.40
In satire this becomes less and less convincing: by the time we reach
Juvenal, it is definitely the sense of unresolved difference and variety that
is foregrounded. Perhaps rather surprisingly, Propertian elegy seems to
provide some sort of precedent. Here epic is both used as a foil in the
elegiac self-definition, and becomes a source of tones, frames, and material
which, when transferred into the elegiac context, generate complex
discords and tensions. Perhaps, however, the closest point of reference
outside satire for Juvenal’s unruly chromaticism – and here again there
are superficial reasons for surprise – is an epic, the wayward
Metamorphoses of Ovid, in which the epic tone is constantly eroded by
tones drawn from elegy and elsewhere.
132
7
Juvenal and Performance1
A genre implies a certain type of relationship with its audience. The epic
mouth does not have the same informal familiarity as that of the neoteric
short poem. Performances of the two kinds of literature are different kinds
of social occasion and the mouthpiece is subject to different etiquettes. In
this general sense there is a connection between the issues of performance
and of genre. We also know that poetry readings were important from the
Augustan period onwards: we have various witnesses to the performance
of poetry in front of more or less open gatherings, the social event known
as the recitatio (‘recitation’). Horace expresses his aversion to the recita-
tion scene, but Pliny is enthusiastic, and Tacitus and Juvenal provide
more colour.2 There was always opportunity for dramatic effects of voice
and gesture.
There was further encouragement from another sphere, too, and that is
declamation, an improvised performance art in which dramatic verbal
effects were highly admired and given a high value. The influence of decla-
mation was increasingly pervasive in Latin literature from around the
beginning of the first century AD.3
There is also the matter of generic manner conceived of as a voice. The
generic mixture that we see especially in Horace and Juvenal dramatises
itself as a mime show of different and competing voices. We can connect
this with the ancient figure of speech, mimesis, whereby the speaker
mimics the expression of another point of view. This can take the form of
a direct interlocution, a sort of imaginary or hypothetical direct speech, or
a looser reflection of a vocabulary or tone that might characterise the
other point of view. We could be dealing with direct quotation, but more
likely with imaginative construction or reconstruction. We can see this
figure very widely spread, but perhaps particularly in declamation,
diatribe, Seneca’s Apocolocyntosis and Petronius’ Satyrica. It is the mimic-
king element that gives this figure a dramatic or performative twist and I
shall discuss it further shortly.
Performance has something of a thematic role in satire,4 but it is part
of the sociology of literature in which satire was a part. This raises issues
of interpretation, since (as Reckford writes) ‘in satire, as in comedy, inter-
pretations multiply with performance’,5 and perhaps nowhere more
insistently than in Juvenal’s Satires. In them performance is exploited in
133
a highly sophisticated way for a range of effects, including what one might
call meta-dramatic. There is a good deal to say about how performance (i.e.
the performing manner) affects interpretability in Juvenal, and particu-
larly about the changing strategies he adopts in manipulating audience
expectations, and the very conscious (and rather Ovidian) manipulative
games he plays with the audience, especially in some of the later satires
(perhaps especially 11 and 12). There is also the dramatic element
inherent in Juvenal’s pose in the earlier satires as someone suddenly and
angrily bursting into speech, but the background to this is broad and
needs some preliminary outlining.
Performance was endemic in the literature and life of the early Empire.
The art of declamation was practised both as a school exercise and as an
adult entertainment, and had a far-reaching influence on the manner and
thematic consistency of Latin literature, not least on Juvenal.6 It must
also have been a formative influence on the lives of educated Romans, and
the idea of life itself as role-playing was also given much discussion in
general terms, and with specific regard to life under the Emperors. I want
now to pick out two strands from this amalgam of life and literature for
further consideration, namely declamation and the dramatic aspects of the
daily life of the Roman upper classes.
Declamation
The staple exercises of declamation were the controversia (‘dispute’), in
which the speaker would take one side in a fictitious and legal case, and
the suasoria (‘persuasion piece’), in which the speaker urged a historical
or mythical character to pursue some course of action. The declamations
were performed off the cuff, listened to, criticised, discussed, and written
about. The influence of these exercises is partly (and perhaps superficially)
a matter of a list of characteristics: the proliferation of pointed encapsu-
lating sentences, figures of speech such as the apostrophe, choice of
vocabulary, extensions of meanings of individual words, sentence length,
choppiness and pithiness, the use of standard commonplaces, sensation-
alism of manner and content. One has also to reckon with the influence of
specific passages and sententiae. All of this is relevant,7 but in essence, as
Winterbottom writes (1980, 60), ‘we are looking for a certain tone of voice,
hectic, hectoring and melodramatic. The declamatory writer takes plea-
sure in epigram and point, but also in outrageous paradox, exaggeration,
and ingenuity of all kinds.’
The overall impression is distinctly characteristic of improvised
performance. In addition, role playing is obviously built into the contro-
versia and, though perhaps less flagrantly, the suasoria, and there are,
besides, points of contact between declamation and the situations of
comedy, not to mention the scope for characterisation. Ovid, part of the
134
7. Juvenal and Performance
declamation scene himself, preferred the suasoria because of its higher

character content, and the smaller need for argumentation (Sen. Contr.
2.2.12), and his poetry combines interest in character and the manner of
declamation.8
Play-acting and real life

The second strand that needs consideration is the element of play-acting
that seems to have become rife in imperial society. Suetonius tells us
about Nero’s interest in performance (Suet. Nero 20ff.), Nero who, says
Suetonius, sang the Iliou Persis (‘Sack of Troy’) in tragic garb as Rome
burned (38), and in disguise prowled the streets of Rome by night in
search of adventure and robbery (26).9 Juvenal has similar material
about Messalina (6.115ff.). Life in the Neronian court involved people in
a set of roles in which language and meaning were disjunct, or that is the
impression Tacitus aims to give in his account of the exchange of
speeches between Seneca and Nero (Annals 14.53-6), ending as he does,
Seneca, qui finis omnium cum dominante sermonum, grates agit
(‘Seneca gave thanks – the end of all conversations with an emperor’).
The later authors Tacitus and Pliny have much to say about pretence as
a way of surviving under the Emperors (this is reflected also in Juv. 4),
and Seneca himself had things to say about role playing: in Ep. 80, for
example, the poor are happier than the rich because the rich have to play
the part of being happy (6); again, the mime-show of life gives us roles
which we act badly (7); at Ep. 120.22 we all, except for the Stoic wise
man, play multiform roles, changing our masks back and forth. Seneca’s
tragedies reflect this too, though at a more openly literary level: in them
the dramatis personae seem often to be posturing or self-dramatising,
and their motivations can be deeply perplexing, despite their readiness
to make speeches about them.
This idea of role-playing is deeply entrenched in another Neronian
product, Petronius’ Satyrica. This obviously represents a fictitious world,
but is worth citing here as a reflection of the tastes and interests of the
same period. ‘In Petronius’, according to John of Salisbury’s neat formu-
lation, ‘almost the whole world plays a part’ (… fere totus mundus iuxta
Petronium exerceat histrionem; Polycraticus (1159) 3.8). Petronius (in the
role of Encolpius) makes the same point explicitly (80) and implicitly: his
frequent use of the verb clamo (‘shout’) and its compounds – including
declamo – is meant to signal how the heroes of the Satyrica live a life
which, however bizarre in itself, is the more bizarre because of their
constant self-dramatisation, in particular on declamatory models.10 We
should remember here how frequently the declamatory exercises were
criticised as unrelated to real life,11 how the shadowy school is contrasted
with the reality of court cases under the sun.12
135
Literary voices and impersonation

There is another point to make about Petronius, and that concerns the
degree to which the first person narrative is a harmonised unity. (It will
already be clear from earlier chapters that this may have a bearing on the
unharmonious patchwork of Juvenal’s allusions.) Roger Beck argued that
the speaker in Petronius’ novel is, as it were, an older, wiser Encolpius
ironically recalling his youthful follies, a position I tried to develop in an
article of my own in 1987.13 Both of us were, I think, trying to find ways
round the position set forward in Peter George’s 1966 article in Arion14 in
which he wrote (a) that the first person is quite simply an unresolved
amalgam of two distinct elements: the voice of the author, elegant and
refined, and the voice of an Encolpius who is no wiser than the Encolpius
in the story, and (b) that the author uses the first person form as a conve-
nience (and for vividness), slipping into mimetic passages to make fun of
Encolpius’ naivety and rhetorical afflatus. The role-playing is assumed
when it suits the author (a point I shall apply to Juvenal below). Recently,
Jensson has presented the narrative voice of the Satyrica in a rather
different light.15 For him Encolpius tells his story using a kind of narration
not used in public speeches, characterised by impersonation (ad Her.
1.8.13, Cic. Inv. 1.27; cf. Quint. 9.2.58), i.e. the dramatic livening of the
account with mimicking of the kind of things the characters might be
thought to have said. Cicero illustrates this with a passage from a speech
in Terence (Adelphi 60-4), in which Micio enlivens his soliloquy with an
impersonation of his brother Demea’s way of talking to him. Jensson cites
the same passage from Cicero and another from the anonymous rhetorical
treatise, the Ad Herennium (3.14.24) to show the dramatic nature of this
sort of narrative and point up its performance aspect. He further mines
the Ad Herennium (4.10) for the author’s sample of the plain stylistic level
(figura extenuata), finding this use of mimesis (‘impersonation’) one of its
features.
All this is not only a highly elegant account of the first person voice in
Petronius, but also shows his background in rhetorical education, a back-
ground which also contributes to explaining the sort of variety of voice we
see in Juvenal. I would shortly like to flesh out this picture by reconsid-
ering the question of multi-interpretability, and by giving an account of
some of the ways in which Juvenal manipulates the performance element
in the satires. There are, however, some performance-related points that
can be disposed of first: timing and voice.
Juvenal and performance

We have no direct access to what a performance of the Satires looked or
sounded like, but at a general level certain features are inevitably rele-
136
vant, others possibly so. We do not know how the timing was done, but we
do know that timing enhances effects in the script. The following lines are
ordered in such a way as to give opportunity for skilful pacing and delivery
to bring out the careful gradations in a beautifully arranged ‘crescendo of
absurdity’.16
ne quid tibi conferat iste,

quem colis et Musarum et Apollinis aede relicta,
ipse facit versus atque uni cedit Homero
propter mille annos, … (Juv. 7.36-9)
… so he doesn’t have to bestow anything on you (the one you leave the
hallows of Apollo and the Muses to worship), he is himself a poet, second only
to Homer – and that because Homer’s a thousand years older.
The patron justifies his reluctance to give the poor poet money; after all,
he is a poet himself – only surpassed by Homer in fact – and that only
because of Homer’s unfair advantage, antiquity.17
Likewise, we have no direct evidence of the use of voice, but we can
point to passages which suggest opportunities for the reciter. The frequent
abrupt interjection of another point of view (as at 6.142, ‘cur desiderio
Bibulae Sertorius ardet?’, ‘So why is Sertorius inflamed with longing for
Bibula, then?’) would demand a certain inflectional adeptness to clarify
the continuity and the alternation of perspective, but other passages
would encourage impersonative efforts for their own merits. The erotically
charged Greek words characterised as lascivious (lascivum) at Satires
6.194-5 (‘zôê kai psychê’, ‘My life and soul’) call for an intonation to
dramatise what it is to be lascivious. The frequent bits of direct speech
suggesting dramatic scenes (e.g. 1.101ff., 125-6; 6.146-8) likewise call for
expression.
Voice is explicitly at issue in a passage in the eleventh satire. Epic, both
Homer’s and Virgil’s, are found here in a context in which performance is
brought to the fore. Juvenal has been describing for his addressee’s benefit
the erotic dancers that Persicus might be expecting (11.162) but who, it
turns out, are not going to be present. Instead, there will be recitations
from the Iliad and from Virgil – clearly the Aeneid (11.180-1). ‘What does
it matter what voice such verses are read with?’ asks Juvenal (182, quid
refert, tales versus qua voce legantur), implying that the performance is
not likely to meet high standards. We are not told that the quality of the
dancing is good, but its description clearly gives us to understand that it
fulfils its aims and objectives. This contrast is insidious: we see with our
reader’s mind’s eye the effective, if morally disgusting, writhing of the
dancers’ bottoms, and we hear with our reader’s mind’s ear a well-
meaning but not very good performance of some piece of epic. We may feel
137
that Persicus would rather have had the dancers, and we may wonder how
strongly we disagree with him. In essence, we are offered the same sort of
disturbing contrast in the sixth satire (Cynthia and Lesbia versus cave-
women) or the third (austere cultural purity versus the enticement of
exotic prostitutes). At another level, it surely does matter how verse is
read, and we can only imagine what possibilities a lector might feel this
passage offered in the way of mimicking a poor performance. One might
also wonder about the range of possible ways in which the lines describing
the dancers might be read: how might prurience and condemnation be
measured against each other in the reading?
Performance and interpretation

Reckford suggests that ‘we might usefully experiment with the reperfor-
mance of Persius’ satires’.18 There might be practical, theoretical, and
assessment problems, but, to pursue the point just made about reading a
passage in the eleventh satire, we can certainly look once more at the
passage in Satires 3 where Umbricius presents the viewpoint of the man
who has to ponder whether he can afford to take Chione down from her
tall seat (3.131-6).
Let us forget the subtly different views on prostitution already
expressed by Umbricius at lines 62-6 and contemplate the indignity to
which ‘you’ are exposed. Umbricius presents this ‘you’ as a decent sort
who likes a particular girl, but whose circumstances are difficult. The
second person form creates a character we are invited to identify with. Or
do we remain separate and despise the saccharine sentimentality with
which Umbricius dresses up his own sexual attitudes, and the way he
creates a bogey-man to enhance the good light in which he is putting
himself? For a live performance the text is a script which allows of consid-
erable latitude in pitching the tone.
This question, of course, applies to the whole of Umbricius’ speech, and
we have already seen how Juvenal places pointers that tend to undermine
him in the opening of the satire, his destination and motives, his name,
and so forth. There is another pointer, of a different kind, in the use of a
similar, but smaller, piece of character-writing in the second satire, where
Laronia makes such questionable claims (see further below) that
Juvenal’s emphatic seal of approval sounds suspicious. This provides
something of a model for what happens in the third satire. There is also
the fact that amicitia is a theme that runs through the whole of the first
book, and the different angles of vision we get of it help give a frame for
Umbricius’ position. The double introduction, however, allows the possi-
bility that Umbricius’ speech cannot be dismissed completely as
substanceless ranting. It is true that Juvenal makes Umbricius begin his
speech with an extraordinary level of rhetorical inflation, but the speech
138
falls into two parts: the first (Umbricius’ gripes about money at 21-189) is
introduced by Umbricius himself (21-8), but the second (the dangers of
living in Rome at 190-314) is introduced by the poet (6-9). It could be
argued that we are entitled to take the nightmarish picture of urban
danger of the second part more seriously than Umbricius’ social
complaints. On the other hand, this, the nightmarish section, is as literary
as anything else in the speech19 – if not more so.
We are no closer to resolving the issue, except in realising that the same
problem lies at the heart of all Juvenal’s work. The literariness is every-
where, and the rhetorical manner is not confined to Juvenal’s
interlocutors.20 What Umbricius shares with the Juvenal of other satires
is the unharmonious mixture of incompatible voices. Umbricius, by
speaking, implies a recipient for his message: he creates a domain which
he fills with his discordant patchwork. The uneasy question the listener in
the audience is left with is how closely that domain resembles the unre-
solved tangles of his (or her) own psyche. Within these limits it is still
possible to expend either more or less sympathy on Umbricius, but that is
a question of moral judgement, and the answer is not meant to be easy.
The conflict of genres as drama

This kind of ambivalence is a core feature of Juvenal’s satiric writing. The
individual satire becomes a stage for the poet or his performer to enact a
dialogue between multiple literary voices. This is, in fact, dramatised at
the outset of the corpus.
semper ego auditor tantum? numquamne reponam

vexatus totiens rauci Theseide Cordi?
inpune ergo mihi recitaverit ille togatas,
hic elegos? Inpune diem consumpserit ingens
Telephus …? (Juv. 1.1-5)
Am I always to be just in the audience? Never to get my own back, though

vexed so often by hoarse Cordus’ Theseid? Is someone going to get away with
reciting his comedies, someone else his elegies? Will the mighty Telephus get
away with wasting the day?
The opening of the first satire is abrupt and dramatic. The precise impact
of the drama is the product of these words uttered in the recitation context
(which we imagine, but which the first audience had in front of them).
What is dramatised here is a poetry recitation – a poetry recitation at
which Juvenal has been present in the audience and listening to the usual
mythological fare. At a certain point his endurance snaps and he heckles,
interrupting the performance, disrupting it entirely and stepping forward
139
to replace it with his own performance.21 One could call this effect
metatheatrical, though rather differently from the metatheatrical tricks in
Plautine comedy where we think of the breaking of the dramatic illusion
as the actors conspire with the audience. Juvenal rather creates than
breaks a dramatic illusion here.
There is more to be said about these opening lines. From the first
moments of this programmatic poem, the space in which Juvenal performs
is transformed – by the performance – from a recitation hall into a
dramatic space for a conflict between genres. Indeed, since there is an
ambivalence about whether the performance space, the hall, contains the
performance (Juvenal reciting), or the performance of the words creates
an imaginary performance-space for this drama, one can see these opening
lines as programming Juvenal’s satire itself as an arena in which the
different genres contend with each other.
Playing with the audience

Performance implies a relationship with the audience. Juvenal controls
this relationship in a range of ways. He is, indeed, artful in his manipula-
tions of the audience. I shall shortly discuss some major examples of this,
but there are some small-scale illustrations to look at first. The following
passages show a kind of game with the audience.
fugerunt trepidi vera ac manifesta canentem

Stoicidae; quid enim falsi Laronia? (Juv. 2.64-5)
Trembling, the Stoicids fled as she sang the clear truth – for what did
Laronia say that was false?
his ego quem monui? Tecum mihi sermo, Rubelli

Blande (Juv. 8.39-40)
To whom was this advice directed? I’m talking to you, Rubellius Blandus.
neu suspecta tibi sunt haec, Corvine, Catullus,

pro cuius reditu tot pono altaria, parvos
tres habet heredes (Juv. 12.93-5)
Lest you have any suspicion about this, Corvinus, Catullus, for whose return
I am setting up so many altars, has three little heirs.
In the first of these passages Juvenal closes off the indignant speech made
by Laronia in reaction to hypocritical homosexuals. The claims she makes
are sometimes overstated or false,22 and Juvenal’s exaggerated impri-
matur on the speech must be intended to provoke the audience into
140
disbelief. In the second passage Juvenal has been addressing Ponticus

(vocative in line 1) on the topic of the unimportance of birth compared to
merit. The opening 38 lines contain a mass of aristocratic names in clus-
ters, suggesting that they are no better than each other (note the various
words for ‘or’ – the double vel in 21, the seu in 26 and the aut in 37). In
this context, the way in which Rubellius Blandus is suddenly produced
from nowhere as an extended example of worthless aristocracy seems to
tempt the audience into seeing him as effectively interchangeable with the
uncharacterised Ponticus.23 In the third passage Juvenal again plays upon
audience reactions: the unexpected gambit, neu suspecta tibi sint haec (‘in
case you suspect this’), must prompt the thought, however momentarily,
that Juvenal’s sacrifice for Catullus’ safe return from a storm at sea is not
actually altruistic, and perhaps this (like ‘change the name and the tale’s
about you’, Hor. Sat. 1.1.69-70) in turn inculpates the audience by assimi-
lating it to the Corvinus who cannot, apparently, take what he sees in this
instance at face value.24 Persius takes the subtle inculpation of the audi-
ence as a characteristic of Horatian satire (Pers. 1.116-18), but as we see
more and more Juvenal does it too in his own way.
The earlier satires

The performance elements in the bulk of the first to the tenth satires are
varied, but comparatively straightforward. What we have just seen in
the twelfth is rather different, and different in a way which is a good
illustration for what happens is the eleventh satire. To gauge the devel-
opment some general outline of the dramatic element of the earlier
satires will be useful.
The third satire is a dialogue in form, although Umbricius does all the
talking, and the characterisation of the main speaker is a fundamental
feature of the poem. The dramatic situation is coherently conceived. In the
fourth satire, much of the force and point of the poem derives from the
strong contrast in tone between the strongly satiric section on Crispinus
and the ironic mock-epic of the Domitianic part, a contrast in tone which
would obviously come to life powerfully in a real performance. In this
satire too, the situations dealt with in the poem are coherently conceived,
but Crispinus is presented quite differently in the two parts, inside and
outside the court. Outside he is monstrous, inside he is dwarfed and timid.
The fifth and sixth satires have obvious relations to school rhetoric in form
(suasoria) and (especially the sixth) content. Again the dramatic situation
is coherently conceived, and already implicit in the suasoria form.25 The
character element is stronger in the fifth satire, where Trebius has a
strong presence (and so does Virro); Postumus is a rather more formalistic
element in the sixth, and the addressee in the seventh satire is more vesti-
gial again, as well as more tenuously related to the main treatment. This
141
trend seems to be continued in the eighth satire, where Ponticus’ role is

difficult to pin down, but in the ninth satire, another dialogue, the
dramatic situation is consistently presented and the character of Naevolus
is central to the satire. There is more variety again with the tenth satire,
which lacks any dramatic context and resembles the kind of treatment
found in Epictetus, Lucian’s Nigrinus, Persius’ Satires, Seneca’s letters
and so on, the popular philosophising which was channelled into a range
of forms, but is found in its most pure form in oral or quasi-oral (i.e.
performance) contexts.
In one way or another the performance aspect of all these satires is
straightforward. The dramatis personae of the poem are important, the
audience is important, but they remain independent of each other. In the
eleventh and twelfth satires, however, the performance element is more
complex and more dependent on the interplay of performer and audience.
Juvenal Satires 11
In the eleventh satire Juvenal begins with over 50 lines of vigorous satire
at the expense of over-luxurious eaters, as though in this the second poem
of book 4 we are about to see a second diatribe-type poem like the
preceding satire. At line 56, however, the satire takes a completely unex-
pected direction, an apparently friendly address to one Persicus about a
simple meal to which he has been invited by the author. Persicus’ name is,
in a poem about food, at least suspect,26 and I have argued elsewhere that
the menu offered to Persicus at 64-75 sows seeds of doubt about his real
interest in truly simple food.27 But Persicus’ role, while never charac-
terised in any depth or vividness (unlike Umbricius, Trebius and
Naevolus), is not even presented consistently. There are touches of colour
throughout which seem to treat him as a jaded sophisticate and not as the
willing recipient of the kind of invitation Juvenal has apparently sent,
especially 162ff., which seem to invite him to salivate over the possible
prospect of erotic dancers, only to rub his nose in the real fare on offer:
Homer and Virgil, badly read at that. It is as though Juvenal creates and
holds up before his audience a cardboard cut-out figure – the ‘poet’s
friend’ who is agreeable to simple food, but every now and then gives a
nudge and wink to the audience, implying a shared joke at Persicus’
expense, but a rather different Persicus this time. And just as there are
two Persici, so there are two audiences – or rather each member of the
audience is split, for we may like to see ourselves as decent and moderate,
but the reality is more complicated.
The dramatic situation in this satire is not simple and consistent in the
way it is in, say, the third, fifth or ninth satire. This does not mean that it
is inferior or less well crafted, merely that it uses a different sort of
approach to performance. We find the same kind of phenomenon in some
142
apparently out-of-character touches in declamation, where the declaimer

perverts the tone of direct speech with terms that imply a wholly different
set of attitudes or value judgements, but this is really just part of the taste
for multiple voices which is demonstrated by almost any page of declama-
tion, speeches by Cicero or in Tacitus and so on, with their use of
interjections, interlocutions, and such. The metatheatrical element in
Plautine drama may also be worth keeping in mind, and the same taste is
catered for in the way Apuleius ‘plays hide and seek’ with the reader of the
Metamorphoses, and keeps peeking through the fabric of his novel.28
Juvenal Satires 12
If we try to take the dramatic situation of the eleventh satire seriously, we
create problems: if Juvenal mocks Persicus, what is the point of the invi-
tation? On the other hand, if Persicus is a friend, how do we explain the
presence of the first 50-odd lines, and the curious mixture of tones in
which Persicus is addressed? In this satire Juvenal shows an interest
rather in the piquant variety of tone and the ironic effect of his game with
the audience than in dramatic coherence. The same is true, perhaps even
more true, in the twelfth satire. Here Juvenal addresses Corvinus and
explains the reason for the sacrifice Juvenal is about to conduct (83ff.).
The reason for the sacrifice is the escape from a storm at sea of Juvenal’s
friend (29), Catullus. Juvenal wants to circumvent Corvinus’ suspicion
about his motives and points out that Catullus has three heirs. The rest of
the poem is expended on the topic of will-hunting. This synopsis gives an
illusion of more dramatic consistency than the details support. The storm
is a grotesque parody of an epic convention and the portrait of Catullus
ditching his luxury goods as the self-emasculating beaver even further
reduces any real impression of Catullus as a friend, or even much of a real
character at all (he is suspiciously like the satiric stereotype, the greedy
and foolhardy trader). The end of this section reduces Catullus’ escapade
to a ripping yarn trotted out by buffoonish (capite raso; for the ‘shaved
head’ cf. 5.171) sailors. Once we reach this point, the interest shown by
Corvinus in Juvenal’s attitude to Catullus becomes less credible.
Furthermore, Corvinus is such a shadowy creation in his own right that
the coincidence of his name and the topic of will-hunting (captatio) seems
too good to be true,29 for corvus (‘crow’) is often used in this connection,
most strikingly perhaps by Petronius (Sat. 116), in the description of
Croton as wasted by will-hunting and populated entirely by metaphorical
crows and carrion. Instead of trying to construe a realistic drama from
these materials, we should see the poem as an opportunistic collage
starting from the kind of situation we see in Horace Odes 3.8, with the
poet explaining the reason for a sacrifice to a passer-by and leading to a
dramatic surprise or change of direction as the poet pretends to be
143
concerned about the impression he is giving (like the tangential ‘don’t

suspect me’ gambit in Horace Odes 2.4) so as to pass on to another conven-
tional topic. This change of direction is the motivation for the final section
of the poem and is clearly a dramatic effect, though not one that depends
on characterisation and coherent situation, and has something in common
with a key feature of the thirteenth satire.30
Juvenal Satires 13
With the thirteenth satire31 we return some way towards the dramatic
coherence of the earlier satires, although Calvinus is not strongly charac-
terised, but there is a different sort of effect in this poem. The satire has
been described as an ironic consolatio, but for the most part Juvenal uses
standard consolatory techniques (although, of course, the thing for which
Calvinus is being consoled is not the usual topic of literary consolations).
The striking difference comes just after line 190 when Juvenal turns aside
from the standard consolatory strategy, which was to mitigate the rawness
of the bereavement and help the victim master and cope with unruly
emotions. At this point in the satire Juvenal, as it were, gives up the
attempt to console Calvinus in that way, and goes on to a different tack,
namely suggesting ways in which Calvinus’ desire for revenge might be
satisfied. The more desperate these sound,32 the more it is conveyed to the
audience that Calvinus’ feelings for his money are such that he is utterly
inconsolable when he is deprived of any of it. This satire, like the twelfth,
turns about a dramatic moment when Juvenal changes his approach.
The last satires

Of the last three satires one can register first of all that the performance
aspect is again different: the addressees are neither simple dramatic char-
acters, nor opportunistic amalgams, but simply formal devices to indicate
epistolary form. The declamatory awareness that can be seen throughout
Juvenal remains in force, but Juvenal has moved on again from the inno-
vations of the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth satires. In formal terms
(variety of format and persona, the unparalleled length of the sixth
satire), as well as in his awareness of the possibilities of playing with the
audience in different ways, we are struck by Juvenal’s persistent
tendency to innovation.
144
8
Juvenal’s Satiric Identity
One can easily list similarities among the extant satirists. They all profess
some sort of desire to criticise current malefactors by name, but this is
only a part – and generally a small or very small part – of what they actu-
ally do. Nonetheless, they all make a show at least of writing about ethical
issues. They all have a reactionary interest in literature, and especially
epic. They all use a mixed style. All of them have a first person point of
view and a predominantly discursive, non-narrative approach. There is
also the sense that each satirist follows in a generic succession of satirists,
and all follow – or purport to follow – the example of Lucilius. However,
these similarities need to be considered in the light of numbers of clear
differences. The extant satirists are different from each other in content,
tone, organisation, and scale. There are other subtler differences of rhetor-
ical design or presumed purpose. What, then, does it mean to assert that
there is some constant generic identity, and what is the significance of the
Lucilian professions made by post-Lucilian satirists?
‘Lucilian satire’ and social change

Morgan comments on how the ‘outspoken, politically opinionated and …
self-consciously Roman’ Lucilius became part of the Romans’ sense of
themselves. Romans like Cicero ‘were in the habit of reaching for the
satire of Lucilius when they wanted to express something essential about
their culture …. Adoption of the Lucilian mode conveys all that is right
with the Roman world, is one way of putting it.’1 There was, however, a
political and social gulf between Lucilius and his followers, and another
between Horace and his. When subsequent satirists subscribe to a
Lucilian flagship, they are implying that there is a continuity, that what
they write is the same kind of thing as Lucilius wrote. There is a sort of
implied suggestion that satire, once inaugurated, is a permanent and
static entry in the literary field. But satire is not a permanent transcen-
dental reality. The individual satirist is also part of his own time, his own
social and literary context.
Social change is a major factor in genre-development (see Chapter 2),
and there are changes between the age of Lucilius and his successors, and
between Horace and his, and so on. Perhaps that between Lucilius (and
145
his contemporaries) and Horace was the most marked – at any rate of all
the satirists Horace is the most obsessively devoted to programmatic
statement and explanation. The possibilities for Lucilian poetry are in
Horace’s day very different, and Horace is at pains to work around the
question of how like and how different (and in what ways) he is from
Lucilius. However, genre-development is not simply a matter of passive
response to social change. Horace is his own man too, with (among other
things) a distinct didactic leaning, and we should look on his Lucilian
professions (and those of the later satirists) partly as rhetorical postures,
postures assumed because they allow the satirist to produce the kind of
satire he does.
For Horace the illusion of literary sameness, that he is somehow writing
the same kind of thing as Lucilius did, bestows a number of permissions:
it allows a concern for ethical matters, for contemporary life, for a certain
centrality of the authorial self, and so on. It also suggests, since Horace is
following Lucilius’ example, that there is still a place for libertas
(‘freedom’) in political discourse, that old Roman values are still valued in
the Augustan world. In this sense, Horace’s Lucilian pose is coherent with
the Augustanism of the social and literary context. By Persius’ time,
however, this picture of Lucilius is more clearly a historical one.
Later writers make a good deal of high-profile hostility to Nero, to
which they attribute a Stoic colouring.2 Thrasea Paetus and Helvidius
Priscus figure in particular in this context. The writers of the period show
a widespread commitment to Stoicism (witness Lucan, Seneca, and
Persius himself), and Lucan and Seneca are implicated in anti-
Neronianism. It would, however, be wrong to begin to suspect a ring of
anti-imperial Stoic writers. Seneca and Lucan owed their advancement as
well as their subsequent deaths to the Emperor, and while Calpurnius
Siculus3 and Seneca may have criticised a specific Emperor, none of these
figures had any systematic anti-imperial programme. Where political
comment is explicit, it is usually eulogistic. Persius’ Satires (as also
Seneca’s philosophical writings) share the Stoic improvement programme
of the period, but are politically silent.4 The outspoken Lucilius belongs to
the past, and Persius presents himself in strong contrast as a whisperer
rather than a Lucilius.
Juvenal
Juvenal was writing some 60 years later than Persius.5 Turmoil and civil
war followed Nero’s death, but from AD 69 the Flavian Emperors,
Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian ushered in a long period of domestic calm
under successive Emperors. After his violent end in AD 96, Tacitus and
Pliny affected to hate the memory of Domitian, presenting his reign as a
reign of terror. They had, however, owed their advancement to him. We
146
8. Juvenal’s Satiric Identity
may wonder what sort of discontents – or guilts – are being expressed by

the creation of monsters in the past. We may wonder what sort of discon-
tents could be expressed when the current Emperor is always to be called
good. Ahl suggests that the rhetorically trained Romans could use praise
to express criticism covertly.6 Conversely, Suetonius’ critical pictures of
past Emperors apply to the present, implying a set of ideals from a partic-
ular social perspective.7 Juvenal’s pictures of a decayed nobility, rich and
overpowerful freedmen, and aggressive women may refract social changes8
and the concerns of the educated audience, but this does not mean that
Juvenal shares the attitudes of, say, Pliny, Tacitus, and Suetonius, and we
have already seen how the fourth satire is a critique of Tacitean thought.9
Although Juvenal makes safeness an issue (1.150-72), it is not worked
through the Satires persistently enough to suggest that it is a major
thematic concern.10 Rather, what we see are novel literary treatments of
usually conventional themes, and the interest in the effects caused by
striking literary juxtapositions and mixtures remains throughout the
corpus. Juvenal holds up Lucilius as a model of outspoken freedom of
speech, using the word simplicitas (1.153), but flagrantly diverts this
Lucilian candour to turn it against the dead (170-1), making it a travesty
of itself. However, the contrast between Lucilian satire and safe literature
at the end of Juvenal’s first satire does not only reveal the ‘safeness’ of the
latter; it works backwards as well, questioning also the validity of Lucilian
satire as a cultural icon, part of the Roman self-image. However, this is
only one part of Juvenal’s anarchic patchwork of the literary heritage.
Just as Juvenal’s names are drawn from different layers of the past, so too
is what we can see of his literary borrowings.
Our view of the literary texture of the Satires is hampered by our igno-
rance, but the contemporary scene must somehow be borne in mind.11
Statius and Martial were dead before the Satires began to appear, perhaps
Pliny too. There was some overlap between Juvenal and Tacitus and
Suetonius, but then a gap before Fronto, Aulus Gellius, and Apuleius. In
this gap Greek literature continues to generate didactic, narrative and
mythological epic, epigram, hymns for shrines, festivals and competitions,
dramatic competitions, as well as poetry with a more prominent musical
element (the citharodia). Some of this activity centred on Hadrian – for
example, the narrative by Pancrates from Egypt about a lion hunt in
which Hadrian killed a lion attacking Antinous, and citharodic songs
about Antinous. Our knowledge of Latin literature in this period is less
forthcoming. By the end of the second century the interest in rhetorical
display seems to have increased and an archaising interest in older litera-
ture had made itself felt. In the period in question we know of Hadrian’s
small poems in various metres and work in unusual metres by Florus and
Annianus.12 We know with certainty of only one epic produced in the
second century (by Clemens), but that is too late for Juvenal.13 Despite the
147
rhetorical and timelessly literary nature of Juvenal’s satire, we have to a

large extent to content ourselves with setting Juvenal in the context of his
predecessors rather than his contemporaries. From the little that we can
see, however, this may be a fairly accurate reflection of the literary compo-
sition of the Satires.14
We have come a long way from Horace. In his satires we can see a direct
manipulation of the audience’s attitude to the political realities of a world
where change was alarmingly visible. We see this political engagement in
other poets of the time, in the Georgics and the Aeneid, in love elegy.
Subsequently, satire becomes politically disengaged, whereas love elegy
(for which politics might be seen as a raison d’être) dies out.15
Juvenal: entertainment, variety, and innovation

Social change explains much about why satire changes so dramatically
over its history. However, one must also remain aware of an active element
on the poet’s part. Juvenal was a poet writing in a generic tradition,
modelling himself on predecessors, but also altering and competing. He is,
through the course of his satiric output, trying all the time to do new
things to keep his audience surprised and entertained. The structures and
formats he uses change continually. The style and voice are novel, distinc-
tive, and evolving.
As to structure and format, we have seen the progression from a
dramatically coherent approach to one in which Juvenal plays metathe-
atrical games, so to speak, with the authorial persona, and then on again
to a more epistolary form. We have seen the unparalleled length of the
second book. We have seen variations of approach: the use of a more or less
sermonising manner, rhetorical address, dialogue (and that of different
kinds), and narrative are interwoven among the satires. There is also the
cluster of satires using conventional sub-genres for which rhetorical proto-
cols were to hand, the invitation, sôtêria, and consolatio of the eleventh,
twelfth and thirteenth satires. There is, moreover, the variation in
typology and scale as regards significant figures within the satires (char-
acters like Umbricius, Crispinus, Trebius, Telesinus, and Ponticus).
The first satire lacks such a figure, containing instead a multiplicity of
minor figures. The same is nearly true of the second satire, with the qual-
ification that Laronia assumes a greater degree of importance (and
speaks). In this she anticipates the role of Umbricius in the third satire.
The fourth satire is different again. It has again one major dominant
figure (Domitian), but twelve smaller-scale foils. The final poem of the
book uses (as the central one also does) a dramatic form, this time a piece
of persuasion. The addressee, Trebius, replaces Umbricius as the specimen
amicus, but has the role of addressee rather than speaker. In addition, the
incorporation in this poem of another important character (Virro) makes
148
a pair so as to embody the duality of the amicitia relationship. This

arrangement echoes the balancing of Domitian and Crispinus in the
fourth satire and looks forward to the connection between Naevolus and
Virro in the ninth.
This sort of patterning can be seen on a smaller scale too. The tenth
satire has again a multiplicity of minor parts, but in carefully graded
groups. The overall structure corresponds to that of the seventh satire: it
is a sequence of five categories, subdivided into a group of three publicly
orientated headings – the central one being smaller than the outer two –
followed by a pair dealing with more domestic themes. Within the first
category more patterning is visible: its first section is largely filled with
one figure (Sejanus), the second with two (Cicero and Demosthenes), and
the third with three (Alexander, Xerxes, and Hannibal).
Style and content

The pre-eminent themes of the satires are well-worn – food, dinners,
prayers, will-hunting, sex, and perhaps above all amicitia. There are,
however, novelties and individual slants. There is material unprecedented
in satire in the fraudulent denial of a loan in the thirteenth satire, the very
striking Egyptian cannibalism of the fifteenth, and the military material
of the sixteenth. There are too the unusually broad provincial background
of the eighth and the imperial court scene of the fourth. Over and above
this, there is the general sense that the subject matter of Juvenal’s work,
however, conventional, is written on a larger scale and involves more egre-
gious crimes (or crimes presented as more egregious), than that of his
predecessors (unless Turnus was also like this). This is not, however,
simply a matter of content, for it is inter-related with the indignant
manner that is – albeit ambiguously – part of Juvenal’s style.
As to that style itself, we have seen how Juvenal takes the basically
pedestrian manner of earlier satire and at first goes some way towards
raising its aesthetic aspirations in comparison with epic, though not so far
that he cannot still incorporate parodies of the epic manner for local
effects. The declamatory afflatus with which his satires are also coloured
(also present in epic) is, at least as far as we can see, a new thing in the
satiric tradition, and closely tied in with the angry persona with which
Juvenal opens his corpus. Here too we see an evolving poet, since the role
of anger changes as the books proceed. At first it is the programmed voice,
but even while still within the first book indignation is becoming increas-
ingly exposed to subversion, and by the thirteenth it is openly criticised (it
returns in the two last satires).16
Despite differences of tone from his predecessors we still see the texture
of the verse filled with the litter and detritus of the real world: cobble-
stones, gold rings, birds under temple eaves, and so on. There is, however,
149
in Juvenal a much greater tendency to what one might call cinematic focus
than in his predecessors. At Satires 3.262 the personification of a puffed
cheek (rousing the hearthfire) visualises the salient part. A few lines later
the verse pans to the windows that are the apertures through which a
sudden death may be admitted (275). In the fourth satire Montanus’ belly
(4.107) is the salient feature in his appearance. At Satires 10.238 the pars
pro toto figure points at that body part which is relevant to Phiale’s
strategy, and likewise it is the bellies forced to eat human flesh that are
the appropriate parts for forgiveness at 15.103-6. Other examples (a small
and random selection) of this phenomenon are the throat at 14.10, the
details of the interlocution and its sequel at 14.60-7, the spitting at 11.175,
and the plank at 12.58.
These elements produce a whole, but not an easy, uniform whole. The
reality-effect of the cumulating references to real-world elements
combines with the apparent scale of the misdemeanours Juvenal deals
with and his pointedness of utterance to suggest a powerful engagement
with real issues. On the other hand, the dense literariness and stylistic
impurity of the texture, which cut against this, cannot be separated out.
The poetic voice and breadth of imagination are uniquely vigorous, but
quite anarchic.
Satiric background to Juvenal as moralist

To list topics and describe style, however, cannot fully locate Juvenal’s
relation to the satiric genre, since he – as his predecessors do – also claims
some status as a moralist, and this is a matter of attitude as well as
content. We must, therefore, return to that question. A cursory glance at
his antecedents will be useful.
Lucilius was not what we would think of as a moralist. Apart from other
considerations, there is too much else in the satires. However, there was
in his engagement with contemporary issues, and his outspoken tongue,
something that the pragmatic Roman mind could present in an ethical
light. Some of the engagement with contemporary realities lasts into
Horace, although there are differences of manner and substance. In
particular, there is a real strain of interest in ethical issues visible in
Horace’s poetry, and attested in autobiographical contexts in the Epistles.
(e.g. Epp. 1.1; 1.2; 2.2.41ff.). As we have seen, however, he becomes more
and more circumscriptive in dealing with ethical issues and matters of
ethical judgement as his works proceed. It becomes more and more clear
that ethical judgements are not easy things to make.
With Persius we move further into a more private sphere, but the
ethical concern we saw in Horace remains, and is indeed made more
central. The diatribes of Damasippus and Davus which are hedged with
some ambivalence in Horace (Sat. 2.3, 7) are revisited in Persius (Pers. 3
150
and 5) without – it seems – Horace’s ambivalence. What Persius says may

be thoroughly conventional, but it is hard not to believe that he meant it.
Juvenal as moralist?
We have then a background for Juvenal in which criticism may be prob-
lematic, but an interest in ethics is standard in some form or other. What
his satires are clearly not about, however, is the criticism of contemporary
transgressors. Their perspectives are too undermined and ambivalent, too
refracted through other literature, to be directly concerned with contem-
porary social ills. Nor are the Satires about specific contemporary political
issues. They are not topical, and indeed there was a measure for the
Roman audience to gauge this by, for Juvenal’s satires are clearly less
topical than Horace’s (and clearly less topical again than Lucilius’). A few
other points, however, also emerge quite clearly.
First, there is the recurrent appearance in Juvenal of the oppressor-
oppressed pairs traditional in Roman moralising – the mean patron and
the ill-used client, the capricious tyrant and the frightened councillor, the
defrauder and the defrauded, the will-hunter and his prey, the unsatisfac-
tory wife and the suffering husband. In every case where these figures,
and those like them, appear in the Satires, the standard polarisation of
good and bad is undermined. Trebius and Naevolus deserve their Virro,
and the simplistic moral judgements of the moralising tradition are consis-
tently subverted.
Second, the question of moral judgement is also implicated somehow in
the tendency Juvenal shows to paradox. In the second satire (2.15-19)
open depravity is the less culpable (and blamed on fate), but the awful
climax the poem moves towards is an open and indeed public homosexual
wedding (135-6). Similarly, in the fourth satire, Crispinus appears at first
to merit the utmost indignant satire, but the other part of the poem shows
indignant satire to be dwarfed by the much more terrible figure of
Domitian. Indeed the calculated exposure of indignation to a more and
more negative attitude must also be remembered here.
The third general point is less conclusive. Although the later books
(book 4 onwards) revolve around major aspects of social experience –
wealth, family, and what society and civilisation are – their overall
approach is not structured. The contrast with the first three books is
striking. Here we have one book, the first (of five satires, roughly
symmetrical in terms of length), in which amicitia provides the major
thematic material, and another book, the third (of three satires), in which
different aspects of amicitia (literary, provincial, social) again provide the
bulk of the thematic consistency. In each of these cases an epilogue poem
contains a patron-client pair in which the patron is called Virro. In
between these books, there is the single poem, the sixth satire, making up
151
one book in itself, and dealing with marriage. Thus the fundamental male
relationship of amicitia frames and counterbalances the fundamental
mixed-sex relationship of marriage. The arrangement of the first three
books suggest an attempt to build up an inclusive satiric treatment of
Roman society on a major scale, with the remaining books adding more
collagistic supplements.
This consideration, concerning structure and theme, is not conclusive,
because – obviously – it does not take into account what Juvenal says
about his subject matter, or the way in which he says it. There is a certain
all-embracing inclusiveness, thematically speaking, but there is a literary
inclusiveness too in the way Juvenal’s satiric corpus contains other
generic voices. This at once demonstrates the competitiveness endemic in
the literary field, and also returns us to the question of morality.
Satire, like any genre, allows certain things to be said or dealt with.
Actually it allows a great number of things to be entered as subjects, but
in particular it encourages the inclusion of topics that moralising writers
deal with. Thus Juvenal’s satire contains, for example, aristocratic ladies
doing erotic dances. It is something of a cliché of a certain kind of criticism
that Juvenal’s picture (6.320ff.) is repellent and not exciting at all. But of
course it is exciting, although it may also be disturbing. We take this
discordant material inside us and it tries to resolve itself there, in our
hearts, but the resolution is not an easy one. A degree of self-knowledge
and honesty is (perhaps) forced upon the audience by sleight of hand. Not
all cases, however, are like this. It is difficult to conceive any moral frame-
work in which killing one’s children for money (6.638ff.) is justifiable. On
the other hand, the buying and eating of large and very expensive fish
(4.15ff.) is a more relative matter. There are cases, the amphitheatrical
murders (3.34ff.) for instance, where we might feel a judgement is due, but
would not feel confident that Juvenal’s critical tone is based on the
grounds upon which we would feel it to be deserved. If we looked for a
moral viewpoint from which all Juvenal’s criticisms made sense, invoking
cultural difference to explain the criticism of eunuchs being able to marry
(1.22), we would still run up against oddities, such as Umbricius’ appar-
ently inconsistent attitudes to prostitution, the apparently climactic evil of
poets reciting in August (3.9), or Nero’s writing of a Trojan epic (8.221).
Juvenal is free with moral judgements, but we cannot always be ready to
accept them at face value, and quite often we are encouraged to question
their grounds or validity.
The same goes for Juvenal’s sententiae. Time after time they demand
our heart’s agreement. Who could fail to respond to the sequence of bril-
liant epigrammatic expressions at Satires 10.140ff., including, ‘Who would
embrace virtue if the reward wasn’t there?’ and immediately following
that with, ‘Many a time the glory of a few has obliterated a nation.’ These
things seem to be true and always to have been true. This, of course, needs
152
rather more probing. Such summarising utterances can only be appropri-

ately applied on particular occasions – but on those occasions it is possible
that they are wrongly, not rightly, applied. Who could not be impressed by
the neatness and easy applicability of nemo repente fuit turpissimus (2.83,
‘No one reaches the depths of disgrace in one go’)? A judgement, however,
is here being applied in a context concerning dress and sexuality where we
might feel its application perhaps questionable. Such utterances are
rhetorically powerful, but their danger is that they can be so easily applied
(a point Juvenal makes openly at 14.205). Again, we might invoke cultural
difference to try to rationalise the judgements expressed in this way in
Juvenal, but again we might feel that Juvenal is already doing the ques-
tioning. The woman caught in adultery (6.279ff.) who immediately comes
up with a short speech culminating in clames licet et mare caelo /
confundas, homo sum (283-4, ‘However you rant, however you mix up sea
and sky, I am a human being’) uses a fine-sounding argument to a suspect
cause. Again, maxima debetur puero reverentia (14.47, ‘A child is owed the
utmost respect’) becomes debased coin in the very next phrase – si quid /
turpe putas (‘if you’re planning something bad’). Juvenal is liberal with
these moral epigrams – as indeed Seneca is – but while we find them
memorable, powerful, and readily transferable to new applications, we are
not allowed to accept them uncritically and wholesale. They are, moreover,
too questioning for us simply to say that they express the attitudes and
prejudices of a particular social class. Rather they are part of the fabric of
the Satires, like the borrowings from other literature, and – just as they
are – deeply ambivalent.
Juvenal’s satire and the generic field; the idea of a supergenre

The moralising material that Juvenal weaves into the stuff of his satires is
– from one point of view – to do with real life, or at least real life as seen
through books. The moralising and the realism, though, are repeatedly
questioned by the combinations of different literary voices (and measured
against the dominant genre, epic). Books do not work in isolation from each
other. We have seen how in Roman literature we have something like a solar
system in which epic is the sun and other genres are paired with it and are
variously subject to and react against its gravitational field. Satire fits into
this picture too. All genres, however, have also to establish a distinctness for
themselves, and satire’s way includes this issue of moralising, the question
of realism, and the unusual degree of explicit literariness. Satire, especially
in the hands of Horace and Juvenal, parades within itself a generic and styl-
istic kaleidoscope. However, whereas Horace’s miscellany is subordinated to
the expression of a rational persona, probing and questioning the subjec-
tivity of the moral perspective, in Juvenal’s the moralising element is one
element in a broader cultural perspective.
153
Juvenal takes, so to speak, the whole world of Roman literature and

exposes it to a highly declamatory manner. There is a double appropriate-
ness about this. On the one hand, declamation was the home of a great
deal of standard moralising, but in addition the declamatory manner
tended strongly to be characterised by dramatic variegation of voice. This
is taken much further in Juvenal in whose satires different literary voices
are continually pitted against one another in his discordant imperson-
ations. Indeed, in the opening lines of the first poem, Juvenal’s satire itself
becomes a space in which the poet acts out this wrangling of genres. In
this way Juvenal lives up, too, to the competitive inclusiveness that char-
acterises the whole generic field. I suggested earlier that in the third satire
Umbricius stands for Roman literature. We could see him as an embodi-
ment of how Juvenal’s satire works: it, as he does, contains unresolved the
discords of all sorts of genres. There is a claim here that the Satires stand
above the generic field, in judgement on it, as though satire were not just
one amongst other of epic’s rivals, but actually what one might call a
‘supergenre’,17 a genre presiding over the rest.
Yet there is, for all this literariness, a concern for moral values implicit
in the reviewing of the language of the tribe. Contained in Juvenal’s verse
the different generic voices may come to stand for the multiple voices of
our own internal psychomachiae, playing themselves out within our
minds, and perhaps at our expense, in a salutary Infernal Comedy. In this
way Juvenal, the Gil-Martin of Roman satirists, works on the audience
from the inside by embodying in his satires a sort of model of the audi-
ence’s cultural and moral identities.
154
Appendix
Names in Satire and Related Genres
Names per book

human mythological geographical no of lines
Lucilius* 110 40 60 (not valid)
Catullus 1-60 122 44 93 848
Catullus 69-fin 67 3 14 320
Horace Epodes 40 55 86 625
Horace Satires 1 181 27 57 1030
Horace Satires 2 133 46 90 1083
Horace Epistles 1 103 44 129 936
Horace Odes 1 72 140 177 904
Tibullus 1 33 95 36 810
Propertius I 53 75 71 702
Ovid Amores I 23 77 30 774
Persius 62 43 41 650
Martial 1 230 30 85 827
Statius Silvae 1 35 160 183 792
Statius Silvae 4 49 110 188 724
Juvenal 1-5 167 53 111 990
Juvenal 6 88 46 76 695
Juvenal 7-9 135 53 80 668
Juvenal 10-12 82 43 104 704
Juvenal 13-16 56 68 82 814
*in books 26-30 and 1-21
Names per 1000 lines

human mythological geographical
Catullus 1-60 144 52 110
Catullus 69-fin 209 9 44
Horace Epodes 64 88 138
155
human mythological geographical

Horace Satires 1 176 26 55
Horace Satires 2 123 42 83
Horace Epistles 1 110 47 138
Horace Odes 1 80 155 196
Tibullus 1 41 117 44
Propertius I 75 107 101
Ovid Amores I 30 99 39
Persius 95 66 63
Martial 1 278 36 103
Statius Silvae 1 44 202 231
Statius Silvae 4 67 152 260
Juvenal 1-5 169 54 112
Juvenal 6 127 66 109
Juvenal 7-9 202 79 120
Juvenal 10-12 116 61 148
Juvenal 13-16 69 84 101
156
Glossary
Alcaeus: see lyric

Archilochus: see iambic
Bion of Borysthenes (c. 325-c. 255 BC): as slave of a rhetorician, Bion received a
good education and was later set free and inherited his master’s wealth; studied
philosophy eclectically in Athens. He was influenced by the rough humour, crit-
icism of conventions, and shamelessness of the Cynics. He went from town to
town giving lectures.
bucolic: Graeco-Roman poetic genre, effectively inaugurated by Theocritus,
among whose Idylls are a number of hexameter representations of an idealised
and heavily stylised pastoral existence. Virgil was the first, or first significant,
Roman bucolic poet. We hear of bucolic poetry by Messalla (64 BC-AD 8) and
Turnus (q.v.), but the chief figure after Virgil in the period of Roman satire is
the probably Neronian Calpurnius Siculus.
Caesar, C. Iulius (100-44 BC): major political and military figure whose rise to
power and murder paved the way for the establishment by his adoptive son,
Octavian, later Augustus, of the Principate. He wrote two major works, the De
Bello Gallico and the De Bello Civili, putting his own outstanding generalship
in the plain view of the literate public.
Callimachus (c. 305-c. 240 BC): Greek scholar and poet. Early in life migrated to
Alexandria and became a schoolmaster, later librarian. He was heavily involved
in literary arguments, presenting his aesthetics polemically in various poetic
works. He became a profound influence on Roman poetry, especially from the
late Republic onwards; for the Romans his name stood for brevity, polish,
learning, and craftsmanship, and was worn as a badge by numbers of poets,
especially Propertius. For the Romans, his ideals were encapsulated above all in
the form of the recusatio (refusal to comply with conventional aesthetics) which
Virgil transferred from Callimachus’ Aetia and used in Eclogue 6, which itself
becomes one of the sources of Roman Callimacheanism. Callimachus wrote
mythological narratives in the Aetia (in elegiacs) and Hymns (hexameters and
– Hymn 5 – elegiacs). He also wrote epigrams, Iambi, and various scholarly
works in prose. His mythological manner is characterised by narrative sophis-
tication and the admixture of personal and realistic touches.
Calpurnius Siculus, T. (probably flourished c. AD 50-60, though some still argue
for later dates): Calpurnius wrote seven pastoral poems in hexameters. The
first, central, and last of the set are innovative in the urban and courtly
detailing.
Catullus, C. Valerius (c. 84-c. 54 BC): poet of provincial background of some
standing, and author of epigrams in elegiacs (including love poems and poems
of abuse – Cicero and Caesar are two of his targets), short poems in a range of
epigrammatic and lyric metres incorporating a Lucilian range of everyday
157
Roman subject matter and using contemporary Roman names freely, and a
smaller number of longer poems (mainly in hexameters, and including the epyl-
lion on the marriage of Peleus and Thetis) mostly using mythological material
and centring their concerns on marriage. His influence can be seen widely in
subsequent Latin poetry, especially in elegy, epigram, and Statius’ Silvae, but
also in Horatian satire. In his elegiac love poetry Catullus makes much of trans-
ferring to love the terminology of the language of Roman aristocratic
friendship.
Cicero, M. Tullius (106-43 BC): orator, political figure, voluminous writer in
various genres (including poetry), but especially concerned with rhetorical
theory, ethical, and philosophical issues. His speeches of opposition to Antony
brought about his death, and subsequently he became a virtually archetypal
representation of the ideal orator. Large numbers of letters were published soon
after his death, covering a vast range of material, including the complexities of
his political relationship with Caesar. Despite the immense ideological differ-
ence, Cicero admired Lucretius’ (q.v.) didactic poem, the De Rerum Natura.
declamation: Roman declamation had a two-fold existence, as the school exer-
cises in the rhetorical Roman education system, and as the same exercises used
as an adult social pastime. The chief exercises involved impromptu speaking; in
the suasoria the declaimer attempted to persuade a personage (usually histor-
ical) to follow a particular course of action at a given moment; in the
controversia the declaimer took one or other side of a fictitious (and often
sensational) legal case almost always involving anonymous stereotype character-
roles. The adult pastime became highly influential on Roman literature,
encouraging a degree of sensationalism, a moralising flavour, and the mannered
use of brief and verbally pointed encapsulating summary phrases and
sentences. This can be seen especially in Petronius, Seneca the Younger, Lucan,
Tacitus, and Juvenal.
didactic: Graeco-Roman poetic genre, not clearly distinguished by the Greeks or
Romans from epic, and like the main epic tradition in being written almost
exclusively in hexameters. Hesiod (c. 700 BC) appears as the figurehead of the
genre, but the tradition is actually extremely diverse. Poems in the Hesiodic
manner continued to appear (and provide a format for Virgil’s Georgics), but
the physical and philosophical speculations of Parmenides (said to have been 65
years old in 450 BC) and Empedocles (c. 493-c. 433 BC) – partial antecedents for
Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura – have a quite different intent. Compared to the
epic tradition, there is in didactic a lack of clearly defined limits on the possi-
bilities for subject matter – physics, farming, snake bites, astronomy, fishing are
among the topics found – and this probably encouraged such generic hybrids as
Ovid’s (q.v.) Ars Amatoria. In Latin the didactic poems of Lucretius and Virgil
(and this is reflected in Ovid’s parodic Ars Amatoria) contained an element of
moralising and reference to contemporary settings that occupies common
ground with Roman verse satire.
elegiacs: a Graeco-Roman metrical system, alternating hexameters and a modi-
fied form of the hexameter (the pentameter). The metre clearly has some
resemblance to that of epic and early Greek elegists often have a military
content and ethos and show similarities to Homer in their language.
Subsequently, the metre becomes common for mythological and historical
158
Glossary
narrative. The appearance in the first century BC in Rome of a strain of quasi-

autobiographical love-laments has very little directly to do with this. Rather
one might see the erotic interest as part of an elegy-epic polarity (marked by
the divergent metre) which acted out in the literary field contemporary ideo-
logical tensions.
elegy: although there was a varied mass of elegiac poetry in Greek, to parts of
which Roman elegists referred, nonetheless Roman elegy established itself as a
distinct genre emphasising sophisticated self-dramatisations of the poet as
besotted lover. The form mainly flourished in the Augustan period, its chief
exponents being Gallus, Tibullus, Propertius, and Ovid (who ultimately took
elegy in new directions which had essentially no followers). We know of other
elegists in the period, but Ovid treats these four as the canonical list.
Ennius, Quintus (239-169 BC): brought by Cato to Rome from Sardinia, where he
was serving with the Roman army, and subsequently patronised by M. Fulvius
Nobilior (cos. 189 BC) and taken on the Aetolian campaign which Ennius cele-
brated in his poetry. Nobilior’s son made Ennius a Roman citizen (184 BC). He
composed tragedies, comedies, the Annales (a hexameter epic covering the history
of Rome from the escape from Troy), four books of satires in various metres,
various individually titled works some of which may or may not have been satires
or related to the satires. Only fragments remain of any of Ennius’ works.
epic: Graeco-Roman epic stems from the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey; there was a
large mass of epic material in Greek. The tradition was brought to Rome by
Livius Andronicus’ free version of the Odyssey in saturnians, Naevius’ account
in saturnians of the First Punic War, and Ennius’ hexameter Annales. By
Horace’s time there was a large body of epic material, historical and mytholog-
ical, in Latin hexameters. Grandeur of concept, elevation of style, and the
centrality of heroes and war were dominating characteristics. Related forms are
the Greek narrative hymn in hexameters or elegiacs and the Latin epyllion. The
conventional epic seems to have been obsolescent or obsolete by Juvenal’s time.
epyllion: hexameter poem offering mythological narrative on a small scale and
usually in a narratologically complex manner. Catullus Carm. 64 involves two
stories, the marriage of Peleus and Thetis, and the desertion of Ariadne by
Theseus. The mannerisms of Hellenistic Greek poetry are incorporated in the
‘epic’ manner of such poems. Other examples, of lesser quality, are extant (e.g.
the Ciris), and we know of other likely titles of lost poems (including the
famous Zmyrna of Catullus’ contemporary Cinna), but in addition we find
epyllion-like structures built into larger units, as with the involving of the tale
of Aristaeus and the bees with the story of Orpheus and Eurydice within the
fourth book of Virgil’s Georgics, the Pasiphae section in Eclogues 6, and
repeatedly within Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The form seems especially associated
with the Catullan period.
epigram: Graeco-Roman poetic genre, an unelevated form allowing a vast range
of satirical, erotic, and everyday subject matters, often involving a witty turn or
humorous point. Brevity is one of the most deeply entrenched characteristics.
Epigram selected from a range of metres, especially elegiacs and hendecasylla-
bles. The form has a long history, but its flowering is c. first century BC onwards.
Gallus, C. Cornelius (c. 69BC-26 BC): poet, general, friend of Virgil and (for a
time) Augustus. Augustus renounced the friendship and Gallus committed
159
suicide. Gallus figures prominently in Virgil’s Eclogues (6 and 10), and was
taken up as generic figurehead by the Roman elegists. He wrote four books of
love elegies in which Lycoris – a literary alternative name, apparently for
Volumnia Cytheris – figures prominently. He also wrote a poem on Apollo’s
shrine at Gryneum. Parthenius dedicated to him a collection of mythological
love stories in Greek prose. Almost none of his poetry survives.
hendecasyllables: Graeco-Roman metrical system based on lines of eleven sylla-
bles in a fixed arrangement of longs and shorts. The metre is typically
epigrammatic, and admits a wide range of unlofty material.
hexameters: a metrical system of six feet used by Greek and Roman poets. Its
origins are lost, but from as early as we see it, it is the metre of epic and the
related genre of didactic, and as such has a distinct level of grandeur.
Subsequently, it is used in Greek and later again in Latin for bucolic poetry.
Certainly in Theocritus we can see bucolic as in some degree a sort of para-epic,
de-heroified and scaled down. The monster Polyphemus becomes a besotted
lover. The hexameter is also taken over by Lucilius and all subsequent Roman
verse satirists: here the tension between the two genres is clear and palpable,
and pointed up by an almost hostile use of the same metre.
Hipponax: see iambic
Horace: Q. Horatius Flaccus (65-8 BC): his father was a freedman, but Horace
was well educated in Rome and Athens, where he was swept along with the civil
war on the republican (losing) side. After Brutus’ defeat at Philippi (42 BC) he
got back to Rome and established himself as poet. He joined Maecenas’ circle
after Virgil, and became one of the poetic spokesmen for the new Augustan
values. His work covered various genres, iambic (epodes), lyric, hexameter
satire, and related hexameter collections (the Epistles).
iambic: Graeco-Roman poetic genre. Early Greek Iambic is prominently, though
not exclusively, characterised by more or less comic narratives involving low
scenes of sexual and / or violent mayhem. Abuse of named individuals was seen
as having a pivotal role in the genre, and Archilochus and Hipponax were held
up as generic exemplars. These characteristics are picked up in the iambic
poetry (and hendecasyllables) of Catullus, and in a more consciously artificial
(and more anonymous) way in a number of the Epodes of Horace. Of Latin
poets, Quintilian (q.v.) cites only Catullus, Bibaculus, and Horace under this
heading.
Juvenal: D. Iunius Iuvenalis (later first century and early second century AD);
practically nothing is known of his life. He produced five books of satires
(perhaps the last one or two were posthumous editions) in roughly the first
quarter of the second century.
Lucan: M. Annaeus Lucanus (AD 39-65); of equestrian family, with Seneca the
Younger as his uncle. Perhaps Lucan studied Stoicism (as Persius did) under
Cornutus. He became associated with court circles, but, earning Nero’s
disfavour, he became implicated in Piso’s unsuccessful plot against Nero, and
was obliged to commit suicide. Apart from many works now lost, he wrote the
hexameter epic, Bellum Civile, about the civil war. Its main figures are Pompey,
Cato, and Caesar. The poem has a grim magnificence and bleak moral grasp,
and the use of a rather declamatory manner gives passages a semblance of being
foretasters of Juvenal.
160
Glossary
Lucilius, C. (died in old age 102/1 BC): of rich and noble family, owner of large
estates, and friend of major aristocratic figures of the time. He did military
service in Spain from 139 BC and was at the siege of Numantia (134/3 BC). He
wrote thirty books of verse, almost all satires. The earliest (26-30) were books
of satires in various metres, with the hexameter making an appearance in book
29, and excluding all other metres in book 30. Thereafter (books 1-21), all the
satires were in hexameters, an innovation followed by all subsequent Roman
verse satirists. Books 22-5 appear to consist of epigrams and epitaphs in
elegiacs. The satires show an immensely wide range of subject matter – dinners,
sex, spelling, social manners, military escapades and so forth. They express aris-
tocratic social values and attitudes – for later Romans like Cicero they
expressed ‘Romanness’ and were subsequently seen as characterised by libertas
– Roman aristocratic freedom of speech. For later satirists, Lucilius stands
above all for a now lost licence to criticise important contemporaries by name.
Lucretius: T. Lucretius Carus (probably 94-55 BC); virtually nothing is known
of his life, except that he was a friend or dependant of the aristocratic C.
Memmius who appears occasionally in Catullus’ short poems. His only known
work was the hexameter didactic poem in six books, the De Rerum Natura,
which expounded Epicurean physics with a view to dispelling the superstitious
fears caused by religion, and the irrational and frenetic pleasure- and power-
seeking generated in compensation for those fears. The emphasis on the
achievement and sustaining of personal happiness is in tension with the
emphasis on public responsibility in Cicero’s works, but his account of the
follies of romantic love are also in contrast with the postures of Catullus’
Lesbia-poetry. His accounts of the fear of death (book 3) and the follies of love
(book 4) feed into the satiric tradition.
lyric: Graeco-Roman poetic genre; Greek lyric was a performance art involving
both music and words. The tradition has strong regional variations because of
its intimate links with the social structures and events of local powers. A huge
– potentially endless – range of metrical variation is found, although the
choriamb (– –) appears to be a key metrical element in lyric systems. Subject
matters are also highly diverse, including marriage, drinking, the winning of
Olympian and other games, the discontents of exile, the treachery of allies, love,
deaths. Major figures include Alcman, Sappho, Alcaeus, Anacreon, Pindar.
Although poems were written in lyric metres before Horace’s Odes appeared,
Horace claimed to have transferred the genre from Greek into Latin. He
favoured the simpler stanzaic metrical systems rather than the unlimited
strophic varieties, and – apart from the commissioned work, the Carmen
Saeculare – the idea of singing has only a symbolic association with his lyric
poetry. There is only occasional evidence of Latin lyric as a genre outlasting
Horace.
Maecenas (?-8 BC): friend, counsellor, and diplomatic agent of Octavian (later
called Augustus). As well as being a key figure in the political world, he included
in his circle a number of poets including Virgil, Varius, and Horace. These in
turn became to some degree poetic spokesmen for the new Augustan regime and
the social and ethical values which it used to bolster its position.
Martial: M. Valerius Martialis (c. AD 40-c.104): writer of Latin epigrams. He
commemorated the opening by Titus of the Flavian Amphitheatre (AD 80) in a
161
book of epigrams (Liber Spectaculorum, or Spectacula), produced two books (AD

84-5) of whimsical labels in verse for dinner gifts (Xenia and Apophoreta), and
twelve books of epigrams in various metres (mostly elegiacs) in which the life of
contemporary Rome is presented in often witty or pointed verse snapshots.
Imperial flattery and the sophisticated fringes of obscenity occupy a significant
place in the corpus. He addresses a Iuvenalis who may or may not have been the
satirist. Pliny the Younger paid for his return to Spain where he died shortly
afterwards.
Menippean satire: Quintilian refers to another, older, kind of satire than Roman
verse satire, viz. Menippean satire. He describes this as written in a mixture of
prose and verse. Quintilian cites M. Terentius Varro (116-27 BC) alone under
this heading. The fragments resemble verse satire in variety of form and refer-
ence, though there seems to be a greater degree of fanciful invention, and fewer
realistic names. Later prosimetric works (Seneca’s Apocolocyntosis, and
Petronius’ Satyrica) have other antecedents, and there is no evidence of the
form outlasting Varro, whom Quintilian cites rather dismissively as one more
learned than eloquent.
metre: in Greek and Roman literature there is generally a tendency for particular
genres to settle into particular metres. Individual metres often acquire a stereo-
typical characterisation which is always important even if there are many
instances of metres behaving away from their standard image. Thus hendeca-
syllables and iambics are low and comic, scazons are even more so, and lyric
metres and hexameters are elevated (with satire’s lower hexameters in open
opposition).
Ovid: P. Ovidius Naso (43 BC-AD 17.): pursued poetry instead of an official career.
He wrote the elegiac Amores, somewhat whimsical variations on the conven-
tional themes of Latin love elegy; the Heroides, love letters in elegiacs from
deserted mythological heroines to the heroes who have left them; the Ars
Amatoria and Remedia Amoris, both using the urban erotic material and the
metre of love elegy, but casting it in the mode and structure of the didactic
genre; the Metamorphoses, a hexameter epic, telling many stories instead of
one, linked with flights of ingenuity and almost all containing a metamorphosis.
The narrative manner is a complex interplay of the techniques, devices, and
approaches of other genres, especially elegy; the Fasti, another many-storied
compilation framed around the festivals of the Roman calendar, but in elegiacs;
the Tristia and ex Ponto, collections using the form of Roman elegiac collections,
but dealing with his relegation to Tomis on the Black Sea; various other lost or
fragmentary works are known of, perhaps the chief of which may have been the
tragedy Medea (praised by Quintilian).
Pacuvius, M. (220-c.130 BC): nephew and successor of Ennius. Mainly a composer
of tragedies, but also wrote satires (of which nothing survives).
Persius: A. Persius Flaccus (AD 34-62): of rich equestrian family, with Stoic
connections. Studied with the Stoic philosopher Cornutus. Wrote six satires in
hexameters with a prologue (or possibly epilogue) in scazons. These were
published after Persius’ death.
Petronius (first century AD): author of an extended fictional narrative cast as the
recollections of one Encolpius whose adventures resemble papyrus fragments of
the low comic strain of Greek fiction. The hero, his fickle lover, and a movable
162
Glossary
third wander from place to place on the edges of society. Sex and violence are
never far away, and the educated characters see the events through an absurd
language compounded of declamation and the loftier literary genres. The
literary patchwork has much in common with Roman verse satire, though there
is nothing to suggest it belonged to the variant tradition of Menippean satire.
The author is commonly, but not on adequate grounds, identified with the
Petronius whose colourful life and death in Nero’s court is summed up by
Tacitus (Ann. 16.17).
Pliny the Younger: C. Plinius Caecilius Secundus (AD 61-c. 112): forensic
orator, friend of Tacitus the historian. Pliny published nine books of letters (as
consciously literary artefacts). The thematic range is reminiscent of the post-
humously published books of Cicero’s letters. Pliny draws attention to his
successes and qualities, his range of acquaintance – including literary figures,
such as Martial and Silius Italicus. Two books of short poems, apparently not
unlike those of Martial, do not survive, but with the antecedent of Horace’s
verse letters, it is possible to see Pliny’s letters as generically related to occa-
sional poetry. A tenth book gathers official letters and rescripts concerning
Pliny’s governorship of Bithynia.
Propertius, Sextus (born c. 50 and dead before 2 BC): pursued poetry rather than
a public career. Four books of elegies survive, at first largely love poetry after
the manner of Catullus’ Lesbia-poetry, and probably also after the manner of
the first of the canonic elegists, Gallus. His Augustan affiliation is much more
ambiguous than that of his contemporaries, and in his poetry love and war, and
elegy and epic, are opposed with distinctly ideological resonance. His later
elegies assume a more mythopoeic manner, and assume a distinctly
Callimachean pose: they deal much in aetiologies, learned allusion, and sophis-
ticated distortions of linear narrative, often using speeches, especially the
speeches of distraught females. Pliny (Ep. 6.15; 9.22) knew a poet, Passenus
Paulus, who claimed descent from Propertius, who (we infer) married and
produced at least one child, despite his ideological stance (Prop. 2.7).
Quintilian: M. Fabius Quintilianus (c. AD 30 to probably post 100): forensic
orator and teacher of oratory – probably the first rhetorician to receive a trea-
sury salary (under Vespasian). The Younger Pliny was among his pupils. His
chief literary work (and the only one to survive) is the Institutio Orationis
(probably published before Domitian’s death in AD 96) which covers the training
of the orator from babyhood to adulthood. The tenth book includes two long
reading lists interspersed with various kinds of value judgement, of approved
authors (first Greek, then Latin) in poetry (subdivided into poetic genres),
historiography, oratory, and philosophy.
Sappho: see lyric
satire: Latin poetic genre. Although the stories of all genres are individual, there
is a strong tendency for Latin genres to claim descent from Greek ones. Roman
verse satirists, however, refer to Lucilius as though he originated the genre, and
Quintilian in his review of Latin literature asserted that satire was wholly
Roman. In fact, we know of Roman verse satire before Lucilius – the miscella-
nies in various metres of Ennius and Pacuvius. Lucilius clearly gave the genre
a defining stamp for later Romans, and all subsequent satirists use the hexam-
eter which Lucilius used exclusively in all his satires except those of the earliest
163
books. The chief names seem to have been Lucilius, Horace, Persius, perhaps
Turnus, and certainly Juvenal, and the temporal range of the genre spans some
300 years – considerably greater than that of Roman elegy, somewhat less than
that of epic. Like bucolic, however, it appears to have attracted only a thin
sprinkling of authors over the large space of time.
scazons: a particular form of iambic in which the penultimate syllable is long
instead of short, producing an off-balance effect. The metre’s invention was
attributed to the early Greek iambist Hipponax (who certainly used it much)
and it thereafter always retained the image of a metre stereotypically reserved
for vulgar, abusive, and rough comical material.
Seneca the Elder: L. Annaeus Seneca (55 BC-c. AD 40): father of Seneca the
Younger and writer on rhetoric. His Oratorum sententiae divisiones colores orig-
inally devoted at least twelve books to Roman declamation, ten to the
controversiae, each with a preface, and at least two to the suasoriae. The extant
portions provide samples of the impromptu work of the declaimers drawn from
Seneca’s memory. Discussions and anecdotal material to do with declamation
are interspersed among the samples and also gathered in the prefaces.
Seneca the Younger: L. Annaeus Seneca (c. 3 BC-AD 65): son of Seneca the
Elder and philosopher, imperial adviser, poet, and writer. Nero’s tutor and
adviser, he was eventually obliged to commit suicide for alleged implication in
the Pisonian conspiracy. Seneca wrote ethical treatises, essays in the form of
letters, tragedies, and the prosimetric Apocolocyntosis, a mock-deification of
Claudius, Nero’s imperial predecessor.
Silius Italicus (c. 26-c. 101 AD): won fame as a legal orator, was consul in AD 68
and gained high praise for his administration of Asia (c. AD 77). Retired to
Campania. Author of Punica, a hexameter epic poem on the Second Punic War.
He is referred to flatteringly by Martial, and less so by Pliny (Ep. 3.7.5).
Statius: P. Statinius Statius (c. AD 45-96): born at Naples, Statius’ father was a
poet and schoolmaster. Statius achieved fame and popularity as a poet, won the
prize at Domitian’s annual festival at Alba (probably in AD 89), but not the quin-
quennial Capitoline contest (probably in AD 94). He produced a hexameter poem
on Domitian’s German wars, perhaps a libretto for a pantomimus (Agaue), the
hexameter epic, Thebaid (c. AD 91), and display occasional poetry for numbers
of patrons, gathered in the five books of the Silvae, a polymetric set of collec-
tions appearing from AD 92 onwards. A hexameter epic, the Achilleis was left
unfinished at his death.
Suetonius: C. Suetonius Tranquillus (born c. AD 69): author of scholarly and
biographical works, including the De Vita Caesarum, twelve biographies from
Julius Caesar to Domitian. In these Suetonius treats the subjects under head-
ings rather than chronologically; much anecdotal material is used, and there is
free use of material adumbrating the vices of his subjects. An implicit moral
programme may be discerned in the negative portrayal of previous Emperors.
As with Tacitus, the material overlaps with much in Juvenal’s Satires.
Tacitus, Cornelius (born c. AD 56), Roman orator and historical writer. He was
at pains to understand Rome’s state and the place within it of the Senatorial
class, the old ruling elite. His major historical works, the Histories and Annals,
successively go further into the past, towards the watershed between the
Republic and the rule of Emperors. It is in his mature manner that he presents
164
Glossary
his vision most clearly as a kind of anti-history in which the shards of Roman
greatness and the memory of earlier history highlight the corruption of values
in the ruling elite, and the admixture of poetical and declamatory elements in
the complex style reinforce the sense that its own subject matter is putting the
generic frame under intense strain. The period dealt with in the Histories and
Annals overlaps with many of the figures appearing in Juvenal’s Satires.
Theocritus: see bucolic
Tibullus, Albius (born between 55 and 48 BC): seems to have been affected, like
Virgil, by Octavian’s land confiscations. One of the four canonic (according to
Ovid) poets of Roman elegy. His two books are of uncertain date (book 1 is post
27 BC). In the first book, Tibullus acts the role of lover of Delia, a typical elegiac
mistress, and (untypically) a boy, Marathus. In book 2 he is in love with a
different mistress, Nemesis. As in the other extant elegists, there is a tension
between the private emotion of love, and public responsibilities. The ancient
high regard for Tibullus is a critical problem, although there are those who
regard him well.
Turnus: Domitianic satirist praised by Martial (7.97; 11.10). Only one line
survives, mentioning the Neronian poisoness, Lucusta (also mentioned by
Juvenal). He may also have written bucolic poetry.
Valerius Flaccus, C: probably died in AD 92 / 3 before completing his hexameter
epic, the Argonautica, which was probably begun in AD 80. Almost nothing is
known of his life.
Varius, Rufus (first century BC): eminent elegiac, epic, and tragic poet; friend of
Virgil and Horace. Of his works only fragments survive.
Varro, M. Terentius (116-27 BC): see Menippean satire
Varro of Atax, P. Terentius (born 82 BC): Roman poet; only fragments and
comments by other writers survive, attesting an historical epic (Bellum
Sequanicum), a mythological epic (Argonautae), amatory verse, didactic, and –
according to Horace, unsuccessfully – satire.
Virgil: P. Vergilius Maro (70-19 BC): Roman poet. Among those eminent poets to
whom Maecenas extended patronage, and who became spokesmen for Augustan
values. Various works gathered in the Appendix Vergiliana used to be attributed
to Virgil. Works of undoubted authenticity, however, are the Eclogues, ten
poems in the bucolic genre, the Georgics, a four book didactic poem ostensibly
about farming, and the Aeneid, an epic tracing the origins of Rome back to the
Homeric story-pool (and prefiguring Augustus).
165
Notes
Preface
1. Genre-awareness has grown prolifically for a number of reasons, and genre
studies have also gained by extension into linguistics and sociology. In the overlap
between these areas, a productive analogy between literary genre and types of
natural speech can be made. In general terms see Altman (1999); Bakhtin (1981);
Beebee (1994); Selden (1994). Duff (2000) provides an excellent reader of modern
theoretical writing. For speech act theory, linguistics, and genre see Bakhtin
(2000); Berkenkotter and Huckin (1993, 1995); Devitt (2000). In the classical field
see Cairns (1972); Depew and Obbink (2000); Conte (1994), (1996); Gale (2004);
Harrison (2002); Hinds (2000).

1. We cannot read the satires of Varro of Atax and the others referred to, but
not named, by Horace (Sat. 1.10.46-7), those of P. Manlius Vopiscus (Stat. Silv.
1.3.103), those referred to, but not named, by Quintilian (10.1.94) or those of the
better known but lost Turnus.
2. We can see this expanded very considerably in Hor. Epp. 2 and AP.
3. See Courtney on Juv. 6.635; Brink at Hor. AP 135.
4. Cf . Juv. 7.102 on historians.
5. Roman elegy is perhaps even more metamorphic than satire, but while it is
(especially in Propertius’ hands) free with programmatic indications it does not
have the same tendency to explain itself in openly discursive ways.
6. All references to Lucilius use E.H. Warmington’s 1967 Loeb edition.
7. The chronological order of Lucilian books is 26-30, 1-21 (books 22-5 are not
satires, but epitaphs and epigrams about slaves and freedmen known to or owned
by Lucilius, written in elegiacs).
8. See Lucil. 632-4, 647, 650-1, 665, 666, 669, 670-1, 672-3, 674, 690, 691, 700,
702, 703, 714, 727-34, 735.
9. There is also evidence of some mockery of philosophy; see Coffey (1976), 52.
10. Cf. Lucil. 1066, 1067, 1069, 1070, 1075, 1078, 1079, 1085, 1086, 1091. There
is also a good deal of tragic parody and we are told by Porphyrio (on Hor. Sat.
1.10.53) that Lucilius attacked the tragedian Accius, especially in book 3.
11. According to John the Lydian (Mag. 1.41) Lucilius wrote comedy in hexam-
eters after the Greek Rhinthon (the third-century BC writer of phlyax plays, a form
associated with South Italy, normally in iambic trimeters and giving comic versions
of tragic themes and ludicrous scenes of daily life and mythology).
12. For Lucilius’ occupation of a special place in the Romans’ sense of them-
166
Notes to pages 3-7
selves see Morgan (2005), 177-8; ‘adoption of the Lucilian mode conveys that all is
right with the Roman world’.
13. In multa cum libertate notabant (‘They noted many things with freedom’;
Hor. Sat. 1.4.5) notabant is a censorial term; the analogy had already been more
explicit in Cicero (Rep. 4.11; cf. Brut. 224). Note also the quasi-legal malus ac fur
(‘evil-doer and thief’). Libertas (‘liberty’) is a defining republican value which
outlasted the Republic in the language of Roman ideology.
14. The pairing of Horace and Lucilius at Hor. Sat. 1.4.56ff. is primarily stylistic
rather than thematic or generic.
15. Sale multo / urbem defricuit, ‘He scoured the city with much wit / salt’, Hor.
Sat. 1.10.3-4.
16. See Jones (2000), 23-4 on this passage.
17. C. Trebatius Testa, iurisconsultus and friend of Cicero (Cic. ad Fam. 7.6-22).
18. Trebatius says that this would be better than hurting Pantolabus and
Nomentanus in abrasive verse, using a line from one of Horace’s earlier satires
(1.8.11). However, the name Nomentanus comes from Lucilius (80-2W; the
Nomentanus in Hor. Sat. 2.8 is rather different).
19. Sappho and Alcaeus, according to Aristoxenus fr. 71a-b (Wehrli) used their
books as confidants.
20. Perhaps it is naïve of us to expect a programmatic depiction of a model to
be shaped exclusively to the immediate context. There are a number of levels
which could have been present more or less simultaneously to Horace’s mind –
what he thought Lucilius was like, what he thought he himself was doing in his
current work, what he felt he had done up to this point, and the direction in which
he might have been beginning to feel it would be productive to go.
21. Cf. pinguis (‘fat’) at [Virg.] Catalepton 5.4; 9.64.
22. Horace also paraphrases a Callimachean programmatic epigram (31 = AP
12.102) in order to reject its literal application (in the matter of romantic aspira-
tions) at Sat. 1.2.105-10.
23. For comedy and real life note Cicero’s phrase speculum vitae (‘mirror of life’;
Cic. ap. Euanthius de fabula 5.1) and cf. Quint. 10.1.89 on Menander; Ov. RA 376
on comedy as opposed to tragedy.
24. Although the fragments are very meagre, we should at least be aware of a
possibility that Lucilius’ twelfth book (455-464W) contained a recollection of
Lucilius’ father’s advice to himself and his brother, accepted by the former and not
by the latter.
25. Lucretius goes on to use the figures of Tityos, Sisyphus, the Danaids,
Cerberus, and the Furies in the same way (3.984-1023).
26. See Fraenkel (1957), 90ff.; Rudd (1966), 20ff.; Dyson (1980). See especially
Hor. Sat. 1.1.1-19 and Lucr. 3.1066-75.
27. The use of euphemism (Hor. Sat. 1.3.44-8; Lucr. 4.1160ff.); the rise of civil-
isation (Hor. Sat. 1.3.99ff.; Lucr. 5.925ff.); the theology at the end of Hor. Sat. 1.5
(where didici, 101, suggests ‘I have learned from Lucretius’; see Hinds (1998), 1-5
on such allusive markers); the fleeing from oneself in Hor. Sat. 2.7 (put in the
perhaps doubtfully authoritative mouth of Davus) and Hor. Epp. 1.11 (cf. Hor. Sat.
2.7.112f., Epp. 1.1.83ff., 1.11 and Lucr. 3.1053ff.); inversely, there is the mockery of
the ‘Epicurean’ ideals of Catius (Hor. Sat. 2.4), for which cf. Muecke (19972), 177.
28. Anderson (1963) = Anderson (1982), 13-49; Braund (1988), 143-8.
167
Notes to pages 8-11
29. See also ludo etc. in Cat. 50 and Hor. Sat. 1.4.138; 1.10.37.
30. See Kindstrand (1976).
31. Cf. n. 39 below.
32. See Gottschalk (1982; 1983); Jocelyn (1982; 1983); Muecke (19972), 6-8.
33. We should perhaps be reminded of the Golden Mean, a major theme in the
first book.
34. Horace uses the word satura for the first time here (Sat. 2.1.1), as though a
recognisable kind of literature called satura (with its own law, legem, 2) is what he
had been writing all along.
35. The unexpectedly unqualified scribam is like the surprise turns upon which
Hor. Sat. 1.6 is built, at merito (‘Rightly’, 22), causa pater (‘My father was the
reason’, 71), and Romam (‘to Rome’, 76); see Harrison (1965).
36. On Horace’s pedestrian hexameters, diction, word order, and syntax in the
Satires and Epistles see Mayer (1994), 13-23.
37. The picture is not wholly black and white, however, for although he mocks
‘Alpinus’’ epic (Sat. 1.10.36ff.), and his expressions of inability to write epic (Sat.
2.1.12-15; Epp. 2.1.250ff.; cf. also Odes 1.6) may be disingenuous, nonetheless
Varius is praised as an epic poet at Satires 1.10.43-4 (cf. Virgil and Varius at Epp.
2.1.245-6).
38. Horace frequently parodies or makes jibes at Roman love elegy in the Odes,
but there is hardly a trace of this in the hexameter poems (perhaps see Epp. 2.2.90-
105). Perhaps the similarities between the subject matters, situations and themes
of the Odes and elegy make maintaining a difference the more important.
39. Horace also wrote two books (three, if the Ars Poetica is counted; on the
title of the work see Rudd (1989), 19) of epistolary poems in hexameters, and their
relationship to the Satires needs some accounting for. The first book of Epistles
has much in common with the Satires. The most obvious difference is the use of
the epistolary format, but the second book of satires is also clearly different in
formal terms from the first. We should see in Horace’s hexameter writing a
continuum of innovation. Moreover, Horace uses the word sermones (‘conversa-
tions’) for the Satires (Epp. 1.4.1 and probably 2.2.60), but also for the Satires and
the Epistles together (Epp. 2.1.250). He also uses sermo in the singular (Epp.
2.1.4) in a way which suggests ‘an epistle’. When Horace reviews his poetic output
as evidence of his originality near the end of the first book of epistles, he refers to
his annexation from Greek of iambic and of lyric (Epp. 1.19.21-34): that he does
not mention the Satires suggests that Horace is looking at his other poetry from
the perspective of his current genre, and that this current genre therefore
includes the Satires. A slightly different division still ends up with Horace writing
in only three genres. In the review of things lost to age in Hor. Epp. 2.2.54ff.,
Horace includes poetry: from this perspective, as it were outside poetry (as in Epp.
1.1), he refers to only three kinds – lyric, iambic, and Bionian sermones (cf. p. 8
above). We should note here that in the Epistles 1 we see the very pervasive pres-
ence of real-life experience to which Horace repeatedly attributes such
importance, and here, if anywhere, he is closest to the programmatic depiction he
gives of Lucilius in Satires 2.1.
40. The life tells us that Lucilius’ tenth book inspired Persius to write satire,
and the scholiast informs us that one of the first two lines (probably the first,
though the reference is slightly unclear) of Pers. 1 is Lucilian. It has also been
168
Notes to pages 11-16
suggested that the first line is Lucretian. See Hendrickson (1928); Bramble (1974),
67; Zetzel (1977), 40-2; Sosin (1999), 281-99; Powell (1992), 249-50 n. 21.
41. An injunction we find inscribed on funeral monuments (cf. Petr. 71.8; CLE
838) – there is something imposing and dead about the literature Persius targets.
42. Persius often seems anarchic. Cf. especially Pers. 3.53-5 and 5.64-5 for the
presumed target message of Stoicism represented in what seems a mocking
manner.
43. We should also remember that according to some Lucilius was comis and
urbanus (Hor. Sat. 1.10.65. Cf. also Cic. de Or. 1.72; 2.25, homo doctus et perur-
banus; Cic. de Fin. 1.3.8, cum multa venustate et omni sale; Gellius 18.8,
facetissime (on Lucil. 186).
44. The nose has required explanation. It draws on Persian language of weighing
and testing (including on balances) and on a Horatian phrase for Lucilius’ acumen
(emunctae naris at Hor. Sat. 1.4.8; see too Phaedrus 3.3.14), but also reminds us of
Horatian phraseology for a perhaps unsociably scornful attitude (at Sat. 1.6.5-6
Maecenas is not guilty; at 2.8.64 Balatro is). See Perini (1966-7), 233-64.
Commentators have distinguished two elements here: Horace’s mild treatment of
his friendly reader and his more contemptuous attitude to the public at large.
However, the appositional nature of callidus … suspendere (‘clever at suspending’)
does not encourage us to do this; it should be an expansion of the preceding lines. I
would argue that the nasal balancing act is part of Horace’s game in the reader’s
heart, a diversion while Horace really touches on his friendly reader’s faults (cf.
Rudd (1966), 155). Criticism of Damasippus, Davus and Catius, perhaps Nasidienus
too, distracts – temporarily – and inculpates the reader for accepting it too readily.
45. So Dessen (1996), 38.
46. If there is any significance in calling Horace by his cognomen, Flaccus (Flop-
eared), in a poem in which ears can be symptomatic of poetic and moral bad taste,
or can be rinsed with vinegar, it is again an ambiguous one.
47. The poem appears as a prologue to the satires in two good manuscripts (on
prefaces see Coleman on Statius Silvae 4 praef.; Lightfoot (199), 222-4). It could,
however, be an epilogue, or indeed a free-standing epigram that became attached,
perhaps in the editorial activity of Cornutus and Caesius Bassus after Persius’
death.
48. Pliny NH 7.115; 35.9ff. for busts in public libraries, Mart. 9 praef.; Pliny Ep.
3.7.8 for private libraries; Ov. Tr. 1.7.1f.; Juv. 7.29 for the ivy garlands.
49. This is the kind of programme we see later in Martial’s Epigrams (10.4) and
earlier in Horace’s satires (especially Sat. 1.4).
50. Epic is identified by allusion to Horace’s illustration of the kind of poetry
(epic) he cannot write (Pers. 5.4; cf. Hor. Sat. 2.1.15).
51. The espousal of a pedestrian style follows Horace. Persius indicates only a
relative simplicity, for the toga was somewhat formal.
52. A brief courtroom analogy (Pers. 1.83ff.) is drawn from Hor. Sat. 1.10.25ff.,
and there is a parody at 71ff. of the writing of poetic commonplaces that would-be
writers of epic cannot manage. Elegy comes into the picture at 51, briefly, and as
though epic and elegy are much the same kind of thing.
53. Despite Horace’s Epicurean tendencies, his acolyte Persius is Stoic.
Reckford (1962) considers it oversimplified to characterise Persius as a Stoic
moralist. Contrast Skoviera (1973).
169
54. Fiske (1913), 1-36; Rudd (1976), 54-83; Hooley (1984, 1997). For Pers. 3 and
5 cf. Hor. Sat. 2.3 and 2.7. See also the Terentian scene Persius (Pers. 5.161ff.) gets
from Horace (Hor. Sat. 2.3.259ff.); note too the line in the programmatic introduc-
tion of Persius’ fifth satire (Pers. 5.4) which is drawn from Horace’s programme
satire (2.1.14-15).
55. Juvenal does not refer to Persius here, although his use of the motif of
‘death in the bath’ at 1.142-6 probably demonstrates an awareness of him (Pers.
3.98ff.). Nor does Juvenal refer to Turnus (of whom virtually nothing survives),
who appears to have been well regarded, and who may have been an influence on
Juvenal; on Turnus see Martial 11.10 (cf. 7.97.8). On his possible relationship to
Juvenal see Coffey (1979).
56. On the book divisions see Jones (1999), 119. The second book, comprising
the sixth satire alone, very clearly contains programmatic comments towards the
end, but there is little or nothing programmatic in the seventh satire. The fourth
book, opening with satire 10, contains little more than a pointer (in the tragic-
comic figures of Democritus and Heraclitus): the thirteenth satire, at the head of
book 5, lacks even this.
57. Ovid (AA 1.39-40) uses a chariot in programmatic lines near the beginning
of the Ars Amatoria (blending it with the idea of territory marked by a plough; cf.
Fasti 4.819): haec nostro signabitur area curru; haec erit admissa meta premenda
rota (‘This area will be marked by my chariot; this turning post is to be scraped by
my wheel’). This is both similar to and different from Juvenal’s use: similar
because the Ars purports to be a didactic, i.e. epic-related, poem, and an epical
chariot is therefore legitimate; different because Ovid transforms it into a racing
rather than a war-chariot in line 40.
58. Juvenal’s picture of Lucilius’ drawn sword contributes to Lucilius’ heroic
aura and casts doubt on the satiric sword (also an ensis) which Horace claimed
reluctance to draw (Sat. 2.1.39-42).
59. There are resemblances here to Lucilius 1078W; see Griffith (1970). The
archaic form, duelli, enhances the epic tone.
60. Juvenal’s satire against the occupants of tombs (1.170-1) may recall Persius’
implication that he is, as a satirist, a tomb desecrator (Pers. 1.112, cf. Petr. 71.8;
CLE 838).
61. LaFleur (1973) observed that the lines following Juvenal’s allusion to
Lucilius are denser with names than the lines following the allusion to Horace (one
of the only names is Maecenas and the first vignette in the section following the
mention of Horace is reminiscent of Hor. Odes 3.6), as though the single paragraph
1.22-80 is split into two sections, each reflecting the manner of the satirist who is
referred to at the head of these sections.
62. An extreme position would be to argue that Horace, Persius, and Juvenal all
portray themselves as backing away from open criticism of contemporary malefac-
tors in order to criticise the political conditions of their times (cf. Freudenburg
(2001)). One could then compare Horace’s comments on the dangers of writing
history in Odes 2.1 and Tacitus’ comments on the impossibility of writing anything
but a maimed kind of history (Ann. 4.32-3). Perhaps one could argue analogously
that Lucan’s abject Neronianism embodies the message that freedom of speech has
been eradicated in a post-civil war Rome (cf. Hinds (1998), 83-91).
63. Tac. Hist. 1.1.3; Ann. 1.1; already parodied in Sen. Apoc. 1.
170
64. Despite Lucian’s jest that Pyrrha is the beginning of history (Rhet. Praec.
20), the reference to Pyrrha and Deucalion gives the programme a specifically epic
sweep. See Morton Braund for resemblances to Ovid’s account (Met. 1.253-416).
65. vitiorum … patuit sinus (‘The maw of vice has gaped’, 87-8)::vitium …
pande sinus (‘vice … open your sails’, 149-50); solitary-dining (94ff.::136ff.) and
the sportula (‘the dole’, 95ff.::127ff.); dramatic vignettes of greed and queue-
jumping (97ff.::120ff.). As regards the two sportula parts, note also the chiastic
verbal pointing between secreto (‘in secret’, 95), sportula (95) primo limine (‘on the
very threshold’, 95-6) and vestibulis (‘halls’, 132) caulis atque ignis (‘cabbage and
fire’, 134) tantum ipse (‘just himself’, 136).
66. Juvenal’s indignatio suffers gradual erosion as the satires proceed (cf.
Braund (1988), 1-23). Umbricius’ anger in the third satire resembles Juvenal’s
elsewhere in the first and second books, but his credibility as a spokesman is at
least questionable. In the fourth satire anger is an inadequate response, in the fifth
Trebius (and not the Juvenal in the poem) is angry, but that does not save him
from being abject, and finally in the thirteenth Calvinus’ anger is explicitly
condemned as childish.
67. It is true that the sphragis convention of a final piece or section containing
autobiographical material is some sort of preparation for this. See e.g. Callim. Aet.
4, fr. 112Pf; V. Georg. 4.559-66; Hor. Odes 2.20; 3.30; Epp. 1.20; Prop. 1.22; Ov. Met.
15.871-9. Cf. also Hor. Sat. 1.10.76-92.
68. There is a further complication in that in the sixth satire a resemblance to
Ovid’s Ars Amatoria is signalled (perhaps most obviously at 6.60-2), for the Ars
itself claims a real-world distance from traditional poetic (specifically didactic)
inspiration (Ov. AA 1.25-30, especially usus – ‘use’ – at 29), even if rather whimsi-
cally since on the one hand Hesiod’s Works and Days is highly practical at one level
and Ovid’s poem might claim a literary realism, but is obviously not a text-book
for practical use.
69. On Juv. 1.1-21 see Henderson (1995), 101-37.
70. Tacitus, in a programmatic passage, explains away the triviality of his own
Annals and notes that writing histories of the Punic wars is now safe (Tac. Ann.
4.32-3).
71. We know nothing of an epic-writer called Telesinus. Likely enough, neither
did Juvenal’s audience; Juvenal is certainly not referring to a completed poem
available to the public.
72. Although he mentions an Agaue, Statius’ epic Thebaid is Juvenal’s main
target. Perhaps the Agaue was ‘pure’ poetry (cf. intactam, 7.87) subsequently
turned into a mime.
73. For other dismissive treatments of epic in Juvenal see pp. 111-13.
74. Epic and tragedy share the material of the ‘heroic age’. Furthermore,
although when combined with carmen or versus the word heroicus denotes epic,
when referring to characters of the story-pool it can be applied as well to charac-
ters who are tragic as to those who are epic in their profile. Heros, too, when it
applies within the world of literature, cannot really distinguish epic and tragedy.
There is also a general similarity in the performance of a narrative with extensive
use of speeches for the different characters and the performance of tragedy as
drama, reinforced by the perception of the Iliad as tragic (see e.g. Plato Theaet.
152e; Arist. Poetics 1448b-9b). In general, stage words (tragicus, scaenicus,
171
mimicus) can apply metaphorically to situations in real (for tragicus cf. Cic. Brut.
55.203; de Or. 3.8.30; Livy 1.46.3; Prop. 2.20.29; Hor. Epp. 2.1.166; AP 236; Ov. Tr.
2.407; Mart. 8.18.8; tragice at Cic. Brut. 11.43; Sen. Ep. 100.10; tragoedia at Cic.
de Or. 1.51.219; 2,52.205; Quint. 6.1.36. By contrast, words from non-dramatic
genres do not tend so to apply. This ability for stage-related words to apply beyond
the stage is part of the generalised metaphor of life as stage, for which see Jones
(1991).
75. One should remember (as also in the context of Cat. 50) that wax tablets
(cerae) were very much an un-literary mode of communication, used typically for
daily ephemera.

1. On the complexity of the audience see Devitt (2000), 707-11.
2. See Brown and Yule (1983).
3. On this distinction cf. Hinds (1998), 41-2.
4. See Cairns (1972), 6; Depew and Obbink (2000), 3; Beebee (1994), 3; Selden
(1994), 39-64; Volk (2002), 25-68. In this context we can look at Juv. 11 as satire
and as invitatio, 12 as satire and as sôtêria, 13 as satire and as consolatio.
5. Cf. Cairns (1972), 34 on genres arising from responses to recurrent situa-
tions. See Bakhtin (2000), 82-97; Todorov (2000), 200-9; Berkenkotter and Huckin
(1993); Berkenkotter and Huckin (1995), 4-13.
6. On such positionings, see Hinds (1998), 52-83.
7. Quintilian in his review of Latin literature writes that Horace is virtually the
only Latin lyric poet worth reading (10.1.96), but adds, rather perfunctorily,
Caesius Bassus, the addressee of one of Persius’ satires (Pers. 6.1ff.) and refers also
to living talents who far outshine him – perhaps unconvincingly since this is a
recurrent motif (cf. 94 on satire, 104 on history, 122 on oratory and 3.1.21 for the
general thought). We know also (from Statius; Silv. 1.3.103) that P. Manlius
Vopiscus attempted lyric (and satire and epic), and Pliny regarded Passenus Paulus
well (Ep. 9.22.2) and knows of amateur lyricists (3.1.7; 7.4.9).
8. There are poems in lyric metres by Varro in his Menippean Satires, by
Catullus (and others of his time) and Statius, but no extant collections of lyric.
Horace ignores Catullus in claiming to be the first Latin lyricist (Odes 3.30; Epp.
1.19.23ff.), though we should note that he ignores Catullus on arguably less secure
(or more tendentious) ground in also claiming to be the first Latin iambist (Epp.
1.19.23ff.).
9. On the hazy border between epic and didactic cf. n. 35 below, citing Volk,
Gale.
10. See Opacki (2000).
11. Hinds (2000), 221-44.
12. There is some sort of mitigation provided by Callimachus’ hymn (5) in
elegiacs in a collection of hexameter hymns.
13. There is, of course, a mass of Hellenistic mythological narrative in elegiacs.
14. Horace lists comedy, tragedy, epic, bucolic, and satire (Sat. 1.10.40ff.) and
epic, elegy, iambic, tragedy, and lyric (AP 73-85); Ovid lists epic, tragedy, iambic,
elegy (RA 373ff.); Quintilian lists epic-didactic, elegy, satire, iambic, lyric, tragedy,
comedy, history, oratory, philosophy (10.1.85ff.); Martial lists epic, tragedy, lyric,
172
satire, elegy, and epigram in a descending hierarchy (12.94). Ov. Am. 1.15,
asserting the immortality of the fame poets achieve, lists Greek (9-18) and Latin
(19-30) poets: each is given a brief characterisation which makes it look as though
the intention is to convey a broad generic coverage. See too Hor. Epp. 1.19.21-34;
2.2.54ff.
15. Lyne (1978), 178 suggests that Varro imitated Catullus’ Lesbia poems.
16. In this poem Propertius opposes this kind of poetry, love poetry, to epic,
tragedy, didactic and Virgilian poetry: the Aeneid, Eclogues and Georgics are all
characterised, but the transition to the next section of the poem suggests they
form a particular kind of poetry, viz. poetry by Virgil.
17. For Callimachus and Philetas as love poets see also Prop. 2.34.31-2.
18. In the preceding section Ovid deals similarly with Greek literature and
covers Anacreon, Sappho, Callimachus, Menander, Homer, a number of tragedies,
Aristides, Eubius and Hemitheon.
19. The full list is: Cicero, Calvus, Asinius Pollio, M. Messala, Q. Hortensius, M.
Brutus, L. Sullam, Q. Catulus, Q. Scaevola, Servius Sulpicius, Varro, more than
one Torquatus, C. Memmius, Lentulus Gaetulicus, Seneca, Verginius Rufus, Julius
Caesar, Augustus (Nero is ‘passed over’), Virgil, Cornelius Nepos, Nerva and
Tiberius.
20. When Ovid puts himself in fourth place chronologically he omits a number
of elegists of whom we know. He is creating a generically based canon.
21. It should also be remembered that manuscripts of Tibullus contain a very
odd compilation indeed, which appears to have a plurality of rationales.
22. Hinds (1998), 106; see 100-22 for the full discussion.
23. The modern arrangement of the Idylls is due to Stephanus in his Poetae
Graeci (1566); the manuscript tradition is messy. There are at least three different
selections and arrangements and various hybrids. See Gow (1952), xxx-lxix. For
Callimachus and Lucilius see Puelma Piwonka (1949). On Theocritus’ supposed
bucolic book see Lawall (1967); Halperin (1983), 136; Hunter (1999), 27-8.
24. Perhaps, like Cavafy in modern times, Catullus produced a number of ad
hoc gatherings of poems, possibly with different dedicatees.
25. Jocelyn (1999) has shown that the language and grammar used make it
clear that Catullus recognised the distinctions between iambic, hendecasyllabic
verse, and lyric.
26. Varro’s verse inserts in the Menippean Satires show a strong overlap with
the metres of Catullus’ polymetrics (they include poems in iambics, scazons, hexa-
meters, hendecasyllables and lyric metres). There is, however, the obvious
difference that the context of these pieces of verse is the context of the individual
prosimetric satires in which they are placed. Ross (1969), 155-60, stresses the
dissimilarities between Laevius’ Erotopaegnia and Catullus. Petr. Sat. 5 has a
poem starting in one metre and changing to another. Even in the prosimetric
narrative tradition this seems remarkable.
27. The word iambi is used by Catullus and others (Cat. 36.5; 40.2; 54,6;
Porphyrion at Hor. Odes 1.16.22, quoting an otherwise unknown Catullan
hendecasyllable) in a way which suggests a body of at least largely abusive mate-
rial including poems in hendecasyllables.
28. Hendecasyllabi (12.10; 42.1) also suggests a body of at least partly abusive
material, at least largely in hendecasyllables. See Loomis (1972), 34-42 for the
173
history of the hendecasyllable; see Quint. 1.8.6; Pliny Ep. 4.14 for an association
with obscenity. Tacitus uses the word carmina at Ann. 4.34.8 to refer to poems by
Bibaculus and Catullus abusing Caesar, irrespective of metre; cf. Cat. 57 in
hendecasyllables and 93 in elegiacs.
29. See Minyard (1985).
30. In the polymetrics Catullus also refers to his poetry as nugae (‘trifles’, 1.4),
versiculi (‘little verses’, 16.3; 50.4) and ineptiae (‘foolishnesses’, 14a.1). See also
ludo (‘play’) in Carm. 50.
31. The manuscripts have it as book 16, but the fragments known to come from
this book do not seem to square with this. Either one or some satires in the book,
now lost, were enough to justify the title despite other themes being present (as
with ‘Lesbia’ used as a label for Catullus’ miscellaneous libellus), or the manu-
scripts are wrong. It has been suggested that book 21 (of which no fragments
remain) is meant.
32. Perhaps 1039-40W belong to the same narrative, building towards the comic
anti-climax. Perhaps there was another ‘autobiographical’ narrative of an argu-
ment with a mistress called Hymnis and reconciliation in sex (cf. Prop. 4.8) in book
29 (887-99W; a Hymnis is referred to also in the unplaced fragments, 1166-7 and –
where Lucilius appears to say that she claims to have made him her slave by incan-
tation or singing – 1168).
33. A similarity in terms of the abusive content is also implicit in the descrip-
tion of Lucilius, like Catullus, as an iambist (Diomedes GLK 1.485.11-17; Apul.
Apol. 10). For Ennius’ background in Greek iambic see Muecke (2005), 36-7.
34. Lucilius uses the terms sermo, ‘conversation’ and ludus, ‘game’ (1039M,
apparently also at Lucil. 1085 and 1086W) and schedium (see Ingersoll (1912),
59ff.), which implies an element of improvisation (1131W)); cf. nugae at Cat. 1.4
and Hor. Sat. 1.9.2. For ludo see Cat. 50 and Hor. Sat. 1.4.138; 1.10.37. Lucilius
claims to impart something important in such verse as he can write (quibus potest)
in 791-2W. For versibus … quibus potest cf. Catull. 1.
35. See Knox (1986), 9-47 on elegiac and other elements in the Metamorphoses.
36. See Hardie (1993), 1 for the ‘totalising impulse’ of epic; cf. Bakhtin (1981),
4-40; Conte (1994), 115-25; Jenkyns (2005).
37. For Latin theoretical material see Russell (1979).
38. For competitive inclusiveness in Ovid’s elegiac poetry cf. Harrison (2002). In
the Heroides and Fasti he plays with epic content, in the Ars Amatoria and
Remedia Amoris with didactic form and scale.
39. Jupiter’s is the final version of history, and Aeneas’ duty is represented by
Jupiter (and Anchises and Mercury), whereas his emotions are ascribed to Juno
(mistakenly assisted by Venus).
40. This remains true even though it is the poet who chooses the genre.
41. See p. 138 on the extent to which performance might leave open or narrow
down the scope for audience subjectivity.
42. Propertius will not attend Tullus overseas (Prop. 1.6; cf. 2.30B; travel is a
constant antibody to love in the elegies), but is a soldier in real war (= love) or a
slave, that most unRoman thing to be, subject to public criticism (Prop. 1.12;
2.30B); love is madness or illness (1.1; 1.10) and sets love elegy before war-epic
(Prop. 1.7; 1.9; 2.1; 3.3; cf. 3.9); at a public celebration of military triumph
Propertius is a spectator merely.
174
43. For Propertius’ addressee Postumus (Prop. 3.12), the amalgam of epic-
travel and love is less fraught.
44. On the concept of a generic space (as applied to Ovid’s Heroides) cf. Conte
(1994), 117. Note also how in Cicero’s De Legibus Atticus claims that Rome has no
historian who can rank with the Greeks, and urges the Cicero-figure to fill the gap
(Cic. de Leg. 1.5-6).
45. Arguably, Horace’s first ode performs a similar function, giving a pageant of
occupations which also stands for a review of different types of literature, and in
which Horace creates a space for himself which is already labelled ‘Greek lyric
(Latin version)’.
46. Seneca discusses the issue from a different point of view (but also using the
word mons – cf. Juv. 3.258) at Ep. 57.6-7.
47. Suet. Nero 38.
48. Cf. Isoc. ad Nic.; Cic. ad Q. fr. 1.1; Pliny Ep. 8.24; see Zucker (1928), 217-
22.
49. See Caes. BG 7.77; Sall. BJ 81 (cf. Hist. 4 fr. 69M); Livy 10.16.4ff.; 21.19.9ff.;
26.13.4ff.; Tac. Agr. 15, 30-3; Hist. 4.14; 4.68.4; Ann. 1.59; 14.31-2; Dio 62.3-5.
50. Observe Tacitus’ cynical comment at Hist. 4.68.4, where Julius Valentinus
brings out ‘all the usual things brought up against great empires’ (cuncta magnis
imperiis obiectari solita, ‘everything customarily brought up against great
empires’).
51. See Hinds (1998), 104-22.
52. See p. 28.

1. For names as a generic indicator see Fowler (1982), 75-87.
2. Cf. Jones (1996), 65 and 105. In narrative extended to any length, there tends
to be a high incidence of pronominalisation, so that counting the frequency of
names in different genres can be misleading. Higher numbers of characters
referred to in a passage frequently entail a greater degree of repetition of the same
individuals’ names. There is also a variety in the application of names. A mytho-
logical name can represent a mythological personage, a literary work, or a slave, or
can stand ironically for a contemporary character. Gods’ names can represent that
for which they stand, as Ceres for bread, Bacchus for wine.
3. Tragedy and a number of epic sub-genres, if so they might be called, epyllion,
Homeric and Callimachean hymns, and didactic in its mythological insertions
follow the same pattern.
4. It is part of the plan of the Aeneid to prefigure Rome from a Homeric starting
point and so a good number of the human names anticipate Roman names.
5. See Jones (1996), 96-102 citing Hägg (1971), 25ff. on Xenophon Ephesius and
Whitehead (1988) on the other Xenophon’s Hellenica.
6. Looking in another way, we can see similarities across generic boundaries
among writers belonging to the republican period, among the Augustans, among
Neronian, and among Flavian authors, and so on.
7. Bucolic has its own generically branded names, largely from Theocritus and
Greek pastoral, but it also allows an admixture of contemporary Roman names,
and this fits its ambiguous position: bucolic space is separate from the real world,
175
but the real world impinges on it, and poetry penetrates the boundary in both
directions.
8. For tables see Appendix.
9. One dealt with Scipio or perhaps the villain Asellus (see 424-5), the others
concerned Scipio in Spain in 134-133 BC, L. Aurelius Cotta, the consul of 144 BC,
addressed to Pacenius (440-2W) and mocking, C. Cassius – again mocking, Q.
Granius the auctioneer, and Q. Opimius the consul of 154 BC, apparently rather or
partially critical (see 450-2W). The Granius anecdote begins conicere in versus
dictum praeconis volebam / Grani (448-9W; ‘I wanted to throw into verse a saying
of the auctioneer Granius’) like a Catullan anecdote. There is a story about
Granius’ wit in Cic. Brut. 46.172 as though a different story from this, perhaps
even one of many. Nothing suggests a really critical tone.
10. Proportionally this is quite high, but reflects the epigrammatic stylism of
making a point by figured repetitions of names (as later in Martial’s epigrams).
11. She is a precedent for the besotting beloveds of elegy in character and name
(see Randall, 1979). Lyne (1978) argues that ‘Lesbia’ type poetry was not charac-
teristic of the other poets often called neoterics.
12. There are some exaggeratedly sentimental poems to Juventius (24, 48, 81,
99). Besides this, in Cat. 10 Varus’ girl has clearly attracted Catullus’ attention. In
15 and 21 Catullus is concerned about the exposure of an unnamed boy to
Aurelius’ lust. In 32 Catullus has extravagant sexual designs on Ipsitilla. In 42
Catullus expresses no erotic interest in the girl who has his wax tablets – but why
has she got them? Has he been showing her his poems? – a pseudo-love poem to
Licinius (Calvus) (50), a casual sexual assault of a boy in 56. Aufillena, abused in
other poems, is abused for taking and not giving and for breaking a promise in 110.
13. In poems in which Lesbia is named there are, first of all, connections with
Roman people and places; Lesbia is the subject of an address to Caelius (58), she is
contrasted with the girlfriend of the Formianus decoctor (‘the Formian bankrupt’,
43; for whom cf. 57.4) who is elsewhere called Ameana (41), with Catullus (who
appears by name) and places in the Roman world (7) and anonymous though
Roman sounding old men (5). In 51 metre and the use of the word identidem
(‘again and again’; outstandingly prosaic in a poem in a lyric metre) we are invited
to draw a connection with 11 where the beloved – here unnamed – appears in
connection with Furius (elsewhere at 16, 23 and 26) and Aurelius (elsewhere at 15,
16 and 21). In this poem Catullus also names himself. Catullus also names himself
in connection with Lesbia in 7, 51, 58 and 79, and with his beloved (herself
unnamed) in 8, 11, 13 (where Fabullus also appears, for whom see too 12, 28 and
47), 68.135 and 76. In 37 a girl loved as no other will be – a phrase which links the
poem with 8 – appears in connection with the Egnatius also abused in 39. In 36
Catullus’ girl, herself whimsically called the worst of girls, has made a vow to burn
the verses of the worst of poets – Catullus ironically calls himself this in 49, but
here he whimsically takes it that the girl means not him, but Volusius.
Connections with the outer world are much thinner in the elegiacs, but there is
117 where Caelius is addressed (as in 58) and there is an anonymous reference to
Catullus’ passionate and crazy love. There is also a contrast with a woman with
the Roman name Quintia (86) and a possible cryptic connection with Clodius
Pulcher in 79.
14. Lesbia has a name which is not sociologically credible for a woman in the
176
Rome of Catullus’ day, but is a pseudonym whose Sapphic explanation is provided

by Cat. 51.
15. Hipponax’s Bupalus is referred to programmatically in Epod. 6, but Horace
does not use the characteristically Hipponactean metre, the scazon, whereas he
does fairly comprehensively utilise Archilochean metres; see Watson (2003), 43-5.
16. Mankin (1995), 9. See also Watson (2003), 7-11.
17. On Mevius see Mankin (1995), at Epod. 10.2, doubting a link with V. Ecl.
3.90. A Varus appears in Epod. 5 (69-82) in a rather incidental capacity.
18. See Watson (2003), 9-10 on the social character of Archilochus (and
Tyrtaeus, Callinus, and Solon).
19. On realism see Jones (1991).
20. See Rudd (1966), 132-59.
21. Some human names are historical (as Decius in 1.6) or literary antecedents
(as Terence, Lucilius, and Aristophanes); some divine names are in speech rather
than in Horace’s own discourse (as Hecate and Tisiphone in 1.8); some names are
repeated within a satire (as Cocceius in 1.5); one might also consider names from
literature (such as Davus and Chremes at 1.10.40) as a special category and names
from Lucilius as a special group within it.
22. The place which cannot be named in hexameters (Hor. Sat. 1.5.87) reminds
us of the feast-day which also cannot be named in hexameters in Lucilius (252-
3W). Morgan (2000: 112-13) argues that both passages make a point about the
poet’s subject being in conflict with not only the metre, but also the ethos of epic.
23. Observe here that in the 936 lines of Horace’s first book of epistles there are
103 human names (mainly male) as against 129 geographical or place names and
44 divine or mythological names. The distortion in the number of divine or mytho-
logical names is largely due to the Homeric lesson in Epp. 1.2. The fall in human
names is to do with the semblance of letter-form the poems have. The very striking
rise in geographical names is to do with the thematic concerns of the book (see
Jones (1993b).
24. The bare figure gives a perhaps rather exaggerated picture, for Martial
frequently makes a closural point in short epigrams by returning to, i.e. repeating,
the target’s name, and sometimes decorates epigrams with multiple repetitions of
a name (as with the sevenfold use of Issa’s name in 1.109) after the manner of Cat.
58 or some of the short elegiac poems. On Martial’s use of names, see briefly
Watson and Watson (2003), 12-15; Giegengack (1969). Caesar (Titus) figures
frequently in the openly panegyrical De spectaculis (‘On the Shows’).
25. The epigram tradition in this respect remains unchanged despite the
Catullan strand’s diversion into elegy.
26. In Catullus’ short poems we find a range of metres, apparently separated
into two bodies, the polymetrics and the elegiacs. Among the former we find
hendecasyllables, iambics, scazons, and various lyric metres. Martial claims
Catullus as a predecessor in epigram (see Watson and Watson (2003), 34-6) and in
practice treats the polymetrics and the elegiacs as a single entity, intermixing as he
does elegiacs, hendecasyllables, scazons, and a small number of other (all non-
lyric) metres in all the numbered books. When we come to Statius’ Silvae (for
chronology see Nauta (2002), 285-9, 444) the range of metres narrows, but the
principle of polymetricity remains, and indeed in at least one respect becomes
more striking. The bulk of the poems are in the hexameter – not used in Catullus’
177
shorter poems and used only four times by Martial. Books 3 and the posthumous
5 of the Silvae are unmixed hexameter books, and books 1 and 2 are each entirely
in hexameters except for the final poem (on the hendecasyllable as the ‘anti-heroic
measure par excellence’, see Morgan (2000), 114-20; (2004), 18-20). In the fourth
book we have an interweaving of hexameters (1, 2, 4, 6, and 8) with hendecasylla-
bles (3, 9), and the lyric Alcaics (5) and Sapphics (7). With the mixture of
hexameters, epigrammatic, and lyric metres in a single book, Statius carries the
implications of the Catullan corpus and Martial’s collections further.
27. On Statius and Catullus see Bright (1980), 6-7.
28. See libelli at praef. 1.3 (= the poems of book 1; cf. praef. 3.2); leves libellos
quasi epigrammatis loco scriptos (‘light little books written in the way of epigram’)
at praef. 2.16 (= Silv. 2.3 and 2.4); primus libellus at praef. 1.16 (= Silv. 1.1);
libellus at praef. 1.27 (= Silv. 1.4). By contrast, totus liber at praef. 2.4 means a
whole book (book 2); huic libro at praef. 2.23 means book 2; see too tertius hic
Silvarum liber at praef. 3.7; cf. liber at praef. 4.1, 4. Other modesty gambits are
opuscula at praef. 2.3; cf. praef. 4.3; haec qualiacumque sunt at praef. 2.28.
29. This converts to figures per thousand lines as follows: 335 names in
Juvenal’s first book of satires, whereas in Horace there are 257 in the first book,
295 in Epistles 1, and in Persius’ Satires there are 224.
30. The figures are: human names per book; Hor. Sat. 1, 181 names; Juvenal 1-
5, 167 names; Juvenal 7-9, 135 names; Hor. Sat. 2, 133 names; Hor. Epp. 1, 103
names; Juvenal 6, 88 names; Juvenal 10-12, 82 names; Juvenal 13-16, 56 names.
Human names per 1000 lines: Juvenal 7-9, 202 names; Hor. Sat. 1, 176 names;
Juvenal 1-5, 169 names; Juvenal 6, 127 names; Hor. Sat. 2, 123 names; Juvenal 10-
12, 116 names; Hor. Epp. 1, 110 names; Juvenal 13-16, 69 names.
31. Turnus may have been a formative influence. Two lines are quoted by
Juvenal’s scholiast (at 1.71) to explain Juvenal’s reference to Lucusta, the
Neronian poisoner. Slight as this evidence is, it hints at the possibility that
Turnus’ subject matter included the imperial scandals and crimes of the previous
generation. It may mean nothing that Juvenal does not name Turnus in his
programmatic first satire, since Lucilius was the pre-eminent name for that
context. See Coffey (1979).
32. Cf. LaFleur (1973), 745A-746A; Pyne (1979), 1449A.
33. On this and the naming of Virro in the fifth satire see Jones (1987a), 148-
54.
34. The other names in the passage are all found in comparative ornaments:
one place name, Thabraca (194), and six other names, Cossus (202), Oppia,
Themison, Basilus, Maura, and Hamillus.
35. Another, and somewhat similar, case of contrastive frequency comes in the
first satire (see LaFleur (1973), 745A-746A). In this programmatic satire refer-
ences to exemplary satirists (Lucilius, Horace and the unknown and apparently
worthless Cluvienus) frame and subdivide a single paragraph in which following
the references to Lucilius and Horace respectively he imitates their respective
naming habits.
36. Rudd (1966), 147-50 on pseudonyms.
37. See Ferguson’s list (1987), 9.
38. Lesbia and Cynthia at Juv. Sat. 6.7-8; Corydon from Virg. Ecl. 2 at 9.102;
Cordus in Sat. 3 from Mart. 3.15; Chione from Mart. 3.30.
178
39. Juvenal claims that he will try what is allowed against the dead at the end
of the first satire, but we are not necessarily empowered to take that declaration
as extending beyond the first book, and even there we may perhaps read no more
into it than an ironic twist to the conventional escape-clause gambit at the end of
satiric programmes (Hor. Sat. 2.1; Pers.1), a dramatic punch-line to match the
dramatic opening. ‘The dead’, of course, is too crude, too all-inclusive a para-
phrase. Juvenal’s own phrase, on the other hand (‘those buried along the
Flaminian and Latin Ways’) is poetically specific and graphic rather than literal.
Obviously he is not concerned solely with those buried alongside two particular
roads. The scholiast may have a point in glossing the names as viae in quibus
nobiles sepeliebantur (‘streets on which nobles were buried’), even if some quite
humble people were buried there too (so Courtney ad loc.).
40. See Rudd (1976), 89 for more detail on the seventh satire.
41. Mart. 6.33, 7.10, 8.42, 10.46, 11.68, and, unless Maro be read, 4.80.
42. Massa at Mart. 12.29, Pliny Ep. 3.4.4, 6.29, 7.33 (offering information to
Tacitus), Tac. Agr. 45; already a dangerous figure in AD 70 according to Tacitus
(Hist. 4.50). Carus at Mart. 12.25; Pliny Ep. 1.5.3, 3.11.3, 7.19.5, 7.27.14, 7.33.4;
Tac. Agr. 45, Hist. 4.52; see also Cassius Dio 67.13.2.
43. Mevia herself is unknown (Juv. 1.22-3), but female amphitheatrical hunting
is attested under Nero (Tac. Ann. 15.32; Dio Cass. 61.17.3), Titus (Mart. Spect. 8;
Dio Cass. 66.25.1) and Domitian (Suet. Dom. 4). The activities of Proculeius and
Gillo are timeless; so far as we can tell they are not figures from literature, and
their names could be fictional or real. If they are fictional their point must be that
they are simply that: names. If they are real they would be pointless unless recent
enough to be remembered.
44. Ferguson (1987), 8-9.
45. This is true also for didactic and lyric in varying degrees. Virgilian bucolic
chiefly takes gods from the pool, although Theocritus is more wide-ranging in his
use of mythological names.
46. Cf. Caelius’ use of quadrantaria Clytaemnestra (‘twopenny Clytemnestra’;
Quint. 8.6.53). See Jones (1996), 77 citing also Cassandra caligaria (‘Cassandra-
in-boots’, Petr. 74.14) and Ulyssem stolatam (‘Ulysses-in-a-dress’, Suet. Gai. 23).
47. Horace translates (and very slightly changes) the same line at the end of
Sat. 1.9. According to Porphyrio (at Hor. Sat. 1.9.78) Horace took the line from
Homer, nevertheless it may still be the case that Horace has Lucilius in mind (it is
possible that there is a similar relationship between this satire of Horace and one
of Lucilius’, and Horace’s Brundisium satire (Sat. 1.5) and another of Lucilius’ (in
book 3).
48. Servius auctus commenting on Virgil (Aen. 8.9) knows of a reference to a
Diomedes story in Lucilius.
49. Cunnus is here a metonymy and not pars pro toto: it is ‘cunt’ that has
always been the abominable cause of war rather the occasional particular woman,
as the sequel expands.
50. Cf. Hor. Odes 4.9.25.
51. Horace is rescued from battle by an epic divine intervention in Odes 2.7, a
poem in which he throws away his shield as Archilochus, Alcaeus, and Anacreon
had done (in their poems at least), making the literary posing of the ode quite
complex. See Barchiesi (2000).
179
52. According to the scholiasts, at least. For Empedocles cf. Hor. AP 465-7.
Davus’ lecture is third hand, coming from Crispinus’ porter (Sat. 2.7.45), and
Crispinus is clearly a satirical figure (Sat. 1.1.120; 1.3.139; 1.4.14).
53. It is in this epistle that the greatest concentration of epic names is found,
elsewhere sparse.
54. Human names are less frequent than in the first book, but in compensation,
as it were, the interlocutors of the dialogues (and some other characters) are
strongly foregrounded.
55. Various nymphs of the name are listed in OCD2. Note also Chariton’s
Chaereas and Callirhoe.
56. Cee Coleman (1990).
57. See Laguna (1998), 45; Pederzani (1993), 21-31; Newlands (2002), 26-7, 147-
9, 200-1, 203-4, 211-26, 253-4; Gibson (1996), 457-68.
58. Cf. Bright (1980), 11-12.
59. Cf. Markus (2000), 163-8.
60. Statius owes something to Janus’ speech in Ovid’s Fasti (1.101-44), but does
not himself, as Ovid proceeds to do, enter into dialogue with Janus.
61. On the mythological spokesperson as a technique borrowed from Hellenistic
panegyric see Coleman (1999).
62. Note also the trick with Tantalus in Hor. Sat. 1.1.68-9. Elsewhere see
Automedo meus at Varro Men. 257; pluralised names are common in generalisa-
tion.
63. Note also the younger Helvidius’ farce (scenicum exodium) on Paris and
Oenone, which was thought to reflect Domitian’s divorce (Suet. Dom. 10).
64. The higher floors of apartment blocks were inhabited by poorer occupants
than the ground floor. The point, I believe, of frivola is that Ucalegon has already
moved his valuables into safety and is now removing – at his leisure – the little
things that remain.
65. Pegasus at Juv. 4.77 is the man’s name (Plotius Pegasus); nonetheless, in
this particularly epicised satire the coincidence may be noted (as perhaps also in
the case of the Picenian (Picens) at 65).
66. Note also the Meleager, of whom Virro’s boar is worthy (Juv. 5.115);
Trebius’ hypothetical little Aeneas (son) at Juv. 5.139.
67. See too the Ajax at Juv. 7.115; Celaeno at 8.130; Ajax at 10.84; Endymion at
10.318; Iphigeneia at 12.119; Pylades at 16.26. These are not figures in extended
narrative, so there is little scope for the variety of nomenclature found in actual
epics, where names, patronymics, and other substitutes are to a large extent inter-
changeable.
68. For further detail see Jones (2007).
69. By contrast Ovid’s exile elegies raise the issue of the relation between the
poetry and the world at large strongly. See Gibson (1999), 19-37.
70. In Propertius’ first book of Elegies Tullus stands for civic and military
responsibilities, Bassus for the temptations of infidelity, Ponticus for epic. Perhaps
Gallus is a Propertian alter ego.
71. For example, we see the prominent disposition of signpost Augustan figures
about the corpus. The name Caesar is found 8 times in the first book. In the whole
collection Maecenas is addressed in 1.1, 1.20, 2.12, 2.17, 3.8, and 3.29. Of the three
books, the first begins with a poem addressed to Maecenas, and the second with
180
one addressed to another significant figurehead Asinius Pollio (the third does not
begin with an addressed poem, but instead begins with the set of six overtly
Augustan poems, the ‘Roman odes’).
72. In Greek and Latin epigram, the erotic escapades of Lucilius, and the
Epodes and Odes of Horace these names tend strongly to be Greek rather than
Roman. This is to some extent a literary manner, and the names often have
antecedents in Hellenistic poetry, but the names are also the kind of names that
can be attested from inscriptions and reflect the sociology of available sex in Rome.
See Lyne (1982), 199; Jones (1986), 379-82.
73. We find satirical tones elsewhere (as a local colour in Lucretius, Horace’s
Odes, Virgil’s Georgics, Lucan, declamation and elsewhere), but not in significant
connection with use of names. We find or know of criticism or abuse of identified
individuals widely (senatorial and forensic speeches, political pamphlets and
lampoons, Fescennine verse). The functions, including apotropy and release of
tension, are manifold, but abuse is always socially difficult: it needs safeguards –
some form of social sanction, authority, or justification. There is a clear difference
between Lucilius and Catullus on the one hand and Horace, Persius, Juvenal, and
Martial on the other. See generally Koster (1980).
74. See Chapter 4 n. 51 below. Cf. Rudd (1976), 117; Peter White (1972), (1975),
(1978); Hardie (1983), 58-72.
75. Rosati (2005) ingeniously draws the Silvae into relationship with post-
Ovidian elegy.
76. Ovid’s erotic ‘didactics’ (in arguably unauthoritative elegiacs), of course, are
not mainstream didactic poetry, but offshoots of erotic elegy.
77. Twenty-five times in Catullus; twice in Tibullus; once in the elegies of
Lygdamus; eight times in Propertius; four times in Ovid’s Amores, forty-three
times in the exile poetry (the love elegy cases include a significant number of exam-
ples connected with the motif of the poets’ sepulchral inscriptions); once in
Horace’s Epodes as Flaccus, once as Horatius, once in the Satires as Flaccus
(2.1.18), once in the Odes as Horatius (4.6.44); seven times as Martialis, and seven
as Marcus, in Martial.
78. Virgil figures as Menalcas in Eclogues 5 and 9 (although Gallus and other
Romans retain their own names).
79. Lucilius at Lucil. 763, 791-2, 814, 930, Gaius at 1075, 1134; Flaccus at Hor.
Sat. 2.1.18.

1. The last satire of the book is an account of a dinner hosted by Nasidienus
Rufus and attended by Fundanius (who gives the account to Horace), Maecenas
and two of his attendants (Vibidius and Servilius Balatro), Viscus Thurinus,
Varius, Nomentanus, and Porcius. The leading role is Nasidienus, and Maecenas
has a small star guest appearance. The rest are important in varying degrees. Of
these characters Fundanius, Maecenas, and Varius are real and known to us, and
Viscus Thurinus (?cf. Sat. 1.10.83) is presumably also real; of Nomentanus and
Porcius, the parasites of the host, the one is from Lucilius and Porcius (Piggy) is a
significant type name; probably Balatro (cf. Sat. 1.2.2) is a type name as well. That
leaves Nasidienus: there seems no merit in arguing (after Lambinus) that this is a
181
code name for Salvidienus Rufus: there is no evidence that the latter was a
gourmet and his execution six or so years earlier (Vell. Pat. 2.74.6) would suggest
that Horace would not need a cover name. I presume, as does Classen (1978), 335,
that Nasidienus was familiar to Horace’s audience.
2. See Classen (1978).
3. See on this point Cic. ad Fam. 9.8; ad Att. 13.19.2-3; cf. also ad Att. 13.14;
15.1; 13.16.1. There are also the fictional dialogues of Virgil’s even-numbered
eclogues (with their Theocritean background), and the literary mime.
4. Cf. Anderson (1963). Menippus (perhaps via Varro’s Menippean Satires) may
be a contributory figure.
5. Freudenburg (2001) argues that Horace’s mild satire is a sort of meta-satire,
condemning contemporary conditions for preventing him from writing satire. See
also DuQuesnay (1984); Ruffell (2003).
6. Muecke (1995), 203-18.
7. See Muecke (1995), 208 citing Cic. ad Fam. 7.6.2, 7.16.3.
8. See p. 4 above.
9. See p. 4 above.
10. The hypocritical Alfius in Epodes 2 may resemble the moralising ‘Horace’
of Sat. 2.2.
11. See primum (‘Firstly’, Hor. Sat. 2.3.41) and audire atque togam iubeo
componere (‘Settle down, please, and pay attention’, 2.3.77).
12. Cf. the treatment of the farm-steward in Hor. Epp. 1.14.
13. See Fraenkel (1957), 136-7; Rudd (1966), 208; Hudson (1989), 69-88.
14. See Rudd (1966), 161-5, 202-23; Gowers (1993b); Muecke (19972), 9-11.
15. In Greek Archestratus’ Hedypatheia (‘The Good Life’) is essentially a
parodic food-didactic; Rudd (1966), 204, Classen (1978), 340; note also Matron’s
Convivium Atticum (‘Attic Party’; Parod. Epic. Graec. p. 60 Brandt). Ennius’
Hedyphagetica (‘Fine Foods’) was a translation or imitation of Archestratus.
Varro’s Menippean peri edesmatôn (‘Concerning Edibles’) definitely included –
probably extensively – moralising. Cf. the experiments of the elegists in mixing
erotic material and didactic form, especially Tib. 1.4; Ov. AA and RA.
16. See Rudd (1966), 209-13; Classen (1978, 337-9) finds some humorous
touches.
17. Catius’ claim to novelty at 45-6 is false (K.-H. 273 quoting Archestratus F3
(p. 141 Brandt), and Horace makes fun of literary posturings at Epp. 2.2.91ff., but
a false claim of originality does not have to put Catius in the wrong: see Hinds
(1998), 52ff., on such claims in poetry.
18. Rudd (1966), 213 has Horace ‘making fun of Catius’ largely for his uncrit-
ical and absolute dependence on his rather pedantic source (and not ‘really
attacking luxury’).
19. Classen (1978) argues that Catius, the Epicurean philosopher who died in
46/45 BC and is mentioned by Cicero, Cassius, Quintilian and the younger Pliny, is
the specific target representing ‘those who follow Epicurus without understanding
his philosophy’ (345), and that this satire therefore balances the parody of a Stoic
philosopher in the preceding satire (cf. Odes 2.2-2.3 and Epp. 1.15-1.16 for Stoic-
Epicurean juxtapositions.
20. It is important as a theme also in Hor. Epp. 1 – see especially 1.7, 1.10, 1.14,
1.18.
182
21. See West (1974).

22. See Fraenkel (1957), 137 on Hor. Sat. 2.8 and the opening of Plato’s
Timaeus. On this satire see Jones (1987a).
23. Contrast Horace’s disclaimer in the Ofellus satire (Hor. Sat. 2.2.2).
24. Aristius Fuscus, who provides another point of perspective in Sat. 1.9, is
also supposed to have written comedies (Porph. on Hor. Epp. 1.10).
25. See Gowers (1993b), 25-6. For the Greek background of symposiastic liter-
ature see Rudd (1966), 214-15.
26. On the importance of the salutatio see Saller (1989), 57-8.
27. On the relation of architecture to social structure of the activities it houses
cf. Wallace-Hadrill (1989), 63-4; Wallace-Hadrill (1994).
28. Rudd (1966), 220.
29. It is also hard to be convinced that Nasidienus’ choice of Porcius and
Nomentanus as fellow guests for Maecenas is completely inept if we think that
Maecenas might find the behaviour (or a poetic account of it) of Sarmentus and
Messius Cicirrus amusing in Satires 1.5.51ff.
30. So Wickham, comparing the use of Tityre, te patulae at V. Georg. 4.566 as an
echo of Tityre, tu patulae at V. Ecl. 1.1.
31. Cf. Baker (1988); Henderson raises similar questions in regard to Sat. 1.9;
Henderson (1993).
32. On this see Jones (1993b).
33. The addressees and Cornutus in Persius’ Satires, too, were real contempo-
raries.
34. The prose dialogue of around Juvenal’s time follows the Platonic and
Ciceronian traditions (with more or less contemporary participants) – Tacitus’
Dialogus in Latin, Plutarch’s dialogues in Greek – although there is also the more
fanciful tradition of (e.g.) Lucian’s Dialogues of the Dead and Dialogues of the
Courtesans.
35. See Lafleur (1979), 158-77; (1976), 383-431.
36. Juv. 1.74; 3.42; 3.86; 3.92; 3.106; 4.18; 4.71; 4.121; 5.42; 6.435; 7.31; 8.58;
10.28; 11.58; 12.121; 13.32; 14.154; 14.182. The irony is especially clear with (as
here) the first person singular present indicative (4.18; 12.121).
37. See V. Aen. 12.665; Livy 1.7.6; 6.6.7; Sen. Contr. 7.1.1; Quint. 1.1.28.
38. See Howell on Mart. 1.59.1; 1.62.5; Varro Men. 44B; Cic. pro Cael. 35; Sen.
Ep. 51.3.
39. Juv. 3.190ff., 223ff.; cf. 169ff., 319. This contrast is very striking even if the
Greekness of Cumae is overstated – see Jensson (2004), 125 n. 278, 280-1.
40. See Adamietz (1972), 10.
41. Umbra: Sen. Contr. 3 praef. 13; Quint. 10.5.17; Juv. 7.105, 173; Tac. Ann.
14.53; umbraculum: Cic. Brut. 37; de Leg. 3.6.14; Umbratilius: Cic. de Or. 1.157;
Or. 64; umbraticus: Petr. 2.4; Plin. Ep. 9.2.3; Quint. 1.2.18; umbrosus: Sen. Contr.
9 praef. 5. See Jones (1988), 257. See also Austin at Quint. 10.10.15. Lafleur (1976),
390 n. 28 suggested a connection with umbra = parasite which seems plausible,
given the thematic prominence of amicitia in the book. The name does not seem
to have other significance: seven Umbricii are listed in RE (nos 5-7 are in Suppl.
Bd 9) of whom only Umbricius Melior (RE 4), the haruspex mentioned by Pliny
(NH 10.19) who predicted a plot against Galba (Tac. Hist. 1.27; Plut. Galb. 24) has
been thought relevant (see Braund (1990), 502-6). At most he seems only rather
183
jokingly relevant at Juv. 3.44ff. (where Umbricius refers to his inability to tell
fortunes – but by a different technique than haruspicy); cf. Lafleur (1976), 387.
The name is used in Latin verse only here.
42. See Sen. Contr. 3 praef. 7-18; 9 praef.; Petr. 1.1-3; Quint. 2.10.4-5; Tac. Dial.
35. See Jones (1989), 456 on Juv. 7.155-61.
43. See Coleman (1988), xix-xx, xxii. Disgruntlement could be a motive: see
D’Arms (1970), 158; cf. Vitellius at Tac. Hist. 3.63, 66; Cic. ad Fam. 7.1.4-5; see too
the fraudulent bankrupts at Juv. 11.49.
44. See Syme (1980), 44; Tuplin (1977), 6ff.; Vessey (1973), 45ff.; d’Arms (1970),
145-6; Connors (2000), 215-20.
45. There is the declamatory framework, and the epic business of Rome playing
the fall of Troy after both Virgil and Homer. Baines would add Thebes (after
Statius) connecting the nocturnal ambush of Tydeus in Theb. 2 with the scene at
Juv. 3.278-301; Baines (2003), 220-37, esp. 229-34. With 3.194-6 cf. also Luc. BC
1.494ff. There is the inversion of Aeneas’ arrival at Cumae on his way towards
Rome in Umbricius’ journey to Cumae from Rome (in both cases Rome is a ‘Greek
city’; Juv. 3.61; V. Aen. 6.98). There is, besides, the transformation of amicitia-liter-
ature at lines 69-125, on which see for example Cic. de Amicitia; Hor. Epp. 1.18.
On the background to friendship treatises see Fraisse (1974); Powell (1995), 31-45;
Fürst (1996); Fitzgerald (1996); Konstan (1997); and specifically on Horace:
McGann (1969); Macleod (1979), 16-27; Hunter (1985), 480-90; Mayer (1985), 33-
46; della Corte (1991), 67-81. There is also Umbricius’ moralising of lines 61-6; on
the rivers cf. Lucan BC 7.404-5; on the prostitutes cf. (though very differently)
Prop. 2.23.21. The countryside theatre (172-9) may owe something to Ovid (AA
1.101-8) or Martial (10.51), the fire in the apartment block to Martial (3.52), the
street scene (Juv. 3.249ff.) to Horace (Epp. 2.2.73-5), and the conclusion (315ff.) to
V. Ecl. 1.
46. We can compare the scale model, as it were, of Laronia in the second satire
(Juv. 2.36-65). Here the emphasis on the truth of what Laronia says is so strong
(2.64-5) that we would be sceptical even if details of what she says were not belied
by other (albeit later) passages in Juvenal. For 2.49 see 6.301ff.; for 2.51 see
6.242ff. (Val. Max. 8.3 finds three cases of women pleading).
47. See Jones (1990b).
48. For details see Highet (1954), 259-61; Vassileiou (1984); Morton Braund
(1996), notes ad locc.
49. For expressions of guilt or complicity see Tac. Agr. 45.1; Pliny Ep. 8.14.9;
9.13.2. Tacitus is, doubtless as a result, highly critical of the opposition as self-
indulgent reputation seekers: Agr. 42.4; cf. also Ann. 4.20.
50. See Tac. Agr. 6.3 with Ogilvie-Richmond; Ann. 3.30 on Sallustius Crispus;
Hist. 1.10 on Mucianus; 1.48 on Titus Vinius; Pliny Ep. 8.14.7; Griffin (1977), 21-
2. Cf. also Tac. Hist. 1.2; 3.58; Ann. 1.13.1 on Emperors suspecting ability, and for
vice or pretence of vice as a means of escaping notice see Tac. Ann. 16.18 on
Petronius; cf. Vell. Pat. 2.105 on Sentius Saturninus. For Brutus using pretence of
madness see Juv. 4.102-3; Livy 1.56.7f.; Ov. Fasti 2.717f.; for Claudius pretending
to be a fool see Suet. Claud. 38.3.
51. Lepidus at Tac. Ann. 4.20; Lucius Piso at Tac. Ann. 6.10 (cf. Vell. Pat. 2.98.2-
3; Sen. Ep. 83.14); Memmius Regulus at Tac. Ann. 14.47; see also Pliny Ep. 1.14.5
with Sherwin-White ad loc. See also Tac. Ann. 2.52 on Camillus and Tac. Agr. 17.2
184
on Julius Frontinus. Quies is a linked concept, virtually an expression of loyalty:

see Woodman’s full note on Vell. Pat. 2.88.2; Stat. Silv. 2.3.64-71 and White (1975),
272-3; Tac. Agr. 6.3; see also Liebeschütz (1966); Courtney at Juv. 4.111-12;
Sherwin-White on Pliny Ep. 1.14.5.
52. For the Odyssean model see Hyg. Fab. 95.
53. See Tac. Hist. 1.49.3; Suet. Claud. 38.3. The question of whether vice can be
feigned appears in declamation: Sen. Contr. 2.6.4, cf. 2.6.5.
54. Primus (75) is an epic commonplace, but in conjunction with properabat (76,
the word appears again at 94) suggests unseemly panic and haste. After Pegasus
the councillors appear to arrive in ones and twos.
55. Invocations to the Muse frequently introduce catalogues: Hom. Il. 2.484-6;
V. Aen. 7.641-5; 10.163-5; Sil. It. 3.222-7; Val. Flacc. 6.33-44.
56. See Williams (1978), 159-69. Vessey (1973), 31-4.
57. Cf. the parrot that taught itself to say Caesar, ave (‘Hail, Caesar’) at Mart.
14.73; cf. Anth. Pal. 9.562.
58. Jones (1990b), 58.
59. Cf. Tac. Ann. 14.11.3 on Nero’s enormity dwarfing complaint, so that it was
Seneca who received criticism.
60. On the blend of Domitian and Nero that Crispinus seems to be, see
Townend (1973), 155.
61. Cf. orbem at 37 and 132. For fish in Roman satire see Connors (2005), 124-
5.
62. See Morford (1977); Anderson (1957), 80-6; Lafleur (1979), 171-7; Jones
(1987a).
63. See Jones (1987a) for details.
64. Perhaps Trebius’ name is chosen to suit his borderline status. It is not rare,
but in Latin verse is only found here. No very significant historical holder can be
found before Juvenal’s time, and the nomen ‘is indistinctive’ (Syme (1969), 220).
It is found as a cognomen, but to no advantage. The only consuls of the name
became consuls later than Juv. 5 must have appeared (RE Trebius 3, 4, and 7),
respectively C. Trebius Maximus (cos. 122), L. Trebius Germanus (cos. c. 125) and
the ordinarius of 132, C. Trebius Sergianus.
65. We can recall that in the third satire Umbricius uses the rhetoric of anger,
but remains set up as a target; we can also recall that the value of the satiric anger
expended on Crispinus in the fourth satire is questioned. See p. 89 above.
66. See Braund (1992), citing earlier disagreements.
67. On this see Henderson (1989), 118. Ovid’s irony at the uncouth past (see e.g.
AA 1.101-34) and the terms on which he delights in contemporary civilisation (e.g.
53-100) are not dissimilar.
68. Juv. 6.15, cf. Prop. 2.32.52; Juv. 6.21, cf. Prop. 2.32.55; Juv. 6.33-7, cf. Prop.
2.4.17ff.
69. Commentators assume either that Ursidius Postumus is one person, or that
Ursidius and Postumus are two people. There is very little evidence. Juvenal’s
Postumus might allude ironically to the Postumus whose wife is so proverbially
faithful in Prop. 3.12 (perhaps the same man as the Postumus with a placens uxor
(‘pleasing wife’) in Hor. Odes 2.14; see N.-H. at line 22). There are Postumi in
Martial (2.10, 2.12, 2.21, 2.22, 2.23, 2.67, 2.72, 4.26, 4.40, 5.52, 5.58, 6.19), but
none of particular relevance, and the other Postumi in Roman verse (Plaut. Aul.
185
161ff.; Ov. Fasti 4.41) are plainly irrelevant (the various historical characters
known with the cognomen do not have any hold either): the name has no connec-
tion significant and relevant enough to obtrude against an allusion to Propertius’
celebration of fidelity. The fact that we find a C. Ursidius Postumus (more fully C.
Ursidius C. f. Vol(tinia tribu) Postumus) at CIL 11.7860 is probably insignificant
since Postumus is not a rare name.
70. Juv. 6.60ff., cf. Ov. AA 1.42ff., 89ff.; Juv. 6.62, cf. Ov. AA 1.91, 175. See
Courtney at 60-1.
71. See Vell. Pat. 1.16-17; Sen. Contr. 1 praef. 6-10; 3 praef.; Sen. Ep. 114.1-2;
Petr. 1-4; Pliny NH 14.2-7; Tac. Dial.; ‘Longinus’ de Subl. 44; Quintilian (see 6
praef. 3; 8.6.76; cf. 8.3.58) wrote a de causis corruptae eloquentiae (‘On the causes
of the corruption of eloquence’). See further Jones (1989), 464 n. 68.
72. See Sen. Contr. 3 praef. 7-18; 9 praef.; Petr. 1-2; Tac. Dial. 35; cf. Quint.
2.10.4-5. Teachers are blamed at Petr. 2.2; Quint. 2.10.3; 12.11.14. The fictional
rhetor Agamemnon transfers the blame onto the parents at Petr. 4.1ff.; cf. Pers.
3.47; Quint. 2.7.1; 10.5.21; Suet. De Gramm. 9.2; Tac. Dial. 29.
73. See Rudd (1976), 86, 88-9, 93-4; Townend (1973), 150.
74. Martial uses the name three times (3.40; 6.50; 12.25). In the third of these
epigrams the reference to exile perhaps suggests the philosopher-consul of AD 66
may be at point. Otherwise 3.40 and 12.25 (but not the differently orientated 6.50)
may suggest a rich miser type. The Telesinus at Sil. It. 10.148ff. is of no relevance.
The name is not elsewhere in Roman verse.
75. According to Philostratus; Vit. Apoll 4.43; 8.7; 8.12.
76. See Philostratus Vit. Apoll. 7.11. The Caesar in Juv. 7.1 is ‘any Caesar’
(Syme (1979b), 250), hac tempestate notwithstanding.
77. Only two figures of note are found: Valerius Ponticus (Tac. Ann. 14.41; RE
Valerius 295) who was banned from Italy for legal malpractice, and the Cn.
Domitius Ponticus (RE Domitius 73) who will be mentioned below.
78. Martial 2.32, 82, 3.60, 4.85, 5.63, 9.19, 41, 12.29.
79. Syme (1978), 98 n. 2, citing the example of Cestius Macedonicus (Appian BC
5.49.204).
80. Syme (1958), 778.
81. Syme (1978), 98 n. 2.
82. There is a curious business with Rubellius Blandus, who appears as a
surprise substitute addressee at Juv. 8.39 (cf. the gambit at Cic. ad Fam. 15.16.3)
and is casually dismissed at 71-4. This figure seems almost to be a scapegoat for
Ponticus and leaves us in doubt about how much of a contrast there is between the
two.
83. The name occurs only here and in five epigrams of Martial, 1.97, 2.46, 3.71,
3.95, 4.83. The Naevolus in Mart. 3.71 and 3.95 is a passive homosexual (i.e.
different from Juvenal’s Naevolus) and the figures in the other epigrams are not
relevant. Perhaps both authors use the name for its derisive suggestion of ‘mole’
or ‘blemish’ (see Kajanto (1965), 246); perhaps Juvenal wanted to reinforce the
suggestion that he is using an urbanely comic tone by using a name whose sole
literary resonance is its presence in Martial.
84. Technically, the real requirement is the recoverer (or escaper – here
Catullus).
85. ‘Persian’ connotes fabulous wealth (cf. Juv. 14.328); there is also P. Fabius
186
Persicus, thoroughly vicious (Sen. De Ben. 4.30.2, cf. 2.21.5-6) and perhaps a friend
of Apicius (see PIR2 F 51 citing Aelian fr. 111); persicum is a peach at Pliny NH
15.42 and Mart. 13.46; cf. Columella 5.10.20; 9.4.3; Pall. 1.3. Cf. also Juv. 3.221, the
only other place in Roman verse where the name is found.
86. The cognomen was associated particularly with a well-established branch of
the gens Domitia (Suet. Nero 1). Cf. the type name Calvina at Juv. 3.133.
87. Fuscinus is derived from fuscus (= dark), so the placement near nitidis (=
1shining) is a verbal decoration.

1. For another perspective see Connors (2005).
2. Passages of Lucan may resemble (in advance) Juvenal, but this is rather part
of the general influence of declamatory moralising than Juvenal drawing on the
satiric strand in Lucan’s epic, still less presenting that element as part of what any
sort of epic is.
3. Cf. Hardie (1990).
4. Also in Varro’s Menippean Satires, Seneca’s Apocolocyntosis, Petronius’
Satyrica, and Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, all works which have the character of
generic centos. They have all been considered candidates for Menippean satire, but
Astbury (1977), 22ff. has shown that the Satyrica is not Menippean satire; see too
Conte (1996), 140ff. and Jensson (2004).
5. In his list of Latin epic poets, Quintilian includes writers of mythological epic,
historical epic, and didactic. In his Greek list he includes writers of mythological
epic, didactic poets, the martial and Homeric-mannered elegist Tyrtaeus, and
Theocritus. It remains clear, however, than mythological epic is the dominant
strain.
6. We find also lists of typical poetic subject matter, as at Hor. Odes 1.7.1ff.,
which show some overlap with mythological epic.
7. See Pearce (1966).
8. Cf. haec ubi dicta dedit (‘When he had made this speech’) at Petr. 61.5; 121.1.
One might suppose that the openness of opening and closing formulae were a
feature of oral composition then preserved because of the status of the Homeric
epics, but in extended narrative containing extended speeches, even though
literary, there is still some value in this sort of clarity, especially where oral dissem-
ination is still important.
9. The epic ecphrasis is a narrative device and perhaps for that reason its pres-
ence is not strong in satire or genres which tend to non-narrative forms. We see it
in Propertius’ narrative elegies (for example near the beginning of 4.8) and, along
with other forms of descriptive writing, in Senecan tragedy, where narrative is
important and not only in messenger’s speeches. We see it used as an index of
‘epicality’ in Ovid’s miscegenated epic, the Metamorphoses.
10. On Lucilius’ use of the hexameter see Morgan (2004), 7-15; on Persius’ style
see Bramble (1974); Petersmann (1999), 289-310; on Juvenal’s style see Powell
(1999).
11. On the other hand elegy and Horatian lyric do import words from the collo-
quial language, words for which there are often epic substitutes; see Knox (1986),
31.
187
12. Cf. the parody of epic battle, complete with invocation to the Muse and
heroic lineages, as part of the fun of the poetic entertainment in Hor. Sat. 1.5; the
momentary metamorphosis of the two mice in the story of the town and country
mice into two heroes on an epic night raid (Sat. 2.6.99ff. – arguably this is a ques-
tionable aspect of epic activity), which involves a laughable disparity between
human and animal levels (one comparable with the war of the bees in the fourth
book of Virgil’s Georgics); the presentation of Rome in the third satire as like the
fall of Troy, with allusions to both Homer and Virgil (3.198ff.; cf. V. Aen. 2.311f.;
3.261ff.; cf. Hom. Il. 22.437ff.), which uses the epic representation of war as a
metaphor for the state of Rome.
13. Military experience has a real and direct part in Lucilius’ satires, but this is
more a matter of his own experience than an epic import. In Persius we have no
more than a mocking caricature of the military (Pers. 5.189ff.). Likewise again the
manifestations of war in Juvenal tend not to be epic-related. The battle between
two Egyptian villages in the fifteenth satire is not overly concerned with epic. The
desire for military glory is satirised in the tenth satire, but declamatory or histor-
ical figures rather than epic are used (10.133-87).
14. See e.g. Lucil. 341-2; Hor. Sat. 1.1.4-6; Pers. 5.132-53; 6.75f.; Juv. 14.265-
302.
15. Ulixes is a character in Hor. Sat. 2.5, but the journey per se has little impor-
tance. Note, however, the Odyssean paraphrase at Hor. Epp. 1.2.18-31. The storm
(as in Juvenal’s twelfth satire) has surely become a more or less autonomous epic
or epic-tragic (since it appears in messenger speeches such as Sen. Ag. 460-578)
feature by this stage, rather than a journey-motif.
16. The divine machinery is notoriously absent in Lucan’s epic, though refer-
ences to the gods are plentifully present.
17. We can identify divine names easily enough, but not all gods are characteris-
tically epical. On the other hand even a non-epic god may have something of an epic
role. Horace casts Priapus (Sat. 1.8), for example, in a role typical of Priapic epigram
(imposing a physically appropriate penalty on trespassers), but in Petronius’
Satyrica there is an element of Poseidon’s anger against Odysseus. Gods – even gods
who have major roles in epic – may have roles outside epic, indeed outside literature,
so that a reference to Vesta’s temple, a landmark in the Rome Horace is walking
through in Sat. 1.9, is first and foremost a piece of real-life scenery, and Jupiter’s
appearance near the beginning of the first satire is part of the ‘And what if you got
your wish?’ motif that probably derives from diatribe (cf. Hor. Sat. 2.7.24). It is true
that in satire the gods can be prayed to (bad prayers are recorded in all three
satirists: Hor. Sat. 2.6.8ff.; Pers. 2; Juv. 10), and can indeed grant prayers, though to
the detriment of the person praying, but these prayers are simply manifestations of
the human folly that makes up a good deal of the matter of satire.
18. This goes back to Callimachus’ Aetia, and is transferred into Latin by way
of Virgil’s Eclogues (V. Ecl. 6).
19. If what happens is any sort of rescue at all: see Jones (2000), 19-20.
20. Cf. the later rescue of Horace from battle by Mercury in Odes 2.7.13ff. By
contrast, the hypothetical appearance of ‘some god’ who will offer to change one’s
life like a fairy-godmother (Hor. Sat. 1.1.15; 2.7.24) does not strongly suggest epic
machinery.
21. If so it can be called (see Jenkyns, 1989).
188
22. See e.g. Apollo in Tib. 2.5; 3.4; 3.10; Priapus in Tib. 1.4; 3.6; Pierians at Tib.
3.1; Bacchus at Tib. 2.1.
23. See Morford (1967); Bate (2004). At Petr. 115 Eumolpus composes a poem
which commentators tend to assume is the civil war ‘epic’ recited later. There
seems no reason why it should be so: one might naturally assume it to be a storm
description playing on epic and the Ovidian games with storms in the
Metamorphoses and especially in the Tristia.
24. See too the council of gods burlesqued in Seneca’s Apocolocyntosis.
25. The competition motif admittedly goes back to Homer (see Iliad 18.497ff.,
itself a forerunner of Theocr. 1.33-4).
26. The hunt of the Calydonian boar in Ov. Met. 8 contains parodic material. Cf.
Horsfall (1979).
27. Likewise the priamel; the form can be traced back to Homer (Race, 1982),
but is so widespread that it carries no epic resonance on its own.
28. On such passages, where parallels proliferate, cf. Hinds (1998), 34-47.
29. Cf. also Plato Euthyd. 294b.
30. Size is the defining feature of historiography in Juvenal’s picture of the
historians (7.98-104). Horace’s animadversions to length for its own sake (1.4.9-10;
1.9.23-4) are part of a Callimachean sensibility rather than aimed at epic.
31. Hinds (2000), 221-44. It is one of the faults attributed to women that they
are the kind to transform the Aeneid into love-literature when they read it: see
Prop. 2.1.50; Juv. 6.434ff. Contrariwise, there are also important exceptions to the
absence of love in the portrayal of epic in lyric and elegy. See, for example, Hor.
Odes 2.4.2-12 (cf. Ov. Am. 2.8); Prop. 2.8.29-40; 3.12.23-38; Ov. Her. 1, 3. In such
cases the lyricist/elegist annexes the epic tradition and forcibly transmutes epic
into, or reads it as, a kind of love poetry. See too Ov. Tr. 2.371-80 and Gibson
(1999), 28-31; Hinds (1998), 104-22.
32. For satire, love is largely a source of human folly – as indeed it is in epic –
whereas for the elegists love is the flagpole of an ideological identity.
33. We know also of Naevius’ Bellum Poenicum; Varro of Atax wrote a Bellum
Sequanicum in the manner of Ennius and Naevius; Cornelius Severus wrote about
kings (Ov. Ex Pont. 4.2.1), perhaps a Bellum Siculum (10.1.89; Sen. Suas. 7), and
hexameters in honour of the dead Cicero (Sen. Suas. 6.26); Albinovanus Pedo
wrote hexameters on Germanicus’ voyage in the North Sea (Sen. Suas. 1.14); we
have a fragment of Statius’ de Bello Germanico. There is also the shadowy Furius
Bibaculus on the Gallic Wars, and the Volusius mentioned by Catullus. Cicero
wanted the poet Licinius Archias (ad Att. 1.16.15) to write about his consulship.
There is also Petronius’ scale model of a historical epic. The historical epics of
Ennius and Lucan are well known.
34. Although it should not be forgotten that a historical name could not point at
epic (since it could just as well come from historical writing), the use of mythological
names in satire, lyric, and elegy still reinforces the impression that historical epic is
not epic’s prime form. Arguably also one might see Lucan – perhaps via the hind-
sight of Juvenal – as moving epic away from its natural home on to satiric ground.
35. See Volk (2002), 25-43 (didactic is separate); Toohey (1996), 5-6 (didactic is
a form of epic); see further Gale (1994), 99-104; Gale (2004).
36. See e.g. Tib. 2.4.13-20 opposing both epic and didactic to elegy, and specifi-
cally characterising elegy as love poetry.
189
37. This had long been an element in Greek elegy (cf. Callimachus’ Hecale). In
the Roman context see e.g. Prop. 1.20, a number of poems in Prop. 4; Hor. Odes
3.27; cf. also Ovid’s Heroides.
38. Epic material is the substance of Ovid’s Heroides (‘Heroines’). The Ars
Amatoria extends a motif from earlier elegy (the erotodidact) into a didactic poem,
albeit in elegiacs, and takes over standard features of the didactic genre which
itself has close affinities with epic. There are allusions at the beginning of
Juvenal’s sixth satire which translate elegiac settings including Ovid’s urban love-
didactic into a satiric urban scene.
39. Cf. p. 19 above.
40. See Most, OCD3, s.v. ‘genre’; Altman (1999), 11-12.
41. So Volk argues also in regard to Didactic: Volk (2002), 60-8.
42. Quint. 10.1.89; Sen. NQ 3.27. See Morgan (2003).
43. See Coffey (1976), 27-32; Muecke (2005); Ennius wrote ‘four books’ of
satires (Porphyrio on Hor. Sat. 1.10.46) and some 31 lines of verse are extant, and
a prose paraphrase by Aulus Gellius of a satire in fable form (2.29.3ff.). Quintilian
(9.2.36) cites a debate beteeen Mors and Vita. Other miscellaneous poems with
individual titles like the Hedyphagetica were not part of the four books of saturae
(Coffey, 31), but may have been miscellaneous individual satires. The fragments
bear witness to a variety of metres (including hexameters).
44. See Petersmann (1999), 289-96.
45. Lucil. 727-34; 124; 235. Porphyrio on Hor. Sat. 1.10.53 says that Lucilius
frequently alters (mutat) Accius especially in the third book. See Petersmann
(1999), 296-310.
46. See also Servius at V. Aen. 11.602 on Lucilius mocking a phrase of Ennius
which was later used by Virgil.
47. Tantalus at 136-7; Tisiphone and Tityos at 162-3; Deucalion at 284; Ulysses
at 565-6; Amphitryon, Alcmena and Helen at 567-73 (on this passage see Ll.
Morgan (2005), 176-7). Servius auctus commenting on V. Aen. 8.9 knows of a refer-
ence to a Diomedes story in Lucilius. Perhaps it was an illustration to a narrative
of a bored wife in Lucilius’ thirtieth book.
48. Lucil. 1, 2, and 3-4W could all come from a programmatic context, rejecting
grandeur or a didactic theme. We might envisage either a programme satire or a
programmatic introduction.
49. Virgil drew on the Lucilian council elsewhere too: Aen. 9.227 is closely
modelled on Lucil. 5W.
50. Lactantius (DI 4.3.12) references a fragment of Lucilius (24-7W) as in
deorum concilio.
51. So Morgan (2004), 8-9.
52. Morgan (2004), 8-15; see further Morgan (2000), 112-13 on Lucil. 252-3W.
According to Horace, Lucilius’ hexameters were the best that could be expected
under the circumstances (Sat. 1.10.53-71).
53. In regard to these Homeric scenarios one might think ahead in time to the
elegies (Prop. 4.7 and 8) in which Cynthia-narratives are given respectively Iliadic
and Odyssean frames. An important distinction here is that in Horace the epic
borrowings are part of a broader eclecticism. Gowers (1993a) reads Hor. Sat. 1.5 as
an Odyssey, though this seems rather unconvincing to me.
54. On verbal hyperbaton Pearce (1966); Adams (1971).
190
55. Morgan (2000), 112-13.

56. On the fashion for Iliadic verse see Freudenburg (2001), 155-7.
57. Cf. Bramble (1974), 75.
58. Romulidae (31), the Greek ending, and the adjective dius suggest the
antique diction of Ennius; Powell (1992), 249 n. 9.
59. Powell (1992), 162 would read varium et plorabile siquid and see an allusion
to Virgil’s varium et mutabile semper femina (V. Aen. 4.569-70).
60. See Bramble (1974), 104.
61. Crudi may suggest that poetry and food are both served at a ‘dinner-party
cum composition-club’ (see Barr n. ad loc.); cf. Hor. Epp. 2.1.109ff.
62. Oddly enough, although the spondaic line ending Appennino is called ‘very
effeminate’ – permolle – by Quintilian at 9.4.65 (for what it is worth, we may note
also Petronius’ civil war hexameters use it too; Petr. 124 v. 279), it is used by
Persius’ admired Horace in a hexameter at Epod. 16.29.
63. On Nero’s Attis see Freudenburg (2001), 169ff.
64. On this motif see Hinds (1998), 34-47.
65. Courtney (1993), 372. In the Florida (c. AD 160-170) Apuleius attributes to
a Clemens a verse account of Alexander the Great’s ‘many sublime deeds’ (Flor. 7)
and quotes (6) three lines of distinctly Virgilian hexameters (about the Ganges)
which probably belonged to it. See Courtney (1993), 401.
66. See p. 70 above.
67. In terms of thematic consistency this connects with the irony expended on
‘the good old days’, which is a recurrent motif throughout the corpus, and with the
secular sensibility visible prominently in the tenth (see especially 10.346-66) and
thirteenth (see especially 13.78ff.).
68. Morton Braund (1996), 23. The Virgilian parallel is noted by others, e.g.
Courtney and Ferguson.
69. See Coffey (1976), 142 for a brief review of Juvenalian similes.
70. Trebius’ apple by contrast, turns him into a cavalryman as represented by
a performing monkey, a scene which may be a parody of the Lusus Troiae (games
of Troy) instituted (or ‘re-instituted’) in epic fashion (and appearing in the
Aeneid), though not fated to last (Suet. Aug. 43). Alcinous’ Phaeacian feasts are
referred to by Statius in an epicising passage of the Silvae which itself refers to the
Aeneid (Silv. 4.2.3; cf. also 1.3.81).
71. Scott (1927); Bramble (1974), 164-73; Courtney (1980), 36-55; Morton
Braund (1996), 24-30; see now the different assessment by Powell (1999).
72. See de Dekker (1913); Kenney (1963), 704-20; Adamietz (1972); Courtney
(1980), 36-48; Morton Braund (1996), 18-21.
73. See glossary for declamation.
74. On Juvenal’s sententiae see further pp. 152-3 below.
75. Braund (1992).
76. Cf. e.g. the rival speeches for the arms of Achilles at Ov. Met. 12.626-8, 13.1-
381, Pothinus advising Ptolemy not to have Pompey killed after Pharsalia (Luc. BC
8.482-535), or the suasoria where Pompey is advised not to go to Parthia (8.328ff.).
77. See Powell (1999).
78. See Jones (forthcoming).
191

1. In this chapter the term ‘genre’ may sometimes need to be taken in a fluid
sense in the spirit of the discussion in Chapter 2, where it was pointed out that
there is an inevitably subjective element in the definition of a genre, that poets
often created their own histories of more or less fictive genres, that there were
different ways of cutting the literary cake, and where the term ‘kind’ was used
pragmatically in place of an artificial definition of the term ‘genre’.
2. See Muecke (19972), 6-8. Horace’s treatment of philosophy develops again in
the first book of epistles: see Mayer (1994), 39-47.
3. Horace’s reaction to Lucretian didactic in his satires is analogous to Virgil’s
in his didactic, the Georgics.
4. Collegia stands out in this context, placed between the two foreign words and
suggesting the existence of a ‘guild’ of Syrian flute-girls like workmen’s guilds.
Collegia had been disbanded in 64 BC and all except the workmen’s guilds were
disbanded again by Julius Caesar as dicatator (Suet. Iulius 42). Augustus made
another ban, dissolving all except the oldest as a result of the disreputability of the
newer (Suet. Aug. 32). The word is still paradoxical when applied to criminals,
waifs, and strays (as also with the robbers’ collegium at Ap. Met. 7.7).
5. See Fraenkel (1957), 83.
6. I accept Brink’s emendation rem for non (1987, 18) in line 38. The absurd
grandeur sends up the absurdity of the would-be adulterer.
7. Fraenkel (1957), 82 n. 4.
8. It is striking that one of the parodied epigrams (Callimachus 31, boiled down
at Hor. Sat. 1.2.105ff.) is really a Callimachean programme statement, since
Horace will show that he subscribes to the Callimachean aesthetic (especially in
Sat. 2.1 and 2.6), and has already used Callimachean programme language in the
preceding satire, in disguised application.
9. See Rudd (1966), 25 on the comic and Lucilian background.
10. Cicero ridicules the prosecution in his defence of Caelius by comparing their
narrative of rendezvous, poison-procuring, double-crossing, unexpected discovery,
and escape to the plots of mimes: mimi ergo iam exitus, non fabulae; in quo cum
clausula non invenitur, fugit aliquis e manibus, dein scabilla concrepant, aulaeum
tollitur (‘The end of a mime, then, not of a play; where when a proper ending
cannot be found, someone wriggles away, the clogs clatter, the curtain comes
down’, Cic. pro Cael. 65).
11. See Reynolds (1946), 77-84.
12. One should also be aware that mime-artists like Volumnia Cytheris,
mistress of Anthony and the poet Gallus, moved among the literate class, that it
was part of the political and social climate that members of the literate class put
on mime shows, and their friends might well be expected to show support by
attending (cf. Cic. ad Fam. 7.1). In this sense mime, however absurd its plots,
becomes, so to speak, an aspect of real life, and in that sense particularly at home
in the Horatian satiric programme.
13. On Persius and Stoicism cf. Cucchiarelli (2005), 75-9.
14. See Pers. 3.109-10 and Epict. 3.2.8; 2.8.15ff.; 1.18.22; also Pers. 5.119-20 and
Epict. 2.11.17.
15. Cf. Highet (1951).
192
16. Courtney 36-48; Morton Braund (1996), 18-21; De Dekker (1913); Kenney
(1963).
17. See Wilson (1898); Colton (1966); Anderson (1970), 1-34; Adamietz (1972),
17-22, 85-96, 131-5, 155-6; Bramble (1982).
18. There is a probable allusion to Tacitus’ Histories at Juv. 2.102ff. For dating
issues see Syme (1958), 118-19; Townend (1973), 153; Syme (1979a), 6.
19. The centrepiece of the sixth satire (6.286ff.) uses a historiographical frame-
work; cf. especially Sall. Jug. 41-2. One might also compare Juvenal’s undermining
of traditional accounts of inadequate patronage in Sat. 7.
20. Music and moralisms: Hor. Sat. 1.2.1; Livy 39.6.7; Quint. 1.10.31; Scipio
Aem. fr. 30M.
21. Perhaps this lends credibility to seeing some resemblance between the
passages on old age at the beginning of Umbricius’ speech (Juv. 3.26ff.) and near
the beginning of the same eclogue of Calpurnius (5.12ff.).
22. See Hor. Epp. 1.13; cf. Ov. Tr. 1.1 where Ovid addresses his book and is more
oblique towards Augustus (see 69-70). See also Clarke (1972), 158 and n. 1, citing
Martial 5.6 and a number of poems for patrons other than the Emperor.
23. See Townend (1973), 150; Rudd (1976), 93-4; Jones (1989), 448.
24. Virgil’s a Corydon, Corydon (Ecl. 2.69) becomes in Juvenal o Corydon,
Corydon (9.102). It is difficult to be sure this has any particular point.
25. Cf. the comic verses handed down as Varro Men. 8B and Cèbe (p. 54) for the
Plautine feel.
26. For temples as places to find women (Juv. 9.22ff.) cf. Ov. AA 1.77-8.
27. See Hor. Odes 1.1 with N.-H.
28. Cf. Juv. 12.127, 14.281 and see Enn. Ann. 14W (and Pers. 6.9) and 471-2W
(and Hor. Sat. 1.2 37). The beginning of Livy’s history of Rome incorporates an
epic resonance at the same time as expressing diffidence: facturusne operae
pretium sim si a primordio urbis res populi Romani perscripserim nec satis scio
nec, si sciam, dicere ausim … (Livy praef. 1; ‘Whether I will do something worth-
while in writing the history of the Roman people from the city’s origin, I hardly
know – nor if I did know would I dare to say so …’).
29. Cf. Mart. 4.19, 6.82.9-12, 7.92.7-8, 8.58.1. See Courtney at Juv. 9.28-31 and
31.
30. For fata regunt homines (‘Fate rules mankind’, Juv. 9. 32) cf. Manilius 4.14,
fata regunt orbem ‘Fate rules the globe’).
31. See, however, also Hor. Epp. 2.2.91-101.
32. Rudd (1989), 33 points out that other forms of elegy are mentioned in the
AP, but love elegy is excluded, presumably on grounds of ‘personal prejudice’.
Tibullus’ and Propertius’ elegies emerge after Horace’s Satires, but Gallus was
important – especially after figuring in Virgil’s Eclogues (especially the tenth) –
and we do not know how many minor elegists filled the interim period.
33. Ovidian elegy is also in the air at Juv. 6.60ff. (cf. Ov. AA 1.42ff., 89ff., 175)
and 9.22ff. (cf. Ov. AA 1.77-8).
34. Scipio ap. Macrob. Sat. 3.14.7 (ORF p. 133). On fish prices see Courtney
(1980) n. at Juv. 4.15.
35. … nulloque frequentem / cive suo Romam sed mundi faece repletam (‘Rome
crowded not with its own citizens, but stuffed with the dregs of the world’).
36. Cf. at n. 32 above.
193
37. Hinds (2000).

38. Seneca uses the idea of a oneness coming from the singing of many voices
(Ep. 84.9) in a sequence of analogies (including bees producing honey from their
selection of flowers, and our own boiling down of variegated reading so that it
becomes one with our mind), for the composite nature of the individual soul. Cf.
Jensson (2004), 50-9.
39. Linguistic mimicry contained in the frame of first person discourse is or
implies, of course, a kind of performance (see Jensson (2004), 28-9, 47-50, 73-83)
on which see further in Chapter 7. On the harmony of many voices see Jensson
(2004), 50-9.
40. Seneca makes a point of enrolling even Epicurus in support of his stoicism
(Ep. 2.5; 4.10; 7.11; 8.8; 9.20; 11.9; 12.11 etc.).

1. For performance and related concepts (such as persona) in discussion of clas-
sical literature cf. Mason (1962, reprinted in Sullivan (1963); Dyson (1973); Allen
(1950); Williams (1962); Clarke (1976); Rudd (1976), 145-81; Griffin (1976, 1977).
Beck produced a sequence of articles dealing with the role of the persona in
Petronius (1972, 1975, 1979, 1982), the last of which related Petronius back to the
use of the first person in the elegists. More recently Lyne (1982) made a good deal
of the dramatic presentation of the ‘self’ in Catullus, Horace and the elegists.
2. See Hor. Sat. 1.4.21-5, cf. Epp. 2.2.95ff. Contrast Pliny Ep. 7.17, 8.12. Juv.
7.40-7; Tac. Dial. 9.
3. There is also the influence of comedy on the persona and substance of (espe-
cially) love poetry from Catullus onwards: see Thomas (1984), Yardley (1987).
4. Performance has something of a role as a theme in the satirists. Cf. the hypo-
critically audible prayers in Horace (Sat. 2.6.8ff.) and Persius (Pers. 2.8ff.), and the
pretence of friendship in Hor. Sat. 2.5. Persius is consistently interested in the
difference between the public exterior and the different quality within. In Juvenal,
cf. the hypocrisy in the second satire, the amphitheatrical doings in Satires 1, 7,
and 8, the minor role of actors in the sixth and seventh satires, and the pretending
of the councillors in the fourth satire.
5. Reckford (1996), vii-viii. See also Morton Braund (1996).
6. De Decker (1913). Of course, declamation received influence back; cf. Sen.
Contr. 10.4.24.
7. Bonner (1949).
8. See for example Ajax’s and Ulysses’ debate for the arms of Achilles (Ov. Met.
12.626-8, 13.1-381; at 121ff. Ovid used one of Porcius Latro’s declamatory
epigrams; see Sen. Contr. 2.2.8).
9. See Bartsch (1994), 193 on the pervasiveness of performance in Nero’s time.
Champlin (2005) essentially reads Nero’s reign as a performance.
10. See Jones (1991), 113-14.
11. Cf. Sen. Contr. 3 praef. 12f.; Petr. 1.1-3; Quint. 2.10.1-15; 10.5.17ff.; Tac.
Dial. 33.4-5; Juv. 7.166-70.
12. See Jones (1988), 257.
13. Jones (1987b).
14. George (1966).
194
15. Jensson (2004), 29-83.

16. Rudd (1976), 106-7.
17. The passage is funnier if the standard high evaluation of Homer is accepted,
and perhaps we are to think of Homer here as simply the archetypal great poet
rather than as an epic poet as such.
18. Reckford (1996), vii. We could usefully think of Ulysses reperforming the
tale of his exploits over and over in different ways to entertain Calypso (Ovid AA
2.123ff.).
19. See above (p. 42) on the allusions to the fall of Troy.
20. In Juv. 5 the whole discourse is moulded around the persona of the
addressee, Trebius (see Jones 1987a). Likewise, Juv. 6, apparently on the failings
of women in the context of marriage, is conspicuously addressed to a flagrant adul-
terer. See further pp. 85-93 above.
21. Alternatively, one could take the voice as that of Juvenal complaining
angrily after a poetry recitation.
22. For Juv. 2.49 cf. 6.302; for 2.51 cf. 6.242ff. (and Val. Max. 8.3); for 2.52 cf.
Mevia hunting boars (perhaps in the amphitheatre) at 1.22-3.
23. There is a similar unexpected transition used for a different purpose at Cic.
ad Fam. 15.16.3.
24. The irony is complex, since Catullus is not a figure presented seriously by
the poet.
25. As in Juv. 4 there is a marked tone contrast within Juv. 5; the bulk of the
speech is Juvenal’s attempt to rouse Trebius to anger at Virro’s behaviour, but
that is because Trebius is so abject (though he is actually angry); Juvenal’s own
attitude is expressed in the apostrophe to Virro, which uses the language of polite-
ness, showing independence and recognition of the state of things (Juv. 4.107-13;
the lines follow the most gratuitously revolting item on the menu supplied for
Trebius).
26. See Jones (1983), 107 n. 25. Cf. Hor. Odes 1.38.1.
27. Jones (1983), 104ff.; (1990), 160-8.
28. See Dowden (1982), 428.
29. Pryor (1969), 170.
30. Both are based on situations for which rhetorical precept laid down patterns
(sôtêria, consolatio), both involve disasters which are said to be more ordinary than
the victim appears to feel.
31. See Jones (1993a), 81-92.
32. Divine vengeance (Juv. 13.192-235) has already been undermined at 86-111;
the idea that the criminal’s own constancy in crime will eventually trap him (236-
49) has already been undermined at 71-85.

1. Morgan (2005), 177-8.
2. See pp. 87-8 above on Juv. 4. See especially Tac. Agr. 42.
3. For the debate on Calpurnius’ dating see Champlin (1978), 95-110; Townend
(1980) 166-75; Mayer (1980) 175-6; Wiseman (1982) 57-67; Horsfall (1997).
4. Freudenburg, (2001) makes of this a case to the effect that the manifestation
in Persius’ Satires of this difference is itself a veiled satiric critique of the temper
195
of the times. There is another literary characteristic of Persius’ time: that under
Nero there was something of a literary renascence in the form of an Augustan
revival (see Mayer, 1983). Defunct or dormant genres are rescuscitated, as for
example bucolic by Calpurnius Siculus and the anonymous author of the
Einsiedeln eclogues, Horatian lyric by Caesius Bassus, and Horatian satire by
Persius.
5. Datable events in the Satires suggest c. 110-130 as the period of their appear-
ance (see Courtney (1982), 1-2, Jones (1999), 119; Townend (1963), 153).
6. Ahl (1984); cf. also Dewar (1994); Newlands (2002) for a range of perspec-
tives.
7. We sometimes hear of more personal abuse; Nero expelled Fabricius Veiento
from Italy for a mock-will in which he had insulted senators and priests (Tac. Ann.
14.50). Cf. Petronius’ death-bed list of Nero’s sexual partners and details of what
they did (Tac. Ann. 16.18). Helvidius’ Oenone farce (see Chapter 3 n. 63 above) was
taken as criticising Domitian. Seneca’s critique of the dead Claudius in the
Apocolocyntosis implies a positive programme for imperial-senatorial relations.
8. See Saller (2000) on social changes; Reekmans (1971) on Juvenal.
9. See pp. 87-9 above.
10. The idea that Juvenal attacked specific living individuals under the names
of dead people (see Ferguson (1987), 7-8, (1979), xix-xx) is not convincing; it starts
from the assumption that Juvenal’s satire has such criticism high on its agenda,
lacks evidence, and does not explain the totality of Juvenal’s package.
11. Bowie (2000, 1990); Gibson (2005).
12. See Courtney (1993), 372-90. The fragments and witnesses, very few though
they are, attest largely small-scale occasional or epigrammatic verse, and a ‘strong
tendency to affected simplicity, to a mingling of colloquialism, even vulgarism, with
archaism’ (p. 372). Death, wine, country scenes and ‘Fescennine’ eroticism are
attested topics.
13. See p. 111 above.
14. A contrast with earlier periods may be helpful. The changing patterns of
inter-relationships between authors can be plotted reasonably well from the late
Republic through to the time of Pliny, Martial, and Statius. Crudely, in the late
Republic literary (and political) circles overlap (see pp. 31-2 above). In the
Augustan period, too, the writers knew each other. The patterns of patronage in
the later period suggest a greater degree of isolation (see White 1975). While
Tacitus and Pliny may have been widely known (see Pliny Ep. 9.23.2-3), the
contemporary literary scene may have been generally fragmented.
15. Perhaps here we can begin to see a reason for the exceptional interest in
self-definition shared by satire and elegy. Horatian satire and its contemporary,
elegy, each walk a political tightrope and their programmatic utterances have ideo-
logical significance. Subsequently, while there is no elegy, the satirists must make
a show of still being satirists. For a different view of post-Ovidian elegy see Rosati
(2005).
16. Cf. Braund (1988), 1-23.
17. I have not seen this term used elsewhere.
196
Bibliography
Adamietz, J. (1972), Untersuchungen zu Juvenal (Steiner).

Adams, J.N. (1971), ‘A type of hyperbaton in Latin prose’, Proceedings of the
Cambridge Philological Society 17: 1-16.
Ahl, F. (1984), ‘The art of safe criticism in Greece and Rome’, American Journal of
Philology 105: 174-208.
Allen, A.W. (1950), ‘Sincerity in the Roman elegists’, Classical Philology 45: 145-
60.
Altman, R. (1999), Film / Genre (British Film Institute).
Anderson, W.S. (1957), ‘Studies in Book 1 of Juvenal’, Yale Classical Studies 15:
33-90.
——— (1963), ‘The Roman Socrates: Horace and his satire’, in J.P. Sullivan (ed.),
Critical Essays on Roman Literature: Satire (Routledge and Kegan Paul), 1-37.
——— (1970), ‘Lascivia vs. ira: Martial and Juvenal’, California Studies in
Classical Antiquity 3: 1-34.
——— (1982), Essays on Roman Satire (Princeton University Press).
Astbury, R. (1977), ‘Petronius, P.Oxy. 3010, and Menippean satire’, Classical
Philology 72: 22-31.
Baines, V. (2003), ‘Umbricius’ Bellum Civile: Juvenal, Satire 3’, Greece and Rome
50: 220-37.
Baker, R.J. (1988), ‘Maecenas and Horace Satires II 8’, Classical Journal 83: 212-
32.
Bakhtin, M.M. (1981), The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays (trans. C. Emerson
and M. Holquist) (University of Texas Press).
——— (2000), ‘The problem of speech-genres’, in D. Duff (ed.), Modern Genre
Theory (Longman), 82-97.
Barchiesi, A. (2000), ‘Rituals in ink: Horace on the Greek lyric tradition’, in M.
Depew and D. Obbink (eds), Matrices of Genre: Authors, Canons, and Society
(Harvard University Press), 167-82.
Bartsch, S. (1994), Actors in the Audience: Theatricality and Doublespeak from
Nero to Hadrian (Harvard University Press).
Bate, M.S. (2004), ‘Tempestuous poetry’, Mnemosyne 57: 295-310.
Beck, R. (1972), ‘Narrative technique in Petronius’, Phoenix 27: 42-61.
——— (1975), ‘Encolpius at the Cena’, Phoenix 29: 271-83.
——— (1979), ‘Eumolpus poeta, Eumolpus fabulator: a study of characterization
in the Satyricon’, Phoenix 33: 239-53.
——— (1982), ‘The Satyrica: satire, narrator, and antecedents’, Museum
Helveticum 39: 206-14.
Beebee, T.O. (1994), The Ideology of Genre (Pennsylvania State University Press).
Berkenkotter, C., and Huckin, T.N. (1993), ‘Rethinking genre from a sociocognitive
perspective’, Written Communication 10: 475-509.
197
——— and ——— (1995), Genre Knowledge in Disciplinary Communication (L.

Erlbaum Associates).
Bonner, S.F. (1949), Roman Declamation in the Late Republic and Early Empire
(Liverpool University Press).
Bowie, E.L. (1990), ‘Greek poetry in the Antonine Age’, in D.A. Russell (ed.),
Antonine Literature (Clarendon Press), 53-90.
——— (2000), ‘Literature and sophistic’, in A.K. Bowman, P. Garnsey, and D.
Rathbone (eds), The Cambridge Ancient History XI. The High Empire
(Cambridge University Press), 898-921.
Bramble, J. (1974), Persius and the Programmatic Satire (Cambridge University
Press).
——— (1982), ‘Martial and Juvenal’, in E.J. Kenney and P.E. Easterling (eds),
Cambridge History of Classical Literature II. Latin Literature (Cambridge
University Press), 597-623.
Braund, S.H., Beyond Anger: A Study of Juvenal’s Third Book of Satires
(Cambridge University Press, 1988).
——— (1990), ‘Umbricius and the frogs’, Classical Quarterly 40: 502-6.
——— (1992), ‘Juvenal – misogynist or misogamist?’, Journal of Roman Studies
82: 71-86.
Bright, D.F. (1980), Elaborate Disarray: The Nature of Statius’ Silvae (Hain).
Brink, C.O. (1987), ‘Horatian notes IV: despised readings in the manuscripts of
Satires Book 1’, Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 33: 16-37.
Brown, G., and Yule, G. (1983), Discourse Analysis (Cambridge University Press).
Cairns, F. (1972), Generic Composition in Greek and Roman Poetry (Edinburgh
University Press).
Champlin, E. (1978), ‘The life and times of Calpurnius Siculus’, Journal of Roman
Studies 68: 95-110.
——— (2005), Nero (Belknap Press).
Clarke, M.L. (1972), ‘Horace Epistles 1.13’, Classical Review 22: 157-9.
——— (1976), ‘Latin love poets and the biographical approach’, Greece and Rome
23: 132-9.
Classen, C.J. (1978), ‘Horace – a cook?’, Classical Quarterly 28: 333-48.
Coffey, M. (1976), Roman Satire (Methuen).
——— (1979), ‘Turnus and Juvenal’, Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies
26: 88-94.
Cohen, R. (1986), ‘History and genre’, New Literary History 17: 203-18.
Coleman, K.M. (1988), Statius Silvae IV edited with an introduction and English
translation (Clarendon Press).
——— (1990), ‘Fatal charades: Roman executions staged as mythological enact-
ments’, Journal of Roman Studies 80: 44-73.
——— (1999) ‘Mythological figures as spokespersons in Statius’ Silvae’, in F. de
Angelis and S. Muth (eds), Im Spiegel des Mythos. Bilderwelt und Lebenswelt
(Deutsches Archäologisches Institut Rom), 67-80.
Colton, R.E. (1966), ‘Echoes of Martial in Juvenal’s third satire’, Traditio 22: 403-
18.
Connors, C. (2000), ‘Imperial space and time: the literature of leisure’, in O. Taplin
(ed.), Literature in the Roman World (Oxford University Press), 208-34.
——— (2005), ‘Epic allusion in Roman satire’, in K. Freudenburg (ed.), The
198
Bibliography
Cambridge Companion to Roman Satire (Cambridge University Press), 123-45.

Conte, G.B. (1994), Genres and Readers: Lucretius, Love Elegy, Pliny’s
Encyclopedia, trans. G.W. Most (Johns Hopkins University Press).
——— (1996), The Hidden Author: An Interpretation of Petronius’s Satyricon,
trans. E. Fantham (University of California Press).
Courtney, E. (1980), A Commentary on the Satires of Juvenal (Athlone Press).
——— (1993), The Fragmentary Latin Poets. Edited with Commentary (Clarendon
Press).
Cucchiarelli, A. (2005), ‘Speaking from silence: the Stoic paradoxes of Persius’, in
K. Freudenburg (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Roman Satire (Cambridge
D’Arms, J.H. (1970), Romans on the Bay of Naples (Edipuglia).
de Decker, J. (1913), Juvenalis Declamans (Van Goethem).
della Corte, F. (1991), ‘Areio Didimo, Orazio e la dossografia d’età Augustea’, Maia
43: 67-81.
Depew, M. and Obbink, D. (eds) (2000), Matrices of Genre: Authors, Canons, and
Society (Harvard University Press).
Dessen, C.S. (1996), The Satires of Persius: iunctura callidus acri (University of
Illinois Press).
Devitt, A.J. (2000), ‘Integrating rhetorical and literary theories of genre’, College
English 62: 696-718.
Dewar, M. (1994), ‘Laying it on with a trowel: the proem to Lucan and related
texts’, Classical Quarterly 44: 199-211.
Dowden, K. (1982), ‘Apuleius and the art of narration’, Classical Quarterly 32:
419-35.
DuQuesnay, I. (1984), ‘Horace and Maecenas: the propaganda value of Sermones
I’, in T. Woodman and D. West (eds), Poetry and Politics in the Age of Augustus
Dyson, M. (1973), ‘Catullus 8 and 76’, Classical Quarterly 23: 127-43.
——— (1980), ‘Avarice and discontent in Horace’s first satire’, Classical Quarterly
30: 133-9.
Ferguson, J. (1979), Juvenal: The Satires. Edited with Introduction and
Commentary (Macmillan Education Ltd).
——— (1987), A Prosopography to the Poems of Juvenal (Collection Latomus).
Fiske, G.C. (1913), ‘Lucilius: the Ars Poetica of Horace, and Persius’, Harvard
Studies in Classical Philology 24: 1-36.
Fitzgerald, J.T. (ed.) (1996), Friendship, Flattery, and Frankness of Speech (Brill).
Fowler, A. (1982), Kinds of Literature: An Introduction to the Theory of Genres and
Odes (Harvard University Press).
Fraenkel, E. (1957), Horace (Clarendon Press).
Fraisse, J.-C. (1974), Philia. La notion d’amitié dans la philosophie antique. Essai
sur un problème perdu et retrouvé (J. Vrin).
Freudenburg, K. (1993), The Walking Muse. Horace on the Theory of Satire
(Princeton University Press).
——— (2001), Satires of Rome: Threatening Poses from Lucilius to Juvenal
(Cambridge University Press).
Fürst, A. (1996), Streit unter Freunden. Ideal und Realität in der
Freundschaftslehre der Antike (B.G. Teubner).
199
Gale, M. (1994), Myth and Poetry in Lucretius (Cambridge University Press).

——— (ed.) (2004), Latin Epic and Didactic Poetry: Genre, Tradition and
Originality (Classical Press of Wales).
George, P.A. (1966), ‘Style and character in the Satyricon’, Arion 5: 336-58.
Gibson, B.J. (1999), ‘Ovid on Reading’, Journal of Roman Studies 89: 19-37.
Gibson, B.J. (1996), ‘Statius and Insomnia: allusion and meaning in Silvae 5.4’,
Classical Quarterly 46: 457-68.
——— (2005), ‘The High Empire: AD 69-200)’, in S.J. Harrison (ed.), A Companion
to Latin Literature (Blackwell), 69-80.
Giegengack, J.M. (1969), Significant Names in Martial (diss. Yale; Dissertation
Abstracts International 31.1246A).
Gottschalk, H. (1982), ‘Diatribe again’, Liverpool Classical Monthly 7.6: 91-9.
——— (1983), ‘More on DIATRIBAI’, Liverpool Classical Monthly 8.6: 91-2.
Gowers, E. (1993a), ‘Horace, Satires 1.5: an inconsequential journey’, Proceedings
of the Cambridge Philological Society 39: 48-66.
——— (1993b), The Loaded Table: Representations of Food in Roman Literature
(Clarendon Press).
Griffin, J. (1976), ‘Augustan poetry and the life of luxury’, Journal of Roman
Studies 66: 87-105.
——— (1977), ‘Propertius and Antony’, Journal of Roman Studies 67: 17-26.
Griffith, J.G. (1970), ‘The ending of Juvenal’s first satire and Lucilius book XXX’,
Hermes 98: 56-72.
Hägg, T. (1971), Narrative Technique in Ancient Greek Romances: Studies of
Chariton, Xenophon Ephesius, and Achilles Tatius (Svenska Institutet).
Halperin, D. (1983), Before Pastoral: Theocritus and the Ancient Tradition of
Bucolic Poetry (Yale University Press).
Hardie, A. (1983), Statius and the Silvae: Poets, Patrons and Epideixis in the
Graeco-Roman World (Francis Cairns).
Hardie, P. (1990), ‘Ovid’s Theban history: the first “anti-Aeneid”?’, Classical
Quarterly 40: 224-35.
——— (1993), The Epic Successors of Virgil: A Study in the Dynamics of a
Tradition (Cambridge University Press).
Harrison, E. (1965), ‘Horace’s tribute to his father’, Classical Philology 60: 111-
14.
Harrison, S.J. (2002), ‘Ovid and genre: evolutions of an elegist’, in P.R. Hardie
(ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Ovid (Cambridge University Press), 79-94.
——— (ed.) (2005), A Companion to Latin Literature (Blackwell).
Henderson, J. (1989), ‘Not “women in Roman Satire” but […]’, in S.H. Braund
(ed.), Satire and Society in Ancient Rome (University of Exeter Press), 89-125.
——— (1993), ‘Be alert (your country needs lerts): Horace, Satires 1.9’,
Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 39: 67-93.
——— (1995), ‘Pump up the volume: Juvenal, Satires 1.1-21’, Proceedings of the
Cambridge Philological Society 41: 101-37.
Hendrickson, G.L. (1928), ‘The first satire of Persius’, Classical Philology 23: 97-
112.
Highet, G.A. (1951), ‘Juvenal’s bookcase’, American Journal of Philology 72: 369-
94.
——— (1954), Juvenal the Satirist (Clarendon Press), 259-61.
200
Bibliography
Hinds, S. (1998), Allusion and Intertext: Dynamics of Appropriation in Roman

Poetry (Cambridge University Press).
——— (2000), ‘Essential epic: genre and gender from Macer to Statius’, in M.
Depew and D. Obbink (eds), Matrices of Genre: Authors, Canons, and Society
(Harvard University Press), 221-44.
Hooley, D.M. (1984), ‘Mutatis mutandis: imitations of Horace in Persius’ First
Satire’, Arethusa 17: 81-94.
Hooley, D.M. (1997), The Knotted Thong (University of Michigan Press).
Horsfall, N. (1979), ‘Epic and burlesque in Ovid Met. viii. 260ff.’, Classical Journal
74: 319-32.
——— (1997), ‘Criteria for the dating of Calpurnius Siculus’, Rivista di Filologia
e di Istruzione Classica 125: 166-96.
Hudson, N.A. (1989), ‘Food in Roman satire’, in S.H. Braund (ed.) Satire and
Society in Ancient Rome (University of Exeter Press), 69-88.
Hunter, R.L. (1985), ‘Horace on friendship and free speech’, Hermes 113 480-90.
Hunter, R.L. (1999), Theocritus: A Selection (Cambridge University Press).
Ingersoll, J.W.D. (1912), ‘Roman satire: its early name’, Classical Philology 7: 59-
65.
Jenkyns, R. (1989), ‘Virgil and Arcadia’, Journal of Roman Studies 79: 26-39.
——— (2005), ‘Epic and other genres in the Roman world’, in J.M. Foley (ed.), A
Companion to Ancient Epic (Blackwell), 562-73.
Jensson, G. (2004), The Recollections of Encolpius: The Satyrica of Petronius as
Milesian Fiction (Barkhuis Publishing and Groningen University Library).
Jocelyn, H.D. (1982), ‘Diatribes and sermons’, Liverpool Classical Monthly 7.1: 3-
7.
——— (1983), ‘ “Diatribes” and the Greek book-title diatribai’, Liverpool Classical
Monthly 8.6: 89-91.
——— (1999), ‘The arrangement and the language of Catullus’ so-called poly-
metra with special reference to the sequence 10-11-12’, in J.N. Adams and
R.G. Mayer (eds), Aspects of the Language of Latin Poetry (British Academy),
335-76.
Jones, F. (1983), ‘An interpretation of Juvenal 11’, Acta C1assica 26: 104-7.
——— (1986), ‘Horace Odes 1.33; 1.22; 2.9’, in C. Deroux (ed.), Studies in Latin
Literature and Roman History IV (Collection Latomus), 379-82.
——— (1987a), ‘Trebius and Virro in Juvenal 5’, Liverpool Classical Monthly
12.10: 148-54.
——— (1987b), ‘The narrator and the narrative of the Satyrica’, Latomus 46: 810-
19.
——— (1988), ‘Review: A Prosopography to the Poems of Juvenal by John
Ferguson’, Classical Review 38: 255-7.
——— (1989), ‘Juvenal 7’, in C. Deroux (ed.), Studies in Latin Literature and
Roman History V (Collection Latomus), 444-63.
——— (1990a), ‘Juvenal 11’, Ramus 19: 160-8.
——— (1990b), ‘The persona and dramatis personae in Juvenal Satire Four’,
Eranos 88: 47-59.
——— (1991), ‘Realism in Petronius’, in H. Hofmann (ed.), Groningen Colloquia
on the Novel (Egbert Forsten), 105-20.
——— (1993a), ‘Juvenal, Satire 13’, Eranos 91: 81-92.
201
——— (1993b), ‘The role of the addressees in Horace, Epistles 1’, Liverpool
Classical Monthly 18: 7-11.
——— (1996), Nominum Ratio (Liverpool Classical Papers).
——— (1999), ‘Juvenal’, in W.W. Briggs (ed.), Ancient Roman Writers, Dicitionary
of Literary Biography, vol. 211 (Bruccoli Clark Layman), 118-26.
——— (2000), ‘Reference in Latin’, Mnemosyne 53: 12-29.
——— (2006), ‘Names and naming in “soft” poetry’, in C. Deroux (ed.), Studies in
Latin Literature and Roman History XIII (Collection Latomus), 5-31.
——— (forthcoming), ‘Juvenal and the hexameter’, in C. Deroux (ed.), Studies in
Latin Literature and Roman History XIV (Collection Latomus).
Kajanto, I. (1965), The Latin Cognomina (Societas Scientiarum Fennica).
Kenney, E.J. (1963), ‘Juvenal: satirist or rhetorician?’, Latomus 22: 704-20.
Kernan, A.B. (1959), The Cankered Muse: Satire of the English Renaissance (Yale
University Press).
Kindstrand, J.F. (1976), Bion of Borysthenes: A Collection of the Fragments with
Introduction and Commentary (Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis).
Knox, P.E. (1986), Ovid’s Metamorphoses and the Traditions of Augustan Poetry
(Cambridge Philological Society).
Konstan, D. (1997), Friendship in the Classical World (Cambridge University
Press).
Koster, S. (1980), Die Invektive in der griechischen und römischen Literatur (Hain).
LaFleur, R.A. (1973), A Prosopographical Commentary on Juvenal Book 1 (diss.
Duke Univ. Durham N.C. Dissertation Abstracts International 34: 745A-746A).
——— (1976), ‘Umbricius and Juvenal 3’, Ziva Antika 26: 383-431.
——— (1979), ‘Amicitia and the unity of Juvenal’s first book’, Illinois Classical
Studies 4: 158-77.
Laguna, G. (1998), Estacio, Silvas III. Introducción, Edición Crítica, Traducción y
Commentario (Fundación Pastor de Estudios Clásicos).
Lawall, G. (1967), Theocritus’ Coan Pastorals (Center for Hellenic Studies).
Lieberg, G. (1962), Puella Divina (Schippers).
Liebeschütz. W. (1966), ‘The theme of liberty in the Agricola of Tacitus’, Classical
Quarterly 16: 126-39.
Lightfoot, J.L. (1999), Parthenius of Nicaea: The Poetical Fragments and the
Erotika pathemata, Edited with Introduction and Commentaries (Clarendon
Press).
Loomis, J.W. (1972), Studies in Catullan Verse (Brill).
Lyne, R.O.A.M. (1978), ‘The neoteric poets’, Classical Quarterly 28: 167-87.
——— (1982), The Latin Love Poets: From Catullus to Horace (Clarendon Press).
Mankin, D. (1995), Horace: Epodes (Cambridge University Press).
Markus, D. (2000), ‘Performing the book: the recital of epic in first century C.E.
Rome’, Classical Antiquity 19: 163-8.
Martin, R.H. and Woodman, A.J. (1989), Tacitus Annals Book IV (Cambridge
University Press).
Mason, H.A. (1962), ‘Is Juvenal a Classic?’, Arion 1: 8-44, reprinted in J.P. Sullivan
(ed.), Critical Essays on Roman Literature: Satire (Routledge and Kegan Paul,
1963), 93-167.
Mayer, R. (1980), ‘Calpurnius Siculus: technique and date’, Journal of Roman
Studies 70: 175-6.
202
Bibliography
——— (1983), ‘Neronian Classicism’, American Journal of Philology 103: 305-18.

——— (1985), ‘Horace on good manners’, Proceedings of the Cambridge
Philological Society 31: 33-46.
——— (1994), Horace Epistles Book I (Cambridge University Press).
McGann, M.J. (1969), Studies in Horace’s First Book of Epistles (Collection
Latomus 100).
Macleod, C. (1979), ‘The poetry of ethics: Horace, Epistles 1’, Journal of Roman
Studies 69: 16-27.
Minyard, J.D. (1985), Lucretius and the Late Republic (Brill).
Morford, M.P.O. (1977), ‘Juvenal’s fifth satire’, American Journal of Philology 98:
219-45.
——— (1967), The Poet Lucan: Studies in Rhetorical Epic (Blackwell).
Morgan, Ll. (2000), ‘Metre matters: some higher-level metrical play in Latin
poetry’, Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 46: 99-120.
——— (2003), ‘Child’s play: Ovid and his critics’, Journal of Roman Studies 93:
66-91.
——— (2004), ‘Getting the measure of heroes: the dactylic hexameter and its
detractors’, in M. Gale (ed.), Latin Epic and Didactic Poetry (Classical Press of
Wales), 1-26.
——— (2005), ‘Satire’, in S.J. Harrison (ed.), A Companion to Latin Literature
(Blackwell), 174-88.
Morton Braund, S. (1996a), Juvenal Satires Book I (Cambridge University Press).
——— (1996b), The Roman Satirists and their Masks (Bristol Classical Press).
Muecke, F. (1995), ‘Law, rhetoric, and genre in Horace Satires 2.1’, in S.J. Harrison
(ed.), Homage to Horace: A Bimillenary Celebration (Clarendon Press), 203-18.
——— (19972), Horace Satires II (Aris and Phillips).
——— (2005), ‘Rome’s first “satirists”: themes and genre in Ennius and Lucilius’,
in K. Freudenburg (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Roman Satire
Nauta, R. (2002), Poetry for Patrons: Literary Communication in the Age of
Domitian (Brill).
Newlands, C. (2002), Statius’ Silvae and the Poetics of Empire (Cambridge
University Press).
Newmyer, S.T. (1979), The Silvae of Statius: Structure and Theme (Brill).
Opacki, I. (2000), ‘Royal genres’, in D. Duff (ed.), Modern Genre Theory
(Longman), 118-26.
Pearce, T.E.V. (1966), ‘The enclosing word order in the Latin hexameter’, Classical
Quarterly 16: 140-71, 298-320.
Pederzani, O. (1993), ‘L’epos privato e quotidiano di Stazio (note per un commento
a silv. 1.2)’, Maia 43: 21-31.
Perini, G.B. (1966-7), ‘Suspendere naso’, Mem. Accad. Patavina 79: 233-64.
Petersmann. H. (1999), ‘The language of Early Roman Satire: its function and
characteristics’, in J.N. Adams and R.G. Mayer (eds), Aspects of the Language of
Latin Poetry (British Academy), 289-310.
Powell, J.G.F. (1992), ‘Persius’ First Satire’, in A.J. Woodman and J.G.F. Powell
(eds), Author and Audience in Latin Literature (Cambridge University Press),
150-72, 248-51.
——— (1995), ‘Friendship and its problems in Greek and Roman thought’, in D.
203
Innes, H. Hine, and C. Pelling (eds), Ethics and Rhetoric. Classical Essays for
Donald Russell on his Seventy-Fifth Birthday (Clarendon Press), 31-45.
——— (1999), ‘Stylistic registers in Juvenal’, in J.N. Adams and R.G. Mayer (eds),
Aspects of the Language of Latin Poetry (British Academy), 311-34.
Pryor, A.D. (1969), ‘Juvenal’s ridiculum acri fortius: problems of Satire 12’,
Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 16: 170.
Puelma Piwonka, M. (1949), Lucilius und Kallimachos (Klostermann).
Pyne, J.J. (1979), A Study of Juvenal’s Use of Personal Names (Tufts Univ. diss.
100ff.; Dissertation Abstracts International 40: 1449A).
Race, W.H. (1982), The Classical Priamel from Homer to Boethius (Brill).
Randall, J.G. (1979), ‘Mistresses’ pseudonyms in Latin elegy’, Liverpool Classical
Monthly 4: 27-35.
Reckford, K.J. (1962), ‘Studies in Persius’, Hermes 90: 476-504.
——— (1996), in C.S. Dessen, The Satires of Persius: iunctura callidus acri
(University of Illinois Press), i-ix.
Reekmans, T. (1971), ‘Juvenal’s views on social change’, Ancient Society 2: 117-
61.
Reynolds, R.W. (1946), ‘The Adultery Mime’, Classical Quarterly 40: 77-84.
Rosati, G. (2005), ‘Elegy after the elegists: from opposition to assent’, in F. Cairns
(ed.), Papers of the Langford Latin Seminar, Twelfth Volume, 2005 (Francis
Cairns), 133-50.
Ross, D.O. (1969), Style and Tradition in Catullus (Harvard University Press).
Rudd, N. (1966), The Satires of Horace (Cambridge University Press).
——— (1976), Lines of Enquiry (Cambridge University Press).
——— (1989), Horace Epistles Book II and Epistle to the Pisones (‘Ars Poetica’)
(Cambridge University Press).
Ruffell, I.A. (2003), ‘Horace, popular invective and the segregation of literature’,
Journal of Roman Studies 93: 35-65.
Russell, D.A. (1979), ‘De imitatione’, in D.A. West and A.J. Woodman (eds),
Creative Imitation and Latin Literature (Cambridge University Press), 1-16.
Saller, R. (1989), ‘Patronage and friendship’, in A. Wallace-Hadrill (ed.), Patronage
in Roman Society (Routledge) 49-62.
——— (2000), ‘Status and patronage’, in A.K. Bowman, P. Garnsey, and D.
Rathbone (eds), The Cambridge Ancient History XI. The High Empire
Scott, I.G. (1927), The Grand Style in the Satires of Juvenal (Northampton, Mass.).
Selden, D.L. (1994), ‘Genre of genre’, in J. Tatum (ed.), The Search for the Ancient
Novel (Johns Hopkins University Press), 39-64.
Shackleton Bailey, D.R. (1982), Profile of Horace (Duckworth).
Skoviera, D. (1973), ‘Persius’ world of thought’, Graecolatina et Orientalia 5: 39-
74.
Sosin, D. (1999), ‘Lucretius, Seneca and Persius 1.1-2’, Transactions of the
American Philological Association 129: 281-99.
Syme, R. (1958), Tacitus (Clarendon Press).
——— (1969), ‘Pliny the procurator’, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 73:
201-36.
——— (1978), History in Ovid (Clarendon Press).
——— (1979a), ‘The Patria of Juvenal’, Classical Philology 74: 1-15.
204
Bibliography
——— (1979b), ‘Juvenal, Pliny, Tacitus’, American Journal of Philology 100: 250-
78.
——— (1980), Some Arval Brethren (Clarendon Press).
Thomas, R.F. (1984), ‘Menander and Catullus 8’, Rheinisches Museum 127: 308-
16.
Todorov, T. (2000), in D. Duff (ed.), Modern Genre Theory (Longman), 193-209.
Toohey, P., (1996), Epic Lessons: An Introduction to Ancient Didactic Poetry
(Routledge).
Townend, G.B. (1973), ‘The literary substrata to Juvenal’s Satires’, Journal of
Roman Studies 63: 148-60.
——— (1980), ‘Calpurnius Siculus and the Munus Neronis’, Journal of Roman
Studies 70: 166-74.
Tuplin, C. (1977), ‘Cantores Euphorionis’, in F. Cairns (ed.), Papers of the Liverpool
Latin Seminar 1976 (ARCA), 1-23.
Vassileiou, A. (1984), ‘Crispinus et les conseillers du prince (Juvénal, Satires IV)’,
Latomus 43: 27-68.
Vessey, D. (1973), Statius and the Thebaid (Cambridge University Press).
Volk, K. (2002), The Poetics of Latin Didactic (Oxford University Press).
Wallace-Hadrill, A. (1989), ‘ Patronage in Roman society: from republic to empire’,
in A. Wallace-Hadrill (ed.), Patronage in Roman Society (Routledge), 63-88.
——— (1994), Houses and Society in Pompeii and Herculaneum (Princeton
University Press).
Watson, L. and Watson, P. (2003), Martial: Select Epigrams (Cambridge University
Press).
Watson, L.C. (2003), A Commentary on Horace’s Epodes (Clarendon Press).
West, D.A. (1974), ‘Of Mice and Men: Horace, Satires 2.6.77-117’, in D.A. West and
A.J. Woodman (eds), Quality and Pleasure in Latin Poetry (Cambridge
——— (1995), Horace Odes 1: Carpe diem (Clarendon Press).
——— (1998), Horace Odes II: Vatis amici (Clarendon Press).
White, P. (1972), Aspects of Non-Imperial Patronage in the Works of Martial and
Statius (diss., Harvard).
——— (1975), ‘The friends of Martial, Statius and Pliny and the dispersal of
patronage’, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 79: 265-300.
——— (1978), ‘Amicitia and the profession of poetry in early imperial Rome’,
Journal of Roman Studies 68: 74-92.
Whitehead, D. (1988), ‘Athenians in Xenophon’s Hellenica’, Liverpool Classical
Monthly 13: 145-7.
Williams, G. (1962), ‘Poetry in the moral climate of Augustan Rome’, Journal of
——— (1978), Change and Decline (University of California Press).
Wilson, H. (1898), ‘The literary influence of Martial upon Juvenal’, American
Journal of Philology 19: 193-209.
Winterbottom, M. (1980), Roman Declamation: Extracts Edited with Commentary
(Bristol Classical Press).
Wiseman, T.P. (1982), ‘Calpurnius Siculus and the Claudian civil war’, Journal of
Woodman, A.J. (1988), Rhetoric in Classical Historiography (Croom Helm).
205
Yardley, J.C. (1987), ‘Propertius 4.5, Ovid Amores 1.6 and Roman comedy’,
Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 33: 179-89.
Zetzel, J.E.G. (1977), ‘Lucilius, Lucretius, and Persius 1.1’, Classical Philology 72:
40-2.
Zucker, F. (1929), ‘Plinius epist. viii 24 – ein Denkmal antiker Humanität’,
Philologus 84: 209-32.
206
Index
References to ancient works appear in bold to distinguish them from refer-

ences to the page numbers of this book.
abuse, 5, 6, 9, 13, 14, 33, 44, 72 Callimachus, 1, 5, 29, 78, 119, 157,
Ad Herennium, 136 167, 173; water imagery, 2, 5
addressees, 15, 71, 76, 77, 84, 89, 90, Aetia praef. 21ff., 5
91, 93, 94, 144; substitute Epigrams 31, 119
addressees, 93 Hecale, 190
advice to potentates, 175 Hymn 5, 172
Alcibiades, 76, 84 Calpurnius Siculus, 68, 124-5, 146,
amicitia, 82, 85, 87, 89-90, 92, 128, 157, 196
138, 149, 151-2, 184, 184; litera- captatio, 93, 143, 149
ture of, 184 catalogues, 45, 88, 98, 100-1, 126
amphitheatre, 59, 67, 100, 152, 161, Catullus 3, 8, 29, 30-4, 36, 37, 45, 48,
179, 194, 195 49, 55, 72, 76, 91, 97, 110, 129,
anecdote, 8, 15, 33, 44, 50, 80, 119, 176 157-8, 176, 177-8; and satire, 3,
Apollo, 5, 62, 68, 97, 98, 103, 110, 137, 8, 32-3; naming in, 50-2, 62-3,
189 176-7
apples, 81, 101, 112, 191 Carmina 1, 30; 2, 30, 31; 4, 63; 5,
Apuleius, 143, 147 31, 45; 6, 33; 7, 45; 8, 30, 51; 10,
Archilochus, 2, 7, 51, 160, 177, 179 8; 11, 30; 46, 30, 63; 50, 30, 31-2
architecture, 82, 183 celebration, 34, 50, 72, 174, 186
Aristophanes, 13-14 censor, 3, 5, 9, 169
audience, 2, 6, 6-7, 8, 9, 13, 21, 25, 30- chariot, 17, 22, 69, 70, 97, 112, 170
1, 35, 39-40, 45-7, 93, 129, 130 Cicero, 26, 29, 31, 32, 33, 46, 59, 61,
133, 140-1, 142, 172; audience’s 69, 77, 78, 79, 103, 120, 136, 143,
dilemma, 130 158, 167; on comedy, 167; on
Automedon, 22, 61, 69, 97, 111 mime, 192; on Lucilius, 169; on
impersonation, 136
battle scenes, 99, 188; night raid, 188 ad Fam. 7.1, 192; 7.6-22, 78, 167
bees, 159, 188, 194 de Orat. 1.72, 169
Bibaculus, 51, 66, 160 Inv. 1.27, 136
Bion, 8, 121, 157 Phil. 2.65, 120
bucolic, 30, 38-9, 98, 124-7, 157; pro Cael. 18, 61; 65, 192
Messalla and, 157 Cluvienus, 18, 20
Clytemnestra (twopenny), 179
Caesar, Julius, 31, 32, 34, 36, 37, 52, collegia, 192
157 comedy 1, 6, 9, 11, 13-14, 15, 19, 23,
207
82, 83, 104, 110, 117-8, 119, 121, 17, 20, 22-3, 24, 33, 62, 64-5, 68-
126, 128, 167 70, 73, 81, 87, 89, 95-116, 120,
competition, 34-6, 148, 152 128; other genres in relation to,
conflation, 12, 13, 101, 117, 127 28, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 54, 61, 71-3,
consolatio, 93, 144, 148, 172 95, 131-2; typical, 96-103, 132; see
Cornutus, 14, 15, 19, 58, 76, 95, 110, also war
123 Epictetus, 16, 54, 66, 121, 142
council, 50, 57, 62, 87-9, 99, 104 Epicureanism 6, 42, 88, 124, 194; see
counting, 31, 45 also quies
criticism, 3, 4, 6, 10, 12, 13, 14, 19, 23, epigram, 27, 31, 55, 89, 97, 119, 159
24, 32, 48, 49, 72, 80, 83, 152, 170, epiphany, 5, 64, 65, 98
181, 196 epistle, 76, 77, 84, 123
cultural identity and inheritance, 46-7,
87, 132, 147, 153, 154 fleeing oneself, 167
cunnus, 64, 119, 179 food, 80-1, 82, 83, 89-90, 142-3, 149,
152
dances, 106, 137-8, 142, 152 formalism (Russian), 28
declamation, 19, 26, 85, 86, 113-14, function (literary), 3, 4, 26, 46, 72, 181
117, 121, 122-3, 133, 134-5, 135,
141, 149, 154, 158 Gallus (elegist), 29, 30, 38, 159-60, 180,
defecation, 11 181, 192, 193; as Propertian alter
Democritus and Heraclitus, 19, 124 ego, 180
dialogue form 2, 7, 16, 27, 76, 77-84, genre, 25-47, 74, 81, 87, 115; ancient
85, 92, 113; fictionality, 182 views on, 1, 102; and antholo-
diatribe; 8, 15-16, 117, 119, 121, 133; gising, 30, 38, 43, 173; and failure,
see also moralising-philosophical 8, 73; annexation, 23, 28, 29-30,
tradition 34, 132; antagonism, 11, 23, 28,
didactic, 6, 27, 28, 29, 80-1, 93, 100, 34-6, 38, 61, 68-9, 71-2, 73, 97,
102, 105, 111, 117-18, 126, 131, 103, 132; as abstraction/idea, 34,
146, 158 103, 131, 132; as invention, 28-9,
dinner party, 82, 90, 109, 113, 142-3, 31, 125; as permission, 24, 33, 39-
149 40, 152; boundaries, 21, 26, 29, 35,
divine machinery, 98, 112; in Lucan, 39, 105, 121, 131-2, 175; classifica-
188 tion, listing, 4, 28-9, 38, 46, 103,
dramatisation, 12, 36, 87, 108, 129, 131-2, 172-3, 173; cross-generic
132,133, 139-40, 194; see also lists, 29; difference, 35, 43-5, 49,
performance, impersonation 53, 74, 96-7, 103, 114; dominant,
see under epic; fixity, 27-8; grid,
elegy, 19, 27, 28-9, 34, 35, 37, 70-2, 76, field, 1, 9, 11, 27, 39, 46, 153-4;
91, 93, 95, 97, 98, 102, 103, 127- identifying features, 29, 38, 43-5,
31, 132, 148, 158-9, 166, 168; see 46, 49, 52-3, 96-102, 131-2; gradi-
also under war ence, 132; hierarchy, 29, 54, 109,
Ennius, 96, 104, 108, 110, 119, 120, 173; kind, kinds, 26, 27, 29, 43, 46,
126, 159 96; mixing, 30-1, 34, 38, 43, 49, 55,
epic, 34, 72, 92, 95-6, 131, 152, 159, 67, 80-1, 87, 90, 93, 95; name
171-2; as dominant genre, 28, 68, profiles, 48-9; new, 27, 29-31, 38-9;
71-3, 95, 131-2, 153; historical, non-reciprocal pairs, 131-2; origi-
102, 189; in satire 4, 11, 14, 15, nating claims, 27, 46, 51, 81;
208
Index
rhetorical, 93, 148; self-definition, 4, 6, 8, 9, 11, 18; satires as defence,

1, 132, 146, 196; speech, speech- 10; satires as confession, 4, 10
act, proto-genres, 25, 26-7, 44, Epistles 1, 5, 8, 56, 77, 84, 155, 156,
166; sub-genre, 123, 148; super- 168, 178, 182; 1.1.10-19, 6;
genre, 153-4; system, 27-8; 1.2.18-31, 188; 1.11, 167; 1.12.20,
transgression, 28, 35, 95-6, 102; 66; 1.13, 93; 1.14.13, 182; 1.18,
see also under love, Juvenal, 184; 1.19.23ff., 7, 51, 173; 2, 77;
satiric programme 2.1.166, 172; 2.2.43-5, 6; 2.2.51-2,
Gil-Martin, 154 14; 2.2.54ff., 168, 173; 2.2.60, 8;
Golden Age, 69, 112, 115, 129 2.2.90-105, 168
Graia urbs, 129 Odes 1.1, 175; 1.7, 63, 187; 1.16.22,
173; 1.27, 61; 1.33.13, 61; 2.1,
Hammershøi, 74 170; 2.4, 144, 189; 2.7, 179, 188;
Helvidius, Paris and Oenone, 180 2.14.22, 185; 3.6.21ff., 59, 170;
hendecasyllabi, 173-4; see also iambi, 3.8, 143; 3.30, 172
ineptiae, ludus, nugae, schedium, Satires 1.1-1.3, 117-18; 1.1.14-15,
sermo, versiculi 119; 1.1.25-6, 118; 1.1.68-70, 6-7,
hendecasyllables, 30, 55, 63, 159, 160, 105; 1.2, 118-20; 1.2.1-4, 118-19;
162, 173-4, 177, 178 1.2.105ff., 192; 1.2.125-6, 64;
Heraclitus, see Democritus and 1.2.127-33, 120; 1.3.19-20, 119;
Heraclitus 1.3.44-8, 118; 1.3.107ff., 64;
hero, 34, 98, 103, 171 1.4.1ff., 3, 14; 1.4, 3-4, 5-6, 9, 11;
hero, warrior (satiric), 5, 10, 16-17, 22, 1.4.22-5, 9; 1.4.62, 11; 1.4.105-
95, 97, 112, 170; mice, 188 31, 6; 1.4.115-19, 6; 1.4.141-2, 9;
Herodotus, 45, 100 1.5, 65, 97, 105-7; 1.5.1-4, 105;
heroicus, 171-2 1.5.9-10, 105; 1.5.51ff., 99;
Hesiod, 45, 74, 112, 158, 171 1.5.82ff., 64-5; 1.7.11-18, 105;
Hipponax, 160, 164, 177 1.8, 119; 1.9, 8, 97; 1.10, 3-4, 9;
historiography, 2, 20, 21, 123 1.10.4-5, 12; 1.10.7-15, 3-4;
Homer, 37, 42, 45, 50, 62, 77, 99, 100, 1.10.18-19, 8; 1.10.40-8: 1, 9-10,
101, 104, 105, 107, 112, 127, 129, 27, 39; 2.1, 4-5, 10, 78; 2.1.16-17,
137 4, 10; 2.1.30-4, 4-5; 2.1.34ff., 97;
Horace, 1, 5, 12-13, 22, 27, 74, 76, 94, 2.1.57-60, 10; 2.1.60-2, 11,
114-15, 128, 146, 160; and 2.1.62-76, 5; 2.1.77-8, 12; 2.2, 79;
Catullus, 8, 33, 51-2; and epic, 104- 2.3, 79-80; 2.3.12, 2; 2.3.132-41,
7; and Lucilius, 3-5, 33; and 105; 2.3.187-213, 105; 2.4, 80-1,
Lucretius, 6-7, 102, 107, 117-18, 117; 2.5, 66, 81; 2.6, 81-2; 2.6.14-
119, 127, 167; Ars Poetica, 11, 77, 15, 5; 2.7.21-2, 119; 2.7, 79-80;
128, 168; as model, 11-13, 15-16, 2.8, 82-3, 117
17-19; Epistles, 16, 49, 53, 58, 105,
124, 128, 150, 160, 168; Epodes, 7, iambi, 51, 157, 173; see also hendeca-
51-2, 63, 74, 83, 155, 160, 181, 182; syllabi, ineptiae, ludus, nugae,
naming in, 51-4, 58, 61, 63-6, 70-2, schedium, sermo, versiculi
74, 180-1; Odes, 27, 45, 48, 52, 59, iambics, 30, 44, 49, 51-2, 63, 160, 164,
61, 63, 68, 71, 72-4, 76, 94, 128, 174
155-6, 161, 168, 181, 182; father, 1, ideology, 32, 34, 36-7, 68, 71, 72-3, 87-
6, 9, 18, 19, 118; satiric 8, 103, 107, 147
programme 3-11; satires as poetry, imitation, 25, 35, 109, 125, 173, 178, 182
209
impersonation, 136-7, 154 112; 5.173, 114; 6, 40-1, 90-1; 6.1-

inclusiveness, 11, 34-6, 132, 152, 174 20, 112; 6.7-8, 28-9, 129, 138;
indignation, 19, 21, 22, 89, 90, 93, 114, 6.60-2, 171; 6.85-7, 70; 6.98-113,
149, 171 98; 6.115ff., 135; 6.279ff., 153;
ineptiae, 174; see also hendecasyllabi, 6.320ff., 152; 6.635-8, 21-2; 7, 22,
iambi, ludus, nugae, schedium, 91-2; 7.1-3, 124; 7.1-35, 22; 7.23,
sermo, versiculi 124-5; 7.36-9, 137; 7.62-71, 22;
interlocution, 2, 7, 11, 15, 20, 76, 77, 7.62-149, 20; 7.150-75, 122;
80, 85, 94, 114, 119, 126 7.186ff., 114; 8, 92; 8.39-40, 140-
invitation, 93, 148, 172 1; 8.87-139, 40, 42-3; 9, 92-3,
125-7; 9.64-5, 98, 111; 9.102, 124-
journey, 33, 50, 62, 97-8, 99, 107, 120, 7, 193; 9.149-50, 98, 111; 10,
129, 184, 188 122-3, 149; 10.28-53, 19, 58;
Juvenal, 160; and contemporaries, 10.140ff., 152-3; 10.188-288, 57;
25-6, 111, 147-8; and epic, 22-3, 10.218-26, 100-1; 10.238, 150;
41-2, 68-70, 87, 89, 111-16; and 10.258-61, 57, 114; 10.278, 114;
innovation, 21, 144, 148-9; and 11-13, 93; 11, 142-3; 12, 143-4;
Lucilius, 16-19, 22; and non-epic 12.93-5, 140-1; 13, 144; 13.11-17,
genres, 122-31; and oppressor- 114; 13.19-23, 19, 23; 13.28, 115;
oppressed pairs, 151; and 13.38-52, 112; 13.120-5, 115;
Martial, 123-4, 184; and paradox, 14.47-8, 114, 153; 14.205, 153;
151; and structure, 20, 138-9, 15.103-6, 150
141-2, 142, 144, 148-9, 151-2; and
style, 113-16; as moralist, 127-31, lex generis, 1, 21
150-3; as transgressive, 21, 22; libellus, 20, 30, 33, 63, 174, 178
cinematic effect, 20, 57, 149-50; libertas, 32, 33, 34, 146, 150, 167; see
naming in; 56-60, 68-70, 74, 111- also simplicitas
12; satiric programme, 16-23; see lineage, 56, 92, 98, 99, 106, 188
also tablets love, 34, 35, 36, 51, 52, 71, 102, 103,
Satires 1, 16-19, 1.1ff., 22, 115-16, 119, 128-9, 176, 189
128, 139-40; 1.3-4, 19, 128; 1.15- Lucan, 25, 59, 95, 102, 111, 130, 146,
17, 19, 115, 122; 1.19-21, 16-17; 158, 160, 170, 181, 184
1.22-80, 59-60; 1.20, 23; 1.22-146, Lucilius, 4, 32-4, 76, 121, 145-6, 150,
20; 1.30-1, 23; 1.42-4, 112; 1.51, 161; according to Horace, 3-5, 78;
18; 1.52-4, 22, 98; 1.59-62, 69; according to Persius, 11-13, 120;
1.63-4, 23; 1.79-80, 18, 20, 23; according to Juvenal, 16-19, 22;
1.81-4, 112; 1.85-6, 20; 1.149-50, and Catullus, 32-3; and epic, 103;
112; 1.150-72, 147; 1.153-4, 16; as Roman, 34, 145, 150, 166-7; as
1.162-4, 22, 111; 1.165-70, 17, satiric figurehead, 1, 4; naming in,
179; 2.64-5, 140-1; 2.83, 153; 50, 62; order of books, 166; satiric
2.102ff., 193; 2.149ff., 112, 130; 3, programme, 2-3
85-7, 112, 138-9; 3.62-6, 124, 129- Lucretius, 6-7, 9, 31, 32, 42, 71, 102,
30; 3.131-3, 40-1, 124, 138-9; 105, 107, 117-18, 119, 128, 158,
3.198-200, 69; 3.221-2, 123; 161, 167, 181
3.257-67, 41-2; 3.262, 150; 3.265- De Rerum Natura 1.936ff., 6, 118;
6, 112; 3.278-80, 70, 112; 3.978-83, 7; 3.1053ff., 167;
3.315-22, 124-5; 4, 87-8, 111; 3.1066-75, 167; 4.1160ff., 11, 167;
4.107, 150; 5, 89-90, 112; 5.150-2, 5.83, 107; 5.925ff., 167; 6.56, 107
210
Index
ludo, 13, 31, 168, 174 147, 161-2, 163, 172-3, 177, 186;
ludus, 15, 174; see also hendecasyllabi, longest epigram, 67; naming in,
iambi, ineptiae, nugae, schedium, 54, 67; programme, 54
sermo, versiculi Epigrams 3.30, 41, 59, 123; 3.52,
Lupus, 12, 62 42, 123; 4.30, 88-9; 10.4, 54, 67;
Lusus Troiae, 191 12.94, 54
lyric, 8, 22, 27, 29, 30, 35, 39, 44, 49, Menander, 7, 29
51, 53, 63, 67, 70-2, 73, 74, 81, 97, Menippean satire, 187; see also under
98, 102, 103, 122, 131, 157, 160, Varro
161, 162, 168, 172, 173, 176, 177, merit, 92, 99, 141
179, 187, 189, 196 metre, 11, 27, 28, 30, 33, 44, 54-5, 67,
104, 106-7, 113, 114-15, 118, 158-
Maecenas, 52, 53, 58, 82-3, 107, 161 9, 160, 162, 164, 177-8
major roles in Horace, 77-84, 94; Mevia, 59, 179, 195
Catius, 77, 80-1; Cervius, 77, 81-2; Midas, 12, 34, 110
Dama, 58, 66; Damasippus, 7, 65, mice, 78, 97, 188
66, 77, 79-80, 84, 100, 105, 121, mime, 90, 120, 126, 192
150; Davus, 58, 66, 77, 79, 80, 84, mockery, 13, 33, 62, 72, 83, 104, 109,
100, 121, 150; Fundanius, 77, 82- 111, 166, 167
3, 84; Nasidienus, 77, 82-3; model, 1-24, 26, 27, 28, 30, 33, 35, 36,
Ofellus, 77, 77-8, 79, 80; Tiresias, 39, 44, 45, 51, 65, 73, 74, 78, 80,
65, 66, 77, 81-2, 96; Trebatius, 4, 93, 99, 117, 118, 119, 121, 135,
5, 10, 77, 78 138, 147, 148, 154, 166, 190; scale
major roles in Juvenal, 84-94, 148-9; model, 113, 184, 189
Calvinus, 85, 93, 94, 114, 144; moralising-philosophical tradition, 5,
Catullus, 85, 93, 140-1, 143; 26, 123-4, 142; see also diatribe
Corvinus, 85, 93, 94, 140-1, 143; Mucius, 12, 60
Crispinus, 84, 87-9, 141, 148,
149, 151; Domitian, 22, 44, 88-9, names, naming, 3, 13, 15, 24, 26, 45,
92, 99, 149, 151; Naevolus, 57, 48-75, 77-8, 83, 86, 91, 92, 93, 94,
84, 92-3, 94, 98, 111, 114, 125-6, 95, 104, 111-12, 122, 142, 155-6,
127-8, 149, 151, 186; Persicus, 175, 175, 180-1; cover names, 58,
85, 93, 137, 142, 143; Ponticus, 181-2; counting names, 56, 175;
42, 84, 92, 141, 148; Postumus, divine and mythological, 60-70,
84, 90-1, 141, 185-6; Telesinus, 188; historical names, 58-60, 123,
91-2, 125, 148; Trebius, 84, 89- 189; naming the dead, 58, 77, 179;
90, 92, 94, 112, 141, 148, 151, Roman, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 58,
185; Umbricius, 40-1, 42, 56, 69, 72-3; self-naming, 74-5; sources,
84, 85-7, 92, 94, 112, 124-5, 126, 48, 50, 51, 53, 58-60, 61, 72-3, 77-
130, 138-9, 141, 148, 183-4; 8, 94, 181-2
Ursidius, see Postumus; Virro, Nero, 135, 146, 160, 173
57, 84, 85, 89-90, 92, 112, 126, Iliou Persis, 42, 135, 152
128, 149, 151 nettles, 30
major roles in Persius, 84; see also Ninth Age, 115
Cornutus Nomentanus, 62, 167, 181, 183
major roles in satires, 76-94 nugae, 8, 33, 174; see also hendecasyl-
Martial, 16, 26, 31, 36, 41, 54, 55, 58, labi, iambi, ineptiae, ludus,
67, 72, 74, 88-9, 92, 123, 126, 127, schedium, sermo, versiculi
211
old comedy, 3, 7, 13-14, 24 pretence, 88, 135, 184, 194

Ovid, 27, 28, 29, 35, 70, 74, 95, 98, priapea, 93, 119, 126, 127, 128
101, 110, 120, 125, 126, 127, 132, programmes, 1-24, 25, 27, 30, 45, 48,
134-5, 162, 171, 189; Ars 49, 53, 60, 64, 65, 66, 69, 71, 78,
Amatoria 29, 91; Fasti, 27, 125; 94, 97, 104-5, 108, 110, 112, 113-
lists of poets, 29 14, 115, 118, 121, 128, 131, 140,
Metamorphoses 3.172, 70; 3.206- 146, 149, 164, 166, 167, 168, 170,
25, 100; 11, 34, 110; 171, 177, 178, 179, 190, 192, 196
13.623-14.582, 29 progymnasma, 90
Tristia 1.7.33-40, 28; 2.427ff., 29; Propertius, 27, 28, 29, 32, 36-8, 72, 75,
4.10.41ff., 29 76, 91, 94, 120, 129, 132, 163, 174,
187; dating, 193; naming in, 70-2,
Pacuvius, 104 74
Papirius Fabianus, 85-6 Elegies 1.6, 174; 1.20, 190; 2.7,
Paris, 57, 70 163; 2.23, 120; 2.23.21-2, 130;
Paris and Oenone, see Helvidius 2.34.81-94, 29, 38; 3.12, 91, 129;
pedestrian, 9, 40, 114, 115, 149, 168, 4.7.1, 130-1; 4.8, 120, 187
169 prostitution, 40, 41, 67, 124, 130, 138,
performance, 133-44, 194; see also 152
dramatisation, impersonation Psecas, 70
Persius, 162; and epic, 108-11; and public vs. private, 31, 32, 34, 36, 37,
Horace, 110, 121, 141; and 52, 71, 73, 76, 88, 97, 132, 161,
Lucilius, 11-13; naming in, 54, 66- 165, 174, 194
7, 74; satiric programme, 11-16;
and Stoicism, 146, 169 quies, quietism, 73, 86, 88, 185
Satires 1, 108-10; 1.2-3, 15; 1.4,
108; 1.17, 108-9; 1.51, 19, 128; real vs. false, 14, 15, 54
1.114-15, 11-12; 1.116-18, 12-13; realism, real life, 6, 8-10, 11, 14, 18,
1.126-34, 13, 15; 1.134, 67; 3, 19, 22, 23, 24, 31, 35, 36, 37-8, 49,
150-1; 5, 110-11, 151; 5.14, 15; 51, 53, 54, 60, 71, 72, 74, 86, 95,
5.16, 15; 5.161ff., 121 98, 103, 122, 149, 150, 153, 167
Petronius, 120, 132, 133, 135, 136, 143, recusatio, 3, 5, 39, 71, 78, 97, 102, 103,
158, 162-3, 187, 188 157
Satyrica 115, 189; 116, 143 rex, 90
Philodemus, 119-20, 127 Rhinthon, 8, 166
philosophy, 6-7, 8-9, 19, 20, 23, 166
Plato, 7, 80, 82, 117 safety, 4, 10, 11-12, 17, 19, 20, 22, 23,
Plautus, 30, 51, 127, 140, 143, 193 91-2, 147, 171
Pliny, 59, 60, 87, 133, 135, 147, 163 salutatio, 82, 183
Epistles 1.14.5, 185; 1.20.12, 25; satire, 163-4; and non-epic genres, 5-
4.14, 174; 5.3, 29; 6.15, 163; 9, 13-16, 19, 117-32; and public
8.14.9, 184, 196; 9.13.2, 184, role, 3, 4, 5, 18; as outside litera-
196; 9.22, 163; 9.23.2-3, 184, 196 ture, 1, 8, 95, 107, 108, 168;
political engagement, 49, 52, 53-4, 146 ethical purpose, 2-3, 6, 8-9, 15,
praise, 44, 54, 71, 72, 73, 78, 147; see 80, 82, 117, 121, 146, 150-1;
also celebration satiric programme, 1-24, 112,
prayers, 5, 66, 67, 98, 122, 129, 149, 113; satiric tone in other genres,
188, 194 181, 187
212
Index
schedium, 2, 174; see also hendecasyl- Augustus 43, 191

labi, iambi, ineptiae, ludus, nugae, Claudius 38, 184, 185
sermo, versiculi Gaius 23, 179
Scipio, 130, 176, 193 Nero 1, 187; 20ff., 135; 27, 118; 33,
self-deprecation, 2-3, 8, 33, 55, 109, 60; 38, 175
174, 178 Domitian 10, 180
Seneca, 16, 29, 54, 74, 121, 124, 132, sword, 10, 17, 97, 170
133, 135, 142, 146, 153, 160, 162,
164, 196; enrolling Epicurus, 194 tablets (writing), 18, 23, 30, 172, 176
Epistles 80, 135; 57.6-7, 175; 84.9, Tacitus, 20, 25, 26, 36, 59, 60, 87-88,
194; 90.9, 42; 114.4-8, 60; 120.22, 123, 133, 135, 143, 146, 147, 158,
135 163, 164-5, 170, 184-5; dating, 193
sententiae, 15, 114, 122, 152-3 Agricola 6.3, 184, 185; 15, 175; 30-
sermo, 6, 8, 79, 135, 140, 168, 174; see 3, 175; 42, 184; 45, 179, 184
also hendecasyllabi, iambi, inep- Annals 1.13, 184; 4.20, 184; 4.32-3,
tiae, ludus, nugae, schedium, 170, 171; 4.34.8, 174; 6.10, 184;
versiculi 12.66, 60; 13.15, 60; 14.11, 185;
sermon, 65-6, 85, 121, 148 14.47, 184; 14.50, 196; 14.53-6,
Silius Italicus, 86, 102, 163, 164 135; 16.17, 163; 16.18, 196
simplicitas, 147; see also libertas Dialogus 183; 29, 186; 35, 186
size, 21, 44, 102, 104, 148 Histories 1.2, 184; 1.10, 184; 1.48,
social change, 31-2, 33, 34, 37, 72-4, 184; 3.58, 184; 3.63, 184; 4.14,
145-6, 146-7, 148, 196 175; 4.52, 179; 4.68.4, 175
Socrates, 1, 2, 7-8, 58, 78, 79, 80, 81, Tantalus, 6-7, 62, 64, 105
84, 94, 117, 124 teachers, 6; blamed, 91, 186
sôtêria, 93, 148, 172 Terence, 6, 119, 121
speech, speech act, see under genre Adelphi 60-4, 136
speeches, 36, 42-3, 98, 99-100, 114, 123, Thucycides, 45, 100
137, 175; see also dialogue form Tibullus, 29, 32, 72, 73, 75, 76, 155,
sphragis, 171 156, 159, 165, 173, 189, 193
sportula, 171 Elegies 1.4, 182, 189; 2.4.13-20, 189
Statius, 95, 109, 125, 147, 164; de Bello toga, 15, 169, 182
Germanico, 57, 59, 87, 111, 123; togata, 19, 139
Silvae, 31, 49, 94, 97, 125, 131; Turnus, 60, 149, 165, 166, 170, 178
naming in the Silvae, 54-5; 67-8,
72-4 Valerius Flaccus, 102, 109, 111, 165
Stoics, 79, 121, 135, 146, 194 Varius, 77, 96, 106, 165
storms, 93, 98, 99, 141, 143, 188, 189; Vermeer, 74
in Petronius, 115, 189 Varro, Menippean Satires, 27, 100, 162,
streets, 18, 22, 56, 60, 61, 70, 97, 98, 173
124, 135, 179; Via Sacra, 8; Via versiculi, 174; see also hendecasyllabi,
Flaminia, 69, 111, 179 iambi, ineptiae, ludus, nugae,
style, 3, 6, 14-15, 16, 44, 46, 63, 71, 96-7, schedium, sermo
103, 104, 106, 107, 109-10, 113-16, Virgil, 5, 22, 25, 27, 29, 30, 32, 34, 35,
118, 120, 134, 149-50, 153-4 36, 38-9, 48, 72, 74, 87, 96, 97, 102,
subjectivity, 30, 31, 36-8, 133-4, 138-9 106, 110, 132, 137, 148, 159, 160,
Suetonius, 60, 135, 147, 164, 179, 185, 161, 165; Aeneid, 29, 35, 37, 45,
196 110, 112, 137, 142; Eclogues, 30,
213
39, 43, 58, 72, 87, 157, 182; voice, 136-7, 137-8
Georgics, 32, 45, 112, 158, 159, 181,
188, 192; ‘Virgilian poetry’ 173 war, 44, 64, 87, 96, 97, 99, 107, 111,
Eclogues 1, 124; 2.69, 125, 127; 5, 123, 130, 146, 159, 160, 164, 170,
181; 6, 160; 6.1-5, 5; 9, 181; 10, 160 188; in elegy, 71, 103, 132, 163,
Georgics 2.103-8, 101; 4.563, 74 170, 174, 189
Aeneid 2.311-12, 42, 69, 188; 9.227, wardrobe, 38
190; 10.104ff., 104 will-hunting, see captatio
214

Frederick Jones - Juvenal and The Satiric Genre

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Frederick Jones - Juvenal and The Satiric Genre

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Frederick Jones - Juvenal and The Satiric Genre

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Juvenal and the Satiric Genre

Classical Literature and Society

Classics and the Bible: Hospitality and Recognition

Culture and Philosophy in the Age of Plotinus

Homer: The Resonance of Epic

Juvenal and the Satiric Genre

Ovid and His Love Poetry

Silent Eloquence: Lucian and Pantomime Dancing

Thucydides and the Shaping of History

CLASSICAL LITERATURE AND SOCIETY

Pagan and Christian

Bristol Classical Press

This electronic edition first published in 2011 by

An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc

Copyright © Frederick Jones 2007

The right of Frederick Jones to be identified as the author of this work

Editor’s Foreword vii

1. The Satirists on Satire and its Models 1

Appendix: Names in Satire and Related Genres 155

Finally, I pay tribute to the inspirational genius which Michael

The Satirists on Satire and its Models

Roman satire is a distinctive and problematic genre. Uniquely, it claims to

b. Horace’s depictions of Lucilius

e. Persius’ depiction of Lucilius and Horace

h. Juvenal’s depiction of Lucilius and Horace

b. Horace’s depictions of Lucilius

conveys the impression that the qualities he lists (brevity, variety,

c. Horace’s presentation of other models

ence itself (mutato nomine de te / fabula narratur; Sat. 1.1.69-70, ‘Only

Atque ea nimirum quaecumque Acherunte profundo

And certainly whatever is fabled to be in deep Acheron, all of it exists for us

appears also specifically in connection with philosophy: Horace owes some

d. Horace’s treatment of satire and other genres

e. Persius’ depiction of Lucilius and Horace

seems to be an acute judgement of how Horace works, especially in the

f. Persius’ presentation of other models

g. Persius’ treatment of satire and other genres

frequent snippets of dialogue or mimesis. We see this in the letters of

h. Juvenal’s depiction of Lucilius and Horace

cur tamen hoc potius libeat decurrere campo,

‘The great scion of Aurunca’ is a quasi-epic periphrasis, and charging over

ense velut stricto58 quotiens Lucilius ardens

Lucilius is referred to by means of a geographical periphrasis near the

si natura negat, facit indignatio versum

If nature says no, indignation will make the verse

It is possible, as Richard Lafleur suggested, that ‘Cluvienus’ is a third

i. Juvenal’s presentation of other models

j. Juvenal’s treatment of satire and other genres

quidquid agunt homines, votum, timor, ira, voluptas,

This more or less universal inclusiveness (suggesting a philosophical

satirists. Juvenalian satire is an outpouring of indignation at vicious

fingimus haec altum satura sumente coturnum

sexual inversions, woven through with luxury, decadence, and outrage;

Juvenal’s antagonism to epic and tragedy is much more violent than

… difficile est saturam non scribere. nam quis iniquae

nonne libet medio ceras inplere capaces / quadrivio …? (1.63-4)75

Don’t you want to fill up capacious tablets right at the crossroads …?

facit indignatio versum (1.79)

Indignation itself will make the verses