The Satires of Juvenal, Persius, Sulpicia, and Lucilius. Sulpicia

Sat. xi. 195, "Totam hodie Romam circus capit, et fragor aurem Percutit, eventum viridis quo colligo panni;" with the inscription in Gruter, quoted in Clinton (in ann.), "Primum agitavit in factione prasinâ." [Cf. Mart. xiv. Ep. cxxxi., written long after Domitian's time.] 126 879 Birth of Pertinax. [Dionysius of Halicarnassus flourishes.] 128 881 Hadrian takes the title of "Pater Patriæ." 227 129 882 Julius Fronto mentioned, as commanding the "Classis Prætoria Misenensis." Cf. A.D. 100. 130 883 In the autumn of this year Hadrian is in Egypt. [Compare the Greek inscription quoted by Clinton from Eckhel with Sat. xv. 5.] While on the Nile he lost his favorite Antinous, and built a city to his memory, which he called after him. It is very probable that the lines, Sat. i. 60, seq., referring primarily to Nero and Sporus, may have a secondary allusion to Hadrian and Antinous. [Appian flourished. Galen born.] 138 891 Death of Hadrian in his 63d year.

APPENDIX, ON THE DATE OF JUVENAL'S SATIRES.

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      The first Satire appears, from internal evidence, to have been written subsequently to at least the larger portion of the other Satires. But in this, as probably in many others, lines were interpolated here and there, at a period long after the original composition of the main body of the Satire; the cycle of events reproducing such a combination of circumstances, that the Satirist could make his shafts come home with two-fold pungency. For instance, the lines 60 et seq., which probably were in the first edition of the Satire directed against Nero and his favorite Sporus, would tell with equal effect against Hadrian and Antinous.

      It is impossible, therefore, from any one given passage, to assign a date to any of the Satires of Juvenal. All that can be done, is to point out the allusion probably intended in the particular passages, and by that means fix a date prior to which we may reasonably conclude that portion could not have been written.

      In those Satires whose subject is less complicated and extensive, a nearer approximation may be obtained to the date of the composition; as e.g. in the case of the second and eleventh Satires, and we may add the thirteenth and fifteenth.

      But in the first Satire, the allusions extend over so wide a period, that unless we may suppose, as in the case just cited, that other persons are intended under the names known to history, to whom his readers would apply immediately the covert sarcasm, we can hardly imagine that they could all at any one given time serve to give point to the shaft of the Satirist. Thus Crispinus, mentioned l. 27, was made a senator by Nero, and lived probably under Domitian also. The barber alluded to in l. 25 (if, as the commentators suppose, Cinnamus is the person), must have lost all his wealth, and been reduced to poverty, somewhere about A.D. 93, the date of Martial's seventh book of Epigrams (who mentions the fact, and advises him to recur to his old trade, Ep. VII. lxiv.). Massa and Carus (l. 35, 36) are mentioned by Martial as apparently flourishing when he wrote his twelfth book, which was sent to Rome A.D. 104. Again, line 49 seems to refer to the condemnation of Marius as a recent event; but this took place in A.D. 100. And in that same year M. Cornelius Fronto was consul with Trajan; and may have been the proprietor of the plane-groves, mentioned l. 12. But then, again, we hear of Julius Fronto in A.D. 129, and Hadrian's conduct toward Antinous in that and the following year, might well have given occasion to the 60th and following lines; and if we are right in applying line 40 to Plotina's manœuvring to secure the succession to Hadrian, it will furnish an additional argument for supposing these passages to have been added some time after. We may therefore offer the conjecture, that the first Satire was written shortly after the year A.D. 100, as a preface or introduction to the book, and that a few additions were made to it, even so late as thirty years subsequently.

      The second Satire was, in all probability, the first written. The allusion in the first line to the Sarmatæ, may perhaps be connected with the Sarmatian war, which took place A.D. 93, and in which Domitian engaged in person. And this date will correspond with the other references in the Satire by which an approximation to the time of its composition may be obtained. In A.D. 84 Domitian received the censorship for life (l. 121), at the same time that he was carrying on an incestuous intercourse with his own niece Julia. This connection was continued for some years. Shortly after the death of Julia, the Vestal virgin Cornelia was buried alive, A.D. 91. These are alluded to as recent events (l. 29, "nuper"). Agricola, too, the conqueror of Britain, died A.D. 93 (cf. l. 160), whose campaigns are spoken of as recent occurrences, "modo captas Orcadas." The mention of Gracchus also connects this with the eighth Satire, part of which at least was probably written soon after the consulship of Lateranus in A.D. 94. We may therefore conjecture that the Satire was composed between the years A.D. 93 and 95.

      The third Satire may perhaps have been written in the reign of Domitian, and may refer to the general departure of men of worth from Rome, when Domitian expelled the philosophers, A.D. 90. Umbritius, who predicted the murder of Galba, A.D. 69, might have been alive at that time; and, from his political views, would have been a friend of Juvenal, who was a bitter enemy of Otho. The nightly deeds of violence perpetrated by Nero would have been still fresh in men's memories (l. 278, seq.; cf. Pers., Sat., iv., 49); as would the judicial murder of Barea Soranus, and the arrogance of Fabricius Veiento (l. 116, 185). Still there are other parts of the Satire that seem to bear evidence of a later date. The name of Isæus would hardly have been so familiar in Rome till ten years after this date, l. 74. It was not till A.D. 107 that Trajan undertook the draining of the Pontine marshes; to which there is most probably an allusion in l. 32 and 307; to which nothing of importance had been done since the days of Augustus. The great influx of foreigners into Rome, in the train of Hadrian, at a still later date, A.D. 118, probably gave rise to the spirited episode from l. 58–125. (See Chronology.) We may therefore consider it probable that the main body of the Satire was written toward the close of the reign of Domitian, and received additions in the commencement of the reign of Hadrian.

      The fourth Satire in all probability describes a real event; and would have possessed but little interest after any great lapse of time, subsequent to the fact described. We may therefore fairly assign it to the early part of Nerva's reign, very shortly after the death of Domitian, which is mentioned at the close of the Satire.

      The fifth Satire contains nothing by which we can determine the date. From Juvenal's hatred of Domitian, we may suppose that l. 36 was suggested by the condemnation of Senecio, who was put to death for writing a panegyric on Helvidius Priscus, A.D. 90. If the Aurelia (l. 98) be the lady mentioned by Pliny (Epist., ii., 20), this would strengthen the conjecture, as Pliny's second book of Epistles was probably written very shortly before that date.

      There is little doubt that considerable portions of the sixth Satire were written in the reign of Trajan. 1. The lines 407–411 describe exactly the events which took place at Antioch, in A.D. 115, when Trajan was entering on his Armenian and Parthian campaigns. 2. The coins of Trajan of the year A.D. 110, have the legend Dacicus and Germanicus, cf. l. 205; and although Domitian triumphed over the Dacians and Germans, none of his extant coins bear that inscription; the general title being Augustus Germanicus simply. 3. Again, l. 502 describes a kind of headdress, very common on the coins of the reigns of Trajan and Hadrian, representing Plotina the wife of Trajan, Marciana his sister, and Sabina the wife of Hadrian, and others: and this fashion was a very short-lived one. Beginning with the court, it probably soon descended to the ladies of inferior rank; but like its unnatural antitype, the towering, powdered, and plastered rolls of our own countrywomen, in the degraded days of the two first Georges, it was too unnatural and disfiguring