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

his whole household is being stowed in a single wagon, my friend Umbritius halted at the ancient triumphal arches[104] and the moist Capena. Here, where Numa used to make assignations with his nocturnal mistress, the grove of the once-hallowed fountain and the temples are in our days let out to Jews, whose whole furniture is a basket and bundle of hay.[105] For every single tree is bid to pay a rent to the people, and the Camenæ having been ejected, the wood is one mass of beggars. We descended into the valley of Egeria and the grottoes, so altered from what nature made them. How much more should we feel the influence of the presiding genius of the spring,[106] if turf inclosed the waters with its margin of green, and no marble profaned the native tufo. Here then Umbritius began:[107]

"Since at Rome there is no place for honest pursuits, no profit to be got by honest toil—my fortune is less to-day than it was yesterday, and to-morrow must again make that little less—we purpose emigrating to the spot where Dædalus put off his wearied wings, while my gray hairs are still but few, my old age green and erect; while something yet remains for Lachesis to spin, and I can bear myself on my own legs, without a staff to support my right hand. Let us leave our native land. There let Arturius and Catulus live. Let those continue in it who turn black to white; for whom it is an easy matter to get contracts for building temples, clearing rivers, constructing harbors,[108] cleansing the sewers, the furnishing a funeral,[109] and under the mistress-spear set up the slave to sale."[110]

      These fellows, who in former days were horn-blowers, and constant attendants on the municipal amphitheatres, and whose puffed cheeks were well known through all the towns, now themselves exhibit gladiatorial shows, and when the thumbs of the rabble are turned up, let any man be killed to court the mob. Returned from thence, they farm the public jakes.

And why not every thing? Since these are the men whom Fortune, whenever she is in a sportive mood, raises from the dust to the highest pinnacle of greatness.[111]

What shall I do at Rome? I can not lie; if a book is bad, I can not praise it and beg a copy. I know not the motions of the stars. I neither will nor can promise a man to secure his father's death. I never inspected the entrails of a toad.[112]

Let others understand how to bear to a bride the messages and presents of the adulterer; no one shall be a thief by my co-operation; and therefore I go forth, a companion to no man,[113] as though I were crippled, and a trunk useless from its right hand being disabled.[114]

Who, now-a-days, is beloved except the confidant of crime, and he whose raging mind[115] is boiling with things concealed, and that must never be divulged? He that has made you the partaker of an honest secret, thinks that he owes you nothing, and nothing will he ever pay. He will be Verres' dear friend, who can accuse Verres at any time he pleases. Yet set not thou so high a price on all the sands of shady Tagus,[116] and the gold rolled down to the sea, as to lose your sleep, and to your sorrow take bribes that ought to be spurned,[117] and be always dreaded by your powerful friend.

What class of men is now most welcome to our rich men, and whom I would especially shun, I will soon tell you; nor shall shame prevent me.[118] It is that the city is become Greek, Quirites, that I can not tolerate; and yet how small the proportion even of the dregs of Greece! Syrian Orontes has long since flowed into the Tiber, and brought with it its language, morals, and the crooked harps with the flute-player, and its national tambourines, and girls made to stand for hire at the Circus. Go thither, ye who fancy a barbarian harlot with embroidered turban. That rustic of thine, Quirinus, takes his Greek supper-cloak, and wears Greek prizes on his neck besmeared with Ceroma.[119] One forsaking steep Sicyon, another Amydon, a third from Andros, another from Samos, another again from Tralles, or Alabanda,[120] swarm to Esquiliæ, and the hill called from its osiers, destined to be the very vitals, and future lords of great houses.[121] These have a quick wit, desperate impudence, a ready speech, more rapidly fluent even than Isæus.[122] Tell me what you fancy he is? He has brought with him whatever character you wish—grammarian, rhetorician, geometer, painter, trainer,[123] soothsayer, rope-dancer, physician, wizard—he knows every thing. Bid the hungry Greekling go to heaven! He'll go.[124] In short, it was neither Moor, nor Sarmatian, nor Thracian, that took wings, but one born in the heart of Athens.[125] Shall I not shun these men's purple robes? Shall this fellow take precedence of me in signing his name, and recline pillowed on a more honorable couch than I, though imported to Rome by the same wind that brought the plums and figs?[126] Does it then go so utterly for nothing, that my infancy inhaled the air of Aventine, nourished on the Sabine berry? Why add that this nation, most deeply versed in flattery, praises the conversation of an ignorant, the face of a hideously ugly friend, and compares some weak fellow's crane-like neck to the brawny shoulders of Hercules, holding Antæus far from his mother Earth: and is in raptures at the squeaking voice,[127] not a whit superior in sound to that of the cock as he bites the hen. We may, it is true, praise the same things, if we choose. But they are believed. Can he be reckoned a better actor,[128] when he takes the part of Thais, or acts the wife in the play, or Doris[129] without her robe. It is surely a woman in reality that seems to speak, and not a man personifying one. You would swear it was a woman, perfect in all respects. In their country, neither Antiochus, nor Stratocles, or Demetrius and the effeminate Hæmus, would call forth admiration. For there every man's an actor. Do you smile? He is convulsed with a laugh far more hearty. If he spies a tear in his friend's eye, he bursts into a flood of weeping; though in reality he feels no grief. If at the winter solstice you ask for a little fire, he calls for his thick coat. If you say, I am hot! he breaks into a sweat. Therefore we are not fairly matched; he has the best of it, who can at any time, either by night or day, assume a fictitious face; kiss his hands in ecstasy, quite ready, to praise his patron's grossest acts; if the golden cup has emitted a sound, when its bottom is inverted.

      Besides, there is nothing that is held sacred by these fellows, or that is safe from their lust. Neither the mistress of the house, nor your virgin daughter, nor her suitor, unbearded as yet, nor your son, heretofore chaste. If none of these are to be found, he assails his friend's grandmother. They aim at learning the secrets of the house, and from that knowledge be feared.

And since we have begun to make mention of the Greeks, pass on to their schools of philosophy, and hear the foul crime of the more dignified cloak.[130]