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

[191] Alba was Domitian's favorite residence. Vid. Suet., Dom., iv., 19. Plin., iv., Ep. xi., "Non in regiam sed in Albanam villam convocavit."

[192] The "Lesser" Vesta, compared with the splendor of her "Cultus" at Rome, which had been established by Numa. The temples were spared at the time of the destruction of Alba by Tullus Hostilius. Vid. Liv., i.

[193] "Sæculum" is repeatedly used in this sense by Pliny, and other writers of this age.

[194] As though Rome had now so far lost her privileges and her liberty, as to be no better than a country vicus, to be governed by a bailiff.

[195] Vibius Crispus Placentinus, the author of the witticism about "Domitian and the flies." Vid. Suet., Dom., 3.

[196] Juvene. Probably a son of this M. Acilius Glabrio, who was murdered by Domitian out of envy at the applause he received when fighting in the arena at the emperor's own command.

[197] i.e., "Terræ filius," Pers., vi., 57, one of the meanest origin.

[198] It was 444 years before barbers were introduced into the city from Sicily.

[199] Alluding to Nero's satire on Quintianus. Vid. Tac., Ann., xv., 49. Quintianus mollitie corporis infamis, et a Nerone probroso carmine diffamatus.

[200] Catullus Messalinus. Vid. Plin., Ep., iv., 22. Fabricius Veiento wrote some satirical pieces, for which Nero banished him, and ordered his books to be burnt. Vid. Tac., Ann., xiv., 50. He was probably the husband of Hippia, mentioned in the 6th Satire, l. 82.

[201] "Pons." Cf. Sat. v., 8; xiv., 134.

[202] Cf. Suet., Nero, 27.

[203] Cf. vi., 430.

SATIRE V.

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If you are not yet ashamed of your course of life,[204] and your feeling is still the same, that you consider living at another man's table to be the chief good; if you can put up with such things as not even Sarmentus or Galba, contemptible as he was, would have submitted to even at the unequal[205] board of Cæsar himself; I should be afraid to believe your evidence though you were on oath. I know nothing more easily satisfied than the cravings of nature. Yet even suppose this little that is needed to be wanting, is there no quay vacant? is there no where a bridge, and a piece of mat, somewhat less than half, to beg upon? Is the loss of a supper so great a matter? is your craving so fierce? when, in faith, it were much more reputable[206] to shiver there, and munch mouldy fragments of dog-biscuit. In the first place, bear in mind, that when invited to dinner, you receive payment in full of your long-standing account of service. The sole result of your friendship with the great man is—a meal! This your patron sets down to your account, and, rare though it be, still takes it into the calculation. Therefore, if after the lapse of two months he deigns to send for his long-neglected client, only that the third place may not be unoccupied in one couch of his triclinium[207]—"Let us sup together," he says; the very summit of your wishes! What more can you desire? Trebius has that for which he ought to break his rest, and hurry away with latchet all untied, in his alarm lest the whole crowd at his patron's levee shall have already gone their round of compliments, when the stars are fading, or at the hour when the chill wain of sluggish Bootes wheels slowly round.[208]

But what sort of a supper is it after all? Wine, such as wool just shorn would not imbibe.[209] You will see the guests become frantic as the priests of Cybele. Wranglings are the prelude of the fray: but soon you begin to hurl cups as well in retaliation; and wipe your wounds with your napkin stained with blood; as often as a pitched battle, begun with pitchers of Saguntine ware, rages between you and the regiment of freedmen. The great man himself drinks wine racked from the wood under some consul with long hair,[210] and sips[211] the juice of the grape pressed in the Social war; never likely, however, to send even a small glass to a friend, though sick at heart. To-morrow, he will drink the produce of the mountains of Alba or Setia,[212] whose country and date age has obliterated by the accumulated mould on the ancient amphora; such wine as, with chaplets on their heads, Thrasea and Helvidius used to drink on the birthdays of the Bruti and Cassius. Virro himself holds capacious cups formed of the tears of the Heliades[213] and phialæ incrusted with beryl. You are not trusted with gold: or even if it is ever handed to you, a servant is set as a guard over you at the same time, to count the gems and watch your sharp nails. Forgive the precaution: the jasper so much admired there is indeed a noble one: for, like many others, Virro transfers to his cups the gems from off his fingers, which the youth, preferred to the jealous Hiarbas,[214] used to set on the front of his scabbard. You will drain a cup with four noses, that bears the name of the cobbler of Beneventum,[215] already cracked, and fit to be exchanged, as broken glass, for brimstone.[216]

If your patron's stomach is overheated with wine and food, he calls for water cooled by being boiled and then iced in Scythian snow.[217] Did I complain just now that the wine set before you was not the same as Virro's? Why, the very water you drink is different. Your cups will be handed you by a running footman from Gætulia, or the bony hand of some Moor, so black that you would rather not meet him at midnight, while riding through the tombs on the steep Latin way. Before Virro himself stands the flower of Asia, purchased at a greater sum than formed the whole revenue of the warlike Tullus, or Ancus—and, not to detain you, the whole fortunes[218] of all the kings of Rome. And so, when you are thirsty, look behind you for your black Ganymede that comes from Africa. A boy that costs so many thousands deigns not to mix wine for the poor. Nay, his very beauty and bloom of youth justify his sneer. When does he come near you? When would he come, even if you called him, to serve you with hot or cold water? He scorns, forsooth, the idea of obeying an old client, and that you should call for any thing from his hand; and that you should recline at table, while he has to stand. Every great house is proportionably full of saucy menials.

See,