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

intended to do him honor, but to reprove his vanity.

      Whether medals were ever struck with the inscription of Dacicus and Germanicus in honor of Domitian, I am not qualified to determine. Certain it is, however, that he assumed both these titles; the latter, indeed, in common with his predecessors from the time of Germ. Cæsar; and the former, in consequence of his pretended success in the Dacian war, for which he is bitterly sneered at by Pliny, as well as Dio. It is given to him, among others, by Martial, who dedicates his eighth book, "Imper. Domit. Cæs. Augusto Germanico Dacico." Dodwell appropriates (as I do) the line to Domitian—a little inconsistently, it must be confessed; but that is his concern. If, however, it be adjudged to Trajan, I should not for that bring down the date of the Satire to a later period. Juvenal revised and enlarged all his works, when he gave them to the public: this under consideration, in particular, has all the marks of having received considerable additions; and one of them might be the line in question.

[9] This satire has contributed as much perhaps as the seventh to persuade Lipsius, Salmasius, and others, that Juvenal wrote his best pieces when he was turned of fourscore.

      "——Stupet hæc, qui jam post terga reliquit

       Sexaginta annos, Fonteio Consule natus!"

      There were four consuls of this name. The first is out of the question; the second was consul A.D. 13, the third in 59, and the fourth in 68. If we take the second, and add any intermediate number of years between sixty and seventy, for Calvinus had passed his sixtieth year, it will just bring us down to the early part of Domitian's reign, which I suppose to be the true date of this Satire; for I can not believe, as I have already observed, that this, or indeed any part of Juvenal's works, was produced when he was trembling on the verge of ninety, as must be the case if either of the latter periods be adopted. But he observes, "Hæc quota pars scelerum quæ custos Gallicus urbis," etc. Now Rutilius Gallicus was præfect of Rome from the end of 85 to 88 (Domitian succeeded his brother in 81), in which year he died. There seems to be no necessity for mentioning a magistrate as sitting, who was not then in existence; nor can any reason be assigned, if the Satire was written under Hadrian, for the author's recurring to the times of Domitian for a name, when that of the "custos urbis" of the day would have better answered his purpose. It is probable that Gallicus succeeded Pegasus, who was præfect when the ridiculous farce of the turbot took place (Sat. iv.); this would fix it to 85, the year before Fuscus, who was present at it, was sent into Dacia.

[10] This Satire is referred by the critics to the reign of Trajan, because Marius, whose trial took place under that prince, is mentioned in it. I have attributed it to an earlier period; principally moved by the consideration that it presents a faithful copy of the state of Rome and the conquered provinces under Nero, and which could scarcely have been given in such vivid colors after the original had ceased to affect the mind. What Rome was under Domitian, may be seen in the second Satire, and the difference, which has not been sufficiently attended to, is striking in the extreme. I would observe too, that Juvenal speaks here of the crimes of Marius—they might be, and probably were, committed long before his condemnation; but under Domitian it was scarcely safe to attempt bringing such gigantic peculators to justice. Add to this, that the other culprits mentioned in it are all of them prior to that prince; nay, one of them, Capito, was tried so early as the beginning of Nero's reign. The insertion of Marius, however (which might be an after-thought), forms a main argument with Dodwell for the very late date of this Satire; he observes that it had escaped Lipsius and Salmasius; and boasts of it as "longe certissimum," etc. 156.

[11] I have often wondered at the stress which Dodwell and others lay on the concluding lines of this Satire: "Experiar quid concedatur," etc. They fancy that the engagement was seriously made, and religiously observed. Nothing was ever farther from the mind of Juvenal. It is merely a poetical, or, if you will, a satirical, flourish; since there is not a single Satire, I am well persuaded, in which the names of many who were alive at the time are not introduced. Had Dodwell forgotten Quintilian? or, that he had allowed one of his Satires, at least, to be prior to this?

[12] This "nuper" is a very convenient word. Here, we see, it signifies lately; but when it is necessary to bring the works of our author down to a late period, it means, as Britannicus explains it, "de longo tempore," long ago.

[13] But how to this ascertained? Very easily; he calls him "fecundus Juvenalis." Here the question is finally left; for none of the commentators suppose it possible that the epithet can be applied to any but a rhetorician. Yet it is applied by the same writer to a poet of no ordinary kind;

      "Accipe, facundi Culicem, studiose. Maronis Ne, nugis positis, arma virumque canas." Lib. xiv., 185.

      And, by the author himself, to one who had grown old in the art:

      "————tunc seque suamque

       Terpsichoren odit facunda et nuda senectus."

      Let it be remembered, too, that Martial, as is evident from the frequent allusions to Domitian's expedition against the Catti, wrote this epigram (lib. vii., 91) in the commencement of that prince's reign, when it is acknowledged that Juvenal had produced but one or two of his Satires.

[14] The former of these, Dodwell says, was written in exile, after the author was turned of eighty. Salmasius, more rationally, conceives it to have been produced at Rome. Giving full credit, however, to the story of his late banishment, he is driven into a very awkward supposition. "An non alio tempore, atque alia de causa Ægyptum lustrare juvenis potuit Juvenalis? animi nempe gratia, και της ἱστοριας χαριν, ut urbes regionis illius, populorumque mores cognosceret?" Would it not be more simple to attribute his exile at once to Domitian?

      With respect to the 16th Satire, Dodwell, we see, hesitates to attribute it to Juvenal; and, indeed, the old Scholiast says, that, in his time, many thought it to be the work of a different hand. So it always appeared to me. It is unworthy of the author's best days, and seems but little suited to his worst. He was at least eighty-one, they say, when he wrote it, yet it begins—

      "——Nam si——

       Me pavidum excipiet tyronem porta secundo

       Sidere," etc.

      Surely, at this age, the writer resembled Priam, the tremulus miles, more than the timid tyro! Nor do I believe that Juvenal would have been much inclined to amuse himself with the fancied advantages of a profession to which he was so unworthily driven. But the Satire must have been as ill-timed for the army as for himself, since it was probably, at this period, in a better state of subjection than it had been for many reigns. I suppose it to be written in professed imitation of our author's manner, about the age of Commodus. It has considerable merit, though the first and last paragraphs are feeble and tautological; and the execution of the whole is much inferior to the design.

[15] "Q. consularia per Clementem ornamenta sortitus, honestamenta potius videtur quam insignia potestatis habuisse. In gratiar. act." Quintilian, then, was not actually consul: but this is no great matter—it is of more consequence to ascertain the Clemens by whom he was so honored. In the preface to his fourth book, he says, "Cum vero mihi Dom. Augustus sororis suæ nepotum delegavit curam," etc. Vespasian had a daughter, Domitilla, who married, and died long before her father: she left a daughter, who was given to Flavius Clemens, by whom she had two sons. These were the grandchildren of Domitian's sister, of whom Quintilian speaks; and to their father, Clemens, according to Ausonius, he was indebted for the show, though not the reality, of power. There is nothing incongruous in all this; yet so possessed are Dodwell and his numerous followers (among whom I am sorry to rank Dusaulx) of the