Satire III: Fleeing Rome SatIII:1-20 It’s Enough to Drive Old Friends Away
Though I’m disturbed by an old friend’s departure, still
I approve his decision to set up home in vacant Cumae
And devote at least one more citizen to the Sibyl.
It’s the gateway to Baiae, a beautiful coast, sweetly
Secluded. I prefer Prochyta’s isle to the noisy Subura.
After all, is there anywhere that’s so wretched and lonely
You wouldn’t rather be there than in constant danger of fire,
Of collapsing buildings, and all of the thousand perils
Of barbarous Rome, with poets reciting all during August!
Now, while his whole house was being loaded onto a cart,
He lingered there by the ancient arch of sodden Capena.
We walked down to Egeria’s vale with its synthetic grottos.
How much more effective the fountain’s power would be,
If its waters were enclosed by a margin of verdant grass,
And if marble had never desecrated the native tufa.
Here, where Numa established his night-time girlfriend,
The grove and shrine of the sacred fount are rented out
To the Jews, who’re equipped with straw-lined baskets;
Since the grove has been ordered to pay the nation rent,
The Muses have been ejected, and the trees go begging.
SatIII:21-57 The Dishonest and Dishonourable
Here it was that Umbricius spoke: ‘There’s no joy in Rome
For honest ability, and no reward any more for hard work.
My means today are less than yesterday, and tomorrow
Will wear away a bit more, that’s why I’m resolved
To head for Cumae, where weary Daedalus doffed his wings.
While my white-hairs are new, while old age stands upright,
While Lachesis has thread left to spin, and I can still walk,
On my own two feet, without needing a staff in my hand,
I’ll leave the ancestral land. Let Arturius, let Catulus live
In Rome. Let the men who turn black into white remain,
Who find it easy to garner contracts for temples, and rivers,
Harbours, draining sewers, and carrying corpses to the pyre,
Who offer themselves for sale according to auctioneers’ rules.
Those erstwhile players of horns, those perpetual friends
Of public arenas, noted through all the towns for their
Rounded cheeks, now mount shows themselves, and kill
To please when the mob demand it with down-turned thumbs;
Then it’s back to deals for urinals, why not the whole works?
Since they’re the ones Fortune raises up to the highest sphere
Out of the lowest gutter, whenever she fancies a laugh.
What’s left for me in Rome? I can’t tell lies, I can’t praise
A book that’s bad, beg a copy; I’ve no notion of the motion
Of stars; I can’t and I won’t prophesy someone’s father’s
Death; I’ve never guessed a thing from the entrails of frogs;
Carrying to some adulterous wife whatever her lover sends,
Whatever his message, others know how to do; I’d never
Help out a thief; and that’s why I’m never one of the boys,
More like a cripple, with useless body and paralysed hand.
Who is esteemed now unless he’s someone’s accomplice,
His mind seething with things that should never be told.
There’s nothing they think they owe, they’ll give nothing,
To a person who’s only their partner in harmless secrets.
Verrus only cares for those who can make a case against
Verrus whenever they wish. May the sand of Tagus mean
Less to you, with all its gold that is washed down to the sea,
Than lost sleep, and the sadness of taking regular bribes,
And thus being forever afraid of some powerful friend.
SatIII:58-125 And What About all Those Greeks?
That race most acceptable now to our wealthy Romans,
That race I principally wish to flee, I’ll swiftly reveal,
And without embarrassment. My friends, I can’t stand
A Rome full of Greeks, yet few of the dregs are Greek!
For the Syrian Orontes has long since polluted the Tiber,
Bringing its language and customs, pipes and harp-strings,
And even their native timbrels are dragged along too,
And the girls forced to offer themselves in the Circus.
Go there, if your taste’s a barbarous whore in a painted veil.
See, Romulus, those rustics of yours wearing Greek slippers,
Greek ointments, Greek prize medallions round their necks.
He’s from the heights of Sicyon, and he’s from Amydon,
From Andros, Samos, they come, from Tralles or Alabanda,
Seeking the Esquiline and the Viminal, named from its willows.
To become both the innards and masters of our great houses.
Quick witted, of shamelessly audacity, ready of speech, more
Lip than Isaeus, the rhetorician. Just say what you want them
To be. They’ll bring you, in one person, whatever you need:
The teacher of languages, orator, painter, geometer, trainer,
Augur, rope-dancer, physician, magician, they know it all,
Your hungry Greeks: tell them to buzz off to heaven, they’ll go.
That’s why it was no Moroccan, Sarmatian, or man from Thrace
Who donned wings, but one Daedalus, born in the heart of Athens.
Should I not flee these people in purple? Should I watch them sign
Ahead of me, then, and recline to eat on a better couch than mine,
Men propelled to Rome by the wind, with the plums and the figs?
Is it nothing that in my childhood I breathed the Aventine air,
Is it nothing that in my youth I was nurtured on Sabine olives?
And aren’t they the people most adept at flattery, praising
The illiterate speech of a friend, praising his ugly face,
Likening a weak, scrawny neck to that of brave Hercules,
When he lifted the massive Antaeus high above earth,
And lost in their admiration for a voice as high-pitched
As the cockerel when he pecks at his hen as they mate?
We too can offer praise in just the same way: but they
Are the ones believed. What comic actor’s better at playing
Thais, the whore, or the wife, or Doris, the slave-girl, out
Without her cloak? It’s as if a woman were speaking not
Merely a mask: you’d think all was smooth and lacking
Below the belly, and only split there by a slender crack.
Yet our comic turn, Antiochus, would be no great wonder
In Greece, Demetrius, Stratocles, or effeminate Haemus:
They’re a nation of comics. Laugh, and they’ll be shaken
With fits of laughter. They weep, without grief, if they see
A friend in tears; if you pine for a little warmth in the winter
They don a cloak; if you remark “it’s hot” they’ll start to sweat.
So we’re unequal: they’ve a head start who always, day or night,
Can adopt the expression they see on someone’s face,
Who’re always ready to throw up their hands and cheer
If their ‘friend’ belches deeply, or perhaps pisses straight,
Or gives a fart when the golden bowl’s turned upside down.
Besides, nothing’s sacred to them or safe from their cocks
Not the lady of the house, or the virgin daughter, not
Even her smooth-faced fiancé, or the unbroken son.
Failing that, they’ll have the friend’s grandma on her back.
They like to own the secrets of the house, and so be feared.
And since I’m mentioning the Greeks, then let’s pass on
From their gymnastics to a crime of a darker colour. Celer,
The old Stoic turned informer, brought about Barea’s death,
His friend and pupil; Celer, of Tarsus, raised by the Cydnus,
Where a feather from Pegasus, the Gorgon’s child, landed.
There’s no room here for the Romans; it’s some Greek;
Protogenes, or Diphilus, or Hermachus who reigns here,
Who never shares a friend, since that’s their race’s defect,
But monopolises him alone. For once they’ve dripped a drop
Of their country’s native poison in a ready ear, I’m driven
From the threshold, and my long years of slavery are lost.
Nowhere is the casting off of a client more casually done.
SatIII:126-163 Better Not Be Poor Here
Then, not to flatter ourselves, what office or service is left
For a poor man here, even if he dons his toga and dashes
About in the dark, given the praetor’s hurrying his lictor
Already, to run on with a morning greeting to rich Albina,
Or childless, sleepless Modia, lest his colleague’s there first?
Here, a freeborn son is detailed to escort a rich man’s slave:
The latter can hand out gifts, worth as much as a military
Tribune earns, to aristocratic Calvina or Catiena, just
To writhe around on top of her once or twice; while you
In love with the look of Chione’s finery, halt in your tracks
Hesitant about helping a whore descend from her high horse.
Find me a knight in Rome as holy as Nasica, who escorted
The image of Cybele, let Numa advance, or Caecilius Metellus,
Who rescued Minerva’s fire-threatened statue, from Vesta’s temple:
His character would be the very last thing discussed: money first.
“How many slaves does he own? How many acres of farmland?
How extravagant are his banquets, how many courses served?”
The number of coins a man keeps in his treasure chest, that’s
All the credit he earns. Swear your oath on the altars of Rome
Or Samothrace, they’ll maintain, as you’re poor, you’ll just flout
The divine lightning bolt, with the gods themselves acquiescing.
And what of the fact that the same poor beggar provides them all
With matter and cause for amusement, if his cloak’s dirty and torn,
If his toga is weathered and stained, one shoe gaping open where
The leather has split, or when there’s more than one patch showing
Where a rent has been stitched, displaying the coarse new thread?
There’s nothing harder to bear about poverty’s wretchedness
Than how it leaves you open to ridicule. “Off you go” they’ll say,
“If you’ve any shame: don’t dare sit here on a knight’s cushion,
If you’ve insufficient wealth under the law”, but they’ll sit there
All those sons of pimps, born in some vile brothel or other,
Here the auctioneer’s slick son can sit to applaud the show,
Beside the well-dressed lads of the gladiators and trainers.’
That’s how that fool Otho was pleased to dispose of us all.
What prospective son-in-law can pass the test, here, if his wealth
Is less, or his luggage worse than the girl’s? What pauper inherits?
When do aediles vote them onto the council? The indigent citizens
Should all have assembled, long ago, and migrated from the City.
SatIII:164-189 It’s Hard to Climb the Ladder
It’s hard to climb the ladder when constricted private resources
Block your talents, but at Rome the effort is greater still:
They’re expensive, wretched lodgings; expensive, the bellies
Of slaves; and a meagre supper is just as expensive too.
You’re ashamed to dine off earthenware plates, though you
Would feel no disgust if suddenly spirited off to a Sabellan
Or Marsian table, content in a poor man’s coarse, blue hood.
To tell you the truth, in most of Italy, no one wears a toga
Unless they’re dead. Even on days of major festival when
The traditional farce returns once more to the wooden stage,
When the rustic infant cowers in its mother’s lap, at sight
Of a white gaping mask, even then you’ll see everyone,
There, still dressed the same, those in the senatorial seats
And those elsewhere. White tunics are quite sufficient for
The highest aediles, as a garb to adorn their glorious office.
Here our smart clothes are beyond our means, here at Rome
A little bit extra has to be borrowed from someone’s purse.
It’s a common fault; here we all live in pretentious poverty,
What more can I say? Everything in Rome comes at a price.
What do you not pay so you can say: “Good morning, Cossus”,
So Veiento will condescend to give you a tight-lipped glance?
This slave’s beard is clipped, that one’s lock of hair’s dedicated;
The house is full of celebratory cakes you’ve paid for: take one
And keep your frustration to yourself. Clients are forced to pay
Such tribute-money, and supplement the savings of sleek slaves.
SatIII:190-231 The Very Houses are Unsafe
Who fears, or ever feared, that their house might collapse,
In cool Praeneste, or in Volsinii among the wooded hills,
Or at unpretentious Gabii, or the sloping hills of Tibur?
We inhabit a Rome held up for the most part by slender
Props; since that’s the way management stop the buildings
Falling down; once they’ve covered some ancient yawning
Crack, they’ll tell us to sleep soundly at the edge of ruin.
The place to live is far from all these fires, and all these
Panics in the night. Ucalegon is already summoning a hose,
Moving his things, and your third floor’s already smoking:
You’re unaware; since if the alarm was raised downstairs,
The last to burn will be the one a bare tile protects from
The rain, up there where gentle doves coo over their eggs.
Cordus had a bed, too small for Procula, and six little jugs
Of earthenware to adorn his sideboard and, underneath it,
A little Chiron, a Centaur made of that very same ‘marble’
And a box somewhat aged now, to hold his Greek library,
So the barbarous mice gnawed away at immortal verse.
Cordus had nothing, who could demur? Yet, poor man,
He lost the whole of that nothing. And the ultimate peak
Of his misery, is that naked and begging for scraps, no one
Will give him a crust, or a hand, or a roof over his head.
If Assaracus’s great mansion is lost, his mother’s in mourning,
The nobles wear black, and the praetor adjourns his hearing.
Then we bewail the state of Rome, then we despair of its fires.
While it’s still burning, they’re rushing to offer marble, already,
Collect donations; one man contributes nude gleaming statues,
Another Euphranor’s master-works, or bronzes by Polyclitus,
Or antique ornaments that once belonged to some Asian god,
Here books and bookcases, a Minerva to set in their midst,
There a heap of silver. Persicus, wealthiest of the childless,
Is there to replace what’s lost with more, and better things.
He’s suspected, and rightly so, of setting fire to his house.
If you could tear yourself from the Games, you could buy
A most excellent place, at Sora, at Fabrateria or Frusino,
For the annual rent you pay now, for a tenement in Rome.
There you’d have a garden, and a well not deep enough
To demand a rope, so easy watering of your tender plants.
Live as a lover of the hoe, and the master of a vegetable bed,
From which a hundred vegetarian Pythagoreans could be fed.
You’d be somebody, whatever the place, however remote,
If only because you’d be the master of a solitary lizard.
SatIII:232-267 And Then There’s the Traffic
Many an invalid dies from insomnia here, though the illness
Itself is caused by partially digested food, that clings tight
To the fevered stomach; for, where can you lodge and enjoy
A good night’s sleep? You have to be filthy rich to find rest
In Rome. That’s the source of our sickness. The endless traffic
In narrow twisting streets, and the swearing at stranded cattle,
Would deprive a Claudius of sleep, or the seals on the shore.
When duty calls, the crowd gives way as the rich man’s litter,
Rushes by, right in their faces, like some vast Liburnian galley,
While he reads, writes, sleeps inside, while sped on his way:
You know how a chair with shut windows makes you drowsy!
Yet, he gets there first: as I hasten, the tide ahead obstructs me,
And the huge massed ranks that follow behind crush my kidneys;
This man sticks out his elbow, that one flails with a solid pole,
This man strikes my head with a beam, that one with a barrel.
Legs caked with mud, I’m forever trampled by mighty feet
From every side, while a soldier’s hobnailed boot pierces my toe.
Do you see all the smoke that rises, to celebrate a hand-out?
There’s a hundred diners each followed by his portable kitchen.
Corbulo, that huge general, could scarce carry all those vast pots,
With all the rest that the poor little slave transports, on his head.
Fanning the oven, he runs along, his body held perfectly upright.
Recently-mended tunics are ripped, while a long fir log judders
As it looms near, while another cart’s bearing a whole pine-tree.
They teeter threateningly over the heads of those people below.
Now, if that axle breaks under the weight of Ligurian marble,
And spills an upturned mountain on top of the dense crowd,
What will be left of the bodies? What limbs, what bones will
Survive? Every man’s corpse wholly crushed will vanish along
With his soul. Meanwhile his household, oblivious, are scouring
The dishes; are puffing their cheeks at the embers; are clattering
The oily back-scrapers; by full oil-flasks, arranging the towels.
The slave-boys bustle about on various tasks, while their master,
Is now a newcomer on the banks of the Styx, shuddering there
At the hideous ferryman, without hope, poor wretch, of a ride
Over the muddy river, and no coin in his mouth for the fare.
SatIII:268-314 And The Violence
And now let’s consider all the other varied dangers, at night:
What a long way it is for a tile from the highest roof to fall
On your head; how often a cracked and leaky pot plunges down
From a sill; what a crash when they strike the pavement, chipping
And cracking the stones. If you go out to dinner without making
A will, you’re thought of as simply careless, dismissive of those
Tragic events that occur: there are as many opportunities to die,
As there are open windows watching you, when you go by, at night.
So I’d make a wretched wish and a prayer, as you go, that they’ll
Rest content with simply emptying their brimming pots over you.
The impudent drunk’s annoyed if by chance there’s no one at all
To set upon, spending the whole night grieving, like Achilles for
His friend, lying now on his face, and then, turning onto his back:
Since it’s the only way he can tire himself; it takes a brawl or two
To send him to sleep. But however worked up he is, fired by youth
And neat wine, he steers clear of him in the scarlet cloak, who issues
A warning as he goes on his way, with his long retinue of attendants,
And plenty of torches besides and lamps of bronze. Yet despises me,
As I pass by, by the light of the moon, as usual, or the flickering light
Of a candle, whose wick I take great care off, and cautiously regulate.
Take note of the setting awaiting a wretched fight, if you call it a fight
Where one of us lashes out, and the other one, me, takes a beating.
He stands up, and he tells me to stop. I’ve no choice but to obey;
What can you do, when a madman is giving the orders, who’s stronger
Than you as well? “Where’ve you been?” he shouts, “Whose sour wine
And beans have you been downing? Which shoemaker’s were you at,
Filling your face with boiled sheep’s head, gorging it on fresh leeks?
Nothing to say? You’d better speak up fast, or get a good kicking!
Tell me where you’re staying: what far field are you praying in?”
If you try to say something, or try to retreat in silence, it’s all the same:
He’ll give you a thumping regardless, and then still full of anger, say
He’s suing you for assault. This is the freedom accorded to the poor:
When they’re beaten, knocked down by fists, they can beg and plead
To be allowed to make their way home afterwards with a few teeth left.
And that’s not all we need to fear; there’ll be no shortage of thieves
To rob you, when the houses are all locked up, when all the shutters
In front of the shops have been chained and fastened, everywhere silent.
And, ever so often, there’s a vagabond with a sudden knife at work:
Whenever the Pontine Marsh, or the Gallinarian Forest and its pines,
Are temporarily rendered safe by an armed patrol, the rogues skip
From there to here, heading for Rome as if to a game preserve.
Where is the furnace or anvil not employed for fashioning chains?
The bulk of our iron is turned into fetters; you should worry about
An imminent shortage of ploughshares, a lack of mattocks and hoes.
You might call our distant ancestors fortunate, fortunate those ages
Long ago, when lives were lived under the rule of kings and tribunes,
Those generations, that witnessed a Rome where a single prison sufficed.
SatIII:315-322 So Farewell!
I could add a host of other reasons to these, but the beasts of burden
Are braying, the sun is setting. It’s time for me to leave; the muleteer
Has been waving his whip, to signal he’s been ready to go for a while.
So farewell, keep me in your memory, and whenever Rome sends
You hastening back, for a rest in the country, to your own Aquinum,
Invite me from Cumae too, to visit the Ceres of Helvius, and your
Diana. I’ll come in my nail-shod boots, I’ll come and visit your chilly
Fields, and, if they’re not totally shameful, I’ll listen to your Satires.’
Satire IV: Mock Epic SatIV:1-33 Crispinus and the Mullet
Behold, Crispinus again! He’s someone I’ll often call on
To play a part, a monster without one redeeming virtue
To offset his faults, a weakling, strong only in lechery,
An adulterer, who rejects none but unmarried women.
What matter how extensive the porticoes are where he
Wears out his mules; how vast the groves where he’s borne
Beneath the shade; how many acres of palace he’s bought
Near the Forum? No miscreant’s happy, least of all a sinful
Seducer, who recently slept with a priestess in a headband;
And she now destined to be punished, by being buried alive.
So, on to his lighter sins: all the same, if another had done
The deed, he’d be convicted by the Censor, for lax morals,
For what’s normal in a Crispinus is criminal in another,
In a Titius or Seius. What can you do when the man himself
Is more dreadful and dire than any accusation you can bring?
He bought a red mullet, matched its weight in gold pieces,
Sixty, in fact, as those assert who’d make the gross, grosser.
I might praise his cunning plan, if with a gift so rare he stole
First place in the sealed will of some fond childless old man;
Or better still, sent it along to some high-ranking mistress,
Who rides along in that closed litter with the wide windows.
No way! It was for himself! Oh, we witness many things now,
The poor, miserly gourmet, Apicius, failed to enact. Did you,
Crispinus, clad in your native Egyptian papyrus dress, pay
As much, then, for fish-scales? Likely the fisherman could
Have been bought for less than the fish; land’s cheap too
In the provinces but fetches a whole lot more in Apulia.
Imagine what kind of feasts the Emperor himself guzzled
In those days, if so many silver coins, a tiny fraction,
A side-dish from a moderate repast, were belched forth
By a purple-clad clown attached to the Great Palace,
Now a great leader of horsemen, who used to shout
His wares, dealing in fellow catfish from a rotten haul!
SatIV:34-71 The Enormous Turbot
Begin, Muse. And Calliope, you may be seated: this is no
Recitation, the truth’s our theme. Come, girls of Pieria, tell
Your story, and may my terming you girls do me some good.
In the days when Rome was that bald Nero, Domitian’s slave,
When that last of the Flavians was mangling a dying world,
A marvellous hulk of an Adriatic turbot came to light,
Below the Temple of Venus that graces Doric Ancona,
Filled the net, and stuck fast, no smaller than those fish
The Sea of Azov hides, that when the sun melts the ice
At last, find their way down to the Black Sea straits,
Bloated from long idleness and from the enduring cold.
The monster was marked down by the controller of boats
And nets, for his High Priest, the Emperor. After all,
Who’d dare sell or buy such a thing when even the beaches
Were covered with spies? Like a shot, the inspectors of seaweed
Everywhere, would tackle a naked oarsmen, and claim
That the fish was, without shadow of doubt, a fugitive
That had swum for long ages in Caesar’s fishpond, and as
A prisoner on the run, must return to its former master.
If we’re to believe Palfurius, or heed what Armillatus says,
Whatever is rare and particularly fine in the whole ocean
Belongs to the treasury, wherever it swims. Donated thus,
It can’t go to waste. Now with fading autumn giving way
To frost, now with invalids prone to less frequent fevers,
Foul winter’s keen weather served to keep the catch fresh;
Nonetheless, the fisherman hurried, urged by the wintry wind.
When the lake lay below, where ruined Alba tends the Trojan
Flame and worships at the shrine of the lesser Vesta,
A wondering crowd obstructed his entrance for a time.
When they yielded, the gates swung open on oiled hinges;
The senators, excluded, watched the fish enter and travel,
Straight to Agamemnon, where, the fisherman from Picenum
Said: ‘Accept a gift too large for a private kitchen. Make this
A holiday. Hasten to fill your stomach with this rich food,
Consume this turbot preserved for your glorious reign.
It longed to be caught, itself.’ What flattery! All the same
The cock’s crest rose. There’s nothing the powerful
Won’t believe of themselves, when praised to the skies.
SatIV:72-129 The Summoning of the Council
Yet a dish was lacking large enough for the fish. So
The nobles, the Emperor hated, were summoned to a council,
Displaying in their faces the pallor of that vast and terrible
Friendship. The first to snatch up his cloak and hasten there,
As the Liburnian slave was calling: ‘Hurry, he’s seated now’
Was Plotius Pegasus, slave – what else were prefects then,
After all? – appointed to oversee a startled Rome, the best,
Most incorruptible, of jurists, one who thought that however
Dreadful the times, justice should be weighed without violence.
The aged and amiable Quintus Crispus was there as well,
A gentle soul, with a character to match his eloquence.
How much more useful a courtier he’d have been to that king
Of nations, lands and seas, if only he’d been allowed, while
Serving that ruinous plague, to condemn cruelty and offer
Honourable advice! But what’s more deaf than the ear of a
Tyrant? On his whim hangs the fate of a friend, who simply
Wants to speak of rain, heat, or the poor spring weather.
Thus, Crispus never extended his arms against the flood,
Not being the kind of citizen to dare to offer his thoughts
Freely, nor one to put his life at risk for the sake of truth.
That’s how he managed eighty summers and as many
Winters, protected by such armour even in that court.
Hurrying along with him came his peer, Acilius Aviola,
With a young son, Glabrio, whom a cruel death awaited,
So swiftly dealt by the master’s sword; though it’s long
Been a miracle to survive to old age among the nobility,
Which is why I prefer to remain a nobody on this earth.
It only brought that youth misery to appear as a naked
Hunter in the Alban arena, tackling bears at close quarters.
Who, after all, isn’t wise to aristocratic arts these days?
Who’d be amazed at your pretences now Lucius Brutus?
It was easier in those days to impose on a bearded king.
No less in appearance, despite his humble background
Came Rubrius Gallus, guilty of an old unmentionable
Offence, yet more perverse than a pathic scribbling satire.
Montanus’s belly was present too, with weighty paunch;
And Crispinus drenched in that morning’s perfume,
Scarcely less odorous than a funeral cortege or two; more
Ruthless still, Pompeius, men killed at his slightest whisper;
Fuscus whose guts Dacia’s vultures were destined to enjoy,
And who meditated battles in his marble villa; prudent Veiiento,
In company with the deadly Lucius Catullus Messalinus,
Inflamed with passion for a girl he had never seen,
He’d be a great and notable monster even in our day,
A blind sycophant, and a terrifying hired accomplice,
Worthy to be one of those beggars blowing obsequious
Kisses at the wheels of your carriage on the hill at Aricia.
None was more impressed with the turbot; for he made
A long speech to his left, though the fish was on his right,
Which is how he used to praise the Cilician fist fights,
And the wires that whisk lads high up above the stage.
Veiiento not to be outdone, like your fanatics, Bellona,
Goaded to ritual frenzy, prophesied: ‘Here is the mighty
Omen of a magnificent and glorious triumph to come.
You’ll net a king, or Arvigarus will fall from his British
Chariot.’ ‘This fish is a new species: do you see the spikes
Bristling from its spine?’ The only thing Fabricius failed
To mention was the turbot’s place of birth, and its age.
SatIV:130-154 The Council’s Advice
‘So what do you recommend? Should we chop it in half?’
‘Spare it such outrage’ cried Montanus, ‘have a deep dish
Made, thin-sided, but large enough for its vast dimensions.
We need a prompt and mighty potter, like Prometheus.
Ready the wheel and the clay swiftly, and from this time
Forth, let there be potters, Caesar, among your servants.’
The proposal, worthy of the man, won the day. He’d known
The excesses of the old Imperium, and Nero’s late hours,
The famished feeling at midnight, when Falernian wine
Gives heartburn. No one today has greater knowledge where
Food’s concerned: at first bite he could tell if the oysters
Came from Circeii, the Lucrine Lake, or the Kentish Coast
By Richborough, or at a glance, a sea-urchin’s native shore.
They rose, the council over, the nobles ordered to leave,
Whom the great leader had called to his Alban fortress,
Forced to hasten there, gathered together in surprise,
As though he’d news of the Chatti or fierce Sygambri,
As though a disturbing letter had arrived on frantic wings,
Sent swiftly from some far-distant region of the world.
Oh, if only he’d chosen to devote the whole of that age, given
To savagery, to such trivia, instead of depriving Rome of great
And illustrious spirits, with impunity, and none to take revenge!
Yet he perished as soon as the working man began to fear him:
It did for him, to be drenched in the Lamia family’s blood.
