Satire VII: Patronage SatVII:1-52 It’s The Emperor Or Nothing
The hopes, the whole business of letters depend on Caesar;
He’s the only one who cares for the sad Muses, these days,
When even famous and notable poets have begun applying
For a lease on a bathhouse at Gabii, or a bakery in Rome;
When others no longer think it vile or shameful to act as public
Criers, when Clio, the Muse, from starvation quits the valleys
Of Helicon, Aganippe’s spring, and flees to the market-place.
Because if you’re offered never a farthing in the Pierian grove,
You’re better off stealing Machaera’s name and profession,
Selling the crowd whatever’s at stake in the auctions’ tussles;
Wine jars, three-legged tables, bookcases, trunks, those books,
Paccius’s tragedy of Alcathoe, Faustus’s Thebes and Tereus.
After all, it’s better than being a paid witness, telling the judge
‘I saw it’ when you didn’t; leave that to the knights of Asia,
The ones betrayed by a slave’s fetter-mark, on a bare ankle.
Now, however, no one needs to submit to labour unworthy
Of their writings; no one, who weaves melodious measures
In an Eloquent voice; no one, who ever chewed on laurel.
To work, O young men! Our Leader views all with indulgence,
He’s urging you on to find fit matter, to exercise your talents.
Telesinus, if you’re still seeking support for your income from
Anyone else, if that’s what makes you fill the yellow parchment,
You may as well gather firewood straight away, and offer your
Compositions to Vulcan, husband of Venus, and god of fire,
Or shut the sheets in the cupboard, let the bookworms gnaw them.
Break your stylus, you wretch, erase those battles you sat there
Penning all night, scribbling sublime verse in your tiny attic,
Just to win yourself the prize of an ivy-wreath, and meagre bust.
Don’t expect anything more; the miserly rich learned long ago
To offer the eloquent, admiration only; to offer them praise,
As boys do Juno’s peacock. The years have flown by, in which
You might have toyed with the sail, the helmet, the hoe. Now
Boredom invades the mind, it’s now that experienced but naked
Old age comes to hate itself, and Terpsichore, Muse of the lyre.
Let me tell you the ruses he, you fawn on, adopts, to avoid
Aiding you: spurning the shrine of Apollo and the Muses.
He writes verse himself, and yields to Homer alone, due to
His thousand-year glory, but if you, fired by the sweetness
Of fame, give a recitation, he’ll lend you a down-at-heel room.
He’ll order a far-off iron-barred hall placed at your service,
The doors of which echo the squealing of sows. He’ll place
His freedmen in seats at the end of the rows, and knows how
To scatter his friends about, those with high-pitched voices.
But none of the nobles will give you the price of their seats,
Or the price of the raised platforms held up by rented beams,
Or those chairs in the front row, due to be given back later.
Still we labour away, marking our furrows in the fine dust,
Turning the sands of the shore with our ineffectual ploughs.
Try to stop: the itch for writing holds you fast in ambition’s
Noose, grows old along with you in your sorrowful heart.
SatVII: 53-97 What Room Is There For Genius?
Yet the outstanding poet, with no ordinary vein of talent,
Who’s accustomed to weaving nothing that is vulgar,
Who coins never a trivial song from the public mint,
Whose like I cannot point out but can only imagine,
He’s the result of a mind free from care, devoid of
All bitterness, full of longing for nature, fit to drink
From the Muses’ spring. Sad poverty, you see, cannot
Sing in the Pierian cave, or grasp the thyrsus, lacking
The means to live that the body needs, night and day.
Horace had wealth enough, as he gave the Bacchic cry.
What room is there for genius, unless your heart has
Only a single care, troubles itself over poetry alone,
Swept away by Apollo of Cirrha, Dionysus of Nysa?
A mighty soul is needed, not one terrified of buying a
New blanket, if you’re to envisage chariots and horses,
The face of the god, and the Fury who crazed Turnus.
If Virgil had lacked a slave-boy and decent lodgings,
All the snakes would have slid from the Fury’s hair,
There’d have been no fierce blast from her war-trumpet.
How can we expect Rubrenus Lappa, to vie with ancient
Tragedians, if he’s pawning Atreus for a dish and a cloak?
Unhappily, Numitor lacks the cash to help out a friend,
Yet he sends it to Quintilla, and was rich enough to buy
A tame lion, that surely consumes vast piles of meat;
Are we asked to believe the creature costs less to feed,
While a poet’s intestines possess a greater capacity?
Lucan may rest content with fame, in his marble-filled
Gardens, but what good does glory do Saleius Bassus
Or starving Serranus, if it’s glory and nothing else?
When Statius made Rome happy, and fixed on a date,
Everyone rushed to hear his fine voice, and the lines
Of his dear Thebaid: the crowd’s hearts were captured
By the sweetness he affected, listening there, in ecstasy.
And yet, when he’d stunned the audience with his verses,
He’d starve, unless he sold his virgin Agave to Paris,
The actor who generously appointed to military office,
And set the six-month gold ring on the fingers of poets.
A dancer who gave what princes wouldn’t. If you visited
The great halls of the noblemen, the Barea and Camerini,
Pelops and Philomela appointed the prefects and tribunes.
But don’t go envying the poets such a theatre nourished.
Who now will be your Maecenas, Fabius or Proculeius,
Who’ll prove your second Cotta, or be another Lentulus?
Then reward matched genius, many found it worthwhile
To look pale, and go without wine, for all of December.
SatVII: 98-149 Historians And Advocates Do No Better
Is your labour any more profitable, you writers of histories?
They too consume even more time, and more midnight oil.
There’s no limit to them, indeed, the thousandth page tops
The growing pile, bankrupts you with that heap of papyrus,
As the vast number of facts, and the laws of the genre dictate.
Yet what’s the harvest, what’s the fruit of your ploughed soil?
Who’ll pay a historian what they pay him who reads the news?
‘A lazy tribe,’ they’ll say, ‘who love their couch in the shade.’
And tell me what advocates earn from their representations,
And the huge bundle of briefs that accompany them to court.
They talk big, especially when a creditor might hear them,
Or when one, more pressingly still, nudges them in the side,
Clutching his large account book, to claim some dubious debt.
That’s when their mighty bellows breathe out immense lies,
And they cover themselves with spit; but if you want to know
Their true harvest, the wealth of a hundred such advocates
Weighs less than that of Lizard, the charioteer of the Reds.
The lords are seated, and you rise, a pale Ajax, to support
Your client’s contested liberty in front of a boorish judge.
Strain and rupture your liver, you wretch, so, exhausted,
You can decorate your stairs with victory’s green palm.
What’s the reward for your speech? A tiny dried-up leg
Of pork, a jar of tunny fry, or ancient onions, a month’s
Ration for a Moor, or wine brought down the Tiber, five
Flasks for your four cases. If you come by one gold piece,
Part of that vanishes, by your contract with the lawyers.
‘Yet Aemilius names his fee, even when our work’s better.’
That’s because a bronze chariot with four great horses sits
In his vestibule, his ancestor himself on a fierce charger,
Looking menacing from the high saddle, with lowered
Spear, a one-eyed statue contemplating battle. Thus
Pedo is embarrassed, and Matho fails, and it’s the end
For Tongilius, who disturbs the baths with his filthy crew,
And washes away with his great rhinoceros horn, weighs
Down his young Maedians’ long litter-poles on his way
Through the Forum to buy slave-boys, silver plate, agate
Vases or villas; and yet his efforts work. His purple and
Violet robes sell advocacy; it pays him to live with a stir
And appearance, that cost well beyond his true income,
His seaborne purple of Tyrian weave acts as guarantor.
But prodigal Rome sets no limits to your expenditure.
In eloquence our trust? No one these days would give
Cicero two hundred, unless a huge ring lit his finger.
The first thing a litigant looks for, is whether you run
Eight slaves, possess ten clients, a litter to follow you,
Togas to walk in front. That’s why Paulus for court hired
A sardonyx ring, and earned a higher fee than Basilus, or
Gallus. Eloquence rarely appears dressed in flimsy rags.
When is Basilus allowed to bring on a tearful mother?
Who can stand Basilus however well he speaks? If you
Make the decision to earn your living with your tongue,
Try Gaul, or better still Africa, the nurturer of advocacy.
SatVII: 150-215 Nor Do Teachers Of Rhetoric
Do you teach rhetoric? O Vettius, what a mind of iron,
You need, when a crowded class slays ‘the cruel tyrant!’
For, whatever they’ve just read, sitting, each in turn
Gives standing, chants the same thing in identical lines.
Such stale greens are simply murder for the poor teacher.
They all want to know about style, what sort of cases,
And the summing up, and the shots that are likely to be
Fired by the other side, but not a single one wants to pay.
‘You’re asking me to pay? But what have I learned?’
‘It’s surely the teacher’s fault, if our young dunce feels
Nothing stir in the left side of his chest, as he fills my
Poor head for five days with his ‘dreadful Hannibal’.
It hardly matters what the set topic is: whether to march
From Cannae to Rome, or after the thunder and lightning
Cautiously hold the troops back, drenched from the storm.
Just state your price, you can have it now: what wouldn’t
I give to make the father hear him as often I must?’ That’s
What six professors or more cry out with a single voice,
As they abandon ‘the rapist’ to take part in some real case;
The ‘dosing with poison’ is silent; the ‘wicked ungrateful
Husband’; the pounding out of a ‘cure for chronic blindness’.
So whoever descends from the grove of rhetoric to compete
In the fight, lest he lose the he pitiful reward that purchases
His ticket for the handout, which after all is the most he can
Expect, if he’ll follow my advice, he should definitely retire
And find himself an alternative path in life. If you discover
The tiny fee for which Chrysogonus or Pollio teach the sons
Of the rich, you’ll tear Theodorus’s Rhetoric in tiny pieces.
Building the nobleman’s baths costs him six thousand in gold,
More for the portico where he rides on rainy days. How can
He wait for blue skies, or spatter his equipage with fresh mud!
It’s better here, the hooves of his mule stay bright and clean.
And he’ll raise a dining hall elsewhere, resting on tall pillars
Made of Numidian marble, trapping sunshine when it’s cold.
However much the place costs, someone will still be there to
Arrange the dishes skilfully, someone there to spice the food.
Twenty gold pieces, of all this show, will be fortune enough
For Quintilian: a son will cost his father less than nothing.
‘So how come Quintilian owns so much land?’ You have to
Make an exception for freaks of fate. The fortunate man is
Handsome and brave, wise and noble and generous as well,
On his black shoe is sewn the ivory crescent of the patrician.
The fortunate man is the greatest orator and javelin-thrower,
And, unless he has a cold, sings beautifully. It makes a huge
Difference you know what stars chance to greet you as you
Give your first cries, red-faced from your mother’s womb.
If Fortune wishes, she’ll make a teacher of rhetoric, consul;
If she wishes, she’ll make a consul a teacher of rhetoric too.
What about Servius Tullius? Ventidius Bassus? What else
Was that but the stars, the strange mysterious power of fate?
Fate makes kings of slaves, and grants prisoners triumphs.
Nevertheless the fortunate man is rarer than a white crow.
Many teachers have regretted their idle and barren chairs
Of Rhetoric, as Thrasymachus’ suicide proves, and Carrinas
Secundus’: you saw his poverty, Athens, yet only chose
To offer him cold hemlock. May the gods make the earth
On our ancestor’s graves weigh lightly, may they have
Flowering crocuses, and everlasting spring, in the tomb.
They thought a teacher held the sacred role of a parent.
When Achilles as a young man learnt music in his native
Hills, he went in fear of the cane, and was careful not to
Mock at the horse’s tail of Chiron the Centaur, his teacher;
But now Rufus and the rest are beaten by their young pupils,
Rufus, so often called a Cicero, though only a Gallic one.
SatVII: 216-243 Or Schoolmasters
When do Celadus, and learned Palaemon, pocket the rewards
A schoolteacher’s labour merits? Yet whatever it amounts to,
And it’s less than a teacher of rhetoric’s pay, even from that
The pupil’s unfeeling attendant nibbles a chunk for himself
As does the cashier who pays it. Yield to them, Palaemon,
Be prepared to see some part of it vanish, as a pedlar does
When he haggles over a mat and a snow-white quilt for winter.
But make sure you get something, for sitting from midnight
Onwards where no blacksmith would sit, or a carder of wool
Used to drawing the staple out fine with a slant steel comb;
Make sure you get something, for breathing in the stench
Of as many lamps as boys, while your Horace grows wholly
Discoloured, and soot clings tight to your blackened Virgil.
Though it’s rare to get paid without a tribune’s investigation.
Yet you parents lay down savage laws for the schoolmaster,
Demand he should stick to the rules in his use of grammar,
Should read the histories, and know all the authors as well
As he knows his fingernails. If by chance he’s asked a question
As he heads for the warm baths or the freeman Phoebus’s spa,
He must know the name of Anchises’ nurse, of Anchemolus’s
Stepmother, and her birthplace, how many years Acestes lived,
And how many jars of Sicilian wine he handed to the Trojans.
You’ll demand he forms tender characters under his thumb,
As if he were moulding faces from wax; you’ll demand he acts
Like a father to that crowd, forbids them to play dubious games,
Or mutually indulge. It’s no light thing to keep watch on all
Those boys, with their hands and eyes quivering with purpose.
‘That’s your job,’ the parents say, yet come the turn of the year
You’ll get, in gold, what the crowd grants for one gladiatorial win.
Satire VIII: Rely On Your Own Worth SatVIII:1-38 What’s The Point Of A Pedigree?
What’s the point of a pedigree, Ponticus? Where’s the profit
In being judged by the length of your bloodline, of displaying
Portraits in oils of your ancestors, the Aemiliani standing tall
In their chariots, the Curii half-height, a Corvinus devoid of
A shoulder, or a Galba missing his ears and a nose; what’s
The value in being able to boast a Censor in your extensive
Family-tree, or be connected through a tangle of branches
With a dictator, and sundry smoke-stained masters of horse,
If, beneath the shade of the Lepidi, life is hard? What’s the use
Of all those busts of warriors, if you spend your time gambling
The night away, staring at the Numantini, and don’t sleep till
Venus rises, under whom generals raise standards and camp?
Why should a Fabius, scion of Hercules, delight in that god’s
Great altar, or the title Allobrogicus, when he himself is idle
And greedy, and softer than the fleece of a Euganean lamb,
When he shames his unpolished ancestors by having his loins
Smoothed with Catanian pumice, while his dealing in poison
Degrades his poor clan with a bust that should be shattered?
You may decorate your whole atrium with old wax portraits
Throughout, but the one and only virtue’s personal excellence.
In morality: be a Cossos Gaetulicus, a Paulus Macedonicus,
A Claudius Drusus, put that before rows of ancestral statues,
Let that take precedence over those consular rods of office.
The first debt you owe me is greatness of soul. Do you justify
Being regarded as sound, tenacious of justice in word and deed?
I acknowledge a true prince, then; hail to you Gaetulicus, or
Silanus: whatever the nobility of your race, hail to you, rare
And illustrious citizen, be welcomed by a joyful country,
Let the people cheer as they’re wont to do when Osiris is found.
Who would call a thing noble that’s unworthy of its breeding,
A thing distinguished by a glorious name, and nothing else?
We give the name ‘Atlas’ to someone’s dwarf, we call their
Black Ethiopian slave, ‘Swan’, while some bent and deformed
Girl’s beautiful ‘Europa’; and a dull dog with chronic mange,
That spends its time licking at the rim of a dried-up lamp,
Is called ‘Tiger’, ‘Leopard’, or ‘Lion’ or whatever else
In this world roars fiercely. So watch out, take care that
It’s not for such reasons they call you Creticus, or Camerinus.
SatVIII:39-70 I’m Talking About You, Rubellius Blandus
Who am I warning, like this? I’m talking about you, Rubellius
Blandus. You’re puffed up with pride over the exalted origins
Of the Drusi, as if you’d done something to make you noble,
As if it were due to you that your line’s bright with Julian blood,
Not that of a hired weaver from under the windy Embankment.
‘You’re all base’ you say. ‘You’re the lowest of the low, not
One of you can even prove where his ancestors’ came from,
While I’m descended from kings.’ Long life to you, may you
Take lasting joy in your origins. But from these plebeian depths
Come your eloquent Romans, who take on cases to defend
Uneducated nobles; from this crowd of togas comes the man
Who’ll untie legal knots and solve the mysteries of justice;
From here comes the diligent young soldier headed for the
Euphrates, or a legion watching over the conquered Batavi.
But you, you’re merely ‘descended from kings’, a broken Herm.
Indeed the only thing distinguishing you from a Herm is this:
The Herm’s head’s made of marble, while your flesh is alive.
Tell me, you scion of Trojans, who would call a dumb animal
Noble unless it was sound? That’s what we praise a racehorse
For, its speed, its countless easy wins that create a furore in
The noisy Circus as it takes the prize; that’s a noble horse,
The one, that whatever pasture nurtured it, gallops well clear
Of the pack, and raises a cloud of dust in the lead, on the flat.
The rest, over whose harness Victory rarely hovers, are cattle
For sale, sired though they are by Hirpinus or Coryphaeus.
There’s no respect for ancestors there, no regard for the
Shades; tardy offspring fit only for turning the millstone,
Are obliged to find themselves fresh owners at knock-down
Prices, and pull wagons around yoked to their weary necks.
So if you’re to impress me, not your line, offer something
Personal that I might set against your name, besides those
Titles we gave, and still give, to those to whom you owe all.
SatVIII:71-141 Ponticus, Here’s How To Behave
I’ve addressed enough to a young man whom tradition records
As proud, and inflated, and full of his close connection to Nero.
It’s rare enough to find human feeling in people of that class.
But Ponticus, I’d not want you to be valued only for the praise
Your family earned, or do nothing yourself to justify future
Praise. It’s wretched to have to rely on the fame of others, fear
The roof will collapse in ruins, if the pillars are taken away.
That trailing on the ground the vine will long for its lost elm.
Be a fine soldier, and a fine guardian, and a sound judge too.
If you’re summoned as witness in a confused and ambiguous
Case, even if Phalaris, the Sicilian tyrant, orders you to lie,
And spell out your perjuries, his Bronze Bull ready to torment
You at hand, it’s a worse evil to prefer survival to dishonour,
And for the sake of staying alive, lose the reason for living.
Such die deserving death, though dining on a hundred Lucrine
Oysters, bathed in a bronze tub filled with Cosmus’s perfume.
When, as governor, you’re welcomed at last to your long-awaited
Province, take a bridle and curb to your anger, and your greed,
Demonstrate some sympathy for the impoverished provincials:
What you’ll see are the marrow-bones of kings, sucked dry.
Keep an eye on the law’s restrictions, what the Senate command,
The copious rewards that await the virtuous, the righteous bolt
Of Senatorial lightning, that condemnation that ruined Capito
And Tutor, for stealing from the Cilicians. Though, why bother?
Look round for an auctioneer, Chaerippus, to sell off your rags,
Since Pansa is stealing whatever Natta left; and then be silent;
It would be madness to lose the fare for the ferryman as well.
The provinces never groaned like this, the pain of their losses
Was never so great, when, soon after conquest, they flourished.
Then their houses were bulging, there were vast piles of cash,
Military cloaks from Sparta, purple Coan silks, besides
Paintings by Parrhasius, statues signed by Myron, lifelike
Ivories by Phidias, no lack of endless works of Polyclitus,
And scarcely a table about lacking Mentor’s silverware.
From the provinces, Dolabella, from there Antonius, and that
Temple-robber Verres carried off loot concealed in tall
Ships, achieving greater triumphs in peacetime than war.
These days when some little farm is seized, the locals have
Only a few yoked oxen, a pitiful herd of mares, to be driven
Off with the patriarch of the herd and the household gods
Themselves, too, if any of their statues are worth the taking.
Perhaps you despise the unwarlike Rhodians, and perfumed
Corinth, and rightly so, what could a whole effeminate race
Of youths, from there, with their depilated legs, do to you?
It’s hairy Spain you should avoid, and the Gallic region,
And the shores of Illyria; and beware of African reapers
Who glut the idle City, freeing it for the races or the stage.
How great anyway are the rewards you’d win from so
Dire a crime, since Marius Priscus stripped Africa bare?
Take care above all to do no great injury to the wretched
And the brave. Leave them their swords and shields,
Though you take every last piece of their gold and silver.
What I’ve just written is not some mere maxim: it’s truth;
Believe me I’m reading aloud now from the Sibyl’s leaves.
If your retinue of followers behave, if no long-haired
Apollo takes bribes for you; if your wife’s free of guilt,
Not set to use the courts in every town to snatch spoils
With her hooked talons, like that harpy Celaeno; then you
May spell out your forebears back to King Picus, and if
It’s exalted names you treasure, include the Titans’ whole
Battle-line among them, including Prometheus himself.
But if you’re driven, precipitately, by greed and ambition,
If you slake whips and break them on provincial backs,
If blunted axes, and weary executioners, thrill you,
Your ancestral nobility will contrast with your baseness,
And shine its light on actions that should shame you.
Every fault of character’s the more open to reproach
The higher the rank is of the person who displays it.
SatVIII:142-182 Not Like Lateranus!
What’s so impressive about your custom of penning false
Wills, in temples your grandfather built, or while gazing
At your father’s triumphal statue? That, as an adulterer
By night, a Gallic cowl from Saintonge hides your head?
Lateranus, the gross, muleteer consul, outdoes that: he flies
By his forebears’ bones and ashes in his speedy carriage,
Then shames them, by applying the brake himself: true
He does it at night, but the moon sees it, and the glaring
Stars bear witness. He drives himself! When his stint at
The office is over, Lateranus takes up a whip in broad
Daylight, never worries about meeting an adult friend,
In fact he’ll wave to him first, with the whip; he even
Shakes out bales of hay, pours feed for his weary team.
And then, though he sacrifices sheep, or a red bullock,
In Numa’s rites, he swears by the horse-goddess Epona
At Jove’s altar, by the painted icons on his rank stable.
And when he’s off to enjoy a midnight eating-bout
A Syrio-Phoenician, drenched in endless perfumes, runs
To greet him, some Syrian Jew from the Idumaean Gate,
With that host’s welcome, ‘My Lord and Master’ while
Cyane, robe hiked to her thighs, offers the jar for sale.
Some defender of his faults, will tell me: ‘We too were
Like that when young,’ that’s as maybe, but you ceased
To nurture those errors. What tempts disgrace should be
Transient, a fault to be trimmed away with the first beard.
Grant lads indulgence: but our Lateranus headed straight
For bathhouse wine jugs and painted awnings even when
He was old enough to fight, or guard the Syrian frontiers,
Or Armenia, the Danube, the Rhine. Send him to Ostia,
Caesar, when you’ve found him in that vast eating-house.
Where he’ll be reclining next to some assassin, mingling
With sailors, consorting with thieves, and fugitive slaves,
Down there, among executioners, sat with coffin-makers,
Or the drums, now fallen silent, of some priest of Cybele.
There’s it’s a free for all, a communal jar, there no one has
Separate couches, tables set apart. Ponticus, if you chanced
To own a slave you found there, what would you do? Surely,
He’d be destined for some Lucanian or Tuscan slave-farm.
But you, you scions of Troy, you excuse it in yourselves.
What shames the working man’s fine for a Brutus, a Volesus.
SatVIII:183-230 Aristocrats Indeed!
Were these examples we cited never so wretched, never
So shameful, are there not worse examples still to come?
When you’d spent your cash, Damasippus, you hired out
Your voice to the stage, and acted Catullus’ noisy ‘Ghost’.
Agile Lentulus played the bandit Laureolus, rather well, I
Thought him worthy of his crucifixion. And let’s not start
Excusing the populace; there’s a hard side to this audience,
That sits, and watches the triple follies of these aristocrats,
Listens to pantomime Fabii, laughs at the slapstick antics
Of the Mamerci. What matter how well their drubbings pay?
They’re selling themselves, without some Nero’s coercion,
Can’t wait to sell, even when it’s the noble praetor’s games.
But consider: the stage over here, versus a violent death there;
Which is best? Is there anyone so scared to die, he’d rather act
Thymele’s jealous spouse, or play foil to Corinthus the clown?
Still if an emperor could play the lyre, a noble in a pantomime’s
No marvel. What could be worse, except the gladiatorial school?
There you may behold Rome’s shame: one of the Gracchi fights,
But not in heavy armour, not with a shield or with a curved blade;
He rejects such things, you see: look, he’s brandishing a trident.
When he’s flourished his right arm, and hurled his trailing net,
Without success, he’ll raise his bare face to the spectators, and
Having ensured he’s known throughout the whole arena, flees,
Dressed as a Salian priest, there’s no mistake, his golden tunic
Taut below his neck, the twisted cord swaying from his cap.
So the opponent ordered to fight this Gracchus, suffers a greater
Loss of face than he would have done from any wound received.
If the masses were granted a free vote, who would be so foolish
As to hesitate about preferring Seneca to that Nero who deserved
Worse punishment than the usual parricide, who should have been
Sewn with more than a snake and monkey in a sea-drowned sack.
Nero wrought Orestes’ crime, but the motive was quite different.
Agamemnon’s son, with divine indulgence, avenged his father,
Murdered at a banquet, you know, but never polluted himself by
Slitting his sister Electra’s jugular, or shedding his Spartan wife
Hermione’s blood, he prepared no poisoned doses for relatives,
He never took to the stage, like Nero, to sing the part of Orestes,
He never wrote an epic of Troy. What actions more deserved
Punishment, by Verginius and his army, by Galba and Vindex?
Such were the deeds and accomplishments of our noble emperor,
Who loved to prostitute himself on a foreign stage, in vile song,
Winning Greek garlands of dry celery leaves for his performance.
So grant your ancestors’ statues the prizes won by your voice,
Lay your Thyestes’ tragic robe with its long train, your mask of
Antigone or of Melanippe, before the feet of your own Domitius,
Go hang your lyre from your colossus, carved out of marble!
SatVIII:231-275 Let Us Celebrate Our Humble Origins
Where is a more exalted ancestry to be found, than yours Catiline,
Or yours Cethegus? Yet armed by night you connived to attack
Homes and temples and set them alight, like those sons of Gaul
In breeches, like the scions of those Senones who sacked Rome,
An outrage punished by legal execution, in ‘a coat of burning pitch’.
While Cicero the consul, alert, halts the advance of your banners.
He, a self-made man from Arpinum, of humble origin, a municipal
Knight new to the City, posts helmeted troops everywhere to protect
The terrified people, labours away over all the seven hills of Rome.
So his toga, in time of peace, brought him as much titled distinction,
Without stepping outside the walls, as Octavius, his sword stained
From continual slaughter, snatched for himself at Leucas, by Actium,
Or Philippi, in the fields of Thessaly; moreover Rome was still free,
When she named Cicero as parent and father of his native country.
And Gaius Marius, also from Arpinum, toiled in the Volscian hills
To earn a living, labouring away behind another man’s plough.
And later felt the centurion’s gnarled stick on his head, if he
Showed reluctance as he dug the camp’s moat with his tardy pick.
And yet it is he who takes on the Cimbri at a moment of high risk
To his country, and it is he alone who defends a trembling Rome.
And that’s why when the crows fly down to feast on the mounds
Of dead, never having fastened on mightier corpses, his fellow
Consul, Catulus, though a nobleman, receives the lesser laurels.
The Decii were plebeian souls, and their names plebeian too,
Yet they were worth all the legions, all of their allies, and all
The youth of Latium, to Mother Earth and the gods below.
Servius Tullius, born to a slave-girl, won the robes and crowns
And rods of Romulus, he the very last of the good kings of Rome.
The traitors who planned to unbar the gates to the exiled tyrants,
Were the sons of the consul himself, though, the very citizens
Who should have achieved great deeds on behalf of fragile liberty,
Deeds that Gaius Mucius or Horatius Cocles might have admired,
Or Cloelia, that girl who swam the Tiber, the frontier of our power.
A slave, deserving to be mourned by Roman women, it was who
Revealed the secret plot to the Senate, while the traitors got their just
Rewards, a flogging, then their newly-legal execution under the axe.
I’d rather you were fathered by Thersites, and behaved like Achilles,
Grandson of Aeacus, brandishing the weapons forged by Hephaestus,
Than that Achilles fathered you, only for you to behave like Thersites.
Though you can unroll the family tree, and trace your name far back,
It still derives from that first melting-pot of Rome, that granted all
Asylum; and whoever your first ancestor might have been, he was
Still a herdsman, or performed some other task I’d rather not mention.
