{"id":70,"date":"2017-06-24T20:36:23","date_gmt":"2017-06-24T20:36:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-geneseo-humanities1-1\/chapter\/satires-iii-iv\/"},"modified":"2017-06-24T20:36:23","modified_gmt":"2017-06-24T20:36:23","slug":"satires-iii-iv","status":"web-only","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-geneseo-humanities1-1\/chapter\/satires-iii-iv\/","title":{"raw":"Satires III & IV","rendered":"Satires III & IV"},"content":{"raw":"Satire III: Fleeing Rome<\/strong> \u00a0 SatIII:1-20 It\u2019s Enough to Drive Old Friends Away\n\n\u00a0\n\nThough I\u2019m disturbed by an old friend\u2019s departure, still\n\nI approve his decision to set up home in vacant Cumae\n\nAnd devote at least one more citizen to the Sibyl.\n\nIt\u2019s the gateway to Baiae, a beautiful coast, sweetly\n\nSecluded. I prefer Prochyta\u2019s isle to the noisy Subura.\n\nAfter all, is there anywhere that\u2019s so wretched and lonely\n\nYou wouldn\u2019t rather be there than in constant danger of fire,\n\nOf collapsing buildings, and all of the thousand perils\n\nOf barbarous Rome, with poets reciting all during August!\n\nNow, while his whole house was being loaded onto a cart,\n\nHe lingered there by the ancient arch of sodden Capena.\n\nWe walked down to Egeria\u2019s vale with its synthetic grottos.\n\nHow much more effective the fountain\u2019s power would be,\n\nIf its waters were enclosed by a margin of verdant grass,\n\nAnd if marble had never desecrated the native tufa.\n\nHere, where Numa established his night-time girlfriend,\n\nThe grove and shrine of the sacred fount are rented out\n\nTo the Jews, who\u2019re equipped with straw-lined baskets;\n\nSince the grove has been ordered to pay the nation rent,\n\nThe Muses have been ejected, and the trees go begging.\n\n\u00a0\n\nSatIII:21-57 The Dishonest and Dishonourable\n\n\u00a0\n\nHere it was that Umbricius spoke: \u2018There\u2019s no joy in Rome\n\nFor honest ability, and no reward any more for hard work.\n\nMy means today are less than yesterday, and tomorrow\n\nWill wear away a bit more, that\u2019s why I\u2019m resolved\n\nTo head for Cumae, where weary Daedalus doffed his wings.\n\nWhile my white-hairs are new, while old age stands upright,\n\nWhile Lachesis has thread left to spin, and I can still walk,\n\nOn my own two feet, without needing a staff in my hand,\n\nI\u2019ll leave the ancestral land. Let Arturius, let Catulus live\n\nIn Rome. Let the men who turn black into white remain,\n\nWho find it easy to garner contracts for temples, and rivers,\n\nHarbours, draining sewers, and carrying corpses to the pyre,\n\nWho offer themselves for sale according to auctioneers\u2019 rules.\n\nThose erstwhile players of horns, those perpetual friends\n\nOf public arenas, noted through all the towns for their\n\nRounded cheeks, now mount shows themselves, and kill\n\nTo please when the mob demand it with down-turned thumbs;\n\nThen it\u2019s back to deals for urinals, why not the whole works?\n\nSince they\u2019re the ones Fortune raises up to the highest sphere\n\nOut of the lowest gutter, whenever she fancies a laugh.\n\nWhat\u2019s left for me in Rome? I can\u2019t tell lies, I can\u2019t praise\n\nA book that\u2019s bad, beg a copy; I\u2019ve no notion of the motion\n\nOf stars; I can\u2019t and I won\u2019t prophesy someone\u2019s father\u2019s\n\nDeath; I\u2019ve never guessed a thing from the entrails of frogs;\n\nCarrying to some adulterous wife whatever her lover sends,\n\nWhatever his message, others know how to do; I\u2019d never\n\nHelp out a thief; and that\u2019s why I\u2019m never one of the boys,\n\nMore like a cripple, with useless body and paralysed hand.\n\nWho is esteemed now unless he\u2019s someone\u2019s accomplice,\n\nHis mind seething with things that should never be told.\n\nThere\u2019s nothing they think they owe, they\u2019ll give nothing,\n\nTo a person who\u2019s only their partner in harmless secrets.\n\nVerrus only cares for those who can make a case against\n\nVerrus whenever they wish. May the sand of Tagus mean\n\nLess to you, with all its gold that is washed down to the sea,\n\nThan lost sleep, and the sadness of taking regular bribes,\n\nAnd thus being forever afraid of some powerful friend.\n\n\u00a0\n\nSatIII:58-125 And What About all Those Greeks?\n\n\u00a0\n\nThat race most acceptable now to our wealthy Romans,\n\nThat race I principally wish to flee, I\u2019ll swiftly reveal,\n\nAnd without embarrassment. My friends, I can\u2019t stand\n\nA Rome full of Greeks, yet few of the dregs are Greek!\n\nFor the Syrian Orontes has long since polluted the Tiber,\n\nBringing its language and customs, pipes and harp-strings,\n\nAnd even their native timbrels are dragged along too,\n\nAnd the girls forced to offer themselves in the Circus.\n\nGo there, if your taste\u2019s a barbarous whore in a painted veil.\n\nSee, Romulus, those rustics of yours wearing Greek slippers,\n\nGreek ointments, Greek prize medallions round their necks.\n\nHe\u2019s from the heights of Sicyon, and he\u2019s from Amydon,\n\nFrom Andros, Samos, they come, from Tralles or Alabanda,\n\nSeeking the Esquiline and the Viminal, named from its willows.\n\nTo become both the innards and masters of our great houses.\n\nQuick witted, of shamelessly audacity, ready of speech, more\n\nLip than Isaeus, the rhetorician. Just say what you want them\n\nTo be. They\u2019ll bring you, in one person, whatever you need:\n\nThe teacher of languages, orator, painter, geometer, trainer,\n\nAugur, rope-dancer, physician, magician, they know it all,\n\nYour hungry Greeks: tell them to buzz off to heaven, they\u2019ll go.\n\nThat\u2019s why it was no Moroccan, Sarmatian,\u00a0 or man from Thrace\n\nWho donned wings, but one Daedalus, born in the heart of Athens.\n\nShould I not flee these people in purple? Should I watch them sign\n\nAhead of me, then, and recline to eat on a better couch than mine,\n\nMen propelled to Rome by the wind, with the plums and the figs?\n\nIs it nothing that in my childhood I breathed the Aventine air,\n\nIs it nothing that in my youth I was nurtured on Sabine olives?\n\nAnd aren\u2019t they the people most adept at flattery, praising\n\nThe illiterate speech of a friend, praising his ugly face,\n\nLikening a weak, scrawny neck to that of brave Hercules,\n\nWhen he lifted the massive Antaeus high above earth,\n\nAnd lost in their admiration for a voice as high-pitched\n\nAs the cockerel when he pecks at his hen as they mate?\n\nWe too can offer praise in just the same way: but they\n\nAre the ones believed. What comic actor\u2019s better at playing\n\nThais, the whore, or the wife, or Doris, the slave-girl, out\n\nWithout her cloak? It\u2019s as if a woman were speaking not\n\nMerely a mask: you\u2019d think all was smooth and lacking\n\nBelow the belly, and only split there by a slender crack.\n\nYet our comic turn, Antiochus, would be no great wonder\n\nIn Greece, Demetrius, Stratocles, or effeminate Haemus:\n\nThey\u2019re a nation of comics. Laugh, and they\u2019ll be shaken\n\nWith fits of laughter. They weep, without grief, if they see\n\nA friend in tears; if you pine for a little warmth in the winter\n\nThey don a cloak; if you remark \u201cit\u2019s hot\u201d they\u2019ll start to sweat.\n\nSo we\u2019re unequal: they\u2019ve a head start who always, day or night,\n\nCan adopt the expression they see on someone\u2019s face,\n\nWho\u2019re always ready to throw up their hands and cheer\n\nIf their \u2018friend\u2019 belches deeply, or perhaps pisses straight,\n\nOr gives a fart when the golden bowl\u2019s turned upside down.\n\nBesides, nothing\u2019s sacred to them or safe from their cocks\n\nNot the lady of the house, or the virgin daughter, not\n\nEven her smooth-faced fianc\u00e9, or the unbroken son.\n\nFailing that, they\u2019ll have the friend\u2019s grandma on her back.\n\nThey like to own the secrets of the house, and so be feared.\n\nAnd since I\u2019m mentioning the Greeks, then let\u2019s pass on\n\nFrom their gymnastics to a crime of a darker colour. Celer,\n\nThe old Stoic turned informer, brought about Barea\u2019s death,\n\nHis friend and pupil; Celer, of Tarsus, raised by the Cydnus,\n\nWhere a feather from Pegasus, the Gorgon\u2019s child, landed.\n\nThere\u2019s no room here for the Romans; it\u2019s some Greek;\n\nProtogenes, or Diphilus, or Hermachus who reigns here,\n\nWho never shares a friend, since that\u2019s their race\u2019s defect,\n\nBut monopolises him alone. For once they\u2019ve dripped a drop\n\nOf their country\u2019s native poison in a ready ear, I\u2019m driven\n\nFrom the threshold, and my long years of slavery are lost.\n\nNowhere is the casting off of a client more casually done.\n\n\u00a0\n\nSatIII:126-163 Better Not Be Poor Here\n\n\u00a0\n\nThen, not to flatter ourselves, what office or service is left\n\nFor a poor man here, even if he dons his toga and dashes\n\nAbout in the dark, given the praetor\u2019s hurrying his lictor\n\nAlready, to run on with a morning greeting to rich Albina,\n\nOr childless, sleepless Modia, lest his colleague\u2019s there first?\n\nHere, a freeborn son is detailed to escort a rich man\u2019s slave:\n\nThe latter can hand out gifts, worth as much as a military\n\nTribune earns, to aristocratic Calvina or Catiena, just\n\nTo writhe around on top of her once or twice; while you\n\nIn love with the look of Chione\u2019s finery, halt in your tracks\n\nHesitant about helping a whore descend from her high horse.\n\nFind me a knight in Rome as holy as Nasica, who escorted\n\nThe image of Cybele, let Numa advance, or Caecilius Metellus,\n\nWho rescued Minerva\u2019s fire-threatened statue, from Vesta\u2019s temple:\n\nHis character would be the very last thing discussed: money first.\n\n\u201cHow many slaves does he own? How many acres of farmland?\n\nHow extravagant are his banquets, how many courses served?\u201d\n\nThe number of coins a man keeps in his treasure chest, that\u2019s\n\nAll the credit he earns. Swear your oath on the altars of Rome\n\nOr Samothrace, they\u2019ll maintain, as you\u2019re poor, you\u2019ll just flout\n\nThe divine lightning bolt, with the gods themselves acquiescing.\n\nAnd what of the fact that the same poor beggar provides them all\n\nWith matter and cause for amusement, if his cloak\u2019s dirty and torn,\n\nIf his toga is weathered and stained, one shoe gaping open where\n\nThe leather has split, or when there\u2019s more than one patch showing\n\nWhere a rent has been stitched, displaying the coarse new thread?\n\nThere\u2019s nothing harder to bear about poverty\u2019s wretchedness\n\nThan how it leaves you open to ridicule. \u201cOff you go\u201d they\u2019ll say,\n\n\u201cIf you\u2019ve any shame: don\u2019t dare sit here on a knight\u2019s cushion,\n\nIf you\u2019ve insufficient wealth under the law\u201d, but they\u2019ll sit there\n\nAll those sons of pimps, born in some vile brothel or other,\n\nHere the auctioneer\u2019s slick son can sit to applaud the show,\n\nBeside the well-dressed lads of the gladiators and trainers.\u2019\n\nThat\u2019s how that fool Otho was pleased to dispose of us all.\n\nWhat prospective son-in-law can pass the test, here, if his wealth\n\nIs less, or his luggage worse than the girl\u2019s? What pauper inherits?\n\nWhen do aediles vote them onto the council? The indigent citizens\n\nShould all have assembled, long ago, and migrated from the City.\n\n\u00a0\n\nSatIII:164-189 It\u2019s Hard to Climb the Ladder\n\n\u00a0\n\nIt\u2019s hard to climb the ladder when constricted private resources\n\nBlock your talents, but at Rome the effort is greater still:\n\nThey\u2019re expensive, wretched lodgings; expensive, the bellies\n\nOf slaves; and a meagre supper is just as expensive too.\n\nYou\u2019re ashamed to dine off earthenware plates, though you\n\nWould feel no disgust if suddenly spirited off to a Sabellan\n\nOr Marsian table, content in a poor man\u2019s coarse, blue hood.\n\nTo tell you the truth, in most of Italy, no one wears a toga\n\nUnless they\u2019re dead. Even on days of major festival when\n\nThe traditional farce returns once more to the wooden stage,\n\nWhen the rustic infant cowers in its mother\u2019s lap, at sight\n\nOf a white gaping mask, even then you\u2019ll see everyone,\n\nThere, still dressed the same, those in the senatorial seats\n\nAnd those elsewhere. White tunics are quite sufficient for\n\nThe highest aediles, as a garb to adorn their glorious office.\n\nHere our smart clothes are beyond our means, here at Rome\n\nA little bit extra has to be borrowed from someone\u2019s purse.\n\nIt\u2019s a common fault; here we all live in pretentious poverty,\n\nWhat more can I say? Everything in Rome comes at a price.\n\nWhat do you not pay so you can say: \u201cGood morning, Cossus\u201d,\n\nSo Veiento will condescend to give you a tight-lipped glance?\n\nThis slave\u2019s beard is clipped, that one\u2019s lock of hair\u2019s dedicated;\n\nThe house is full of celebratory cakes you\u2019ve paid for: take one\n\nAnd keep your frustration to yourself. Clients are forced to pay\n\nSuch tribute-money, and supplement the savings of sleek slaves.\n\n\u00a0\n\nSatIII:190-231 The Very Houses are Unsafe\n\n\u00a0\n\nWho fears, or ever feared, that their house might collapse,\n\nIn cool Praeneste, or in Volsinii among the wooded hills,\n\nOr at unpretentious Gabii, or the sloping hills of Tibur?\n\nWe inhabit a Rome held up for the most part by slender\n\nProps; since that\u2019s the way management stop the buildings\n\nFalling down; once they\u2019ve covered some ancient yawning\n\nCrack, they\u2019ll tell us to sleep soundly at the edge of ruin.\n\nThe place to live is far from all these fires, and all these\n\nPanics in the night. Ucalegon is already summoning a hose,\n\nMoving his things, and your third floor\u2019s already smoking:\n\nYou\u2019re unaware; since if the alarm was raised downstairs,\n\nThe last to burn will be the one a bare tile protects from\n\nThe rain, up there where gentle doves coo over their eggs.\n\nCordus had a bed, too small for Procula, and six little jugs\n\nOf earthenware to adorn his sideboard and, underneath it,\n\nA little Chiron, a Centaur made of that very same \u2018marble\u2019\n\nAnd a box somewhat aged now, to hold his Greek library,\n\nSo the barbarous mice gnawed away at immortal verse.\n\nCordus had nothing, who could demur? Yet, poor man,\n\nHe lost the whole of that nothing. And the ultimate peak\n\nOf his misery, is that naked and begging for scraps, no one\n\nWill give him a crust, or a hand, or a roof over his head.\n\nIf Assaracus\u2019s great mansion is lost, his mother\u2019s in mourning,\n\nThe nobles wear black, and the praetor adjourns his hearing.\n\nThen we bewail the state of Rome, then we despair of its fires.\n\nWhile it\u2019s still burning, they\u2019re rushing to offer marble, already,\n\nCollect donations; one man contributes nude gleaming statues,\n\nAnother Euphranor\u2019s master-works, or bronzes by Polyclitus,\n\nOr antique ornaments that once belonged to some Asian god,\n\nHere books and bookcases, a Minerva to set in their midst,\n\nThere a heap of silver. Persicus, wealthiest of the childless,\n\nIs there to replace what\u2019s lost with more, and better things.\n\nHe\u2019s suspected, and rightly so, of setting fire to his house.\n\nIf you could tear yourself from the Games, you could buy\n\nA most excellent place, at Sora, at Fabrateria or Frusino,\n\nFor the annual rent you pay now, for a tenement in Rome.\n\nThere you\u2019d have a garden, and a well not deep enough\n\nTo demand a rope, so easy watering of your tender plants.\n\nLive as a lover of the hoe, and the master of a vegetable bed,\n\nFrom which a hundred vegetarian Pythagoreans could be fed.\n\nYou\u2019d be somebody, whatever the place, however remote,\n\nIf only because you\u2019d be the master of a solitary lizard.\n\n\u00a0\n\nSatIII:232-267 And Then There\u2019s the Traffic\n\n\u00a0\n\nMany an invalid dies from insomnia here, though the illness\n\nItself is caused by partially digested food, that clings tight\n\nTo the fevered stomach; for, where can you lodge and enjoy\n\nA good night\u2019s sleep? You have to be filthy rich to find rest\n\nIn Rome. That\u2019s the source of our sickness. The endless traffic\n\nIn narrow twisting streets, and the swearing at stranded cattle,\n\nWould deprive a Claudius of sleep, or the seals on the shore.\n\nWhen duty calls, the crowd gives way as the rich man\u2019s litter,\n\nRushes by, right in their faces, like some vast Liburnian galley,\n\nWhile he reads, writes, sleeps inside, while sped on his way:\n\nYou know how a chair with shut windows makes you drowsy!\n\nYet, he gets there first: as I hasten, the tide ahead obstructs me,\n\nAnd the huge massed ranks that follow behind crush my kidneys;\n\nThis man sticks out his elbow, that one flails with a solid pole,\n\nThis man strikes my head with a beam, that one with a barrel.\n\nLegs caked with mud, I\u2019m forever trampled by mighty feet\n\nFrom every side, while a soldier\u2019s hobnailed boot pierces my toe.\n\nDo you see all the smoke that rises, to celebrate a hand-out?\n\nThere\u2019s a hundred diners each followed by his portable kitchen.\n\nCorbulo, that huge general, could scarce carry all those vast pots,\n\nWith all the rest that the poor little slave transports, on his head.\n\nFanning the oven, he runs along, his body held perfectly upright.\n\nRecently-mended tunics are ripped, while a long fir log judders\n\nAs it looms near, while another cart\u2019s bearing a whole pine-tree.\n\nThey teeter threateningly over the heads of those people below.\n\nNow, if that axle breaks under the weight of Ligurian marble,\n\nAnd spills an upturned mountain on top of the dense crowd,\n\nWhat will be left of the bodies? What limbs, what bones will\n\nSurvive? Every man\u2019s corpse wholly crushed will vanish along\n\nWith his soul. Meanwhile his household, oblivious, are scouring\n\nThe dishes; are puffing their cheeks at the embers; are clattering\n\nThe oily back-scrapers; by full oil-flasks, arranging the towels.\n\nThe slave-boys bustle about on various tasks, while their master,\n\nIs now a newcomer on the banks of the Styx, shuddering there\n\nAt the hideous ferryman, without hope, poor wretch, of a ride\n\nOver the muddy river, and no coin in his mouth for the fare.\n\n\u00a0\n\nSatIII:268-314 And The Violence\n\n\u00a0\n\nAnd now let\u2019s consider all the other varied dangers, at night:\n\nWhat a long way it is for a tile from the highest roof to fall\n\nOn your head; how often a cracked and leaky pot plunges down\n\nFrom a sill; what a crash when they strike the pavement, chipping\n\nAnd cracking the stones. If you go out to dinner without making\n\nA will, you\u2019re thought of as simply careless, dismissive of those\n\nTragic events that occur: there are as many opportunities to die,\n\nAs there are open windows watching you, when you go by, at night.\n\nSo I\u2019d make a wretched wish and a prayer, as you go, that they\u2019ll\n\nRest content with simply emptying their brimming pots over you.\n\nThe impudent drunk\u2019s annoyed if by chance there\u2019s no one at all\n\nTo set upon, spending the whole night grieving, like Achilles for\n\nHis friend, lying now on his face, and then, turning onto his back:\n\nSince it\u2019s the only way he can tire himself; it takes a brawl or two\n\nTo send him to sleep. But however worked up he is, fired by youth\n\nAnd neat wine, he steers clear of him in the scarlet cloak, who issues\n\nA warning as he goes on his way, with his long retinue of attendants,\n\nAnd plenty of torches besides and lamps of bronze. Yet despises me,\n\nAs I pass by, by the light of the moon, as usual, or the flickering light\n\nOf a candle, whose wick I take great care off, and cautiously regulate.\n\nTake note of the setting awaiting a wretched fight, if you call it a fight\n\nWhere one of us lashes out, and the other one, me, takes a beating.\n\nHe stands up, and he tells me to stop. I\u2019ve no choice but to obey;\n\nWhat can you do, when a madman is giving the orders, who\u2019s stronger\n\nThan you as well? \u201cWhere\u2019ve you been?\u201d he shouts, \u201cWhose sour wine\n\nAnd beans have you been downing? Which shoemaker\u2019s were you at,\n\nFilling your\u00a0 face with boiled sheep\u2019s head, gorging it on fresh leeks?\n\nNothing to say? You\u2019d better speak up fast, or get a good kicking!\n\nTell me where you\u2019re staying: what far field are you praying in?\u201d\n\nIf you try to say something, or try to retreat in silence, it\u2019s all the same:\n\nHe\u2019ll give you a thumping regardless, and then still full of anger, say\n\nHe\u2019s suing you for assault. This is the freedom accorded to the poor:\n\nWhen they\u2019re beaten, knocked down by fists, they can beg and plead\n\nTo be allowed to make their way home afterwards with a few teeth left.\n\nAnd that\u2019s not all we need to fear; there\u2019ll be no shortage of thieves\n\nTo rob you, when the houses are all locked up, when all the shutters\n\nIn front of the shops have been chained and fastened, everywhere silent.\n\nAnd, ever so often, there\u2019s a vagabond with a sudden knife at work:\n\nWhenever the Pontine Marsh, or the Gallinarian Forest and its pines,\n\nAre temporarily rendered safe by an armed patrol, the rogues skip\n\nFrom there to here, heading for Rome as if to a game preserve.\n\nWhere is the furnace or anvil not employed for fashioning chains?\n\nThe bulk of our iron is turned into fetters; you should worry about\n\nAn imminent shortage of ploughshares, a lack of mattocks and hoes.\n\nYou might call our distant ancestors fortunate, fortunate those ages\n\nLong ago, when lives were lived under the rule of kings and tribunes,\n\nThose generations, that witnessed a Rome where a single prison sufficed.\n\n\u00a0\n\nSatIII:315-322 So Farewell!\n\n\u00a0\n\nI could add a host of other reasons to these, but the beasts of burden\n\nAre braying, the sun is setting. It\u2019s time for me to leave; the muleteer\n\nHas been waving his whip, to signal he\u2019s been ready to go for a while.\n\nSo farewell, keep me in your memory, and whenever Rome sends\n\nYou hastening back, for a rest in the country, to your own Aquinum,\n\nInvite me from Cumae too, to visit the Ceres of Helvius, and your\n\nDiana. I\u2019ll come in my nail-shod boots, I\u2019ll come and visit your chilly\n\nFields, and, if they\u2019re not totally shameful, I\u2019ll listen to your Satires.\u2019\nSatire IV: Mock Epic<\/strong> \u00a0 SatIV:1-33 Crispinus and the Mullet\n\n\u00a0\n\nBehold, Crispinus again! He\u2019s someone I\u2019ll often call on\n\nTo play a part, a monster without one redeeming virtue\n\nTo offset his faults, a weakling, strong only in lechery,\n\nAn adulterer, who rejects none but unmarried women.\n\nWhat matter how extensive the porticoes are where he\n\nWears out his mules; how vast the groves where he\u2019s borne\n\nBeneath the shade; how many acres of palace he\u2019s bought\n\nNear the Forum? No miscreant\u2019s happy, least of all a sinful\n\nSeducer, who recently slept with a priestess in a headband;\n\nAnd she now destined to be punished, by being buried alive.\n\nSo, on to his lighter sins: all the same, if another had done\n\nThe deed, he\u2019d be convicted by the Censor, for lax morals,\n\nFor what\u2019s normal in a Crispinus is criminal in another,\n\nIn a Titius or Seius. What can you do when the man himself\n\nIs more dreadful and dire than any accusation you can bring?\n\nHe bought a red mullet, matched its weight in gold pieces,\n\nSixty, in fact, as those assert who\u2019d make the gross, grosser.\n\nI might praise his cunning plan, if with a gift so rare he stole\n\nFirst place in the sealed will of some fond childless old man;\n\nOr better still, sent it along to some high-ranking mistress,\n\nWho rides along in that closed litter with the wide windows.\n\nNo way! It was for himself! Oh, we witness many things now,\n\nThe poor, miserly gourmet, Apicius, failed to enact. Did you,\n\nCrispinus, clad in your native Egyptian papyrus dress, pay\n\nAs much, then, for fish-scales? Likely the fisherman could\n\nHave been bought for less than the fish; land\u2019s cheap too\n\nIn the provinces but fetches a whole lot more in Apulia.\n\nImagine what kind of feasts the Emperor himself guzzled\n\nIn those days, if so many silver coins, a tiny fraction,\n\nA side-dish from a moderate repast, were belched forth\n\nBy a purple-clad clown attached to the Great Palace,\n\nNow a great leader of horsemen, who used to shout\n\nHis wares, dealing in fellow catfish from a rotten haul!\n\n\u00a0\n\nSatIV:34-71 The Enormous Turbot\n\n\u00a0\n\nBegin, Muse. And Calliope, you may be seated: this is no\n\nRecitation, the truth\u2019s our theme. Come, girls of Pieria, tell\n\nYour story, and may my terming you girls do me some good.\n\nIn the days when Rome was that bald Nero, Domitian\u2019s slave,\n\nWhen that last of the Flavians was mangling a dying world,\n\nA marvellous hulk of an Adriatic turbot came to light,\n\nBelow the Temple of Venus that graces Doric Ancona,\n\nFilled the net, and stuck fast, no smaller than those fish\n\nThe Sea of Azov hides, that when the sun melts the ice\n\nAt last, find their way down to the Black Sea straits,\n\nBloated from long idleness and from the enduring cold.\n\nThe monster was marked down by the controller of boats\n\nAnd nets, for his High Priest, the Emperor. After all,\n\nWho\u2019d dare sell or buy such a thing when even the beaches\n\nWere covered with spies? Like a shot, the inspectors of seaweed\n\nEverywhere, would tackle a naked oarsmen, and claim\n\nThat the fish was, without shadow of doubt, a fugitive\n\nThat had swum for long ages in Caesar\u2019s fishpond, and as\n\nA prisoner on the run, must return to its former master.\n\nIf we\u2019re to believe Palfurius, or heed what Armillatus says,\n\nWhatever is rare and particularly fine in the whole ocean\n\nBelongs to the treasury, wherever it swims. Donated thus,\n\nIt can\u2019t go to waste. Now with fading autumn giving way\n\nTo frost, now with invalids prone to less frequent fevers,\n\nFoul winter\u2019s keen weather served to keep the catch fresh;\n\nNonetheless, the fisherman hurried, urged by the wintry wind.\n\nWhen the lake lay below, where ruined Alba tends the Trojan\n\nFlame and worships at the shrine of the lesser Vesta,\n\nA wondering crowd obstructed his entrance for a time.\n\nWhen they yielded, the gates swung open on oiled hinges;\n\nThe senators, excluded, watched the fish enter and travel,\n\nStraight to Agamemnon, where, the fisherman from Picenum\n\nSaid: \u2018Accept a gift too large for a private kitchen. Make this\n\nA holiday. Hasten to fill your stomach with this rich food,\n\nConsume this turbot preserved for your glorious reign.\n\nIt longed to be caught, itself.\u2019 What flattery! All the same\n\nThe cock\u2019s crest rose. There\u2019s nothing the powerful\n\nWon\u2019t believe of themselves, when praised to the skies.\n\n\u00a0\n\nSatIV:72-129 The Summoning of the Council\n\n\u00a0\n\nYet a dish was lacking large enough for the fish. So\n\nThe nobles, the Emperor hated, were summoned to a council,\n\nDisplaying in their faces the pallor of that vast and terrible\n\nFriendship. The first to snatch up his cloak and hasten there,\n\nAs the Liburnian slave was calling: \u2018Hurry, he\u2019s seated now\u2019\n\nWas Plotius Pegasus, slave \u2013 what else were prefects then,\n\nAfter all? \u2013 appointed to oversee a startled Rome, the best,\n\nMost incorruptible, of jurists, one who thought that however\n\nDreadful the times, justice should be weighed without violence.\n\nThe aged and amiable Quintus Crispus was there as well,\n\nA gentle soul, with a character to match his eloquence.\n\nHow much more useful a courtier he\u2019d have been to that king\n\nOf nations, lands and seas, if only he\u2019d been allowed, while\n\nServing that ruinous plague, to condemn cruelty and offer\n\nHonourable advice! But what\u2019s more deaf than the ear of a\n\nTyrant? On his whim hangs the fate of a friend, who simply\n\nWants to speak of rain, heat, or the poor spring weather.\n\nThus, Crispus never extended his arms against the flood,\n\nNot being the kind of citizen to dare to offer his thoughts\n\nFreely, nor one to put his life at risk for the sake of truth.\n\nThat\u2019s how he managed eighty summers and as many\n\nWinters, protected by such armour even in that court.\n\nHurrying along with him came his peer, Acilius Aviola,\n\nWith a young son, Glabrio, whom a cruel death awaited,\n\nSo swiftly dealt by the master\u2019s sword; though it\u2019s long\n\nBeen a miracle to survive to old age among the nobility,\n\nWhich is why I prefer to remain a nobody on this earth.\n\nIt only brought that youth misery to appear as a naked\n\nHunter in the Alban arena, tackling bears at close quarters.\n\nWho, after all, isn\u2019t wise to aristocratic arts these days?\n\nWho\u2019d be amazed at your pretences now Lucius Brutus?\n\nIt was easier in those days to impose on a bearded king.\n\nNo less in appearance, despite his humble background\n\nCame Rubrius Gallus, guilty of an old unmentionable\n\nOffence, yet more perverse than a pathic scribbling satire.\n\nMontanus\u2019s belly was present too, with weighty paunch;\n\nAnd Crispinus drenched in that morning\u2019s perfume,\n\nScarcely less odorous than a funeral cortege or two; more\n\nRuthless still, Pompeius, men killed at his slightest whisper;\n\nFuscus whose guts Dacia\u2019s vultures were destined to enjoy,\n\nAnd who meditated battles in his marble villa; prudent Veiiento,\n\nIn company with the deadly Lucius Catullus Messalinus,\n\nInflamed with passion for a girl he had never seen,\n\nHe\u2019d be a great and notable monster even in our day,\n\nA blind sycophant, and a terrifying hired accomplice,\n\nWorthy to be one of those beggars blowing obsequious\n\nKisses at the wheels of your carriage on the hill at Aricia.\n\nNone was more impressed with the turbot; for he made\n\nA long speech to his left, though the fish was on his right,\n\nWhich is how he used to praise the Cilician fist fights,\n\nAnd the wires that whisk lads high up above the stage.\n\nVeiiento not to be outdone, like your fanatics, Bellona,\n\nGoaded to ritual frenzy, prophesied: \u2018Here is the mighty\n\nOmen of a magnificent and glorious triumph to come.\n\nYou\u2019ll net a king, or Arvigarus will fall from his British\n\nChariot.\u2019 \u2018This fish is a new species: do you see the spikes\n\nBristling from its spine?\u2019 The only thing Fabricius failed\n\nTo mention was the turbot\u2019s place of birth, and its age.\n\n\u00a0\n\nSatIV:130-154 The Council\u2019s Advice\n\n\u00a0\n\n\u2018So what do you recommend? Should we chop it in half?\u2019\n\n\u2018Spare it such outrage\u2019 cried Montanus, \u2018have a deep dish\n\nMade, thin-sided, but large enough for its vast dimensions.\n\nWe need a prompt and mighty potter, like Prometheus.\n\nReady the wheel and the clay swiftly, and from this time\n\nForth, let there be potters, Caesar, among your servants.\u2019\n\nThe proposal, worthy of the man, won the day. He\u2019d known\n\nThe excesses of the old Imperium, and Nero\u2019s late hours,\n\nThe famished feeling at midnight, when Falernian wine\n\nGives heartburn. No one today has greater knowledge where\n\nFood\u2019s concerned: at first bite he could tell if the oysters\n\nCame from Circeii, the Lucrine Lake, or the Kentish Coast\n\nBy Richborough, or at a glance, a sea-urchin\u2019s native shore.\n\nThey rose, the council over, the nobles ordered to leave,\n\nWhom the great leader had called to his Alban fortress,\n\nForced to hasten there, gathered together in surprise,\n\nAs though he\u2019d news of the Chatti or fierce Sygambri,\n\nAs though a disturbing letter had arrived on frantic wings,\n\nSent swiftly from some far-distant region of the world.\n\nOh, if only he\u2019d chosen to devote the whole of that age, given\n\nTo savagery, to such trivia, instead of depriving Rome of great\n\nAnd illustrious spirits, with impunity, and none to take revenge!\n\nYet he perished as soon as the working man began to fear him:\n\nIt did for him, to be drenched in the Lamia family\u2019s blood.","rendered":"

Satire III: Fleeing Rome<\/strong> \u00a0 SatIII:1-20 It\u2019s Enough to Drive Old Friends Away<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Though I\u2019m disturbed by an old friend\u2019s departure, still<\/p>\n

I approve his decision to set up home in vacant Cumae<\/p>\n

And devote at least one more citizen to the Sibyl.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the gateway to Baiae, a beautiful coast, sweetly<\/p>\n

Secluded. I prefer Prochyta\u2019s isle to the noisy Subura.<\/p>\n

After all, is there anywhere that\u2019s so wretched and lonely<\/p>\n

You wouldn\u2019t rather be there than in constant danger of fire,<\/p>\n

Of collapsing buildings, and all of the thousand perils<\/p>\n

Of barbarous Rome, with poets reciting all during August!<\/p>\n

Now, while his whole house was being loaded onto a cart,<\/p>\n

He lingered there by the ancient arch of sodden Capena.<\/p>\n

We walked down to Egeria\u2019s vale with its synthetic grottos.<\/p>\n

How much more effective the fountain\u2019s power would be,<\/p>\n

If its waters were enclosed by a margin of verdant grass,<\/p>\n

And if marble had never desecrated the native tufa.<\/p>\n

Here, where Numa established his night-time girlfriend,<\/p>\n

The grove and shrine of the sacred fount are rented out<\/p>\n

To the Jews, who\u2019re equipped with straw-lined baskets;<\/p>\n

Since the grove has been ordered to pay the nation rent,<\/p>\n

The Muses have been ejected, and the trees go begging.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

SatIII:21-57 The Dishonest and Dishonourable<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Here it was that Umbricius spoke: \u2018There\u2019s no joy in Rome<\/p>\n

For honest ability, and no reward any more for hard work.<\/p>\n

My means today are less than yesterday, and tomorrow<\/p>\n

Will wear away a bit more, that\u2019s why I\u2019m resolved<\/p>\n

To head for Cumae, where weary Daedalus doffed his wings.<\/p>\n

While my white-hairs are new, while old age stands upright,<\/p>\n

While Lachesis has thread left to spin, and I can still walk,<\/p>\n

On my own two feet, without needing a staff in my hand,<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll leave the ancestral land. Let Arturius, let Catulus live<\/p>\n

In Rome. Let the men who turn black into white remain,<\/p>\n

Who find it easy to garner contracts for temples, and rivers,<\/p>\n

Harbours, draining sewers, and carrying corpses to the pyre,<\/p>\n

Who offer themselves for sale according to auctioneers\u2019 rules.<\/p>\n

Those erstwhile players of horns, those perpetual friends<\/p>\n

Of public arenas, noted through all the towns for their<\/p>\n

Rounded cheeks, now mount shows themselves, and kill<\/p>\n

To please when the mob demand it with down-turned thumbs;<\/p>\n

Then it\u2019s back to deals for urinals, why not the whole works?<\/p>\n

Since they\u2019re the ones Fortune raises up to the highest sphere<\/p>\n

Out of the lowest gutter, whenever she fancies a laugh.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s left for me in Rome? I can\u2019t tell lies, I can\u2019t praise<\/p>\n

A book that\u2019s bad, beg a copy; I\u2019ve no notion of the motion<\/p>\n

Of stars; I can\u2019t and I won\u2019t prophesy someone\u2019s father\u2019s<\/p>\n

Death; I\u2019ve never guessed a thing from the entrails of frogs;<\/p>\n

Carrying to some adulterous wife whatever her lover sends,<\/p>\n

Whatever his message, others know how to do; I\u2019d never<\/p>\n

Help out a thief; and that\u2019s why I\u2019m never one of the boys,<\/p>\n

More like a cripple, with useless body and paralysed hand.<\/p>\n

Who is esteemed now unless he\u2019s someone\u2019s accomplice,<\/p>\n

His mind seething with things that should never be told.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s nothing they think they owe, they\u2019ll give nothing,<\/p>\n

To a person who\u2019s only their partner in harmless secrets.<\/p>\n

Verrus only cares for those who can make a case against<\/p>\n

Verrus whenever they wish. May the sand of Tagus mean<\/p>\n

Less to you, with all its gold that is washed down to the sea,<\/p>\n

Than lost sleep, and the sadness of taking regular bribes,<\/p>\n

And thus being forever afraid of some powerful friend.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

SatIII:58-125 And What About all Those Greeks?<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

That race most acceptable now to our wealthy Romans,<\/p>\n

That race I principally wish to flee, I\u2019ll swiftly reveal,<\/p>\n

And without embarrassment. My friends, I can\u2019t stand<\/p>\n

A Rome full of Greeks, yet few of the dregs are Greek!<\/p>\n

For the Syrian Orontes has long since polluted the Tiber,<\/p>\n

Bringing its language and customs, pipes and harp-strings,<\/p>\n

And even their native timbrels are dragged along too,<\/p>\n

And the girls forced to offer themselves in the Circus.<\/p>\n

Go there, if your taste\u2019s a barbarous whore in a painted veil.<\/p>\n

See, Romulus, those rustics of yours wearing Greek slippers,<\/p>\n

Greek ointments, Greek prize medallions round their necks.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s from the heights of Sicyon, and he\u2019s from Amydon,<\/p>\n

From Andros, Samos, they come, from Tralles or Alabanda,<\/p>\n

Seeking the Esquiline and the Viminal, named from its willows.<\/p>\n

To become both the innards and masters of our great houses.<\/p>\n

Quick witted, of shamelessly audacity, ready of speech, more<\/p>\n

Lip than Isaeus, the rhetorician. Just say what you want them<\/p>\n

To be. They\u2019ll bring you, in one person, whatever you need:<\/p>\n

The teacher of languages, orator, painter, geometer, trainer,<\/p>\n

Augur, rope-dancer, physician, magician, they know it all,<\/p>\n

Your hungry Greeks: tell them to buzz off to heaven, they\u2019ll go.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why it was no Moroccan, Sarmatian,\u00a0 or man from Thrace<\/p>\n

Who donned wings, but one Daedalus, born in the heart of Athens.<\/p>\n

Should I not flee these people in purple? Should I watch them sign<\/p>\n

Ahead of me, then, and recline to eat on a better couch than mine,<\/p>\n

Men propelled to Rome by the wind, with the plums and the figs?<\/p>\n

Is it nothing that in my childhood I breathed the Aventine air,<\/p>\n

Is it nothing that in my youth I was nurtured on Sabine olives?<\/p>\n

And aren\u2019t they the people most adept at flattery, praising<\/p>\n

The illiterate speech of a friend, praising his ugly face,<\/p>\n

Likening a weak, scrawny neck to that of brave Hercules,<\/p>\n

When he lifted the massive Antaeus high above earth,<\/p>\n

And lost in their admiration for a voice as high-pitched<\/p>\n

As the cockerel when he pecks at his hen as they mate?<\/p>\n

We too can offer praise in just the same way: but they<\/p>\n

Are the ones believed. What comic actor\u2019s better at playing<\/p>\n

Thais, the whore, or the wife, or Doris, the slave-girl, out<\/p>\n

Without her cloak? It\u2019s as if a woman were speaking not<\/p>\n

Merely a mask: you\u2019d think all was smooth and lacking<\/p>\n

Below the belly, and only split there by a slender crack.<\/p>\n

Yet our comic turn, Antiochus, would be no great wonder<\/p>\n

In Greece, Demetrius, Stratocles, or effeminate Haemus:<\/p>\n

They\u2019re a nation of comics. Laugh, and they\u2019ll be shaken<\/p>\n

With fits of laughter. They weep, without grief, if they see<\/p>\n

A friend in tears; if you pine for a little warmth in the winter<\/p>\n

They don a cloak; if you remark \u201cit\u2019s hot\u201d they\u2019ll start to sweat.<\/p>\n

So we\u2019re unequal: they\u2019ve a head start who always, day or night,<\/p>\n

Can adopt the expression they see on someone\u2019s face,<\/p>\n

Who\u2019re always ready to throw up their hands and cheer<\/p>\n

If their \u2018friend\u2019 belches deeply, or perhaps pisses straight,<\/p>\n

Or gives a fart when the golden bowl\u2019s turned upside down.<\/p>\n

Besides, nothing\u2019s sacred to them or safe from their cocks<\/p>\n

Not the lady of the house, or the virgin daughter, not<\/p>\n

Even her smooth-faced fianc\u00e9, or the unbroken son.<\/p>\n

Failing that, they\u2019ll have the friend\u2019s grandma on her back.<\/p>\n

They like to own the secrets of the house, and so be feared.<\/p>\n

And since I\u2019m mentioning the Greeks, then let\u2019s pass on<\/p>\n

From their gymnastics to a crime of a darker colour. Celer,<\/p>\n

The old Stoic turned informer, brought about Barea\u2019s death,<\/p>\n

His friend and pupil; Celer, of Tarsus, raised by the Cydnus,<\/p>\n

Where a feather from Pegasus, the Gorgon\u2019s child, landed.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no room here for the Romans; it\u2019s some Greek;<\/p>\n

Protogenes, or Diphilus, or Hermachus who reigns here,<\/p>\n

Who never shares a friend, since that\u2019s their race\u2019s defect,<\/p>\n

But monopolises him alone. For once they\u2019ve dripped a drop<\/p>\n

Of their country\u2019s native poison in a ready ear, I\u2019m driven<\/p>\n

From the threshold, and my long years of slavery are lost.<\/p>\n

Nowhere is the casting off of a client more casually done.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

SatIII:126-163 Better Not Be Poor Here<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Then, not to flatter ourselves, what office or service is left<\/p>\n

For a poor man here, even if he dons his toga and dashes<\/p>\n

About in the dark, given the praetor\u2019s hurrying his lictor<\/p>\n

Already, to run on with a morning greeting to rich Albina,<\/p>\n

Or childless, sleepless Modia, lest his colleague\u2019s there first?<\/p>\n

Here, a freeborn son is detailed to escort a rich man\u2019s slave:<\/p>\n

The latter can hand out gifts, worth as much as a military<\/p>\n

Tribune earns, to aristocratic Calvina or Catiena, just<\/p>\n

To writhe around on top of her once or twice; while you<\/p>\n

In love with the look of Chione\u2019s finery, halt in your tracks<\/p>\n

Hesitant about helping a whore descend from her high horse.<\/p>\n

Find me a knight in Rome as holy as Nasica, who escorted<\/p>\n

The image of Cybele, let Numa advance, or Caecilius Metellus,<\/p>\n

Who rescued Minerva\u2019s fire-threatened statue, from Vesta\u2019s temple:<\/p>\n

His character would be the very last thing discussed: money first.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow many slaves does he own? How many acres of farmland?<\/p>\n

How extravagant are his banquets, how many courses served?\u201d<\/p>\n

The number of coins a man keeps in his treasure chest, that\u2019s<\/p>\n

All the credit he earns. Swear your oath on the altars of Rome<\/p>\n

Or Samothrace, they\u2019ll maintain, as you\u2019re poor, you\u2019ll just flout<\/p>\n

The divine lightning bolt, with the gods themselves acquiescing.<\/p>\n

And what of the fact that the same poor beggar provides them all<\/p>\n

With matter and cause for amusement, if his cloak\u2019s dirty and torn,<\/p>\n

If his toga is weathered and stained, one shoe gaping open where<\/p>\n

The leather has split, or when there\u2019s more than one patch showing<\/p>\n

Where a rent has been stitched, displaying the coarse new thread?<\/p>\n

There\u2019s nothing harder to bear about poverty\u2019s wretchedness<\/p>\n

Than how it leaves you open to ridicule. \u201cOff you go\u201d they\u2019ll say,<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019ve any shame: don\u2019t dare sit here on a knight\u2019s cushion,<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve insufficient wealth under the law\u201d, but they\u2019ll sit there<\/p>\n

All those sons of pimps, born in some vile brothel or other,<\/p>\n

Here the auctioneer\u2019s slick son can sit to applaud the show,<\/p>\n

Beside the well-dressed lads of the gladiators and trainers.\u2019<\/p>\n

That\u2019s how that fool Otho was pleased to dispose of us all.<\/p>\n

What prospective son-in-law can pass the test, here, if his wealth<\/p>\n

Is less, or his luggage worse than the girl\u2019s? What pauper inherits?<\/p>\n

When do aediles vote them onto the council? The indigent citizens<\/p>\n

Should all have assembled, long ago, and migrated from the City.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

SatIII:164-189 It\u2019s Hard to Climb the Ladder<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to climb the ladder when constricted private resources<\/p>\n

Block your talents, but at Rome the effort is greater still:<\/p>\n

They\u2019re expensive, wretched lodgings; expensive, the bellies<\/p>\n

Of slaves; and a meagre supper is just as expensive too.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re ashamed to dine off earthenware plates, though you<\/p>\n

Would feel no disgust if suddenly spirited off to a Sabellan<\/p>\n

Or Marsian table, content in a poor man\u2019s coarse, blue hood.<\/p>\n

To tell you the truth, in most of Italy, no one wears a toga<\/p>\n

Unless they\u2019re dead. Even on days of major festival when<\/p>\n

The traditional farce returns once more to the wooden stage,<\/p>\n

When the rustic infant cowers in its mother\u2019s lap, at sight<\/p>\n

Of a white gaping mask, even then you\u2019ll see everyone,<\/p>\n

There, still dressed the same, those in the senatorial seats<\/p>\n

And those elsewhere. White tunics are quite sufficient for<\/p>\n

The highest aediles, as a garb to adorn their glorious office.<\/p>\n

Here our smart clothes are beyond our means, here at Rome<\/p>\n

A little bit extra has to be borrowed from someone\u2019s purse.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a common fault; here we all live in pretentious poverty,<\/p>\n

What more can I say? Everything in Rome comes at a price.<\/p>\n

What do you not pay so you can say: \u201cGood morning, Cossus\u201d,<\/p>\n

So Veiento will condescend to give you a tight-lipped glance?<\/p>\n

This slave\u2019s beard is clipped, that one\u2019s lock of hair\u2019s dedicated;<\/p>\n

The house is full of celebratory cakes you\u2019ve paid for: take one<\/p>\n

And keep your frustration to yourself. Clients are forced to pay<\/p>\n

Such tribute-money, and supplement the savings of sleek slaves.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

SatIII:190-231 The Very Houses are Unsafe<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Who fears, or ever feared, that their house might collapse,<\/p>\n

In cool Praeneste, or in Volsinii among the wooded hills,<\/p>\n

Or at unpretentious Gabii, or the sloping hills of Tibur?<\/p>\n

We inhabit a Rome held up for the most part by slender<\/p>\n

Props; since that\u2019s the way management stop the buildings<\/p>\n

Falling down; once they\u2019ve covered some ancient yawning<\/p>\n

Crack, they\u2019ll tell us to sleep soundly at the edge of ruin.<\/p>\n

The place to live is far from all these fires, and all these<\/p>\n

Panics in the night. Ucalegon is already summoning a hose,<\/p>\n

Moving his things, and your third floor\u2019s already smoking:<\/p>\n

You\u2019re unaware; since if the alarm was raised downstairs,<\/p>\n

The last to burn will be the one a bare tile protects from<\/p>\n

The rain, up there where gentle doves coo over their eggs.<\/p>\n

Cordus had a bed, too small for Procula, and six little jugs<\/p>\n

Of earthenware to adorn his sideboard and, underneath it,<\/p>\n

A little Chiron, a Centaur made of that very same \u2018marble\u2019<\/p>\n

And a box somewhat aged now, to hold his Greek library,<\/p>\n

So the barbarous mice gnawed away at immortal verse.<\/p>\n

Cordus had nothing, who could demur? Yet, poor man,<\/p>\n

He lost the whole of that nothing. And the ultimate peak<\/p>\n

Of his misery, is that naked and begging for scraps, no one<\/p>\n

Will give him a crust, or a hand, or a roof over his head.<\/p>\n

If Assaracus\u2019s great mansion is lost, his mother\u2019s in mourning,<\/p>\n

The nobles wear black, and the praetor adjourns his hearing.<\/p>\n

Then we bewail the state of Rome, then we despair of its fires.<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s still burning, they\u2019re rushing to offer marble, already,<\/p>\n

Collect donations; one man contributes nude gleaming statues,<\/p>\n

Another Euphranor\u2019s master-works, or bronzes by Polyclitus,<\/p>\n

Or antique ornaments that once belonged to some Asian god,<\/p>\n

Here books and bookcases, a Minerva to set in their midst,<\/p>\n

There a heap of silver. Persicus, wealthiest of the childless,<\/p>\n

Is there to replace what\u2019s lost with more, and better things.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s suspected, and rightly so, of setting fire to his house.<\/p>\n

If you could tear yourself from the Games, you could buy<\/p>\n

A most excellent place, at Sora, at Fabrateria or Frusino,<\/p>\n

For the annual rent you pay now, for a tenement in Rome.<\/p>\n

There you\u2019d have a garden, and a well not deep enough<\/p>\n

To demand a rope, so easy watering of your tender plants.<\/p>\n

Live as a lover of the hoe, and the master of a vegetable bed,<\/p>\n

From which a hundred vegetarian Pythagoreans could be fed.<\/p>\n

You\u2019d be somebody, whatever the place, however remote,<\/p>\n

If only because you\u2019d be the master of a solitary lizard.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

SatIII:232-267 And Then There\u2019s the Traffic<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Many an invalid dies from insomnia here, though the illness<\/p>\n

Itself is caused by partially digested food, that clings tight<\/p>\n

To the fevered stomach; for, where can you lodge and enjoy<\/p>\n

A good night\u2019s sleep? You have to be filthy rich to find rest<\/p>\n

In Rome. That\u2019s the source of our sickness. The endless traffic<\/p>\n

In narrow twisting streets, and the swearing at stranded cattle,<\/p>\n

Would deprive a Claudius of sleep, or the seals on the shore.<\/p>\n

When duty calls, the crowd gives way as the rich man\u2019s litter,<\/p>\n

Rushes by, right in their faces, like some vast Liburnian galley,<\/p>\n

While he reads, writes, sleeps inside, while sped on his way:<\/p>\n

You know how a chair with shut windows makes you drowsy!<\/p>\n

Yet, he gets there first: as I hasten, the tide ahead obstructs me,<\/p>\n

And the huge massed ranks that follow behind crush my kidneys;<\/p>\n

This man sticks out his elbow, that one flails with a solid pole,<\/p>\n

This man strikes my head with a beam, that one with a barrel.<\/p>\n

Legs caked with mud, I\u2019m forever trampled by mighty feet<\/p>\n

From every side, while a soldier\u2019s hobnailed boot pierces my toe.<\/p>\n

Do you see all the smoke that rises, to celebrate a hand-out?<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a hundred diners each followed by his portable kitchen.<\/p>\n

Corbulo, that huge general, could scarce carry all those vast pots,<\/p>\n

With all the rest that the poor little slave transports, on his head.<\/p>\n

Fanning the oven, he runs along, his body held perfectly upright.<\/p>\n

Recently-mended tunics are ripped, while a long fir log judders<\/p>\n

As it looms near, while another cart\u2019s bearing a whole pine-tree.<\/p>\n

They teeter threateningly over the heads of those people below.<\/p>\n

Now, if that axle breaks under the weight of Ligurian marble,<\/p>\n

And spills an upturned mountain on top of the dense crowd,<\/p>\n

What will be left of the bodies? What limbs, what bones will<\/p>\n

Survive? Every man\u2019s corpse wholly crushed will vanish along<\/p>\n

With his soul. Meanwhile his household, oblivious, are scouring<\/p>\n

The dishes; are puffing their cheeks at the embers; are clattering<\/p>\n

The oily back-scrapers; by full oil-flasks, arranging the towels.<\/p>\n

The slave-boys bustle about on various tasks, while their master,<\/p>\n

Is now a newcomer on the banks of the Styx, shuddering there<\/p>\n

At the hideous ferryman, without hope, poor wretch, of a ride<\/p>\n

Over the muddy river, and no coin in his mouth for the fare.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

SatIII:268-314 And The Violence<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

And now let\u2019s consider all the other varied dangers, at night:<\/p>\n

What a long way it is for a tile from the highest roof to fall<\/p>\n

On your head; how often a cracked and leaky pot plunges down<\/p>\n

From a sill; what a crash when they strike the pavement, chipping<\/p>\n

And cracking the stones. If you go out to dinner without making<\/p>\n

A will, you\u2019re thought of as simply careless, dismissive of those<\/p>\n

Tragic events that occur: there are as many opportunities to die,<\/p>\n

As there are open windows watching you, when you go by, at night.<\/p>\n

So I\u2019d make a wretched wish and a prayer, as you go, that they\u2019ll<\/p>\n

Rest content with simply emptying their brimming pots over you.<\/p>\n

The impudent drunk\u2019s annoyed if by chance there\u2019s no one at all<\/p>\n

To set upon, spending the whole night grieving, like Achilles for<\/p>\n

His friend, lying now on his face, and then, turning onto his back:<\/p>\n

Since it\u2019s the only way he can tire himself; it takes a brawl or two<\/p>\n

To send him to sleep. But however worked up he is, fired by youth<\/p>\n

And neat wine, he steers clear of him in the scarlet cloak, who issues<\/p>\n

A warning as he goes on his way, with his long retinue of attendants,<\/p>\n

And plenty of torches besides and lamps of bronze. Yet despises me,<\/p>\n

As I pass by, by the light of the moon, as usual, or the flickering light<\/p>\n

Of a candle, whose wick I take great care off, and cautiously regulate.<\/p>\n

Take note of the setting awaiting a wretched fight, if you call it a fight<\/p>\n

Where one of us lashes out, and the other one, me, takes a beating.<\/p>\n

He stands up, and he tells me to stop. I\u2019ve no choice but to obey;<\/p>\n

What can you do, when a madman is giving the orders, who\u2019s stronger<\/p>\n

Than you as well? \u201cWhere\u2019ve you been?\u201d he shouts, \u201cWhose sour wine<\/p>\n

And beans have you been downing? Which shoemaker\u2019s were you at,<\/p>\n

Filling your\u00a0 face with boiled sheep\u2019s head, gorging it on fresh leeks?<\/p>\n

Nothing to say? You\u2019d better speak up fast, or get a good kicking!<\/p>\n

Tell me where you\u2019re staying: what far field are you praying in?\u201d<\/p>\n

If you try to say something, or try to retreat in silence, it\u2019s all the same:<\/p>\n

He\u2019ll give you a thumping regardless, and then still full of anger, say<\/p>\n

He\u2019s suing you for assault. This is the freedom accorded to the poor:<\/p>\n

When they\u2019re beaten, knocked down by fists, they can beg and plead<\/p>\n

To be allowed to make their way home afterwards with a few teeth left.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s not all we need to fear; there\u2019ll be no shortage of thieves<\/p>\n

To rob you, when the houses are all locked up, when all the shutters<\/p>\n

In front of the shops have been chained and fastened, everywhere silent.<\/p>\n

And, ever so often, there\u2019s a vagabond with a sudden knife at work:<\/p>\n

Whenever the Pontine Marsh, or the Gallinarian Forest and its pines,<\/p>\n

Are temporarily rendered safe by an armed patrol, the rogues skip<\/p>\n

From there to here, heading for Rome as if to a game preserve.<\/p>\n

Where is the furnace or anvil not employed for fashioning chains?<\/p>\n

The bulk of our iron is turned into fetters; you should worry about<\/p>\n

An imminent shortage of ploughshares, a lack of mattocks and hoes.<\/p>\n

You might call our distant ancestors fortunate, fortunate those ages<\/p>\n

Long ago, when lives were lived under the rule of kings and tribunes,<\/p>\n

Those generations, that witnessed a Rome where a single prison sufficed.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

SatIII:315-322 So Farewell!<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I could add a host of other reasons to these, but the beasts of burden<\/p>\n

Are braying, the sun is setting. It\u2019s time for me to leave; the muleteer<\/p>\n

Has been waving his whip, to signal he\u2019s been ready to go for a while.<\/p>\n

So farewell, keep me in your memory, and whenever Rome sends<\/p>\n

You hastening back, for a rest in the country, to your own Aquinum,<\/p>\n

Invite me from Cumae too, to visit the Ceres of Helvius, and your<\/p>\n

Diana. I\u2019ll come in my nail-shod boots, I\u2019ll come and visit your chilly<\/p>\n

Fields, and, if they\u2019re not totally shameful, I\u2019ll listen to your Satires.\u2019
\nSatire IV: Mock Epic<\/strong> \u00a0 SatIV:1-33 Crispinus and the Mullet<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Behold, Crispinus again! He\u2019s someone I\u2019ll often call on<\/p>\n

To play a part, a monster without one redeeming virtue<\/p>\n

To offset his faults, a weakling, strong only in lechery,<\/p>\n

An adulterer, who rejects none but unmarried women.<\/p>\n

What matter how extensive the porticoes are where he<\/p>\n

Wears out his mules; how vast the groves where he\u2019s borne<\/p>\n

Beneath the shade; how many acres of palace he\u2019s bought<\/p>\n

Near the Forum? No miscreant\u2019s happy, least of all a sinful<\/p>\n

Seducer, who recently slept with a priestess in a headband;<\/p>\n

And she now destined to be punished, by being buried alive.<\/p>\n

So, on to his lighter sins: all the same, if another had done<\/p>\n

The deed, he\u2019d be convicted by the Censor, for lax morals,<\/p>\n

For what\u2019s normal in a Crispinus is criminal in another,<\/p>\n

In a Titius or Seius. What can you do when the man himself<\/p>\n

Is more dreadful and dire than any accusation you can bring?<\/p>\n

He bought a red mullet, matched its weight in gold pieces,<\/p>\n

Sixty, in fact, as those assert who\u2019d make the gross, grosser.<\/p>\n

I might praise his cunning plan, if with a gift so rare he stole<\/p>\n

First place in the sealed will of some fond childless old man;<\/p>\n

Or better still, sent it along to some high-ranking mistress,<\/p>\n

Who rides along in that closed litter with the wide windows.<\/p>\n

No way! It was for himself! Oh, we witness many things now,<\/p>\n

The poor, miserly gourmet, Apicius, failed to enact. Did you,<\/p>\n

Crispinus, clad in your native Egyptian papyrus dress, pay<\/p>\n

As much, then, for fish-scales? Likely the fisherman could<\/p>\n

Have been bought for less than the fish; land\u2019s cheap too<\/p>\n

In the provinces but fetches a whole lot more in Apulia.<\/p>\n

Imagine what kind of feasts the Emperor himself guzzled<\/p>\n

In those days, if so many silver coins, a tiny fraction,<\/p>\n

A side-dish from a moderate repast, were belched forth<\/p>\n

By a purple-clad clown attached to the Great Palace,<\/p>\n

Now a great leader of horsemen, who used to shout<\/p>\n

His wares, dealing in fellow catfish from a rotten haul!<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

SatIV:34-71 The Enormous Turbot<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Begin, Muse. And Calliope, you may be seated: this is no<\/p>\n

Recitation, the truth\u2019s our theme. Come, girls of Pieria, tell<\/p>\n

Your story, and may my terming you girls do me some good.<\/p>\n

In the days when Rome was that bald Nero, Domitian\u2019s slave,<\/p>\n

When that last of the Flavians was mangling a dying world,<\/p>\n

A marvellous hulk of an Adriatic turbot came to light,<\/p>\n

Below the Temple of Venus that graces Doric Ancona,<\/p>\n

Filled the net, and stuck fast, no smaller than those fish<\/p>\n

The Sea of Azov hides, that when the sun melts the ice<\/p>\n

At last, find their way down to the Black Sea straits,<\/p>\n

Bloated from long idleness and from the enduring cold.<\/p>\n

The monster was marked down by the controller of boats<\/p>\n

And nets, for his High Priest, the Emperor. After all,<\/p>\n

Who\u2019d dare sell or buy such a thing when even the beaches<\/p>\n

Were covered with spies? Like a shot, the inspectors of seaweed<\/p>\n

Everywhere, would tackle a naked oarsmen, and claim<\/p>\n

That the fish was, without shadow of doubt, a fugitive<\/p>\n

That had swum for long ages in Caesar\u2019s fishpond, and as<\/p>\n

A prisoner on the run, must return to its former master.<\/p>\n

If we\u2019re to believe Palfurius, or heed what Armillatus says,<\/p>\n

Whatever is rare and particularly fine in the whole ocean<\/p>\n

Belongs to the treasury, wherever it swims. Donated thus,<\/p>\n

It can\u2019t go to waste. Now with fading autumn giving way<\/p>\n

To frost, now with invalids prone to less frequent fevers,<\/p>\n

Foul winter\u2019s keen weather served to keep the catch fresh;<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, the fisherman hurried, urged by the wintry wind.<\/p>\n

When the lake lay below, where ruined Alba tends the Trojan<\/p>\n

Flame and worships at the shrine of the lesser Vesta,<\/p>\n

A wondering crowd obstructed his entrance for a time.<\/p>\n

When they yielded, the gates swung open on oiled hinges;<\/p>\n

The senators, excluded, watched the fish enter and travel,<\/p>\n

Straight to Agamemnon, where, the fisherman from Picenum<\/p>\n

Said: \u2018Accept a gift too large for a private kitchen. Make this<\/p>\n

A holiday. Hasten to fill your stomach with this rich food,<\/p>\n

Consume this turbot preserved for your glorious reign.<\/p>\n

It longed to be caught, itself.\u2019 What flattery! All the same<\/p>\n

The cock\u2019s crest rose. There\u2019s nothing the powerful<\/p>\n

Won\u2019t believe of themselves, when praised to the skies.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

SatIV:72-129 The Summoning of the Council<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yet a dish was lacking large enough for the fish. So<\/p>\n

The nobles, the Emperor hated, were summoned to a council,<\/p>\n

Displaying in their faces the pallor of that vast and terrible<\/p>\n

Friendship. The first to snatch up his cloak and hasten there,<\/p>\n

As the Liburnian slave was calling: \u2018Hurry, he\u2019s seated now\u2019<\/p>\n

Was Plotius Pegasus, slave \u2013 what else were prefects then,<\/p>\n

After all? \u2013 appointed to oversee a startled Rome, the best,<\/p>\n

Most incorruptible, of jurists, one who thought that however<\/p>\n

Dreadful the times, justice should be weighed without violence.<\/p>\n

The aged and amiable Quintus Crispus was there as well,<\/p>\n

A gentle soul, with a character to match his eloquence.<\/p>\n

How much more useful a courtier he\u2019d have been to that king<\/p>\n

Of nations, lands and seas, if only he\u2019d been allowed, while<\/p>\n

Serving that ruinous plague, to condemn cruelty and offer<\/p>\n

Honourable advice! But what\u2019s more deaf than the ear of a<\/p>\n

Tyrant? On his whim hangs the fate of a friend, who simply<\/p>\n

Wants to speak of rain, heat, or the poor spring weather.<\/p>\n

Thus, Crispus never extended his arms against the flood,<\/p>\n

Not being the kind of citizen to dare to offer his thoughts<\/p>\n

Freely, nor one to put his life at risk for the sake of truth.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s how he managed eighty summers and as many<\/p>\n

Winters, protected by such armour even in that court.<\/p>\n

Hurrying along with him came his peer, Acilius Aviola,<\/p>\n

With a young son, Glabrio, whom a cruel death awaited,<\/p>\n

So swiftly dealt by the master\u2019s sword; though it\u2019s long<\/p>\n

Been a miracle to survive to old age among the nobility,<\/p>\n

Which is why I prefer to remain a nobody on this earth.<\/p>\n

It only brought that youth misery to appear as a naked<\/p>\n

Hunter in the Alban arena, tackling bears at close quarters.<\/p>\n

Who, after all, isn\u2019t wise to aristocratic arts these days?<\/p>\n

Who\u2019d be amazed at your pretences now Lucius Brutus?<\/p>\n

It was easier in those days to impose on a bearded king.<\/p>\n

No less in appearance, despite his humble background<\/p>\n

Came Rubrius Gallus, guilty of an old unmentionable<\/p>\n

Offence, yet more perverse than a pathic scribbling satire.<\/p>\n

Montanus\u2019s belly was present too, with weighty paunch;<\/p>\n

And Crispinus drenched in that morning\u2019s perfume,<\/p>\n

Scarcely less odorous than a funeral cortege or two; more<\/p>\n

Ruthless still, Pompeius, men killed at his slightest whisper;<\/p>\n

Fuscus whose guts Dacia\u2019s vultures were destined to enjoy,<\/p>\n

And who meditated battles in his marble villa; prudent Veiiento,<\/p>\n

In company with the deadly Lucius Catullus Messalinus,<\/p>\n

Inflamed with passion for a girl he had never seen,<\/p>\n

He\u2019d be a great and notable monster even in our day,<\/p>\n

A blind sycophant, and a terrifying hired accomplice,<\/p>\n

Worthy to be one of those beggars blowing obsequious<\/p>\n

Kisses at the wheels of your carriage on the hill at Aricia.<\/p>\n

None was more impressed with the turbot; for he made<\/p>\n

A long speech to his left, though the fish was on his right,<\/p>\n

Which is how he used to praise the Cilician fist fights,<\/p>\n

And the wires that whisk lads high up above the stage.<\/p>\n

Veiiento not to be outdone, like your fanatics, Bellona,<\/p>\n

Goaded to ritual frenzy, prophesied: \u2018Here is the mighty<\/p>\n

Omen of a magnificent and glorious triumph to come.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll net a king, or Arvigarus will fall from his British<\/p>\n

Chariot.\u2019 \u2018This fish is a new species: do you see the spikes<\/p>\n

Bristling from its spine?\u2019 The only thing Fabricius failed<\/p>\n

To mention was the turbot\u2019s place of birth, and its age.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

SatIV:130-154 The Council\u2019s Advice<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018So what do you recommend? Should we chop it in half?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Spare it such outrage\u2019 cried Montanus, \u2018have a deep dish<\/p>\n

Made, thin-sided, but large enough for its vast dimensions.<\/p>\n

We need a prompt and mighty potter, like Prometheus.<\/p>\n

Ready the wheel and the clay swiftly, and from this time<\/p>\n

Forth, let there be potters, Caesar, among your servants.\u2019<\/p>\n

The proposal, worthy of the man, won the day. He\u2019d known<\/p>\n

The excesses of the old Imperium, and Nero\u2019s late hours,<\/p>\n

The famished feeling at midnight, when Falernian wine<\/p>\n

Gives heartburn. No one today has greater knowledge where<\/p>\n

Food\u2019s concerned: at first bite he could tell if the oysters<\/p>\n

Came from Circeii, the Lucrine Lake, or the Kentish Coast<\/p>\n

By Richborough, or at a glance, a sea-urchin\u2019s native shore.<\/p>\n

They rose, the council over, the nobles ordered to leave,<\/p>\n

Whom the great leader had called to his Alban fortress,<\/p>\n

Forced to hasten there, gathered together in surprise,<\/p>\n

As though he\u2019d news of the Chatti or fierce Sygambri,<\/p>\n

As though a disturbing letter had arrived on frantic wings,<\/p>\n

Sent swiftly from some far-distant region of the world.<\/p>\n

Oh, if only he\u2019d chosen to devote the whole of that age, given<\/p>\n

To savagery, to such trivia, instead of depriving Rome of great<\/p>\n

And illustrious spirits, with impunity, and none to take revenge!<\/p>\n

Yet he perished as soon as the working man began to fear him:<\/p>\n

It did for him, to be drenched in the Lamia family\u2019s blood.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"menu_order":2,"template":"","meta":{"_candela_citation":"[]","CANDELA_OUTCOMES_GUID":"","pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-70","chapter","type-chapter","status-web-only","hentry"],"part":68,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-geneseo-humanities1-1\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/70","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-geneseo-humanities1-1\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-geneseo-humanities1-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-geneseo-humanities1-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-geneseo-humanities1-1\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/70\/revisions"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-geneseo-humanities1-1\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/68"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-geneseo-humanities1-1\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/70\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-geneseo-humanities1-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-geneseo-humanities1-1\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=70"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-geneseo-humanities1-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=70"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-geneseo-humanities1-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=70"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}