JUVENAL

Raging against corpses…

The Flavian dynasty

• Titus Flavius Vespasianus

• Suppressed the Jewish revolt 66 CE

• Became emperor in 70 C.E.

• His sons, Titus and Domitian followed him

Titus

• Crushed the Jewish revolt in 70 CE

• Funded numerous public buildings in Rome

• Helped the victims of the eruption of Vesuvius in 79

• Disastrous administrator

• Avid spectator of games…

• Persecutor of Jews and Christians

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Domitian

Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis

• 1st 2nd CE• Writing after the death of DOMITIAN• good rhetorical training• little interest in philosophy • Sixteen satires in hexameter, subdivided into five

books.

Juvenal

Si natura negat, facit indignatio versus…

• Juvenal criticizes: – corruption of the political and social life in

Rome– stupidity of contemporary literature indulging

in mythological stories

Goals

• Satire cannot help anyone become a better or happier person.

• Horace’s answers are invalid

Tragic Satire

• Juvenal’s Satires are inhabited by monstra, rather than by comic characters

Style

• Shocking contrasts between lofty and obscene

• Surprising statements:

– Quid Romae faciam? Mentiri necio! (3.41)

– What should I do in Rome? I am bad at lying.

• Rare words

• Ambiguity

• Dense and memorable formulations:

– probitas laudatur et alget (1.74)

– Honesty is praised but not imitated

Structure of Satire 1

• Introduction: reasons for writing (1-21)

• Exposition : reasons for writing satire

(22-80)

• Exposition 2: the main vices (81-146)

• Conclusion: reasons for illustrations from the past (147-171)

2. Symmetry versus chaos

• Juvenal’s subject is life itself and life is chaotic

• He makes his points covertly

• Like a good teacher he comes back to the same topic several times

• In doing so he also follows the principles of rhetoric

3. Monstrous City

• Gallery of male freaks– Eunuch getting married– Foreigners who ‘made it’ (Crispinus)– Informers– Actors

Gallery of female freaks– Poisoners– Incestuous Adulteresses

• Wealth comes from crime

• “Indignation would make me a poet, even if I have no talent”

4. Objects of Satire

• Greed

• Sexual perversions mentioned here – (but not important later)

4. Main vices

• Vices associated with wealth and prestige– Stinginess– Extravagance

• Contrasted with the position of the poor

• Injustice inherent in the patron-client relationship

5. We have achieved a peak in vice

• Posterity can hardly add anything…• My book is a pot-pourri of human vices

– The rich who gamble their fortunes

– The poor watch magistrates and women in litters

– Dependants spend all days hanging around their patron

6. Examples

• Take these examples from the past:– Mucius (Scaevola attacked by Lucilius)– Tigellinus (Nero’s henchman)

7. Ending

• Should the crooks go free?

• It is dangerous to write satire.

• Attack Tigellinus and you will be burned alive…

• So I will attack the dead

Tigellinus

• Handsome and wealthy Sicilian

• Became Nero’s prefect of the praetorians in 62 CE

• Forced to commit suicide after Nero’s fall

• 30 years before Juvenal is writing…