William Y. Sellar and John P. Postgate

“ In this power, which is also the great power of Tacitus, he has few equals and perhaps no superior among ancient writers. The difference between Tacitus and Juvenal in power of representation is that the prose historian is more of an imaginative poet, the satirist more of a realist and a grotesque humorist. Juvenal can paint great historical pictures in all their detail—as in the famous representation of the fall of Sejanus; he can describe a character elaborately or hit it off with a single stroke. ”

“ If we believe that these were all real people, with whom Juvenal lived in intimacy, we should conclude that he was most unfortunate in his associates, and that his own relations to them were marked rather by outspoken frankness than civility. But they seem to be more “nominis umbrae” than real men; they serve the purpose of enabling the satirist to aim his blows at one particular object instead of declaiming at large. They have none of the individuality and traits of personal character discernible in the persons addressed by Horace in his Satires and Epistles. ”

“ His training, the practical bent of his understanding, his strong but morose character, the circumstances of his time, and the materials available for his art, all fitted him to rebuke his own age and all after-times in the tones of a powerful preacher, rather than charm them with the art of an accomplished poet. The composition of his various satires shows no negligence, but rather excess of elaboration; but it produces the impression of mechanical contrivance rather than of organic growth. His movement is sustained and powerful, but there is no rise and fall in it. ”

“ It is equally noticeable that Juvenal’s name does not appear in Pliny’s letters.
The times at which the satires were given to the world do not in all cases coincide with those at which they were written and to which they immediately refer. Thus the manners and personages of the age of Domitian often supply the material of satiric representation, and are spoken of as if they belonged to the actual life of the present, [1] while allusions even in the earliest show that, as a finished literary composition, it belongs to the age of Trajan. ”

“ If the view of the satirist is owing to this circumstance more limited in some directions, and his taste and temper less conformable to the best ancient standards of propriety, he is also saved by it from prejudices to which the traditions of his class exposed the historian. But both writers are thoroughly national in sentiment, thoroughly masculine in tone. No ancient authors express so strong a hatred of evil. ”

“ There is no Roman writer of satire who could be mentioned along with those others by so judicious a critic, except Juvenal. The motive which a writer of satire must have had for secrecy under Domitian is sufficiently obvious; and the necessity of concealment and self-suppression thus imposed upon the writer may have permanently affected his whole manner of composition. ”

“ There is no evidence that these two great writers, who lived and wrote at the same time, who were animated by the same hatred of the tyrant under whom the best years of their manhood were spent, and who both felt most deeply the degradation of their times, were even known to one another. ”

“ Two lines in the poem suggest that the satirist, who inveighed with just severity against the worst corruptions of Roman morals, was not too rigid a censor of the morals of his friend. Indeed, his intimacy with Martial is a ground for not attributing to him exceptional strictness of life.
The additional information as to the poet’s life and circumstances derivable from the satires themselves is not important. He had enjoyed the training which all educated men received in his day (i. 15) ”

“ The fourth, which alone has any political significance, and reflects on the emperor as a frivolous trifler rather than as a monster of lust and cruelty, is the reproduction of a real or imaginary scene from the reign of Domitian, and is animated by the profoundest scorn and loathing both of the tyrant himself and of the worst instruments of his tyranny. ”

“ Even where we least like him we find nothing small or mean to alienate our respect from him. Though he loses no opportunity of being coarse, he is not licentious; though he is often truculent, he cannot be called malignant. ”

“ The ninth has no allusion to determine its date, but it is written with the same outspoken freedom as the second and the sixth, and belongs to the period when the poet’s power was most vigorous, and his exposure of vice most uncompromising. In Book IV., comprising the famous tenth, the eleventh and the twelfth satires, the author appears more as a moralist than as a pure satirist. In the tenth, the theme of the “vanity of human wishes” is illustrated by great historic instances, rather than by pictures of the men and manners of the age ”

“ He lets us know that he has no leanings to philosophy (xiii. 121) and pours contempt on the serious epic writing of the day (i. 162) . The statement that he was a trained and practised declaimer is confirmed both by his own words (i. 16) and by the rhetorical mould in which his thoughts and illustrations are cast. The allusions which fix the dates when his satires first appeared, and the large experience of life which they imply, agree with the statement that he did not come before the world as a professed satirist till after middle age. ”

“ This Juvenalis may have been the poet, but he may equally well have been a relation. The evidence of the satires does not point to a prolonged absence from the metropolis. They are the product of immediate and intimate familiarity with the life of the great city. An epigram of Martial, written at the time when Juvenal was most vigorously employed in their composition, speaks of him as settled in Rome. ”