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MARTIAL AND JUVENAL
dum tu forsitan inquietus erras
clamosa, Iuuenalis, in Subura
aut collem dominae tens Dianac;
dum per limina te potentiorum
sudatrix toga uentilat uagumque
maior Caelius et minor fatigat. . . (12.18)
while no doubt you restlessly wander in the noisy Subura, Juvenal, or tread the kill
of lady Diana,- or while you fan yourself by the movement of your sweaty toga, as
you visit the porches of the great, wearied by climbing the two Caelian hills. . .
The comparison which follows with Martial's easy life in Spain would hardly
be charitable, unless Juvenal's life in Rome were a figment taken from his
poetry. Ancient writers were often characterized in terms of the contents of
their work, 1 so if Martial is following suit, Book 1 of the satires is already under
way. But perhaps after all there is an element of Schadenfreude: at least, in
Martial 7.24, animosity is denied, which perhaps makes one suspect that the
friendship was not a smooth or simple matter. Beyond this — and Martial is
the only contemporary who even mentions Juvenal — we glean a few dates
from the satires themselves, some of them perhaps indicating time of composition,
though usually not yielding more than a terminus post quern, some of
them dramatic. Marius Priscus, tried in A.D. 100, is mentioned twice (1.47—50
and 8.120), perhaps because Pliny invested the case with some notoriety (Epist.
2.11.12 and 6.29.9). I n ^e fourth satire there is an allusion to Domitian's
death in A.D. 96, although the mise en scene belongs to A.D. 82 (4.153—4).
Tacitus has been invoked to explain the second satire when it refers to Otho's
antics as worthy of annals or history: the dates in question would be A.D. 105,
when the Histories were under way, or A.D. 109, when published, or again,
A.D. 115 in the case of the Annals. But the passage has a general ring, and no
names are mentioned (2.102—3). We must wait till Satire 10 for Tacitean influence,
in the portrait of Sejanus. Our other dates belong to the second and third
decades of the second century: Trajan's harbour at Ostia, finished in A.D. 113,
is mentioned at 12.75—81; a comet and earthquake of A.D. 115 occur at 6.407—
12; the address to Hadrian 2 at 7.iff. probably antedates his departure from Rome
in A.D. 121; and finally, at 15.27, there is a reference to an event of A.D. 127.3
In the first, third, and fifth satires, it is Martial's Rome of which he writes;
and elsewhere in the first two books the scenery and the characters are unmistakably
those of epigram. 4 But the scope is more extensive, the colours more
garish, the mood more fantastic. Juvenal's world is a mixture of memory,
1
For instance, Gallus in the tenth Eclogue, and Tibullus in Hor. Odes 1.33 are depicted after the
manner of their elegies.
1
Some argue that the emperor is Trajan, or even Domitian — without much likelihood: see Rudd
(1976) 85ff.
3
For further details, see Highet (1954) nff. • See Townend (1973) i48f.
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