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Kenney_and_Clausen B.M.W.(eds.) - Get a Free Blog

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MARTIAL AND JUVENAL<br />

what kind of menu was it<br />

That the Emperor gulled himself, I wonder, when all that gold —<br />

Just a fraction of the whole, the merest modest side-dish —<br />

Was belched up by this purple-clad Palace nark, this<br />

Senior knight who once went bawling his wares<br />

(Jot-lots of catfish from some wholesaler's auction)<br />

Through the Alex<strong>and</strong>rian back-streets?<br />

In the tension between the vernacular gluttisse <strong>and</strong> the epic archaism induperatorem,<br />

Juvenal summarizes his amusement <strong>and</strong> despair: Rome has sunk from<br />

her one-time magnificence into greed <strong>and</strong> self-abasement. His moral is the<br />

same in line 31, where purpureus <strong>and</strong> magni promise great things, only to be<br />

belied by the vulgarity of the two words which follow, ructauit <strong>and</strong> scurra.<br />

Finally, through the juxtaposition of the line about catfish <strong>and</strong> the official<br />

elevation of the title princeps equitum, the initial invective is completed; the<br />

old order is dead, replaced by a travesty. Now, after an ironic invocation of the<br />

muse, <strong>and</strong> an insistence that his story is true, Juvenal launches into the main<br />

part of his satire with full-blown epic parody:<br />

cum iam semianimum laceraret Flauius orbem<br />

ultimus et caluo seruiret Roma Neroni,<br />

incidit Hadriaci spatium admirabile rhombi;<br />

ante domum Veneris, quam Dorica sustinet Ancon,<br />

impleuitque sinus... (4.37-41)<br />

In the days when the last Flavian was flaying a half-dead world,<br />

And Rome was in thrall to a bald Nero, there swam<br />

Into a net in the Adriatic, hard by Ancona,<br />

Where the shrine of Venus st<strong>and</strong>s on her headl<strong>and</strong>, a monstrous<br />

Turbot, a regular whopper. . .<br />

Once more, the idea is that life is a hyperbole, hence warrants epic diction:<br />

foreign enemies <strong>and</strong> threats to the state have now given way to turbots. Highsounding<br />

words are used, but the whole thing is a mockery:<br />

iam letifero cedente pruinis<br />

autumno, iam quartanam sperantibus aegris,<br />

stridebat deformis hiems praedamque recentem<br />

seruabat; tamen hie properat, uelut urgueat auster.<br />

utque lacus suberant, ubi quamquam diruta seruat<br />

ignem Troianum et Vestam colit Alba minorem,<br />

obstitit intranti miratrix turba parumper.<br />

ut cessit, facili patuerunt cardine ualuae;<br />

exclusi spectant admissa obsonia patres.<br />

itur ad Atriden. (4.56—65)<br />

618<br />

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008

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