Minor Latin poets; with introductions and English translations

PANEGYRIC ON PISOan equal : neither the fortune nor the pedigree ofclients influence you : uprightness is the test inthem. They do not wince under any witticisms ofoverbearing jests: no man's grievance furnishesmaterial for sudden laughter. A uniform tenor offriendship encompasses highest and lowest. Rarethe house that does not scorn a needy friend ; rarethe house that does not trample contemptuously ona humble dependant. Though his mind be clean andhis life unimpeachable, still his probity will rank aslow as his poverty ; and no patron seeks to have athis side a retainer got by pure affection but one whomcursed gain has brought him : no one confers largesson a true friend in order to guide him on an equalfooting and in turn be guided by him, but one hires ^the wretched man for a trumpery wage to have thepower of practising shameful witticisms at the festalboard.* Far has such a disgrace, far has a plight ofthis sort fled, worshipful Piso, from your house. Inyour gentleness and freedom from sharp asperity,laying aside pride everywhere, you are reckonedas but one among your friendly peers : you teachobedience, as you court love by loving. The wholehouse rings with the varied accomplishments of itsfrequenters : zeal is the motive force everywherefor you find no satisfaction in a clumsy uneducatedband of clients, whose forte lies in trivial services andwhose one ability is to walk before a patron when thecommon herd are cleared away. No, it is a wide* Juvenal, writing at the beginning of the second centuryA.D., draws parallel pictures of the relations between patronand client: e.g. with 115-116 and 118-119 cf. Juv. III.152-153, nil habet infelix paupcrtas durius in se quam quodridicules homines facit, and with 122-124 cf. X. 46 defossa inloculos quos sportula fecit arnicas.VOL. I.X