JUVENALIS

Satire VI:114-135 What about Messalina?

Are you worried by Eppia’s tricks, of a non-Imperial kind?

Take a look at the rivals of the gods; hear how Claudius

Suffered. When his wife, Messalina, knew he was asleep,

She would go about with no more than a maid for escort.

The Empress dared, at night, to wear the hood of a whore,

And she preferred a mat to her bed in the Palatine Palace.

Dressed in that way, with a blonde wig hiding her natural

Hair, she’d enter a brothel that stank of old soiled sheets,

And make an empty cubicle, her own; then sell herself,

Her nipples gilded, naked, taking She-Wolf for a name,

Displaying the belly you came from, noble Britannicus,

She’d flatter her clients on entry, and take their money.

Then lie there obligingly, delighting in every stroke.

Later on, when the pimp dismissed his girls, she’d leave

Reluctantly, waiting to quit her cubicle there, till the last

Possible time, her taut sex still burning, inflamed with lust,

Then she’d leave, exhausted by man, but not yet sated,

A disgusting creature with filthy face, soiled by the lamp’s

Black, taking her brothel-stench back to the Emperor’s bed.

Shall I speak of spells and love-potions too, poisons brewed,

And stepsons murdered? The sex do worse things, driven on

By the urgings of power: their crimes of lust are the least of it.

Satire VI:136-160 The Rich and Beautiful

‘Then why does Caesennia’s husband swear she’s the perfect wife?’

She brought him ten thousand in gold, enough to call her chaste.

He’s not been hit by Venus’s arrows, or scorched by her torch:

It’s the money he’s aflame with, her dowry launched the darts.

Her freedom’s bought. She can flirt, wave her love-letters in his

Face: she’s a single woman still: a rich man marries for greed.

‘Why then does Sertorius burn with love, for Bibula, his wife?

If you want the truth, it’s the face he fell for, and not the bride.

The moment she’s a wrinkle or two, her skin’s dry and flabby,

Her teeth become discoloured, her eyes like beads in her head,

‘Pack your bags’ she’ll hear his freedman cry, ‘Away with you.

Nothing but a nuisance now, always blowing your nose. Be off,

Make it snappy. There’s a dry nose coming to take your place.’

Meanwhile she’s hot, she reigns, demanding of her husband

Canusian sheep and shepherds, demanding Falernian vines –

Such tiny requests! – his house-slaves, those in the prison gangs,

Whatever her neighbour has, her house lacks, must be bought.

Then from the Campus where the booths hide Jason in winter,

His Argonauts too, concealed, behind their whitened canvas,

She’ll bear away crystal vases, huge, the largest pieces of agate,

And some legendary diamond made the more precious by once

Gracing Berenice’s finger, a gift to his incestuous sister from

Barbarous Herod Agrippa, a present for her, in far-off Judaea,

Where barefoot kings observe their day of rest on the Sabbath,

And their tradition grants merciful indulgence to elderly pigs.

Satire X:188-288 The Penalties Of A Long Life

‘Grant me a long life, grant me many years, Jupiter.’

But think of the many endless ills old age is full of!

Take a look, first of all, at its ugly face, repulsive,

And wholly altered, with an ugly hide in place of

Smooth skin, the drooping jowls, the wrinkles such

As those that the old mother ape scratches at on aged

Cheeks, in shadowy spreading groves of Numidia.

Between the young there are plenty of differences,

One’s better looking, one’s stronger than another,

But the old are alike, body and voice both trembling,

The head quite bald, the nose dripping, like a baby;

The poor wretch mumbles his bread with useless gums.

Even to his wife and children, and himself, he seems

So dire even Cossus the fortune-hunter feels disgust.

The pleasures of food and wine are no longer the same

As his palate dulls; and as for sex its now long-forgotten,

Or should you try, his limp prick with its swollen vein, just

Lies there, lies there though you pummel it all night long.

What else could you expect from such feeble white-haired

Loins? Desire that attempts oral sex without the strength

To perform it, is that not rightly suspect, too? Now take

Note of another lost power. What pleasure is there in music,

However fine the singer, what pleasure in Seleucus’s lyre,

Or the sound of the pipers, in cloaks of glittering gold?

What matter where he sits in the vast theatre, if he can

Barely hear the loud horn-player, the fanfare of trumpets?

The slave-boy has to shout loudly, in his ear, to make his

Visitors’ names heard, or even tell him the time of day.

Moreover fever alone warms the few pints of blood in

His already icy body. A host of diseases of every strain

Encircle him, and if you asked me to name each of them

I could sooner tell you how many lovers Oppia has had;

Or how many patients Themison kills in a single autumn;

Or how many partners Basilus has swindled, how many

Wards Hirrus; how many men generous Maura sucks off

In a day, or how many pupils have been laid by Hamillus;

Quicker to run through the number of villas that man owns

Who made my fresh beard rasp, in shaving me, when young.

This old man’s shoulder’s impaired, that one’s groin, or

That one’s hip; he’s blind and jealous of the one-eyed; he

Takes food from another’s fingers between bloodless lips;

His jaws used to open wide when dinner appeared, now he

Just gapes like a baby-swallow when the selfless mother

Flies to it, bringing a mouthful. But worse than a physical

Decline is the onset of dementia, when his slaves’ names

Are forgotten, the face of his friend whom he dined with

The previous evening, and even the children he fathered,

And raised himself. In his will, he’ll cruelly deny his own

Heirs their inheritance, and leave everything to his dearest

Phiale; showing what the breath of a skilful mouth can do

That’s been employed for years deep in a whorish cavern.

Even if his mental powers remain intact, he’s required to

Face the funerals of his sons, gaze on his beloved wife’s

Or brother’s pyre, on the urn containing his sisters’ ashes.

It’s the penalty for living a long life; to endure old age with

Domestic tragedy endlessly repeated, sorrow after sorrow,

Forever mourning, forever clothed in black. Nestor, King

Of Pylos, if you choose to give any credit to Homer’s tale,

Presents an example of survival second only to the ravens.

Surely he must have been happy, delaying his death for so

Many generations, counting his centuries on his finger-ends,

And toasting himself in so many new vintages? Well listen

A moment, to the complaints he made regarding the decrees

Of fate, and the length of his life’s thread, forced to see his

Ardent son Antilochus’s bearded body ablaze, questioning

Everyone there, as to why had survived to endure that day,

And what crime he had committed to deserve so long a life.

Peleus said the same, when he mourned the loss of Achilles,

And Laertes prematurely mourning the wandering Odysseus.

If Priam had died earlier, while proud Troy was still standing,

If he had died before Paris had begun to construct his brave

Fleet of ships, he would have joined the shade of his ancestor

Assaracus, his corpse borne, with great solemnity, held high

On the shoulders of his sons, Hector and his brothers, and

Accompanied by a host of Trojan women in tears, lead by

Cassandra and Polyxena, his daughters, their garments torn.

What then did a long life bring him? He saw a world ending,

Asia Minor brought to defeat, swept by fire and the sword.

Then he removed his crown, and took up arms, a soldier

With trembling arm, to fall, at highest Jove’s altar, slain

Like an ox, too old for the thankless plough, offering its

Wretched, scrawny neck to the blade of its master’s knife.

At least he died a human being, while his wife, Hecuba,

Survived only to bark fiercely from a bitch’s gaping jaws.

I’ll turn to Roman examples, after passing swiftly over King

Mithridates of Pontus, and Croesus, ordered by eloquent Solon

The Just, to look to a long life’s end before calling it fortunate.

A long life led Marius to exile, prison, the Minturnine Marshes,

It was the cause of him begging his bread in ruined Carthage;

Could nature, or Rome, have displayed anyone more fortunate

Than that citizen, if his triumphal spirit had breathed its last,

When he’d led the massed ranks of his prisoners in procession,

And ridden amidst all that military pomp, at the very moment

When he finally chose to step down from his Teutonic chariot?

Campania, foreseeing his fate, offered Pompey a death by fever

He should have longed-for, but the prayers of people in many

Cities prevailed; so that Fortune, his own and Rome’s, saw him

Defeated, and severed that head she’d saved. That mangling

Lentulus and Cethegus avoided; punished for their conspiracy,

They died whole, and the corpse of Catiline too lay there intact.