C. Suetonius Tranquillus, The Lives of the Caesars
Alexander Thomson, Ed.

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THE small amount of direct information which we possess with regard to the personal history of JUVENAL is derived almost exclusively from a very meagre memoir, which bears the name of Suetonius, but which is by most critics ascribed, with greater probability, to Valerius Probus, or some later grammarian. We are here told that the poet was either the son or the " alumnus" of a rich freedman; that he occupied himself, until he had nearly reached the term of middle life, in declaiming, more, however, for the sake of amusement than with any view to professional exertion; that, having subsequently composed some clever lines upon Paris the pantomime, he was induced to cultivate assiduously satirical composition; that for a considerable period he did not venture to publish his essays; but that having eventually attracted numerous audiences, and gained great applause, he inserted in one of his new pieces the verses which had formed a portion of his first effort, those, namely, which we now read in Sat. vii. 86-91, where, speaking of the popularity of Statius, he adds: “Quod non dant proceres, dabit, histrio, tu Camerinos,
Et Bareas, tu nobilium magna atria curas.
Praefectos Pelopea facit, Philomela trbunos.
” “Behold an actor's patronage affords
A surer means of rising than a lord's!
And wilt thou still the Camerino's¹ court,
Or to the halls of Bareas resort,
When tribunes Pelopea can create,
And Philomela praefects, who shall rule the state?²
” That the actor (or an actor) being at that time in high favour at court, and enjoying extensive influence, Juvenal became an object of suspicion, as one who had indirectly censured the corrupt practices of the day; and although now an old man of eighty, was forthwith, under the semblance of honourable distinction, appointed to the command of a body of troops quartered in a remote district of Egypt, where he died within a very brief space, the victim of disgust and grief.

Several other biographies are found in the MSS., but all certainly of a later date than that of which we have given an abstract. These agree, in many points, almost word for word, with the above narrative, but differ much from it and from each other in various details connected with the misfortune and fate of the satirist. Thus one of these declares that the events happened in the reign of Nero ; that Juvenal returned to the city, and, being filled with grief in consequence of the absence of his friend Martial, died in his eighty-first year. In another we are told, that having been exiled towards the close of Domitian's career, and not recalled by the successors of that prince, he died of old age, under Antoninus Pius. In a third it is stated that Trajan, incensed by an attack upon his favourite, Paris, despatched the author of the libel upon an expedition against the Scotch.

Before going further, we must remember that there were two favourite pantomimes who bore the name of Paris, one contemporary with Nero, the other with Domitian, and that each was put to death by the emperor under whom he flourished; but it is evident, from the transactions with Statius alluded to in the lines quoted above, that the second of these is the Paris of the seventh satire. This being premised, we shall find that the older annotators, taking the words of the pseudo-Suetonius in what certainly appears at first sight to be their natural and obvious acceptation, agree in believing that Juvenal, on account of his insolent animadversions on the all-powerful minion of the court, was banished at the age of eighty by Domitian to Egypt, where he very soon afterwards sunk under the pressure of age and sorrow. But a careful examination of the available data will at once prove that this opinion is untenable. i. We know from Dion Cassius that Paris was killed in A. D. 83, upon suspicion of an intrigue with the Empress Domitia. 2. The fourth satire, as appears from the concluding lines, was written after the death of Domitian, that is, not earlier than A. D. 96. 3. The first satire, as we learn from the forty-ninth line, was written after the condemnation of Marius Priscus, that is, not earlier than A. D. Ioo. These positions admit of no doubt or cavil, and hence it is established that Juvenal was alive at least seventeen years after the death of Paris, and that some of his most spirited productions were written after the death of Domitian. Hence, if the powerful " histrio " in the biography of the pseudo-Suetonius be, as we should naturally conclude, the same person as the Paris named in the preceding sentence, it is impossible that Juvenal could have been banished later than A. D. 83; it is impossible that he could have died immediately afterwards, since he was alive In A D. ioo; and it Is incredible that if he had pined for a long series of years at a distance from his country, his works should contain no allusion to a destiny so sad, while, on the other hand, they bear the most evident marks of having been conceived and brought forth in the metropolis, amid the scenes so graphically described.

Salmasius was much too acute not to perceive this difficulty; but clinging to the idea that Juvenal actually was banished to Egypt at the age of 80 and there died, he endeavoured to escape from the embarrassment by supposing that the seventh satire, containing the lines composed originally against Paris, was not published until the accession of Hadrian; that the word " histrio " does not refer to Paris at all, but to some player of that epoch protected by the sovereign, who, taking offence at the passage in question, disgraced the author of what he considered as a scarcely hidden attack upon his abuse of patronage. But although the words both in the satire and in the memoir might, without much violence, be accommodated to some such explanation, yet the hypothesis, taken a, a whole, is so fanciful and so destitute of all external support, that it has been adopted by few scholars.

Without pretending to embrace the views of this or of any previous critic to their full extent, we may safely assume a sceptical position, and doubt every point which has been usually assumed as true. The only facts with regard to Juvenal upon which we can implicitly rely ale, that he flourished towards the close of the first century, that Aquinum, if not the place of his nativity, was at least his chosen residence, and that he is in all probability the friend whom Martial addresses in three epigrams.

There is, perhaps, yet another circumstance which we may admit without suspicion. We are told that he occupied himself for many years of his life in declaiming; and assuredly every page in his writings bears evidence to the accuracy of this assertion. Each piece is a finished rhetorical essay, energetic, glowing and sonorous; the successive attacks upon vice are all planned with systematic skill; the arguments are marshalled in imposing array; they advance supported by a heavy artillery of powerful and well-aimed illustrations, and sweeping impetuously onward, carry by assault each position as in turn assailed. But although the impression produced at first is overwhelming, the results are not permanent. The different poems are too obviously formal works of art; and while the figures in each picture are selected with anxious care, grouped with all attention to effect, and rich with the most brilliant colouring, the composition as a whole is deficient in the graceful ease and reality which impart such a matchless charm to the less regular and less elaborate sketches of Horace. The means by which the two great satirists seek to achieve their object are as widely different as the tempers and habits of the men It is impossible to imagine a contrast more striking than is presented by the playful, goodhumoured gaiety with which the one would laugh his hearers out of their follies and their guilt, and by the uncompromising sternness with which the other seeks to scare them, calling to his aid frightful images and terrific denunciations. In the one case, however, we are fully convinced of the absolute sincerity of our monitor; we feel that his precepts are the fruit of long experience, proceeding from one who, having mingled much with the world, and encountered its perils, is filled with kindly sympathies for the difficulties and dangers of those whom he warns to avoid the rocks and shoals on which he had himself well nigh been wrecked, while the stately well-measured indignation of the other belongs to the eloquence of the head rather than of the heart; and the obvious tone of exaggeration which pervades all his thundering invectives leaves us in doubt how far this sustained passion is real, and how far assumed for show. But while the austere and misanthropic gloom of Juvenal touches less deeply than the warm-hearted social spirit of his rival, we must not forget the difference of their position. Horace might look with admiration upon the high intellect of his prince, and the generous protection extended by him to literature, and he might feel grateful to the prudent firmness which had restored peace after long years of civil bloodshed, while a decent show of freedom was still left. But the lapse of half a century had wrought a fearful change. Galling to the proud spirit filled with recollections of ancestral glory, must have been the chains with which the coarse tyranny of Nero and Domitian ostentatiously loaded their dependents; deep must have been the humiliation of the moralist who beheld the utter degradation and corruption of his countrymen: the canker was perchance too deeply seated even for the keenest knife, but delicate and gentle palliatives would have been worse than mockery.

The extant works of Juvenal consist of 16 satires, the last being a fragment of very doubtful authenticity, all composed in heroic hexameters and divided in several MSS. into five books, an arrangement which, although as old as the time of Priscian, is altogether arbitrary and unmeaning.