Decimus Junius Juvenalis (), known in English as Juvenal ( ), was a
Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...
poet
A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...
active in the late first and early second century
CE. He is the author of the collection of satirical poems known as the ''
Satires
Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming or e ...
''. The details of Juvenal's life are unclear, although references within his text to known persons of the late first and early second centuries CE fix his
earliest date of composition. One recent scholar argues that his first book was published in 100 or 101. A reference to a political figure dates his fifth and final surviving book to sometime after 127.
Juvenal wrote at least 16 poems in the verse form
dactylic hexameter
Dactylic hexameter (also known as heroic hexameter and the meter of epic) is a form of meter or rhythmic scheme frequently used in Ancient Greek and Latin poetry. The scheme of the hexameter is usually as follows (writing – for a long syllable, ...
. These poems cover a range of Roman topics. This follows
Lucilius
The gens Lucilia was a plebeian family at ancient Rome. The most famous member of this gens was the poet Gaius Lucilius, who flourished during the latter part of the second century BC.''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology'', vo ...
—the originator of the Roman satire genre, and it fits within a poetic tradition that also includes
Horace
Quintus Horatius Flaccus (; 8 December 65 – 27 November 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). The rhetorician Quintilian regarded his ' ...
and
Persius
Aulus Persius Flaccus (; 4 December 3424 November 62 AD) was a Ancient Rome, Roman poet and satirist of Etruscan civilization, Etruscan origin. In his works, poems and satires, he shows a Stoicism, Stoic wisdom and a strong criticism for what he ...
. The ''Satires'' are a vital source for the study of
ancient Rome
In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 B ...
from a number of perspectives, although their comic mode of expression makes it problematic to accept the content as strictly factual. At first glance the ''Satires'' could be read as a critique of Rome. That critique may have ensured their preservation by the Christian monastic
scriptoria although the majority of ancient texts did not survive.
Life
![Juvenal_portrait](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/Juvenal_portrait.jpg)
Details of the author's life cannot be reconstructed definitively. The ''Vita Iuvenalis'' (Life of Juvenal), a biography of the author that became associated with his manuscripts no later than the tenth century, is little more than an extrapolation from the ''Satires''.
Traditional biographies, including the ''Vita Iuvenalis'', give us the writer's full name and also tell us that he was either the son, or adopted son, of a rich
freedman
A freedman or freedwoman is a formerly enslaved person who has been released from slavery, usually by legal means. Historically, enslaved people were freed by manumission (granted freedom by their captor-owners), emancipation (granted freedom a ...
. He is supposed to have been a pupil of
Quintilian
Marcus Fabius Quintilianus (; 35 – 100 AD) was a Roman educator and rhetorician from Hispania, widely referred to in medieval schools of rhetoric and in Renaissance writing. In English translation, he is usually referred to as Quintilia ...
, and to have practised rhetoric until he was middle-aged, both as amusement and for legal purposes. The ''Satires'' do make frequent and accurate references to the operation of the Roman legal system. His career as a satirist is supposed to have begun at a fairly late stage in his life.
Biographies agree in giving his birthplace as the
Volscian town of
Aquinum and also, in allotting to his life a period of exile, which supposedly was due to his insulting an actor who had high levels of court influence. The emperor who banished him was
Trajan
Trajan ( ; la, Caesar Nerva Traianus; 18 September 539/11 August 117) was Roman emperor from 98 to 117. Officially declared ''optimus princeps'' ("best ruler") by the senate, Trajan is remembered as a successful soldier-emperor who presi ...
or
Domitian
Domitian (; la, Domitianus; 24 October 51 – 18 September 96) was a Roman emperor who reigned from 81 to 96. The son of Vespasian and the younger brother of Titus, his two predecessors on the throne, he was the last member of the Flavi ...
. A preponderance of the biographies place his exile in Egypt, with the exception of one that opts for Scotland.
[Peter Green: Introduction to Penguin Classics edition of the ''Satires'', 1998 edition: pp. 15 ff]
Only one of these traditional biographies supplies a date of birth for Juvenal: it gives 55 CE, which most probably is speculation, but accords reasonably well with the rest of the evidence. Other traditions have him surviving for some time past the year of
Hadrian
Hadrian (; la, Caesar Trâiānus Hadriānus ; 24 January 76 – 10 July 138) was Roman emperor from 117 to 138. He was born in Italica (close to modern Santiponce in Spain), a Roman ''municipium'' founded by Italic settlers in Hispania B ...
's death (138 CE). Some sources place his death in exile, others have him being recalled to Rome (the latter of which is considered more plausible by contemporary scholars). If he was exiled by Domitian, then it is possible that he was one of the political exiles recalled during the brief reign of
Nerva
Nerva (; originally Marcus Cocceius Nerva; 8 November 30 – 27 January 98) was Roman emperor from 96 to 98. Nerva became emperor when aged almost 66, after a lifetime of imperial service under Nero and the succeeding rulers of the Flavian dy ...
.
It is impossible to tell how much of the content of these traditional biographies is fiction and how much is fact. Large parts clearly are mere deduction from Juvenal's writings, but some elements appear more substantial. Juvenal never mentions a period of exile in his life, yet it appears in every extant traditional biography. Many scholars think the idea to be a later invention; the ''Satires'' do display some knowledge of Egypt and Britain, and it is thought that this gave rise to the tradition that Juvenal was exiled. Others, however - particularly
Gilbert Highet
Gilbert Arthur Highet (; June 22, 1906 – January 20, 1978) was a Scottish American classicist, academic writer, intellectual critic, and literary historian.
Biography
Born in Glasgow, Scotland, Gilbert Highet is best known as a mid-20th-centur ...
- regard the exile as factual, and these scholars also supply a concrete date for the exile: 93 CE until 96, when Nerva became emperor. They argue that a reference to Juvenal in one of
Martial
Marcus Valerius Martialis (known in English as Martial ; March, between 38 and 41 AD – between 102 and 104 AD) was a Roman poet from Hispania (modern Spain) best known for his twelve books of ''Epigrams'', published in Rome between AD 86 and ...
's poems, which is dated to 92, is impossible if, at this stage Juvenal was already in exile, or, had served his time in exile, since in that case, Martial would not have wished to antagonise Domitian by mentioning such a ''persona non grata'' as Juvenal. If Juvenal was exiled, he would have lost his
patrimony, and this may explain the consistent descriptions of the life of the client he bemoans in the ''Satires''.
The only other biographical evidence available is a dedicatory inscription said to have been found at Aquinum in the nineteenth century, which consists of the following text:
: ...]RI·SACRVM
: ...]NIVS·IVVENALIS
: ...] COH·
DELMATARVM
: II·VIR·QVINQ·FLAMEN
: DIVI·VESPASIANI
: VOVIT·DEDICAV
..E
: SVA PEC
:
EREI·SACRVM
:
(ECIMVS) IVIVS·IVVENALIS
:
RIB(VNVS)
In vertebrate anatomy, ribs ( la, costae) are the long curved bones which form the rib cage, part of the axial skeleton. In most tetrapods, ribs surround the chest, enabling the lungs to expand and thus facilitate breathing by expanding the ches ...
COH(ORTIS)·
DELMATARVM
:II·VIR·QVINQ(VENNALIS)·FLAMEN
:DIVI·VESPASIANI
:VOVIT·DEDICAV
TQE
:SVA PEC(VNIA)
: To
Ceres
Ceres most commonly refers to:
* Ceres (dwarf planet), the largest asteroid
* Ceres (mythology), the Roman goddess of agriculture
Ceres may also refer to:
Places
Brazil
* Ceres, Goiás, Brazil
* Ceres Microregion, in north-central Goiás st ...
(this) sacred (thing)
: (Decimus Junius?) Juvenalis
: military tribune of the first cohort of the Dalmatian
[ (legions)
: ]Duovir
The duumviri (Latin for "two men"), originally duoviri and also known in English as the duumvirs, were any of various joint magistrates of ancient Rome. Such pairs of magistrates were appointed at various periods of Roman history both in Rome itse ...
, Quinquennalis, Flamen
: of the Divine Vespasian
Vespasian (; la, Vespasianus ; 17 November AD 9 – 23/24 June 79) was a Roman emperor who reigned from AD 69 to 79. The fourth and last emperor who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors, he founded the Flavian dynasty that ruled the Empi ...
: vowed and dedicated
: at his own expense
: (''Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum'' X.5382)
Scholars usually are of the opinion that this inscription does not relate to the poet: a military career would not fit well with the pronounced anti-militarism of the ''Satires'' and, moreover, the Dalmatian legions do not seem to have existed prior to 166 CE. Therefore, it seems likely that this reference is to a Juvenal who was a later relative of the poet, however, as they both came from Aquinum and were associated with the goddess
Ceres
Ceres most commonly refers to:
* Ceres (dwarf planet), the largest asteroid
* Ceres (mythology), the Roman goddess of agriculture
Ceres may also refer to:
Places
Brazil
* Ceres, Goiás, Brazil
* Ceres Microregion, in north-central Goiás st ...
(the only deity the ''Satires'' shows much respect for). If the theory that connects these two Juvenals is correct, then the inscription does show that Juvenal's family was reasonably wealthy, and that, if the poet really was the son of a foreign freedman, then his descendants assimilated into the Roman class structure more quickly than typical.
Green
Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 Nanometre, nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by ...
thinks it more likely that the tradition of the freedman father is false and, that Juvenal's ancestors had been minor nobility of Roman Italy of relatively ancient descent.
The ''Satires'' and their genre
Juvenal is credited with sixteen known poems divided among five
books
A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical ar ...
; all are in the Roman genre of satire, which, at its most basic in the time of the author, comprised a wide-ranging discussion of society and social mores in
dactylic hexameter
Dactylic hexameter (also known as heroic hexameter and the meter of epic) is a form of meter or rhythmic scheme frequently used in Ancient Greek and Latin poetry. The scheme of the hexameter is usually as follows (writing – for a long syllable, ...
. In ''Satire I'', concerning the scope and content of his work, Juvenal says:
Juvenal claims as his purview, the entire gamut of human experience since the dawn of history. Quintilian—in the context of a discussion of literary genres appropriate for an oratorical education—claimed that, unlike so many literary and artistic forms adopted from Greek models, “satire at least is all ours” (''satura quidem tota nostra est''). At least in the view of Quintillian, earlier Greek satiric verse (e.g. that of
Hipponax
Hipponax ( grc, Ἱππῶναξ; ''gen''. Ἱππώνακτος; fl. late 6th century BC), of Ephesus and later Clazomenae, was an Ancient Greek iambic poet who composed verses depicting the vulgar side of life in Ionian society. He was celebrat ...
) or even Latin satiric prose (e.g. that of
Petronius
Gaius Petronius Arbiter["Gaius Petronius Arbiter"]
Suetonius
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (), commonly referred to as Suetonius ( ; c. AD 69 – after AD 122), was a Roman historian who wrote during the early Imperial era of the Roman Empire.
His most important surviving work is a set of biographies ...
against the members of prior
imperial dynasties. Themes similar to those of the ''Satires'' are present in authors spanning the period of the late
Roman Republic
The Roman Republic ( la, Res publica Romana ) was a form of government of Rome and the era of the classical Roman civilization when it was run through public representation of the Roman people. Beginning with the overthrow of the Roman Kin ...
and early
empire
An empire is a "political unit" made up of several territories and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the empire (sometimes referred to as the metropole) ex ...
ranging from
Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the estab ...
and
Catullus
Gaius Valerius Catullus (; 84 - 54 BCE), often referred to simply as Catullus (, ), was a Latin poet of the late Roman Republic who wrote chiefly in the neoteric style of poetry, focusing on personal life rather than classical heroes. His s ...
to
Martial
Marcus Valerius Martialis (known in English as Martial ; March, between 38 and 41 AD – between 102 and 104 AD) was a Roman poet from Hispania (modern Spain) best known for his twelve books of ''Epigrams'', published in Rome between AD 86 and ...
and Tacitus; similarly, the stylistics of Juvenal's text fall within the range of post-Augustan literature, as represented by
Persius
Aulus Persius Flaccus (; 4 December 3424 November 62 AD) was a Ancient Rome, Roman poet and satirist of Etruscan civilization, Etruscan origin. In his works, poems and satires, he shows a Stoicism, Stoic wisdom and a strong criticism for what he ...
,
Statius, and
Petronius
Gaius Petronius Arbiter["Gaius Petronius Arbiter"]
Judaism
Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in the ...
.
Literary and cultural influence
The ''Satires'' have inspired many authors, including
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson (18 September 1709 – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. The ''Oxford ...
, who modeled his “
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
” on ''Satire III'' and “
The Vanity of Human Wishes
''The Vanity of Human Wishes: The Tenth Satire of Juvenal Imitated'' is a poem by the English author Samuel Johnson. It was written in late 1748 and published in 1749 (see 1749 in poetry). It was begun and completed while Johnson was busy writi ...
” on ''Satire X''.
Alexander Theroux
Alexander Louis Theroux (born 1939) is an American novelist and poet. He is known for his novel ''Darconville's Cat'' (1981), which was selected by Anthony Burgess for his book-length essay '' Ninety-Nine Novels: The Best in English Since 1939 ...
, whose novels are rife with vicious satire, identified Juvenal as his most important influence. Juvenal also provided a source for the name for a forensically important beetle,
Histeridae. Juvenal is the source of many well-known maxims, including:
*that the common people—rather than caring about their freedom—are only interested in “bread and circuses” (''
panem et circenses
''The Hunger Games'' is a series of young adult dystopian novels written by American author Suzanne Collins. The first three novels are part of a trilogy following teenage protagonist Katniss Everdeen, and the fourth book is a prequel set 6 ...
'' 10.81; i.e. food and entertainment),
*that—rather than for wealth, power, eloquence, or children—one should pray for a “sound mind in a sound body” (''
mens sana in corpore sano
''Mens sana in corpore sano'' () is a Latin phrase, usually translated as "a healthy mind in a healthy body". The phrase is widely used in sporting and educational contexts to express that physical exercise is an important or essential part of men ...
'' 10.356),
*that a perfect wife is a “rare bird” (''
rara avis in terris nigroque simillima cycno'' 6.165; a rare bird in the earth and most similar to a
black swan
The black swan (''Cygnus atratus'') is a large waterbird, a species of swan which breeds mainly in the southeast and southwest regions of Australia. Within Australia, the black swan is nomadic, with erratic migration patterns dependent upon c ...
)
*that "honesty is praised and left out in the cold" ''Probitas laudatur et alget'' (I, line 74).
*and the troubling question of who can be trusted with power—“who will watch the watchers?” or "who will guard the guardians themselves?" (''
quis custodiet ipsos custodes
is a Latin phrase found in the work of the Roman poet Juvenal from his ''Satires'' (Satire VI, lines 347–348). It is literally translated as "Who will guard the guards themselves?", though it is also known by variant translations, such as "Who ...
'' 6.347–48).
ASICS, the footwear and sports equipment manufacturing company, is named after the acronym of the
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
phrase ''
"anima sana in corpore sano"'' (a sound mind in a sound body) from
''Satire'' X by Juvenal (10.356).
In his autobiography, the German writer
Heinrich Böll notes that in the high school he attended when growing up under
Nazi
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
rule, an anti-Nazi teacher paid special attention to Juvenal: "Mr. Bauer realized how topical Juvenal was, how he dealt at length with such phenomena as arbitrary government, tyranny, corruption, the degradation of public morals, the decline of the Republican ideal and the terrorizing acts of the
Praetorian Guards
The Praetorian Guard (Latin: ''cohortēs praetōriae'') was a unit of the Imperial Roman army that served as personal bodyguards and intelligence agents for the Roman emperors. During the Roman Republic, the Praetorian Guard were an escort fo ...
. (...) In a second-hand bookshop I found an 1838 translation of Juvenal with an extensive commentary, twice the length of the translated text itself, written at the height of the
Romantic period. Though its price was more than I could really afford, I bought it. I read all of it very intensely, as if it was a
detective novel
Detective fiction is a subgenre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator or a detective—whether professional, amateur or retired—investigates a crime, often murder. The detective genre began around the same time as s ...
. It was one of the few books to which I persistently held on throughout the war (
WWII
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
) and beyond, even when most of my other books were lost or sold on the black market".
[Heinrich Boll, "What will become of this kid? Or: About Books", Ch, 17]
See also
*
Glossarium Eroticum
Glossarium Eroticum is a Latin-language dictionary of sexual words and phrases, and of many pertaining to the human body or considered to be obscene, by Pierre-Emmanuel Pierrugues, published in 1826. It lists definitions and excerpts Old Latin a ...
*
Junia (gens)
The gens Junia was one of the most celebrated families of ancient Rome. The gens may originally have been patrician, and was already prominent in the last days of the Roman monarchy. Lucius Junius Brutus was the nephew of Lucius Tarquinius Su ...
* ''
Panem et circenses
''The Hunger Games'' is a series of young adult dystopian novels written by American author Suzanne Collins. The first three novels are part of a trilogy following teenage protagonist Katniss Everdeen, and the fourth book is a prequel set 6 ...
''
*
''Satires'' (Juvenal)
*
Satire VI
Notes
References
*Anderson, William S. (1982) ''Essays on Roman Satire'', Princeton: Princeton University Press.
*Braund, Susanna M. (1988) ''Beyond Anger: A Study of Juvenal’s Third Book of Satires'', Cambridge: Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge.
*Braund, Susanna (1996) ''Juvenal Satires Book I'', Cambridge: Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge.
*Braund, Susanna (1996) ''The Roman Satirists and their Masks'', London: Bristol Classical Press.
*Courtney, E. (1980) ''A Commentary of the Satires of Juvenal'', London: Athlone Press.
*Edwards, Catherine (1993) ''The Politics of Immorality in Ancient Rome'', Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Gleason, Maud W. (1995) ''Making Men: Sophists and Self-Presentation in Ancient Rome'', Princeton: Princeton University Press.
*Gowers, Emily (1993) ''The Loaded Table: Representations of Food in Roman Literature'', Oxford: Oxford University Press.
*Green, Peter (1989)
"Juvenal Revisited" ''Grand Street'', Vol. 9, No. 1 (Autumn, 1989), pp. 175–196.
*Green, Peter (trans.) (1998)
''Juvenal. The Sixteen Satires'' London: Penguin Books. (3rd revised edn; first edn published 1967).
*Highet, Gilbert (1961) ''Juvenal the Satirist'', New York: Oxford University Press.
Juvenal (1992) ''The Satires'' Trans.
Niall Rudd, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
*Juvenal (1992) ''Persi et Juvenalis Saturae'', ed. W. V. Clausen. London: Oxford University Press.
* Kelk, Christopher (2010), ''The Satires of Juvenal: A Verse Translation'', Edwin Mellen Press.
*Macleane, Arthur J. (1867)
''Decii Junii Juvenalis et A. Persii Flacci Satirae. With a commentary''
*''The Oxford Classical Dictionary'' 3rd ed., 1996, New York: Oxford University Press.
*Richlin, Amy (1992) ''The Garden of Priapus'', New York : Oxford University Press.
*
Rudd, Niall (1982) ''Themes in Roman Satire'', Los Angeles: University of California Press.
*Rudd, Niall (tr.) (1991)
Juvenal ''Juvenal: The Satires, with an Introduction and Notes by William Barr'' Oxford.
*Syme, Ronald (1939) ''The Roman Revolution'', Oxford: Oxford University Press.
*Uden, James (2015) ''The Invisible Satirist: Juvenal and Second-Century Rome''. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
*Stramaglia, Antonio; Grazzini, Stefano; Dimatteo, Giuseppe (2015): ''Giovenale tra storia, poesia e ideologia'', Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter.
External links
at
The Latin Library
The Latin Library is a website that collects public domain Latin texts. It is run by William L. Carey, adjunct professor of Latin and Roman Law at George Mason University. The texts have been drawn from different sources, are not intended for rese ...
English translations of all 16 satiresat the Tertullian Project. Together with a survey of the manuscript transmission.
Works by Juvenal at Perseus Digital Library*
English translations of Satires 1, 2, 3, 6, 8 and 9
Juvenal's first 3 "Satires" in EnglishLessons From Juvenal*
*
*
Juvenal and Persius', G. G. Ramsay (ed.), Loeb, London: William Heinemann, New York: G. P. Putnam's sons, 1928.
{{Authority control
Juvenalis, Decimus
1st-century births
2nd-century deaths
1st-century Romans
2nd-century Romans
1st-century writers
2nd-century Latin writers
Ancient Romans in Britain
Ancient Roman writers
Roman-era satirists
Silver Age Latin writers
People from the Province of Frosinone