Author Description

JUVENAL, Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis (c. A.D. 600-100); master of satirical hexameter poetry, was born in Aquinum, a rich freedman's son(?) who became a declaimer until middle age, and then between A.D. 100 and 140 used his powers in the composition first of scathing satires on Roman life, attacking the dead rather than the living, with special reference to ineptitude in poetry (Satire I); vices of fake philosophers (2); grievances of the worthy poor (3); and of clients (5); a council-meeting under Emperor Dominian (4); vicious women (6); prospects of letters and learning under a new emperor (7); virtue not birth as giving nobility (8); and the vice of homosexuals (9); we have the true object of prayer (10);, paraphrased by Johnson in 'The Vanity of Human Wishes'; spend-thrift and frugal eating (11); a friend's escape from shipwreck; and will-hunters(12); guilty conscience and desire for revenge (13); parents as examples (14); cannibalism in Egypt (15); privileges of soldiers (16, unfinished). PERSIUS, Aulus, Persius Flaccus (A.D. 34-62) of Volaterrae was of equestrian rank; he came to Rome and was trained in 'grammar', rhetoric, and Stoic philosophy. In company with his mother, sister and aunt and enjoying the friendship of Lucan and other famous people, he lived a sober life. He left six Satires only (in hexameters); after a prologue (in scazon metre) we have a Satire on the corruption of literature and morals (1); foolish methods of prayer (2); deliberately wrong living and lack of philosophy (3); the well-born insincere politician, and some of our own weaknesses (4); praise of Cornutus the Stoic; servility of men (5); and a chatty poem addressed to the poet Bassus (6).