Juvenal

Decimus Junius Juvenalis (), known in English as Juvenal ( ; 55–128), was a Roman poet. He is the author of the '' Satires'', a collection of satirical poems. The details of Juvenal's life are unclear, but references in his works to people from the late first and early second centuries AD suggest that he began writing no earlier than that time. 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. These poems cover a range of Roman topics. This follows Lucilius—the originator of the Roman satire genre, and it fits within a poetic tradition that also includes Horace and Persius. The ''Satires'' are a vital source for the study of ancient Rome 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.

Life

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. He is supposed to have been a pupil of Quintilian, and to have practiced 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, which adds credit to him having studied law. His career as a satirist is supposed to have begun at a fairly late stage in his life, possibly by a lack of income in his study of law. The ''Vita Iuvenalis'' also states that he was incredibly poor, which is further reinforced by Martial calling him 'a poor dependent cadging from rich men'.

Biographies agree in giving his birthplace as the Volscian town of Aquinum and 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 – possibly the actor Paris, whom he slandered in his 7th ''Satire''. The emperor who banished him was Trajan or Domitian. 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'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.

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 of his exile to be a later invention, made up to show how much his works offended others. However 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—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'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 antagonize 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)COH(ORTIS)· �DELMATARVM
:II·VIR·QVINQ(VENNALIS)·FLAMEN
:DIVI·VESPASIANI
:VOVIT·DEDICAV TQE
:SVA PEC(VNIA)

: To Ceres (this) sacred (thing)
: (Decimus Junius?) Juvenalis
: military tribune of the first cohort of the Dalmatian (legions)
: Duovir, Quinquennalis, Flamen
: of the Divine Vespasian
: 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 (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 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.Peter Green: Introduction to Penguin Classics edition of the ''Satires'', 1998 edition: pp. 23–24

See also

* Glossarium Eroticum
* Junia (gens)
* '' Panem et circenses''
* ''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

English translations of all 16 satires
at 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 English



Lessons 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
50s births
128 deaths
1st-century Romans
2nd-century Romans
1st-century Roman poets
2nd-century writers in Latin
Ancient Romans in Britain
Ancient Roman writers
Ancient Roman satirists
Silver Age Latin writers
People from the Province of Frosinone