SEP 23 1909 PA 6446 A 2 1906 INTRODUCTION DECIUS JUNIUS JUVENALIS is the latest of the four Roman poets whose writings have been most universally and most constantly read, and he differs widely from the other three. Virgil, Horace and Ovid lived in the brilliant and prosperous time of Augustus, and with the circumstances of their lives and writings we are fairly well acquainted; the mere fact that they belong all three to the same period of literary and political history invites the establishment of relations and comparisons between them. But Juvenal stands apart, divided no less by nature than by circumstance; the outlines, much more the details, of his history are exceedingly difficult to gather, and no agreement has yet been reached among those who make his satires their special study as to his method, character, or object: in fact, while the Satires have been for centuries and perhaps still are as widely read and freely quoted as is the work of any Roman poet, yet about few authors is the evidence to be drawn from external sources so slight, the conclusions reached from internal criticism so conradictory. Without entering into the details of a yet undecided question of chronology,* it may be stated that * Thus Prof. Bury gives 55 A.D., Mr. Duff 60-72 A.D., as the approximate date of Juvenal's birth; Merivale prefers 59 A.D. V |