Juvenal was born between 60 and 72 A.D. He himself in his first satire1 speaks of his youth as already past, and in the eleventh uses the language of an old man. The date of his death is quite uncertain, except that it cannot have been earlier than 128.

When we turn to the satires themselves, not for dates, but for facts in Juvenal's life, we find that there is little to be learned. In this respect, as in many others, he does not follow the example of previous satirists. The satires of Lucilius, as we know from Horace3, gave a complete picture of their author's life; and Horace's own satires and epistles are full of autobiography. But Juvenal's manner is solemn and didactic, not chatty and anecdotic. We learn from himself little more than this that he had the usual education of the higher classes (1, 15-17); that he lived from early youth at Rome but went for holidays to Aquinum, with which he had some connexion (3, 319); that he inherited a small estate (6, 57) and had a small farm at Tibur, probably distinct from the other (11, 66); that he had also a house in Rome where he entertained his friends in a modest way (11, 190); that he was not a professed follower of any philosophic school (13, 121-123); and that he had been in Egypt (15, 45).

Two tolerably certain inferences may also be drawn from what he says or leaves unsaid: that he was unmarried, and that he understood from experience the hardships of poverty and dependence. It appears that he did not inherit much of the wealth of the libertinus of Aquinum. The circumstances of Martial's life were very similar: he also was a man of letters living in Rome and probably unmarried; and, though the owner of a small estate, he has never done complaining of his poverty and the hardships of a client's life.

11. 25 quo tondente gravis iuveni mihi barba sonabat.

2 1. 203 nostra bibat vernum contracta cuticula solem.

8 Hor. Satt. ii 1, 32 foll. quo fit ut omnis | votiva pateat veluti descripta tabella | vita senis (the motto on the title-page of Boswell's Johnson).

The Inscription at Aquinum.

It was said above that Juvenal may have served in the army. He had seen something of the world, as a Roman officer naturally would. He had certainly visited Egypt1; and there are references to Britain 2, from which it has been inferred that he had seen our island. The Biographies also speak of him as banished to a distant country to hold a military command. But those who believe in his military service, rely chiefly on an inscription found at Aquinum. The inscription was probably intended for an altar and was engraved on a marble stone, which is now lost. When it was sought for in 1846, the inhabitants could only show the place where it had been. However, it had been previously copied by more than one competent person of credit and is accepted as genuine by the best judges. It runs as follows: the letters in italics are supplied by editors (Corp. Inscr. Lat. x, 5382):

Cereri sacrum

D. Iunius Iuvenalis

trib. coh. I Delmatarum

II vir quinq. flamen

divi Vespasiani

vovit dedicavitque

sua pec.

"This offering was vowed and dedicated to Ceres, at his own charges, by Junius Juvenalis, tribune of the first cohort of Dalmatians, duumvir quinquennalis3, flamen1 of the deified emperor Vespasian."

1 15, 45.

2

2,

160 (the conquest of the Orkneys in 84); 14, 196 (the forts of the Brigantes); 4, 141 (the oysters of Richborough); 10, 14 (the whales of the Atlantic); 2, 161 (the short nights in Britain).

• The duumviri in the provincial towns corresponded to the consuls at Rome; the quinquennales were the duumviri of every fifth year, and had duties like those of the censors, having to draw up a list of the local senators (decuriones) and citizens.

4 Julius Caesar was the first mortal man who had a flamen to

Does this inscription refer to Juvenal himself or to a member of his family? We have seen that he mentions (3, 319) his connexion with Aquinum, and the goddess to whom the offering was made. Also, if the son of a rich freedman, he was a likely person to hold the highest municipal magistracies. Again, the mention of the worship of Vespasian points to the reign of the Flavian dynasty, i.e. the end of the first century. It is certainly possible that Juvenal served in the army, and reached the rank of tribune (which carried with it the privileges of the equestrian order) in his younger days before he turned his attention to satire. And this hypothesis has generally been accepted.

It is, however, beset with difficulties. The first, and best, sentence of the Biography says nothing of a military career but rather seems to exclude it by the account there given of Juvenal's occupations until middle age. Again, Juvenal, like Persius, does not generally, and especially in the satire devoted to the subject, speak with favour of a military life. Again, if Juvenal was rich enough to fill these municipal offices, which were a considerable burden upon their occupants1, how can we account for the complaints of poverty, whether of clients or literary men, with which the satires abound? Again, the evidence of the satires goes to prove that Juvenal lived habitually in Rome, at least after the end of the first century: is it not surprising that the first satire, which represents the author as familiar with all the conspicuous figures in the crowded streets of Rome and with all the scandals attached to them, should be written by a country gentleman with a dignified position and a comfortable fortune? The language of the satires is the language of a poor and disappointed man. Lastly, it must be noticed that the inscription did not contain

conduct his worship: this was Mark Antony: cf. Cic. Phil. ii 110; Suet. Jul. 76. The distinction was granted to all the deified Emperors.

1 These magistrates were not only unpaid, but had to pay a considerable sum, called honorarium, as a contribution to the town treasury. In the second century, it became difficult to find candidates for the offices.

the poet's praenomen, which is known from the Lives and Scholia to have been Decimus.

The conclusion is that here again certainty is beyond our reach. My own belief is that the local magnate of Aquinum was not the poet himself, but a kinsman by blood or adoption. But it is possible that the fact is otherwise; and there are allusions in the satires which are most easily explained by the hypothesis that Juvenal was for a time an officer in the Roman

army.

1

The Evidence of Martial.

We shall consider next what light is thrown on Juvenal's life and occupations by the poet Martial. There is no positive proof that Martial's Juvenal is our Juvenal; but their identity is highly probable and has generally been accepted by scholars as a matter of course. Though Juvenal never mentions Martial, directly or indirectly, Martial speaks of Juvenal as a very intimate friend and addresses two epigrams to him personally. One wonders what the satirist thought of Martial's flattery of Domitian. Now the 'books' of Martial's epigrams can be accurately dated by internal evidence. The seventh, in which Juvenal is twice mentioned2, was published in the autumn of 92; and the twelfth, which contains the last mention of the satirist3, was published in 101 or 102 after Martial had returned to Spain.

The epigrams prove that Juvenal was living, and had been living for some time past, at Rome in the year 92, and that he was again at Rome in 101 or 102. Thus it is possible that he may have been in exile between these dates: he is not mentioned during the interval by Martial; and it is known that Nerva recalled many who had been exiled by Domitian.

Two other points are to be noticed in the epigrams. In 92

1 Metre alone would make it impossible for Martial's name to occur in Juvenal's verse.

2 vii 24

D. J.

and
91.

3 xii 18.

Martial applies to Juvenal the epithet facundus. Does the epithet show that Juvenal was known to him as a poet, or as a rhetorician? Neither inference can be drawn with certainty, as Martial elsewhere applies the word both to Virgil and to Cicero. But, if Juvenal had written no satires at that time and was only known to Martial as a student of rhetoric, the epithet is perfectly appropriate. On the other hand, if Juvenal had written satires before this date, or even before 101, it is inconceivable that Martial, so ready to praise far humbler literary efforts of his friends, should not mention them. This is another proof that Juvenal did not publish satires till after the death of Domitian.

In the second place, the last epigram (xii 18) represents Juvenal's life very much as he represents it himself: Martial contrasts his own easy days and restful nights in Spain with the annoyances Juvenal continues to undergo while toiling up the hilly streets, in the noise and heat of Rome, on his way to pay court to the rich and powerful.

It may be added here that there are some obvious imitations or reminiscences of Martial in the satires, especially the earlier ones, and also that there is a remarkable correspondence between the work of the two writers, 'not only in their views of literature, but in the subjects they treat, the persons they mention, their language and expression, and their general tone1.' Ample evidence of this will be found in the notes to this edition; but it seems unnecessary, in order to account for this likeness, to suppose, as Nettleship does, that they were in the habit of working together. The facts which have been stated above, go to prove that Martial ceased to write about the time when Juvenal began; and the resemblance will not seem more than can be accounted for, if we believe that Juvenal, having already a thorough knowledge of Martial's epigrams, began to direct his satires against the same period and persons whom Martial had already riddled with his lighter artillery.

A caution may be useful against the practice, which was

Nettleship Journ. of Phil. xvi p. 47.