Life (c. 65 - c. 127 CE.)

Probably the greates of Roman satirists, who wrote with relentless impersonality; little was known of him during his lifetime, so that no detailed account of his career is possible. He came from Aquinum. All of his extant poems were published under Trajan and Hadrian. The only contemporary who mentions him is Martial. Martial knew him well and for both, poetry is synonymous with poverty. He is cheifly celebrated for his first two books, which include Satires 1-6.

His style was a precedent for later epigram: his cynicism, invective, and obscenity were all qualities for which his imitators strove. he did not achieve popularity until the 4th cent. CE.

Works

Sixteen hexameter satires, in five books averaging 750-800 lines each, and arranged in order of publication.

• Book I: On the writing of satire and on hypocritical moralists.
• Book II: Contains famous Satire 6, a vast, ruthless diatribe against immoral and affected women.
• Book III: Problems of the writer without a patron.
• Book IV: Contains Satire 10, a declamation on the folly of men desiring hurtful things instead of courage, health, sanity, with a constast drawn between archaic moderation and modern extravagance.
• Book V: Incomplete. Includes a cynical consolation to a friend cheated of money, and disquisitions on the influence of parents' sins upon their children (emphasizing greed).

Bibliography

G. Highet, Juvenal the Satirist (Oxford 1954).

A.E. Houseman, Iuvenalis Saturae (2nd editon, Cambridge 1931)

I. G. Scott, The Grand Style in the Satires of Juvenal (Northhampton, MA 1927)

Barr Williams, The Satires, trans. Niall Rudd (Oxford 1991)

S.H. Braund. Beyond Anger. A Study of Juvenal's 3rd Book of Satires (Cambridge 1989).

M. Coffey, Roman Satire. (London & New York 1976).

J. W. Duff, Roman Safire, (Cambridge, 1937).

John Ferguson, Juvenal. The Satires. Text, commentary, notes and introduction (St. Martin's Press 1979).