BOOK IV

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ARGUMENT.

The Scholiast, on the third Satire of Persius, tells us that the subject of that Satire, which is directed against the luxury and vices of the rich, was borrowed from the fourth book of Lucilius. In all probability the _form_ of the Satire is not the same; as the dialogue between the severe censor and his pupils approaches too near the Greek form, to have suited the taste of Lucilius. No doubt there is a much closer imitation in the second Satire of Horace's second book, which also was confessedly composed upon this model; where the plain and rustic simplicity of Ofella takes the place of the grave and sententious philosophy of the more dignified Lælius. The first six Fragments are evidently to be referred to Lælius; expatiating on the praises of frugality, and exhibiting, by examples, the hollowness of all the pleasures of luxury and gluttony. We have then allusions to a combat of gladiators; and several references to women, and to the impetuous and restless anxieties attendant upon the passion of love; which are inconsistent with the character of Lælius, and were therefore put into the mouth of some other speaker.

To the first part of the Satire we may probably refer the Fragments 192, 193, 132, 133, incert.

1 * * * *

At which that wise Lælius used to give vent to railings; addressing the Epicures of our order--[1656]

2 "Oh thou glutton, Publius Gallonius! a miserable man thou art!" he says. "Thou hast never in all thy life supped well, though all thou hast thou squanderest on that lobster and gigantic sturgeon!"[1657]

3 If you ask me, we enjoy food well cooked, and seasoned and pleasing conversation--[1658]

4 ... because you prefer sumptuous living, and dainties to wholesome food--

5 ... to devise besides what each wished to be brought to him; one was attracted by sow's udder, and a dish of fatlings, another by a Tiber pike caught between the two bridges--[1659]

6 ... let there be wine poured from a full.... with the hollow of the hand for a siphon; from which the snow has abated naught, or the wine-strainer robbed--[1660]

7 ... there was Æserninus, a Samnite, at the games exhibited by the Flacci, a filthy fellow, worthy of such a life, and such a station. He is matched with Pacideianus, who was by far the very best gladiator since the world began--[1661]

8 I will kill him, and conquer, said he, if you ask that: But so I think it will be; I will smite him on the face before I plant my sword in the stomach and lungs of Furius. I hate the man! I fight in a rage! nor is there any farther delay than till some one fits a sword to my right hand; with such passion, and hatred of the man, am I transported with anger.[1662]

9 ... although he himself was a good Samnite in the games, and with the wooden swords, rough enough for any one....[1663]

10 But if no woman can be of so hardy a body, yet she may remain juicy, with soft arms, and the open hand may rest on her breast full of milk--[1664]

11 † Tisiphone devoured unguent from his lungs and fat; Erinnys most sacred of Eumenides bore off what was extracted.[1665]

12 ... pursues him, not expecting, leaps upon his head, and having encircled him, champs him all up and devours him--[1666]

13 ... remains fixed in the hinder part with vertebræ and joints, as with us the ankle and knee.

14 These carry before them huge fishes, for a present, thirty in number--

15 ... that you might not be able to shake out the door-peg with your hand, and even by yourself force out the bar with a wedge.[1667]

16 He is longer than a crane--

17 To scour the fields ... the whelps and young of wild beasts.

18 ... and when he is such a handsome man, and a youth worthy of you.

19 ... he places under this, he adds four props with nails.[1668]

20 ... who eats himself, devours me--

21 I was drunk and bloated.

FOOTNOTES:

[1656] _Lapathus_ is the "sorrel," which, it appears, the Romans cultivated in their gardens with great care. It was called, in its wild state, _Rumex_. It was used at banquets, on account of its purgative qualities, together with the Coan wines, which possessed the same properties. Cf. Hor., ii., Sat. iv., 27. Pers., Sat. v., 135. _Gumia_ is a "glutton, epicure, belly-god." (Lurco, comedo, helluo, gulæ mancipium.) The etymology is uncertain. Merula reads in all places _gluvia_, whence _ingluvies_.

[1657] There are two fish known by the name of _squilla_; the one apparently a small fish (perhaps a _river_ fish, as Martial mentions their abounding in the Liris: lib. xiii., Ep. 83), used as a sauce or garnish for larger fish. Vid. Hor., ii., Sat. viii., 42, "Affertur _squillas_ inter muræna natantes," which Orell. explains as a conger served up with crabs. The other is a large fish forming a dish of itself. Cf. Juv., v., 80, "Quam _longo_ distendat _pectore_ lancem quæ fertur domino _squilla_," etc. If it is represented by the Greek κᾶρις, it is something of the lobster or prawn kind. It appears to have been dressed sometimes with sorrel sauce. Cf. Athen., iii., 92, 66. The _acipenser_ is probably _not_ the sturgeon: from its etymology it is some sharp-headed fish. (Acies et penna, or pinna.) Salmas., Ex. Plin., 1316: but what it _really was_ is not known. It was a _royal_ fish, like the sturgeon (Mart., xiii., Ep. 91), and when brought to table was ushered in with great solemnities: the servant who bore it had a chaplet round his head, and was preceded by another playing the flute. Publius Gallonius, the præco, is said to have been the first who introduced this luxury. Macrob., Sat. ii., 12. In Pliny's time, however, he tells us, it had gone out of fashion. H. N., ix., 26.

_Decumanus_ is used here in the same sense as "Fluctus decumanus," i. e., of extraordinary size (Ov., Trist., I., ii., 49), the Pythagorean notion being that the tenth was always the largest; which notion they extended even to eggs. (Compare the Greek τρικυμία, Æsch., P. V., 1015, with Blomfield's gloss.)

[1658] This, according to Gerlach's view, is the answer of Lælius to some petulant questionings of an epicure. The missing words are _utimur_ and _cibo_, or something to that effect.

[1659] _Sumen_ was "the sow's udder, killed the day after farrowing." Cf. ad Juv., xi., 138, 81. Pers., i., 53.

_Altilis_ is put for any thing fattened up--oxen, hares, geese, ducks, hens, or even fish. Cf. Hor., i., Ep. vii., 35, "Satur altilium." Juv., v., 168, "Minor altilis." Athen., ix., c. 32. Woodcocks, snipes, thrushes, and even dormice, are mentioned among their fatlings.

_Catillo_ (either from _catullus_ or _catillus_, diminutive of catinus, "a dish") is applied to "a dog that runs about licking the dishes." It is then used as a term of contempt for "those who came late to the sacrifices of Hercules, and had nothing left them but the dishes to lick." It is here used for "the pike that battens on the rich products of the Roman cloacæ." (Macrob., Sat. ii., 12.) The Roman epicures distinguished between three different kinds of the Tiber pike (lupus Tiberinus). The worst were those caught quite out at sea; the second best, those caught at Ostia at the river's mouth; the finest of all were those taken in the neighborhood of the embouchures of the sewers, either between the Pons Senatorius and Pons Sublicius, where the cloaca maxima empties itself, or between the Pons Sublicius and Fabricius. Hor., ii., Sat. ii, 31, "_Lupus_ hic _Tiberinus_ an alto captus hiet, _pontesne inter_ jactatus an amnis Ostia sub Tusci." Juv., v., 104, "Tiberinus, et ipse vernula riparum pinguis torrente cloacâ."

[1660] Lucilius probably refers to some rich, strong, full-bodied wine, which these epicures drank unmixed, contrary to the usual custom. _Defusum_ seems to be the better reading, which implies "pouring from a larger vessel, as the crater, into the cyathus or drinking-cup." _Diffusum_ is applied "to racking the wine from the wine-vat or cask into the amphora," when it was sealed down. Cf. Hor., i., Ep. v., 4, Orell. Juv., v., 30. For the use of _snow_ in cooling wine, see note to Juv., v., 50. This wine has lost none of its strength by mixing it with snow, and none of its flavor from having been filtered through the strainer. (Cf. Plin., H. N., xiv., 27. Hor., ii., Sat. iv., 51, _seq._) A great difficulty with the ancients seems to have been to clear their wine of the lees; some of the methods are mentioned in the passage of Horace just quoted. Eggs were also used for the same purpose. Besides this, the wine was poured through a _colum_ and _saccus vinarius_. The former was a kind of metal sieve, of which numbers have been found at Pompeii. The latter was a filter-bag of linen. (Hence "integrum perdunt lino vitiata saporem." Hor., _u. s._) The usual plan was to fill both the colum and saccus with snow, and then to pour the wine over it; and with this view the snow was carefully preserved till summer, as is still done at Naples. (Hence "æstivæ nives." Mart., v., Ep. lxiv., 2.) Nero's invention of using water that had been boiled and afterward frozen, as a substitute for snow, has been already alluded to. This process also served to moderate the intoxicating power of the stronger wines; hence the phrases "castrare, frangere, liquare, vina." (Cf. Plin., H. N., xix., 4,19; xiv., 22; xxiv., 1, 1. Mart., xii., Ep. lx., 9, "Turbida sollicito transmittere Cæcuba sacco." xiv., Ep. ciii. and civ.; ix., Ep. xxiii, 8; xci., 5.)

[1661] The magistrate who exhibited the shows of gladiators was said _edere munus_. The first _editores_ were the brothers Marcus and Decimus Junius Brutus, A.U.C. 490, B.C. 264, who exhibited a munus gladiatorium in the Forum Boarium, at their father's funeral. Val. Max., II., iv., 7, Liv. Epit., xvi. The country of Samnium afterward produced many of these gladiators, though probably the name Samnis was also given to those who were armed after the old Samnite fashion (as Threx, Gallus, etc. Hor., i., Ep. xviii., 36; ii., Ep. ii., 98. Livy describes their equipment in detail, ix., 40, which tallies exactly with the paintings discovered at Pompeii. Vid. Pompeii, vol. i., p. 308, _seq._). Æsernia, now Isernia, was a town in the district of the Pentri in Samnium, to which the Romans sent a colony in the year above mentioned. Æsernius was probably some famous gladiator who was a native of this place, but his name and that of Pacideianus were afterward used proverbially for any eminent men of that class. Cf. Cic., opt. gen., Or. vi. Tusc., iv., 21, ad Quint. Frat., iii., 4. Hor., ii., Sat. vii., 97. Nonius explains "spurcus" to mean "savage, blood-thirsty."

[1662] The reading and interpretation of Gerlach is followed.

[1663] Cicero (de Orat., iii., 23) quotes these lines of Lucilius, when speaking of a certain Velocius, who, when a youth, had applied himself with great success to the gladiatorial art, so as in fact to be a match for any one, but afterward never practiced it. The relative claims of the readings _civis_ and _cuivis_ are discussed at great length in Harles' note to the passage of Cicero (q. v., ed. Lips., 1816). The _rudis_ was the wooden sword with which the gladiators practiced; the _sica_ being used in the _ludus_. They also received a rudis as a token of their release from service. Hence "rudem poscere," "rude donatus," etc. Ov., Am., II., ix., 22. Cic., Phil., ii., 29. Hor., i., Ep. i., 2. Suet., Cal., 32.

[1664] "Even though women may not have sufficient bodily strength to endure the rougher and more laborious duties of human life, still they may so far take care of their bodies as to be enabled to discharge the womanly office of suckling children." Gerlach: who reads _succosa_ for _succussa_, and explains _uberior_ by "largior, digitis non contractis, vola manus," "the open palm." Cf. lib. xxviii., Fr. 47.

[1665] An utterly hopeless Fragment: for the second word, _titene_, there are eleven various readings. Gerlach's emendation is followed, who thinks it refers to the torments of love.

[1666] This Fragment also Gerlach considers descriptive of the impetuosity of unbridled lust. Van Heusde sees an allusion to the episode of the hawk and the nightingale in Hesiod. Op. et Di., 201, _seq._

[1667] _Pessulus_ was the peg or bolt by which the fastening of the door was secured on the inside. It probably refers to a lover effecting a forcible entrance into his mistress's house. Cf. Hor., i., Od. xxv., 1; iii., Od. xxvi., 7, where Horace enumerates _vectes_ among the weapons of a lover's warfare. Cf. Lucil., xxix., Fr. 47, "Vecte atque ancipiti ferre effringam cardines."

[1668] Cf. Cels., ii., 15.

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