His first Satire after the death of Domitian, seems to have been what is now called the fourth. About this time, too, he probably thought of revising and publishing those which he had already written; and composed or completed that introductory piece,[11] which now stands at the head of his works. As the order is every where broken in upon, it is utterly impossible to arrange them chronologically; but I am inclined to think that the eleventh Satire closed his poetical career. All else is conjecture; but in this he speaks of himself as an old man,

"Nostra bibat vernum contracta cuticula solem;"

and indeed he had now passed his grand climacteric.

This is all that can be collected of the life of Juvenal; and how much of this is built upon uncertainties! I hope, however, that it bears the stamp of probability; which is all I contend for; and which, indeed, if I do not deceive myself, is somewhat more than can be affirmed of what has been hitherto delivered on the subject.

Little is known of Juvenal's circumstances; but, happily, that little is authentic, as it comes from himself. He had a competence. The dignity of poetry is never disgraced in him, as it is in some of his contemporaries, by fretful complaints of poverty, or clamorous whinings for meat and clothes: the little patrimony which his fosterfather left him, he never diminished, and probably never increased. It seems to have equaled all his wants, and, as far as appears, all his wishes. Once only he regrets the narrowness of his fortune; but the occasion does him honor; it is solely because he can not afford a more costly sacrifice to express his pious gratitude for the preservation of his friend: yet "two lambs and a youthful steer" bespeak the affluence of a philosopher; which is not belied by the entertainment provided for his friend Persicus, in that beautiful Satire which is here called the last of his works. Farther it is useless to seek: from pride or modesty, he has left no other notices of himself; or they have perished. Horace and Persius, his immediate predecessors, are never weary of speaking of themselves. The life of the former might be written, from his own materials, with all the minuteness of a contemporary history: and the latter, who attained to little more than a third of Juvenal's age, has left nothing to be desired on the only topics which could interest posterity--his parent, his preceptor, and his course of studies.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] "Junius Juvenalis liberti locupletis incertum filius an alumnus, ad mediam ætatem declamavit, animi magis causa, quam quod scholæ aut foro se præpararet." The learned reader knows that this is taken from the brief account of Juvenal, commonly attributed to Suetonius; but which is probably posterior to his time; as it bears very few marks of being written by a contemporary author: it is, however, the earliest extant. The old critics, struck with its deficiencies, have attempted to render it more complete by variations, which take from its authenticity, without adding to its probability.

[2] I have adopted Dodwell's chronology. "Sic autem (he says) se rem illam totam habuisse censeo. Exul erat Juv. cum Satiram scriberet xv. Hoc confirmat etiam in v. 27, scholiastes. 'De se Juv. dicit, quia in Ægypto militem tenuit, et ea promittit se relaturum quæ ipse vidit.'" Had not Dodwell been predisposed to believe this, he would have seen that the scholium "confirmed" nothing: for Juvenal makes no such promise. "Proinde rixæ illi ipse adfuit quam describit." So error is built up! How does it appear that Juvenal was present at the quarrel which he describes? He was in Egypt, we know; he had passed through the Ombite nome, and he speaks of the face of the country as falling under his own inspection: but this is all; and he might have heard of the quarrel at Rome, or elsewhere. "Tempus autem ipse designavit rixæ illius cum et 'nuper'[12] illam contigisse dicit, et quidem 'Consule Junio.' Jun. duplicem habent fasti, alium Domit. in x. Consulatu collegam App. Junium Sabinum A.D. lxxxiv.; alium Hadriani in suo itidem consulatu III. collegam Q. Junium Rusticum. Quo minus prior intelligi possit, obstant illa omnia quæ in his ipsis Satiris occurrunt Domitiani temporibus recentiora." Yet, such is the capricious nature of criticism! Dodwell's chief argument to prove the late period at which Juvenal was banished, is a passage confessedly written under Domitian, and foisted into a satire published, as he himself maintains, many years after that emperor's death! "Posteriorem ergo intellexerit oportet. Hoc ergo anno (CXIX.) erat in exilio. Sed vero Roma illum ejicere non potuit Trajanus, qui ab anno usque CXII. Romæ ipse non adfuit; nec etiam ante CXVIII. quo Romam venit imperator Hadrianus. Sic ante anni CXVIII. finem, aut CXIX. initium, mitti vix potuit in exilium Juvenalis: erat autem cum relegaretur, octogenarius. Proinde natus fuerit vel anni XXXVIII. fine, vel XXXIX. initio." Annal. 157-159.

I have made this copious extract from Dodwell, because it contains a summary of the chief arguments which induced Pithæus, Henninius, Lipsius, Salmasius, etc., to attribute the banishment of the author to Hadrian. To me they appear any thing but conclusive; for, to omit other objections for the present, why may not the Junius of the fifteenth Satire be the one who was Consul with Domitian in 84, when Juvenal, by Dodwell's own calculation, was in his 47th instead of his 80th year.

[3] "Deinde paucorum versuum satira non absurde composita in Paridem pantomimum, poetamque Claudii Neronis" (the writer seems, in this and the following clause, to have referred to Juvenal's words; it is, therefore probable that we should read Calvi Neronis, i. e. Domitian; otherwise the phrase must be given up as an absurd interpolation), "ejus semestribus militiolis tumentem: genus scripturæ industriose excoluit." Suet.

[4] "Et tamen diu, ne modico quidem auditorio quicquam committere ausus est." Suet. On this Dodwell observes: "Tam longe aberant illa a Paridis ira concitanda, si vel superstite Paride fuissent scripta, eum irritare non possent, cum nondum emanassent in publicum," 161. He then adds that "Martial knew nothing of his poetical studies,[13] who boasted that he was as familiar with Juvenal as Pylades with Orestes!" It appears, indeed, that they were acquainted; but I suspect, notwithstanding the vehemence of Martial's assertions, that there was no great cordiality between minds so very dissimilar. Some one, it seems, had accused the epigrammatist to the satirist, not improbably, of making too free with his thoughts and expressions. He was seriously offended; and Martial, instead of justifying himself (whatever the charge might be), imprecates shame on his accuser in a strain of idle rant not much above the level of a schoolboy. Lib. vii. 24.

But if he had been acquainted with his friend's poetry, he would certainly have spoken of it. Not quite so certainly. These learned critics seem to think that Juvenal, like the poets he ridicules, wrote nothing but trite fooleries on the Argonauts and the Lapithæ. Were the Satires of Juvenal to be mentioned with approbation? and, if they were, was Martial the person to do it? Martial, the most devoted sycophant of the age, who was always begging, and sometimes receiving, favors from the man whose castigation was, in general, the express object of them. Is it not more consonant to his character to suppose that he would conceal his knowledge of them with the most scrupulous care?

But when Domitian was dead, and Martial removed from Rome, when, in short, there was no danger of speaking out, he still appears, continue they, to be ignorant of his friend's poetic talents. I am almost ashamed to repeat what the critics so constantly forget--that Juvenal was not only satirist, but a republican, who looked upon Trajan as a usurper, no less than Domitian. And how was it "safe to speak out," when they all assert that he was driven into banishment by a milder prince than Trajan, for a passage "suspected of being a figurative allusion to the times?" What inconsistencies are these!

[5] "Mox magna frequentia, magnoque successu bis ac ter auditus est; ut ea quoque quæ prima fecerat, inferciret novis scriptis,

'Quod non dant proceres dabit histrio,' etc.

Sat. vii., 90-92.

Erat tum in delitiis aulæ histrio, multique fautorum ejus quotidie provehebantur. Venit ergo in suspicionem quasi tempora figurate notasset; ac statim per honorem militiolæ, quanquam octogenarius, urbe summotus, missusque ad præfecturam cohortis in extrema parte tendentis Ægypti. Id supplicii genus placuit, ut levi atque joculari delicto par esset. Verum intra brevissimum tempus angore et tædio periit." Suet. Passing by the interpolations of the old grammarians, I shall, as before, have recourse to Dodwell. "Recitavit, ni fallor, omnia, emisitque in publicum CXVIII. (Juvenal was now fourscore!) postquam Romam venissit Hadrianus quem ille principem à benevolo ejus in hæc studia animo, in hac ipsa satira in qua occurrunt verba illa de Paride commendat." 161. Salmasius supposed that the last of his Satires only were published under Hadrian; Dodwell goes farther, and maintains that the whole, with the exception of the 15th and 16th[14] ("si tamen vere et illa Juvenalis fuerit"), were then first produced! "Illa in Paridem dicteria histrionem, in suum (cujus nomen non prodidit auctor) histrionem dicta interpretabatur Hadrianus. Inde exilii causa. Scripsit ergo in exilio Sat. XV. Sed cum 'nuper Consulem Junium' fuisse dicat, ante annum ad minimum CXX. scribere illam non potuit Juv. Nec vero postea scripsisse, exinde colligimus, quod 'intra brevissimum tempus' perierit." 164. Such is the manner in which Dodwell accommodates Suetonius to his own ideas: which seem, also, to have been those of a much higher name, Salmasius; and, while I am now writing, to be sanctioned by the adoption of the learned Ruperti. I never affected singularity; yet I find myself constrained to differ from them all: but I will state my reasons. In his 7th Satire, after speaking of Quintilian, Juvenal adds,