Juvenal, Satire 11 Translated by Lewis Evans (1889) and John Delaware Lewis (1882) Formatted by C. Chinn (2008) IF Atticus sups extravagantly, he is considered a splendid fellow: if Rutilus does so, he is thought mad. For what is received with louder laughter on the part of the mob, than Apicius reduced to poverty? Every club, the baths, every knot of loungers, every theatre, is full 5 of Rutilus. For while his sturdy and youthful limbs are fit to bear arms, and while he is hot in blood, he is driven (not indeed forced to it, but unchecked by the tribune) to copy out the instructions and imperial commands of the trainer of gladiators. Moreover, you see many whom their creditor, often cheated of his 10 money, is wont to look out for at the very entrance of the market; and whose inducement to live exists in their palate alone. The greatest wretch among these, one who must soon fail, since his ruin is already as clear as day, sups the more extravagantly and the more splendidly. Meanwhile they ransack all the elements for dainties; the price 15 never standing in the way of their gratification. If you look more closely into it, those please the more which are bought for more. Therefore they have no scruple in borrowing a sum, soon to be squandered, by pawning their plate, or the broken image of their mother; and, with the sesterces, seasoning an earthen dish to tickle their 20 palate. Thus they are reduced to the hotchpotch of the gladiator. It makes therefore all the difference who it is that procures these same things. For in Rutilus it is luxurious extravagance. In Ventidius it takes a praiseworthy name, and derives credit from his fortune. I should with reason despise the man who knows how much more lofty Atlas is 25 than all the mountains in Libya, yet this very man knows not how much a little purse differs from an iron-bound chest. "Know thyself," came down from heaven: a proverb to be implanted and cherished in the memory, whether you are about to contract matrimony, or wish to be in a part of the sacred 30 senate—(for not even Thersites is a candidate for the breast-plate of Achilles: in which Ulysses exhibited himself in a doubtful character)— or whether you take upon yourself to defend a cause of great moment, consult your own powers; tell yourself who you are; whether you are a powerful orator, or like a Curtius, or a Matho, mere spouters. 35 One must know one's own measure, and keep it in view, in the greatest and in most trifling matters; even when a fish is to be bought. Do not long for a mullet, when you have only a gudgeon in your purse. For what end awaits you, as your purse' fails and your gluttony increases: when your patrimony and whole 40 fortune is squandered upon your belly, what can hold your money out at interest, your solid plate, your flocks, and lands? By such proprietors as these, last of all the ring is parted with, and Pollio begs with his finger bare. It is not the premature funeral pile, or the grave, that is luxury's 45 horror, but old age, more to be dreaded than death itself. These are most commonly the steps: money, borrowed at Rome, is spent before the very owners' faces; then when some trifling residue is left, and the lender of the money is growing pale, they give leg-bail and run to Baiae and Ostia. 50 For nowadays to quit the forum is not more discreditable to you than to remove to Esquiline from hot Subura. This is the only pain that they who flee their country feel, this their only sorrow, to have lost the Circensian games for one year. Not a drop of blood remains in their face; few attempt to detain 55 modesty, now become an object of ridicule and fleeing from the city. You shall prove to-day by your own experience, Persicus, whether all these things, which are very fine to talk about, I do not practice in my life, in my moral conduct, and in reality: but praise vegetables, while in secret I am a glutton: in others' hearing bid my slave bring me water-gruel, but whisper "cheese-cakes" 60 in his ear. For since you are my promised guest, you shall find me an Evander: you shall come as the Tirynthian, or the guest, inferior indeed to him, and yet himself akin by blood to heaven: the one sent to the skies by water, the other by fire. Now hear your bill of fare, furnished by no public market. 65 From my farm at Tibur there shall come a little kid, the fattest and tenderest of the whole flock, ignorant of the taste of grass, that has never yet ventured to browse even on the low twigs of the willow-bed, and that has more milk than blood in his veins: and asparagus from the mountains, which my bailiff's wife, having laid down her spindle, gathered. 70 Some huge eggs besides, and still warm in their twisted hay, shall be served up together with the hens themselves: and grapes kept a portion of the year, just as they were when fresh upon the vines: pears from Signia and Syria: and, from the same basket, apples rivaling those of Picenum, and smelling quite fresh; that you need not 75 be afraid of, since they have lost their autumnal moisture, which has been dried up by cold, and the dangers to be feared from their juice if crude. This would in times gone by have been a luxurious supper for our senate. Curing with his own hands used to cook over his little fire pot-herbs which he had gathered in his little garden: such herbs 80 as now the foul digger in his heavy chain rejects with scorn, who remembers the flavor of the vile dainties' of the reeking cook-shop. It was the custom formerly to keep against festival days the flitches of the smoked swine, hanging from the wide-barred rack, and to set bacon as a birthday treat before one's relations, 85 with the addition of some fresh meat, if a sacrificial victim furnished any. Some one of the kin, with the title of "Thrice consul," that had held command in camps, and discharged the dignity of dictator, used to go earlier than his wont to such a feast as this, bearing his spade over his shoulder from the mountain he had been digging on. 90 But when men trembled at the Fabii, and the stern Cato, and the Scauri and Fabricii; and when, in fine, even his colleague stood in dread of the severe character of the strict Censor; no one thought it was a matter of anxiety or serious concern what kind of tortoise floated in the wave of ocean, 95 destined to form a splendid and noble couch for the Troiugenas. But with side devoid of ornament, and sofas of diminutive size, the brazen front displayed the mean head of an ass wearing a chaplet, at which the country lads laughed in wantonness. The food then was in keeping with the master of the house and the furniture. 100 Then the soldier, uncivilized, and too ignorant to admire the arts of Greece, used to break up the drinking-cups, the work of some renowned artists, which he found in his share of the booty when cities were overthrown, that his horse might exult in trappings, and his embossed helmet might display to his enemy on the point of perishing, likenesses of the Romulean wild beast bidden to grow tame 105 by the destiny of the empire, and the twin Quirini beneath the rock, and the naked image of the god coming down with buckler and spear, and impending over him. Whatever silver he possessed glittered on his arms alone. In those days, then, they used to serve all their furmety in a dish of Tuscan earthenware: 110 which you may envy, if you are at all that way inclined. The majesty of temples also was more evidently near to men, and a voice heard about midnight and through the midst of the city, when the Gauls were coming from the shore of ocean, and the gods discharged the functions of a prophet, warned us of these. 115 This was the care which Jupiter used to show for the affairs of Latium, when made of earthenware, and as yet profaned by no gold. Those days saw tables made of wood grown at home and from our native trees. To these uses was the limber applied, if the east wind had chanced to lay prostrate some old walnut-tree. 120 But now the rich have no satisfaction in their dinner, the turbot and the venison lose their flavor, perfumes and roses seem to lose their smell, unless the broad circumference of the table is supported by a huge mass of ivory, and a tall leopard with wide- gaping jaws, made of those tusks, which the gate of Syene transmits, 125 and the active Moors, and the Indian of duskier hue than the Moor; and which the huge beast has deposited in some Nabathaean glen, as now grown too weighty and burdensome to his head: by this their appetite is whetted: hence their stomach acquires its vigor. For a leg of a table made only of silver is to them what an iron ring on their finger would be: therefore 130 cautiously avoid a proud guest, who compares me with himself, and looks with scorn on my paltry estate. Consequently I do not possess a single ounce of ivory: neither my chess-board nor my men are of this material; nay, the very handles of my knives are of bone. Yet my viands never become rank in flavor by these, 135 nor does my pullet cut up the worse on that account. Nor yet will you see a carver, to whom the whole carving-school ought to yield the palm, some pupil of the professor Trypherus, at whose house the hare, with the large sow's udders, and the wild boar, and the roebuck, and pheasants, and the huge flamingo, and the wild goat of Gaetulia, 140 all forming a most splendid supper, though made of elm, are carved with the blunted knife, and resounds through the whole Subura. My little fellow, who is a novice, and uneducated all his days, does not know how to take dexterously off a slice of roe, or the wing of a Guinea-hen; only versed in the mysteries of carving the fragments of a small collop. 145 My slave, who is not gayly dressed, and only clad so as to protect him from cold, will hand you plebeian cups' bought for a few pence. He is no Phrygian or Lycian, or one purchased from the slave-dealer and at great price. When you ask for any thing, ask in Latin. They have all the same style of dress; their hair close-cropped 150 and straight, and only combed to-day on account of company. One is the son of a hardy shepherd, another of a neat-herd: he sighs after his mother, whom he has not seen for a long time, and pines for his hovel and his playmate kids. A lad of ingenuous face, and ingenuous modesty; 155 such as those ought to be who are clothed in brilliant purple. Nor does he carry into the baths the signs of his robust manhood, nor has he already yielded his arm-pits to be plucked, nor has he timidly to protect his person by the interposition of the oil-flask. He, such as he is, will hand you wines bottled on the very hills 160 from which he himself comes, under whose summit he has played ; for the native country of the wine and the attendant is one and the same. Perhaps you may be expecting that a Gaditane artiste will begin to wanton amid the tuneful choir, and that dancing- girls, covered with applause, will curtsy to the ground with quivering hips 165 (brides, with their husbands reclining next them, behold this sight, which any one would be ashamed to relate in their presence), a provocative for languishing desire and sharp incentives for the wealthy. Yet this sort of pleasure is greater in the case of the other sex, which is more worked upon, and soon 170 passion engendered through ears and eyes is set in motion. A humble household does not admit of this trumpery. Let him listen to the clinking of castanets, accompanied by words such as the slave girl, standing naked in the stinking brothel, abstains from; let him enjoy the obscene language and all the artifices of lechery, 175 who lubricates the circles of his Laconian marble floor by spitting wine over them; for, in that case, we make allowance for his fortune. Gambling is disgraceful, and adultery is disgraceful for common people. The others, when they do all these same things, are called choice spirits and stylish fellows. Our banquet to-day shall present other amusements. 180 The author of the Iliad shall be recited, and the strains of high-sounding Maro, rendering the palm of victory a doubtful one. What matters it with what voice such verses as these are read ? But now, at any rate, your cares deferred, put aside business matters, and treat yourself to a pleasant respite, since you will be at liberty 185 to idle through the whole day. Let there be no mention whatever of interest due, nor let your wife stir up your bile and make you silent, if she goes out at early dawn, and is in the habit of returning at night, bringing back her light dress wet with suspicious creases, and her hair tumbled, and her face and ears red. 190 Divest yourself at once of all that annoys you, at my threshold. Banish all thoughts of home and servants, and all that is broken and wasted by them—especially forget ungrateful friends! Meantime, the spectacles of the Megalesian towel grace the Idaean solemnity: and, like one in a triumph, 195 the prey of horses, the praetor, sits: and, if I may say so without offense to the immense and overgrown crowd, the circus to-day encloses the whole of Rome; and a din reaches my ears, from which I infer the success of the green faction. For should it not win, you would see this city in mourning 200 and amazement, as when the consuls were conquered in the dust of Cannae. Let young men be spectators of these, in whom shouting and bold betting, and fitting by a trim damsel is becoming. Let our skin, which is wrinkled with age, imbibe the vernal sun and avoid the toga'd crowd. Even now, though it wants 205 a whole hour to the sixth, you may go to the bath with unblushing brow. You could not do this for five successive days; because even of such a life as this there would be great weariness. It is a more moderate use that enhances pleasures.