Juvenal, Satire 16
Translated by John Delaware Lewis (1882)
Formatted by C. Chinn (2008)

	WHO, O Gallus, can enumerate the prizes of happy 
	soldiering? But if, in addition, a fortunate corps is being entered, 
	may its gate receive me, a timorous recruit, under a favorable 
	star. For indeed the moment of a smiling fate is of more avail 
5	than if we were recommended to Mars by an epistle of Venus, 
	or his mother who delights in the sands of Samos. 
	
	Let us first treat of the advantages common to all soldiers, of which 
	this is not the least, that a civilian won't dare 
	to beat you; nay, though he be beaten himself, will conceal it 
10	and won't dare to show the Praetor his teeth that have been knocked out, 
	and the lump on his face, black with swollen bruises, and the eye 
	still left to him, but about which the doctor will make no promise. 
	Those who wish to get redress for these things have a centurion's big boot 
	assigned them for a judge, and a pair of huge calves under a stout bench, 
15	the ancient military law and the rule of Camillus being 
	observed, that the soldier is not to be a party to a suit outside the trenches 
	or at a distance from the standards. Most just, therefore, is the jurisdiction 
	of the centurions over the soldier, nor will my revenge fail me 
	if a cause in which the complaint is just be brought before them. 
20	But the whole cohort are your enemies, and all the maniples 
	with great unanimity manage that your redress shall be such as 
	you shall care for, and worse than the original injury. 
	It would be worthy, then, of the ranter Vagellius, 
	with his mulish understanding, when you have only two legs, 
25	to offend so many thick boots, so many thousands 
	of hob-nails. Moreover, who would absent himself such a distance 
	from town? who is such a Pylades as to come beyond the 
	rampart-mound? Let our tears be dried forthwith, and let us 
	not trouble our friends, who are sure to excuse themselves. 
30	When the judge has said, "Produce your witness," let the man, 
	whoever he be, who saw the fisticuffs, say, "I saw them," and I shall 
	deem him worthy of the beard and worthy of the locks of our ancestors. 
	You could more readily produce a false witness against a civilian than one 
	to speak the truth against the fortune and against the honor of a soldier. 
	
35	Let us note now other prizes and other advantages of military 
	life. If a rascally neighbor has robbed me of a valley or a field 
	of my paternal estate, and has dug up from the middle 
	of the boundary-line, the sacred stone which my porridge 
	has yearly honored, together with a broad cake, or a 
40	debtor persists in not repaying the monies he has received, declaring 
	his note-of-hand void and the tablets worthless, I shall have to wait a whole 
	year, the time requisite for making even a beginning of the lawsuits 
	of an entire people. But even then a thousand worries, 
	a thousand delays have to be borne; so often the seats are 
45	merely cushioned; then, while eloquent Caedicius is taking off 
	his cloak, and Fuscus has just gone out for another purpose, though 
	all prepared, we must take our departure, and so we fight on the dilatory 
	arena of the Forum. But to those who wear armor and are girded 
	with a belt, their own chosen time for suing is insured, nor is their 
50	property ground down by the tardy drag-chain of a lawsuit. 
	
	Moreover, to soldiers alone is accorded the right of making a will 
	in a father's life-time: for it has seemed good that what has been acquired by 
	the labors of military life should not form part of the bulk of the property 
	of which the father holds the entire disposal. So that Coranus, 
55	while following the standards and in receipt of army pay, is courted 
	by his own father, though now trembling with age. His labors duly 
	performed, advance the former, and he pays back its gifts to honest labor. 
	Certainly this seems to be to the interest of the general himself, 
	that whoever shows himself brave should also be most fortunate, 
60	that all, rejoicing in trappings and collars—