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Juvenal and the Reign of Trajan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 May 2015

K.H. Waters
K.H. Waters*
Affiliation:
University of Tasmania
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Extract

The literary evidence for the Trajanic period presents a remarkably difficult problem; for though a fair number of writers whose work is extant today lived and sometimes wrote during the period, they provide information which is disproportionately and disappointingly little in quantity, and in the main highly tendentious. We also lack a biography of Trajan, since Suetonius ended his series not so much at a round dozen as at the end of a dynasty, while the egregious compiler of the Augustan History elected to begin with Hadrian. The reason in the former case is clear and compelling; whatever the motive in the latter, the value of what we have missed as a result is to say the least dubious. Frontinus has no observations on matters outside the scope of his technical discourses; Pliny’s letters, the most extensive of the Latin prose sources, throw valuable light on certain aspects of imperial administration, and offer a rather gingerbread portrait of his own circle of career civil servants and literary dilettanti. In Greek literature, Plutarch is almost devoid of contemporary references, while the orations of Dio Chrysostom have been milked dry, without providing us with any real factual material.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antichthon , Volume 4 , 1970 , pp. 62 - 77
Copyright
Copyright © Australasian Society for Classical Studies 1970

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References

1 Suetonius accepted and helped to crystallize the convention of disparaging the previous dynasty, studiously fostered by the ‘Good Emperors’ Nerva, Trajan (and Hadrian). This is not the place to estimate the merits of Suetonius’ biographies, but it is a fairly commonly held view today that one aspect of his motivation was to reveal the weaknesses of the predecessors of Hadrian—not of course including the members of the same dynasty, his adoptive father and doubly-adoptive grandfather.

2 On the SHA see Syme, R., Ammianus and the Historia Augusta (Oxford, 1968). The Hadrianic life is alleged to be less fraudulent than later portions.Google Scholar

3 See Waters, K.H., ‘Traianus Domitiani Continuator’, AJP 90 (1969), 385–405.Google Scholar Florus perhaps wrote under Hadrian, but as his work only extends to Augustus is not relevant here. The notorious final sentence of his proem (sometimes alleged to be interpolated) refers only to the increased military activity under Trajan and may serve as an example of the conventional view that wars of conquest were the proper avocation of emperors; cf. p. 65 below. On Florus and Hadrianic literature see Garzetti, A., ‘Floro et l’età Adrianea’, Athenaeum 42 (1964) [Studi E, Malcovati], 136.Google Scholar

4 Waters, op. cit.; Kienast, D., ‘Nerva und das Kaisertum Trajans’, Historia 18 (1968), esp. 52–3.Google ScholarKuijper, D., ‘De honestate Plinii minoris’, Mnetn. 21 (1968), 40–70,Google Scholar has attempted to restore some faith in Plinian statements that have been distrusted, and this involves a more hostile (and traditional) view of Domitian. Radice, B., ‘Pliny and the Panegyricus’, G. and R. 15 (1968), 166–72,Google Scholar urges a more favourable view of Pliny’s opus; she finds it both important and enjoyable.

5 See n. 1, and Waters, K.H., ‘The Character of Domitian’, Phoenix 18 (1964), 49–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 The artistic abilities of princes tend to be decried by all but their courtiers; however, the fact of monarchy does not of itself preclude all talent; witness e.g. Henry VIII, who amongst other Neronian proclivities was undoubtedly a talented musician.

7 There is just a faint suspicion that Statius’ Achilleis may not have been free from arrièrepensée though an equation with even the mighty son of Peleus is a come-down from an identification with Jove himself.

8 For a full account see Scott, K., ‘Statius’ Adulation of Domitian’, AJP 53 (1934), 247.Google Scholar

9 E.g. Stat. Silv. iii 3.140, iii 4.77, iv 3.14, v 1.87; the Martial references are too numerous to mention.

10 For instance he frequently speaks of ‘my wife’—and all seem to be agreed that he was a bachelor. For a pseudonymous addressee, ii 23 ‘Non dicam, licet usque me rogetis/quis sit Postumus in meo libello’. Postumus is the subject of four neighbouring poems ii 10, 12, 21 and 22; the name also appears in numerous other contexts. Cf. iii 8, ‘Thaida Quintus amet’, with iii n , ‘Si tua nee Thais est nee lusca est Quinte cur in te factum distichon esse putas ?’

11 iii 2.137, ‘Zeugma Latinae/pacis iter’; iv 1.13, ‘Pax’, 44, ‘Janus clusus’; v 1.261, Domitian as peace-maker.

12 But see F. Grosso, ‘Aspetti della politica orientate di Domiziano’, Part ii, Epigraphica xvii (1955 [1957] ), 35; also his observations on the relevant passages of Val. Flaccus, pp. 37–9. Stat. Silv. iv 3.154 may seem to be supported as a genuine reflection of imperial policy by iv 4.64, where the ‘portae limina Caspiacae’ are a possible posting for a young officer. However, the proem to the Thebais contains no reference to any eastern project, so that on the whole I would prefer to neglect the other shreds of evidence for the imperial policy.

13 See Weaver, P.R.C., ‘The Father of Claudius Etruscus’, CQxv (1965), 145.Google Scholar

14 For references to literature up to 1954 see Highet, G., Juvenal the Satirist (Oxford, 1954), pp. 245–7Google Scholar and 339–42: to 1961, Coffey, M., Lustrum 8 (1963), 161–215.Google Scholar

15 Well expressed by Anderson, W.S., ‘Juvenal and Quintilian’, YCS 17 (1961), 28,Google Scholar ‘The poetic satirist, like the elegist, resorts to the technique of the persona’. Also p. 29, ‘Juvenal avoids autobiographical information, which might invalidate the persona of a Roman appalled at the conditions he describes’.

16 Anderson, op. cit., 29, ‘The question after all is not what Juvenal feels, but what the persona of the satirist seems to feel’. Cf. Pepe, L., ‘Questioni adrianee: Giovenale e Adriano’, GIF 14 (1961), 163,Google Scholar [Juvenal] ‘esclude … la confessione e il tono autobiografico.’

17 E.g. ‘Et nos ferulae manu subduximus’—‘People such as you and I had an education’.

18 Mart. xi 3.5. See further below on patronage.

19 I substantively accept the view of Highet, , Juvenal the Satirist (Oxford, 1954), pp. 11–16,Google Scholar as modified by Syme, Tacitus (Oxford, 1959), pp. 499 ff. and App. 74 and 75. Of course the question of relative dating of the various satires is complicated, but there seems no reason to suppose that the Books were not published, and substantially composed, in the order in which they now stand. See further Michel, A., ‘La date des Satires’, REL 41 (1963). 315–27.Google Scholar

20 On the Domitianic fable, which can hardly be called a historical incident, see below. It may be noted in passing that the principals are not the emperors themselves but those closely associated with them, a wife and a praetorian prefect; from this circumstance support can be drawn for a negative inference, see below.

  • 21(i)

    21(i) Domitian and Julia; ‘uncle and niece’ need not refer to these two, and if it did needs no consideration; cf. what the gossip-monger of Sat. vi has to say—she knows ‘who made the widow pregnant’ (405).

  • (ii)

    (ii) Satire iv; see discussion below.

  • (iii)

    (iii) ‘cum … laceraret … orbem’ (iv 37) a typical example of the unjustified blackening of Domitian’s character by the successor dynasty.

22 Anderson, W.S., YCS 15 (1957), 45.Google Scholar He uses an unfortunate mistranslation of ‘revocabat’ to support an allegation that Domitian had to withdraw his revived Julian laws because of public outcry. If the theme of the satire is correctly stated (p. 51) as the decline of the traditional military virtues, it has no connection with any particular reign but belongs to Juvenal’s persona as ‘laudator temporis acti’.

23 Lutz, C.E., ‘Any resemblance … is purely coincidental’, CJ 46 (1950), 115.Google Scholar However, Lutz is of the opinion that this safeguard was needed because Juvenal did intend to attack contemporaries; this I believe is clearly erroneous. See also now Baldwin, B., ‘Cover-names and dead victims in Juvenal’, Athenaeum 14 (1967), 304–12,Google Scholar who maintains that, as Juvenal’s aim was to attack the Roman aristocracy of his own day, he needed cover-names for them. Tigellinus, on the other hand, he explains away by a textual emendation; instead of Nero’s prefect we have to do with an unknown Tigillinus, whose appearance is due to the pun his name affords. Cluvienus, he thinks, may be the real name of a minor poet, as against such Juvenal would need no protection. This is not very convincing. (A better explanation of Cluvienus comes from L. A. Mackay—he is ‘the man from Cluviae’, Helvidius Priscus, and this view has the support of A. D. Pryor.)

24 If at vi 245 Celsus is P. Juventius Celsus, cos II 129, we have a genuinely contemporary reference. But Celsus is a pretty common cognomen, and a favourite with the forger of the SHA.

25 Professor P. R. G. Weaver points out to me that as we know only one Corbulo, and he a man of large physique (‘corpore ingens’, Tac. Ann. xiii 8), there is some ground for taking ii 251 as a reference to him, But the name Gorbulo seems to have some connection with corbis, ‘basket’ (cf. the dim. corbula), and here is in juxtaposition with sportula, i 249, so that it seems likely to have been chosen rather for association of ideas than for the historical personage, to whose end as a victim of Nero, or connection with Domitian, no reference is anywhere made.

26 See Oliver, J.H., ‘The Divi of the Hadrianic period’, Harvard Theol. Rev. 42 (1949), 35–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

27 On the whole question see Helmbold, W.C. and O’Neil, E.N., ‘The structure of Juvenal IV’, AJP 77 (1956), 65–73,Google Scholar in which however some sound observations are partially vitiated by outdated notions of the history of the period.

28 For Crispinus see PIR 2 ii 1586.

29 Weinreich, O., Studien zu Martial [Tüb. Beitr. zur Altertumswissenschaft iv] (1928), pp. 166 ff.Google Scholar He maintains it is a parody of Statius, relying partly on the lines quoted by the ancient commentator. The most recent judgement, that of Cèbe, J.P., La Caricature et la Parodie (Paris, 1966), p. 320,Google Scholar is that it is a general parody of an epic council.

30 A notable example is the Deucalion passage, i 81, where Ovid is the victim; Daedalus, i 54 and iii 25, is no doubt aimed at Vergil.

31 On the amici and imperial policy regarding them see J. A. Crook, Consilium Principis (Cambridge, 1955). M. A. Levi discusses the fourth Satire in ‘Aspetti sociale della poesia di Giovenale’, Studi G. Funaioli (Rome, 1955), p. 170: he regards its polemic as directed against the senators of Juvenal’s own day.

32 E.g. Juv. Sat. vii 71, ‘dis aequa potestas’, with Plin. Pan. 4.4., ‘quern aequata dis immortalibus potestas’; and see n. 45 below.

33 ‘Cerdo’ suggests an original Greek which, however, is not given by LSJ, though of course it appears as the proper name of the cobbler in Herodas, Mimes 6 and 7. By Juvenal and Martial it is applied to artisans and tradesmen. Duff, J.D., Fourteen Satires of Juvenal (Cambridge, 1909), at 8 182Google Scholar (the only other use by Juvenal) says ‘In Latin it is clearly used as a contemptuous sobriquet for the class engaged in small trade and handicrafts.’ So the scholiasts also (see TLL s.v.). In Martial iii 16 ‘cerdo’ (possibly a proper name) is ‘sutorum regulus’; in iii 59 ‘cerdo’ is classed with ‘fullo’ and ‘copo’. (He has his pride, however, and in iii 99 we find he has protested against Martial’s gibes.)

Could this term have been applied to the palace functionaries, the actual agents of Domitian’s murder? Professor Weaver has suggested this possibility to me, but I think the evidence is against it. Suet. Dom. 14.1, ‘amicorum libertorumque intimorum conspiratione, simul et uxoris’, does not suggest ‘cerdones’. Stephanus, ‘Domitillae procurator’ (ib. 17.1), as he was then ‘interceptarum pecuniarum reus’, might just qualify as one interested in vulgar gain, but hardly the ‘cubiculo praepositus’ Parthenius, or a military man of any rank, whether the prefects Norbanus and Petronius mentioned by Dio Cass, lxvii 15.2 or the cornicularius Clodianus of Suet. Dom. 17.2.

34 Suet. Nero 54, ‘Et sunt qui tradant Paridem histrionem occisum ab eo.’ The scholiast to Juv. vi 87 makes Paris a ‘pantomimus’; apparently the words were interchangeable in a non-technical context, as Suet. Dom. 3 calls Paris ‘histrio’ but ib. 10 ‘pantomimus’.

35 Schol. ad. Juv. vi 87, ‘Paridem dicit illius temporis pantomimum quem postea [sic?] ob adulteratam uxorem ab eo suam Domitiam Domitianus occidit.’ Dio Cass, lxvii 3.1 with a story of Domitian ordering the deaths of those who honoured Paris’ tomb; the plausibility of this is impaired by Martial’s account (xi 13) of the marble tomb beside the Flaminian way, which is unlikely to have been erected some fifteen years after the death of Paris.

36 Contra Helmbold, W.C. and O’Neil, E., ‘The Form and Purpose of Juvenal’s Seventh Satire’, CP 54 (1959), 102.Google Scholar But just possibly Juvenal is referring to the ‘discipulus Paridis’, Suet. Dom. 10, who may have taken his master’s name. His story is also unlikely, see Waters, K.H., ‘The Character of Domitian’, Phoenix 18 (1964), 76, n. 62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The attempt of Michel (n. 39 infra) to attach the ‘Paris’ lines to a Hadrianic favourite seems to me to fail. Antinous was not an actor and we have little evidence for an actor with great influence over Hadrian.

37 A tradition of this kind must of course be accounted for somehow. See Herrmann, L., ‘Juvenaliana III: Juvenal fut-il exilé?’ REA 42 (1940) (Mél. Radet), 448.CrossRefGoogle Scholar He suggests that instead of an exile in Egypt, aet. 80, all Juvenal ‘suffered’ was military service in Britain, aet. c. 30–40, i.e. between A.D. 92 and 100. But what are we to make of the story that it was the composition of a ‘Paris and Oenone’ by Helvidius Priscus that brought about his punishment? Could no one mention the Paris legends during the entire reign? There would have been no point in Domitian’s trumping-up such a thin pretext; Helvidius’ attitude was well enough known (Helvidius is identified with Juvenal’s Cluvienus by McKay, L.A., CP 53 (1958), 231–40).Google Scholar

38 See Helmbold and O’Neil, art. cit. n.35.

39 The latter view is favoured by Michel, A., ‘La Date des Satires’, REL 41 (1963), 315, Google Scholar as well as Helmbold and O’Neil, art. cit., and Pepe, L., ‘Questioni adrianee: Giovenale ed Adriano’, GIF 14 (1961), 163.Google Scholar Pepe’s paper stretches credibility too far at times, as in the suggestion that Hadrian was influenced by Juv. Sat. iii to prohibit traffic in the city streets. Ercole, P., Studi Giovenaliani (Lanciano, 1935),Google Scholar argued that Trajan was meant, but his dating of the Satires is now generally rejected.

40 I cannot follow the interpretation of Helmbold and O’Neil, that Juvenal is indicating the ‘impossible restrictions’ [sic] placed by the emperor on his patronage Martial corroborates Juvenal‘s line, iii 38. 11–12.

41 E.g. in L. Pepe, art. cit. (n. 39 above), 172. He says that the Life in the Historia Augusta elucidates the emperor‘s attitude to the arts; I should say that the two passages, 15.10 and 16.8 and 10, do the opposite, since they are inconsistent—unless in accordance with my view one explains the former as scholarly criticism of weaknesses rather than as discouragement of literary effort.

42 The Agon Capitolinus at least seems to have been well received, and it continued for long after Domitian‘s death. Apart from the contemporary references of Statius, Martial and Juvenal, the institution is recorded by Suet. Dom. 4 and Censorinus 18.15; epigraphic evidence includes CIL ix 2860 and IG i 2012.

43 See Thiele, G., ‘Die Poesie unter Domitian’, Hermes 51 (1916), 233. Pp. 246–9Google Scholar are apposite here and Thiele’s approach is in some ways more modern than that of certain scholars of a generation or more later.

44 It also provides another example to reinforce those I have adduced in AJP xc (1969), of the practice of Trajan in carrying on the institutions of Domitian. Gf. Thiele, art. cit., 247; the Agon Capitolinus crowned a development dating right back to Augustus.

45 Scivoletto, N., ‘Plinio il Giovane e Giovenale’, GIF 10 (1957), 133–46.Google Scholar The comparison between Sat. iv and the Panegyric is rewarding. Scivoletto also points out that (as mentioned above) the best historical example in Juvenal is Sejanus (x 58 ff.)—a passage which can be related to Pliny’s description of the destruction of Domitian’s statues. (A further indication that Juvenal had no anti-Domitianic axe to grind.) Other cases of apparent borrowings from Pliny are noted by Guillemin, A.-M., Pline et la vie littéraire de son temps (Paris, 1929).Google ScholarMichel, A., La date des Satires’, ‘REL 41 (1963), 324–5,Google Scholar suggests that the passage, ii 163–5, on the Armenian youth who ‘indulged’ a tribune, is an attack upon the former tribune Trajan, and a hit at Pliny, Pan. 13.5 on the virtues of the youthful officer. But unfortunately he has completely misinterpreted the passage; there is no indication of the age of the tribune, and the corruption of Zalaces took place in Rome, not Armenia; the sense is, ‘It is we who are now exporting our vices to the barbarians’. I am indebted to Mr A. D. Pryor for discussion of this and some other points.

46 E.g. Beaujeu, J., ‘Le mare rubrum de Tacite …’, REL 38 (1960), 200.Google Scholar But Highet, G., ‘Juvenal’s Book-case’, AJP 72 (1951), 373,Google Scholar inclines to think that parody or ridicule of Tacitus appears in Juvenal; e.g. ‘Certainly the passage (ii 99–100, Otho) is a sneer at Tacitus.’ Why?

47 Without going to such lengths as Bardon, H., Les empereurs et les lettres latines (Paris, 1940),Google Scholar and asserting that Hadrian killed off Latin literature, we may agree that Hadrian’s preference for things Greek might well have seemed discouraging to Juvenal. It was a fact, however, Hadrian or no Hadrian, that Roman literature was in danger of even more complete atrophy than it suffered, had not a new direction been sought and found after a century and a half of imitation of Cicero and Virgil. Such a new direction can be seen before long in Apuleius, and another in some of the Christian writers. According to Berge, , Essai sur le regne de Trajan (1877), p. 228,Google Scholar already under Trajan to write in Latin was to use a dead language! More moderately, Levi, M.A., ‘Aspetti sociale della poesia di Giovenale’, Studi G. Funaioli (Rome, 1955), p. 175,Google Scholar finds that Flavian policies had placed Latin-speaking intellectuals at a disadvantage since the time of Vespasian—but this is perhaps not in line with recent work on the Flavian Senate.

48 i 107.3 ‘Otia da nobis sed qualia fecerat olim/Maecenas Flacco Vergilioque suo/ … In steriles nolunt campos iuga ferre iuvenci.’ (Cf. Juv. vii 48–9 ‘tenuique in pulvere sulcos/ducimus et litus sterili versamus aratro’!) viii 56.5 ‘Sint Maecenates non deerunt, Flacce, Marones/Vergiliumque tibi vel tua rura dabunt.’ xi 3.5 ‘Dicitur et nostros cantare Britannia versus./Quid prodest? Nescit saeculus ista meus.’ (Hardly consistent with the two just quoted but returning to the same notion a few lines later) ‘… cum pia reddiderint Augustum numina terris/et Maecenatem si tibi Roma darent.’ (Where Augustus is of course Augustus and not, as Friedländer thought, Nerval) Compare also iii 38, the warning to Sextus to expect no living from eloquence or poetry: 11 ‘ “Atria magna colam.” Vix tres aut quattuor ista/res aluit’. Also v 19 where Caesar is great, his (Domitian’s) reign the best era in Roman history, but there is just one difficulty, that wealthy people are not kind to poor poets—hence a hint to Caesar to set them an example.

49 M. A. Levi, op cit., p. 170; the attack in Sat. iv is against ‘the corrupt and vile senators of Juvenal’s own time’, in Sat. vi against rich women, in Sat. viii the aristocracy of birth, and so on. Levi finds dissatisfaction as Juvenal’s basic motive, and this is as plausible as any other put forward. See also Michel, art. cit., n. 45 above.

50 Helmbold, and O’Neil, , ‘The form and purpose of Juvenal’s Seventh Satire’, CP 54 (1959), 106.Google Scholar An opposite view is taken by Baldwin, B., ‘Cover-names and dead victims in Juvenal’, Athenaeum 45 (1967), 304.Google Scholar

51 Highet, G., ‘Juvenal’s Book-case’, AJP 72 (1951), 364.Google Scholar Cf. also Juvenal the Satirist (Oxford, 1954), pp. 20, 40, 49 et al.

52 See n. 50 and cf. Levi, n. 49 above.

53 Anderson, W.S., CJ 1 (1955), 255–7.Google Scholar

54 Michel, A., REL 41 (1963), 315–27;Google ScholarSyme, R., Tacitus, Vol. 2 (Oxford, 1958), pp. 499–500 and App. 75.Google Scholar

55 Cf. Syme, op. cit., Vol. i, p. 89.

56 No description of Domitian’s end is provided—it would have been to venture too close to dangerous realities, and so the murder is only hinted at in a manner that distorts the truth, above p. 70.