JUVENAL, SATIRE V
at Circeii, or on the Lucrine rocks, or on the beds of Rutupiae;[1] one glance would tell him the native shore of a sea-urchin.
144The Council rises, and the councillors are dismissed; men whom the mighty Emperor had dragged in terror and hot haste to his Alban castle, as though to give them news of the Chatti, or the savage Sycambri,[2] or as though an alarming despatch had arrived on wings of speed from some remote quarter of the earth.
150And yet would that he had rather given to follies such as these all those days of cruelty when he robbed the city of its noblest and choicest souls, with none to punish or avenge! He could steep himself in the blood of the Lamiae;[3] but when he became a terror to the common herd he met his doom.[4]
SATIRE V
How Clients are Entertained
If you are still unashamed of your plan of life, and still deem it to be the highest bliss to live at another man's board— if you can brook indignities which neither Sarmentus nor the despicable Gabba[5] would have endured at Caesar's ill-assorted table—I should refuse to believe your testimony, even upon oath. I know of nothing so easily satisfied as the belly; but even granted that you have nothing wherewith to
- ↑ Richborough.
- ↑ The Chatti and the Sycambri were two of the most powerful German tribes, between the Rhine and the Weser.
- ↑ Taken as a type of the ancient noble families of Rome.
- ↑ Domitian was murdered, as the outcome of a conspiracy by the hand of a freedman, Stephanus, on September 18 A.D. 96.
- ↑ Sarmentus and Gabba are representatives of the lowest parasite class.
