The Satires of Horace and Persius Read online

  (10) The last battle:

  The Roman people has often been beaten by force and defeated in many battles – but never in a war; that’s what matters. (W. 708–9)

  (11) Government officials:

  Publius Pavus Tuditanus was my chief finance officer in the land of Spain – a shifty shady character, one of those types, without a doubt. (W. 499–500)

  It wouldn’t be so bad if I hadn’t the Governor on my back needling me. As I say, he’s the one who’s tearing my guts out. (W. 501–2)

  (12) A charmer:

  Of that crowd Lucius Trebellius ranks easily first; he causes fever, gloom, retching, and pus. (W. 531–2)

  (13) As others see us:

  We’ve heard that some friends have been invited today including that horror Lucilius. (W. 929–30)

  (14) Contentment:

  But to become an Asian tax-farmer, a revenue-official, instead of Lucilius – I don’t want that; and I’m not changing this one thing for all the world. (W. 650–51)

  The last two quotations illustrate the frank, informal way in which Lucilius wrote of himself. As Horace said:

  In the past he would confide his secrets to his books, which he trusted like friends; and whether things went well or badly he’d always turn to them: in consequence, the whole of the old man’s life is laid before us, as if it were painted on a votive tablet.

  (ll. 1. 30–33)

  Lucilian satire was also personal in another sense: it attacked prominent contemporaries by name. See, for example, nos. 11–12 above. We are not in a position to assess how responsibly Lucilius used this weapon. Naturally he argued that his victims deserved such treatment and that he himself was the watchdog of society. But in any case he got away with it, partly because he was living in a free republic, partly because he belonged to the upper classes, but mainly because he enjoyed the friendship and protection of the powerful Scipio family. As a result, Lucilian satire, which contained several dramatic sketches, was the nearest equivalent the Romans knew to the comedy of Aristophanes.

  The pugnacious element in Lucilius was always apparent. But whereas in the first century BC he is mentioned for other qualities too – Varro speaks of his ‘slim’ style, Cicero of his learning and charm, Horace of his wit and his easy informal manner – later writers refer only to his castigation of vice. No doubt such forthrightness seemed remarkable to Persius who was living under Nero, and to Juvenal who had experienced the tyranny of Domitian. These later satirists could not emulate the pioneer’s frankness. Even Horace, who was writing in the last decade of the republic, had to tread very warily. Nevertheless, they all recognized that Lucilius had made criticism, in some form or other, an essential feature of the genre.

  Finally it is worth pointing out that although Lucilius was at home in Greek literature and personally acquainted with the foremost Greek thinkers of his day, he was unmistakably a Roman poet. His writings had a Roman setting, portrayed Roman conditions and personalities, and (as we see in nos. 9–10 above) presented a hard-headed Roman outlook on life. They brought something fresh and vigorous into the European tradition, and their disappearance is one of the tragedies of literary history.

  At this point, before proceeding to the section on Horace, the reader may well prefer to read the translation.

  HORACE

  If originality is thought of as the invention of new genres, then Lucilius had no rival in Latin literature – Petronius is no exception. But most ancient writers, Greek and Roman, showed their originality by producing innovations within some traditional form with a fixed metre and a certain range of mood and subject. These limits were no disadvantage. To imagine that a poet felt cramped and confined by his chosen metre is like suggesting that a squash-player feels restricted by the walls of his court. Mood and subject were more vaguely defined. There were certain general expectations, but poets were allowed a good deal of flexibility in their treatment. Virgil transformed pastoral by expansion. That is, he incorporated in his Eclogues some elements which were Theocritean but non-bucolic (e.g., the spells of Simaetha in Idyll 2) and other elements which weren’t Theocritean at all (e.g., the plight of an evicted peasant). Horace worked in the opposite direction, transforming Lucilian satire by reduction and refinement.

  He concentrated on a few central themes – mainly the perennial enslavement of men to money, power, superstition, and sex. At the same time he drew on a much smaller fund of vocabulary and idiom, eliminating Greek, which Lucilius had employed for technical precision, stylishness or parody, and greatly restricting the use of vulgarisms, archaisms, dialect words, and comic coinages. If we possessed the whole of Lucilius, no doubt we could see that from time to time this greater refinement was purchased at the cost of some vigour and spontaneity. But this was not always the case. The history of architecture frequently shows how a superior technique of construction allows a greater economy of material and a greater degree of lightness and elegance without any loss of strength.

  Lucilius was often clumsy and repetitious, Horace almost never. As a brief illustration, compare these two passages, which refer to the fable of the fox and the sick lion. (The fox is addressing the lion who is crouching in a cave.)

  What does it mean and how does it come about that the tracks face inwards and towards you and all point forwards?

  (W. 1119–20)

  Because those footprints scare me; all of them lead in your direction, none of them back.

  (Horace, Epistles I. 1.74–5)

  Horace’s neatness is also partly a result of his metrical dexterity. Lucilius permitted himself a large number of elisions in any given passage – so large that, according to Horace, it looked as if his only concern was to force something into six feet (I. 10. 59–60). Horace’s own rate of elision is less than half as high. On the other hand Horace is more free in his use of enjambment. That is, he lets the sense flow on from one line to the next, often making his pauses within the verse. This contributes to the easy conversational effect implied in the Latin sermo (causerie), a name which Horace used for both his Satires and Epistles. Neatness, rapidity, elegance, and ease – these are among the classical qualities of style affirmed by Horace in Satires I. 10, and particularly in vv. 7–15:

  So it’s not enough to make your listener bare his teeth

  in a grin – though I grant there’s some virtue even in that.

  You need terseness, to let the thought run freely on

  without becoming entangled in a mass of words that will hang

  heavy on the ear. You need a style which is sometimes severe,

  sometimes gay, now suiting the role of an orator or poet

  now that of a clever talker who keeps his strength in reserve

  and carefully rations it out. Humour is often stronger

  and more effective than sharpness in cutting knotty issues.

  That quotation raises the question of wit and humour. Here too Horace operated within narrower limits, partly because of his temperament and partly because he had a stricter conception of the decorum demanded by the genre. In his view both the artistic and moral effects of satire were weakened if there was too large a proportion of buffoonery, coarseness, and abuse.

  The names in Horatian satire fall into several categories. Some belong to living people, some to the dead, some to people who, though dead, have survived as types (like our Crippen or Hitler), and some to people who were formerly attacked by Lucilius. Others are ‘significant’ names (like Porcius the glutton), others are drawn from mythology, and one or two seem to be metrical substitutions (viz. Pitholeon for Pitholaus, Heliodorus for Apollodorus). So it is plain that Horace was not primarily concerned to attack contemporary individuals. Those whom he did attack were seldom people of any importance in society.

  This marks a notable departure from Lucilius, and the explanation must lie to a large extent in Horace’s background and career. He had no advantages of birth, being the son of an emancipated slave from Venusia, a remote country town in southern Italy
(see map on p. 21). Nothing is known of his mother, but his father was clearly an astute and enterprising man. He had made a fair amount of money as an auctioneer’s agent, and so when he recognized his son’s talent he was able to have him educated in Rome. A brief but memorable account of this period is given in Satires I. 6. 71–88. After that, Horace continued his studies at Athens, where he must have known a number of well-to-do young Romans like Valerius Messalla and Cicero’s son Marcus.

  In September 44 BC, six months after the assassination of Caesar, Brutus arrived at Athens to recruit officers for his army. Horace, who was now twenty-one years old, signed up and two years later at Philippi he was in command of a legion. After that defeat, which was a disaster for the republican cause, Horace was pardoned by the Triumvirs (Antony, Octavian, and Lepidus) and allowed to return to Italy. His father was now dead, and the farm which he would have inherited had been confiscated. Through his contacts he succeeded in finding a job in the treasury which gave him enough money to live on and enough leisure to do some writing. But when, on the recommendation of Virgil and Varius, Maecenas offered him patronage he was quick to accept it. That was in 37 BC. Two years later he published his first collection of satires.

  Horace’s admission to the circle of Maecenas was a sign of his growing reputation. Yet his position was rather delicate. As a dependant, without private means or family connections, who had fought on the wrong side in a civil war, he could not afford to antagonize Octavian (the future Augustus) or any of his supporters. And no doubt this in part explains the comparatively innocuous nature of his satire. Yet one must also add (for it is usually forgotten) that in the years preceding Actium – say from 35 to 31 BC – Horace had ample opportunity to attack Octavian’s enemies, especially Mark Antony. The air was thick with propaganda and personal abuse. Yet he never joined in. In fact the more security he acquired the milder his work became, until in the end he abandoned satire altogether.

  Since, in a famous essay on satire, Horace has been called ‘a temporizing poet, a well-mannered court slave… who is ever decent because he is naturally servile’,4 it is also worth pointing out that in the ten years after Philippi Horace never wrote a word in praise of Octavian, even though he had fought on his side against Pompey’s son, Sextus, in 36 BC. It is only in the latest satires and epodes, which were written in the year after Actium, that he mentions the future emperor specifically. And even then the tone is hardly deferential (see Satires II. 1. 18–20, 5. 62–3, 6. 52–6).

  This political disenchantment was not offset by any religious faith. In Horace’s view the gods did not direct human affairs or offer hope of personal survival. Had he been a mystic he might still have contemplated them as patterns of perfection, but in fact his interests were focused entirely on man. Politics, then, were nonsense and religion didn’t count. There remained only the world of personal relations. Even here Horace was a realist. He didn’t expect too much of himself or anyone else. Yet he did believe that men could spare themselves a great deal of misery by acceptance, restraint, good humour, and tolerance, and that these virtues might be promoted by taking thought. Hence, whereas Juvenal works on the emotions by presenting a series of vivid pictures, Horace operates on the intellect by various rational procedures.

  First, although there are minor differences, each poem has usually one main section devoted to a single vice, e.g. greed (I. 1), adultery (I. 2), unfairness (I. 3), ambition (I. 6), gluttony (II. 2). Even when several vices are presented, as in II. 3 and II. 7, they are treated in an orderly way and are grouped under some general heading such as madness or servitude.

  Second, if we leave aside the entertainment pieces (nos, 5, 7, 8, and 9 of Book I), we find that the satirical attack is conducted in the form of an argument or debate. Take, for example, the following passage:

  You like to be well thought of; no songs are sweeter to the ear

  than songs of praise. But the bigger the turbot and dish the bigger

  the scandal, not to mention the waste of money. Also your uncle

  and the neighbours will be furious; you’ll lose your self-respect and resolve

  on suicide – except you’ll be so broke that you won’t have a penny

  for a rope.

  ‘You can talk like that to Trausius,’ he says, ‘for he

  deserves it. But I have a large income and a bigger fortune

  than three kings put together.’

  ‘Well then, can’t you think of a better way

  to get rid of your surplus? Why should any decent man

  be in need when you are rich? Why are the ancient temples

  of the gods falling down? Why, if you’ve any conscience,

  don’t you give something from that pile you’ve made to the land of your birth?

  (II. 2. 94–105)

  Notice the structural function of ‘but’, ‘not to mention’, ‘also’; and the objection from the accused, answered by ‘well then’ (ergo), ‘why’, ‘why’. The poem, in fact, has a dialectical framework, even though the progress from one phase of the argument to the next is often concealed by some clever transitional device which gives the appearance of casual improvisation.

  Third, the satirist rarely adopts a truculent, insulting manner. He doesn’t try to establish too much; he hears objections; makes concessions. And so at the end of the poem the reader feels not only that he has been listening to a reasonable man, but also that the ethical point at issue has been made progressively clearer and more precise. The same is true of the literary satires. A good example is the tenth satire of Book I which opens like this:

  True, I did say that Lucilius’ verses lurched

  awkwardly along. Which of his admirers is so perverse

  as not to admit it? But he is also praised on the same page

  for scouring the city with caustic wit. While granting him this,

  however, I cannot allow the rest as well, for then

  I should have to admire the mimes of Laberius for their poetic beauty.

  The poem then goes on to explore Horace’s attitude to Lucilius, elucidating his mixed feelings of respect and dissatisfaction.

  The moral ideas propounded are straightforward and intelligible, drawn in the main from that large central area where the different schools overlapped. Thus whether the reader was Stoic, Academic, or Epicurean he would readily accept the contention that happiness was not ensured by wealth, and that it was always endangered by avarice, gluttony, adulterous intrigues, and the struggle for power. Only features that fell outside this central area came in for ridicule – for example the dirtiness and boorish manners of the Cynics, the Stoic contention that all sins were equally serious, and the obsession with gastronomy which was popularly ascribed to the Epicureans. Horatian satire may therefore be called conservative in that it mocked deviations from commonly accepted norms. The ethical content was in no way original, and Horace never imagined it was. His purpose was rather to use these traditional ideas as standards for judging the faults of his own time. As a result, although the presentation of the argument is often subtle and sophisticated, in the end we can be pretty sure where Horace stands.

  In that last assertion some critics would want to substitute ‘the satirist’ for ‘Horace’, maintaining that the opinions of the historical Horace are undiscoverable and in any case irrelevant. This theory, which abandons the poet’s mind or personality as an object of critical discussion and concentrates instead on his masks or personae, is part of a reaction which has taken place in the last twenty-five years against the excesses of biographical scholarship. The reaction has been largely beneficial in that readers born before 1940 are now unlikely to forget that the poem itself should occupy the centre of the critic’s attention. But like all reactions it has been too sweeping. Some poets are indeed anonymous or inscrutable; but not all. Others, like Horace, not only invite our acquaintance but provide historically verifiable information about themselves. Therefore, although it is too large a question to discuss here, I wou
ld contend that while Horace undoubtedly employs different personae, such as Ofellus, Damasippus, Fundanius, and others, these do not prevent us from making some valid inferences about his own views and attitudes.

  Horace, then, offered a critique of vice and folly, and he certainly did not share the view, which is widely held today, that a man’s behaviour is totally unaffected by what he reads. Nevertheless it would be wrong to regard him as a reforming satirist, if by this one means a writer who sets out to influence society at large. For although he aimed to stimulate people’s moral awareness, he had no missionary zeal, and he never sought a wide audience. Moreover, the purpose of his work was not solely – perhaps not even primarily – didactic. He wrote to give pleasure, to entertain people with his deft presentation of ideas, his amusing anecdotes, and his skilful adjustment of the hexameter to the rhythms of educated conversation. In the Ars Poetica (343) he was to say

  omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci.

  Over the centuries the Satires have won many votes for that same combination of utility and delight.

  Yet the Satires, along with the Epodes, form only the initial phase of Horace’s poetic development. After 30 BC he turned to themes of love, death, and patriotism which had already figured in the Epodes but were quite beyond the limits of satire. This period culminated in the publication of three books of Odes (23 BC), a work which established Horace as Rome’s first lyric poet. He then reverted to the hexameter, not for satire but for verse epistles. Here again Lucilius had paved the way. We have a fragment of an epistle complaining to a friend who had failed to visit him when sick (W. 186–93); and it also looks as if Lucilius had given some thought to the general question of an epistle’s literary status (W. 401–10). But the idea of composing a whole book of verse epistles was something quite novel. The flavour of the pieces was also distinctively Horatian. They were addressed to Horace’s circle of acquaintances; they provided a good deal of information about the poet’s opinions and way of life; and their reflections on friendship, contentment, and civilized behaviour were conveyed in a characteristically Horatian manner.