The satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis / translated into English verse by William Gifford.

  • Juvenal
Date:
1802
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis / translated into English verse by William Gifford. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    What rare employments waste the clients’ day! First to the great man’s door they speed their way; Thence to the forum, to support his cause, Last to Apollo, learned in the laws, And the triumphal statues; where some Jew, Some mongrel Arab, some —■ I know not who,— Ver. 209. fFAai rare employments waste the clients' day, (Sfc.] The day is distinguished by nearly the same employments in Martial : Prima salutantes atque altera continet hora, “ Exercet raucos tertia causidicos, “ In quintain varies extendit Roma labores, “ Sexta quies lassis, septima finis erit.” Ver. 211. Thence to the forum, ^c.] Here, ^. e. in the forum xaT (for there were several others scattered about the city,) the public business was chiefly carried on. Apollo, who is mentioned in the next line, stood in the forum of Augustus, and acquired the legal knowledge, for which he is so handsomely complimented, from the lawyers, who frequented the courts of justice established there. The “ triumphal statues” stood also in this forum; they were those of the most eminent persons who had appeared in the state from the earliest ages. Ver. 213. where some Jew, ^c.] The indignation of the poet has involved him in obscurity. It is not easy to say who is meant here; and the commentators have taken advantage of the uncertainty to display a world of curious research. Holyday, who recapitulates their conjectures, concludes, with every appearance of reason, that it was one Tiberius Alexander, a renegado Jew, who embraced the religion of Rome, and was made prsefect of Egypt. He was the first to declare for Vespasian, (Tacit. Hist, xi, 79,) to whose party he brought a vast accession of strength, and was therefore, pro- bably, honoured with a statue. Alexander’s partiality to this prince, however, did him no great credit with our author; whose hatred of Domitian was such, that he seems to have looked with abhorrence— “ on all unfortunate souls That traced him in his line.” E