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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    Briefly, his house, his furniture, his food, Were uniformly plain, and simply good. Then the rough soldier, yet untaught by Greece To hang enraptur’d o’er a finish’d piece. If haply, midst the congregated spoils, Proofs of his power, and guerdons of his toils, Some antique cup of master-hands were found, Would dash the glittering bauble on the ground; That in new forms the molten fragments drest, Might blaze illustrious on his courser’s chest. Or, beaming from his awful helmet, show The rise of Rome to the devoted foe; The mighty Father, with his shield and spear. Hovering, enamour’d, o’er the sleeping fair, Ver. 163. The mighty father, ^c.] I have followed Mr. Addison’s inter- pretation of this passage. “ The Roman soldiers,” he says, “ used to bear on their helmets the first history of Romulus, who was begot by the God of War, and suckled by a wolf. The figure of the god was made as if descending on the priestess Ilia. The occasion required his body should be naked; the sculptor, however, to distinguish him from the rest of the gods, gave him what the medallists call, his proper attributes, a spear in one hand, and a shield in the other. As he was represented descending,, his figure appeared suspended in the air over the vestal virgin.” Travels, p. 184. This he illustrates by an engraving of a coin struck in the reign of Antoninus Pius. I am no medallist, and can therefore say nothing as to the genuineness of the coin: it certainly gives a very, good explanation of the passage; indeed, it appears to be a mere copy of it. After all, I will not affirm it to be the true one, as it does not correspond with the more ancient ideas on the subject. Ovid says> Mars was unarmed when he saw the priestess, and so does Tibullus.