Latin Verse Satire

433 Pages·2005·1.623 MB·English

by  Miller, Roger LeRoy

LATIN VERSE SATIRE
Latin Verse Satire presents a comprehensive variety of texts by the classical
Latin satirists and its structure provides students with a rich commentary and
a selection of secondary literature. The book will have a broad appeal due to
the careful choice of texts and features selections from Ennius, Lucilius,
Horace, Persius and Juvenal. The focus on the relation of satire to political
and social history makes this book ideal not only for courses on satire but also
for those on Roman daily life and gender.
The selection allows students to trace a coherent narrative of the genre’s his-
tory and to understand its relation to the political and social changes that
marked the transition from the Roman republic to the empire. The texts
stretch from the genre’s earliest manifestations to its final classical flowering
in Juvenal. They are accompanied by a detailed introduction that traces the
lives and works of the major poets, the evolution of the form, and its relation
to Rome’s political environment and social mores. The book includes works
by Lucilius and Ennius, crucial figures in Roman satire, whose work has never
before appeared in a text with appropriate aids and annotations for student
translation. Particular attention is paid to the relation between satire and the
significant Roman value of libertas.
Accessible commentary accompanies the text and focuses on the linguistic
difficulties and problems of usage, then relates the individual selection to the
author’s work as a whole and its historical context, and finally concerns itself
with those aspects of metre and style necessary for an appreciation of the
poetry. The volume closes with a selection of essays and critical excerpts that
both elucidate the genre’s most salient features and help understand the his-
tory of its modern scholarly reception.
Paul Allen Miller is Professor of Classics and Comparative Literature at the
University of South Carolina. He is author of Lyric Texts and Lyric Consciousness
(Routledge 1994) and edited Latin Erotic Elegy (Routledge 2002). He is the
editor of Transactions of the American Philological Association.

LATIN VERSE SATIRE
An anthology and critical reader
Edited, with an introduction and
commentary, by Paul Allen Miller
To Mom and Dad, with many thanks,
Love,
Allen
First published 2005 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2009.
To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.
© 2005 Paul Allen Miller; individual extracts, the contributors
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Latin verse satire: an anthology and critical reader / [edited by] Paul Allen Miller.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Verse satire, Latin. 2. Verse satire, Latin—History and criticism. I. Miller, Paul Allen,
1959–
PA6134.L38 2005
871'.070801—dc22
2004021780
ISBN 0-203-02283-1 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0–415–31715–0 (hardback)
ISBN 0–415–31716–9 (paperback)
CONTENTS
Preface and acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
TEXTS 35
Ennius 37
Lucilius 38
Horace 41
Persius 65
Juvenal 73
COMMENTARY 107
Ennius 109
Lucilius 111
Horace 118
Persius 196
Juvenal 232
CRITICAL ANTHOLOGY 325
The Roman Genre of Satire and Its Beginnings 327
MICHAEL COFFEY
Roman Satirists and Literary Criticism 363
W. S. ANDERSON
v
CONTENTS
The Programmatic Satire and the Method of Persius 1 369
JOHN BRAMBLE
Invective Against Women in Roman Satire 377
AMY RICHLIN
The Masks of Satire 390
SUSANNA MORTON BRAUND
The Bodily Grotesque in Roman Satire: Images of Sterility 398
PAUL ALLEN MILLER
Index 420
vi
PREFACE AND
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This text is designed in the first place for students and teachers of advanced
undergraduate and MA level classes, but scholars should find it of use as well.
The introduction provides a general overview of the genre of Latin verse satire
in its historical and literary context. The commentary is designed to aid stu-
dents in understanding both the language and the poetry, but also contains
original observations on the text and its interpretation. Discussion of textual
matters and of sources has been limited to those cases where it is necessary
forlinguistic or artistic intelligibility. The critical anthology at the conclusion
of the volume is designed to allow the student both a greater comprehension
of the poems themselves and of the history of the debates surrounding them.
The essays chosen, while they are all important, have been selected on the basis
of their representing certain trends in scholarship on satire rather than on
any claim that they are intrinsically better than others that might have been
chosen. The emphasis has been on essays that deal with the genre as a whole.
Unfortunately, this means that many fine pieces of scholarship have been left
out.
Citations have been kept to the bare minimum to aid in accessibility. Those
wishing to do further reading should refer to the select bibliography. The texts
for the poems are based on OCT editions, except for Ennius where I have used
Courtney (1993) and Lucilius where I have used Krenkel (1970). Changes from
these texts are acknowledged in the notes.
This book’s completion and composition has been greatly aided by the help
of my friends, colleagues and students. My friends and colleagues, David
H.J.Larmour and Mark Beck, each read and provided invaluable commentary
on the introduction, as did my assistant Brittany Powell. My students Priscilla
Larkin, Jessica Harvey, and Betsy Williams used an early version of the text in
class and were both good humored with its many failings and extraordinarily
helpful in pointing them out. My dissertation student and assistant Christel
Johnson lent invaluable aid in the initial preparation of the Latin text. To
eachofyou, I owe a special debt of thanks. I also most gratefully acknowledge
vii
PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
the Classics Departments at the University of Kansas, Syracuse University,
and Hamilton College for allowing me to present the results of my ongoing
research to them.
I am also very grateful to Richard Stoneman, my stalwart editor at Routledge
who has seen me through three projects and counting. I owe special thanks to
my teacher, Barbara Gold, who first taught me Latin satire and directed my MA
thesis on Juvenal almost twenty years ago. A debt of gratitude is also owed to
my parents, Joe and Mary Miller, who have offered me unwavering support in
all my endeavors, to Ann who loves me even when I act like a dork, and to Sam,
who is my shining light.
William S.Anderson, “Roman Satirists and Literary Criticism,” from Essays
on Roman Satire © 1982 Princeton University Press, reprinted by permission
of Princeton University Press. J. C. Bramble, “The Programmatic Satire and
the Method of Persius 1,” from Persius and the Programmatic Satire: A Study in
Form and Imagery© 1974 Cambridge University Press, reprinted by permission
of Cambridge University Press. Amy Richlin, “Invective Against Women in
Roman Satire,” Arethusa17:1 (1984), 67–80 © The Johns Hopkins University
Press, reprinted with permission of the Johns Hopkins University Press. Paul
Allen Miller, “The Bodily Grotesque in Roman Satire: Images of Sterility,”
Arethusa 31:3 (1998), 257–83 © The Johns Hopkins University Press,
reprinted with permission of the Johns Hopkins University Press. Susanna
Morton Braund, “The Masks of Satire,” from The Roman Satirists and Their
Masks © 1996 S. Braund, reprinted with permission of S. Braund. Michael
Coffey, “The Roman Genre of Satire and Its Beginning,” from Roman Satire
©1976, reprinted by permission of Gerald Duckworth and Co. Ltd.
Paul Allen Miller
May 19, 2004
Columbia, SC
viii
INTRODUCTION
1. Satire is the quintessential Roman genre. Quintilian says famously, Satura
quidem tota nostra est [“Satire indeed is wholly ours”] (Institutiones Oratoris
10.1.93). This has generally been interpreted to mean that Latin verse satire is
without precedent in Greek literature and can therefore be seen as an exclu-
sively Roman invention. Whereas epic, tragedy, comedy, bucolic, lyric, and
epigram all have clear Greek models, and their Roman imitators prided
themselves on being able to reproduce these forms in the Latin tongue and
adapt them to Roman culture, satire, Quintilian argues, is different. He is not
alone. Not one of the canonical satirists disagrees. Horace says he is following
in the path of Lucilius, and names this work sermo and satura (1.4, 1.10, and
2.1); Persius cites the precedents of Lucilius and Horace (1); and Juvenal
acknowledges Lucilius and Horace while also quoting Persius (1). None of
them claims a specific Greek antecedent as founder of the genre and, indeed,
one looks in vain for a Greek genre entitled satire.
2. Nonetheless,Quintilian’s claim that satire is wholly Roman has a greater
significance than the common interpretation admits. What is at stake in this
statement may well be more than literary originality, as becomes evident when
examining Quintilian’s treatment of another genre: erotic elegy, a genre that
shares important traits with satire—a first-person speaker, an urban setting,
and an often biting and ironic intent. It too has no clear Greek progenitor. It is
a commonplace of elegiac criticism that while the elegiac couplet was widely
used in Greece and while Callimachus provided a model of the diction, themes,
and mythological exempla that characterize Roman elegy, the peculiarly sub-
jective genre that constitutes the Roman form is unique in ancient literature
(Miller 2004). Nonetheless, Quintilian makes no analogous claim of exclusivity
for the Roman elegists. Nor are the elegists themselves shy about claiming the
authority of Callimachus and Mimnermus to authorize their own practices.
3. Clearly, there seems to be more to Quintilian’s claim of satire being
uniquely Roman than the lack of an unambiguous Greek precedent for the
genre. When this great second century CEscholar and rhetorician says “satire
1