SOURCE: Coffey, Michael. “Persius.” In Roman Satire, pp. 98-118. London: Methuen and Co, 1976.

[In the following essay, Coffey argues that Persius did not include many autobiographical elements in his satires and that he had no interest in criticizing his contemporaries by name for their shortcomings.]

Horace the satirist had no known successor until the time of Nero, the better part of a century later.¹ The consolidation of imperial dictatorship by Augustus and his successors ended political liberty and also freedom of speech. Augustus ignored lampoons against himself but had vituperative attacks on other contemporaries burned in public.² Cassius Severus, a scabrous pamphleteer, was sent into exile.³ In the reign of Tiberius the aged and venerable Cremutius Cordus, a man of blameless life, who in his histories described the horrors of the proscriptions, was accused at the instigation of Sejanus, the emperor's ambitious favourite. Cremutius' speech in his own defence vindicated the traditional right to assess the dead without censorship; but in order to forestall condemnation he committed suicide and his books were burned.⁴ According to Tacitus, Tiberius at about the same time (a.d. 24) spared a Roman knight who had composed scurrilous verses against him (Ann. 4,31); on the other hand after the downfall of Sejanus a lampooner was executed in a.d. 36 (Ann. 6,39). The historian who passed judgement on the recent dead and the verse writer who mocked the reigning monarch endangered themselves at a time of civil tension.

Men were also imperilled by what was construed by enemies as innuendo against the great. A reference to Tiberius was detected in a tragedy on the theme of Atreus by a Roman aristocrat, Aemilius Scaurus,⁵ and the Greek-born freedman Phaedrus was prosecuted for alleged allusions to Sejanus in some of his fables.⁶ Though the fables of the low-born Phaedrus do not seem to have been widely read his experience as a writer who claimed to castigate vice without referring to individuals will have been of significance for any intending satirist.⁷

In addition to the repression of liberty by the imperial system further reasons may be suggested for a lack of satire. There was probably a shortage of talent for any literary activity. The long period of murder and proscription had deprived Rome of a substantial part of its educated men, and the political and social upheavals may have caused a failure of nerve in the remainder.⁸ It will not have been overlooked that Horace the satirist enjoyed the friendship and protection of the masters of the Roman world; furthermore his many-sided achievement must have seemed to offer an almost unattainable standard of excellence.

1. THE LIFE OF PERSIUS

Aules Persius Flaccus was born on 4 December a.d. 34 at Volaterrae (modern Volterra), an attractive Etruscan hill town some fifteen miles from the Tyrrhenian coast.⁹ In an apparently autobiographical context he mentions pride in Etruscan birth; he also shows affection for the Riviera di Levante.¹⁰ He was a well-to-do equestrian with aristocratic connections, but had neither public career nor administrative experience. His personal life was blameless and ascetic, and he was devoted to his mother, sister (or sisters) and aunt; his father died when he was about six. Persius himself died of a stomach disease at the age of twenty-seven on 24 November a.d. 62.¹¹

After his early years of education at Volaterrae Persius studied in Rome with the grammarian Remmius Palaemon, the author of an influential systematic Latin grammar and probably a teacher of Quintilian. Remmius Palaemon was a man of peerless arrogance, a notorious womanizer and ostentatious spendthrift, who also composed poetry in a variety of metres.¹² Persius' other literary teacher was the rhetorician Verginius Flavus, a famous instructor and rhetorical theorist, who was to be exiled along with the philosopher Musonius Rufus three years after the death of Persius. After the detection of the Pisonian conspiracy against Nero Verginius Flavus was according to Tacitus harmed by his illustrious teaching of eloquence to the young.¹³ Of great importance to Persius was his continuous friendship from the age of sixteen with the freedman scholar and Stoic Annaeus Cornutus. In Satire 5 he praises in a lavish, almost fulsome way the protreptic zeal of his moral preceptor. Cornutus was a versatile writer on philosophical and rhetorical topics.¹⁴ He too was to be condemned to exile, probably in a.d. 65. Forthright remarks to the dilettante Nero on the merits of his poetry were said to have been the occasion, but at the time any philosophical teacher was open to attack.¹⁵

Persius' friends included the lyric poet and metrician Caesius Bassus, the addressee of Satire 6, and Servilius Nonianus, consul in a.d. 35, a historian of merit and a man of civilized refinement whom Persius is said to have regarded as a father.¹⁶ The story that Lucan declared with enthusiasm that Persius wrote true poetry while he himself was a trifler is perhaps no more than a happy invention, and may in any case belong to a time before the composition of the first book of Lucan's de Bello Civili.¹⁷ Persius' lack of enthusiasm for Seneca, the dominant literary figure of the age, indicates critical independence.¹⁸ He had a particular admiration for two older men who were also disciples of Cornutus, but of wider import was a deep friendship of ten years with Thrasea Paetus, whom he accompanied on journeys. Thrasea, suffect consul in a.d. 56, an aristocrat of uncompromising moral integrity and biographer of the younger Cato, became the centre of republican sympathies and refusal to co-operate with Nero.¹⁹ By the time of Persius' death Thrasea was already a marked man: in a.d. 59 he walked out of the senate while the memory of Agrippina was being condemned and in a.d. 62 spoke against the death penalty for a praetor who had composed and recited defamatory verses against Nero. He was not concerned in Piso's conspiracy against Nero but in the following year was forced to commit suicide. He was accused of attracting disciples who, it was alleged, despised the licentiousness of the emperor.²⁰

The evidence suggests that Persius lacked personal independence. Unmarried and inexperienced he was no doubt much admired by his mother and sister and seems to have spent much of his life leaning on a succession of philosophical father-figures.²¹ His own direct experience of public affairs was negligible, but his friends included some of the most eminent men of the time, for whom political responsibility and action became a grievous ethical problem. The premature death of Persius was a tragic waste of talent, but he did not experience the grim events of the next four years, in which most of his friends and associates including Lucan perished. The other outstanding literary figures, Seneca and Petronius, were also destroyed. It is improbable that Persius, who was related to Thrasea's wife Arria, would have survived the purge.²²

After his formal education was concluded Persius, under the influence of the tenth book of Lucilius, turned with enthusiasm to the writing of satire; as a schoolboy he had written a fabula praetexta and other verses.²³ It is also stated that he composed infrequently and slowly (the judgement is true by the standard of the achievement of the prolific Lucan, whose life span was a little shorter), and that his single book of satires was left unfinished at his death and edited for publication by Cornutus and Caesius Bassus.²⁴

Only one possible reference to a historical event may give any hint of the date of composition or relative chronology of Persius' satires.²⁵ It is obviously futile to trace a spiritual or even stylistic evolution in the works of a youthful poet who left unrevised six satires, of which the total bulk is no more than some 650 lines. The published order of the poems is unlikely to be that of composition. The fourteen choliambs are obviously prefatory in intent and are rightly placed before the six satires. The transmitted order of the six satires, whether decided by Persius or his executors, was perhaps suggested by criteria of quality as well as of appropriateness. The subject matter of Satire 1, which includes the satirist's apologia in its criticism of literature, and its impressive quality make it an appropriate beginning for the book; its excellence suggests but does not prove late composition. The weak and relatively short Satire 2 and Satire 4 are surrounded by the longer and superior Satire 1, Satire 3 and Satire 5.²⁶Satire 6 has many characteristics of a Horatian epistle and is therefore fittingly placed after the collection of satires proper.

2. A PRELIMINARY CRITICAL PROBLEM

Persius' unusually concentrated manner of expression gives rise to a fundamental critical problem that deserves immediate mention. It is necessary to decide which words in a satire are to be assigned to the poet himself and which to an imaginary interlocutor, whose intervention is not usually accompanied by any words of introduction. The objector in Persius is not a firmly delineated person as in some of Horace's satires or in a Platonic dialogue; he is a rhetorical mouthpiece for a postulated line of objection or a passing thought. The quick exchange between speaker and imaginary objector is characteristic of the kind of philosophical discourse often referred to as diatribe; this method of exposition, which is best exemplified by Epictetus, a pupil of Musonius, will have been familiar to Persius from his teacher Cornutus.²⁷ Sudden and unprepared changes of speaker do not however seem to have troubled ancient readers, who encountered them particularly in comedy.²⁸

3. THE PROLOGUE AND THE SATIRES

In a prologue of fourteen lines Persius declares scornfully that he has had no access to a hallowed source of inspiration and divine guidance; he contrasts himself with poets of a higher style, particularly Ennius.²⁹ As one only half-initiated he brings his own verse to the traditions of Roman poetry (1-7).³⁰ As for men's real motives in writing poetry:

quis expedivit psittaco suum ‘chaere’
picamque docuit verba nostra conari?
magister artis ingenique largitor
venter, negatas artifex sequi voces

(8-11)

(Who helped the parrot to his own ‘hallo’ and taught the magpie to try human speech? It was the belly, master of art and bestower of talent, virtuoso for imitating unnatural ways of expression.)³¹

Hope of patronage and remuneration turns a strident and obsequious imitator into a poet (or poetess) of the grand manner (12-14).

The theme of the pretentious and contemptible verse-making of Persius' contemporaries in contrast to his own modest satire is a foretaste of a main theme of Satire 1;³² much of what is expressed with brevity and allusiveness in the prologue is expanded in the poem that follows. The prologue is written in choliambic, the limping iambic metre, a verse form associated with sneering and also with scrounging; it occurs nowhere else in verse satire.³³ The terse prologue in an unexpected metre makes an arresting introduction to the satires.

The theme of Satire 1 is the pretentious and disreputable literature of the day, which is contrasted with satire. The poem may properly be regarded as a dialogue and not a monologue with asides, for though the interlocutor is not a person like Horace's Teiresias who participates on equal terms, he is a constantly present entity.³⁴ After initial sparring between the two³⁵ the poet asserts that as Rome's standards are corrupt he must use his own criteria and so mock with impudent wit.³⁶ Poetry in the grand manner that is recited in a seductive crooning voice panders to a degenerate audience with low taste (13-43).³⁷ Although desire for popular esteem is a natural impulse the fashionable modern poetry is no more than an after-dinner entertainment (44-62).

The interlocutor as advocate of the modern style extols its virtuosity and suggests that a contemporary grand manner can even be used to denounce luxury including the banquets of the wealthy, a deft twist of Horatian irony (63-8).³⁸ Persius then points out that poets accustomed to writing light verse in Greek are nowadays encouraged to undertake heroic themes, though they are even unable to describe the countryside and the traditional festivals of Rome (69-75). Here the old and Roman contrasts with the modern and degenerate, which is derived from Greece. When the interlocutor asks in lines of mocking parody whether anyone pays any attention to the archaic language of Accius and Pacuvius (76-8),³⁹ Persius retorts that this attitude leads to a debasement of letters, so that a speech in a criminal case is aimed primarily at applause for the ingenuity of its style (79-91). Further examples are given in parody form of Silver Age extravagance, preciosity and slickness; on his side the interlocutor quotes the opening of the Aeneid as an example of the bloated and passé.⁴⁰ In several places Persius uses the language of sexual excess and perversion to describe the degeneracy of the modern style.⁴¹

At this point the theme changes: The interlocutor warns against the writing of satire and the satirist makes his defence:

‘sed quid opus teneras mordaci radere vero
auriculas? vide sis ne maiorum tibi forte
limina frigescant: sonat hic de nare canina
littera’. per me equidem sint omnia protinus alba;
nil moror. euge omnes, omnes bene, mirae eritis res.
hoc iuvat? ‘hic’, inquis, ‘veto quisquam faxit oletum’.
pinge duos anguis: ‘pueri, sacer est locus, extra
meiite’. discedo. secuit Lucilius urbem,
te Lupe, te Muci, et genuinum fregit in illis.

(1,107-15)

(‘But what is the point of lacerating sensitive ears with the biting truth? Please take care that the thresholds of the establishment don't grow cold for you, for there is the nasal snarl of the dog here.’⁴² As far as I am concerned then let everything from now on be whiteness itself; I don't care. Bravo! You all do marvellously; you will be fabulous. Is that all right? ‘On this spot’, you say, ‘I forbid anyone to commit a nuisance.’ Draw the emblem of the two snakes. ‘Boys, the place is taboo; have a piss outside.’⁴³ Off I go. But Lucilius slashed at Rome, at Lupus and Mucius and broke a molar on men like them.)

Persius quotes the precedent of Horace also, but promises to bury his own poems and share with his book his comic secret that everyone is a target for satire (116-23). His work, he claims, is for those who respect the tradition of Old Comedy⁴⁴ and not for the connoisseurs of cheap jokes. The point of the facetiousness of the last line is not certain; it is probably: ‘to philistines like that I offer a morning of legal business and a low pantomime show after lunch’.⁴⁵

The satire is well constructed. The traditional theme of the rejection of uncongenial genres and topics becomes a detailed denunciation of contemporary bad taste and the moral corruption that underlies it; this is followed by the satirist's defence of his chosen genre. The concluding part reveals the secret of the poet's laughter that was mentioned at the beginning, namely that everyone has the ears of an ass.⁴⁶

Satire 2, addressed to Macrinus,⁴⁷ is a slight homily on improper and futile prayers. Most men make honourable requests when praying aloud in a temple, but they dare not repeat the prayers which they whisper to the gods in secret. Such hypocrisy is an insult to Jupiter and the ritual that accompanies it is absurd and sometimes repulsive. The underlying cause is greed. It is because men prize silver and gold above all else that they have made effigies of the gods out of precious metals (52-60).⁴⁸ Mockery gives way to angry denunciation: through our sinful flesh (ex hac scelerata … pulpa, 63) we attribute our material values to the gods and indulge in violent and unnatural luxury. Persius concludes with earnest moral injunction: it is goodness and purity of soul, not expensive sacrifice, that we must offer to the gods.

Persius' second satire is often compared with Juvenal's tenth, an extended masterpiece on a similar topic,⁴⁹ but apart from the obvious difference in scale there is an important difference in angle of presentation. Juvenal shows the wretched consequences of the fulfilment of men's prayers, Persius the disposition of the person at the time of making the prayer and also the unseemly mechanism of sacrificial rites. His satire has signs of technical immaturity⁵⁰ and is marred by unevenness of tone, but it is not to be discounted. The succinct presentation of wicked prayers, the ironical contrast between the scrawny infant and the extravagant prayers made for him and the repellent descriptions of public sacrifice and private superstition are in the tradition of Lucilius and Horace but do not blend with the impassioned moral fervour of the concluding part.⁵¹

In Satire 3 the poet is found sleeping late in the morning. It is uncertain whether the opening section is an inner dialogue of self-reproach or the words of a companion who expostulates with him for his laziness and weakness of will.⁵² The comic scene leads into a sermon on the need to practise the teachings of philosophy with the specific injunction to cease from envying another's wealth. The call to apply oneself to metaphysical and ethical problems is interrupted by a hairy centurion who ridicules the obscure beliefs of philosophy (63-87). Then follows abruptly a parable about a man who died after neglecting medical advice (88-106). The point is misunderstood by a speaker who protests that he is physically healthy but is unaware that he is a moral invalid.

The unity of the poem is to be found in its single theme of exhortation to live a strict life controlled by moral philosophy. Sections of intense moralizing contrast sharply with passages which are predominantly comic, e.g. the poet's tantrum, the schoolboy's malingering trick, and the uncouth jokes of the loudmouthed muscleman. The combination of grave and gay is achieved not by a consistent urbanity of discourse but by abrupt transitions from the one to the other. However, some austere sections are rounded off by satirical irony, e.g. the picture of the man without philosophical wisdom hurling random missiles at crows or the description of the funeral procession of the dead man stiff with rigor mortis smeared with greasy unguents and escorted by his newly manumitted slaves now bearing the cap of citizenship. In a poem intended to proceed by abrupt contrasts it is wrong to alter the ordering of the text.⁵³ After the centurion's scoffing, in which the satirist seems to laugh at the moralizing of satire, the remaining thirty lines seem an appendage, but the final Stoic paradox is an appropriate conclusion.

Satire 4 is a short discourse on the theme that it is easy to give good advice to others and yet be blind to one's own sins and limitations. The first section incorporates parts of the Socratic dialogue Alcibiades I ascribed to Plato in a way similar to that in which Lucilius, Horace and Persius himself use passages of comedy as a basis for moralizing.⁵⁴ Socrates explains to the vain and precocious Alcibiades that although he can give measured political advice to an assembly, he shows in his personal life no greater knowledge of ethical values than a hag who peddles aphrodisiacs to a debauched slave (1-22). Two lengthy examples follow. Awareness of another's faults is illustrated by the gossip's information about a very rich but sordid miser (25-32), and complacency over one's own vices by a physically brutal and obscene description of an effeminate's public display of his private parts for the purpose of depilation (33-41).⁵⁵ In a final piece of moralizing the poet urges that a man should face his moral condition honestly and refuse praise for virtues that he does not possess.

The opening Platonic passage is urbane, but the mixing of Greek and Roman elements is discordant (Alcibiades is made to address an assembly of Roman citizens); it is uncertain to what extent the later part of the poem still refers to Alcibiades. As the two exempla in the middle take up a third of the whole, the structure is ill-balanced. The second example is prurient and sadistic in an adolescent way and its application to the moral argument forced. The obvious faults of the poem outweigh any merits; it is as a whole a failure.

The first part of Satire 5 is a eulogy of Cornutus, and the second a sermon on true and false liberty. In the opening lines Persius invokes a hundred voices in order to celebrate his lofty theme. For this epic cliché he is rebuked by an interrupter, who protests that such a style is alien to his satires.⁵⁶ Persius replies that although he wishes to use an unambitious style (Camena, 21) to display his moral progress, he would need the full resources of poetic magniloquence to express his indebtedness and affection (1-29).⁵⁷ For at a time when an adolescent has a roving eye Persius was protected by Cornutus, a friend to whom he was joined by a common astrological geniture (30-51).⁵⁸ Persius then contrasts various kinds of folly with the Stoic education offered by Cornutus, and appeals to young and old not to delay their moral regeneration:

                                        sed cum lapidosa cheragra
fregerit articulos veteris ramalia fagi,
tunc crassos transisse dies lucemque palustrem
et sibi iam seri vitam ingemuere relictam.
at te nocturnis iuvat impallescere chartis;
cultor enim iuvenum purgatas inseris aures
fruge Cleanthea. petite hinc, puerique senesque,
finem animo certum miserisque viatica canis.
‘cras hoc fiet’. idem cras fiat. ‘quid, quasi magnum
nempe diem donas!’ sed cum lux altera venit,
iam cras hesternum consumpsimus; ecce aliud cras
egerit hos annos et semper paulum erit ultra.
nam quamvis prope te, quamvis temone sub uno
vertentem sese frustra sectabere canthum,
cum rota posterior curras et in axe secundo.

(5,58-72)

(But when the stiffness of arthritis breaks joints like the branches of an old beech, then too late they lament that their days have passed by in grossness and their sunshine in the mists of the marsh and what they have neglected in their life. But your pleasure is to study your books deeply far into the night; for as a husbandman of the young you clear the ground and plant in their ears corn that comes from Cleanthes. Young and old, seek from this source a fixed aim for your mind and sustenance for your hapless old age. ‘This will happen tomorrow.’ Let it happen tomorrow. ‘What! Anyone would think that with one day you were giving a great present.’ But when another day has dawned we have already wasted the tomorrow of yesterday. You see that another tomorrow carries off the years and is always a little further ahead. Although the revolving rim is near you and under the same waggon you pursue it in vain, for you are the rear wheel and on the second axle.)⁵⁹

The pupil then delivers a sermon of a kind that he will have heard from Cornutus; its theme, the need for liberty, is stated in the first words: libertate opus est (73). True liberty is not the mere acquisition of citizenship, nor is it the right to do anything that is not illegal (73-90). A man does not deserve to be called free until he has ethical knowledge and control (91-114). Unless his control is complete and permanent he is to the Stoic a fool (115-23) and unless he has mastery over his desires he is no more free than the man with the legal status of slave (124-31).

The personified abstracts Avaritia and Luxuria endeavour to enslave the man who heeds them (132-60) and a moral paradigm taken from the Eunuchus of Menander demonstrates that real freedom includes the ability to escape the slavery of sex (161-75).⁶⁰ Superstition is the final illustration of man's moral enslavement. The first example seems at first to be an attack on political ambition but turns into a satirical presentation of Jewish practices (176-84). Further examples of superstition, fear of native Roman Lemures and the exotic customs that belong to Cybele and Isis (185-8) lead abruptly into a facetious Horatian conclusion: a centurion with varicose veins guffaws at the moralizing and offers a low price for the wisdom of Greece.

The bipartite structure of the work is akin to that of some other Roman satires in which a main section narrating or expounding a principal topic is preceded by introductory material which has only a tangential connection with what follows. Attempts to find an overall unity of theme seem forced, particularly as some structural informality was characteristic of the genre.⁶¹

The fifth satire is often praised for its sustained uplift, but the quality of Persius' moralizing may be assessed by a comparison with a discourse on a similar theme delivered one generation later by Epictetus, a pupil of Musonius Rufus, a contemporary and associate of Cornutus. The emancipated slave Epictetus was able to illustrate his theme of the true nature of freedom by examples from the career structure of contemporary Rome, from near-contemporary political scandals and also from the moral slavery of Caesar's advisers (amici Caesaris). Like Persius Epictetus uses the gambit from comedy but he likens Thrasonides explicitly to a Roman campaigner. His discourse is that of a perceptive, courageous and humane man, free from spiritual arrogance.⁶² Persius may have been particularly careful to avoid political references,⁶³ but by comparison with Epictetus his somewhat self-righteous exposition of a Stoic theme, though no doubt pleasing to Cornutus, is somewhat pallid and immature.⁶⁴ The strength of the poem is in the many striking details of expression.

Satire 6 is in the form of a Horatian epistle. It is addressed to Persius' friend, the poet Caesius Bassus. Like Horace (Epp. 1,4) Persius refers first of all to his friend's place of retreat and speculates on what he is writing.⁶⁵ He then describes his own winter resort: he is staying at Luna (La Spezia) on the Ligurian coast where there are great cliffs and a deep inlet of the sea. After praising Luna in lines that make fun of Ennius Persius talks of his own contentment. He is unconcerned whether or not comparisons are made between his resources and those of his neighbours. As a man of moderate means he advocates the use and enjoyment of what he has. This amiably selfish doctrine is qualified by a willingness to bestow part on a friend in need, but the poet is unmoved by the prospect of his heir's disapproval.

The hypothetical heir is now given a provocative lecture on his prospects.⁶⁶ The poet will mount a lavish celebration in honour of an imperial victory and give largesse to the proletariat; the heir would be well advised not to object. Nor will the poet stint himself in order that his heir's grandson may live a life of debauchery (41-74). Persius' final reflection is that it is impossible to set a limit to man's acquisitiveness, but an interrupter has the last word: he claims to be able to stop at any point that is prescribed for him and therefore to have solved the logical problem of Chrysippus' heap. Persius' ironical silence proclaims that the boast is futile.⁶⁷

The structure of the poem is that of a Horatian epistle. The address to the avaricious imaginary heir expands the topic of the corresponding vice, greed: the unreality of such teasing arguments as the celebration of the triumph of Caligula and the hunt for a beggar as the remotest kin is meant to add ironically to the discomfiture of the rapacious heir. The satire contains many vigorous expressions and some unusually obscure phrases;⁶⁸ the conclusion is one of the neatest in Roman satire.

4. ASPECTS OF SUBJECT MATTER

The immediate presentation of real human experience was of little interest to Persius. His autobiographical reticence contrasts with the unashamed disclosures of Lucilius and the calculated self-portraiture of Horace. For Persius satire had little to do with personal poetry. It is unlikely that he ever stopped like Horace to inquire into the price of vegetables in the market; it is inconceivable that he could have considered such apparent trivialities as worthy of the reader's attention. His only statement of the immediately factual is the description of Luna at the beginning of Satire 6, and even this leads to thoughts on human conduct. His story in Satire 3 of a schoolboy's malingering ruse purports to tell what the young Persius actually did, but it is highly suspect as autobiographical fact. Persius' father died when he was six, and the attack on the attempts of parents and teachers to force an unhealthy precocity from the young is a commonplace of contemporary criticism.⁶⁹ But at least there is a noteworthy contrast between Persius' evocation of his father sweating with parental anxiety as a sort of comic rhetorical cipher to illustrate an argument and Horace's expression of loving gratitude to a real person. There are probably some hints of Persius' own life and circumstances in the references in Satire 3 to the knight who belongs to an Etruscan family; these accord with the information given in the ancient Life.⁷⁰ So much may safely be assumed from the poem but no more. His one certain autobiographical statement is the description in Satire 5 of his relationship with Cornutus. But even that merely contains a mention of earnest labour and prim relaxation without any particulars. There is no personal portrait of the moral director. Rather than any details about life with Cornutus Persius gives an elaborate description of their astrological lot. In describing his close personal associates Persius subordinates individual personality to moral generalizations.

The same is true of his presentation of vice and of all his references to persons. By tradition satire proclaimed that it had the right and duty to attack erring contemporaries by name. Persius pays lip-service to his predecessors' boast when he states that he has the talent to scratch at the morals of men afraid of detection and to transfix sin in civilized jesting (5,15f.). The language resembles that of the passage in Satire 1 on the dangers of following Lucilius and Horace.⁷¹ But Persius had no intention of assailing contemporaries by name; he merely implies that he writes as a satirist who owes much to Lucilius and Horace.

Persius is not noteworthy for his depiction of vice. There is no exposure of a single vice comparable with Horace's treatment of legacy-hunting and few examples of the quick and vivid presentation of a vicious scene as in Juvenal. Only in the activities of the indeterminate exhibitionist in Satire 4 and in the gluttony and lechery of the heir's grandson in Satire 6 is vice described in the physically repulsive language used by Lucilius and in later times by Juvenal.

The majority of proper names in Persius are labels for stock types with no discernible contemporary overtones. Many derive from Horace. Davus and Dama are Horatian names: Davus suggests a comedy figure; Dama, whose name suggests a slave of low origin, becomes in Persius Marcus Dama, who has suddenly attained the respectability of citizenship. Persius' use of the name Pedius for his rhetorically elegant crook on trial (1,85) seems at first sight no more than a borrowing of Horace's Pedius Poplicola, who was likewise busy in court and subject to stylistic scrutiny.⁷² But in a.d. 59 Pedius Blaesus, as Tacitus relates, was publicly disgraced for fraud and corruption. If Persius' first satire was written later it would have been difficult for a reader not to think of the recent public scandal. Such a blend of the literary and the real seems to be unique among Persius' names.⁷³

Of the names which have no Horatian background some, such as Bathyllus (5,123) the dancer of Augustan times, and Masurius (5,90), the jurist of the age of Tiberius, seem to be chosen as historical names almost proverbial for a professional activity.⁷⁴ Vettidius purports to be an example for all to see of the mean man of wealth (4,25) but is almost certainly imaginary. The poet Attius Labeo (1,50) may have been a real person but was certainly of no consequence.⁷⁵ Persius' use of proper names that are for the most part typical and insignificant illustrates further his lack of interest in the individual person.

Searching references to contemporary politics and administration are not to be expected from an inexperienced writer living in times of increasing tyranny. There was a tradition that in preparing Persius' works for publication Cornutus altered the words auriculas asini Mida rex habet (King Midas has the ears of an ass) into auriculus asini quis non habet? (1,121), the reading of the manuscripts, on the grounds that such a reference might be seen by Nero as an attack on himself. The story is unlikely, even though Satire 1 refers more than once to a secret mockery; it is in any case doubtful whether Persius himself would have intended a reference to Midas to be anything other than a general gibe at patrons without judgement.⁷⁶ The only reference to an event from imperial history is the poet's celebration in Satire 6 of an imperial triumph, Caligula's alleged victory over German tribes in a.d. 39, when Persius was a child. The triumph, according to Suetonius, was a masquerade, in which Gauls were given false hair and dressed up as Germans; Caligula directed that to save public expense the resources of private citizens should be used.⁷⁷ The poet's effusive enthusiasm for the triumph, his eagerness to spend his own money and his reference to a counterfeit triumph suggest undertones of mockery. The possibility cannot be discounted that Persius' allusion to a public scandal during the reign of the irresponsible Caligula could be directed also at the contemporary playboy on the throne. If so, it escaped Cornutus' vigilance. In general Persius' themes and examples are remote from contemporary Roman society and politics.

For Persius the satirist's traditional interest in vice was the negative side of moral exhortation. His protreptic zeal has an intensity alien to Horace's restrained urbanity. To Persius, as to other moralists, self-criticism and knowledge is the beginning of ethical improvement: ‘reject violently what you are not’, he exhorts (4,51); the enlightened part of the self recognizes the backsliding Doppelgänger (3,30). Vice may lurk as a secret or undetected ulcer (3,113, 4,44). Persius is well aware of the inherent sinfulness of human nature (2,63). He describes the enroachment of sin and its overthrow of the moral self:

sed stupet hic vitio et fibris increvit opimum
pingue, caret culpa, nescit quid perdat, et alto
demersus summa rursus non bullit in unda

(3,32-4)

(This man is stupefied by sin. A thick layer of fat grows around his heart. He has no sense of guilt. He is unaware of what he is losing. Submerged in deep water he no longer sends up bubbles to the surface.)

As a Stoic he frequently associates wrongdoing with madness; the paradox that none but the Stoic sage is sane, which is mocked by Horace, is accepted without irony by Persius.⁷⁸

In Satires 3 and 5 Persius is an impassioned advocate of Stoicism. Satire 6 by contrast emphasizes a lack of commitment and may mark a break with a Stoic youthfulness and the refusal of a Roman to concern himself too deeply with philosophy. But it is more likely that it assumes the detached tone as well as the outward convention of a Horatian epistle.⁷⁹

As critic of literature Persius is both moralist and satirist. In the Prologue and Satire 1 he rejects forms of writing other than satire, not on the grounds that he is unable to aspire to their demands (indeed his witty mimicry of both ancient and modern writing suggests a proved stylistic virtuosity) but because fashionable contemporary literature is a product of a corrupt and degenerate society. Through effeminate delivery and debased style it titillates unhealthy desires and aims at immediate unreflecting acclamation. By contrast he describes his own work as something more concentrated (decoctius—lit. ‘more boiled down’).⁸⁰ The figurative language is more effective than an exposition of literary principles. The descriptions of Lucilius and Horace that precede it (1,114-8) and also that of Ennius in Satire 6 (10f.) are masterly examples of friendly caricature.

In Satire 5 also he contrasts the mythological subjects of tragedy and its pretentious manner with his own modest writing. Even though he wishes to write a panegyric of Cornutus he spurns the clichés of the high priest of poetry. His own procedure is different:

verba togae sequeris iunctura callidus acri,
ore teres modico

(5,14f.)

(You follow the language of ordinary life, skilled at the pungent connection of words, rounded off smoothly in an unpretentious style.)

Horace had recommended that a poet should make a common expression seem new by an ingenious collocation of words. Persius follows Horace's advice even to the extent of attaching to Horace's iunctura the epithet acer, used by Horace both of good critical judgement and of censoriousness. Persius' diction is that of ordinary Roman dress. The level of style is unexalted, but the work has a well carpentered finish.⁸¹

Persius abhors the smooth style of the Neronian age. He upholds traditions in a decadent period of innovation, as is shown by his great indebtedness to the Augustan Horace and by his implied respect for Virgil. His critical credo was probably not unlike that of Petronius, who extols Horace and Virgil, disparages by pastiche and pointed criticism the modern historical epic of Lucan and despises contemporary rhetoric. Persius too disliked the modern style of oratory and was not captivated by the talent of Seneca.⁸² Whether Persius' criticisms, like some of those of Petronius, were intended to besmirch the poetry written by Nero's court flatterers must remain uncertain, but sharp comments on writers incapable of describing the Roman countryside and its customs may cast more than a sidelong glance at the pretentious ineptitude of some of the bucolic poetry of the age of Nero.⁸³ But it is unlikely that Cornutus, who was consulted by Nero as literary adviser, would have allowed the publication of any lines of Persius that could be construed as mocking Nero himself, who was notoriously sensitive about his artistry.

5. IMAGERY AND STYLE

In studying Persius' imagery some modern critics prefer to seek the underlying unity of a satire in a dominant metaphor rather than view recurring images as subordinate to the argument of the poem. But it is also possible to demonstrate that certain kinds of imagery are associated with the same or a similar theme in different poems. There are also images whose impact is all the greater because they do not recur.⁸⁴

In the opening section of Satire 5 the recurring imagery is based on oral impulses, the mouth that utters poetry and the mouth that eats and blows. The hundred mouths invoked for epic utterance and the gaping mask of the tragedian are transformed into the mouth into which there are stuffed the large lumps of food that are made up of heavy poetry (1-6). Ugly realism is thus added to a poetic cliché and the metaphor of food is sustained in the contents of the pot of Thyestes that are a meal for an actor (8f.). Misguided attempts to compose in the grand manner evoke a quick succession of images, blowing a bellows (10f.), a metaphor perhaps suggested by a similar expression in Horace (Sat. 1,4,19ff.) and also by catching the mists on Helicon (7), making a deep noise like a crow (cornicaris, 12) and puffing out the cheeks to let them collapse with a plop (scloppo, 13): the infantile onomatopoeic scloppo may also have been a neologism.⁸⁵ In the lines of positive precept on writing the mouth is used as the organ that utters the kind of poetry that is appropriate for Persius (ore modico, 15) in contrast to the poetry suited to the banquet of Mycenae. At this second mention of the gruesome tale of the house of Atreus cannibalistic details give a bizarre and revolting dimension to the mythological theme (17f.). Such fare contrasts with the plebeia prandia of the satirist (18). Poetic activity is thus discussed in verse that has a quick changing but well organized pattern of imagery. The metaphors of food and the mouth are discarded at this point and do not occur again in any significant form for the rest of the poem.

A wider range of physiological imagery arises naturally out of the discussion in Satire 1. The physical organ that hears the recitation suggests the metaphorical ear of critical judgement.⁸⁶ The mouth that in reality uses a provocative manner of delivery suggests the inner process of creating depraved verse.⁸⁷ Erotic material gives rise to imagery connected with the sexual response of the audience, for whom a physical reaction is the outward manifestation of the twisted judgement of depraved critics.⁸⁸ Less than justice is done to Persius' variety of expression by attributing to Satire 1 a dominant metaphor of hearing or of sex,⁸⁹ for bodily functions used in the imagery combine and interact to express the participation of the modern writer and his audience in something unworthy and despicable.

Self-knowledge and right judgement in matters of morals and poetry are expressed in a series of metaphors from measurement and the testing of materials. Such imagery is not confined to a single satire but recurs throughout Persius' work. The process of distinguishing between the true and false in morals is illustrated by the metaphor of the cracked sound that is heard when a badly fired pot is struck; this is developed into an extended metaphor of the potter's wheel to describe moral education (3,21-4). Persius, unlike Horace, rarely uses the leisurely device of the simile in order to place image and argument side by side; by his metaphorical technique the two are closely identified. In Satire 1 the advocate of modern smooth versification is made to describe the calculation of composition as running the finger over a smooth polished surface.⁹⁰ This is succeeded by the description of the versifier as a builder who closes one eye to ensure that a line is straight (1,64-6). The metaphor of a balance is used of false literary judgement (1,6), and of correct moral judgement in politics (4,10f.). The use of a steelyard to measure the dose of a drug (5,100f.) is a moral analogy for a calculation that is based on expert knowledge.⁹¹ Persius was much concerned throughout his work with the mechanism of judgement.

For Persius, as for his predecessors, unpleasant imagery is part of the technique of moral dissuasion. The depraved man with the fat of iniquity growing deep within him is deeply submerged and no longer causes bubbles on the surface of the water (3,32-4, quoted p. 111 above). Trees, that for the epic poet are a living whole, are for Persius examples of the decayed and withered. Fingers twisted by arthritis are identified with the gnarled branches of an old beech (5,58ff., quoted p. 106 above). An overblown style of poetry is compared to the swollen bark of the cork-oak (1,97).⁹² An irresistible urge to write is identified with the ability of the fig tree to break through a hard surface (1,24f.). Persius' unidyllic tree imagery has a moral purpose.

Sometimes Persius' words suggest an arresting coinage, as in his promise to drag the old grannies out of the lungs of his listener (5,92), a comically violent and brief metaphor for discouraging old-fashioned prejudices.⁹³ Perhaps the most remarkable piece of gnomic imagery in Persius is the extended metaphor that expresses man's moral nature in relation to the operation of time: you cannot, he says, catch up with the rim of the front wheel because you are a wheel on the rear axle (5,70-2, quoted p. 106). By avoiding simile and thus identifying the man with the rear wheel, Persius gives a sinister impression of a determinism from which the individual, whirled by something outside his control, has no longer any way of escape. This metaphor seems to be without parallel in ancient literature.⁹⁴ It is memorable also in its placing. For Persius here ends a main section with a gnomic metaphor that has an organic function in its context and also a moral relevance as an independent saying. By his concrete and unexpected use of imagery Persius transmutes conceptual notions into the essential stuff of poetry.

An additional dimension is given to the richness of Persius' poetry by his constant allusion to the poems of Horace. Persius' relationship to Horace is closer than the normal allegiance of a Roman poet to a major predecessor in his genre. This unusual dependence was not the product of the poet's unconscious reminiscence. Persius seems to have expected the reader to be immediately aware of the lines of Horace that he uses as an ingredient in his total verbal intention. At the beginning of the seventeenth century Casaubon drew up a list of Persius' imitations of Horace, which are taken from the epistles and satires and also to a lesser extent from the odes.⁹⁵ The opening of Satire 5 will provide some representative examples. Horace (Sat. 1,2,86) has used the phrase regibus hic mos est (it is the custom of ‘big men’) of the wealthy who choose a mistress looking for hidden faults as they would in a horse for sale. Persius begins his exposé of the pretentious ways of poets with vatibus hic mos est (5,1). Thus by a deft allusion he adds sordid associations to the mock solemnity of his description of the man of letters. Horace prescribes that Thyestes' banquet (cena Thyestae) should not be narrated in undignified language (A.P. 90f.); Persius' metaphor of Thyestes' pot (olla Thyestae) on the boil (5,8f.) uses just such undignified language as a reminder of Horace's precept. In adapting Horace's use of a moralizing exemplum from Terence's Eunuchus in, as it seems, a spirit of mischievous rivalry Persius changes a proper name into that used by Terence's source, Menander, thus displaying his more accurate use of literary history.⁹⁶

Persius' descriptions of his writing as concentrated and colloquial with arresting turns of phrase apply to all aspects of his style, but his concentrated idiom is far removed from the contemporary spoken language even of the educated. Concentration is found in his penchant for using the inifinitive of the verb as a substantive: one occurrence, nostrum istud vivere triste (that sombre way of living of ours, 1,9), is quoted by Quintilian as his example of the figure.⁹⁷ Persius' conformity to the colloquial language of his predecessors appears notably in his extensive use of diminutives; this characteristic mark of the spoken language is frequently made to bring a jab of derision, e.g. aqualiculus (pot-belly, 1,57) or elegidia (miserable little elegies, 1,51).

The subtle juxtaposition of words gives Persius' style its unique distinction and also a reputation in modern times for obscurity. The following is a typical example. Persius refers to the nearby field as non adeo … exossatus (lit. ‘not sufficiently cleared of bones’, i.e. of stones, 6,51f.). The context is the threat that an angry crowd might hurl stones at the heir, who would in his meanness deprive them of a gladiatorial show. The description of stones as the bones of the earth was traditional, but its use in a situation of frivolous menace turns a poetic kenning into a noteworthy comic riddle.⁹⁸ Persius' descriptions of his poetic art show a high degree of self-awareness. His whole style is introverted and aimed at an audience of a judicious few.

6. TRANSMISSION

The single book of Persius prepared for publication by Cornutus and Caesius Bassus found immediate favour, and by the time Quintilian and Martial wrote, his reputation was secure as a writer of small output but high quality.⁹⁹ The ancient Life of Persius according to its title was taken from a commentary on him by Valerius Probus. This suggests at least that from a very early stage Persius' difficulties were thought worth the trouble of careful elucidation. Writers are said to have seized upon the book with enthusiasm;¹⁰⁰ the remark does not apply to Juvenal, whose adaptations though obvious were limited. As an unrhetorical poet Persius escaped the uncritical derision with which his contemporary Lucan was attacked in the second century a.d. by Fronto.

Persius was widely read throughout later antiquity even during periods when Lucan and Juvenal seem to have been out of favour. It is recorded that Alexander Severus, who was emperor from a.d. 222-35, quoted Persius on the futility of gold offerings in order to justify his own parsimonious donations to temples,¹⁰¹ and even before the main revival of classical literature in the fourth century Lactantius quotes with approval lines that ridicule superstitition.¹⁰² Ausonius echoes phrases of Persius; Claudian also seems to show some signs of having read him.¹⁰³ But it was for St Jerome and St Augustine that Persius was pre-eminent as both moral teacher and poet.

St Jerome spices malicious attacks on opponents with quotations and allusions. In his preoccupation with virginity he bombards the unfortunate Iovinianus with abusive quotations and adaptations.¹⁰⁴ Even when Jerome is anxious to renounce his dependence on the great pagan poets, his writing is imbued with adaptations of them; borrowing from Persius may be detected in the letter in which he narrates his warning dream (a.d. 384) and also in a letter written many years later in which he reproduces a neologism and some characteristic imagery.¹⁰⁵ St Augustine, who thought highly of Lucan's literary qualities, shows himself much impressed by Persius as moral teacher and writer. In de Civitate Dei he quotes solemn lines from the third satire (66-72) as an example of exalted precepts of a kind which pagans did not hear in their own temples.¹⁰⁶ He has also absorbed something of the power of Persius' imagery, as when in order to illustrate the solidity of Holy Scripture he alludes to Persius' metaphor of the firm wall that contrasts with painted plaster.¹⁰⁷

Persius is quoted frequently by most of the important grammarians and commentators of the later empire. Porphyrio's commentary on Horace, compiled before the renewal of interest in some of the major Silver Age writers in the fourth century, shows a sharp eye for Persius' adaptations of his predecessor. Aelius Donatus, who never mentions Juvenal, refers twice to Persius. The Pseudacron Scholia to Horace, though belonging to a tradition in which Silver Age literature is esteemed, make a much less intelligent use of citations from Persius than is found in the earlier commentary of Porphyrio.¹⁰⁸ In the final stages of the ancient classical tradition he is cited probably not at first hand by Priscian, the sixth-century grammarian who taught at Constantinople, and at the beginning of the seventh century by Isidore, bishop of Seville, in his encyclopaedic Etymologiae.¹⁰⁹

In a.d. 402 Flavius Iulius Sabinus, a man of senatorial rank on imperial service, read Persius at Barcelona and Toulouse and corrected his one manuscript as best he could. This manuscript was the ancestor of one written probably in the early part of the sixth century, from which are descended two manuscripts of the late ninth century and tenth century, whose readings are one of the two main sources of reliable witness for what Persius wrote.¹¹⁰ The other principal source of value is P(ithoeanus), the famous ninth-century Lorsch manuscript, now in Montpellier, which also contains a text of Juvenal. There is also a recently discovered Vatican manuscript of the tenth century (X) that shows some traces of an independent ancient tradition.¹¹¹

The ancient Scholia, the so-called Commentum Cornuti, are more perceptive and informative than most ancient Latin commentaries but also contain much that is false. They belong not to the first century a.d. but to late antiquity.¹¹²

Persius was much read and quoted in mediaeval times. It will be sufficient to instance from England William of Malmesbury and John of Salisbury and, from scholars active in Italy, the Flemish Ratherius, Bishop of Verona, and the Lombard historian Liutprand of Cremona, both of the tenth century.¹¹³ The first printed edition was made in Rome in 1469 or 1470, but it was with the great edition of Casaubon (1605) that Persius entered the modern world.

Notes

1. The pioneering edition of Persius is that of Isaac Casaubon (Paris, 1605); it was published in an enlarged form by his son Meric together with a variorum edition of Juvenal (Leiden, 1695). The most important commentary is still that of O. Jahn (Leipzig, 1843); the most serviceable English commentary is that of Conington-Nettleship (Oxford, 1893³). The fullest modern critical text is that of W. Clausen (Oxford, 1956); the standard reference text (together with Juvenal) is the O.C.T. edited by Clausen (Oxford, 1959), which makes full use of an important MS mentioned only in a note in his edition of 1956. There is a good translation by N. Rudd, The Satires of Horace and Persius (Harmondsworth, 1973). The Loeb translation by Ramsay (1918) is inaccurate and expurgated, that by J. Tate (Oxford, 1930) is in accomplished verse but is often at some distance from the spirit of the original.

2. Suet. Aug. 54-6; Cass. Dio 56,27.

3. Tac. Ann. 1,72; Syme 486f.

4. Tac. Ann. 4,35f. After his rendering of Cremutius' speech Tacitus comments on the futility of totalitarian attempts to suppress human genius; the condemned works of Cremutius Cordus, Cassius Severus and others were circulated publicly after the death of Tiberius (Suet. Calig. 16).

5. Tac. Ann. 6,29.

6. Phaedr. 3 Prol. 38-44; see Schanz-Hosius II⁴ 448 n. 2.

7. On Phaedrus see p. 7.

8. Tacitus (Hist. 1,1) attributes the lack of talent to the results of dictatorship; see also ‘Longinus’, de Subl. 44.

9. Aules is an Etruscan form of the Roman praenomen Aulus (Schulze, Gesch. lat. Eigennamen, 134 n. 6). The gentile name Persius is Etruscan (Schulze 88). Persii are common on inscriptions of Volaterrae. On Persius' name see also the speculation of C. de Simone, R.F.I.C. 96 (1968), 419-35. Biographical information is given by an ancient Life, which a number of manuscripts assign to a Commentary by Valerius Probus, a scholar of the 1st C. a.d. The famous Valerius Probus is unlikely to have written a commentary on the work of a contemporary. The Life as we have it contains material by more than one scholar. It is repetitive and badly ordered with traces of later explanatory interpolation, but it may safely be attributed in the main to the scholarship of the late 1st C. or the 2nd C. a.d.; see Rostagni, Suetonio de Poetis, 167-76, who gives text and commentary, and Paratore, Biografia e poetica di Persio (Florence, 1968), on which see Kenney, C.R. 19 (1969), 171-3. The Life is not a compilation of the 4th C. a.d. as has been suggested by R. Scarcia, R.C.C.M. 6 (1964), 298-302; contrast the miserable ancient Life of Juvenal. But it is possible that the last section (lines 52-60 Cl.), which contains material found also in the Scholia on 1,120f., was composed in late antiquity; see Marx on Lucil. 383. The best critical text of the Vita is that of Clausen, ed. Persius (1956), 35-9, and intro. xxvf.; see also his O.C.T. of Persius and Juvenal, 29-34. On some critical details S. Mariotti, R.F.I.C. 93 (1965), 185-7.

10. 3,27-9; 6,6-9. Wide Etruscan connections are sought by J. Heurgon, Röm. Sat. 433-8.

11. There is a discrepancy between the consular dates at the beginning of the Life and the figure XXX at line 51; see also Clausen's app. crit. a.l. The Life is referred to throughout this work by the line numbering of Clausen's edn (1956).

12. See Suet. Gramm. 23; on his grammar K. Barwick, Philologus Supplbd. 15, 2 (1922), 1-272. Schol. Juv. 6,452 says that Quintilian was a pupil of Remmius. On his arrogance and luxury Plin. N.H. 14,49-51 and on his experimental verses Mart. 2,86.

13. Quintilian (7,4,40) mentions Verginius with respect; see also Tac. Ann. 15,71. On Musonius, a Stoic with commonsense views, see M. P. Charlesworth, Five Men, Character Studies from the Roman Empire (Cambridge: Mass., 1936), 31-62; A. C. Van Geytenbeek, transl. B. L. Hijmans, Musonius Rufus and Greek Diatribe (Assen, 1962).

14. On Cornutus see A. D. Nock, R.E. Supplbd. 5 (1931), s.v. ‘Kornutos’, 995-1005; on his writings see also Schanz-Hosius II⁴ 676-9 and F. Villeneuve, Essai sur Perse (Paris, 1918), 54-102; his attested comments on Virgil are gathered by Jahn (ed.), Persius, xvii-xx.

15. Cass. Dio 62,29: according to the Suda he was exiled along with Musonius Rufus.

16. For Caesius Bassus see n. 65 below; Servilius on the occasion of his death in 59 a.d. is assessed by Tac. Ann. 14,19; see also Quint. 10,1,102; Syme, Tacitus 276 and n. 1, 287-8 and 338; id. Ten Studies in Tacitus (Oxford, 1970), 91-109 (= Hermes 92 (1964), 408-14) esp. 98f. on the political implications of Persius' friendship.

17. Vit. Pers. 20-2.

18. Vit. Pers. 24f.; Tac. Ann. 13,3; see Jahn, xxxvi. Quintilian also reacted against Seneca (10,1,125-31).

19. Vit. Pers. 25-9. On Thrasea see Syme, Tacitus, 555-62. The word libertas is important in Tacitus' discussions of him: Ann. 14,12; 14,49; 16,22; it is a key word for Persius also (5,73) but not in a political context. On Thrasea's career and reputation see also Oswyn Murray, Historia 14 (1965), 41-61.

20. Tac. Ann. 14,12; 48f.; 16,21-35 esp. 22.

21. See Vit. Pers. 13-18.

22. Tac. Ann. 15,48ff.; 16,18-20. Most of Bk 16 describes the reign of terror. In times hostile to liberal studies (Plin. Epp. 3,5,5) only the most harmless literary pursuits kept a man of eminence from harm; see Syme, H.S.C.Ph. 73 (1969), 210.

23. Vit. Pers. 52-6. This piece of information comes from the part of the Life that may be of late date (see n. 9 above). The text of Vit. Pers. 46 is hopelessly corrupt. It is impossible to salvage the name of the praetexta. There may also be mention of a volume that described Persius' travels, if Pithou's emendation ὁδοιπορικω̑ν is accepted; for another emendation see H. Hommel. Philologus 99 (1955), 266-76.

24. Vit. Pers. 44-9.

25. See p. 110.

26. Nisbet, ‘Persius’, in Sullivan (ed.), Critical Essays on Roman Literature: Satire (London, 1963), 50, argues that in Persius, as in several ancient collections, the second poem is early.

27. On the rhetorical convention of 'ανθυποφορά, or reply to an imaginary objection see Quint. 9,3,87, Schol. Pers. 1,24 and Hendrickson, C.Ph. 23 (1928), 102-7, esp. 105 n. 1.

28. See E. G. Turner, Greek Papyri (Oxford, 1968), 92 and E. W. Handley, Menander Dyskolos, intro. 44-7 and bibliography listed at 44, esp. J. C. B. Lowe, B.I.C.S. 9 (1962), 27-42. There are no names of speakers in the 3rd C. b.c. papyrus of Menander's Sicyonius; see edn by R. Kassel (Berlin, 1965), III.

29. On Ennius' dream see O. Skutsch, The Annals of Quintus Ennius (London, 1953), 9-11 (= Studia Enniana (London, 1968), 7-9); id. Studia Enniana, 119-29, esp. 126f.; J. H. Waszink, Mnemosyne Ser. 4, 15 (1962), 113-28; id. WSt 76 (1963), 84.

30. The epithet semipaganus (6) is not found elsewhere. Jahn comments that pagani are people who share the same rites; he refers to the Paganalia (Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 4,15 and Ov. Fast. 1,669f.); see also Sherwin-White on Plin. Epp. 10,86B. The associations of semipaganus like those of vatum (8) are Roman. For the poet's sacra see Ov. Pont. 3,4,67 and 4,8,81; Prop. 2,5,26 and 4,1,61-4.

31. Jahn interprets suum as ‘foreign’. Persius' ambitious concentration causes difficulties. A mention of his chosen medium, Roman satire, might be expected in the prologue, but carmen nostrum (7) is ambiguous: Some see a reference to satire, but others, e.g. Waszink, WSt 76 (1963), 84, see it as no more than a metrically necessary substitute for meum. Perhaps it also implies ‘my own work’, i.e. not derived from outside inspiration. verba nostra (9) means human speech and not Latin in contrast to Greek.

32. Continuity of theme in Prol. and Sat. is well argued by R. Reitzenstein, Hermes 59 (1924), 1-22.

33. On choliambics see Gerhard, Philologus 72 (1913), 484-91.

34. Hendrickson, however, loc. cit. (n. 27 above) interprets the poem as a monologue.

35. The opening line is said to be a quotation from Bk 1 of Lucilius. See Marx on 9; in spite of the Lucretian phraseology of quantum est in rebus inane (e.g. 1,330 and 569) it is unwarranted to emend the name to Lucretius, as Hendrickson does op. cit. (n. 27 above) 98ff. D. Henss, Philologus 98 (1954), 159 argues that line 2 comes from Lucilius and that 1-2 are a Stoic joke at Lucretius' expense. In the quick exchange of dialogue (1-3) as elsewhere, the punctuation in Clausen's text is a safe guide to the distribution of parts. These lines are also discussed by M. L. West, C.R. 11 (1961), 204 (against him Kenney, P.C(amb.)Ph.S. 188 (1962), 35 n. 4) and by N. E. Collinge, C.R. 17 (1967), 132.

36. 5-12. cachinno (12) is a verb. The correct interpretation of 11-12 is that of Housman, C.Q. 7 (1913), 12ff. (= Class. Papers II 845ff.), whose punctuation is accepted with slight change by Clausen; but see also the different interpretation by N. Rudd, C.R. 20 (1970), 283.

37. On the effeminate euphony of the Greek proper names in 34 see H. J. Rose, C.R. 38 (1924), 63, but see the correction of Rose by Austin on Quint. 12,10,27 (note on p. 175).

38. sive (67) means ‘even if’ (see Clausen ed. 1956 a.l.); in with acc. occurring three times (67) suggests hostile presentation; cf. the usage at 127.

39. See the discussion of this and other parodies in the poem by Nisbet, loc. cit (n. 26 above), 45ff. Villeneuve, 208-18 analyses the verses of sham high style. It is not to be supposed that Persius advocates a return to the archaic as against the Augustan style.

40. 92-102. The interlocutor's judgement that the Aeneid is another example of the outmoded is characteristic of a period when there were critics hostile to Virgil; these included Cornutus and Seneca; see Gell. 2,6,1; 12,2,10 and D'Alton 305f. Tate in his translation wrongly assigns 96-8 to Persius himself: see his note p. 62.

41. 103-4; cf. 20f. and 87. Degeneracy is also indicated by the mention of proper names and social classes associated with Rome's traditions such as Titos (20) and patricius sanguis (61); see also 31,73,82.

42. The reference is probably to Roman satire (see Anderson C.Q. 8 (1958), 195-7) rather than to the unwelcoming dog of the man of influence. For the latter view see Rudd, loc. cit. (n. 36 above), 285f.

43. The language of prohibition (112) is archaic. On minatory incriptions and on pictures of snakes as guardians of a spot see Jahn on 107-13.

44. i.e. the tradition of Lucilius and Horace, probably not Old Comedy as such.

45. This is the explanation given by the Scholia.

46. The attitude of mockery and laughter is also made explicit at 40f.: rides ait et nimis uncis / naribus indulges; compare the description of Horace (116ff.). Korzeniewski 384-433 is on the scale of a full commentary on the first satire. There is much of exegetical interest in the work of Bramble (see n. 84).

47. The Scholia give the information that Macrinus was a scholarly man connected with Servilius and had a fatherly affection for Persius.

48. Housman, loc. cit. (n. 36 above), 15f. (= Class. Papers II 848) rightly interprets fratres … aenos (56) as bronze statues of gods mentioned along with those referred to in 57f.

49. The theme is also found in (Plato), Alcibiades II. cf. Eur. frg. 327N² and Handley on Men. Dysk. 447-54.

50. The abandonment of Macrinus for the main topic by the formula: ‘you are not one of those who …’ (3f.) is the work of a tiro.

51. Housman, loc. cit. (n. 36 above), 15 (= Class. Papers II 848) wrongly questions the use of the epithet macram for the baby on the grounds that most babies are plump; he interprets the words as the insatiable hope of the old woman (lines 31-9). On the superstitious rites see E. Fraenkel, Elementi Plautini in Plauto 425 (supplementing 187) and Jahn, a.l., who quotes Claud. Seren. 89.

52. Housman, loc. cit. (n. 36 above), 16-18 (= Class. Papers II 850f.) interpreted the first part of the satire correctly as the poet talking to himself. This solution is followed by Nisbet. Housman's discussion of the subject matter of 1-62 is splendidly illuminating. Rudd, however, C.R. 20 (1970), 286-8 argues that the opening words are spoken by a companion. the opening words of the satire nempe haec adsidue mean ‘As I thought what I find here is happening continually’; on nempe see Hendrickson, C.Ph. 23 (1928), 334 and n. 1. If the companion has any substance, he may have been thought of as a fellow disciple in philosophy, certainly not a ‘roaring boy’. 5-6 are a reminiscence of Verg. Ecl. 2,8.

53. Hendrickson wished to transpose 35-43, placing them after 57, and regarded 88-118 as a passage originally written for this satire but rejected by Persius as unsuitable.

54. Cynthia S. Dessen, ‘Iunctura Callidus Acri’, Illinois Stud. Lang. Lit. 59 (1968), 58-68 discusses the relationship between Alc. I and Pers. 4; she also has a useful appendix on Socratikoi Logoi (97-105). But on Dessen's study in general see reviews by Rudd, Phoenix 23 (1969), 411, J. C. Bramble, C.R. 21 (1971), 46f. and n. 88 below.

55. Housman's emendation at 36 (see Hermes 64 (1931), 406 (= Class. Papers II 1178)) is rightly rejected by Clausen. Persius deliberately uses of the effeminate Alcibiades a term that is only applicable to a woman (see Dessen, 69). On 36 see also W. Richter, WSt. 78 (1965), 153f.

56. Reckford, Hermes 90 (1962), 476-504 identifies the interrupter with Cornutus.

57. It is assumed here that Camena (21) implies a contrast with the Musa of high poetry; contrast Musa (1,68).

58. Housman has shown, loc. cit. (n. 36 above), 18-21 (= Class. Papers 2,852f.) that lines 45-51 may be interpreted in precise astrological terms; Persius' model, Hor. C. 2,17,15-24 is less exact. Unlike Horace, Persius the Stoic would presumably have accepted astrology.

59. On the interpretation of 60f. and 64-9 see Housman 21ff., whose interpretation of the latter passage is accepted with slight modification by Nisbet, loc. cit. (n. 26 above), 62. On the use of a delaying cras in a proverb see cras credo, hodie nihil (Otto 96).

60. For the use of motifs from comedy in satire see pp. 55f. and p. 74 above and for its use by Epictetus see n. 62 below. See also n. 96 below.

61. Anderson, Philol. Quart. 39 (1960), 66-81, regards 1-72 as an integral part of the discussion of slavery and freedom on the grounds that spiritual liberty includes freedom from the morally debased poetic language of the day.

62. Epict. Diss. 4,1: political advancement (38-40; 149f.); Stoic turned prosecutor, presumably Egnatius Celer (139); the death of Helvidius Priscus (123); Caesar's friend and adviser (43-50); Thrasonides, the braggart soldier from Menander's Misoumenos (19-23). Unlike most ancient moralists Epictetus feels pity for the man enslaved by love (147); he is diffident about his own progress (151) and tolerant of the moral weakness of others (177). For a useful analysis of this sermon see D. Nestle, Eleutheria I (Tübingen, 1967), 121-8.

63. Epictetus taught in the remoteness of Nicopolis in Epirus under the relative freedom of the time of Trajan.

64. Persius is indebted to Horace (Sat. 2,7) as well as to the philosophical tradition; the theme is found in Philo and the early Stoa (see S.V.F. III 349-66 and 589-603).

65. On Caesius Bassus see Quint. 10,1,96 and Schanz-Hosius II⁴, 484-6. On the details of the parallel with Horace see H. Beikircher, ‘Kommentar zur VI. Satire des A. Persius Flaccus’, WSt. Beiheft 1 (1969), who discusses problems of interpretation in Sat. 6 with a thoroughness that is sometimes misguided; see P. White, C.Ph. 67 (1972), 59ff. and E. J. Kenney, C.R. 20 (1970), 410.

66. Persius' heir is notional: meus heres / quisquis eris (41f.); the language is like that used of the imaginary objector at Sat. 1,44.

67. On Chrysippus' diminishing heap see Rudd's lucid note to his translation; also S.V.F. II 277; Sen. Ben. 5,19,9; Beikircher a.l.

68. e.g. the difficult maris expers (39) ‘unmixed with sea-water’ (i.e. high-class wine) or ‘savourless’; alternatively ‘lacking virility’. See the app. crit. of Clausen ed. 1956, Beikircher a.l. and Rudd's note to his translation a.l.; perhaps Persius' ambiguity is intentional.

69. e.g. Petr. 1-5 and also Pers. 1,79 which is a general statement in language similar to the allegedly autobiographical 3,44-7. See, however, Tate, C.R. 42 (1928), 63f.; id. ib. 43 (1929), 56-9 and G. B. A. Fletcher, C.R. 42 (1928), 167f. W. S. Anderson, Röm. Sat. 409-16 attributes his remoteness from Roman society, his lack of delineated personality and his abstruse language to a desire to appear a Stoic sapiens.

70. Housman, loc. cit. (n. 36 above), 17 (= Coll. Papers II 850).

71. radere (5,15 and 1,107); ludo (5,16) alludes to the urbane approach of Horace (ludit, 1,117).

72. Davus: 5,161 and 8; Hor. e.g. Sat. 2,7 pass. and 1,10,40; the name also occurs in Men. Eun. Dama: 5,76 and 79; Hor. e.g. Sat. 1,6,38; 2,7,54. Horace's Natta is dirty and dishonest (Sat. 1,6,124), Persius' is a debauchee (3,31); his name is chosen presumably for no more than its Horatian sound and without any allusion intended to the disreputable Pinarius Nata who lived in Tiberian times (Tac. Ann. 4,34,1).

73. Pers. 1,85 and Jahn a.l. On Horace's Pedius Poplicola (Sat. 1,10,28) see Fraenkel 133ff. and Kiessling-Heinze a.l.; for Pedius Blaesus Tac. Ann. 14,18. Persius perhaps enjoyed adding the scandalous modern associations of a name that he might well have used in any case.

74. On Bathyllus Tac. Ann. 1,54 and on Masurius Gell. 5,13,5.

75. Schol. on 1,4 states that he was an inept translator of Homer.

76. The facts about the readings of the manuscripts of Persius and of the Scholia at this point will be found in Clausen's app. crit. to his edn of 1956 on 1,121. According to the Scholia Persius made the change himself, according to the Life (57-60) it was made by Cornutus. But it would seem that quis non (121) was necessary to pick up quis non (8).

77. Suet. Calig. 47.

78. 3,20; 3,63; 3,118; 5,100. On Stoicism in Persius see J. M. K. Martin, G.& R. 8 (1939), 172-82.

79. Beikircher, op. cit. (n. 65 above), 11f. stresses inductus aliquatenus in philosophiam est (Vit. Pers. 14f.,81); compare Tac. Agr. 4,3 and Dodds' description of ‘the Romans with their tidy functionalism and their cheerful obtuseness in all matters of the spirit’ (The Bacchae of Euripides (1960²) xii). But Persius was probably an exception.

80. 1,125. The O.L.D. rendering ‘ripe’ is misleading. The use of the noun decoctum and of decoquo of a boiled-down concentration of plums and wine at Plin. N.H. 23,133 shows the basis of Persius' metaphor.

81. Hor. A.P. 47f. For acer, used of penetrating criticism, see Hor. Sat. 1,10,14; 2,1,1, and also Quint. 8,3,24. The toga is a mark of respectability as well as the prosaic; along with ingenuo (14-16) it suggests that the style does not drop below a certain level.

82. 1,85-91; Vit. Pers. 24.

83. Carm. Einsiedl. 1 and 2 have many of the qualities that Persius derides. The exact chronology of these poems within the reign of Nero is uncertain, but Calp. Sic. 1, which can be dated early in the reign, though superior, is mannered and stilted. See Momigliano, C.Q. 38 (1944), 96-100 (= Contrib. 2 (1960), 454-61) and Buecheler, Rh.M. 26 (1871), 235-40 esp. 239f. on the question of dating; on Carm. Einsiedl. 2, H. Fuchs, H.S.C.Ph. 63 (1958), 363-85. See Rudd's intro. to his translation 16f.

84. The works of K. J. Reckford, Hermes 90 (1962), 476-504 and C. Dessen (see n. 54 above) concentrate on dominant metaphors. The opposite approach is that of W. Kugler, Des Persius Wille zu sprachlicher Gestaltung in seiner Wirkung auf Ausdruck und Komposition (Würzburg, 1940), who analyses the metaphors and similes as individual entities. The interesting but controversial study by J. C. Bramble, Persius and the Programmatic Satire: A Study in Form and Imagery (Cambridge, 1974), is mainly devoted to the imagery and poetry of Satire 1. See review by the present writer in C.R. (forthcoming).

85. See Schol. on 5,13.

86. 22; the reading at 23 is controversial (see Clausen (ed. 1956) app. crit.). At 59 and 121 the ears are those of the uncritical or the fool and at 108 of the listener who dislikes satire. The diminutive auriculae used in the above examples contains some hint of disapprobation. For Reckford in Sat. 1 ‘diseased ears are a key metaphor’, loc. cit. (n. 84 above) 483.

87. At 17f. and 33-5 the quality of the verse and of its delivery are closely connected. The mouth is also associated with popular acclaim; cf. 28, 49 and 87.

88. 1,20f.; cf. 87. For Bramble the dominant metaphor of the poem is sexual stimulation, op. cit. (n. 84 above), esp. 41-5 and ch. 4 passim. Dessen, op. cit. (n. 54 above) is preoccupied with sexual imagery in Satire 1, but she lacks Bramble's scholarship and literary finesse.

89. At one point imagery of the physiology of sex is telescoped into that of ingestion: the metaphor from the fluid of procreation is applied to the source of literary creation, the bad verse is then described as so frothy and flimsy that it floats on the saliva in the mouth; delumbe (spavined, 104) belongs to the previous idea of impotence (103-5), delumbe is used literally of something damaged in the hips or hind-quarters, Plin. N.H. 10,103. The word recalls lumbum (20) and the rest of the mouth metaphor recalls 35.

90. 1, 64f.; the metaphor is suggested immediately by Hor. A.P. 293.

91. Cic. de Or. 2,159 distinguished between the exact statera and the less accurate trutina. For other examples of the metaphors from measurement see 1,6f., 1,106 and 5,24f.

92. Here Persius may have drawn from personal experience; the cork-oak, which has an outer bark which can be removed at intervals, is a characteristic evergreen of Tuscany. R. Bianchi-Bandinelli, Tuscany (London, 1955), pl. 194. For a description Plin. N.H. 16,34; the simile of an outer bark is used by Varro, Men. 424, in an unknown context. The tree is common nowadays in the Tyrrhenian coastlands and is robbed of its bark every seven years: D. S. Walker, A Geography of Italy (London, 1967²), 67 and 63.

93. For the lungs (pulmo) as a centre of the mind and emotions see R. B. Onians, The Origins of European Thought about the body, the mind, the soul, the world, time and fate (Cambridge, 1951), 23-43. avia is also the Latin for a plant, possibly a weed such as groundsel. Persius may have intended the ambiguity. I owe this point to Professor Rudd. It is also an extension of spinas animo … evellas (Hor. Epp. 1,14,4f.).

94. Zeno and Chrysippus had used the example of a dog harnessed to a cart to illustrate man in relation to his destiny, S.V.F. II 975; see D. Nestle, R.A.C., s.v. ‘Freiheit’, 274.

95. The list is printed as an appendix to the edition of Persius by I. Casaubon (Paris, 1605); it will also be found in the enlarged edition by his son Meric, published together with a variorum edn. of Juvenal (Leiden, 1695). D. Henss, Philologus 99 (1955), 277-94 (= Korzeniewski 365-83) gives good help on Persius' complex reminiscences of Horace, but only a full commentary can explore adequately the multifarious quality of the reminiscences in context.

96. Pers. 5,161-74 is based on Menander's Eunuchus; Terence's adaptation is the immediate source of Hor. Sat. 2,3,259ff. The information is given by Schol. Pers. 5,161; see Menander ed. Koerte II p. 66 and Webster, Studies in Menander (Manchester, 1960²), 67-76, esp. 70.

97. 9,3,9. For Persius' usage see ed. Conington-Nettleship³ on 1,9. It is of course also a contemporary colloquialism, as meum intellegere (Petr. 52,3). Persius' metrical usage also is colloquial, e.g. the admission of a monosyllabic ending without special effect; he is master of metrical effect for parody, e.g. the spondaic ending of neoteric preciosity (1,95) and the placing of the caesura after a trochee in the third foot (6,1,5 and 6: Nisbet 66). On Persius' metrical technique see H. Küster, De A. Persii Flacci elocutione quaestiones III (Lobau, 1897), 22f. and S. B. Platner, T.A.Ph.A. 26 (1895), LVIII.

98. The threat to throw stones at the speaker of something unwelcome derives from Horace (Sat. 2,7,116). The explanation of Persius' phrase followed here is that developed by Housman, loc. cit. (n. 36 above), 29f. (= Class. Papers II 862-4). The lines were so understood in the Schol., where exossatus is equivalent to elapidatus. Ov. Met. 1,393 refers to stones as terrae ossa; this kenning has a Greek counterpart (Choirilos Trag. 2N²). See further I. Waern, ΓΗΣ ΟΣΤΕΑ The Kenning in Pre-Christian Greek Poetry (Uppsala, 1951).

99. Vit. Pres. 44-50; Quint. 10,1,94; Mart. 4,29.

100. Vit. Pers. 50.

101. Pers. 2,69 at S.H.A., Alex. Sev. 44,9. Note also that at S.H.A., Pesc. Nig. 3,11 Severus is made in a letter to allude to Pers. 1,103f.

102. Lact. inst. div. 6,2 (quoting 2,29f.); on other citations by Lactantius see Manitius, Philologus 47 (1888), 712.

103. Among the more striking imitations are Aus. Epigr. 93,3 from 4,39f. and Claudian Rapt. Pros. 1,115 from 3,58.

104. Hagendahl, Latin fathers and the Classics (Göteborg, 1958), 145, suggests that Jerome had re-read Persius at the time (probably a.d. 393) in order to have a supply of abusive ammunition, e.g. protensus est aqualiculus (adv. Iov. 2,21 from Pers. 1,57) and the application of mad Orestes (3,117f.) to Iovinianus (adv. Iov. 1,1).

105. delumbum matronarum salivam (Epp. 22,29,6 (a.d. 384) from Pers. 1,104; Hagendahl, 109f.; for other adaptations see Hagendahl, 255.

106. Hagendahl, Augustine and the Latin Classics, 2 vols, (Göteborg, 1967). Augustine quotes Persius 3,66-72 at Civ. Dei 2,6.

107. Sat. 5,24-5 in ep. 132 (= Hagendahl I test. 500). See further Hagendahl II, 472-4 for a discussion of citations from Persius.

108. For references to Persius in Porphyrio see the index to Holder's edition; for Donatus and Servius see Mountford and Schultz, Index rerum et nominum in Scholiis Servii et Aelii Donati Tractatorum; for Charisius and Diomedes, the index to G.L.K. VII,610f., and for Pseudacron the index to Keller's edition.

109. For Priscian's references to Persius see Keil's index and for those of Isidore see Lindsay's index in the O.C.T. Martianus Capella 9,908 adapts Pers. Prol. 14.

110. On Sabinus' subscript see Clausen, Hermes 91 (1963), 252-6. Clausen discusses the place of Sabinus' manuscript in the transmission of the text of Persius in this article, correcting the view expressed in his edition of 1956.

111. Allied to P but not dependent on it is S(angallensis), a 9th-C. florilegium which contains a handful of isolated lines of Persius. X was discovered in time to be mentioned by Clausen, 1956 edn, in a note (intro. xiii n. 1); it has an important place in his O.C.T. edn of 1959, and may be classed along with another valuable Vatican MS. (V) of late 9th-C. date.

112. On the Scholia see Clausen's 1956 edn, xxiiif. The most recent edn of the ancient Scholia is that of Jahn; a modern edn. making full use of what is now known about the manuscripts is much to be desired.

113. On Persius in mediaeval times see Manitius, Philologus 47 (1888), 714-20.

Abbreviations

References to Latin and Greek authors are abbreviated according to the conventions of the Oxford Latin Dictionary (intro. to first fascicle, 1968) and of Liddell-Scott-Jones, Greek-English Lexicon (1940), Preface, xvi-xliii.