The Satires of Juvenal

but he continued to write during the remainder of Domitian's reign, in which he finished, as I conceive, his second, third, fifth, sixth, and perhaps thirteenth satires; the eighth, I have always looked upon as his first.

In 95 AD, when Juvenal was in his 54th year, Domitian banished the philosophers from Rome, and soon after from Italy, with many circumstances of cruelty; an action for which, I am sorry to observe, he is covertly praised by Quintilian. Though Juvenal, strictly speaking, did not come under the description of a philosopher, yet, like the hare in the fable, he might not unreasonably entertain some apprehensions for his safety and, with many other persons eminent for learning and virtue, judge it prudent to withdraw from the city. To this period I have always been inclined to fix his journey to Egypt. Two years afterwards, the world was happily relieved from the tyranny of Domitian; and Nerva, who succeeded him, recalled the exiles. From this time there remains little doubt of Juvenal's being at Rome, where he continued his studies in tranquility.

His first Satire, after the death of Domitian, seems to have been what is now called the fourth. About this time, too, he probably thought of revising and publishing those which he had already written and composed or completed that introductory piece, which now stands at the head of his works. As the order is everywhere broken, it is utterly impossible to arrange them chronologically; but I am inclined to think that the eleventh Satire closed his poetical career. All else is conjecture; but in this, he speaks of himself as an old man,
“May our shriveled skin drink in the spring sun;” Original Latin: "Nostra bibat vernum contracta cuticula solem"
and indeed he had now passed his grand climacteric a critical year in one's life, historically thought to be 63.

This is all that can be collected of the life of Juvenal; and how much of this is built upon uncertainties? I hope, however, that it bears the stamp of probability, which is