Juvenal: Satires

Before the individual books appeared publicly, they had certainly already become known, for the most part, through recitations or through being shared with trusted friends.

§ 20.

How long Juvenal lived after the composition of the fifteenth satire, whether he really reached the age of over eighty and lived to see the reign of Antoninus Pius, is impossible to state with certainty because we lack reliable sources1. Therefore, all that remains for us is to investigate the question of Juvenal's exile.

Sidonius Apollinaris2 associates the exile of our poet with the fate of Ovid and finds a consistent similarity in both. And we may also accept the testimony of the scholia3 that Juvenal actually experienced an exile from Rome. This fact itself could not have been interpreted by the scholiasts out of the poet's own works, because he does not mention such a thing anywhere. The cause of the exile is also essentially stated in agreement between Sidonius and the scholia. An actor, it seems, had been offended because the people, incited by some verses of Juvenal, received him with reluctant hissing upon his appearance. Regarding 7, 92, the scholia note: propter hunc versum missus est in exilium a Claudio Nerone on account of this verse he was sent into exile by Claudius Nero. And the same note is found in all the Vitae biographies, except that usually not Nero, but Domitian, and occasionally Trajan, is cited as the emperor who had that punishment of the poet carried out. We must distinguish between the fact of the exile and the cause of it. A reliable tradition regarding the fact could have been preserved until the 4th or 5th century; however, it is quite possible that not even Juvenal's contemporaries, let alone those who came later, had certain knowledge of the cause. In such cases, reasons are sought, and if a plausible reason is found, it is only too easily handed down to posterity as fact, especially in an age no longer accustomed to rigorous criticism. In verses 7, 88–92, such a reason could easily be found.

1. Vita IV: he died consumed by old age as an exile in the time of the Emperor Antoninus Pius.
2. Carm. IX 270: Not he who dwelt for a long time at Tomis in the era of the second Caesar due to a legal charge, nor he who afterwards, by a similar stroke of fate, was an exile due to the thin whisper of the people shouting at an angry actor.
3. All Vitae agree that Juvenal was exiled.