JUVENAL'S SATIRE I.

or Orestes, with the end of a huge volume already filled, even written on the back, and not yet finished? But no one's house is known to anyone more than the grove of Mars and the cave of Vulcan, near the rocks of Aeolus, are known to me. Furthermore, the plane trees of Fronto, and the shaken marble, resonate constantly: what the winds are doing; what souls Aeacus torments; from what part another brings the gold of the secretly stolen fleece; how great oak trees Monychus brandishes; and the supports are shaken by the continuous reciter. Therefore, we too have withdrawn our hand from the cane; we too have been the authors of Sulla, so that he as a private citizen might take a deep sleep.

Or Orestes, written on the back and not yet finished?

Rocks. What the winds do; what shades Aeacus torments; from where another carries away the gold of the stolen 10
Fleece: what size oak trees Monychus hurls;
The plane trees of Fronto, and the shaken marble shout
Always, and the columns shattered by the ceaseless reader.
Expect the same from the highest and lowest poet.
And so we too have withdrawn our hand from the cane: and we
Have given advice to Sulla, so that as a private citizen he might 16

Sidonius Apollinaris, Book 8, Epist. 16, which is to Constantius: Now a voluminous copy strikes you, if I am not mistaken, he says; now one comes to the margins of the scrolls, now it is time (as the Satirist says) for our Orestes to be finished even on the back.

6. Orestes.] Who, tormented by the Furies for the murder of his mother Clytemnestra, underwent various parts of the world, with Pylades as his companion, and various hardships. Euripides in Orestes, also in Iphigenia in Tauris, and in Electra. Sophocles in Electra. Herodotus, Book 1, affirms that the corpse of Orestes, exhumed by the command of the Oracle, was seven cubits long, but Gellius, Book 3, ch. 10, calls him a fabulist.

7. Known to no one more, etc.] That is, if I were to wish to write and compose a poem, I know the histories and fables as well as those poetasters who do so with impunity. The learned, and especially Janus Parrhasius, observe that Valerius Flaccus is argued here, who in his Argonautica ambitiously pursued such trifles and affected descriptions of things.

Grove of Mars.] Either the grove sacred to Mars near Alba, where Remus and Romulus were born to Rhea Silvia. Or, as some wish, a place on the Appian Way, where poets were accustomed to recite, called the Grove of Mars. Or he alludes to that of Horace to the Pisones:

When the grove and altar of Diana, etc.
And that of Persius:
Nor [are they] craftsmen to place a grove.

8. Aeolian rocks.] There are seven Liparean islands in the Tyrrhenian Sea, which were also called Aeolian from Aeolus, who, having been driven there, is said to have reigned on one of them. Juvenal calls them rocks because they are craggy and rocky, at least some of them.

Nearby cave.] Mount Etna in Sicily erupting flames, in which, for that reason, they fabricated that Vulcan lives. Poets loved to describe the fires of this mountain.

9. What the winds do.] What the nature and origin of the winds is, what their effects, what their powers; which is the common material for the poems of poets.

10. Aeacus.] He is the judge among the shades along with Minos and Rhadamanthus. There are those who divide the offices among them, so that Juvenal might properly say torments: Namely, they attribute the interrogation to Rhadamanthus, judgment to Minos, and execution to Aeacus.

From where another carries away the stolen, etc.] From Colchis to Thessaly, Jason stole the Golden Fleece, aided by the arts of Medea. Diodorus Siculus, Book 5, ch. 3. That Argonautic expedition was celebrated first among the Greeks by Orpheus and Apollonius; and later among the Latins by C. Valerius Flaccus Setinus, under the Emperor Domitian.

11. Monychus.] This name is placed as if it were the proper name of one of the Centaurs, as it is also in Ovid and Lucan. It is common, however, to all those who were imagined to have a single solid hoof; the origin being derived from monos single and onyx hoof. The Centaurs, moreover, were called Monychi because these people of Thessaly, when they first domesticated horses and fought from them, being seen from a distance, were believed to have limbs partly equine and partly human.

Hurls oak trees.] That is, how great were the trees the Centaurs brandished against the Lapiths, in that struggle begun at the instigation of Mars to abduct Hippodamia, the wife of Pirithous, angered namely that when all the other gods were invited to the wedding, he himself had been passed over. See Ovid, Metamorphoses 12.

12. Fronto.] Julius Fronto, a noble and learned man of Rome, and a friend to the literate, willingly accommodated his house to poets reciting. Martial, Book 1, Epigram 56:

Fronto, the famous glory of the military and the toga.

Plane trees.] Trees providing shade to that walk where they recited. The Romans cultivated plane trees zealously, so much so that Hortensius even nurtured his plane trees with wine poured on them at his Tusculan villa; according to Macrobius, Book 3, ch. 13.

Shaken marble.] Either by the multitude of those who gathered to listen, or rather by the constant shouting of the reciters. Hyperbole.

14. Expect the same, etc.] Horace in the Art:

We write poems here and there, the learned and unlearned alike.

15. And so we too have withdrawn our hand, etc.] Therefore, why should we not also write something, since we have heard the grammarians and rhetoricians, and hold all their discipline?

Cane.] It is a very light stalk, concerning which Pliny [writes in] Book 13, ch. 22. From it is made that instrument by which the hands of boys are struck as a punishment. Martial calls them the scepters of schoolmasters in Book 10, Epigram 62.

16. Given advice to Sulla.] For the sake of practice, as happens in schools, we treated fictional subjects in the triple kind of speech, and thus in the deliberative [style], we advised Sulla while he was deliberating to [abdicate the] Dictatorship.