THE SATIRES OF JUVENAL
(From SATIRE I)
...all the doings of mankind, their vows, their fears, their angers and their
pleasures, their joys and goings to and fro, shall form the motley subject of my
page. For when was Vice more rampant? When did the maw of Avarice gape wider?
When was gambling so reckless? Men come not now with purses to the hazard of the
gaming table, but with a treasure-chest beside them. What battles will you there
see waged with a cashier for armour-bearer! Is it a simple form of madness to
lose a hundred thousand sesterces, and not have a shirt to give to a shivering
slave? Which of our grandfathers built such numbers of villas, or dined by
himself off seven courses? Look now at the meagre dole set down upon the
threshold for a toga-clad mob to scramble for! Yet the patron first peers into
your face, fearing that you may be claiming under someone else's name: once
recognised, you will get your share. He then bids the crier call up the
Trojan-blooded nobles—for they too besiege the door as well as we: "The Praetor
first," says he, "and after him the Tribune." "But I was here first," says a
freedman who stops the way; "why should I be afraid, or hesitate to keep my
place? Though born on the Euphrates—a fact which the little windows in my ears
would testify though I myself denied it—yet I am the owner of five shops which
bring me in four hundred thousand sesterces. What better thing does the
Broad Purple of high rank bestow if an aristocrat of the Corvinus family herds sheep for daily wage in the
Laurentian country, while I possess more property than either a Pallas or a
Licinus?" So let the Tribunes await their turn; let money carry the day; let
the sacred office give way to one who came but yesterday with whitened
feet as a slave for sale into our city. For no deity is held in such reverence amongst us as Wealth;
though as yet, O baneful money, thou hast no temple of thine own; not yet have
we reared altars to Money in like manner as we worship Peace and Honour, Victory
and Virtue, or that Concord that clatters when we salute her nest.