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Juvenal 1 And Horace

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

A. J. Woodman
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Extract

Juvenal is here alluding to two passages of Horace's hexameter poetry in particular. First, by listing various alternative genres (epic, comedy, elegy, tragedy) before stating his own preference for writing satire (19 hoc campo), Juvenal recalls Horace's use of the same technique at S. 1.10.40ff. Second, Juvenal has borrowed several words, phrases, and ideas from Hor. Epist. 2.2.90–105

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 30 , Issue 1 , April 1983 , pp. 81 - 84
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1983

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References

Notes

1. Observed by E. Courtney in his introduction to Juv. 1 (p. 77). Two later lines of Horace's satire, 57–8, are generally thought to be echoed by Juvenal in a later line of his, 79.

2. Impune (3) and hie elegos (4) are noted by Schwartz, P., De Iuvenale Horatii imitatore (Diss. Halle, 1882), p. 9Google Scholar; uexatus (2), consumpserit (4), and si uacat (21) by Tosi, C. Facchini, Boll. Stud. Lat. 6 (1976), 8–9 and 12Google Scholar. Tosi seems to be the first scholar to have considered all these echoes as a group, but her discussion is limited by her not taking into account the way in which Juvenal also alludes to Horace's ideas (see my later remarks). I am very grateful to Su Braund for referring me to Tosi and for commenting on an earlier draft of my paper.

3. Schwartz, loc. cit., uses Juv. to argue that Hor. must have combined impune with legentibus; but the logic of Horace's passage suggests otherwise (so Wilkins and Kiessling-Heinze ad loc), and, as we shall see, Juv.'s point is much wittier if he is regarded as adapting, not copying, Hor.

4. Hor.'s line 97 is referred to by Mayor, but on line 3.

5. See Bramble, J. C., Persius and the programmatic satire (Cambridge, 1974), pp. 164–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar (pp. 170–72 on the imagery of line 19). My use of Hor. Epist. 2.2.65ff. might provide further evidence for Anderson, W. S. (TAPA 92 (1961), 1–12)Google Scholar, whose thesis is that in his first satire Juv. was writing in the tradition of certain of Hor.'s odes; but, like Bramble (p. 164 n. 2), I find the thesis impossible to believe. This does not mean that I can satisfactorily explain Juv.'s line 51, haec ego non credam Venusina digna lucerna?; but perhaps the point is that, just as the faults of late-republican society found their critic in Horace, so the much worse vices of his own society require a treatment which is at least Horatian but far preferably Juvenalian.

6. See Bramble, loc. cit.

7. Scholars compare Hor. 5.2.1.40–41, me ueluti custodiet ensis/uagina tectus, where Hor., who has already pledged his allegiance to Lucilius (34 sequor hunc), says that his own writing is defensive, whereas that of Lucilius was not (62ff.).

8. See Mayor and Courtney ad loc., Bramble, , op. cit., pp. 169–70Google Scholar.

9. For this use of pater see OLD s.v. 8.