Juvenal

Who is Juvenal?

Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis, known in English as Juvenal, was a Roman poet active in the late 1st and early 2nd century AD, author of the Satires. The details of the author's life are unclear, although references within his text to known persons of the late 1st and early 2nd centuries AD fix his terminus post quem.

In accord with the manner of Lucilius—the originator of the genre of Roman satire—and within a poetic tradition that also included Horace and Persius, Juvenal wrote at least 16 poems in dactylic hexameter covering an encyclopedic range of topics across the Roman world. While the Satires are a vital source for the study of ancient Rome from a vast number of perspectives, their hyperbolic, comedic mode of expression makes the use of statements found within them as simple fact problematic. At first glance the Satires could be read as a critique of pagan Rome, perhaps ensuring their survival in Christian monastic scriptoria, a bottleneck in preservation when the large majority of ancient texts were lost.

Famous Quotes:

• Nature never says one thing and wisdom another.
• Now we suffer the evils of a long peace; luxury more cruel than war broods over us and avenges a conquered world.
• Many commit the same crime with a different destiny; one bears a cross as the price of his villainy, another wears a crown.
• What is the use of your pedigrees?
• Revenge is always the weak pleasure of a little and narrow mind.
• A man who has nothing can whistle in a robber's face.
• A hairy body, and arms stiff with bristles, give promise of a manly soul.
• We are too quick to imitate depraved examples.
• It is sheer madness to live in want in order to be wealthy when you die.
• All things may be bought in Rome with money.