Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/702

688 of a body of troops quartered in a remote district of Egypt, where he died within a very brief space, the victim of disgust and grief. The account of the banishment to Egypt is supposed to be corroborated by the general tenor of the fifteenth satire, and especially by the words (44 — 46)

" Horrida sane Aegyptus, sed luxuria, quantum, ipse notavi, Barbara famoso non cedit turba Canopo,''

which are interpreted to imply personal observa- tion, while Sidonius ApoUinaris is believed to refer to the same personages and the same events, when he says (Cann. ix. 270— 274.),

" Non qui tempore Caesaris secundi Aeterno coluit Tomos reatu. Nee qui consimili deinde casu Ad vulgi tenuem strepentis auram Iratifuit histrionis exstd.

Several other biographies are found in the MSS., but all certainly of a later date than that of which we have given an abstract. These agree, in many points, almost word for word, with the above nar- rative, but differ much from it and from each other in various details connected with the misfortune and fate of the satirist. Thus one of these declares that the events happened in the reign of Nero ; and in this it is supported by the scholiast on Sat. vii. .92 ; that Juvenal returned to the city, and, being filled with grief in consequence of the absence of his friend Martial, died in his eighty-first year. In another we are told, that having been exiled to- wards the close of Domitian's career, and not re- called by the successors of that prince, he died of old age, under Antoninus Pius. In a third it is stated that Trajan, incensed by an attack upon his favourite, Paris, despatched the author of the libel upon an expedition against the Scotch. Joannes Malelas of Antioch, who is copied by Suidas, re- cords {Chronogr. lib. x. p. 262. ed. Bonn) the banishment of Juvenal by Domitian to the Penta- polis of Libya, on account of a lampoon upon " Paris the dancer," whom, it is evident from what follows, the Byzantine confounds with some other individual ; and, finally, the old commentator on the fourth satire ignorantly imagines that the lines 37, 38,

" Quum jam semianimera laceraret Flavins orbem Ultimus et calvo serviret Roma Neroni,"

were the cause, and the Oasis the place of exile.

Before going farther, we must remember that there were two famous pantomimes who bore the name of Paris, one contemporary with Nero, the other with Domitian, and that each was put to death by the emperor, under whom he flourished (Dion Cass. Ixiii. 18, Ixvii. 3; Sueton. A^er. 54, Dom. 3, 10) ; but it is evident, from the transactions with Statins alluded to in the lines quoted above, that the second of these is the Paris of the seventh satire. This being premised, we shall find that the older annotators, taking the words of the pseudo-Sueto- nius in what certainly appears at first sight to be their natural and obvious acceptation, agree in be- lieving that Juvenal, on account of his insolent animadversions on the all-powerful minion of the court, was banished at the age of eighty by Do- mitian to Egypt, where he very soon afterwards Bunk under the pressure of age and sorrow. But a careful examination of the historical notices in the satires tiiemselves will at once prove that this opinion is untenable, although we must carefully separate what is certain from what is doubtful. Thus it is often asserted that the thirteenth satire belongs to a.d. 119 or even to a.d. 127, because written sixty years after the consulship of Fonteins (see V. 17), as if it were unquestionable that this Fonteius must be the C. Fonteius Capita who was consul A.D. 59, or the L. Fonteius Capita who was consul A.D. 67, while, in reality, the individual indicated is in all probability C. Fonteius Capita,, who was consul a.d. 12, since we know, from Statins, that Rutilius Gallicus (see v. 157) was actually city praefect under Domitian. Again, the contest between the inhabitants of Ombi and of Tentyra is said (xv. 27) to have happened "■ nuper consule Junio ; " but even admitting this name to be correct, and the MSS. here vary much, we can- not tell whether we ought to fix upon Appiiis Junius iSabinus,, consul a. d. 84, or upon Q. Junius RusticuSf consul a.d. 119. We have, however, fortunately evidence more precise.

1. We know from Dion Cassius (Ixvii. 3) that Paris was killed in a.d. 83, upon suspicion of an intrigue with the empress Doraitia.

2. The fourth satire, as appears from the con- cluding lines, was written after the death of Domi- tian, that is, not earlier than a.d, 96.

3. The first satire, as we learn from the forty- ninth line, was written after the condemnation of Marius Priscus, that is, not earlier than a.d. 100. These positions admit of no doubt or cavil, and hence it is established that Juvenal was alive at least 17 years after the death of Paris, and that some of his most spirited productions were com- posed after the death of Domitian. Hence, if the powerful " histrio " in the biography of the pseudo- Suetonius be, as Ave should naturally conclude, the same person with the Paris named in tlie preceding sentence, it is impossible that Juvenal could have been banished later than a.d. 83 ; it is impossible that he could have died immediately afterwards, since he was alive in a.d. 100 ; and it is incredible that if he had pined for a long series of years at a distance from his country his works should contain no allusion to a destiny so sad, while, on the other hand, they bear the most evident marks of having been conceived and brought forth in the metropolis amid the scenes so graphically described.

Salmasius was much too acute not to perceive this difficulty ; but clinging to the idea that Ju- venal actually was banished to Egypt at the age of 80 and there died, he endeavoured to escape from the embarrassment by supposing that the seventh satire, containing the lines composed originally against Paris, was not published until the accession of Hadrian ; that the word " histrio " does not refer to Paris at all, but to some player of that epoch protected by the sovereign, who, taking offence at the passage in question, disgraced the author of what he considered as a scarcely hidden attack upon his abuse of patronage. This notion is fol- lowed out by Dodwell (Annal. Quintil. § 37), who maintains that all the satires were published after the elevation of Hadrian, whom he supposes to be the object of the complimentary address, " Et spes et ratio studiorum in Caesare tantum," expressions which Salmasius refers to Trajan, and the scholiast to Nero ! But although the words both in the satire and in the memoir might, without much vio- lence, be accommodated to some such explanation,