Page:Juvenal and Persius by G. G. Ramsay.djvu/23

 The person satirised in the passage quoted in the Life was a dancer of the name of Paris, who had just been mentioned in connection with the poet Statius. "A monstrous thing," says Juvenal, "that after charming the town with his beautiful voice, Statius would have to starve if he did not sell to Paris his unpublished Agave"; Esurit, intactam Paridi nisi vendit Agaven (vii. 87).

Now there were two famous dancers of the name of Paris, to cither of whom the passage in Sat. vii. might apply. The one flourished, and was put to death, in the reign of Nero; while the other met a similar fate under Domitian. The early commentators on the Biography took it for granted, naturally enough, that the Paris mentioned in the Biography was the same Paris that is mentioned by Juvenal himself in Sat. vii. But the dates given above for the life of Juvenal prove conclusively that neither of the artists who bore the name of Paris could possibly have brought about the banishment of Juvenal in the manner stated. The later of the two was put to death in the reign of Domitian; and it has been shown above that the period of Juvenal's literary activity did not begin, and that Sat. vii. was not published, till some years after the death of that Emperor. All attempts to bring the banishment within the period of Domitian 's reign have broken down.

But though the story of Juvenal's banishment as xix