Page:Juvenal and Persius by G. G. Ramsay.djvu/71

 silver, no handles of ivory, no professional carver, no Phrygian or Lycian Ganymede to hand you your cup. Two simple country-clad lads will serve the table; no wanton dancing girls will be provided for your entertainment; only Homer and Virgil will be read. And our enjoyment will be all the greater that we can hear the roars of the circus in the distance, and hug ourselves in the delights of a rare and peaceful holiday (56–208).

In his 12th Satire Juvenal celebrates the narrow escape from shipwreck of his friend Catullus. A terrible storm had compelled him to cut away the mast and to throw overboard all the treasures of his cargo. But at length the storm abates, and Catullus with his crew arrive safe and sound in the new Ostian harbour. Juvenal then offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving for his friend's safety— no mercenary offering this for a rich and childless friend, seeing that Catullus has three little sons of his own. This leads the poet to have his fling at the wiles of legacy-hunters, some of whom would be ready to sacrifice a hecatomb of elephants (if elephants were to be had), or even to offer an Iphigenia of their own, in order to secure a place in a rich man's will.

The elephant passage is singularly cumbrous and out of place.

The 13th is the noblest of Juvenal's Satires. It takes the form of a consolatory epistle to Calvinus, lxvii