JUVENAL

(Decimus Junius Juvenalis)jooˈvənəl, fl. 1st to 2d cent. a.d., Roman satirical poet. His verse established a model for the satire of indignation, in contrast to the less harsh satire of ridicule of Horace. Little is known about his life except that during much of it he was desperately poor. A tradition tells that as a youth he was banished from court for satirizing an imperial favorite; later his work reveals a deep hatred for the Emperor Domitian. He is known chiefly for his 16 satires, which contain a vivid representation of life in Rome under the empire. They were probably written in the years between a.d. 100 and a.d. 128. The biting tone of his diatribes has seldom been equaled. From the stern point of view of the older Roman standards he powerfully denounces the lax and luxurious society, the brutal tyranny, the affectations and immorality of women, and the criminal excesses of Romans as he saw them, especially in his earlier years. The rhetorical form of his verse is finished, exact, and epigrammatic, furnishing many sayings that have become familiar through quotation.

See translations by R. Humphries (1958), G. G. Ramsay (rev ed. 1961), and P. Green (1967, repr. 1974); studies by I. G. Scott (1927), G. Highet (1955, repr. 1961); M. Coffey, Roman Satire (1976, 2d ed. 1989).

The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright© 2004, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products N.V. All rights reserved.

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