The development of first human language, as opposed to mere sound, depended upon the anatomy of the primitive vocal tract, with phonetics limited to a few dozen words with simple syntax. It is hard to settle on a time period when a complex degree of language may have emerged. Archeologists have dug up skulls from fifty thousand years ago with vocal tracts capable of producing a full range of sounds. According to a New York Times article November 14, 2000, “Dr. Richard Klein, an archeologist at Stanford University, has suggested that some genetic changes, perhaps as profound as the invention of language, occurred in Africa around 50,000 years ago”.
Around 1780 William Jones, a British judge in India, studied the Sanskrit language and identified words that resembled words of similar meaning in classical tongues. From this early study were developed detailed analyses by philologists of cognitive similarities in so-called Indo-European languages, including Latin, Greek, and, of course English.
The refinement of language may have been slow or rapid after its invention, but undoubtedly its use played an important part in the ongoing sharpening of human intelligence and in communication. A succinct observation by Lucretius in De Rerum Natura, (Book One, 824-827):
Again, ( Book Five, 1028-1030):Look - in my lines here you can see the letters
Common to many of the words, but you know
Perfectly well that resonance and meaning,
Sense, sound, are changed by changing the arrangement.
I am reminded of an observation by our contemporary sage, Dr. Z. Philip Ambrose, in a recent lecture (November 2, 2000), to the effect that in communication, it is important to know the audience to whom we are telling a story, as a clue to their understanding of the story.Nature drove them on
To use their tongues for speech, and they contrived
For their convenience, names for things.
It is not my purpose to discuss language development further at any length. I mentioned it merely to introduce my personal belief that the use of language reached its most exquisite refinement with the emergence of satire. In my book, a satire is the ultimate development in the arrangement of words. And satire flowered under the poet Juvenal, after earlier development with such poets as Lucilius.
Decimus Iunius Juvenalis, whose date of birth is given variously as around 55 to 60 AD, came from Acquinum, about 80 miles southeast of Rome. From scanty facts about his life as revealed in his Satires, we know that he received a secondary education, and that he was a close friend of Martial. He traveled in Spain, Egypt, Britain (perhaps Scotland). But many of his observations are drawn from wandering along the Suburba, among the houses of rich patrons, and the teeming tenements of Rome.
His satires deal mainly with life in Rome under Domitian, Nerva, Trajan and Hadrian. He says in Satire One that he is going to take examples from the dead, since it is dangerous to attack powerful live figures; but we know that he sometimes put this insurance against retaliation at risk by mentioning living contemporaries, inasmuch as he was exiled, either in Egypt or Scotland, banished by either Trajan or Domitian. One tradition had it that his exile (in Egypt) took place when he was eighty years old, and was combined with a military command. He was exiled for attacking an actor with influence at court.
He implies, overall, that Rome has been corrupt for many generations. He maintains that it is impossible not to write satire, this being the situation. In the third satire, he is determined to leave the city for a quiet country life, since Rome has been ruined by Greeks and other foreigners. Regrettably, here he demonstrates a xenophobic streak. (Nobody’s perfect.) The tenth satire, examining mankind’s ambitions for wealth, power, glory, longevity and beauty, concludes that these all lead to disappointment.
The first historical figure he mentions is Sulla, who was dictator from 82 to 80 BCE.
Some references, as above, are to “dead white males”; others, riskily, to contemporaries, as is the next. Crispinus: Juvenal apparently had a grudge against this man from Egypt, who rose from fishmonger to eques under Domitian’s favor.You get the same stuff from them all, established poet
And raw beginner alike. I too have winced under the cane
And concocted ‘Advice to Sulla’: Let the despot retire
Into private life, take a good long sleep, and so on. When you find
Hordes of poets on each street-corner, it’s misplaced kindness
To refrain from writing.
A few lines later in the same satire, he is referring to Marius Priscus, the governor of Africa who in AD100 was banished for extortion and cruelty, when he writes:when Crispinus -
That Delta-bred house-slave, silt washed down from the Nile -
Now hitches his shoulders under Tyrian purple, airs
A thin gold ring in summer on his sweaty finger
(‘My dear, I couldn’t bear to wear my heavier jewels’) -
Why then, it is harder not to be writing satires.
Further on, in an example, Maecenas is named, another earlier object of his attention, the chief diplomat and confidante of Octavian, the man who also presided over his literary circle which included Horace, Virgil, Ovid and Propertius. Among other things, Maecenas had negotiated the Treaty of Brundisium in 40 BCE.Who cares for reputation
If he keeps his cash? A provincial governor, exiled
For extortion, boozes and feasts all day, basks cheerfully
In the wrathful eye of the Gods; it’s still his province,
After winning the case against him, that feels the pinch.
(No doubt he means it was the forger, not Maecenas, who acquired the wealth by dubious means.)Don’t you want to cram whole notebooks with scribbled invective
When you stand at the corner and see some forger carried past
On the necks of six porters, lounging back like Maecenas
In his open litter? A counterfeit seal, a will, a mere scrap
Of paper - these were enough to convert him to wealth and honor.
Next we find Lacusta, a famous poisoner in Nero’s reign. She did in the Emperor Claudius at the behest of Agrippina, and poisoned Britannicus for Nero. She was executed by Galba.
Roman Citizens’ Upper Ten: Juvenal was referring to the elite who presumed themselves deserving of favors because they were landed gentry or equestrians or military or otherwise designated as special. In the following passage quoting the former slave we should take note of the earlier Slave Wars (c.135 BCE), when hordes of slaves revolted and were cruelly punished when captured, still others who escaped were not tracked down inexorably because they were easily replaced due to an influx of tens of thousands of slaves captive from Rome’s wars in Asia, Greece, Macedonia, Africa, Spain and Gaul and the pirate trade.Do you see that distinguished lady? She has the perfect dose
For a thirsty husband -old wine with a dash of toad’s blood.
Lucasta’s a child to her; she trains her untutored neighbors
To ignore all unkind rumours, to stalk through angry crowds
With their black and bloated husbands before them on the hearse.
If you want to be someone today you must nerve yourself
For deeds that could earn you an island exile, or years in gaol.
Honesty’s praised, but honest men freeze. Wealth springs from crime;
Landscape - gardens, palaces, furniture, antique silver -
Those cups embossed with prancing goats - all, all are tainted.
At the end of the first satire, he’s crossing back to safety again, bringing in Aeneas.But now Roman citizens are reduced to scrambling
For a little basket of scraps on their patron’s doorstep.
He peers into each face first, scared stiff that some imposter
May give a false name and cheat him: you must be identified
Before you get your ration. The crier has his orders:
Each man to answer his name, nobility included -
Oh yes, our Upper - Ten are scrounging with the rest.
‘The praetor’s first, then the tribune’ - But a freedman blocks
Their way. ‘I got here first,’ he says,’ why shouldn’t I keep
My place? I don’t give that for you. Oh, I know I’m foreign:
Look here, at my pierced ears, no use denying it - born
Out East, on the Euphrates. But my five shops bring in
Four hundred thousand, see? So I qualify for the gentry.
What’s in a senator’s purple stripe, if true-blue nobles
Are reduced to herding sheep up-country, while I have more
Stashed away in the bank than any Imperial favorite?
So let the Tribunes wait, and money reign supreme;
Let the Johnny-come-lately, whose feet only yesterday were white
With the chalk of the slave- market, flout this sacrosanct office.
Why not? . . .
Still it is Wealth, not God, that compels our deepest reverence.
In Satire Three, with his first reference to an infamous individual, Verres, the notorious governor of Sicily 73-71 BCE, he is again playing it safe (Dead white male). Verres was prosecuted by Cicero, himself a master of fluent invective.It’s safe enough to retell how Aeneas fought fierce Turnus;
No one’s a penny the worse for Achilles’ death, or the frantic
Search for Hylas, that time he tumbled in after his pitcher.
But when fiery Lucilius rages with satire’s naked sword
His hearers go red; their conscience is cold with crime,
Their innards sweat at the thought of their secret guilt:
Hence wrath and tears. So ponder these things in your mind
Before the trumpet sounds. It’s too late for a soldier
To change his mind about fighting when he’s armed in the battle-line.
For myself, I shall try my hand on the famous dead, whose ashes
Rest beside the Latin and the Flaminian Ways.
Calling up Scipio: a general campaigning in Spain in 215 BCE, who sent a letter to Rome saying the army needed pay, clothing and grain, and the navy needed everything; and he had a plan to get pay if the Roman treasury was empty. And referring to Numa, the second king of Rome, after Romulus, again he is considering how much respect such historic figures would rate:. . . But if Verres promotes a man
You can safely assume that man has the screws on Verres
And could turn him in tomorrow. Not all the gold
Washed seaward with the silt of the tree-lined Tagus
Is worth the price you pay, racked by insomnia, seeing
Your high-placed friends all cringe at your approach - and
For what? Too-transient prizes, unwillingly resigned.
Juvenal speaks of Claudius, “the Emperor”, who was slightly before his time (41 - 54 AD), as if he were alive in the present. Claudius had a habit of cat-napping in public. Claudius’ voice was described by Seneca as ‘a kind of hoarse inarticulate bark, like a sea-beast’. What makes the allusion even more apt is that seals, according to Pliny, were believed to have curious sleepy habits.. . . still the first and foremost question
Would be: “What’s he worth?” His character would command
Little if any respect. ‘How many slaves does he keep?
What’s his acreage? What sort of dinner-service
Appears on his table - how many pieces, how big?’
Each man’s word is as good as his bond - or rather
The number of bonds in his strong-box. A pauper can swear by every
Altar, and every god between Rome and Samothrace, still
(Though the gods themselves forgive him) he’ll pass for a perjurer
Defying the wrath of heaven. The poor man’s an eternal
Butt for bad jokes, with his torn and dirt-caked top-coat,
His grubby toga, one shoe agape where the leather’s
Split - those clumsy patches, that coarse and tell-tale stitching
Only a day or two old. The hardest thing to bear
In poverty is the fact that it makes us ridiculous.
In Satire Ten, he begins his tirade against the evils of wealth, drifting back into contemporary times, by mentioning that Nero banished Longinus (a famous jurist and former governor of Syria), and Seneca, his tutor. Also, he includes Lateranus (consul designate in 65 AD implicated in the Piso conspiracy) as a wealthy victim whose house was consfiscated when he was put to death.How much sleep, I ask you, can one get in lodgings here?
Unbroken nights - and this is the root of the trouble -
Are a rich man’s privilege. The waggons thundering past
Through those narrow twisting streets, the oaths of draymen
Caught in a traffic jam - those alone would suffice
To jolt the doziest sea-cow of an Emperor into
Permanent wakefulness. If a business appointment
Summons the tycoon, he gets there fast, by litter,
Tacking above the crowd. There’s plenty of room inside:
He can read, or take notes, or snooze as he jolts along -
Those drawn blinds are most soporific. Even so
He outstrips us: however fast we pedestrians hurry
We’re blocked by the crowds ahead, while those behind us
Tread on our heels. Sharp elbows buffet my ribs,
Poles poke into me; one lout swings a crossbeam
Down on my skull, another scores with a barrel.
My legs are mud-encrusted, big feet kick me, a hobnailed
Soldier’s boot lands squarely on my toes.
Contemplating the transitory nature of fame, Juvenal cites the example of Sejanus, a powerful prefect under Tiberius, who participated in a plot to assassinate the latter when he retired to Capri in 27 AD. Tiberius was warned in time to alert the Senate; and Sejanus was arrested and executed.. . . garrets are very seldom
The object of military raids. When you go out on a night journey,
Though you may have only a few small treasures with you
You’ll take every stirring shadow, each moonlit reed
For a sword or cudgel. But the empty-handed
Traveller whistles his way past any highwayman.
The most popular, urgent prayer, well-known in every temple,
Is for wealth. Increase my holdings, please make my deposit account
The largest in town! But you’ll never find yourself drinking
Belladonna from pottery cups. The time you should worry is when
You’re clutching a jewelled goblet, when your bubbly gleams with gold.
He summons up the ghosts of Pompey, Crassus, and ‘that other tyrant’, Julius Caesar to apostrophize the evils of power grabbing:Some men are overthrown by the envy their great power
Arouses; it’s that long and illustrious list of honours
That sinks them. The ropes are heaved, down come the statues,
Axes demolish their chariot-wheels, the unoffending
Legs of their horses are broken. And now the fire
Roars up in the furnace, now the flames hiss under the bellows:
The head of the people’s darling glows red-hot, great Sejanus
Crackles and melts. That face only yesterday ranked
Second in all the world. Now it’s so much scrap-metal,
To be turned into jugs and basins, frying-pans, chamber-pots.
Hang wreaths on your doors, lead a big white sacrificial
Bull to the Capitol! They’re dragging Sejanus along
By a hook, in public. Everyone cheers. ‘Just look at that
Ugly stuck-up face,’ they say. ‘Believe me, I never
Cared for the fellow.’ ‘But what was his crime? Who brought
The charges, who gave evidence? How did they prove him guilty?’
‘Nothing like that: A long and wordy letter arrived
From Capri.’ ‘Fair enough: you need say no more.’
The thirst for glory was another element in the theme of the tenth satire. He uses Hannibal as a prime example of how this can do a man in sooner or later, ultimately after he has enjoyed his fling.What proved their downfall? Lust for ultimate power
Pursued without scruple - and the malice of Heaven
That granted ambition’s prayers. Battle and slaughter
See most kings off; few tyrants die in their beds.
Juvenal’s themes for satire included the consideration of man’s obsession with beauty, or handsome looks. He warns that while every mother might pray to Diana for a beautiful daughter, “A handsome son keeps his anxious parents in constant anxiety: good looks and decent behavior too seldom are found in the same person.” And even if he is brought up right, manliness is still denied him, because a seducer will produce bribes lavish enough to overcome parents’ scruples.Put Hannibal in the scales: how many pounds will that peerless
General mark up today? This is the man for whom Africa
Was too small a continent, though it stretched from the surf-beaten
Ocean shores of Morocco east to the steamy Nile,
To Ethiopian tribesmen - and new elephants’ habitats.
Now Spain swells his empire, now he surmounts
The Pyrenees Nature throws in his path
High Alpine passes, blizzards of snow: but he splits
The very rocks asunder, moves mountains - with vinegar.
Now Italy is his, yet still he forces on:
‘We have accomplished nothing,’ he cries,’till we have stormed
The gates of Rome, till our Carthaginian standard
Is set in the City’s heart’ . . . Alas, alas for glory,
What an end was here . . . No sword, no spear,
No battle-flung stone was to snuff the fiery spirit
That once had wrecked a world: those crushing defeats,
Those rivers of spilt blood were all wiped out by a
Ring, a poisoned ring.
A final theme that engages his attention is the desire of mankind for a long life.Cash always wins in the end. But no misshapen
Stripling was ever unsexed by a tyrant in his castle,
No Nero would ever rape a clubfooted adolescent -
Much less one with a hump, pot-belly, or scrofula.
So you’re proud of your handsome son? Fair enough - but don’t ever forget
The extra hazards that face him. He’ll become a notorious
Layer of other men’s wives, always scared that some husband’s
Hot on his tail for revenge.
The above quotations are examples of Juvenal’s concern with Romans’ over-reaching obsession with wealth, power, glory, personal beauty, and longevity. He was also concerned about the inequity of housing - between the mansions and gardens of the wealthy and the slums of the poor.Let the Gods themselves determine what’s most appropriate
For mankind, and what best suits our various circumstances.
They’ll give us the things we need, not those we want: a man
Is dearer to them than he is to himself. Led helpless
By irrational impulse and powerful blind desires
We ask for marriage and children. But the Gods alone know
What they’ll be like, our future wives and offspring!
Still, if you must have something to pray for,
If you insist on offering up the entrails and consecrated
Sausages from a white pigling in every shrine, then ask
For a sound mind in a sound body, a valiant heart
Without fear of death, that reckons longevity
The least among Nature’s gifts, that’s strong to endure
All kinds of toil, that’s untainted by lust and anger,
That prefers the sorrows and labours of Hercules to all
Sardanapalus’ downy cushions and women and junketings.
And this:We live in a city shored up, for the most part, with gimcrack
Stays and props: that’s how our landlords arrest
The collapse of their property, papering over great cracks
In the ramshackle fabric, reassuring tenants
They can sleep secure, when all the time the building
Is poised like a house of cards. I prefer to live where
Fires and midnight panics are not quite such common events.
By the time the smoke’s got up to your third floor apartment
(And you still asleep) your downstairs neighbor is roaring
For water, and shifting his bits and pieces to safety.
If the alarm goes at ground-level, the last to fry
Will be the attic tenant, way up among the nesting
Pigeons, with nothing but tiles between himself and the weather.
Juvenal is concerned for the poor people in Rome, aside from their miserable living conditions. It is abundantly clear to him that they are treated most unfairly in public life, that public diversion which is so important to all Romans. Even aside from the fact that a charioteer is paid so magnificently in contrast to the mere pittance accorded the daily laborer who keeps the wheels turning for all of Rome, there is an inequality in seating to view the games and spectacles.There are other nocturnal perils, of various sorts
Which you should consider. It’s a long way up to the rooftops,
And a falling tile can brain you - not to mention all
Those cracked and leaky pots that people toss out through windows.
Look at the way they smash, the weight of them, the damage
They do to the pavement!
He had more to say about public spectacles, upon which he cast a jaded eye.“Out of those front-row seats,” we’re told. “You ought to be
Ashamed of yourselves - your incomes are far too small, and
The law’s the law. Make way for some pander’s son,
Spawned in an unknown brothel, let your place be occupied
By that natty auctioneer’s offspring, with his high-class companions
The trainer’s brat and the son of the gladiator
Applauding beside him.
And this final commentary:. . . Suppose he had seen the praetor
Borne in his lofty carriage through the midst of the dusty
Circus, and wearing full ceremonial dress -
The tunic with palm-leaves, the heavy Tyrian toga
Draped in great folds round his shoulders; a crown so enormous
That no neck can bear its weight, and instead it’s carried
By a sweating public slave, who, to stop the Consul
Getting above himself, rides in the carriage beside him.
Then there’s the ivory staff, crowned with an eagle,
A posse of trumpeters, the imposing procession
Of white-robed citizens marching so dutifully beside
His bridle-rein, retainers whose friendship was bought
With the meal-ticket stashed in their wallets.
. . . Time was when their plebiscite elected
Generals, Heads of State, commanders of legions; but now
They’ve pulled in their horns, there’s only two things that concern them:
Bread and the Games.
Claiborne, Robert, Our Marvelous Native Tongue, The Life and Times of the English Language,BIBLIOGRAPHY
Encyclopedia Britannica, britannica.com, Juvenal, The Satires (on line)
Green, Peter, Juvenal, the Sixteen Satires, Penguin Books, Baltimore, Maryland
Kaegi, Jr. Walter, Emil and Peter White, 2. Rome, Late Republic and Principate, University of Chicago Readings in Western Civilization, University of Chicago Press, 1998 New York, Oxford
Kebric, Robert B., Roman People, Second Edition, Mayfield Publishing Company, Mountain View, California, Lincoln, Toronto
Rudd, Niall and Edward Courtney, Juvenal Satires I, III, X, Bristol Classical Press (U.K.) and Bolchazy Carducci Publishers (USA)
Shelton, Jo-Ann, As The Romans Did, Second Edition, Oxford University Press, 1998, New York Oxford