2. Works.
Epitoma Historiarum Philippicarum Pompei Trogi, in forty-four Books.—An abridgment of the Universal History of Pompeius Trogus (temp. Livy). The title Historiae Philippicae was given to it by Trogus because its main object was to give the history of the Macedonian monarchy, with all its branches, but he allowed himself, like Herodotus, to indulge in such large digressions that it was regarded by many as a Universal History. It was arranged according to nations; it began with Ninus, the Nimrod of legend, and was brought down to about 9 A.D.
3. Style.
Justinus (as he tells us in his Preface) made it his business to form an attractive reading-book—breve veluti florum corpusculum feci (an anthology)—and his chief merit is that he seems to have been a faithful abbreviator.
DECIMUS JUNIUS JUVENALIS, 55-138 A.D.
1. Life.
JUVENAL.
Of Juvenal’s life very little is certainly known. Thirteen lives of him exist, which are confused and contradictory in detail. From the evidences of the Satires we learn that he lived from early youth at Rome, but went for holidays to Aquinum, a town of the Volscians (where perhaps he was born in the reign of Nero); that he had a small farm at Tibur, and a house in Rome, where he entertained his friends in a modest way; that he had been in Egypt; that he wrote Satires late in life; that he reached his eightieth year, and lived into the reign of Antoninus Pius. He complains frequently and bitterly of his poverty and of the hardships of a dependent’s life. In short, the circumstances of his life were very similar to those of Martial, who speaks of Juvenal as a very intimate friend.
The famous inscription at Aquinum—which Duff considers does not refer to the poet but to a wealthy kinsman of his—indicates that he had served in the army as commander of a Dalmatian cohort, and, as one of the chief men of the town, was superintendent of the civic worship paid to Vespasian after his deification.
All the Lives assert that Juvenal was banished to Egypt—Juvenal himself never alludes to this—for offence given to an actor who was high in favour with the reigning Emperor (Hadrian according to Prof. Hardy), and that he died in exile.