The inscription above quoted (divi Vespasiani shows that its date is after A.D. 79, and probably not long after) informs us that Juvenal was (1) ‘tribunus cohortis I. Delmatarum’[96]; (2) ‘duumvir quinquennalis’[97] and ‘flamen divi Vespasiani’ at Aquinum. The dates when Juvenal held these posts cannot be determined exactly; but we can infer certain points.
(1) There was a certus ordo honorum in municipal life, and Juvenal must have held the quaestorship and the aedileship before the duumviratus quinquennalis. The lower limit of entering on a municipal career was twenty-five, according to an order of Augustus, and people did not usually begin it much later; we may therefore conclude that these municipal posts were held by Juvenal somewhere between A.D. 80 and 90. The last year is approximately fixed by the way in which Martial in two of his epigrams (vii. 24 and 91) belonging to A.D. 91 or 92 speaks of Juvenal; the words show that the latter must have been established in Rome for some time.
(2) In ordinary course Juvenal would enter the army after the completion of his seventeenth year. The short time he took to arrive at the position of tribune, and the statement of vita iv. ‘cum ... ad dignitatem equestris ordinis pervenire sua virtute meruisset,’ make it probable that he entered the army as petitor militiae equestris, as a preliminary step towards entering on a political career.
The cohors Delmatarum I., which Juvenal commanded as tribune, was in Britain in A.D. 106, and in A.D. 124.[98] Probably it had been stationed there for a period of years, and it is likely that Juvenal filled his tribuneship there. Now, all the vitae inform us that Juvenal was banished under the pretext of a military command. While the other vitae give Egypt as the place of his banishment, vita iv. gives Scotland; and it seems highly probable that vita iv. has confused Juvenal’s regular military command in Britain, and his banishment, late in life, to Egypt. The words are:
‘[Tyrannus] sub honoris praetextu fecit eum praefectum militis contra Scotos, qui bellum contra Romanos moverant.’
This is supported by Juvenal’s references to Britain. Some of these, like his references to Egypt, seem, in contradistinction to most of his references to foreign parts, to imply personal knowledge and observation. They are as follows:
(1) 2, 159-161,
‘Arma quidem ultra
litora Iuvernae promovimus et modo captas
Orcadas ac minima contentos nocte Britannos.’
Here ‘Iuverna’ is the old name of Ireland, which is not mentioned even in Tacitus’ Agricola[99]; for the Orcades cf. Tac. Agr. 10; and the excessive shortness of the summer nights mentioned in the last clause is especially true of the north of Scotland.
(2) 10, 14,