‘Horrida sane
Aegyptos, sed luxuria, quantum ipse notavi,
barbara famoso non cedit turba Canopo.’
Juvenal must have added these lines to the satire while he was an exile in Egypt, if he did not write the whole of it there. This is in accordance with what vita v. says, ‘in exilio ampliavit satyras.’ Supposing this passage to be an addition, we may conclude that Book v. was written about A.D. 128, but not before that year.
Juvenal’s banishment.—As before stated, all the vitae but one give Egypt as the place of Juvenal’s exile. The exact place, according to the scholiast on 1, 1 and 4, 38, was the Great Oasis (Hoasa: Hoasis). Three vitae (i. a, b, iii. c) state that he was at that time octogenarius. This would make the date A.D. 135 or 136. Most of the vitae give as the reason of his exile the fact that he wrote the lines,[104] 7, 90-2,
‘Quod non dant proceres dabit histrio. Tu Camerinos
et Baream, tu nobilium magna atria curas?
Praefectos Pelopea facit, Philomela tribunos.’
Now these lines, the first he ever wrote (vita iii. c) were composed in his youth as an epigram on Paris, Domitian’s favourite, probably about A.D. 81-3. The true story then is that, when Juvenal in A.D. 135 or 136 published a new edition of Sat. 7, he added these lines (vitae i. a, b, ‘ut ea quoque quae prima fecerat inferciret novis scriptis’).[105] Now it has been inferred from Spart. vit. Hadr. 23 sqq. that at this time an actor had great influence over Hadrian, and the lines were taken as referring to him. The emperor in a rage banished Juvenal to Egypt per honorem militiae, writing maliciously on his commission ‘Et te Philomela promovit’ (vita iv.). The banishment is assigned to the influence of Paris by Iohannes Malalas, p. 262 sqq. (Dindorf), and by Suidas. Cf. also Sat. 15, 44 sqq., already quoted, and Sidonius Apollinaris 9, 267 sqq.,
‘Non qui tempore Caesaris secundi
aeterno incoluit Tomos reatu:
non qui consimili deinde casu
ad volgi tenuem strepentis auram
irati fuit histrionis exul.’
Vita iii. b, ‘Tristitia et angore periit anno aetatis suae altero et octuagesimo.’
Vita v., ‘Decessit longo senio confectus exul Antonino Pio imperatore.’
If this last statement is correct, Juvenal died after reaching the age of eighty-two, as Antoninus came to the throne on 10th July, A.D. 138. It follows from this also that he must have been born in the second half of A.D. 55.
The Satires.—The following are the more important points regarding these: