678. More excusable are poems such as x. 57, where he attacks one Gaius, an old friend (cp. ii. 30), for failing to fulfil his promise, or the exceedingly pointed poem (iv. 40) where he reproaches Postumus, an old friend, for forgetting him. Cp. also v. 52.
679. See p. 252.
680. Cp. the elaborate and long-winded poem of Statius on a statuette of Hercules (Silv. iv. 6) with Martial on the same subject, ix. 43 and 44.
681. Cp. viii. 3 and 56.
682. Bridge and Lake, Introd., Select Epigrams of Martial.
683. The ancient biographies of the poet all descend from the same source: their variations spring largely from questionable or absurd interpretations of passages in the satires themselves. The best of them, if not their actual source, is the life found at the end of the codex Pithoeanus, the best of the MSS. of Juvenal. It was in all probability written by the author of the scholia Pithoeana—to whom Valla, on the authority of a MS. now lost, gave the name of Probus—and dates from the fourth or fifth century.
684. L. 41. Cp. Plin. Ep. ii. 11.
685. xiii. 17 'sexaginta annos Fonteio consule natus'. xv. 27 'nuper consule Iunco'.
686. Vita 1 (O. Jahn ed.): 1 a (Dürr, Das Leben Juvenals). A life contained in Cod. Barberin. viii. 18 (fifteenth century), says Iunius Iuvenalis Aquinas Iunio Iuvenale patre, matre vero Septumuleia ex Aquinati municipio, Claudio Nerone et L. Antistio consulibus (55 A. D.) natus est; sororem habuit Septumuleiam, quae Fuscino nupsit. This may be mere invention on the part of a humanist of the fifteenth century. The life contains many improbabilities and the MS. is of suspiciously late date. But see Dürr, p. 28.
687. Vitae 2 and 3 'oriundus temporis Neronis Claudii imperatoris'. Vit. 4 'decessit sub Antonino Pio'.