Verius ergo
Et magis ingenue Peribomius: hunc ego fatis
Imputo, qui vultu morbum incessuque fatetur.
(More truly then and more candidly Peribomius says: the man I consider a victim of fate, who in face and gait betrays the disease he suffers from.)—a passage that strongly confirms what has been advanced. Peribomius is quite candid, he confesses to being a pathic, for in any case his appearance would betray the fact. He finds the less reason to deny it, as he regards the vice which has mastered him as an infliction of providence (fatis imputo). Here is proof that the opinion of the Greeks as to the pathic’s being one who had incurred the anger of the gods, was still commonly held in Juvenal’s time, though perhaps less as a matter of conviction than in order to provide an excuse for indulgence. So we must further read hoc for hunc in the passage (hoc ego fatis imputo,— this I regard as an infliction of fate); unless indeed we construe thus, ego, qui morbum vultu incessuque fatetur, hunc (sc. morbum) fatis imputo. “I in truth,—as for the man who confesses by look and gait his disease, this disease I regard as an infliction of fate.” The words are obviously Peribomius’ own expression of opinion; and directly afterwards the poet goes on:
Horum simplicitas miserabilis, his furor ipse
Dat veniam: sed peiores, qui talia verbis
Herculis invadunt et de virtute locuti
Clunem agitant.
(These men’s simplicity moves our pity; their very infatuation craves pardon. But worse are they who enter such courses with Hercules’ words on their lips, and prating of manly virtue, heave the wanton buttocks.)