[828] Metallo.
"That baffled Nature knows not how to frame
A metal base enough to give the age a name." Dryden.
[829] Sportula. Vid. ad i., 118. Cf. x., 46, "Defossa in loculis quos sportula fecit amicos." Mart., vi., Ep. 48. Hor., i., Epist. xix., 37. Plin., ii., Ep. 14, "Laudicæni sequuntur: In media Basilicâ sportulæ dantur palam ut in triclinio: tanti constat ut sis disertissimus: hoc pretio subsellia implentur, hoc infiniti clamores commoventur."
[830] Bullâ. Cf. v., 165, seq.; xiv., 5. Pers., v., 31, "Bullaque succinctis Laribus donata pependit." Plut. in Quæst. Rom., γέρων τις ἐπὶ χλευασμῷ προάγεται παιδικὸν ἐναψάμενος περιδέραιον ὃ καλοῦσι βοῦλλαν.
"O man of many years, that still should'st wear
The trinket round the neck thy childhood bare!" Badham.
[831] Esse. Cf. ii., 149, seq., "Esse aliquos Manes et subterranea regna, ... Nec pueri credunt nisi qui nondum ære lavantur." Cf. Ov., Amor., III., iii., 1.
[832] Privatus. This is commonly rendered by "concealed, sequestered," alluding to Jupiter's being hidden by his mother Rhea to save him from "Saturn's maw." But it surely means before he succeeded his father as king, and this is the invariable sense of "privatus" in Juvenal. Cf. i., 16, "Privatus ut altum dormiret." iv., 65, "Accipe Privatis majora focis." vi., 114, "Quid privata domus, quid fecerit Hippia, curas." xii., 107, "Cæsaris armentum, nulli servire paratum Privato."
[833] Tergens. This appears to be the best and simplest interpretation of this "much-vexed" passage, and is the sense in which Lucian (frequently the best commentator on Juvenal) takes it. Vid. Deor., Dial. v., 4.
[834] Talis. More properly, "composed of such divinities." The allusion being in all probability to the now frequent apotheosis of the most worthless and despicable of the emperors.
[835] Torvus. The Homeric ἀμείλιχος. Cf. Hom., Il., i., 158, Ἀΐδης ἀμείλιχος, ἠδ' ἀδάμαστος Τοὔνεκα καὶ τε βροτοῖσι θεῶν ἔχθιστος ἁπάντων.