The day is portioned out with a fine routine of engagements. First the sportula; then the Forum,[73] and Apollo[74] learned in the law; and the triumphal statues, among which some unknown Egyptian or Arabarch has dared set up his titles, whose image, as though sacred, one dare not venture to defile.[75] At length, the old and wearied-out clients quit the vestibule and give up all their hopes;[76] although their expectation of a dinner has been full-long protracted: the poor wretches must buy their cabbage and fire. Meanwhile their patron-lord will devour the best that the forest and ocean can supply, and will recline in solitary state with none but himself on his couches. For out of so many fair, and broad, and such ancient dishes, they gorge whole patrimonies at a single course. In our days there will not be even a parasite! Yet who could tolerate such sordid luxury! How gross must that appetite be, which sets before itself whole boars, an animal created to feast a whole company! Yet thy punishment is hard at hand, when distended with food thou layest aside thy garments, and bearest to the bath the peacock undigested! Hence sudden death, and old age without a will. The news[77] travels to all the dinner-tables, but calls forth no grief, and thy funeral procession advances, exulted over by disgusted friends![78] There is nothing farther that future times can add to our immorality. Our posterity must have the same desires, perpetrate the same acts. Every vice has reached its climax. Then set sail! spread all your canvas! Yet here perchance you may object, whence can talent be elicited able to cope with the subject? Whence that blunt freedom of our ancestors, whose very name I dare not utter, of writing whatever was dictated by their kindling soul. What matter, whether Mucius forgive the libel, or not? But take Tigellinus for your theme, and you will shine in that tunic, in which they blaze standing,[79] who smoke with throat transfixed, and you will draw a broad furrow in the middle of the sand. "Must he then, who has given[80] aconite to his three uncles, be borne on down cushions, suspended aloft, and from thence look down on us?" Yes! when he meets you press your finger to your lip! There will be some informer standing by to whisper in his ear, That's he! Without fear for the consequences you may match[81] Æneas and the fierce Rutulian. The death of Achilles breeds ill-will in no one; or the tale of the long-sought Hylas, who followed his pitcher. But whensoever Lucilius, fired with rage, has brandished as it were his drawn sword, his hearer, whose conscience chills with the remembrance of crime, grows red. His heart sweats with the pressure of guilt concealed. Then bursts forth rage and tears! Ponder well, therefore, these things in your mind, before you sound the signal blast. The soldier when helmeted repents too late of the fight. I will try then what I may be allowed to vent on those whose ashes are covered by the Flaminian[82] or Latin road.
FOOTNOTES:
[33] Reponam, "repay in kind." A metaphor taken from the payment of debts.
[34] Codrus; a poor poet in every sense, if, as some think, he is the same as the Codrus mentioned iii., 203.
[35] Recitaverit. For the custom of Roman writers to recite their compositions in public, cf. Sat. vii., 40, 83; iii., 9. Plin., 1, Ep. xiii., "queritur se diem perdidisse." Togata is a comedy on a Roman subject; Prætexta, a tragedy on the same; Elegi, trifling love-songs.
[36] In tergo. The ancients usually wrote only on one side of the parchment: when otherwise, the works were called "Opisthographi," and said to be written "aversa charta."
[37] Venti; cf. xii., 23, where he uses "Poëtica tempestas" as a proverbial expression.
[38] Aurum; probably a hit at Valerius Flaccus, his contemporary.
[39] Julius Fronto was a munificent patron of literature, thrice consul, and once colleague of Trajan, A.D. 97. Cassiod.
[40] "Jam a grammaticis eruditi recessimus." Brit.; and so Dryden.