Schoenbeck considers the subject of this book to have been an attack upon the crafty and dishonest tricks of pleaders in the forum. Gerlach sees in it little more than Lucilius' favorite theme, the exposure of vile and sordid avarice. The miser's anxious alarm for the safety of his money-bags (Hor., i., Sat. i., 70, "Congestis undique saccis indormis inhians"), which he can not bear out of his sight, and from which no earthly power can tear him away (Fr. 1, 2), the miserable appliances of his scanty furniture, and the absence of any thing approaching to luxury, or even comfort, form the first portion of the Satire. The remaining Fragments seem rather to apply to the manners of the nobles. Their insolent disregard of the feelings of others (Fr. 4), their unbridled licentiousness, their arrogance of look and bearing, and haughty contempt of all union with plebeians, are depicted in very bold language. Yet these same men are described as condescending to the most servile and fulsome flattery in courting the favor of these same plebeians, when such condescension is necessary to advance their own ambitious schemes. The extravagant gesture and overstrained language of some bad orator is then described (Fr. 3), which Gerlach considers to apply to one of these patricians when pleading his own cause. Van Heusde refers to no one in particular, but Corpet supposes there is an allusion to Caius Gracchus, who is mentioned by Plutarch as having been "the first of the Romans who used violent gesticulation in speaking, walking up and down the rostrum, and pulling his toga from his shoulder." What connection the Fragment in which Crassus and Mucius are mentioned has with the main subject, as also the allusion in Fr. 5 to some immodest female, is not known.
1 ... who has neither hackney nor slave, nor a single attendant. His bag, and all the money that he has, he carries with him. He sups with his bag, sleeps with it, bathes with it. The man's whole hope centres in his bag alone. All the rest of his existence is bound up in this bag![1687]
2 ... whom not even bulls bred in the Lucanian mountains, could draw away with their sturdy necks, in one long pull.[1688]
3 ... this, I say, he will bray and bawl out from the Rostra, running about like a courier, and loudly calling for help.[1689]
4 ... they think they can offend with impunity, and by their nobility easily keep aloof those who are not their equals.[1690]
5
6 If he has spattered his garments with mud, at that he foolishly sets up a loud and hearty laugh—
7
8 ... what you would wish him to do—