Sixteen Satires: Revised Edition

We don't know too much about Juvenal - likelihood is he was a not particularly wealthy Plebeian living in Rome around 55AD, but he did leave a bitter core of writings that will echo with the modern reader. He picks apart the hypocricies and moral faults of urban Roman society in a manner that resonates clearly with the current boom/credit crunch metropolises: 'few can distinguish the genuinely good from the reverse', 'we are too quick to imitate depraved examples', 'so rare is the union of beauty with modesty', 'the people long for just two things: bread and circuses' (read today: reality television). Ha! Juvenal's satires are not comic exaggerations in the modern sense - they are too severe and bitter for that - but they do fulfil the satirists ultimate purpose: to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Western civilisation has always been enriched by the work of a few lonely souls who chose to go through life as an embittered minority of one, rejecting the gravy train of an easy life and pulling apart the filth and injustices of the societies in which they live. Juvenal was one of these people and he left a rich satirical legacy, a vein that runs through the likes of the great Jonathan Swift and Dr Johnson (and you can pick up resonances in Will Self, writing today). Juvenal's prose is truly writing that is for all time.

Having recently finished Stephen Colbert's I am an American, this book hit me with a strange "de ja vu" feeling (go figure). Never mind that Juvenal wrote his Satires around 80 to 90 AD in/around the city of Rome. Like Colbert, Juvenal concocts a bombastic, "holier than thou" alter ego narrator who rails on every vice afflicting his contemporary culture, from avarice to homosexuality to the female sex. Although Juvenal the narrator voices his strong opinions in an over-exaggerated way (some times to the point of the reader's irritation) he provides an eye-opening window into Roman society. Effeminate men in see-through robes, women dressing up like soldiers and training in swordplay, noblemen serving themselves lobster and peacock and making their lower-ranking guests eat stale bread--all this disgusts Juvenal. Sometimes his tirades go on a bit long on subjects of less interest to modern readers (out-of-context discussions of now-forgotten politics), and some are flinchingly harsh (Satire 6 "against women"--I suspect the man was never married). For the most part, Juvenal provides an eye-opening and accessible look at how ancient life parallels the modern.

This book was totally sweet. The Roman satirist Juvenal's biting critiques of Roman civilization are as informative as they are fascinating(and I must say biting critiques make my little bitter person inside happy). His writing style and the English rendering of it flow rather nicely. Perhaps most importantly is Juvenal is able to paint a portrait of a civilization, warts and all, that has been gone for 2000 years. It's kind of like he took a snapshot of his own day that has endured until our time. Now that's what I call sweet history action!!! In fact this book is such sweet history action that when I took a Roman history class and my professor told a student to use just one of Juvenal's satires for an assignment I thought to myself it's cruel and unusual punishment to make a student just read one satire, you just have to read all of them!!!

These 16 essays aren't satires, in the modern sense of comedic exaggerations. Instead, they are serious commentary on some of the many failings of a time in social decline - topics that will often send a familiar chill through a modern reader. Juvenal's complaints are numerous and well-founded: hypocrisy in general, physical and moral risks of urban living, marital infidelity, abuse of power by the military (were they the police?), abuse of trust by almost anyone, and more. Along with his generally gloomy outlook (e.g. 'The Futility of Aspirations') and incipient sense of persecution ('The Plight of Intellectuals'), one struck close to home for me. 'The Influence of Vicious Parents' repeats something both obvious and in desperate need of repetition. Children learn what they see, not what they're told, and the adult acts as the child learned to act. If only one quote from this book sticks with me, I hope it's this: "A child demands the utmost respect, so think twice if you have someting nasty in mind." Although generally readable, it doesn't flow as easily as other translations I've seen. Profuse endnotes (about 40% of the book's total mass) address many issues of culture, cross-reference, and linguistic interest. I'm a general-interest reader with a deepset habit of reading footnotes, and often found the commentary more pedantic than enlightening. Specialists and scholars may appreciate the detail; I just found it distracting. //wiredweird

Rudd's translation is a pleasure to read. He manages to stick closely to the Latin of Juvenal while also conveying the liveliness and humor of the Satires. I would recommend it not only for a student who is struggling through the Latin, but also the casual reader.