PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK: DECIMUS IUNIUS IUVENALIS “NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY The People of A Week: Juvenal “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:JUVENAL PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK A WEEK: I know of no studies so composing as those of the classical PEOPLE OF scholar. When we have sat down to them, life seems as still and A WEEK serene as if it were very far off, and I believe it is not habitually seen from any common platform so truly and unexaggerated as in the light of literature. In serene hours we contemplate the tour of the Greek and Latin authors with more pleasure than the traveller does the fairest scenery of Greece or Italy. Where shall we find a more refined society? That highway down from Homer and Hesiod to Horace and Juvenal is more attractive than the Appian. Reading the classics, or conversing with those old Greeks and Latins in their surviving works, is like walking amid the stars and constellations, a high and by way serene to travel. Indeed, the true scholar will be not a little of an astronomer in his habits. Distracting cares will not be allowed to obstruct the field of his vision, for the higher regions of literature, like astronomy, are above storm and darkness. HOMER HESIOD HORACE JUVENAL HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:JUVENAL PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK 55 CE Britannicus, son of the Emperor Claudius, was poisoned by the Emperor Nero. Birth of Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis, according to the tradition: “The precise details of the author’s life cannot be securely reconstructed based on presently available evidence.” This “Juvenal” would create satires in dactylic hexameter. Their hyperbolic, comedic mode of expression make it quite impossible for us to rely upon any factoids which we are extrapolated. A biography that had by the 10th century become associated with these manuscripts, VITA IUVENALIS, seems little more than a series of extrapolations from the material itself. We are advised that his full name had been Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis, that he had been born in Aquinum, and that he had been a son, or perhaps an adopted son, of a Roman freedman of means. We are to suppose him to have been a pupil of Quintillian, who practised rhetoric into his middle age. We are to suppose that these satires for which he is remembered were produced at a rather late stage in his life, and that the period of this florut was the late 1st and early 2nd century of the Christian era. He is credited with 16 known satires divided between 5 books. • Book I: Satires #1, #2, #3, #4, #5 • Book II: Satire #6 • Book III: Satires #7, #8, #9 • Book IV: Satires #10, #11, #12 • Book V: Satires #13, #14, #15, #16 (incomplete) We can trace to this source a number of well-known maxims, such as that the common people are influenced unduly by panem et circenses (Satire #10, 81), “bread and circuses” –which is to say, freebies and spectacle– in the constant struggle to maintain their liberties; that we ought to seek as our ideal mens sana in corpore sano (Satire #10, 356), “a sound mind in a sound body”; that a perfect wife is a rara avis in terris nigroque simillima cycno (Satire #6, 165), “a bird as rare to be seen as a black swan”; and that the most troubling political issue is always quis custodiet ipsos custodes (Satire #6, 347-48), “who will protect us from our protectors?” LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD. The People of A Week: Juvenal “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:JUVENAL PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK 93 CE Having risen through a series of high administrative posts, Pliny the Younger was made a praetor. At this point (according to the tradition) Juvenal, having offended someone, was driven into exile, perhaps in Egypt or in England. THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT The People of A Week: Juvenal “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:JUVENAL PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK 96 CE Between this year and 117 CE Darius and Trajan would renovate Pharaoh Necho II’s “Suez Canal,” (as this was not very suitable for navigation it would later be abandoned). EGYPT At this point (according to the tradition) Juvenal was able to return to Rome from exile. After the Emperor Domitian was murdered by the orders of the court officials and of his wife the Empress Domitia, the “Flavian dynasty” came to an end and the series began that is known as “the five Good Emperors” (Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius). Here is Nerva: HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:JUVENAL PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK The “Epistle of Barnabas,” neither an epistle nor by Barnabas, was likely written during 96-98 CE and, interestingly, shows no contact with any existing New Testament text. In this year the Roman poet Statius (born 40 CE?) created SILVAE, THEBAIS, and ACHILLEIS. THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT The People of A Week: Juvenal “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:JUVENAL PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK 138 CE Hyginus (138?-142 CE), a Greek philosopher from Athens, is listed as a Papa of Rome. During his reign (140 CE) the Christian Gnostic Church leaders Valentinus of Egypt and Cerdo of Syria came to Rome. The Emperor Hadrian adopted Antoninus Pius and had him adopt Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (age 17) and Lucius Verus. The Emperor Hadrian died and was succeeded by Antoninus Pius. At this point (according to the tradition) Juvenal, who had been born (according to the tradition) in 55 CE, although aged, was still alive: “The precise details of the author’s life cannot be securely reconstructed based on presently available evidence.” The only actual evidence is a dedicatory inscription said to have been recovered in conjunction with the writings during the 19th Century at Aquinum: ...]RI·SACRVM CERE]RI·SACRVM To Ceres (this) sacred (thing) ...]NIVS·IVVENALIS D(ECIMVS) IV]NIVS·IVVENALIS (Decimus Junius?) Juvenalis ...] COH·[.]·DELMATARVM TRIB(VNVS)] COH(ORTIS)·[I]·DELMATARVM military tribune of the 1st cohort of the Dalmatian (legions) II·VIR·QVINQ·FLAMEN II·VIR·QVINQ(VENNALIS)·FLAMEN Duovir, Quinquennalis, Flamen DIVI·VESPASIANI DIVI·VESPASIANI of the Divine Vespasian VOVIT·DEDICAV[...]UE VOVIT·DEDICAV[ITQ]UE vowed and dedicated SVA PEC SVA PEC(VNIA) at his own expense The problem with the above is that since the Dalmatian legions had not existed prior to 166 CE, the Junius being spoken of would have been not the poet himself but another member of his family bearing that name. NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT The People of A Week: Juvenal “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:JUVENAL PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK 1810 Alexander Chalmers’s THE WORKS OF THE ENGLISH POETS, FROM CHAUCER TO COWPER; INCLUDING THE SERIES EDITED WITH PREFACES, BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL, BY DR.SAMUEL JOHNSON: AND THE MOST APPROVED TRANSLATIONS, a revised and expanded version of Dr. Johnson’s 1779-1781 LIVES OF THE POETS, began to come across the London presses of C. Wittingham. It would amount to 21 volumes and the printing would require until 1814 to be complete. According to the Preface, this massive thingie was “a work professing to be a Body of the Standard English Poets”1: 1. When the massive collection would come finally to be reviewed in July 1814, the reviewer would, on the basis of Chalmers’s selection of poems and poets, broadly denounce this editor as incompetent. HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:JUVENAL PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK PERUSE VOLUME I PERUSE VOLUME III PERUSE VOLUME IV PERUSE VOLUME V PERUSE VOLUME VI PERUSE VOLUME VII PERUSE VOLUME VIII PERUSE VOLUME IX PERUSE VOLUME X PERUSE VOLUME XI PERUSE VOLUME XII PERUSE VOLUME XIII PERUSE VOLUME XIV PERUSE VOLUME XV PERUSE VOLUME XVI PERUSE VOLUME XVII PERUSE VOLUME XVIII PERUSE VOLUME XIX PERUSE VOLUME XX PERUSE VOLUME XXI HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK:JUVENAL PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK WALDEN: Breed’s hut was standing only a dozen years ago, though it had long been unoccupied. It was about the size of mine. It was set on fire by mischievous boys, one Election night, if I do not mistake. I lived on the edge of the village then, and had just lost myself over Davenant’s Gondibert, that winter that I labored FIRE with a lethargy, –which, by the way, I never knew whether to regard as a family complaint, having an uncle who goes to sleep shaving himself, and is obliged to sprout potatoes in a cellar Sundays, in order to keep awake and keep the Sabbath, or as the PEOPLE OF consequence of my attempt to read Chalmers’ collection of English WALDEN poetry without skipping. It fairly overcame my Nervii. I had just sunk my head on this when the bells rung fire, and in hot haste the engines rolled that way, led by a straggling troop of men and boys, and I among the foremost, for I had leaped the brook.