PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK AULUS PERSIUS FLACCUS “NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Aulus Persius Flaccus HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK: AULUS PERSIUS FLACCUS PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK “AULUS PERSIUS FLACCUS”: The life of a wise man is most of all PEOPLE OF extemporaneous, for he lives out of an eternity that includes all A WEEK time. He is a child each moment, and reflects wisdom. The far darting thought of the child’s mind tarries not for the development of manhood; it lightens itself, and needs not draw down lightning from the clouds. When we bask in a single ray from ZOROASTER the mind of Zoroaster, we see how all subsequent time has been an idler, and has no apology for itself. But the cunning mind travels farther back than Zoroaster each instant, and comes quite down to the present with its revelation. All the thrift and industry of thinking give no man any stock in life; his credit with the inner world is no better, his capital no larger. He must try his fortune again to-day as yesterday. All questions rely on the present for their solution. Time measures nothing but itself. The word that is written may be postponed, but not that on the lip. If this is what the occasion says, let the occasion say it. From a real sympathy, all the world is forward to prompt him who gets up to live without his creed in his pocket. PERSIUS A WEEK: The life of a wise man is most of all extemporaneous, PEOPLE OF for he lives out of an eternity which includes all time. The cunning mind travels further back than Zoroaster each A WEEK instant, and comes quite down to the present with its revelation. The utmost thrift and industry of thinking give no man any stock in life; his credit with the inner world is no better, his capital no larger. He must try his fortune again to-day as yesterday. All questions rely on the present for their solution. Time measures nothing but itself. The word that is written may be postponed, but not that on the lip. If this is what the occasion says, let the occasion say it. All the world is forward to prompt him who gets up to live without his creed in his pocket. ZOROASTER PERSIUS HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK: AULUS PERSIUS FLACCUS PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK 34 CE Aulus Persius Flaccus was born into an equestrian family at the small Etruscan city of Volaterrae (that is, Volterra) in the province of Pisa. He would lose his father while he was six, and a few years later, his stepfather. NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT Aulus Persius Flaccus “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK: AULUS PERSIUS FLACCUS PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK 40 CE The Emperor Caligula’s “victory” over the Germans, Neptune, and Britain. At about this point the child Aulus Persius Flaccus lost his father. In a few years he would lose a stepfather as well. 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. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Aulus Persius Flaccus HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK: AULUS PERSIUS FLACCUS PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK 46 CE Tiberius Julius Alexander, an apostate Jew, was made the Roman Procurator of Iudaea. Paul’s initial missionary journey (until 48 CE?). At the age of 12 Aulus Persius Flaccus came from his home town of Volaterrae to Rome, where he was taken under instruction by Remmius Palaemon and the rhetor Verginius Flavus. During the following four years he would develop friendships with the Stoic philosopher Lucius Annaeus Cornutus, the lyric poet Caesius Bassus, the poet Lucan, and his relative Arria’s husband Thrasea Paetus. Later he would meet Seneca the Younger, but be unimpressed. THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Aulus Persius Flaccus HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK: AULUS PERSIUS FLACCUS PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK 62 CE Invading England, some 10,000 Roman legionnaires eliminated some 80,000 Pict-Celt or Briton warriors (it was zeal versus the machine and the machine won). Aulus Persius Flaccus died young with uitio stomachi. To his mother Fulvia Sisenna and a sister he left a considerable fortune. His SATIRAE, which consists of merely some 700 lines divided into hexameters but would enjoy an immediate success and then again become very popular during the “Middle Ages,” would be published after some slight alterations by his friend and mentor the Stoic philosopher Lucius Annaeus Cornutus, and some editing by Bassus (the basic method of preparation of the material was to omit lines that the author had not completed, especially toward the end of the work). HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK: AULUS PERSIUS FLACCUS PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK 1814 D. JUNII JUVENALIS ET A. PERSII FLACCI SATIRÆ. INTERPRETATIONE AC NOTIS ILLUSTRAVIT LUDOVICUS PRATEUS, RHETORICÆ PROFESSOR EMERITUS; JUSSU CHRISTIANISSIMI REGIS, IN USUM. SERENISSIMI DELPHINI. EDITIO PRIMA AMERICANA. (Philadelphiæ: Typis L.R. Bailey. Impensis M. Carey. M.DCCC.XIV.). Henry Thoreau would have a copy of this 1st American edition in his personal library. JUVENALIS ET PERSIUS THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Aulus Persius Flaccus HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK: AULUS PERSIUS FLACCUS PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK 1828 D. Junii Juvenalis. SATIRÆ EXPURGATÆ. ACCEDUNT NOTÆ ANGLICÆ. IN USUM SCHOLÆ BOSTONIENSIS. CURA F. P. LEVERETT (Bostoniæ, Hilliard, Gray, Little et Wilkins). DECIMUS IUNIUS IUVENALIS The 16 satires of Juvenal, in this expurgated Latin, would be required reading during David Henry Thoreau’s period of formal instruction at the Concord Academy, or at Harvard College. FREDERIC PERCIVAL LEVERETT [Now here’s something I’d like to check out with you. My question to you will be, am I over-interpreting?] In studying about this edition offered for use in an all-male school context, I have certain suspicions about a textbook title that boasts of expurgation. I say to myself, these schoolteachers do know about their pubescent lads –they themselves had once upon a time been pubescent lads– and so they were fully aware that this amounts to a dare. They knew that their charges were bound to seek out an unexpurgated edition to specifically look up the lacunae and give to the accurate translation of these lacunae their undivided interest. In other words, rather than constituting any sort of tactic for suppression of information, the tactic they were deploying was a tactic guaranteed to focus attention. “Damn the expurgated books! I say damn ’em! The dirtiest book in all the world is the expurgated book!” — Walt Whitman Consider what we find in the recent book CLASSICAL BEARINGS (Berkeley: U of California P, 1989). The author informs us of the great lengths to which he and other of his Sixth Form fellows at the Charterhouse School in Godalming in Surrey had gone, to sniff out the meanings of obscenities and foulnesses omitted from their texts of Juvenal, for instance vetulae vesica beatae in Satire #1, and then Satires #2, #6, #9, .... Peter Green confesses on his page 242 that this had been “how I first acquired the basic techniques of scholarly research.” HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF A WEEK: AULUS PERSIUS FLACCUS PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK What sort of material historically has been kept from the eyes of such as Henry Thoreau and thus, in all actuality, emphatically brought before his attention? Typically, Satires #7 and #9, the satires that deal heavily with homosexual deeds. Here are lines 27-37 of Satire #6: Postumus marrying? You used to be sane; no doubt about that. What Fury, then, with her maddening snakes is hunting you down? Can you bear to be the slave of a woman, when so much rope is at hand, when those vertiginous top-floor windows are standing open, and when the Aemilian bridge nearby offers assistance? If none of these means of deliverance seems to have any appeal, don’t you think it better to sleep with a little boyfriend? A boyfriend doesn’t argue all night or ask you for presents as he lies beside you, or complain that you are not giving a hundred percent and are not producing the requisite panting and puffing. Lines 27-46 of Satire #9 have the narrator provide sympathetic attention to a male homosexual prostitute as he complains about the downside of butt-fucking one of his repeat clients: Many have made a profit from this kind of life, but I have had no return for my efforts. […] Men are governed by fate, including those parts hidden beneath their clothes. For if the stars are not in your favor, the unheard-of length of your dangling tool will count for nothing, even though, when you’re stripped, Virro stares at you drooling and sends you a continuous stream of coaxing billets-doux. […] And yet, what creature is more grotesque than a miserly pervert? “I paid you this; I gave you that; and then you got more.” As he tots it up he wriggles his rump. Well, set out the counters; send for the slaves and the abacus. Put down five thousand in all as paid to me.