by Daisy Dunn
The quick gyrations of the plastic wheel.
But, Caesar, thus forewarned, make no campaign
Unless your potters follow in your train.’
Montanus ended; all approved the plan,
And all the speech, so worthy of the man.
Versed in the old court luxury, he knew
The feasts of Nero and his midnight crew,
Where oft, when potent draughts had fired the brain,
The jaded taste was spurred to gorge again.
And in my time none understood so well
The science of good eating: he could tell
At the first relish if his oysters fed
On the Rutupian or the Lucrine bed;
At first sight of a sea-urchin he’d name.
The country, nay the district, whence it came.
Here closed the solemn farce. The Fathers rise,
And each, submissive, from the presence hies—
Pale, trembling wretches, whom the Prince in sport
Had dragged, astonished, to the Alban court,
As if the stem Sycambri were in arms
Or the fierce Chatti threatened new alarms;
As if ill news by flying posts had come
And gathering nations sought the fall of Rome.
Oh, that such scenes (disgraceful at the most)
Had all those years of cruelty engrossed,
Through which his rage pursued the great and good
Unchecked, while vengeance slumbered o’er their blood.
And yet he fell; for when he changed his game
And first grew dreadful to the vulgar name,
They seized the murderer, drenched in Lamian gore,
And hurled him headlong to the infernal shore.
1 An informer.
2 Cornelius Fuscus, Prefect of the Praetorian Guard, killed in Domitian’s Dacian Wars, AD 86–8.
3 Fabricius Veiento and Catullus Messalinus, both informers under Domitian.
CANNIBALS IN EGYPT
Satires, XV
Juvenal
Translated by Niall Rudd, 1991
Juvenal was not wholly complimentary about the customs of Egypt, where he found himself exiled during the reign of Emperor Domitian (see Story 79). In his satirical story of cannibalism, he nods to Odysseus’ tales of his travels in Homer’s Odyssey (see Story 6). While the cannibals of Homer were mythical, the cannibals of Egypt were, for Juvenal, only too real. Perhaps he really did witness an act of cannibalism, but there is little evidence for it in the historical sources. Juvenal addresses the story to a friend from the Roman province of Bithynia, on the north coast of what is now Turkey.
Volusius, my Bithynian friend, everyone knows
what monsters the mad Egyptians worship. Some of them honour
the crocodile, others bow down to the ibis bulging with snakes;
the long-tailed ape is sacred, with its gleaming golden image,
where lyre-strings magically echo from Memnon’s mangled statue,
and ancient Thebes, with its hundred gates, is a heap of ruins.
In one place cats, in another fresh-water fish, in another
dogs are worshipped by entire towns; Diana by no one.
It’s sin and sacrilege to sink your teeth in a leek or an onion
(a holy country indeed where such divinities grow
in gardens!); wool-bearing quadrupeds are strictly avoided
by guests at table; it’s a sin to slit the throat of a kid.
The consumption of human flesh is in order. Ulysses, describing
a crime like that to the astonished Alcinous as they sat over dinner,
elicited anger, or in certain quarters possibly laughter,
as a spinner of lying yarns: ‘Will nobody throw the fellow
into the sea? He deserves the horror of a real Charybdis—
he and his preposterous Cyclopes and his Laestrygonians!
I’d sooner believe in his Scylla, or those Cyancan rocks
that clash together, and the mighty winds tied up in a wine-skin,
or how Elpenor was struck with an elegant tap by Circe,
who packed him off to grunt amongst the swinish oarsmen.
Does he take the folk of Phaeacia for such a witless lot?’
That would have been a fair response from a guest, still sober,
who had drunk no more than a sip of wine from a jar of Corcyra;
for the Ithacan told that tale on his own; there was none to confirm it.
I have a story which, strange as it sounds, recently happened
when Iuncus was consul, beyond the town of sweltering Coptus.
Mine’s a collective story; the stage can boast nothing like it.
You may look through all of tragedy’s wardrobe from Pyrrha on,
but you’ll find no people guilty of outrage. Now hear this example
of appalling barbarity, which has come to light in modern times.
Ombi and Téntyra are neighbours; but an old, long-standing feud
blazes between them still. It’s an open wound and a source
of undying hatred. The madness infecting the two communities
comes from the fact that each detests the other’s religion,
convinced, as it is, that the only deities worth the name
are those it worships itself. When one of the towns was holding
a sacred feast, the enemy’s chiefs and leaders resolved
to a man that the chance should be seized to prevent the folk from enjoying
the happy auspicious day; they must not be allowed the pleasure
of a splendid banquet, with tables set at Cross-road and temple,
and couches that knew no sleep by night or day and were sometimes
found in place by the sun on his seventh circuit (yes, Egypt
to be sure is uncouth; but in self-indulgence its barbarous mob
aspires as high, or so I have found, as scandalous Canopus).
Victory, too, would be easy over a wine-sodden enemy,
slurred in his speech and reeling drunkenly . Here there were menfolk
prancing about to a negro piper, complete with perfumes
(such as they were) and flowers and garlands over their eyebrows.
There stood hunger and hate. It began with noisy insults;
but when tempers are boiling, these are the bugle that starts the fray.
Raising a common cry, they charged. In the absence of weapons
bare fists flew; and scarcely a jaw was left unbroken.
From the press of battle few, if any, emerged with a nose
that was not smashed in. Through all the ranks you could see men’s faces
mangled, with unrecognizable features; cheek-bones poking
through gaping wounds, knuckles covered with blood from eyes.
And yet the combatants think it is just a game—like children
playing at soldiers—because no bodies are there to stamp on.
What is the point of a host of thousands starting a fight
if no one is killed? And so the attack grows fiercer; they look for
stones on the ground; then, bending their arms, they proceed to hurl them—
the type of weapon normally used by rioting crowds,
not great rocks of the size propelled by Turnus and Ajax,
and not so heavy as that with which the son of Tydeus
smashed Aeneas’ hip, but such as the hands of today
can manage to throw, hands of a kind so different from theirs.
For the human race was already declining in Homer’s time.
Now the earth gives birth to such nasty and puny creatures
that any god who observes them is moved to laughter and loathing.
After that brief digression our story continues. When one side
was joined by reserves, suddenly swords appeared in their hands;
they at once stepped up the attack with showers of deadly arrows.
/> As Ombi advanced, those who reside in the shady palmgrove
of nearby Téntyra turned their backs and fled in disorder.
One, as he ran in mindless panic, happened to trip,
and was seized. He was promptly chopped into countless bits and pieces,
so that a single corpse might furnish numerous helpings.
After that, the victorious mob devoured the lot,
and picked his bones. They didn’t boil him in a seething cauldron
or roast him on spits. It seemed too long and too slow a business
to wait for a hearth. They were happy to eat the carcase raw.
One can only be grateful here, that they didn’t profane the fire
which you, Prometheus, stole from the highest courts of heaven
and gave to earth. Three cheers for that element! And I imagine
you share my pleasure. But, to the man who chewed the corpse,
that was the most delicious meat he had ever tasted.
Nor, in this horrid act, would I leave you wondering whether
it was only the leader’s gullet that experienced pleasure. The man
who had stood on the edge of the scrimmage, when nothing was left of the carcase,
scratched the ground with his nails to obtain a lick of the gore.
The Váscones, so the story goes, turned to such victuals
to prolong their lives. But the case was different; for over there
they had to contend with a hostile fortune, the disasters of war,
desperate conditions, the appalling distress of a lengthy siege.
It was when they had eaten every plant and creature and object
to which the pangs of a famished stomach drove them, when even too
their enemies pitied their pallor and their wasted skeletal limbs,
that they tore at another’s flesh in their hunger; they were ready to swallow
even their own. What man or god could withhold indulgence
from bellies reduced to such frightful, and such outlandish, extremities,
bellies which could be forgiven by the very ghosts of the people
whose bodies they used as food? Now, of course, we know better
thanks to the teachings of Zeno, but who would expect a Spaniard
to be a Stoic, at least in the days of old Metellus?
Today the entire world has its Graeco-Roman culture;
smooth-tongued Gaul has been coaching British barristers; now
there’s talk of hiring a rhetoric-teacher in Timbuctoo!
The community mentioned, however, was noble. It was matched by Zacynthus in valour and loyalty, and indeed outweighed in the scale of disaster.
But what excuse does Egypt have for being more savage
than Crimea’s altar? (For the Tauric founder of that ghastly rite,
if one accepts the poets’ tradition as worthy of credence,
contents herself with human sacrifice. Therefore the victim
has nothing more hideous to fear beyond the knife.) What affliction
recently goaded them? What ravenous hunger, what army
besieging their city walls impelled them to hazard an outrage
so revolting? What more could they do, if the land of Memphis
were parched with drought, to shame the lazy Nile into rising?
Neither the dreaded Cimbrian hordes, nor the barbarous Britons,
nor the grim Sarmatians, nor yet the wild Agathyrsi raged
with the utter frenzy displayed by that soft and worthless rabble
who are used to setting their tiny sails on earthenware vessels,
and to bending over their miniature oars in painted potsherds.
You will never match such a crime with punishment, or devise retribution
to suit communities such as these; for in their way of thinking
hunger and anger are one and the same. By giving tears
to the human race Nature revealed she was giving us also
tender hearts; compassion is the finest part of our make-up.
She therefore moves us to pity the accused, as he pleads his case
unkempt in body and dress, or the orphan who brings to court
his swindling guardian, and whose face, streaming with tears, and framed
by his girlish hair, invites the question ‘Is he a boy?’.
It is Nature who makes us cry when we meet the cortège of a girl
on the eve of marriage, or a little child too small for the pyre
is laid in a grave. For what good man—the sort who deserves
the initiate’s torch and lives as the priest of Ceres would have him—
believes that any woes are remote from him? It is this
that marks us off from the brutish herd. Moreover, we only
possess an intellect worthy of homage, have god-like powers,
and are able to learn and practise the arts of civilization,
because we received that gift, sent down from the castle in heaven,
which is lacking in four-footed creatures that stare at the ground. To them,
when the world began, our common creator granted no more
than the breath of life; to us, a soul as well. He intended
that our fellow-feeling should lead us to ask and offer help;
to gather scattered inhabitants into communities, leaving
the ancient woods, and deserting the groves where our ancestors lived;
to put up houses, placing another man’s dwelling beside
our own abode, ensuring that we all slept safe and sound
in the knowledge that each had a friend next door; to shield with our weapons
a fallen comrade or one who reeled from a shocking wound;
to sound the call on a common trumpet; to man the turrets
in joint defence, and fasten the gate with a single key.
But nowadays snakes maintain a greater harmony. Spotted
animals spare their spotted kin; when did a stronger
lion tear the life from a weaker? Was there ever a forest
where a boar was killed, gashed by the tusks of a larger boar?
In India, one ferocious tigress lives with another
in constant peace; and savage bears observe an agreement.
To man, however, it is not enough to have forged his deadly
blades on an evil anvil. Early smiths were accustomed
to spend their energies fashioning only hoes and scuffles,
mattocks and ploughshares; they hadn’t the skill to produce a sword.
But here is a people whose fury is not appeased by an act
of simple murder, who regard trunks, and arms, and faces
as a kind of food! What, one asks, would Pythagoras say?
Would he not take flight to no matter where, on witnessing these
enormities—that man who refused all meat, as though it were human,
and denied himself even the pleasure of certain vegetable dishes?
ACHILLES BECOMES A GIRL
Achilleid, Book I
Statius
Translated by D. R. Shackleton Bailey, 2003
The Achilleid, an epic poem by Statius (c. AD 45–c. 96), is an unfinished Latin ‘biography’ of the Greek hero Achilles, tracing his life from his earliest childhood. Achilles’ mother, Thetis, is a sea nymph or ‘Nereid’. She has divine connections but seems entirely human as she tries desperately to prevent her son from going to fight at Troy, where she knows he is fated to die. A prequel, of sorts, to Homer’s Iliad, the poem even has Patroclus, Achilles’ closest friend in the epic, feature in his early life.
Icy pallor rivets the Nereid. The lad was there, much sweat and dust made him bigger, and yet amid weapons and hurried labours he was still sweet to look upon. A bright glow swims in his snow-white face and his hair shines fairer than tawny gold. Nor yet is his first youth changing with new down, the lights in his eyes are tranquil and much of his mother is in his fac
e: like Apollo the hunter when he returns from Lycia and quits his fierce quiver for the quill. By chance too he comes rejoicing (ah how much does happiness add to beauty!): he had struck with steel a lioness newly whelped under Pholoë’s crag and left her in her empty cavern, bringing home the cubs and provoking their claws. But when his mother appears on the trusty threshold, he throws them aside, picks her up and encircles her with greedy elbows, already powerful in his embrace and of height to match her. Patroclus follows, linked even then by a great love. He strains to rival such mighty deeds, equal in youthful zeal and manners but far behind in strength; yet he too was to see Pergamus, alike doomed.
Forthwith in a swift leap he approaches the nearest stream and freshens his steaming cheeks and hair in its water, like Castor entering the shallows of Eurotas with panting steed and furbishing the weary ray of his star. The ancient wonders at him, spruces him up, stroking now his chest, now his strong shoulders. Her joys torture the mother. Then Chiron1 begs her to taste victuals and Bacchus’ gift, weaving various delights for her amazement. At last he draws out his lyre, moving the care-comforting strings, and after making light trial of them with his thumb hands them to the boy. Willingly he sings mighty seeds of glory: how many commands of his proud stepdame Amphitryon’s son accomplished, with what a glove Pollux crushed cruel Bebryx, with how strong a grip the son of Aegeus encircled and broke the limbs of Minos’ bull, and finally his mother’s marriage bed and Pelion weighed down by the High Ones. Here Thetis’ anxious countenance yielded in a smile. Night draws to slumber. The huge Centaur collapses on stone and Achilles fondly twines himself about his shoulders, though his faithful mother is there, preferring the familiar bosom.
But Thetis in the night stands beside the sea-sounding rocks. Her mind is split this way and that as she turns over what secret place she should choose for her son, in what lands she should decide to conceal him. Thrace is nearest, but much given to Mavors’ pursuits. Nor does the hardy race of Macedonians please, nor yet the children of Cecrops (they would spur him to glory). Sestos and the bay of Abydos are too much in the way of ships. She decides to go through the crowding Cyclades. Here she spurns Myconos and lowly Seriphos and Lemnos, to men unfriendly, and Delos, hospitable to all peoples. A while back she had heard from Lycomedes’ unwarlike palace bevies of girls and the sound of their play along the shore, while on a mission to follow Aegaeon as he relaxed his harsh bonds and to number the god’s hundred chains. This land pleases, this is safest for the fearful mother. Even so a bird, near to giving birth, already careful, already afraid, wonders on what branch to hang her vacant house; here she foresees winds, here thinks anxiously of serpents, here of men; finally as she doubts, a shady place takes her fancy; scarce has she alighted on the stranger boughs and all at once she loves the tree.
