The Satires of Horace and Persius

by Horace

  be in need when you are rich? Why are the ancient temples

  of the gods falling down? Why, if you’ve any conscience,

  don’t you give something from that pile you’ve made to the land of your birth?

  For you alone, I suppose, nothing will ever go wrong.

  What a whale of a laugh you’ll give your enemies! In times of crisis

  which of the two will have greater confidence – the man who has led

  his mind and body to expect affluence as of right,

  110 or the man with few needs who is apprehensive of the future

  and who in peacetime has wisely made preparations for war?

  To bring this home, as a boy I knew Ofellus well,

  and when he had all his money he lived as simply as he does

  now that he’s poor. He is still to be seen with his sons and livestock

  working undaunted as a tenant on the farm now re-assigned.

  ‘As a rule,’ he says, ‘on a working day I would never eat

  any more than a shank of smoked ham and a plate of greens.

  But if friends arrived whom I hadn’t seen for a long time

  or a neighbour dropped in for a friendly visit on a wet day

  120 when I was idle, we used to celebrate, not with fish

  sent out from town, but a chicken or a kid, followed by dessert –

  raisins taken down from the rafters with nuts and figs.

  Then we had drinking games where a failure meant a forfeit,

  and Ceres, receiving our prayer that she’d rise high on the stalk,

  allowed the wine to smooth away our worried wrinkles.

  Whatever new horrors and upheavals Fortune brings

  she can’t take much away from that. How many of our comforts

  have we had to give up, my lads, since the new occupant came?

  I say “occupant”, for by nature’s decree possession of the land

  130 isn’t his or mine or anyone else’s. He turned us out,

  and he’ll be turned out by his own improvidence, his inability

  to cope with the law’s cunning, or at last by the heir who outlives him.

  The farm is now in Umbrenus’ name; not long ago

  it was called Ofellus’; no one will own it, but its use will still

  be enjoyed – now by me, in time by another. So be brave

  and bravely throw out your chest to meet the force of fate!’

  SATIRE 3

  Horace is spending the Saturnalia (17–19 December) on his Sabine farm. Damasippus enters and immediately takes him to task for his laziness. As the dialogue develops Damasippus tells how Stertinius converted him to Stoicism by preaching on the text ‘Everyone is mad except the sage.’ The sermon deals in turn with avarice, ambition, self-indulgence, and superstition, all of which are regarded as types of madness. The piece concludes with an epilogue in which Damasippus explains how the sermon is relevant to Horace’s condition.

  You write so little that you get to the point of asking for parchment

  less than four times a year. You unravel what’s written, annoyed

  that with plenty of wine and sleep you produce nothing to speak of.

  What’s going to happen? As soon as the Saturnalia came,

  you fled out here like a sober man. So don’t disappoint us.

  Give us a word or two, starting now… nothing forthcoming.

  No use blaming your pen or battering the innocent wall,

  screaming that its very existence is an insult to gods and poets.

  And yet you had a face which promised lots of splendid things

  10 when you got away to the peace and warmth of your little villa.

  What was the point of bringing out such weighty companions,

  packing Archilochus, Eupolis, and Plato along with Menander?

  Will people begin to like you if you stop attacking vice?

  You pathetic creature! They’ll merely despise you. Avoid Sloth,

  that seductive Siren, or else make up your mind to relinquish

  all you’ve achieved in better days.

  ‘That’s good advice,

  Damasippus, and as a reward may heaven send you – a barber.

  But how do you know me so well?’

  Since my entire fortune

  crashed on the floor of the Stock Exchange, pitching me out of my business,

  20 I’ve been minding other people’s. I used to enjoy deciding

  which was the bronze that wily old Sisyphus washed his feet in,

  what was crudely carved and what was roughly cast.

  I would shrewdly invest a hundred thousand in a given statue.

  Nobody else had my knack of making a profit

  from deals in luxurious houses and grounds. That’s why the people

  at auctions gave me the nickname ‘Lucre’s lad’.

  ‘I know,

  and I’m surprised you’ve been cured of that obsession. But the odd thing is

  that a new disorder has taken the place of the old, as happens

  in the body when a headache or a pain in the side shifts to the stomach,

  30 or a patient wakes from a coma and starts to punch his doctor.

  Short of that, do as you please!’

  Now let’s get this clear.

  You’re mad too, and so are pretty well all fools,

  if there’s any truth in Stertinius’ guff. Like a faithful pupil

  I took this marvellous message down from him on the day

  when he gave me comfort, and bade me grow the beard of wisdom,

  and sent me home from the Fabrician bridge with joy in my heart.

  After my business collapsed, I intended to cover my head

  and jump in the river. But there he was at my side. ‘Now don’t

  do anything rash,’ he said. ‘Your feelings of guilt are misplaced.

  40 You’re afraid of being thought mad by folks who are mad themselves!

  First let me ask what madness is. If it proves to be something

  peculiar to you, I’ll leave you free to die like a man.

  ‘Chrysippus and his flock in the Porch maintain that a madman is one

  who is driven blindly on by the curse of folly, in ignorance

  of the truth. That definition embraces mighty monarchs

  and people – everyone, in fact, but the sage.

  Now this is the reason

  why those who call you mad are every bit as crazy

  as you are: You know how people lose their way in the woods –

  one goes wandering off to the left, another to the right;

  50 both are equally wrong, though each has strayed in a different

  direction. So you may rest assured that if you’re to be counted

  mad the fellow who laughs at you is no saner himself.

  He too has straw in his hair.

  One sort of idiot

  is plagued by imaginary fears; though standing on level ground

  he insists that fires, rocks, and rivers are blocking his path.

  Another, with the opposite kink but no less dotty, goes charging

  into the middle of a fire or river. His beloved mother

  and worthy sister, his father, wife, and relatives shout

  “Look out! There’s a big ditch in front of you! Now there’s a boulder!”

  60 but he’ll pay no more attention than the drunken Fufius did

  when he over-played the sleeping Ilíona and a thousand voices

  joined Catiénus in shouting “Mother, I’m calling you!”

  I’ll show

  that people in the mass are crazy in just this kind of way.

  Damasippus has a mania for buying old statues. But the man

  who lends Damasippus money – is he normal? Very well.

  If I said to you “Here’s some money; don’t bother to return it”,

  would you be mad to take it? Or would it be more insane

  to reject a bonus so
kindly offered by the Lord of Luck?

  Write ten of Nerius’ I.O.U.s – no good; add a hundred

  70 of Hemlock’s tightly drafted bonds; add a thousand chains.

  He’ll still wriggle out; that rascally Proteus can’t be tied down.

  When you take him to court he’ll proceed to laugh at your expense,

  becoming a hog or a bird at will, or a stone or a tree.

  If bungling in business is a sign of lunacy, and vice versa,

  I assure you Perellius is far more soft in the head for stating

  the terms of a loan which you can never hope to repay.

  ‘Settle down then please and pay attention. I’m talking to all

  who are plagued by the curse of ambition or a morbid craving for money,

  all who are obsessed with self-indulgence or gloomy superstition

  80 or any other fever of the soul; come here to me

  and I’ll convince you, one by one, that you’re all mad.

  By far the biggest dose of hellebore should go to the greedy;

  they ought, in fact, to receive all Antícyra’s output.

  Staberius’ heirs engraved the sum of his estate on his tombstone.

  Had they failed to do so, they were bound by his will to regale the public

  with a hundred pairs of gladiators, a banquet (arranged by Arrius),

  and all the corn in Egypt. “Whether I’m right or wrong

  in issuing these instructions, you are not to scold me.”

  Staberius, I take it, had enough sense to foresee their reaction.

  90 So what did he mean by insisting that his heirs should carve on stone

  the full amount of his estate? Well, he had a lifelong conviction

  that poverty was a dreadful sin. He shunned it with horror. And so,

  if he’d died a penny poorer, he would in his own estimation

  have been that much more depraved. The fact is that goodness,

  honour, reputation – everything human and divine – gives way

  to the charm of money. The man who has made a pile – the same

  is famous, brave, and upright.’

  ‘And wise?’

  ‘Yes, and a king

  and whatever he likes. Staberius thought that his wealth would establish

  his probity and would win him respect.

  What had he in common

  100 with the Greek Aristippus who, when crossing the Libyan desert,

  ordered his servants to throw all his gold away – its weight,

  he said, was hampering their progress. Which of these was the madder?

  ‘A case doesn’t help that replaces one issue with another.

  If a man, after buying guitars, placed them all together,

  without any love of guitars or any branch of music,

  if a non-shoemaker hoarded knives and lasts, or a man

  who disliked trading collected sails, he would rightly be thought

  a crazy idiot by everyone else. But is he any different,

  who amasses coins and gold unaware of how to use them,

  110 who dreads to touch his treasure as if it were something holy?

  ‘Suppose a man took a big stick and lay on the floor,

  keeping a constant watch on a large corn-heap, refusing

  however hungry to touch a grain of it, although it was his,

  and existing instead on a miserly diet of bitter leaves.

  If in spite of having in his cellar a thousand – that’s nothing, let’s say

  three hundred thousand bottles of old Falernian and Chian,

  he opted for sour vinegar. And if, when pushing eighty,

  he slept on a straw mattress although expensive bedclothes

  were rotting in a chest, providing moths with a royal banquet,

  120 no doubt he’d be judged insane – by a few, the reason being

  that most men toss and turn in the grip of the same fever.

  You wretched old man! Are you saving this for your son or freedman

  to swallow when you’re dead? Or is it in case you run short?

  Think of how little would be docked from your capital every day

  if you started to use a decent oil for dressing your salad

  and for your hair. Look at it! Matted and thick with dandruff!

  If “anything goes” why do you lie and cheat and pilfer

  right and left? You sane! If you pelted with stones

  people in the street or slaves whom you’d bought with hard cash,

  130 everyone, male and female, would shout “The man is mad!”

  When you strangle your wife or poison your mother you are, I suppose,

  of sound mind. After all, you’re not doing it in Argos,

  nor are you killing your mother with a sword like the mad Orestes!

  Or perhaps you think it was only after murdering his parent

  that he went insane, and that he wasn’t maddened by the evil Furies

  before he warmed the sharp blade in his mother’s throat.

  The truth is quite the reverse. From the moment when Orestes was held

  to be mentally deranged his conduct was wholly above reproach.

  He refrained from slashing at Pyýlades, his friend, and his sister Electra;

  140 he merely abused them both; she, he said, was a Fury,

  he some other creature that his mad condition dictated.

  ‘Richman, a pauper in spite of his hoard of gold and silver,

  when holidays came around would drink Veientine wine

  from a Capuan mug; his normal drink was fermented must.

  Once he was sunk in so deep a coma that his heir had already

  grabbed the keys and was prancing around his coffers in jubilant

  excitement. The doctor, a quick thinker and a loyal friend,

  revived him so: he had a table brought in and some bags of coins

  poured out on top of it; then he asked some people to come

  150 and count them. On bringing the patient to, he added “If you don’t

  look after your property, your greedy heir will make off with the lot!”

  “Over my dead body!”

  “Wake up then and live. Now here – ”

  “What’s this?”

  “You’re weak. Your pulse is low, and your whole system

  will collapse if it’s not sustained by food and a strong tonic.

  What are you waiting for? Come on, take a sip of this rice gruel.”

  “How much was it?”

  “Not much.”

  “Well how much?”

  “Tuppence.” “Ah dear!

  What matter whether I die from illness or from theft and pillage?‘”

  ‘Well who is sane?’

  ‘The man who isn’t a fool.’

  ‘And the greedy?’

  ‘Fools and madmen.’

  ‘But suppose a person isn’t greedy,

  160 is he therefore sane?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘Why, my good Stoic?’

  ‘I’ll tell you.

  Suppose that, according to Cráterus, a patient has nothing wrong

  with his stomach. Does that mean he’s well enough to get up?

  No, for he’s got a severe infection of the lungs or kidneys.

  Here’s a man who is neither liar nor miser. He may thank

  his lucky stars for that. But he is ambitious and reckless.

  Put him on board for Antícyra! What matter whether you throw

  your possessions into a pit or never use your savings?

  ‘There’s a story that Servius Oppidius, a rich man by the standards

  of an earlier day, made over his two farms at Canusium

  170 to his two sons. When dying, he called the lads to his bedside:

  “Ever since I saw you, Aulus, carrying your dice

  and marbles in an unsafe pocket, giving and gambling them away,

  and you, Tiberius, counting them sourly and hidi
ng them in crannies,

  I have worried that you might develop opposite forms of obsession,

  you imitating Nomentanus and you Hemlock.

  And so, here, in our old home, I appeal to you both:

  you mustn’t reduce, and you mustn’t increase

  what your father considers enough and what falls within nature’s limits.

  Moreover, in case you are excited by the charms of public life,

  180 I shall have you swear an oath: if either becomes an Aedile

  or Praetor he shall forfeit his legal powers and be cursed of heaven.

  Would you waste your money like an idiot on vetches, beans, and lupines

  simply to strut and swagger in the Circus or stand in bronze,

  stripped of the land your father left you and stripped of his money?

  I suppose you want to win the applause that Agrippa wins –

  like the cunning fox that masqueraded as a noble lion!”

  ‘“You forbid us, son of Atreus, to bury Ajax. Why?”

  “I am king.”

  “As a commoner I inquire no further.”

  “Also

  it’s a fair order. If anyone thinks I’m being unjust

  190 he has my permission to speak his mind.”

  “Most royal highness,

  God grant you may capture Troy and bring the army home.

  Is it therefore in order to hold an exchange of question and answer?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Then why does Ajax, the hero next to Achilles,

  who so often won distinction by saving Achaean lives,

  lie rotting? Is it so that Priam and his people may enjoy the exposure

  of one who deprived so many lads of a family grave?”

  “He was mad. He slaughtered a thousand sheep, and in doing so roared

  he was killing the famous Ulysses, and Menelaus, and me.”

  “But when you do a frightful thing like making your darling daughter

  200 stand at the altar instead of a calf, sprinkling her head

  with salt meal, are you in your right mind? What harm

  was done by the mad Ajax when he slew the flock? He spared

  his wife and child. He hurled abuse at the sons of Atreus

  but he did no act of violence to Teucer or even Ulysses.”

  “My ships were moored on a lee shore. To get them away,

  after full deliberation I secured the favour of heaven with blood.”

  “Yes, your own, you maniac!”

  “My own, but I wasn’t a maniac.”

  ‘A man who gets hold of wrong ideas – ideas confused

  by the turmoil arising from his own guilt – is held to be crazy,