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V. Persius

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2016

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Extract

The next satirist whose work survives is Persius, whose brief book of Satires was acclaimed during his lifetime and after his death. Aulus Persius Flaccus, A.D. 34–62, was born at Volaterrae in Etruria into an important family of equestrian status. He was educated at Rome as a pupil of Cornutus, a Stoic who was a freedman of Seneca, and was associated with the group of Stoic politicians which wielded considerable power at Rome, including the senator Thrasea Paetus whose wife, Arria, was a relative of Persius and who wrote a biography of the Stoic hero Cato the Younger. Persius evidently did not participate in politics but seems to have moved in high circles, given his acquaintance with the poet Lucan, five years younger.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Surveys in the Classics , Volume 23: Roman Verse Satire , 1992 , pp. 33 - 39
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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References

Notes

1. During his lifetime: ‘But Lucanus so admired Flaccus’s writings that he hardly restrained himself while reciting from a shout that Flaccus’s were real poems but he himself was merely playing about’ (Life of Persius 5 = lines 21-4); after his death: Quintilian I.O. 10.1.94: ‘Persius has won a high and justified reputation, although he wrote only one book’.

2. For more detail about Persius’ circumstances and acquaintances see Morford (1984), pp. 1-12.

3. The best text ofPersius is that of Clausen (Oxford (1956), Oxford Classical Text (with Juvenal) (1966)). Recent years have seen the production of several new translations and commentaries which supplement that of Conington (1874): Jenkinson (1980) includes text, introduction, an acute prose translation and fairly brief commentary; Harvey (1981), which includes neither text nor translation, is thorough and detailed; Merwin’s (1981) verse translation is unauthentically accessible and does not convey the force of Persius’ language; Rudd (1987); Lee & Barr (1987) combines a new verse translation by Lee with brief introduction and generally helpful commentary by Barr. The translations used here are those of Lee and (less frequently) Rudd.

The books on Roman satire offer an introduction to Persius and his poems: Nisbet (1963); Ramage, Sigsbee & Fredericks (1974), pp. 114-35 (an excellent appreciation of the poems and their characteristics); Knoche (1975), pp. 127-39 (brief and not entirely favourable); Coffey (1989), pp 98-118 (sound and helpful); Anderson’s introduction to the translation of Merwin (1981), pp. 7-50; Witke (1970), pp. 79-112 (who emphasizes the Stoic features in Persius in an essay chiefly devoted to an extended analysis of Satire 5). See also Rudd (1982) for a brief introduction.

The studies of Persius supply more detail: Dessen (1968) emphasizes Persius’ use of personae, imagery, and metaphor in her first chapter (pp. 1-14) and Epilogue (pp. 93-6) and in the intervening chapters she analyses helpfully the dominant metaphor in each poem; Bramble (1974) is an excellent and challenging study, but inaccesible to those without Latin; Morford (1984) provides a useful introduction and poem-by-poem overview with notes which offer sound guidance on further bibliography and his chapter on the style of Persius (pp. 73-96) is a helpful and accessible introduction to this notoriously difficult feature of Persius’ poetry. Sullivan (1972) in the scope of an article gives a critique of earlier views of Persius and urges that we view him above all as a poet. For full bibliography see Squillante Saccone (1985).

4. According to his biography, the book was unfinished at the time of his death and Cornutus removed some lines from the end before he handed it over to Caesius Bassus for publication (Life 8 = lines 42-5), which happened soon after Persius’ death and possibly as early as 63. The reliability of this tradition and precisely how much Cornutus removed must remain a matter for speculation; the book as we have it consists of 650 lines (plus the 14-line prologue), which is not necessarily too short for a poetry book (Horace’s satirical Books are longer but some of Juvenal’s are of comparable length).

5. Rudd’s essay ‘Imitation: Association of ideas in Persius’ ((1976), pp. 54-83) is an astute and accessible analysis of the multitudinous reminiscences of Horace in Persius; cf. Hooley (1984). Fiske (1909) and (1913), pp. 16-36 offers ample evidence of the influence of Lucilius and Horace’s so-called Ars poetica upon Persius.

6. Described well by Anderson (1982), pp. 169-93.

7. Iambic poetry in Greek and Latin literature was synonymous with aggression. The choliambic or scazon (‘limping’ iambic) was a metre invented by Hipponax (c. 540 B.C.) and taken up by the Hellenistic poet Callimachus in his iambic poetry in which he presents himself as a new Hipponax (e.g. Iambus 1, Dawson, (1950), pp. 8–24 Google Scholar). It is typical of Persius that he uses a Callimachean form to reject the decadent Callimacheanism of contemporary poetry: Sullivan (1985), pp. 74-114 esp. 92-100; on Persius’ relationship with Callimachus see Puelma-Piwonka (1949), pp. 361-4. On the prologue generally see Waszink (1963), Rudd (1986), pp. 178-80.

8. See Bramble (1974), pp. 16-25 on the link between morality and literature; 26-59 on the types of imagery in Satire 1; and 67-142 for a full and uncompromising analysis of Satire 1. On Satire 1 in general see Korzeniewski (1970).

9. Against the influential view of Martin (1939) that Persius was a ‘Stoic evangelist’ see Reckford (1962), 490-8.

10. On Satire 2 as a genethliakon, ‘birthday poem’, see Brind’Amour (1971).

11. The debate about the number of speakers in this poem continues. In essence, the choice is this: (i) one character: two voices of a student; (ii) two voices: a philosopher lecturing a lazy young noble; (iii) three voices: a narrator, a student, and a critic; (iv) two voices: a narrator/student and a critic. See Lee & Barr (1987), pp. 100-1 for brief outline and references to fuller discussions, to which add Jenkinson (1973), 534-49. This issue is not confined to Satire 3: see Coffey (1989), p. 101 in general and e.g. Hendrickson (1928) who argues convincingly that Satire 1 is a monologue, not a dialogue.

12. Jenkinson’s argument (1973), 521-34 that the dialogue between Socrates and Alcibiades continues beyond the opening 22 lines of the poem is very compelling.

13. Stoic features in the sermon include: the personification of Avarice and Luxury (132-53), the scene from comedy (160-74), the animal illustration (159), the appeal to ‘human and natural law’ (98), extremism (99) and so on: see Witke (1970), pp. 89-110 for an analysis of the poem including its Stoic features, also Martin (1939). These are highly reminiscent of Horace’s Stoic sermons in Satires II.3 and II.7; on Persius and the diatribe see Witke (1970), pp. 110-12.

14. E.g. Dessen (1968), pp. 78-9, Ramage, Sigsbee & Fredericks (1974), p. 124, Coffey (1989), p. Ill, Morford (1984), p. 65.

15. On the ‘epistolary illusion’ see Grimes (1972), pp. 127-32.

16. See Sullivan (1972), p. 61 and n. 11.

17. Rudd’s translation captures better than Lee’s the physical imagery of respue quod non es.

18. Cf. Bramble (1974), p. 12: ‘What some critics have regarded as whimsical obscurity is an attempt to escape from the oppressive weight of convention.’ See Connor (1988) on the ‘stretch of the imagination’ offered by Persius’ Satires.

19. On the ‘metaphorical unity’ of the Satires see Reckford (1962), esp. 483-90; on ‘dominant metaphors’ see Dessen (1968) and on sexual imagery see Richlin (1983), pp. 185-90; on the imagery in Satire 1 see Bramble (1974), pp. 26-59; in Satire 2 Flintoff (1982); in Satire 4 Reckford (1962), 484-7; in Satire 5 Anderson (1982), pp. 153-68; in Satire 6 Reckford (1962), 498.