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Alogia and Emphasis in Juvenal's Fourth Satire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2014

Martin M. Winkler
Martin M. Winkler*
Affiliation:
George Mason University
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D M

J. P. Sullivan

In chapters 24 and 25 of the Poetics Aristotle discusses an aspect of poetry which is important even for satire. Aristotle states that to thaumaston, the element of ‘the wondrous’ necessary for tragedy, depends on what he terms to alogon, ‘the irrational’ (Poet. 1460a11-14). He continues to explain that ‘once the irrational has been introduced and an air of likelihood imparted to it, we must accept it in spite of the absurdity’ inherent in it (an de thēi kai phainētai eulogōterōs, endekhesthai kai atopon <on>). Accordingly, Aristotle postulates that the poet should prefer ‘likely impossibilities to unlikely possibilities’ (adunata eikota mallon ē dunata apithana). Aristotle stresses the importance of this demand by repeating it later (Poet. 1461b11f.). The poet's justification for proceeding along such lines rests on the effect he achieves: his composition becomes ‘more striking’ (ekplēktikōteron, Poet. 1460b24-27). The irrational does not necessarily violate reason, ‘for it is likely that something may happen contrary to likelihood’ (eikos gar kai para to eikos ginesthai; Poet. 1461b15). Although not real, the irrational is ‘better’ (beltion); it is not that which is, but that which ‘ought to be’ (hōs dei). S.H. Butcher summarises the subject by observing: ‘These so-called adunata are the very dunata of art, the stuff and substance of which poetry is made …. The adunata, things impossible in fact, become pithana [likely].’

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Research Article
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Ramus , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , 1995 , pp. 59 - 81
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Copyright © Aureal Publications 1995

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References

1. Poet. 1460a34f.; the translation is from Butcher, S.H., Aristotle’s Theory of Poetry and Fine Art4 (New York 1951), 97Google Scholar.

2. Poet. 1460a26f. For a recent study of such impossibilities, with extensive bibliography, see Manzo, A., L’adunaton poetico-retorico e le sue implicazioni dottrinali (Genoa 1988)Google Scholar, esp. 29–49. On the importance of paradoxes in early imperial Roman literature (Ovid, Seneca, Lucan) see Lefèvre, E., ‘Die Bedeutung des Paradoxen in der römischen Literatur der frühen Kaiserzeit’, Poetica 3 (1970), 59–82Google Scholar, esp. 59–64. D. and Henry, E., The Mask of Power: Seneca’s Tragedies and Imperial Rome (Warminster and Chicago 1985), 12–39Google Scholar and 197–200, discuss and list adunata in Seneca.

3. Poet. 1460b33–61a4 and 1461b9f. On these passages see Butcher (n.l above), 167f.

4. Butcher (n.l above), 170f. and 173.

5. ‘The Function of Epic in Juvenal’s Satires’, in Deroux, C. (ed.), Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History V (Brussels 1989), 414–43Google Scholar.

6. Cf. Wölfel, K., ‘Epische Welt und satirische Welt. Zur Technik des satirischen Erzählens’, Wirkendes Wort 10 (1960), 85–98Google Scholar. Wölfel illustrates his argument with examples from German satire but his observations are valid for Roman satire as well.

7. The theme of nature reversing itself or being reversed is related to the topos of adunaton described before; for examples cf., e.g., Ov. Tr. 1.8.1–8; Plin. NH 7.16, 23, 34, 36; A. Gell. NA 9.4.

8. On these aspects see Sweet, D., ‘Juvenal’s Satire 4; Poetic Uses of Indirection’, CSCA, 12 (1979), 283–303Google Scholar, who lists the relevant secondary sources at 300 nn.1–5. See also Courtney, E., A Commentary on the Satires of Juvenal (London 1980), 199fGoogle Scholar.

9. Plin. NH 9.169; Ps.-Ov. Hal. 125.

10. Courtney (n.8 above), ad 4.39.

11. In Aen. 1, stridor and stridens occur at lines 87 and 102; hiems and hiemem at 122 and 125. Cf. also deformis hiems at Sen. Apoc. 2.1 v.4, in the context of imperial mockery, and see Courtney (n.8 above), ad loc.

12. Keller, O., Die antike Tierwelt, vol. 2 (Leipzig 1913), 368Google Scholar, informs us that the rhombus maximus can actually reach a size of 3 x 2 x almost 1 metre.

13. Juvenal may well take up Mart. 4.30.3–7, where the inhabitants of Domitian’s fishponds behave as slaves do toward their master. Cf. Mart. 10.30.21–24 and Plin. NH 10.193. Juvenal describes a fish as a uernula at 5.104f.—On the bête humaine topos see my ‘Satire and the Grotesque in Juvenal, Arcimboldo, and Goya’, A&A 37 (1991), 22–42Google Scholar, esp. 24–33 and the references there cited.

14. Courtney (n.8 above), ad 54, gives the appropriate references.

15. On Domitian’s early policy toward denouncers see Suet. Dom. 9; cf. ibid. 12 on his changed policy toward the fiscus.

16. Cf. Duff, J.D., Decimi luvenalis Saturae XIV (Cambridge 1898Google Scholar; repr. 1970), ad loc.

17. Austin, R.G. (ed.), P. Vergili Maronis Aeneidos Liber Sextus (Oxford 1977), 127Google Scholar, on Aen. 6.303. To the loci Austin adduces for this meaning add Apul. Met. 6.18.5.

18. A delator contemporary with the satirist appears at Sat. 1.33–36.

19. Cf. the later account at Macrob. Sat. 3.16, where crowned attendants escort a sturgeon in an almost religious procession (quasi numinis pompa) to the banquet of Septimius Severus.

20. This is the younger Acilius at lines 99–101. His nudity makes him kindred to two of Juvenal’s best-known examples of depraved aristocrats, the effeminate Creticus who argues his court cases dressed in diaphanous silks (2.65–78), and the skimpily clad gladiator and retiarius Gracchus (2.143–48; 8.199–210).

21. Mart. 6.63.6. Colton, R.E., ‘Cabinet Meeting: Juvenal’s Fourth Satire’, CB 40 (1963), 1–4Google Scholar, and Juvenal’s Use of Martial’s Epigrams (Amsterdam 1991), 145–65Google Scholar, 473f. and 558–72, discusses passages in Martial which are parallel to Juvenal’s Satire 4 but omits mention of this epigram. The t.t. for legacy-hunting is captare, the uerbum intensiuum based on capere. The verb captare also occurs in the sense of ‘taking in’ through flattery, as at Sen. NQ 4A, pr. 3 (on adulatores): artifices sunt ad captandos superiores (‘they are skilled craftsmen at catching their superiors’). Naturally the bigger the fish such captatores can hook, the better for them.

22. Cass. Dio Epit. 67.4.2; Dio calls this Domitian’s worst feature (deinotaton). Shortly before (67.3f.), Dio reports that Juventius Celsus, a conspirator against Domitian, managed to save his life after being found out by employing a combination of flattery and verbal cunning.

23. Inst. Orat. 9.2.64–99. A brief description of emphasis also appears at Rhet. Her. 4.67f. Cf. Lausberg, H., Handbuch der literarischen Rhetorik: Eine Grundlegung der Literaturwissen-schaft3 (Stuttgart 1990), 450–53Google Scholar; he observes: ‘Das, oberflächlich gesehen, unbedeutende gedanklich-sprachliche signum ist für den aufmerksamen Horer der untrügliche Ausdruck eines umfassenderen, durch coniectura zu erschliessenden Sachverhalts’ (451).

24. Cf. Inst. Orat. 9.2.65 ad init., before the passage quoted: qua [sc. figura] nunc utimur plurimum (‘which we now use extensively’).

25. Leeman, A.D., Orationis Ratio: The Stylistic Theories and Practices of the Roman Orators, Historians and Philosophers (Amsterdam 1963), 39Google Scholar.

26. Fuhrmann, M., Cicero und die römische Republik: Eine Biographie3 (Munich and Zürich 1991), 49Google Scholar, characterises the trial of Roscius as ‘ein abgefeimtes Schurkenstück auf der politischen Bühne’. Cf. Stroh, W., Taxis und Taktik: Die advokatische Dispositionskunst in Ciceros Gerichtsreden (Stuttgart 1975), 66fCrossRefGoogle Scholar. He adduces (67 n.43) Büchner, K., Cicero: Bestand und Wandel seiner geistigen Welt (Heidelberg 1964), 84Google Scholar, who points to imperial panegyric as a later parallel to Cicero’s strategy.—For a dissenting view see Kinsey, T.E., ‘Cicero’s Case against Magnus, Capito and Chrysogonus in the Pro Sex. Roscio Amerino and its Use for the Historian’, AC 49 (1980), 173–90Google Scholar, esp. 181–89. However, even Kinsey grants that ‘there is some truth in Cicero’s remark (Off. 2.51) that he defended Roscius against the power of Sulla’ (183).

27. Sat. 10.114–32 (Demosthenes and Cicero). On these lines see my ‘Juvenal’s Attitude toward Ciceronian Poetry and Rhetoric’, RhM n.s. 131 (1988), 84–97Google Scholar, esp. 85f.

28. So understood by Leeman (n.25 above), 347.

29. On aperte or palam loqui in general cf. Ahl, F., ‘The Art of Safe Criticism in Greece and Rome’, AJP 105 (1984), 174–208Google Scholar, esp. 197–200; ‘The Rider and the Horse: Politics and Power in Roman Poetry from Horace to Statius’, ANRW 11.32.1 (1984), 40–110Google Scholar, esp. 80–85 (the title refers to Hor. Serm. 2.1.17–20). Cic. Lael. 99 has Laelius observe that ‘anybody but an idiot will recognise an outright flatterer’ (aperte enim adulantem nemo non uidet, nisi qui admodum est excors). Thus what appears to be said aperte needs emphasis in order to be rhetorically successful. On this see Sen. NQ 4A, pr. 5 (contrast of simplicitas and ars in flattery ex aperto) and 12 (contrast of btanda and uerd); cf. ibid., pr. 9, on the successful strategy of open flattery (quo apertior est adulatio…hoc citius expugnat, ‘the more open the flattery, the more quickly it conquers’). That aperte loqui in a straightforward and sincere manner is very close to indocte loqui becomes evident from A. Gell. NA 12.5.6, adducing Ar. Frogs 1445. By Gellius’ time this thought had become proverbial (ut aiunt); cf. Otto, A., Die Sprichworter und sprichwörtlichen Redensarten der Römer (1890Google Scholar; repr. Hildesheim and New York 1971), no. 863.

30. The only modern scholar to see beyond the surface meaning of 4.65–71 is Frederick Ahl. Although he does not take his interpretation of aperte loqui far enough to do justice to Juvenal, he deserves credit for placing the rhetorical strategy which Juvenal assigns the fisherman in the wider context of literature and power in the Roman empire. In addition to his works cited in the preceding note see ‘Statius’ Thebaid: A Reconsideration’, ANRW II.32.5 (1986), 2804–912Google Scholar, esp. 2830–34. Adamietz, J., ‘Juvenal’, in Adamietz, (ed.), Die römische Satire (Darmstadt 1986), 257Google Scholar, notes the presence of ‘rhetorischen Pointen’ in the fisherman’s speech but neglects to identify or explain them.—On the fictitious nature of the story presented in Satire 4 see my comments below.

31. Plin. NH 9.67; Sen. Ep. 95.42; Suet. Tib. 34; cf. Mart. 10.31. See also Thompson, D’A.W., A Glossary of Greek Fishes (London 1947), 266fGoogle Scholar. The very theme is sounded prominently, and not least in preparation for this moment, in the first part of Satire 4 at lines 15–33. Cf. Courtney (n.8 above), 198. Cf. also Sat. 1.135f. and 5.80–106, esp. 92–96.

32. Varro RR 3.17.7 (the sagina uiua); Plin. NH 9.14 (orca…saginam persequitur).

33. Courtney (n.8 above), ad loc.

34. Pro Sest. 78: eos qui ab illo pestifero ac perdito ciui iam pridem rei publicae sanguine saginantur (‘those whom that ruinous and depraved citizen has long been fattening on the. lifeblood of the republic’). The assonance in the last two words serves to reinforce Cicero’s point.

35. Curt. HA 5.1.39 (inter haec flagitia exercitus…saginatus). Cf. Tac. Hist. 4.42.4 (septuagiens sestertio saginatus).

36. Thus the OLD s.v. l.a, quoting Juvenal’s line.

37. NH 8.129: laxandis intestinis alioquin concretis; cf. the laxamentum uentris at Macrob. Sat. 7.11. By contrast to Juvenal, Martial’s use of the verb at 4.8.9 is altogether innocuous.

38. Duff (n.20 above), ad loc, rightly rejects ‘the old explanation’ that Domitian should take an emetic. The stomach, however, has two openings.

39. Sat. 9.44. Those needing help in getting to the bottom of this may wish to compare my remarks in The Persona in Three Satires of Juvenal (Hildesheim and New York 1983), 127fGoogle Scholar. and 144 n.137.

40. Crates frr. 14 (which see) and 15–17 Kock (CAF i.133–35). On this passage see Kenner, H., Das Phanomen der verkehrten Welt in der griechisch-rbmischen Antike (Klagenfurt and Bonn 1970), 74Google Scholar.

41. Cf. Lesky, A., Geschichte der griechischen Literatur3 (Berne and Munich 1971), 475Google Scholar.

42. Dom. 2.3: defunctumque…saepe etiam carpsit obliquis orationibus et edictis. Perhaps the starkest example of Domitian’s ingenuity to manipulate his victims by means of both verbal and visual terror is the ‘funeral banquet’ described at Cass. Dio Epit. 67.9.

43. Hist. 3.40–43. Among the brief remarks on Juvenal and Herodotus by Flintoff, T.E.S., ‘Juvenal’s Fourth Satire’, in Cairns, F. and Heath, M. (eds.), Papers of the Leeds International Latin Seminar Vol. 6 (Leeds 1990), 121–37Google Scholar, we are told that ‘Juvenal seems to go out of his way to remind us of this story’ (132); however, there is no detailed analysis to support such an assertion.

44. van der Veen, J.E., ‘The Lord of the Ring: Narrative Technique in Herodotus’ Story of Polycrates’ Ring’, Mnemosyne ser. iv 46 (1993), 433–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 442–45.

45. Suet. Dom. 2.3; cf. Tac. Hist. 4.86.

46. Deroux, C., ‘Domitian, the Kingfish and the Prodigies: A Reading of Juvenal’s Fourth Satire’, in Deroux, (ed.), Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History III (Brussels 1983), 283–98Google Scholar, understands the rhombus as a religious prodigium. His argument weakens when he seems to impute traditional religious beliefs to Juvenal (cf. 287) and lapses into the biographical fallacy (Juvenal’s exile).—The religious connotations of an imperial fish’s grand levee become explicit in the episode involving Septimius Severus; see n.19 above.

47. Kenner (n.40 above), 76, emphasises that ta hypertera nertera (‘the top on the bottom’, after Ar. Lys. 772) is the Greek term which commonly expresses the idea of the mundus inuersus (for a parallel expression in Latin cf. Petr. Sat. 63.9: quod sursum est, deorsum faciunt). The reversal of Olympian loftiness to the lowest stratum of human society is a regular feature of old comedy. An example pertinent to the present subject occurs in Epicharmus’ Wedding of Hebe (Hēbas Gamos = frr. 41–75 Kaibel CGF i.i.98–104): Poseidon acts as fishmonger and supplies rare delicacies, the Muses behave like fishwives, and Zeus manages to procure the best specimens for Hera and himself.

48. Thus Friedlander, L., D. Junii Juvenalis Saturarum Libri V (Leipzig 1895)Google Scholar, ad loc. He adds that Juvenal may be hinting at Domitian’s considering Rome his personal property. Duff (n.16 above), ad loc, relates uilicus to seruiret (38). Cf. also the uilicus horti at Sat. 3.228.

49. Suet. Dom. 10 lists examples of people whom Domitian had executed for trivial reasons. Cf. the man damnatus inani/iudicio in Juvenal Sat. 1.47f.

50. Cf. the debate between Creon and Oedipus on freedom of silence at Sen. Oed. 511–29.

51. Bakhtin, M., Rabelais and His World, tr. Iswolsky, H. (1968; repr. Bloomington 1984), 18–53Google Scholar and 303–67. Examples in imperial Roman literature occur at, e.g., Plin. NH 7.9–37; A. Gell. NA 9.4.

52. After Kenner (n.40 above), 73. See Eupolis frr. 276–302 Kock (CAF i.333–39).

53. Cf. Bramble, J.C., Persius and the Programmatic Satire: A Study in Form and Imagery (Cambridge 1974), 111CrossRefGoogle Scholar and n.3, on calue at Pers. 1.56. See also Deroux, C., ‘De la calvitie de Domitien à la chevelure d’Alexandre: propositions sur Juvénal, Sat., IV, 37–38’, in Croisille, J.M. (ed.), Neronia IV: Alejandro Magno, modelo de los emperadores romanos (Brussels 1990), 277–88Google Scholar, esp. 282–84.

54. I discuss these lines in detail in ‘Satire and the Grotesque’ (n.13 above), 28–32. The animal imagery in lacerare which I examine there becomes explicit in Laevius’ use of accipitrare for lacerare as reported at A. Gell. NA 19.7.11. The lion imagery describing tyrants finds an additional parallel to those I cite in Phraotes’ parable of the lion tamers at Philostr. VA 7.30, where the aspect of flattery (therapeuein) becomes again important in the context of the treatment appropriate for both lions and rulers, i.e. stroking and striking.

55. Sat. 121 v.121, in the epyllion on the Civil War.

56. Keller (n.12 above), 367: ‘Die geistigen Fähigkeiten des Rhombus wurden nieder taxiert.’ The authority for this is the comic poet Plato (Schol. Ar. Clouds 109).

57. NH 9.60: nullo nunc in honore est, in contrast to its former ranking (apud antiquos piscium nobilissimus habitus).

58. Suet. Dom. 18.1 tells us that Domitian in later life developed a paunch (deformis et obesitate uentris). Cf. Plin. Pan. 49.6f. Keller (n.12 above), 367, understands Juvenal’s expression pontifex summus at Sat. 4.46 to mean ‘Erzgourmand’, doubtless because of the pontificum cenae. Even Courtney (n.8 above), ad loc, grants that the phrase may allude to the latter and cites the ancient references describing them. Friedländer (n.48 above), ad loc, is rather more positive about this. See also Anderson, W.S., ‘Studies in Book I of Juvenal’, YCS 15 (1957), 78fGoogle Scholar. = Essays on Roman Satire (Princeton 1982), 242f.; he is followed by Heilmann, W., ‘Zur Komposition der vierten Satire und des ersten Satirenbuches Juvenals’, RhM n.s. 110 (1967), 361Google Scholar n.ll. Cf. Heilmann, 363: ‘die Schlemmerei…erscheint als besonderes Charakteristikumder Herrschaft Domitians’. See in addition Sweet (n.8 above), 302 n.18. Furthermore sagina can mean ‘corpulence’ (references at L&S s.v. II, and OLD s.v. 3) and means ‘gluttony’ at Tac. Hist. 2.71.1; cf. also Plaut. Most. 236.

59. Ahl, F., Lucan: An Introduction (Ithaca and London 1976), 29fGoogle Scholar. and 47–49. Cf. Hinds, S., ‘Generalising about Ovid’, in Boyle, A.J. (ed.), The Imperial Muse: To Juvenal Through Ovid (Berwick Vic. 1988), 4–31Google Scholar, esp. 23–29 on ‘passive’ panegyric; contra Dewar, M., ‘Laying It On With A Trowel: The Proem to Lucan and Related Texts’, CQ n.s. 44 (1994), 199–211CrossRefGoogle Scholar; less convincingly, Hunink, V., ‘Lucan’s Praise of Nero’, in Cairns, F. and Heath, M. (eds.), Papers of the Leeds International Latin Seminar Vol. 7 (Leeds 1993), 135–40Google Scholar.

60. Poet. 1460al9; the English quotation is from Butcher (n.l above), 171.

61. Cf. Anderson (n.58 above), 78–80 (= Essays, 242–44); Sweet (n.8 above), 284–89; Gowers, E., The Loaded Table: Representations of Food in Roman Literature (Oxford 1993), 207–11Google Scholar, but the associations which she detects are not all equally persuasive.

62. Thompson (n.31 above), 223, s.v. RHOMBOS: ‘also Lat. orbis, orbella’. Both orbis and rhombus are named for their circular appearance.

63. This is well argued by Sweet (n.8 above) for Satire 4 and by Wiesen, D. S., ‘Juvenal and the Intellectuals’, Hermes 101 (1973), 464–83Google Scholar, for Satire 7.1 make the same point in work cited in nn.5 and 27 above.

64. On this see ch. 9 of the Poetics (1451a37–52al1). Cf. also my earlier remarks on Satire 4 and res uera agitur. Winkler (n.5 above), 433–39 and 442f. 65. Butcher (n.l above), 173.