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This chapter enquires into the objects of attack in Juvenal's second satire — traditionally called ‘philosophers’, ‘moralists’, or ‘hypocrites’ — and identifies them as élite Romans who prosecuted in the law courts, especially the adultery court recently revived by Domitian. Juvenal's attack is seen within the tradition of hostility to prosecutors (delatores) in Graeco-Roman culture, in general, and in other literature of the period (Martial, Pliny the Younger, and, especially, Tacitus). The text of the second satire is examined in detail and numerous references to history, law, and rhetoric are eludicated. The interpretation aims to restore greater internal coherence to the satire and place it more securely than hitherto in its social and historical context. The truth or otherwise of its allegations (and thus its status as evidence for Roman sexual practices) emerges as less important. Improved interpretations are also proposed for four other passages of Juvenal that mention prosecutors (1.33-5, 3.116-20, 4.46-56, 10.69-72).

The imitation of Juvenal's Eighth Satire composed by William Wordsworth and Francis Wrangham in the 1790s was suppressed and went unpublished in anything like complete form until as recently as 1997. Its shadowy status in the Wordsworth corpus raises key questions about the reception of both Wordsworth and Juvenal: about how Wordsworth has been positioned in relation to the classics, and about the place of Roman satire in the writing of the Romantic age. The sudden assimilation of the imitation to currently dominant interpretive models in the 1997 scholarly edition provides a consciousness-raising moment for all those ambitious of interpreting formal verse satire whether ancient or modern: Wordsworth's imitation can for us be a way of reading Juvenal, but first we need to ask what interpretive framework is to be applied.

This chapter examines the two satires of Juvenal, 9 and 5 (in that order), and argues that they should be read as deeply programmatic. What they reveal is a self-consciousness about virtually all the elements of satire and mockery that the book has treated. Topics addressed are Juvenal's hallmark indignatio, the problem of “autobiography” and didactic posturing, and problems with “persona-theory”. The chapter argues specifically that with Naevolus in Sat. 9 Juvenal has created a particularly disreputable character to function as an alter-ego, and in so doing calls into question the stability of his self-righteous mockery of him. In the end, the satirist becomes as abject and risible as his targets, even as he maintains the sympathies of his audience — strategies that were found to be at work in other poets in earlier chapters.

This chapter on ‘non-aligned’ humour (so called because it is not tied to either object or subject) excludes the Stoic satires of Persius, but argues that for Horace and Juvenal, non-aligned humour is an important characteristic of their work, adding a dimension of merry openness. Through non-aligned humour, Horace’s and Juvenal’s satires again tease, and occasionally cheat the reader, as the ‘irrelevant’ jokes and irony sometimes try to win the reader’s sympathy, but sometimes turn against him; warmly delight in an alternative lifestyle, and then suddenly ridicule it; make cynically nihilistic statements alongside dully traditional ones, and generally destabilize the seriousness of the normative message on the surface. In Horace, the analysis focuses on his masterly balance of extremes. For Juvenal, the discussion centres on the monsters of his world, present even in the Golden Age.

This chapter argues that Dryden uses the occasion of writing a history of satire, designed to introduce translations of Juvenal and Persius, to produce his longest dedication and critical essay, The Discourse of Satire (1692), with a potentially unflattering portrait of his old patron, the earl of Dorset, and William III's court carefully lodged at the center in the oddly prolonged trial of critical judgment between Horace and Juvenal. The length and difficult progress of this essay signal yet conceal the personal story behind the history. To Horace, Dryden assigns qualities of effeminate sycophancy and compromised accommodation to a usurping monarch, Augustus Caesar, qualities the poet must distance from himself, once the Stuarts' hired pen, but may attach subtly to Dorset — like Horace the courtier of a usurper. Dryden awards first prize in satire to the exile Juvenal whose masculine freedom of rage and digression the poet claims as his own.

This chapter analyzes Rousseau's evolving relationship with his public by examining the distinctions he draws between good and bad anger, between righteous indignation and self-centered resentment. The different ways anger is discussed and displayed in the two Discours, in the Lettre à d'Alembert, in Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse, and in Émile, serve to legitimize the low-born author's critique of social conventions and to provoke his readers to action. Yet, they also illustrate Rousseau's belief that a Senecan transcendence of emotion is a key both to social harmony and to the inner equilibrium of the self, and equanimity no less than a Juvenalian capacity for anger is set up as evidence of the author's claim to cultural authority. The tension between these two attitudes is shown to be a primary source of dynamism in Rousseau's work.

This concluding chapter provides a final overview of the Roman Hannibal and his portrayal in SiliusItalicus’ Punica. As well as providing a conclusive discussion on how Silius’ Hannibal is a man who undergoes a process of decline after Cannae whilst his status as a super-uir continues to evolve, this chapter returns to the final appearance of Hannibal above the plains of Zama. It is noted that in referring to his legacy, Hannibal does not say that his nomen(name)will survive, but his nomina (‘names’). It is argued that with this use of the plural form, there is a subtle nod to the multiple ‘Hannibals’ that exist in Silius’ Punica as well to the different ways in which he is remembered and perceived in Rome's literature.

A brief description of satire as a genre and its history in Latin before Juvenal: then an account of what little we know about the poet himself and the problems of using text and history to assist each other in interpretation of the poetry. The style of Juvenal’s poetry is then discussed with examples from the text in this volume, followed by a discussion of the degree to which the text might be in any sense serious rather than simply a bravura performance of a satirical persona. A short guide to Juvenal’s use of the hexameter metre is followed by a history of the textual transmission and a full bibliography of all titles cited in the course of the book.

A new text is printed of Juvenal’s final four satires, based on the most recent scholarship on the textual transmission, accompanied by a full apparatus criticus at the foot of each page and also a facing English translation. The translation aims to explain the meaning of the Latin while also producing a readable version which might be read by a reader who does not understand Latin.

The commentary seeks to elucidate and explain the background and the significance of every line of this text. The Latin is explained both in relation to what we know of the Roman world of the 1st century CE and also in relation to the literary and satirical tradition in which Juvenal was writing. The commentary gives the reader sufficient information to understand historical, mythological and literary references, while also directing readers towards other sources of information and alternative viewpoints. Above all, the commentary seeks to show the rhetorical and poetic power of the Latin text, analysing the use of literary devices and showing how and where the poet displays his superb mastery of the language and the metre. The comments are keyed to the translation and a reader without Latin will still be able to use the commentary for explanation of the content of the satires.

This chapter examines the effect that the English Augustan aesthetic — embodied in the example of the Roman Augustan Virgil — had on the translation those silver Latin poets who reacted against the artistic ideals of the Roman Augustans. All the various translations examined — Dryden's Persius and Juvenal, Rowe's Lucan and Pope's Statius, all Latin poets of the silver age — are shown to embody the hard won Augustan virtues of clearness, purity, and ease that are the hallmarks of the Augustan achievement of Dryden's language and style. The strength and limitations of Rowe's Lucan, hailed by Dr Johnson as one of the greatest productions of English poetry, are brought out in a comparison with Marlowe's earlier version. Pope's vigorous version of Statius, it is argued, proved to be a promising apprenticeship for the translation of Homer.

This chapter introduces satire as peculiar genre, which purports to tell its audience things in the manner of an old-testament prophet but with jeering mockery like a stand-up comedian. It describes the satirist as a moralist in a bad mood with a good sense of humour, who is often intensely conservative, deplores any changes in society and manners, and longs for the good old days. It also gives an overview of Juvenal, a Roman poet, who is identified as one that has the anger of a Persius and a Lucilius and is married to the poetic skills of a Horace. The chapter focuses on Books 10, 11, and 12 of Juvenal's Satires, which talk about the folly of people who pursue money and power but end up paying the ultimate price for their misguided greed. It also mentions the state of contemporary Roman society that is full of violence and inability to trust others.

This chapter covers Book 10 of Juvenal's Satires, which provides a clear message about praying to the gods for things which would not actually give happiness. It discusses and dismisses wealth, power, long life, and good looks on the grounds that all of these are more likely to cause pain and danger than to give pleasure and security. It also talks about Book 11, which deals with issues of living within one's means in order to avoid public disgrace and ridicule. The chapter cites the first section of Book 12, which is about preparing a sacrifice to welcome home Juvenal's friend Catullus from a dreadful sea–journey. It describes the second section of Book 12 as an extended protest of Juvenal's concern for the welfare of his friend.