The Satires of A. Persius Flaccus

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Vatibus hic mos est, centum sibi poscere voces, centum ora et linguas optare in carmina centum, fabula seu maesto ponatur hianda tragoedo, vulnera seu Parthi ducentis ab inguine...

Among his early friends was Caesius Bassus, to whom the Sixth Satire is addressed: an older contemporary, who had studied with the same master, next to Horace, by a long remove,...

Horace had long been a classic when Persius dodged his school-tasks and was a dab at marbles. Indeed, nothing is more remarkable about Roman literature than the rapidity with wh...

Persius, then, was a preacher of Stoicism-- Stoicism, at once the philosophy and the religion of a time when serious and noble natures had no city of refuge except in their inmo...

Whether we write laborious verse or laborious prose-- so the attack begins-- it is all one; display and applause are the aim and object of both. The style is fustian; the delive...

41. #an#: when used alone is more or less rhetorical, and is intended to force a conclusion involved in the foregoing; 'What?' 'So then?' G., 459; A., 71, 2, _b_. Persius's use...

96. #Arma virum!# 'Compare with these elegant verses _Arma virum_; what a rough affair!' Not only were the opening words of a poem used to indicate the poem itself-- +Mênin aeid...

Hunc, Macrine, diem numera meliore lapillo qui tibi labentis apponit candidus annos. funde merum genio. non tu prece poscis emaci, quae nisi seductis nequeas committere divis; a...

39. #ast# = _at_ + _set_. G., 490; R. --#nutrici#: _Quid voveat dulci #nutricula# maius alumno_, Hor., Ep., 1, 4, 8. With the sentiment of the passage Casaubon comp. Sen., Ep.,...

Such men as the centurion are hopelessly lost, have already 'imbodied and imbruted.' Like Natta, they are unconscious of their moral ruin. But there are those who, half-consciou...

52. You have had a better training. You have reached years of discretion. You know Right from Wrong. --#curvos# = _pravos_. Comp. _scilicet ut possem #curvo# dinoscere rectum_,...

104. #conpositus#: 'laid out.' 'By foreign hands thy decent limbs _composed_,' Pope. --#crassis lutatus amomis#: Every word is contemptuous: 'bedaubed with lots of coarse ointme...

28. #quandoque# = _quandocumque_, as Hor., Od., 4, 1, 17, 2, 34. --#pertusa# = _pervia_, according to Jahn; 'roads and thoroughfares' (Conington); = _calcata_, _trita_, Heinr.,...

'Do what you please!' cries Persius, who identifies himself with the Stoic philosopher. 'Stop just there and learn of me; but first cease to be scornful, and let me get these ol...

52-61. Our aims, our lives are one. But 'many men, many minds.' Each has his passion-- the merchant, the man of ease, the lover of sport, the gamester, the rake-- but they have...

116-118. The drift of the passage is plain enough. 'A change of fortune does not bring with it a change of character. If you possess all that you say you possess, then you are f...

175. #festuca#: is generally explained as a synonyme for _vindicta_. Others refer it to the practice of throwing stubble on the manumitted slave, Plut., De Sera Num. Vind., p. 5...

(3.) Heinrich's _iocis_ gives us, 'Rarely skilled to rally the young with jibe and jest and have a fling at old sinners, but all in high-bred style.' _Pollice honesto_ is the _i...

(3.) 'Non adeo,' inquis, 'exossatus ager iuxta est,' Jahn (1868), which may be rendered, 'I am sure that your land here is not in such very good order' (that you can afford such...

caballino fonte, Prol., 1. cachinno, 1, 12. cachinnos ingeminare, 3, 87. caeco occipiti, 1, 62. caecum vulnus, 4, 44. caedimus, 4, 42. caelestium inanes, 2, 61. caerulea tabula,...

pacto, 4, 43. Pacuvius, 1, 77. pagina, 5, 20. palaestritae, 4, 39. palato, 1, 35. Palilia, 1, 72. pallentis cumini, 5, 55. mores, 5, 15. palles, 1, 124; 3, 94. 96; 4, 47; 5, 80....