Beyond the Rhetoric (Part 2): Juvenal and the Roman Elite in Satires 4-6

Abstract

While the culpability of the rich élite is a prominent feature of Umbricius’ catalogue of complaints in the first three Satires, it is the subject of a far more focused and penetrating attack in the fourth Satire, where the corruption of the system of patronage and the decadence of the upper classes are shown to pervade the top echelon of Roman society. And how better to demonstrate the truth of these convictions than by focusing, at the outset, on the despicable Crispinus, who wielded influence at the highest level of government? This pars Niliacae plebis, ... verna Canopi (1.26), who had the nerve to wear the apparel of the Roman nobility in ostentatious fashion, was the reason par excellence for Juvenal’s initial justification of his choice of genre: difficile est saturam non scribere (1.30). What a comment on the mores of the upper echelons of Roman society, to think that they stooped so low as to be on intimate terms with this monstrum nulla virtute redemptum / a vitiis (4.2–3)—a sickly fop, lecher and seducer of Vestal Virgins, whose inordinate wealth enabled him to own huge properties in the most expensive region of the city. Equally reprehensible was his “sin” of gross extravagance, when he lavished 6,000 sesterces on a single mullet—