SATIRE 3 The Evils of the Big City Sad as I am at the fact that my dear old friend is leaving, lapplaud his decision to make his home in derelict Cumae, thus providing the Sibyl with a solitary fellow townsman. That's the gateway to Baiae, a charming coast with delightful seclusion. I'd choose Préchyta’s rocks before the Subdra. When have you ever seen a place so dismal and lonely that it doesn’t seem worse to live in fear of continual fires, collapsing houses, the countless threats of a savage city, not to speak of pocts reading their work in August. As the whole of his house was being loaded onasingle waggon, 10 he lingered beside the damp old arch of the Porta Capena. Atthe place where Numa used to meet his sweetheart at night- time, where now the grove, with its holy spring and temple, is rented to Jews, whose paraphernalia consists of a hay-lined chest (every tree is obliged to pay its rent to the people; and so, with the Muses evicted, the wood has taken to begging), we wander down the hill to Egeria’s valley and a grotto unlike the real thing. How much more palpably present the fountain’s spirit would be, ifa grassy border surrounded the water, and no marble profaned the native tufa! 20 Here Umbricius began: ‘There is no room in the city for respectable skills,’ he said, ‘and no reward for one’s efforts. Today my means are less than yesterday; come tomorrow, the little left will be further reduced. So I’m going to make for the place where Daedalus laid aside his weary wings. While my greyness is new, and my ageing frame is fresh and upstanding, while Lachesis still has thread to spin and I make my way16 Satire 3 on my own two feet without the need ofa stick to support me, it’s time to leave home. Let Artorius live there, and Catulus too; Ict those remain who arc able to turn black into white, 30 happily winning contracts for temple, river, and harbour, for draining flooded land, and carrying corpses to the pyre— men who auction themselves beneath the owner's spear. Once these fellows were blowers of horns, a regular feature of shows in the provinces, check-puffers known in the country townships. Now they present their own productions, winning applause by killing whoever is given the crowd's “thumbs down”. They return and lease latrines—and why stop at that? For they are the sort that Lady Luck will take from the gutter and raise to the summit of worldly success, whenever she feels like having ajoke. 40 What can I do in Rome? I can’t tell lies; ifa book is bad I cannot praise it and beg fora copy; the stars in their courses mean nothing to me; I'm neither willing nor able to promise a father's death; I've never studied the innards of frogs; I leave it to others to carry instructions and presents toa young bride from her lover; none will get help from me ina theft; that’s why I never appear on a governor's staff; you'd think I was crippled—a useless trunk with a paralysed hand. Who, these days, inspires affection except an accomplice— one whose conscience boils and secthes with unspeakable secrets? 50 Ifsomeone tells you a harmless secret, he doesn’t imagine you havea hold over him; nor does he try to buy your silence. Verres will love that man who knows he can prosecute Verres whenever he likes. But all the sand of shady Tagus and the gold it carries seaward would never compensate you for losing your sleep and anxiously taking ephemeral gifts, and always remaining a source of fear to your powerful friend. Inow proceed to speak of the nation specially favoured by our wealthy compatriots, one that I shun above all others, Ishan’t mince words. My fellow Romans, I cannot put up with 60Satire 3 17 acity of Greeks; yet how much of the dregs is truly Achaean? The Syrian Orontes has long been discharging into the Tiber, carrying with it its language and morals and slanting strings, complete with piper, not to speak of its native timbrels and the girls who are told by their owners to ply their trade at the race-track. (That's the place for a forcign whore with a coloured bonnet.) Romulus, look—your bumpkin is donning his Grecian slippers, hanging Grecian medals on a neck with a Grecian smudge. He's from far-off Amydon, he’s from Sicyon’s heights, these are from Andros and Samos and Tralles, orelse Alabanda. 70 They make for the Esquiline, or the willows’ hill, intent on becoming the vital organs and eventual masters of our leading houses. Nimble wits, a reckless nerve, and a ready tongue, more glib than Isaeus’. Tell me, what do you want him to be? He has brought us, in his own person, every type you can think off teacher of grammar and speaking, geometer, painter, masscur, prophet and tightrope-walker, doctor, wizard—your hungry Greekling knows the lot; he’ll climb to the sky if you ask him. In fact, it wasn’t a Moor, nor yet a Sarmatian or Thracian, who sprouted wings, but a man born in the centre of Athens. 80 I must get away from them and their purple clothes. Shall our friend, here, sign before meas a witness ana recline above me at dinner— one who was blown to Rome by the wind, with figs and damsons? Does it count for nothing at all that I, from earliest childhood, breathed the Aventine air and was fed on the Sabine berry? What of the fact that the nation excels in flattery, praising the talk ofan ignorant patron, the looks of one who is ugly, comparing the stalk-like neck ofa weakling to Hercules’ muscles as he holds the giant Antacus aloft well clear of the ground, admiring a squeaky voice which sounds as wretched as that 90 of the cock, which seizes his partner’s crest in the act of mating? We, of course, can pay identical compliments; yes, but18 Satire 3 they are believed. No actor from elsewhere is halfas good when playing Thais, or the wife, or Doris who’s clad in no more in her tunic. Why, the woman herself appears to be speaking, notan actor at all; you'd swear that under the tummy all was smooth and even, except fora tiny chink. In Greece, however, Antiochus would not be thought an exception, nor Stratocles, nor Demetrius along with the dainty Haemus; the whole country’s a play. You chuckle, he shakes with alouder 100 guffaw; he weeps ifhe spots a tear in the cye of his patron, yet feels no grief; on a winter day if you ask for a brazier, he dons a wrap; if you say ‘I’m warm’, he starts to perspire. So we aren’t on equal terms; he always has the advantage who night and day alike is able to take his expression from another's face, to throw up his hands and cheer ifhis patron produces an echoing belch or pees ina good straight line, or makes the golden receptacle clatter as its bottom flips over. The man holds nothing sacred; nothing is safe from his organ, not the lady of the house, nor the virgin daughter, nor even 110 her still unbearded fiancé, nor the hitherto clean-living son. Ifnone of these is at hand, he'll debauch his patron’s grandma. 112 And since I have started to talk of the Greeks, forget the gymnasia; 114 think ofa crime committed by a philosophical big-wig. A Stoic brought about Barca’s death. Though advanced in years, he informed on his friend and pupil. Now he was born by the river where a feather fell from the nag that sprang from the Gorgon’s 120 blood. There's no room here for any Roman; the city is ruled by some Protégenes or other, some Diphilus or Hermarchus. Aman like that never shares a friend (it’s a national trait); he keeps him all for himself. So when he has put in his patron’s ready ear a drop of his own and his country’s poison, 1am pushed from the door; gone are my years of service. Nowhere on earth does the loss of a client matter less.Satire 3 19 Besides (not to flatter ourselves) what use is a poor man’s attention and service here if, when he goes to the trouble of dressing and hurrying out in the dark, a praetor meanwhile is urging his lictor to go full speed (“the childless are long since up”) for fear Albina and Modia may be greeted first by his colleague? 130 A free-born Roman's son concedes the inner position toa rich man’s slave. The latter pays as much as a tribune ofa legion earns ina year to Calvina or Catiena to shudder on top of her once or twice; but you, however, when you fancy Chfone’s looks, will have to stop and think twice before helping the dolled-up harlot down from her chair. Produce a witness in Rome as good as the man who assisted the Idaean goddess ashore, let Numa himself come forward, or him who rescued the frightened Minerva from the burning temple, they are interested first in his moncy (the last question concerns 140 his integrity): how many slaves does he keep, how many acres of land does he own, how large and how many the plates on his table? Whatever amount of cash a person has in his strong-box, that’s the extent of his credit. Ifa poor man swears by the altars of Samothrace and of Rome, people assume that he's flouting the gods and their thunderbolts, with the consent of the gods themselves. That same man, moreover, provides a cause and occasion for universal amusement if his cloak is ripped and muddy, if his toga isa little stained, and one of his shoes gapes open where the leather is split apart, or if several scars are apparent 150 where coarse new thread proclaims that a wound has been sewn together. Ofall that luckless poverty involves, nothing is harsher than the fact that it makes people funny. “Shame on you!” says the speaker. “Kindly leave the cushioned seats reserved for the knights, if your means are less than the law requires. You will give your place20 Satire 3 to brothel-keepers’ boys, who first saw the light insome bawdy-house. The debonair son of an auctioneer can sit and applaud here, on his right a fighter’s well-dressed lad, on his left a trainer's.” Thus decreed the brainless Otho, who assigned us our places. Who is accepted as a son-in-law here, ifhe doesn’t have funds to match his fiancée’s dowry? When is a poor man named asan heir, or consulted by aediles? Citizens lacking in substance should long ago have banded together and marched out of town. It’s hard for people to rise in the world when their talents are thwarted by living conditions of cramping poverty. At Rome, however, their task is especially hard; dingy lodgings are costly, costly are servants’ stomachs; a meagre supper is costly. It’s shaming to eat off earthenware; but you wouldn't despise it ifsuddenly whisked away toa Marsian or Sabine table. There a cloak with a coarse blue hood would be quite sufficient. We may as well face the truth. In most of Italy no one puts on a toga until he’s dead. On grand occasions, when a public holiday is being held in a grassy theatre, and the well-known farce, so long awaited, returns to the platform (the peasant child in its mother’s arms cowers in fear when confronted by the gaping mouth of the whitened mask), even then you will see similar clothes being worn by the stalls and the rest alike; as robes of their lofty office, the highest aediles are content to appear in plain white tunics. Here the style of people's clothes is beyond their means. Too much tends to be borrowed here from another’s account. Thatis a universal failing. All ofus live in pretentious poverty. Why elaborate? Nothing in Rome is ever free. What does it cost you, once ina while, to call on Cossus or win a tight-lipped glance from Veiento? The beloved of one is having his beard, of another his hair cut; the house is full of cakes; for each there’s a “contribution”. “Here, just take it, and keep your yeast!” As clients we have to pay our fee and swell the savings of well-dressed servants. 160 170 180Satire 3 21 Whois afraid, or was ever afraid, of his house collapsing 190 in cool Praeneste, or among Volsinii’s tree-clad hills, in Gabii, so plain and simple, or in Tibur’s lofty fastness? Here we live ina city which, toa large extent, is supported by rickety props; that’s how the landlord’s agent stops it falling. He covers a gap in the chinky old building, then “sleep casy!” he says, when the ruin is poised to collapse. Onc ought to live where fires don’t happen, where alarms at night are unknown. Ucalegon’s shouting “Fire!” and moving to safety his bits and pieces; your third floor is already smoking; you are oblivious. Ifthe panic starts at the foot of the stairs, 200 the last to burn is the man who is screened from the rain by nothing except the tiles, where eggs are laid by the gentle doves. Cordus possessed a bed too small for Précula, a handful of little pots adorning his sideboard, below them a tiny mug, and, supporting the whole, a marble Chiron couchant. Acchest, now far from new, contained some volumes of Greek; and illiterate mice were busy gnawing the deathless verses. Cordus had nothing. Quite. But still, the unfortunate fellow lost that nothing—every bit of it. Then, asa final straw on his heap of woe, when he hasn’ta stitch and is begging 210 for scraps, no one will help him with food or lodging or shelter. If Asturicus’ mansion is gutted, the nobles appear in mourning, their ladies with hair dishevelled; the praetor adjourns his hearing. Then we lament the city’s disasters and rail at fire. Before the flames are out, one comes forward with marble, oran offer of building materials; another with nude white statues; . another presents a masterpiece of Euphrdnor, and bronzes of Polyclitus, once the glory of Asian temples. He gives books and shelves, and a Minerva to stand in the middle; hea coffer of silver. More, and superior, items 220 are showered on Persicus the childless magnate, who not without reason is now suspected of having sct fire to his own house.22 Satire 3 Ifyou can tear yourself from the races, an excellent house can be bought outright at Frisino, or Fabratéria, or Sora for the price you pay these days as yearly rent for a hell-hole. There you will have a plot, with a well so shallow that water can be drawn without a rope and sprinkled over your seedlings. Live wedded to the hoe, and tend your well-kept garden, until you can give a feast to a hundred Pythagoreans. It is some achievement in any place, however remote, 230 to become the proud possessor ofa solitary lizard. Here most invalids die from lack of sleep (but the illness itself is caused by food which lies there undigested ona feverish stomach); who ever obtained a good night's rest in rented lodgings? It costs a fortune to sleep in the city. That's the root of the trouble. The coming and going of waggons in the narrow winding streets, the yells at a halted herd, would banish sleep from even a seal or the emperor Drusus. Ifduty calls, as the crowd falls back, the rich man passes quickly above their faces ina large Liburnian galley, 240 reading or writing or taking a nap as he speeds along. (The closed windows of. litter can make the occupant drowsy.) Yet he'll arrive before us. As we hurry along we are blocked by a wave in front; behind, a massive multitude crushes my pelvis; he digs in with an elbow, he with ahard-wood pole; then he hits my head with a beam, and he with a wine-jar. My legs are caked with mud; from every side I am trampled by giant feet; a soldier stamps on my toc with his hob-nails. Look at all that smoke; a crowd is having a picnic. A hundred guests, cach with a portable kitchen behind him. 250 Cérbulo could hardly carry so many enormous utensils, so many things on his head, as that unfortunate slave-boy, who keeps his head erect and fans the flameas he runs. Freshly mended tunics are ripped; a giant fir-tree ona swaying cart comes bearing down; another waggon carries a pine; they nod overhead and threaten the people. For ifthe axle transporting Ligurian marble collapses, tipping its mountainous load down on the hordes beneath, what is left of their bodics? Who can locate their limbs or bones? Each casualty’s corpse is crushed out of existence, 260Satire 3 23 just like his soul. Meanwhile at home, unaware of what's happened, they're washing dishes, puffing at the fire, making a clatter with greasy scrapers, laying out towels and filling the oil-flask. The staff is busy with various tasks; but he is already sitting on the bank, a new arrival, dreading the frightful ferryman; vainly he waits for the bark of those muddy waters, poor devil, having no coin to offer between his tecth. Consider now the various other nocturnal perils: how far it is up to those towering floors from which a potsherd smashes your brains; how often leaky and broken fragments 270 fall from the windows; and with what impact they strike the pavement, leaving it chipped and shattered. You may well be regarded as. slack, and heedless of sudden disaster, if you fail to make your will before going out to dinner. There's a separate form of death that night in every window that watches you passing bencath it. So hope, and utter a piteous prayer, as you walk along that they may be willing to jettison only what's in their slop-pails. Your drunken thug who has failed, by chance, to record a murder pays the price; he spends the night as Achilles did when mourning his friend; he lies on his face and then on his back. 280 For sleep, a brawl is needed. But however wild the youth, 282 and however heated with wine, he carefully skirts the figure protected by a scarlet cloak and an endless line of attendants, and a swathe of light which is cut by faming lamps of brass. He despises me; for 1am escorted home by the moon, and the light of a guttering candle, whose wick I carefully tend and conserve. Now this is how the horrible fight begins (if fight it is, where you do the punching and I just take it): he stands in my way and tells me to halt. Onehastoobeyhim; 290 for what can you do when you're in the power ofa madman, whoalso is stronger than you are? “Where have you been?” he bellows, “And whose24 Satire 3 beans and plonk have given you wind? Well, whois the cobbler you've sat with scoffing the tops of lecks and a boiled sheep's head? Noanswer, ch? You'd better talk, or I'll put the boot in! Come on then, where’s your pitch? What synagogue do you go to?” Whether you try to converse or to steal away without speaking, it’s all the same. They will beat you up; then, highly indignant, take you to court. A poor man’s rights are confined to this: having been pounded and punched to ajelly, tobeg andimplore 300 that he may be allowed to go home with a few teeth in his head. That is not all you have to fear. When your house is shut, when your shop is secured by chains, when every shutter is fastened, and allis silent, there will still be somebody there to rob you. Sometimes a villain will suddenly do the job with a dagger. Whenever the Pontine marshes and the Gallinarian forest arc, both of them, rendered safe by armed patrols, such people converge in a body on Rome, as though ona game reserve. What forge, what anvil, is not beset with heavy chains? Most of our iron is used for fetters; hence we are threatened 310 with a shortage of ploughs and a serious dearth of hoes and mattocks. Happy, one feels, were our distant ancestors, happy the ages which lived of old beneath the rule of kings and tribunes, in the days when a single jail sufficed the capital city. In addition to these, I could give you several other reasons. But the mules are calling and the sun is setting; it’s time to be off. The driver has long been waving his whip to show he’s ready. Good-bye, then; now and again spare mea thought; and whenever you manage to get out of Rome for a break, and return to Aquinum, ask me up from Cumae to visit Helvius’ Ceres 320 and your Diana. I'll don my boots and come to your chilly district, to hear your satires—unless they would feel embarrassed.”