baines - 2003 - umbricius' bellum ciuile juvenal, satire 3

Greece & Rome, Vol. 50, No. 2, October 2003

UMBRICIUS' BELLUM CIUILE: JUVENAL, SATIRE 3*

By VICTORIA BAINES

Modern scholarship has tended to resolve the presence of epic material in Roman verse satire by viewing it as 'mock-epic' or 'parodic'. Juvenal, so the argument goes, like Lucilius, Horace, and Persius before him, distances himself from the writing of epic poetry in his first and programmatic satire by showing his disdain for mythological epic content (particularly that of Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica, 1.7-11), contrasting the comparative safety of writing epic with the inflammatory nature of satiric production (1.162-7), and branding his own efforts as falling far short of the elevated ideal (farrago - 'pig swill' - at 1.86). This view, however, does not take into account the fact that reference to epic material is made by characters other than the satirist (allowing for the construction of a literary persona that that term entails).

It is my intention in this article to propose a reevaluation of epic imagery deployed by Umbricius, the speaker for most of Satire 3, in his complaint against life at Rome. When read in the context of the satire as a whole, individual appearances of epic words, images, and motifs serve not only to shed light on Juvenal's characterization of Umbricius, but also to challenge the traditional view of epic material in verse satire as serving a single purpose. As my chief example I take Umbricius' description of an encounter at night between a poor man and a drunken young thug itching for a fight (278-301). I have chosen to focus on this episode first because its effect has in modern criticism been given the knee-jerk identification of 'mock-epic', 'mock-heroic', or 'parodic'; secondly because it marks the climax of a series of events that befall the Roman citizen in twenty-four hours.

Satire 3 concerns itself largely with the social and physical incon- veniences of living at Rome for the free-born citizen of modest means (pauper). After a prologue (1-20) in which the narrator sets the scene of his friend Umbricius' departure from Rome, Umbricius gives his

A version of this paper was presented at the Classical Association Annual Conference 2002 in Edinburgh. I am most grateful to my audience for their questions and comments. All translations are my own unless otherwise stated.

UMBRICIUS' BELLUM CIUILE: JUVENAL, SATIRE 3

reasons for moving to Cumae. His supposedly impromptu tirade is organized rhetorically, not least in the systematic division between the social disadvantages for the pauper and the physical dangers. After a lengthy description of the pitiful state of housing in the city and the dangers of collapse and fire (190-231), he begins a run-through of twenty-four hours in the life of the city. Opening with the inconveni- ence, even fatal threat, of sleep deprivation, he passes from the crush of the morning salutatio to collapse and death. Rome's daylight hours reach their tragic close at 267 on the near bank of the river Styx. At 268 Umbricius turns his attention to nocturnal perils, including burglary and chamber-pots flung from upstairs windows - and concludes, in a characteristically amplificatory tone, that a Roman would be well- advised to make his will before venturing out for dinner (273f.). The episode of the thug and the pauper (278-301) illustrates this apparently far-fetched claim, but serves also as a finale to the account of day and night at Rome, after which Umbricius, having prolonged his complaint against criminal activity for another thirteen lines, finally decides to leave the city.

Umbricius as Aeneas; Rome as Troy

From the beginning of the satire we are encouraged to associate Umbricius' plight with that of Aeneas. Umbricius has determined to retire to Cumae (2), the site of the fugitive Daedalus' landfall in Vergil's account (Aeneid 6.14-19) and the gateway to the Underworld in Aeneid 6. Both Umbricius and Aeneas flee Trojan cities that have been overrun by Greeks (quos praecipue fugiam: Juv. 3.59; fato profugus: Aeneid 1.2).1 The association of Umbricius with Aeneas thus casts Rome as a second Troy. So when in 61 the Greeks are identified as Achaei, we may take it to mean not just the inhabitants of the Roman province of Achaea (as distinct from the Eastern Greeks that follow) but also the Achaeans sent to Troy.2 Thus Umbricius sees the Greek invasion of Rome as so complete that it is now a Greek city, a takeover which associates it with Troy's demise (a reading encouraged by the epic style catalogue of the Greek invaders at 69-72). We may not be too surprised, then, when

1 See C. Edwards, Writing Rome: Textual Approaches to the City (Cambridge, 1996), 127; G. A. Staley, 'Juvenal's Third Satire: Umbricius' Rome, Virgil's Troy', MAAR 45 (2000), especially 91.

2 S. M. Braund, Juvenal: Satires Book I (Cambridge, 1996), ad loc.

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later in the satire Umbricius styles the thug encountered at night by the pauper (278-301) as the best of the Achaeans, Achilles.

The notion of Rome as urbs capta persists. Collapse (194-6) and fire, stock features of the fall of a city, are, in Umbricius' Weltanschauung, everyday occurrences. Public mourning over the loss of possessions in a house fire (212-4) satirically reworks and condenses the grief traditionally attendant on the fall of a city.3 At 198f. Umbricius encourages associations of Rome with the most famous urbs capta in Roman poetry, the Troy of Aeneid 2: jam poscit aquam, iam friuola transfert/ Vcalegon, tabulata tibi iam tertia fumant - 'now Ucalegon shouts "Fire!", rescues his bits and pieces; your third floor is already smoking'.

By naming the victim of a house fire Ucalegon, Umbricius reminds the reader of a snapshot from Aeneas' recollections of Troy's destruction (Aeneid 2.31 If.): iam proximus ardet/ Vcalegon; Sigea igni freta lata relucent- 'now Ucalegon's next door is blazing, the broad Sigean straits are aglow with firelight' - the situation of the proper name at the beginning of the line and the anaphora of iam reinforcing the verbal echoes.4 Umbricius' Rome is a city in which exceptional epic events are a constant presence, are taken for granted.S

This allusion works also at a wider level: it casts Umbricius as a reminiscent Aeneas, an epic hero-narrator.6 But whereas Aeneas' audience, Dido's court, has not witnessed the events described at first- hand, the indefinite second person tibi identifies Umbricius' audience, and therefore also Juvenal's audience, as Ucalegon's neighbour, as a Trojan victim. We too are Trojans. It is possible to extend the association: for the identification of Umbricius with Aeneas implies also that Juvenal, as the poet responsible for creating such a character, is in some sense a second Vergil. So in this case it is not enough to conclude that Umbricius, like Don Quixote, is unable to distinguish between 'reality' and the literary scenarios with which he has become obsessed. Juvenal himself assumes a role, which implies aspirations to be a version of an epic poet.

The theme of Rome-as-Troy is further pursued in Umbricius' run through twenty-four hours in the city. The account of Rome's daylight

3 E.g. Lucan, Pharsalia 2.16-36. 4 G. B. Townend, 'The literary substrata to Juvenal's Satires', JRS 63 (1973) 148, refers to this

allusion rather awkwardly as 'straight burlesque'. 5 So Staley (n. 1), 92 asserts that Umbricius '. .presents each night in Rome as if it were Troy's

last'. 6 Cf. V. Estevez, 'Umbricius and Aeneas: a reading of Juvenal III', Maia 48.3 (1996), 286;

C. Schmitz, Das Satirische in Juvenals Satiren (Berlin, 2000), 211.


hours depicts the poor cliens as hindered by the progress of others. The litter of the rich man is a very fast galleon (Liburna, 240), cutting through the sea of people (unda, 244).7 The cliens is trampled like a corpse in a pitched battle by a soldier in hobnailed boots (planta mox undique magna/ calcor, et in digito clauus mihi militis haeret - 'soon I am trampled from all sides by a giant foot, and a soldier's hob-nail stamps on my toe' 247f.). Through hyperbole the streets of Rome are transformed into a theatre of war.8 Meanwhile the association of Rome with an epic urbs capta is reinforced: the picture at 254-6 of a tree swaying on a timber cart recalls Aeneas' simile for the razing of Troy in the second book of the Aeneid (2.624-31).9 In using such imagery Umbricius (as at 198f.) aligns social and physical disintegration at Rome with the fall of Troy and his own experiences - and indeed role as epic narrator - with those of Aeneas. Here, too, an emblem for a unique event metamorphoses into an everyday occurrence, the speaker into an epic warrior-narrator.

The subsequent fictive account of a traffic accident plays out literally what is only a simile for the weight of wrestlers in Statius' Thebaid, the death by crushing of a Spanish miner (6.880-6),1? revealing Umbricius' presentation of Rome as capable of outstripping anything in epic poetry in terms of the horror of its reality. Meanwhile, preparations of unwitting household slaves at 261ff. for the bath of one of the victims recall those of Andromache in the Iliad for the dead Hector (22.442-6), importing Homeric dramatic irony and pathos into an account of contemporary Rome. The fate of the crushed man is thus identified with that of the greatest Trojan warrior; by extension making one's way through Rome's streets is equated with battle with the Achaeans. Even the deceased's arrival in the Underworld recalls Aeneas' descent in Book 6, especially 296-416.

7 Cf. Propertius 3.11.44. Liburna (240) is not, as has often been asserted (on the basis of the scholiast's mention of a certain liburnata), a type of litter. See E. L. Harrison, 'Neglected Hyperbole in Juvenal', CR 10 (1960), 100f.; R. D. Brown, 'The Litter: a Satirical Symbol in Juvenal and Others', in C. Deroux (ed.), Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History III (Brussels, 1983), 278.

8 Cf. Lucilius 1228-34 M = 1145-51 W. For the pervasive military imagery in this scene see Braund (n. 2), ad 243-6. 9 Clear verbal reminiscences include nutant - 'sways' - and minantur - 'threatens' (256; cf. Aen. 2.628-9), and coruscat - 'quivers' (254; cf. tremefacta comam - 'with trembling leaves' - at Aen. 2.629).

10 Braund (n. 2) draws attention to this parallel ad loc.

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The pauper as Aeneas; Rome as Troy

Over half of Umbricius' account of night-time at Rome is occupied by an encounter between a 'poor' man and a drunken young thug (278- 301):

ebrius ac petulans, qui nullum forte cecidit, dat poenas, noctem patitur lugentis amicum Pelidae, cubat in faciem, mox deinde supinus: 280 [ergo non aliter poterit dormire; quibusdam]l1 somnum rixa facit. sed quamuis inprobus annis atque mero feruens cauet hunc quem coccina laena uitari iubet et comitum longissimus ordo, multum praeterea flammarum et aenea lampas. 285 me, quem luna solet deducere uel breue lumen candelae, cuius dispenso et tempero filum, contemnit. miserae cognosce prohoemia rixae, si rixa est, ubi tu pulsas, ego uapulo tantum. stat contra starique iubet. parere necesse est; 290 nam quid agas, cum te furiosus cogat et idem fortior? "unde uenis" exclamat, "cuius aceto, cuius conche tumes? quis tecum sectile porrum sutor et elixi ueruecis labra comedit? nil mihi respondes? aut dic aut accipe calcem. 295 ede ubi consistas: in qua te quaero proseucha?" dicere si temptes aliquid tacitusue recedas, tantumdem est: feriunt pariter, uadimonia deinde irati faciunt. libertas pauperis haec est: pulsatus rogat et pugnis concisus adorat 300 ut liceat paucis cum dentibus inde reuerti.

A drunken thug, who happens not to have murdered anyone, pays the penalty, and endures the night of the son of Peleus mourning his friend, lying now on his front, then a moment later on his

back: 280 [he won't be able to sleep otherwise: for some] A brawl induces sleep. But although blessed with the ferocity of youth and steaming with wine drunk neat he is wary of this one whom a scarlet

cloak and a long, long file of comrades commands that he avoid, and (as if this weren't enough) a flood of torchlight and brass lamps. 285 But he's not afraid of me, whom the moon is used to escorting or the short-lived flame of a candle, whose wick I ration and conserve.

1 Of the commentators only J. E. B. Mayor (Thirteen Satires of Juvenal, (London, 1901), ad loc.) does not suspect this line. The line is over-explanatory; Heineke deletes it (rightly) as spurious.


Listen to the prologue of the pitiful brawl, if brawl it is, when you administer the beating, and I just take it. He stands firm in front of me and commands me to do the same. You have

to obey; 290 for what can you do, when forced by a man who is full of wrath and

stronger than you are? "Where do you come from?" he calls out, "With whose vinegar, whose beans are you bloated? Which cobbler has been gobbling chopped leek and sheep's head stew with you? Won't you answer me? Say something or get a kicking. 295 Declare where your stand is: in which synagogue am I to look for you?" If you try to say something or fall back in silence it's all the same: they beat you up anyway, then all indignant take you to court. This is the sum total of a poor man's "freedom": beaten to a pulp and knocked out by blows he begs and beseeches 300 to be allowed to go home with a few remaining teeth.

The episode begins with a comparison: the thug's insomnia at 278-80 is that of Achilles grieving over Patroclus in the Iliad (24.9-12):

TcoV IJlV7aCK6OtLEVOS OaA0Epov KaTa& 8alKpVOV ElEV aAAoT' 7rt' 7rAEVupas KaTaKeL?eVOS, aAAoTE 8' oavTE VerTTos, aAAoTe 7Tpv713- Tor ' TOpO3s apvaarTa 8tVVEK'JA dvwv srapa Ov' dAo's'

As he remembered these things he let fall heavy tears, lying now on his side, now again on his back, now on his front. Then he would get up and wander distraught along the seashore.

Umbricius has appropriated a very recognizable scene, so recognizable that Seneca can refer to it in terms that imply its familiarity.12 As both Braund and Courtney observe ad loc., forte at 278 suggests that tonight has been the exception to the rule. In this Umbricius perhaps recalls the frequentative imperfects of the Homeric model, which denote repeated action, as Macleod notes: 'At this point the description of one night merges into the description of a series of nights.'13 Braund and Courtney stress the incongruity of the Homeric allusion in Satire 3 - for them, its object is to ridicule the thug by emphasizing his lack of heroism. This does not tell the whole story. The pointed distance between what we come to see of the behaviour and speech of the thug and the characterization of Achilles in the Iliad is certainly funny. Nevertheless, it is evident that from the outset of this episode (and indeed earlier in the

12 De Tranquillitate Animi 2.12: qualis ille Homericus Achilles est, modo pronus, modo supinus - 'such is Homer's Achilles, now on his front, now on his back'.

13 C. W. Macleod, Iliad Book XXIV (Cambridge, 1982), ad 24.12.

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satire) Umbricius, here temporarily in the satirist's role as moralist, equates physical collapse and moral ruin in contemporary Rome with the destruction of Troy (as he does with Ucalegon at 198f. and in his account of the traffic accident). It is therefore reasonable to expect that the transformation of the thug into Achilles is not just 'funny'.

None of the commentators appear to consider the possible implication of this transformation for the pauper - if the thug is a version of Achilles the suggestion is that his victim is also a version of an epic warrior. And we may reasonably hazard that a man who takes on Achilles is by dint of this association Trojan. Just 11 lines before this episode, Umbricius recalls the death of Hector in his account of the crushing to death of a man in the street. It is not inconceivable that the pauper caught by the thug, like the crushed man, thus faces a satiric version of Hector's death.

This story is told by Umbricius, however, who throughout his speech is not content with just one allusion when a fistful will do. Estevez posits a further parallel: The epithet petulans suggests more the behavior of Pyrrhus at Priam's palace than Achilles in battle, and indeed, when he does rise to fight in the streets of Umbricius' Rome, the drunken ruffian avoids those who can protect themselves and attacks the helpless (283ff.), rather as Pyrrhus does the terrified Polites and the impotent Priam.14

So also Pelides need not refer to Achilles: at Aeneid 2.263 it describes his son Pyrrhus as he bursts out of the wooden horse in Aeneas' recollection of the destruction of Troy. The Pyrrhus-Priam parallel is highly appropriate to the context of Umbricius' complaint: earlier in his speech he refers to his maturity (26-8) and identifies himself with the older citizen (124f.); the thug, on the other hand, is improbus annis - 'blessed with the ferocity of youth' (282). More generally, the lack of parity between the two parties in Satire 3 may reflect the vast difference in prowess of Pyrrhus and Priam as emphasized by the pitiful - almost darkly comic - portrayal in the Aeneid of Priam donning his armour (2.506-11), and the ease and humiliation with which he is despatched by his far younger and far stronger opponent (2.550-8), to which the speaker of Satire 10 refers (267-70).

Vergilian echoes at 283-5 encourage associations with Aeneas: the coccina laena ('scarlet cloak') of the rich man looking back to the cloak of Aeneas in Book 4 - Tyrioque ardebat murice laena - 'the cloak glowed with Tyrian purple'; comitum longissimus ordo - 'the long, long file of

14 Estevez (n. 6), 289.


comrades', echoing the description of Pallas' funeral cortege in Aeneid 11; perhaps also aenea lampas (not just brass lamps, but those of Aeneas).15 In addition the stress Umbricius places at 292 on the superior strength of the Achilles-thug - he is fortior, stronger, than the pauper - encourages the reader to think of Aeneas. The language of mismatch recalls Neptune's description in the Aeneid of Aeneas' encounter with Achilles (5.808-10) - Pelidae tunc ego forti/ congressum Aenean nec dis nec uiribus aequis/ nube caua rapui - 'then, when Aeneas met brave Achilles in battle without sufficient strength or the help of the gods, I snatched him away in a cloak of cloud' - a statement which itself looks back to Poseidon's description of Achilles at Iliad 20.334: aevl a'a KpElaUcwv Kat f)t'A,epos aOavadroatv - 'both a stronger man than you and dearer to the immortals'. In fact, superiority in battle is a consistent characteristic of Achilles, as Aeneas himself recognizes in his reply to Apollo disguised as Lycaon at Iliad 20.97-100:

7T) OVK i'aT' 'AXthAog S vav-rov avopa /Ja.XeaOat? alet yap rdapa Ets yE ?OEv, o0 Aotyov dtJivvet. KaL ' aAACs0 TOV y' lO e3Aos 7TErTET', o0V' roAyEl 1Tptv XpOOS avvpofEoto OtEAOE6LEV.

It is not possible for any man to fight Achilles; one of the gods is always at his side to protect him from ruin. And besides, his spear flies straight and does not stop until it has pierced human flesh.

All these references point to an identification of the pauper as the Aeneas of Homer and Vergil, the Aeneas who in the Iliad is no match for Achilles and who in the Aeneid flees a city overrun by the Achaeans.'6 Like Aeneas, Umbricius evaluates the ascendancy of the Greeks in terms of a personal mismatch (3.104-8):17

non sumus ergo pares: melior, qui semper et omni nocte dieque potest aliena sumere uultum a facie, iactare manus, laudare paratus, si bene ructauit, si rectum minxit amicus, si trulla inuerso crepitum dedit aurea fundo.

15 Vergil, Aeneid 4.262; 11.94 - postquam omnis longe comitum praecesserat ordo, 'after the procession of comrades had passed by from afar'; 11.143f. - lucet uia longol ordine flammarum, 'the route shone with a long line of torches'.

16 So also furiosus at 291 and irati at 299 recall Achilles oxO-qoaas (II. 20.343) when cheated of battle with Aeneas. The pauper also gets away, but not unscathed.

17 Cf. 119f.: non est Romanum cuiquam locus hic, ubi regnat/ Protogenes aliquis uel Diphilus aut Hermarchus regnat- 'there is no place here for any Roman, where some Protogenes or Diphilus or Hermarchus rules'.

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And so we are not fairly matched: he is superior, who always every night and day can put on an expression from someone else's face, ready to gesticulate wildly, and to applaud if his friend has given a resounding belch, if he has pissed straight, if the golden bowl with base upturned has rung true.

In expressing his predicament in terms similar to those used by Aeneas in the Iliad and of him in the Aeneid, and by emphasizing the lack of parity between the thug and the pauper Umbricius depicts Rome as the locus for single epic combat. Henderson (in reference to Statius' Thebaid) also notes the importance of parity for the epic duel: The absolute difference between life and death which is the stake and productivity of Combat is founded on an initial parity, the opponents must interlock in a blur of proximate interchangeability, and we and they must find each other's values from a mutuality in the 'fairness' of fight. The hero 'knows himself' through the foe he merits.18

He continues, 'The "wrong" scene would be the killing of the wrong - unfairly matched - victim, as when Aeneas' sword pierces the body of the female commandant Dido.'19 According to Henderson's schema the 'duel' between the thug and the pauper is exactly the wrong kind of encounter, as is evident especially at 289 - ubi tu pulsas, ego uapulo tantum.

The helplessness expressed through the inaction of one party finds an analogue at Aeneid 10.907f., where Aeneas' sword is attacked by Mezentius' throat - iuguloque haud inscius accipit ensem - 'in full realization he received the sword in his throat'; also in Lucan's description of the battle of Pharsalus (Pharsalia 7.533f.): nulla secuta est/ pugna, sed hinc iugulis, hinc ferro bella geruntur - 'what followed was no battle, but war was waged on this side with throats, on that with swords'; and in Silius Italicus' Punica (16.70f.): nec pugnae species sed poenae tristis imago/ illa erat, hinc tantum caedentum atque inde ruentum - 'that was no kind of battle, but a tragic scene of punishment, with so much slaughter on that side and flight on that'. But at the same time we may note that uapulo is the word used to describe the fate of slaves in Roman comedy, a word which implies the pauper's loss of citizen rights and identity.20 The reader is encouraged to see the fight as an epic duel and a piece of comic slapstick at one and the same time. Juvenalian satire has fused two genres which would normally be diametrically opposed.

18 J. Henderson, 'Form Remade: Statius' Thebaid' in A. J. Boyle (ed.), Roman Epic (London, 1993), 172. 19 Ibid. 173.

20 For which see Braund (n. 2), ad loc.


The thug as Tydeus; Rome as Thebes

There is another, more recent, epic parallel for the mismatch and for other epic formulaic features which has gone entirely unnoticed. It is an episode in Book 2 of Statius' Thebaid. Tydeus is ambushed at night on the way back from Thebes by fifty of Eteocles' men, an attack which the poet marks as very different from the single combat around which the narration of epic conflict might traditionally be expected to centre (Thebaid 2.489-95):

o caeca nocentum consilia! o semper timidum scelus! exit in unum plebs ferro iurata caput; ceu castra subire apparet aut celsum crebri arietis ictibus urbis inclinare latus: densi sic agmine facto quinquaginta altis funduntur in ordine portis. macte animi, tantis dignus qui crederis armis!

O blind counsels of the guilty! 0 ever cowardly crime! A band of the plebs sworn by the sword go out against one man, as if preparing to approach a camp or to bring down the heights of a city with the blows of a solid battering ram: thus in close formation fifty stream in order through the towering gates. May the gods honour your bravery, Tydeus, who are believed worthy of such a foe!

Statius amplifies the mismatch so that it appears rather like an attempt to swat a fly with a sledgehammer. He uses the word plebs to denote the band of men sent out to destroy the lone hero, emphasizing the scale of the force sent out. In the event Tydeus polishes off forty-nine of the fifty - a rather unlikely aristeia, as Chromis, one of the attackers, remarks (Thebaid 2.620f.): unusne, uiri, tot caedibus unus/ ibit ouans Argos? uix credet fama reuerso! - 'Shall one man, one man, warriors, go to Argos rejoicing in so many slain? The people will hardly believe him on his return!' The stress here on unus reflects similar emphasis in Lucan's Pharsalia in the context of another improbable aristeia - that of the Caesarian anti-hero Scaeva (6.140-2): quem non mille simul turmis nec Caesare totol auferret Fortuna locum uictoribus unus/ eripuit, 'the post which Fortune with a thousand squadrons and the whole might of Caesar could not take, one man seized from the conquerors and prevented it from being captured.' Juvenal's depiction of Umbricius - and Umbricius' of himself and of the unnamed cliens - as isolated thus stands foursquare within a Silver epic - and, indeed, rhetorical - tradition.

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By imposing the language of mismatch on daily, or rather nightly, life at Rome, Umbricius transforms the walk home in the dark into a contest from which the greatest glory to be gained is a safe return. In this respect the pauper appears to have most in common with Tydeus - Statius' hero wants merely to get back to Argos. Such a clear-cut identification becomes impossible, however, thanks to the complexity of Umbricius' allusion to epic material. As will become evident, other parallels align the behaviour of Statius' Tydeus not with that of the pauper, but with that of Umbricius' thug.

Much is made of the nocturnal nature of the ambush in Thebaid 2 as emblematic of its status as scelus, crime: the exclamation in the lines cited above marks as unusual the nocturna proelia - 'night-time battles' - conceived by Eteocles at 485.21 Statius is, of course, not the first epic poet to highlight the exceptional nature of nocturnal combat: the aristeiai of Nisus and Euryalus are arguably the most tragic in the Aeneid, and themselves recall those of Diomedes and Odysseus and the Doloneia in Iliad 10. Both Statius and Juvenal rework the theme. But whereas in the Thebaid the aristeia is amplified beyond all proportion and plausibility, in the vision of Rome in Juvenal 3 the night-time battle, exceptional in epic, becomes routine, a nightly battle. Umbricius sees Rome's horror in epic terms, but epic which has been deheroized in so far as it is now commonplace. An aristeia devoid of the exceptional is no aristeia at all.

The Statian passage exhibits epic formulaic characteristics: the Ho- meric greeting rks 7Tr60E Els acvpCv; 77-0L TOt yevoS 8e TOKES - 'Where do you come from, and who are your parents?' - is issued by Achilles to Asteropaeus in the Iliad in an openly hostile tone (21.150); and in the Aeneid Pallas calls out to the Trojans, qui genus? unde domo? pacemne huc fertis an arma? - 'To what family do you belong? Where is your home? Do you bring us peace or war?' (8.114). It is therefore in keeping with epic expectation that in the Thebaid the ambushed Tydeus addresses his assailants in a similar fashion: unde, uiri, quidue occultatis in armis?- 'Where have you come from, warriors, and what do you mean by lurking armed?' (2.535). Although these greetings have different out- comes - Achilles is intent on a fight, much like Umbricius' thug; the Trojans are welcomed into Evander's kingdom; Tydeus is met by silence and ambush - in each of the three scenarios the interrogation

21 Cf. D. W. T. C. Vessey, 'Flavian Epic' in E. J. Kenney (ed.), Cambridge History of Classical Literature II (Cambridge, 1982), 576, on Polynices' journey to Argos at Theb. 1.336ff.

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serves as a prelude to potential combat. The question in 292 of Umbricius' description, unde uenis? ('Where are you from?' or, perhaps, 'Where have you been?') is thus a satiric version of the formula.22

Both Tydeus and Umbricius' thug receive no reply: so Statius writes, nec reddita contra/l uox, fidamque negant suspecta silentia pacem - 'no voice returned in answer, and suspicious silence denied the certainty of peace' (Thebaid 2.536f.).23 At Juvenal 3.295 the thug asks the pauper, nil mihi respondes? And whilst at 297 Umbricius entertains the possibility of a reply - dicere si temptes aliquid tacitusue recedes - none of the pauper's speech is recorded. The epic model is again reworked, menace in Statius turning to tongue-tied terror in Juvenal. At the same time the expected dynamic is inverted, the roles confused: the pauper's progress through Rome at night had initially cast him in the role of hero embarking on a perilous nocturnal aristeia. But in the context of the inquisition the thug is the challenging Tydeus, the pauper identified ironically by his silence as a skulking assailant.

At 290 in Umbricius' tale the thug orders the pauper to stand and face him. Stare contra is literally 'to stand against', and comes to mean 'face in battle'.24 It appears in Book 11 of the Aeneid, where Diomedes replies to the Latins' request for assistance in fighting the Trojans: stetimus tela aspera contra/ contulimusque manus - 'We have already faced his (Aeneas') harsh weapons and fought him hand to hand' (282). Else- where contra, either on its own or with other verbs of standing such as sisto and its compounds, denotes making a stand, and is used of both Turnus and Aeneas respectively (Aeneid 10.308f.; 12.887). Statius adapts the topos: at Thebaid 2.547 the beleaguered Tydeus challenges his attackers: ferte gradum contra campoque erumpite aperto - 'Come out and face me! Burst out onto the open plain!', a heroic posture of readiness for combat which in Umbricius' description is transformed into the thug's instruction not to scarper.

This epic, or at least militaristic, colouring makes it tempting to see a secondary allusion in consistas in 296, which Rudd translates, 'where your pitch is',25 but which in an epic military context means, 'to stand one's ground, take up position, take aim': it is so used of the Trojans at Aeneid 9.788f.: talibus accensifirmantur et agmine densol consistent - 'fired

22 For more on this see Estevez (n. 6), 289. 23 Cf. Volscens' challenge to Nisus and Euryalus at Aen. 9.377-9. 24 It is listed by both the OLD and Lewis and Short as a phrase which (unsurprisingly) implies

hostility. 25 N. Rudd & W. Barr, Juvenal: The Satires (Oxford, 1992), 24.

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by these words they stand firm and take up position in close formation' - and of Tydeus at Thebaid 2.583-5: tergoque et uertice tegmina notal saeptus et hostili propugnans pectora parma/ constitit - 'with his back and head covered with the customary armour and protecting his chest with an enemy shield he stood his ground'. In conjunction with ede, often used of epic proclamation,26 the thug's instruction is double-edged, the epic usage reworked with a black comedy typical of the entire passage.

Both the Juvenalian and the Statian episodes include an epic formulaic supplication by the defeated party. Umbricius at Juv. 3.300f. describes the pauper as begging and pleading with the thug - rogat and adorat - whilst Statius describes Menoetes at the mercy of Tydeus as follows: pariterque manus distractus in ambas/ orat et a iugulo nitentem sustinet hastam - 'and he prays with both hands stretched out, and keeps the shining spear from his throat' (Thebaid 2.647f.). But whilst such supplication in epic poetry traditionally determines life or death, in Umbricius' account the pauper can only beg not to be beaten quite so badly. Both the defeated party and the audience are cheated of the relief of being spared, the heroic code perverted in Umbricius' Rome.

Recourse to the Statian passage illustrates that epic parallels extend beyond those in Homer and Vergil and include more recent literary models. That Juvenal may have the Thebaid in mind here may not come as a total shock - most commentators agree that the fourth satire engages in some way with Statius' lost De Bello Germanico. But more arresting than this is the possibility that Umbricius, Juvenal's construct, the speaker of Satire 3, may well be thinking of Statius, as he appears to be in the passage on the man crushed in the street by a load of marble, and earlier in the street scene. At 243-5 nobis properantibus obstat/ unda prior ('the wave in front blocks the way as we hurry along') and magno populus premit agmine lumbos/ qui sequitur ('the people behind in a large troop crush my hips') echo preparations for battle within Thebes in Statius' epic (Thebaid 8.348-52):

iam trepidas Bellona fores armataque pulsat limina, iam multo laxantur cardine Thebae. turbat eques pedites, currus properantibus obstant, ceu Danai post terga premant: sic omnibus alae artantur portis septemque excursibus haerent.

26 Cf. Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.579-81, where Pentheus addresses the disguised Bacchus: o periture tuaque aliis documenta dature/ morte ... ede tuum nomen nomenque parentum/ et patriam - 'You who are about to die and provide an example to others by your death ... declare your name, the names of your parents and your native land.'


Now Bellona beats at the quivering gates and fortified doors, now Thebes is released through many a doorway. The cavalry throw the infantry into turmoil, chariots block the way of hurrying soldiers, as if the Danaans pushed them on from behind: so troops are packed into every gateway and stick fast in seven lines out.

This echo further emphasizes that we are to see the crowd as a body of troops, the Roman citizen as 'a mere soldier in the military machine'.27

The scenes of nocturnal ambush in Juvenal 3 and in the Thebaid exhibit common epic formulaic features: greeting, supplication, evalu- ation of the relative prowess of both parties. Beyond this Statius' particular contribution to the episode in the third satire is the implication of the urban population in the attack on Tydeus. The ambush in Juvenal 3 takes place within the city walls. The attack on Tydeus in Thebaid 2 does not. He is on his way back from Thebes, procul urbe (2.498) - at a distance from the city; on his return to Argos he describes the dead lying in their own gore ante urbem uacuam (3.360) - before an empty city. Nevertheless, the city is a looming - and hellish - presence throughout the work: in the second line the poet proposes to tell of sontes ... Thebas, 'guilty Thebes'. As the adjective suggests, the city is stained with the crimes of its inhabitants, in particular of its rulers. It thus becomes an emblematic hell on earth, a metaphor for urban dysfunction.28

Above all, Statius stresses citizen involvement in the conflict - the fifty sent out by Eteocles are plebs, not individual heroes but a band of citizens. Consequently I wonder whether this episode does not con- stitute a step closer to the satiric treatment we find in Juvenal. For whilst the Thebaid records a fratricidal conflict, the goal of which is control over the city, for Umbricius the city of Rome is the epic battlefield, its combatants an urban population who are literally at each other's throats. The perilous journey home is made not to another encampment, or to another city (as in the Thebaid) but to a street within the same city. In Juvenal 3 epic combat is simultaneously internalized and deheroized.

According to this line of thinking Juvenalian, urban, satire is not so much antithetical to epic as its natural successor. Umbricius' suggestion that making your way through Rome is tantamount to epic combat is, of course, funny: the thug is by no means heroic in any accepted sense - he exhibits neither the tragic motivation of Achilles nor the physical bravery of Tydeus. In fact, the thug avoids the kind of large company which makes Tydeus' achievement so remarkable, preferring to enjoy an

27 W. S. Anderson, 'Studies in Book 1 of Juvenal', YCS 15 (1957), 61. 28 For which see Henderson (n. 18), especially 167 and 188.

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aristeia over one poor citizen who could not possibly be a threat. But it does not follow that we can describe such reference as 'mock-epic' pure and simple. The literary models alluded to are not themselves subverted or held up to satiric scorn - the process is more complex than that. In the context of a moralistic narrative which seeks to amplify urban horrors, Umbricius' manipulation of epic material in the description of the encounter between the thug and the pauper is not uni-directional. The Rome of Juvenal's Satires consumes epic combat and transforms it into something which is commonplace and noticeably lacking in heroism, but still horrific, still powerful. Satire and epic inform each other: whilst Umbricius renders epic unexceptional, he also epicizes satiric comment and content.

Umbricius (re-)writes epic

The density of Umbricius' epic frame of reference suggests not only that he is closely acquainted with such material, but that he sees his world in epic terms, that he thinks epic: hence La Fleur writes of Umbricius' 'heroic imagination'.29 Again Cervantes' Don Quixote comes to mind: the eponymous hero convinces himself after reading too many romances that he is a chivalrous knight who must embark on a heroic campaign to curry the favour of his lady. Cervantes makes explicit what may be implicit in Juvenal 3. When the doctor and the surgeon consider keeping some of the less romantic books in Don Quixote's library, his niece protests (Pt. 1, Ch.6): 'Oh, sir,' cried the niece, 'please have them burned like the rest, because it could well happen that once my uncle gets over his chivalry illness he starts reading all these other books and takes it into his head to become a shepherd and wander about the forests and meadows singing and playing music and, what would be even worse than that, turn into a poet, which they say is a catching and incurable disease.'30

Just as Don Quixote's niece expresses the fear that the more intellectual books in her uncle's library may turn him into a poet, so the reader of Satire 3 may feel that Umbricius is not simply an epic character but the creator of an epic literary artefact.31 So La Fleur observes, '... one of the

29 R. A. La Fleur, 'Umbricius and Juvenal Three', Ziva Antika 26 (1976), 423; see also Staley (n. 2), 97. 30 J. Rutherford, Cervantes: Don Quixote (London, 2000), 56.

31 Edwards' observation ((n. 1), 126) that Umbricius' speech as a whole is a 'catalogue of complaint about life in the city . . .' highlights its literary quality.


satirist's chief aims in this poem may well have been to poke fun at Umbricius' fustian poesis'.32 At 288 Umbricius introduces miserae ... prohoemia rixae. prohoemium (prooemium) is 'a prelude, overture ... the introductory part (of an epic poem, speech, etc.)' (OLD). Its appear- ance at this point in Satire 3 is, I would argue, mistakenly listed under the more general definition of 'beginning, prelude (of a period or process)'; for this scene is not just reminiscent of epic combat but is itself a piece of literature, prohoemia referring not only to epic content but to the business of writing epic poetry.33 The word jars with rixae - 'a violent or noisy quarrel, altercation, brawl' (OLD). The latter is by no means an elevated term: at 15.5 If. a similar contrast is achieved for the fight between the Ombi and the Tentyrites: sed iurgia prima sonare/ incipiunt; animis ardentibus haec tuba rixae- 'insults first begin to sound; to their fiery tempers these are the clarion blasts for the fight' (the scuffle then transforms into a pugna (74)). Its immediate impact here in 3 must to some extent be bathetic.34

At the same time the admixture of high and low elements in the line advertizes the facility of Juvenalian satire for generic blending. Juvenal has Umbricius draw on material from a wide range of genres to express his indignation. His creation of a new product from traditional material identifies his work as aggressively parasitic, an identification which begs the question whether satura can itself be accorded the status of genre; and if it can be, what special identity or characteristics it may be deemed to possess.

Umbricius satiricus

Consideration of Umbricius' very literary articulation of the grievances of so-called 'ordinary' Romans, raises concerns about how far he convinces us that he is a credible witness. The reader of Latin literature is often faced with the difficulty of reading descriptions of even mundanity as anything more than a literary construct, something that by its very nature reshapes and reconstructs so-called 'reality' in a flamboyantly literary fashion. But Umbricius poses even more of a problem. For in a genre in which personal comment is a key feature

32 La Fleur (n. 29), 416. 33 Some MSS have praemia, leadingJ. Ferguson, Juvenal: The Satires (New York, 1979), ad loc., to conjecture in the light of the outcome of the scuffle that prohoemia is perhaps a pun.

34 Cf. Cic., Verr. 4.148; Hor., 0. 1.18.8; Tac., Ger. 22.2.

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Umbricius, drawing on a poet's knowledge and vocabulary to describe the city, usurps the moralistic stance of the satirist. The episode of the thug and the pauper is one of a number of points in Satire 3 at which the voice of Umbricius and that of Juvenal are far from distinct.

Umbricius assumes a public role to attack vehemently moral degen- eration at Rome.35 He seeks to persuade not only his friend the 'satirist' but the Roman citizen body - at 60 he addresses his complaint against Greeks to Quirites and at 162f. advises: agmine factol debuerant olim tenues migrasse Quirites - 'poor Romans should have banded together and departed long ago'. Braund interprets this address as undermining Umbricius' message: The most blatant example of the angry speaker forgetting where he is and departing from the framework occurs in Satire 3, when Umbricius begins addressing the entire body of Roman citizens, as if he were delivering a political speech to a public meeting, instead of enjoying a quiet and private farewell conversation with a friend, which is how the poem is intitiated.36

This assertion fails to take into account the fact that by indignantly and vehemently attacking the corrupt city of Rome and those who thrive in her Umbricius behaves as a moralizing satirist.37

That he expresses his experience of Rome in terms similar to those of an epic poet of civil war not only amplifies the horrors of the city for Umbricius' audience but also necessarily has implications for Juvenal's audience. We may be swayed by Umbricius' exaggerated picture. We may also keep in mind that Umbricius is a character carefully con- structed by Juvenal, and consequently modify our appreciation of him in light of his persistent employment of epic language and imagery, according to whether we think it is unconscious or used as an amplificatory tool. In manipulating epic material in this way Umbricius is himself creating a literary artefact; in striving to persuade his audience of his view and experience of Rome he draws on the rhetoric of invective; and in assuming a public role to denounce moral corruption he is a phantom satirist.

Umbricius' description of the horrors of life in Rome seeks to amplify them beyond the tolerable. Combined with the internalization of epic conflict, the staging of a form of epic combat within the city walls, such amplification serves to blur the distinction between satire, the supremely

35 For which see A. Hardie, 'Juvenal, the Phaedrus, and the truth about Rome', CQ 24 (1998), 244.

36 S. M. Braund, The Roman Satirists and their Masks (Bristol, 1996), 14. 37 For more on this see Hardie (n. 35), 245; Staley (n. 1), 86.


urban form, and epic, a form in which traditionally battles are not fought by the entire urban population. In so far as he constructs a character who so readily employs epic topoi and terminology in his account of contemporary Rome, Juvenal's conception of the relationship between satire and epic transgresses and transcends traditional generic bound- aries. Consequently the knee-jerk identification of reference to such material in Satire 3 as 'mock-epic' or 'parodic' no longer seems appropriate.38

Umbricius' allusion to epic motifs, vocabulary, and imagery may be appreciated on a number of levels. First it passes comment on how epic is read: as Frueland Jensen notes, Homer's and Vergil's Troy and Statius' Thebes provide useful analogies and vocabulary which enable Umbricius to articulate his suffering.39 Secondly, it reveals much about how epic is written, exposing the universality and transferability of its formulae and imagery but also illustrating how epic reinvents itself through these very same characteristics. At the same time, detailed analysis of how Satire 3 incorporates epic material provides a new perspective on how Juvenalian satire is written, and - with a nod to the pseudo-epic, pseudo-satirist Umbricius - who can write it. This in turn suggests a new kind of reading - namely, that reference to epic material is not, as we may have come to expect of satura, univocal, but rather reflects an amalgamation of different literary perceptions and identities.

38 For a similar view see Schmitz (n. 6), 218f. 39 B. F. Jensen, 'Martyred and beleaguered virtue: Juvenal's portrait of Umbricius', C&M 37

(1986), 197.

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Article Contentsp. [220]p. 221p. 222p. 223p. 224p. 225p. 226p. 227p. 228p. 229p. 230p. 231p. 232p. 233p. 234p. 235p. 236p. 237

Issue Table of ContentsGreece & Rome, Second Series, Vol. 50, No. 2 (Oct., 2003), pp. 151-296Volume Information [pp. 294 - 296]Front Matter'The Most Marvellous of All Seas'; The Greek Encounter with the Euxine [pp. 151 - 167]Teaching and Learning in Classical Athens [pp. 168 - 190]A Sickness of Discourse: The Vanishing Syndrome of Leptosune [pp. 191 - 205]Drowning by Numbers Pythagoreanism and Poetry in Horace Odes 1.28 [pp. 206 - 219]Umbricius' Bellum Ciuile: Juvenal, Satire 3 [pp. 220 - 237]Reviewuntitled [pp. 238 - 240]

Subject Reviews [pp. 241 - 284]Books Received [pp. 285 - 290]Back Matter [pp. 291 - 293]

baines - 2003 - umbricius' bellum ciuile juvenal, satire 3

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presence of epic material

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reevaluation of epic

umbricius bellum ciuile