It is, perhaps, his vividness that makes the most immediate impression. It would be hard to find in any literature a writer with such a power to make the scenes described live before his readers. The salient features of a scene or character are seized at once.[729] There is no irrelevant detail; the picture may be crowded, but it is never obscure; if there is a fault it is that the colouring is sometimes too crude and glaring to please. But before such word-painting as the description of Domitian's privy council criticism is dumb:
nec melior vultu quamvis ignobilis ibat Rubrius, offensae veteris reus atque tacendae. * * * * * Montani quoque venter adest abdomine tardus, et matutino sudans Crispinua amomo quantum vix redolent duo funera, saevior illo Pompeius tenui iugulos aperire susurro, et qui vulturibus servabat viscera Dacis Fuscus marmorea meditatus proelia villa, et cum mortifero prudens Veiento Catullo, qui numquam visae flagrabat amore puellae, grande et conspicuum nostro quoque tempore monstrum, caecus adulator, dirusque a ponte satelles dignus Aricinos qui mendicaret ad axes blandaque devexae iactaret basia raedae (iv. 104).
Rubrius, though not, like these, of noble race, Followed with equal terror in his face; * * * * * Montanus' belly next, and next appeared The legs on which that monstrous pile was reared. Crispinus followed, daubed with more perfume, Thus early! than two funerals consume. Then bloodier Pompey, practised to betray, And hesitate the noblest lives away. Then Fuscus, who in studious pomp at home, Planned future triumphs for the arms of Rome. Blind to the event! those arms a different fate, Inglorious wounds and Dacian vultures wait. Last, sly Veiento with Catullus came, Deadly Catullus, who at beauty's name Took fire, although unseen: a wretch, whose crimes Struck with amaze even those prodigious times. A base, blind parasite, a murderous lord, From the bridge-end raised to the council-board, Yet fitter still to dog the traveller's heels, And whine for alms to the descending wheels. GIFFORD.
Figure after figure they live before us, till the procession culminates with the crowning horror of the blind delator, L. Valerius Catullus Messalinus. Equally vivid is Juvenal's description of places. There is the rude theatre of the country town with its white-robed audience _en négligé_:--