But when Domitian was dead, and Martial removed from Rome, when, in short, there was no danger of speaking out, he still appears, continue they, to be ignorant of his friend's poetic talents. I am almost ashamed to repeat what the critics so constantly forget--that Juvenal was not only satirist, but a republican, who looked upon Trajan as a usurper, no less than Domitian. And how was it "safe to speak out," when they all assert that he was driven into banishment by a milder prince than Trajan, for a passage "suspected of being a figurative allusion to the times?" What inconsistencies are these!
[5] "Mox magna frequentia, magnoque successu bis ac ter auditus est; ut ea quoque quæ prima fecerat, inferciret novis scriptis,
'Quod non dant proceres dabit histrio,' etc.
Erat tum in delitiis aulæ histrio, multique fautorum ejus quotidie provehebantur. Venit ergo in suspicionem quasi tempora figurate notasset; ac statim per honorem militiolæ, quanquam octogenarius, urbe summotus, missusque ad præfecturam cohortis in extrema parte tendentis Ægypti. Id supplicii genus placuit, ut levi atque joculari delicto par esset. Verum intra brevissimum tempus angore et tædio periit." Suet. Passing by the interpolations of the old grammarians, I shall, as before, have recourse to Dodwell. "Recitavit, ni fallor, omnia, emisitque in publicum CXVIII. (Juvenal was now fourscore!) postquam Romam venissit Hadrianus quem ille principem à benevolo ejus in hæc studia animo, in hac ipsa satira in qua occurrunt verba illa de Paride commendat." 161. Salmasius supposed that the last of his Satires only were published under Hadrian; Dodwell goes farther, and maintains that the whole, with the exception of the 15th and 16th[14] ("si tamen vere et illa Juvenalis fuerit"), were then first produced! "Illa in Paridem dicteria histrionem, in suum (cujus nomen non prodidit auctor) histrionem dicta interpretabatur Hadrianus. Inde exilii causa. Scripsit ergo in exilio Sat. XV. Sed cum 'nuper Consulem Junium' fuisse dicat, ante annum ad minimum CXX. scribere illam non potuit Juv. Nec vero postea scripsisse, exinde colligimus, quod 'intra brevissimum tempus' perierit." 164. Such is the manner in which Dodwell accommodates Suetonius to his own ideas: which seem, also, to have been those of a much higher name, Salmasius; and, while I am now writing, to be sanctioned by the adoption of the learned Ruperti. I never affected singularity; yet I find myself constrained to differ from them all: but I will state my reasons. In his 7th Satire, after speaking of Quintilian, Juvenal adds,