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but summer lightning." Poor wretch! on this very night perchance he will be cast out amid broken timbers and engulfed by the waves, clutching his purse with his left hand or his teeth. The man for whose desires yesterday not all the gold which Tagus and the ruddy Pactolus1 rolls along would have sufficed, must now content himself with a rag to cover his cold and nakedness, and a poor morsel of food, while he begs for pennies as a shipwrecked mariner, and supports himself by a painted storm!

303 Wealth gotten with such woes is preserved by fears and troubles that are greater still; it is misery to have the guardianship of a great fortune. The millionaire Licinus orders a troop of slaves to be on the watch all night with fire buckets in their places, being anxious for his amber, his statues and Phrygian marbles, his ivory and plaques of tortoise-shell. The nude Cynic 2 fears no fire for his tub; if broken, he will make himself a new house to-morrow, or repair it with clamps of lead. When Alexander beheld in that tub its mighty occupant, he felt how much happier was the man who had no desires than he who claimed for himself the entire world, with perils before him as great as his achievements. Had we but wisdom, thou wouldst have no Divinity, O Fortune it is we that make thee into a Goddess!

316 Yet if any should ask of me what measure of fortune is enough, I will tell him: as much as thirst, cold and hunger demand; as much as sufficed you, Epicurus, in your little garden; as much as in earlier days was to be found in the house of Socrates. Never does Nature say one thing and Wisdom another. Do the limits within which I confine you seem too severe ? Then throw in something from our own manners;

bis septem ordinibus quam lex dignatur Othonis. haec quoque si rugam trahit extenditque labellum,

sume duos equites, fac tertia quadringenta

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si nondum inplevi gremium, si panditur ultra,

nec Croesi fortuna umquam nec Persica regna
sufficient animo nec divitiae Narcissi,
indulsit Caesar cui Claudius omnia, cuius
paruit imperiis uxorem occidere iussus,

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SATVRA XV

Quis nescit, Volusi Bithynice, qualia demens Aegyptos portenta colat? crocodilon adorat pars haec, illa pavet saturam serpentibus ibin; effigies sacri nitet aurea cercopitheci, dimidio magicae resonant ubi Memnone chordae atque vetus Thebe centum iacet obruta portis. illic aeluros,1 hic piscem fluminis, illic

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oppida tota canem venerantur, nemo Dianam. porrum et caepe nefas violare et frangere morsu ; o sanctas gentes quibus haec nascuntur in hortis 10 numina lanatis animalibus abstinet omnis

mensa, nefas illic fetum iugulare capellae : carnibus humanis vesci licet. attonito cum

1 aeluros Brod.: illic caeruleos 4.

1 See note on iii. 155.

2 The most powerful and wealthiest of Claudius' freedmen. For the part played by Narcissus in securing the punishment of Messalina, see Tac. Ann. xi. 33–37.

make up a sum as big as that which Otho's law 1 deems worthy of the fourteen rows. If that also knits your brow, and makes you thrust out your lip, take a couple of knights, or make up thrice four hundred thousand sesterces! If your lap is not yet full, if it is still opening for more, then neither the wealth of Croesus, nor that of the Persian Monarchs, will suffice you, nor yet that of Narcissus,2 on whom Claudius Caesar lavished everything, and whose orders he obeyed when bidden to slay his wife.3

SATIRE XV

AN EGYPTIAN ATROCITY

WHO knows not, O Bithynian Volusius, what monsters demented Egypt worships? One district adores the crocodile, another venerates the Ibis that gorges itself with snakes. In the place where magic chords are sounded by the truncated Memnon,1 and ancient hundred-gated Thebes lies in ruins, men worship the glittering golden image of the long-tailed ape. In one part cats are worshipped, in another a river fish, in another whole townships venerate a dog; none adore Diana, but it is an impious outrage to crunch leeks and onions with the teeth. What a holy race to have such divinities springing up in their gardens! No animal that grows wool may appear upon the dinner-table; it is forbidden there to slay the young of the goat; but it is lawful to feed on the flesh of man! When

The famous statue of Memnon at Thebes, which emitted musical sounds at daybreak.

tale super cenam facinus narraret Vlixes
Alcinoo, bilem aut risum fortasse quibusdam
moverat ut mendax aretalogus. "in mare nemo
hunc abicit saeva dignum veraque Charybdi,
fingentem inmanes Laestrygonas atque Cyclopas ?
nam citius Scyllam vel concurrentia saxa
Cyaneis plenos et tempestatibus utres

crediderim aut tenui percussum verbere Circes
et cum remigibus grunnisse Elpenora porcis.
tam vacui capitis populum Phaeaca putavit?"
sic aliquis merito nondum ebrius et minimum qui
de Corcyraea temetum duxerat urna.
solus enim haec Ithacus nullo sub teste canebat;

Nos miranda quidem, set nuper consule Iunco1 gesta super calidae referemus moenia Copti, nos volgi scelus et cunctis graviora cothurnis; nam scelus, a Pyrra quamquam omnia syrmata volvas,

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nullus aput tragicos populus facit. accipe, nostro dira quod exemplum feritas produxerit aevo. Inter finitimos vetus atque antiqua simultas, inmortale odium et numquam sanabile vulnus, ardet adhuc Ombos et Tentyra. summus utrimque 35 inde furor volgo, quod numina vicinorum odit uterque locus, cum solos credat habendos

1 iunco Bob. AU: iunpo P: iumio 4.

1 King of the Phaeacians, to whom Ulysses narrated his adventures.

2 The clashing rocks (σvμñλnyádes) at the mouth of the Bosporus.

One of the crew of Ulysses turned into a pig by Cires.

Ulysses told a tale like this over the dinner-table to the amazed Alcinous,1 he stirred some to wrath, some perhaps to laughter, as a lying story-teller. "What?" one would say, "will no one hurl this fellow into the sea, who merits a terrible and a true Charybdis with his inventions of monstrous Laestrygones and Cyclopes? For I could sooner believe in Scylla, and the clashing Cyanean rocks,2 and skins full of storms, or in the story how Circe, by a gentle touch, turned Elpenor3 and his comrades into grunting swine. Did he deem the Phaeacians people so devoid of brains?" So might some one have justly spoken who was not yet tipsy, and had taken but a small drink of wine from the Corcyraean bowl, for the Ithacan's tale was all his own, with none to hear him witness.

27 I will now relate strange deeds done of late in the consulship of Juncus, beyond the walls of broiling Coptus; a crime of the common herd, worse than any crime of the tragedians; for though you turn over all the tales of long-robed Tragedy from the days of Pyrrha onwards, you will find there no crime committed by an entire people. But hear what an example of ruthless barbarism has been displayed in these days of ours.

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33 Between the neighbouring towns of Ombi and Tentyra there burns an ancient and long-cherished feud and undying hatred, whose wounds are not to be healed. Each people is filled with fury against the other because each hates its neighbours' Gods, deeming that none can be held as deities save its 4 Aemilius Juncus was consul in A.D. 127. This fixes the earliest date for this Satire.

5 Ombi and Tentyra (now Dendyra), towns in Upper Egypt.

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