Decimus Iunius Juvenalis (c. 60-130 AD) was a satirist. He may have been exiled by Domitian to Egypt, lived in poverty in Rome afterwards, and in somewhat better circumstances during the reign of Hadrian.
| Mitte Ostia, Caesar, | mitte sed in magna legatum quaere popina. | Invenies aliquo cum percussore iacentem, | permixtum nautis et furibus ac fugitivis, | inter carnifices et fabros sandapilarum | et resupinati cessantia tympana galli. | Send to Ostia, Caesar, send, but look for the legatus in the big pub, and you will find him lying with some hit man, in company with sailors, thieves, and runaway slaves, among hangmen, coffin-makers and the idle tambourines of a gallus, prostrate from drunkenness. For the translation cf. Meiggs 1973, 430, n. 1 and Hermansen, Aspects of Roman City Life, p. 194. In the preceding lines Juvenalis informs us that the name of the legatus is Lateranus. He has a bad reputation, and is not willing to defend the limes. |
| Tandem intrat positas inclusa per aequora moles | Tyrrhenamque pharon porrectaque bracchia rursum | quae pelago occurrunt medio longeque relinquunt | Italiam (non sic igitur mirabere portus | quos natura dedit); sed trunca puppe magister | interiora petit Baianae pervia cumbae | tuti stagna sinus, gaudent ibi vertice raso | garrula securi narrare pericula nautae. | And now at length the ship comes within the moles built out to enclose the sea. She passes the Tyrrhenian lighthouse, and those arms which stretch out and meet again in mid-Ocean, leaving Italy far behind - a port more wondrous far than those of Nature's making. Then the skipper, with his crippled ship, makes for the still waters of the inner basin in which any Baian shallop may ride in safety. There the sailors shave their heads and delight, in garrulous ease, to tell the story of their perils. Translation: Loeb, G.G. Ramsay. |
| Portum Augusti dicit sive Traiani. Traianus portum Augusti restauravit in melius et interius tutiorem nominis sui fecit | He [Juvenalis] means the 'Port of Augustus', or rather, 'of Trajan'. Because Trajan restored and improved the Port of Augustus, and made it safer inside, with his name. Translation: Keay - Millett - Whitton - Henderson. |