The Satires of Juvenal, Persius, Sulpicia, and Lucilius: Literally translated into English prose, with notes, chronologi.

Nowhere is the underside of imperial Rome more savagely lit than in its satire. This volume brings the city's fiercest moralists together in plain English prose.

What it's about

This collection presents the satires of the principal Roman verse satirists, Juvenal, Persius, Sulpicia and the earlier Lucilius, translated literally into English prose and accompanied by explanatory notes and chronological apparatus. Juvenal's celebrated indictments of Roman corruption, Persius's dense Stoic moralising, and the fragments of Lucilius, the genre's founder, are set side by side, giving a rounded view of Roman satire across its history.

Themes

Satire here is moral anatomy: the exposure of greed, hypocrisy, cruelty, luxury and folly among the great and the ordinary alike. The poets rail against a city they see as decadent, and in doing so they preserve a vivid, unflattering picture of daily Roman life, its streets, patrons, clients and vices. Behind the invective lies a serious concern with virtue, decline and the difficulty of living honestly in a corrupt age.

Why it still matters

Roman satire shaped the Western tradition of moral and social criticism, and Juvenal in particular has echoed through English literature for centuries. The prose translation with notes makes these often difficult poets accessible, opening a direct and startling channel to the realities and resentments of ancient Rome.

Who it's for

Classicists and students of Latin literature, readers interested in the history of satire, and anyone curious to hear antiquity speak in its sharpest, least reverent voice.