Persius: A Study in Food, Philosophy, and the Figural 9780226241982

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Persius

Persius A Study i n Fo o d, P h i los op h y, a n d th e Fi gur a l

Shadi Bartsch

University of Chicago Press

Chicago and London

Shadi Bartsch is the Helen A. Regenstein Distinguished Service Professor of Classics at the University of Chicago. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 2015 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. Published 2015. Printed in the United States of America 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15

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ISBN-13: 978-0-226-24184-5 (cloth) ISBN-13: 978-0-226-24198-2 (e-book) DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226241982.001.0001 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bartsch, Shadi, 1966– author. Persius : a study in food, philosophy, and the figural / Shadi Bartsch. pages ; cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-226-24184-5 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 0-226-24184-X (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-226-24198-2 (e-book) 1. Persius— Themes, motives. 2. Persius— Philosophy. 3. Persius— Language. 4. Food in literature. 5. Satire, Latin— History and criticism. 6. Satire, Latin— Themes, motives. I. Title. PA6556.B35 2015 871'.01— dc23 2014029932 ♾ This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

Contents

Acknowledgments vii Introduction 1

Part I: Cannibals and Philosophers Ch a pter 1: The Ca nniba l Poets 15 1. The Ars poetica and the Body of Verse 17 2. Consuming the Poets 25 3. A Discourse on Digestion 41 4. The Echoing Belly 53

Cha pter 2: A lter native Diets 64 1. Satire’s Decoction 64 2. The Philosopher’s Plate 74 3. Madness, Bile, and Hellebore 84 4. The Mad Poet 92

Cha p ter 3: The Philosopher’s Love 9 6 1. The Seduction of Alcibiades 97 2. The Philosopher-Sodomite 107 3. Cornutus and the Stoic Way 114 4. Vel duo vel nemo 123

Part II: The Metaphorics of Disgust Cha p ter 4 : The Scr a pe of Meta phor 133 1. The Pleasures of Figure 133 2. The acris iunctura 141

3. The Maculate Metaphor 160 4. A Stoic Poetics 167

Ch a p ter 5: The Self- Consum ing Satir ist 178 1. Satire’s Shifting Figures 182 2. Shins and Arrows 193 3. The Return of the Cannibal 198 4. Mind over Matter 208 Appendix: Medical Prescriptions of Decocta for Stomach Ailments or Other Problems 213 Reference List 235 Index 255

Acknowledgments

This small book on Persius’ Satires started out (far too many years ago) as the 2007 Gray Lectures at Cambridge. Since then I have accumulated many scholarly debts and not that many more pages! For their feedback and comments on presentations and chapters, or other forms of assistance, I think Susanna Braund, Fanny Dolansky, Alex Dressler, Kirk Freudenburg (who read the entire manuscript), Myrto Garani, John Henderson, Stephen Halliwell, Daniel Hooley, Nicholas Horsfall, David Konstan, Josiah Osgood, Victoria Rimell, Ralph Rosen, Ineke Sluiter, Bart van Wassenhove, Nicolas Wiater, Gareth Williams, Greg Woolf, my colleagues in Classics at the University of Chicago, and of course the University of Chicago Press’s anonymous reader. Many audiences heard various chapters in various stages and offered useful feedback: they were at— in no particular order— St. Andrews, Brown, Chicago, Columbia, Yale, the University of Wisconsin– Madison, Cambridge, Johns Hopkins, Ohio Wesleyan, Duke, the University of Georgia, the University of Texas– Austin, Amherst College, the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana, Leiden, and the Franke Institute for the Humanities at the University of Chicago. I was able to try out many of the ideas in the book on the excellent students in my Persius seminar at the University of Chicago in 2006: Ursula Bergstrom, Diana Moser, Aaron Seider, and Lawrie Dean. Diana Moser, as my graduate research assistant, painstakingly combed through Pliny’s Natural History and Celsus’ De medicina to index all the stomach remedies in their pages. Her results appear as the appendix to this volume. And I owe a particular debt of gratitude to my editor at the University of Chicago Press, the indomitable Susan Bielstein, for signing on this project when I told her its readership would surely be vel nemo, vel duo, and that parts of the book would be, like Persius’ Satires themselves,

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quite unappealing. Finally, my excellent editor at the press, Carol Fisher Saller, caught errors that were both elusive and embarrassing. I also owe thanks for sabbatical support to the Guggenheim Foundation (2006– 2007) and the University of Chicago (2013– 2014). A shorter version of chapter 3, titled “Persius’ Socrates and the Failure of Pedagogy,” appears in M. Garani and D. Konstan (eds.), The Philosophizing Muse: The Influence of Greek Philosophy on Roman Poetry (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming); an adaptation of chapter 2 will appear as “Philosophy, Physicians, and Persianic Satire,” in John Wilkins (ed.), On the Psyche: Studies in Ancient Literature, Psychology and Health (Oxford University Press, forthcoming); and some of the ideas in this volume were aired in my essay “Persius, Juvenal, and Stoicism,” in S. Braund and J. Osgood (eds.), A Companion to Persius and Juvenal (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012). For the Satires, I have used the Teubner text of W. Kissel, A. Persius Flaccus Saturarum Liber (Berlin, 2007). Unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own. To my readers, I can only say that I hope this ridiculus mus, for all its shortcomings, at least turns out to be tastier and less salubrious than a prescription of cold beets and a shot of hellebore.

Introduction

Persius’ small body of satires ranks as one of our most peculiar inheritances from classical literature. Six short hexameter poems preceded by eight lines of choliambic, the satires are notoriously difficult— and disorienting— to work one’s way through, curiously abrupt, full of unusual terminology, difficult to unpack, and often bordering upon distasteful. In addition, they are riven with obvious contradictions. The high moral tone that often characterizes the satirist’s message sets a strange contrast to the poems’ colloquial vocabulary and Rabelaisian concerns; the biographical depiction (both within and outside the corpus) of Persius himself as bookish and devoted to philosophy clashes with the sheer distemper of the poet’s speaking voice; the reliance throughout on the precedent of Horace’s Satires, tweaked just so, is at odds with the wildly original usage our author makes of his intertexts. Not surprisingly, then, the Satires’ reception has been mixed, as even a brief sketch of Persius’ fortunes shows. On the one hand, at least according to the Life found in the manuscripts, Persius’ work found eager buyers in his own day.1 In the fifty years after his death, Lucan, Quintilian, and Martial voiced admiration for him,2 and the Satires seem to have been used as a school-text more or less continu1. “Editum librum continuo mirari homines et diripere coeperunt” (ed. S. G. Owen). 2. Quint. Inst. 10.1.94, “Multum et verae gloriae quamvis uno libro Persius meruit”; Martial 4.29.7– 8; Life of Lucan, “Sed Lucanus mirabatur adeo scripta Flacci, ut vix se retineret recitante eo de more quin illa esse vera poemata, sua ludos diceret” (ed. S. G. Owen). For some of the more recent reception studies on Persius, see Burrow (2005), Dessen (1996) 1– 6, Parker and Braund (2012), Hooley (1997) 1– 25, Hooley (2012), Morford (1984) 97– 107, Hagendahl (1958) passim, Simms (2013); Sullivan (1972), Wheeler (1992) passim. Kissel (1990) contains the fullest recent bibliography on Persius in general.

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ally from the first century.3 The author’s harsh sermonizing and “bashful modesty” (so the Life) was especially attractive to the Church Father Jerome and later moralizers; Persius was highly ranked among pagan authors in the medieval period, and the French scholar Isaac Casaubon (1559– 1614) defended Persius’ language and deemed him the best of the Roman satirists for his unwavering commitment to Stoicism.4 On the other side, the Satires, and especially their idiom— marked as it is by obscurity, figure, and colloquialism— have been singled out for criticism since at least the sixth century.5 J. P. Sullivan (1985, 111) described Persius’ style well when he described the satires as “a careful amalgam of archaisms, vulgarism, literary allusions, the clipped affectation of real dialogue, and the homely, or sometimes vivid, language of the household and the harbor.”6 It is an amalgam that has exasperated readers since Dryden, who was not beyond using his own vivid metaphors to object to those of Persius, noting in the Discourse concerning the Original and Progress of Satire (1693) that “his Verse is scabrous, and hobbling, and his Words not everywhere well chosen . . . ; his diction is hard; his Figures are generally too bold and daring; and his Tropes, particularly his Metaphors, insufferably strain’d.”7 Persius’ imagery is indeed 3. The first edition was published at Rome in 1469 or 70 by Ulrich Han, and was among the earliest works printed. For the text’s use in pedagogy, see Richlin (2012) and Braund and Osgood (2012) 442– 46. On the commentary tradition, see Braund and Osgood (2012). 4. On the medieval and renaissance period, see Hooley (2012). For Casaubon’s text, see Medine (1976). As Medine remarks, “Having recognized that there was no genetic relationship between satire and satyr plays, Casaubon was then free in the Prolegomena to focus on the goals and methods of satire and to analyze the particular strengths and weaknesses of its Roman practitioners. He begins with the traditional assumption that satire is reformative and proceeds to theorize that in its essential concern with morality satire most resembles ethics; it differs from ethics in its poetic mode, of course, being written in verse, making use of praise and blame, and employing humor” (275). 5. In the 6th century: Johannes Lydus, De magistratibus 1.41. 6. For examples of Persius’ colloquial terminology— his verba togae— see Cucchiarelli (2005) 74– 75, Jenkinson (1989) 338– 39, Kenney (2012) 116– 18. On his language more generally, Kissel (1990) 1– 14 with bibliography. Plat. Symp. 221e sheds some light on this choice: “If you chose to listen to Socrates’ discourses you would feel them at first to be quite ridiculous; on the outside they are clothed with such absurd words and phrases— all, of course, the gift of a mocking satyr. His talk is of pack-asses, smiths, cobblers, and tanners, and he seems always to be using the same terms for the same things; so that anyone inexpert and thoughtless might laugh his speeches to scorn” (tr. H. N. Fowler). 7. On Dryden’s treatment of Persius in his Discourse of Satire, see Osgood and Braund (2012); Hooley (1997) 5– 11, with good cautions on not taking him as the satirist’s implacable enemy. The Renaissance preferred Horace and Juvenal; only in

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conveyed via metaphors that bring together strikingly different registers of life, much of it in contravention of the prescriptions of the traditional rhetorical and poetic commentaries. A small body of almost unreadable poetry, then, scratched out by a youth who purportedly never moved out of his aunt’s home and died in his late twenties: no wonder our satirist is not a household name. If we needed further evidence for these difficulties, the very existence of Kissel’s massive 1990 commentary, with 884 pages to elucidate less than 700 lines of verse, provides an eloquent witness. Beyond these specific difficulties, the reception of Persius’ corpus has also been complicated by the procrustean philosophy which it has made its bed: that of Stoic philosophy. Roman satire, while a source of common-sense commentary on the foibles of one’s fellow men, was not a natural home for the more rarified perspective derived from the philosophical schools, and the satiric view of philosophy tended to be complex. As Roland Mayer (2005, 146) points out, “The Roman satirist approached philosophy warily, first because it was Greek, and secondly because it seemed to set itself up as a rival to the native moral tradition.” This native tradition, the mos maiorum, was where the satirists usually found their moral ground. It was backed by historical exempla and held up as an uncontested standard— at least in lip service and at least among the upper classes. When the early satirist Lucilius defines virtus, it bears little resemblance to the doctrines of any philosophical school but is distinctively Roman in its perspective: “To place first the welfare of our country, second that of our parents, third and last our own.”8 When Horace speaks of his own education, he describes for us how his father taught him by negative exempla, pointing out people he ought not to imitate, such as spendthrifts and adulterers (Sat. 1.4.105– 29). Along the same lines, Juvenal emphasizes that while wisdom (sapientia) is well enough, those too are happy whom life teaches equanimity in the face of loss (13.19– 22).9 the preface to Casaubon’s 1605 edition was Persius hailed as the first ranked of the Roman satirists, appreciated for his philosophical perspective and hostility to vice. His obscurity is sometimes linked to “the want of Libertie” (i.e., political freedom) of his day (Holyday, cited in Hooley 1997, 345). 8. Mayer 152 likewise argues against F. Marx that this Lucilian fragment (1196– 1208W) has no Stoic coloring, despite the terms virtus and honestum, which he sees as common in traditional Roman morality. Cf. Scipio the Elder’s words in Cic. De re publica 6.13: “For all those who have protected, supported, promoted their fatherland, there is destined a fixed place in heaven, where they enjoy in happiness eternal life.” 9. See Mayer (2005) 148.

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Accordingly, while Persius’ fellow satirists might have echoed some of the more common wisdom of the Epicurean and Stoic schools, they maintained an ironic distance from doctrinal claims and those who preached them.10 Horace, for example, mocked the Stoic view that the wise man is king (Sat. 1.3.124– 42), and while he engages with Stoic interlocutors in satires 2.3 and 2.7— the recent convert Damasippus and his own slave Davos— they are undercut by the non-Stoic mishmash of rationalizing they use to present their views, and the satirist is comically dismissive of both them and himself. Gaius Lucilius in the second century BCE derides the Stoic sage (fr. 1189– 90 in the Warmington edition) and waxes scornful on philosophers in general: “If you’re asking: a cloak, an old nag, a slave, a wrapper are all more useful to me than a philosopher” (fr. 508).11 And at the end of the first century Juvenal joins the mêlée with his proud announcement that he has neither read the Cynics and Stoics nor taken up Epicurus as his own (Sat. 13.121– 23). The philosopher and his teaching were in satire more often the butt of criticism than a figure held up for imitation: Roman satire prided itself on being “tota nostra,” a product original to Rome (Quintilian 10.1.93), while philosophy was traditionally associated with Greeks and their quibbling ways. And yet Persius is worth reading partly because he has nestled a Stoic outlook in unsuitable poetic bedding. His small corpus, in combining poetry and philosophy, manages to offer a remarkably trenchant critique of prior traditions, both philosophical and poetic. For one, the satires daringly and deliberately revise the most influential programmatic statement of the Roman literary scene, Horace’s Ars poetica. Even as he evokes Horace’s language, Persius overturns his predecessor’s judgments on taste, norms, and poetic propriety. This critique of normative ancient thought about the place of imagery and the figural in poetry offers a backdrop to the question of whether philosophy can indeed reside in poetry, and serves as a trenchant response to Lucretius’ philosophical 10. Satire was thus, at least in part, intended to attack human immorality but without any explicit link to the philosophizing of the Greeks. Some exception, however, should be made for Cynic diatribe, that is, sermons on ethics characterized by colloquial diction, rhetorical questions, and abusive attacks upon vice (or its representatives). On satire’s relation to diatribe, see Schmidt (1966), Freudenburg (1993) 16– 21 and (2001) 110– 13, Reckford (2009) appendix 2. Other scholars have suggested that diatribe was the medium that allowed philosophy to find an entry into satire, partly because it used common diction; see, e.g., Mayer (2005) 149– 50. 11. Likewise, although Varro’s Menippean satires had their origin in the writings of the Cynic Menippus, they seem to have presented a jaundiced view of the formal tenets of Stoic and Epicurean philosophy at Rome; it is difficult to draw a sure conclusion from the fragments.

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De rerum natura and its claim to mix utility and pleasure for the benefit of the reader. And finally, Persius’ corpus enters into dialogue with the erotic Platonic dialogues and their problematic relation with pleasure. By the end of the satires, we might claim, Persius has undertaken nothing less than to provide a new, non-Platonic and nonsatiric answer to the question of what a philosophical poetry’s content and medium should be. In suggesting a new relationship between the traditionally opposing poles of poetry and philosophy, Persius leans heavily on a transformative use of metaphor, putting this figure to use in the service of his Stoic goals while aiming to escape its traditional association with readerly pleasure. Lucretius was open about the need to smear honey on his philosophical cup— this image itself a metaphor for the poetic pleasures that tricked his readers into swallowing his bitter Epicurean teachings. Part of this pleasure, he acknowledged (like Plato before him, cf. Gorgias 501d– 502d), came from poetry’s figures, which were a source of the sweet pleasure it provided to its audience. But Persius tries to deploy the figural elements of poetry to provide his readers with a medicine that remains unsweetened. In setting up this gambit, he borrows Lucretius’ language of tasting, and thus, like Lucretius, uses metaphor to talk about the use of metaphor. But he goes beyond this to build an elaborate metaphorical structure that equates all his poetry with medically beneficial comestibles. Of course, Plato too was suspicious of the sweetness of persuasive language, and in his dialogue Gorgias set good medicine in opposition to bad cookery, using the two fields as parallels to justice (good) and rhetoric (bad). But Persius sets up his own contrast between healthy consumption and sickening consumption as the twin correlates within the genre of poetry, one philosophically healing, the other a poison for the mind. In reacting to philosophers’ strictures on poetry, poets’ views of philosophers, and satire’s depiction of its own generic traits, Persius’ deployment of a philosophical form of satire thus rings the changes on previous possibilities for what poetry could do. If this already suggests that the place to look for meaning in the Satires is in their choices of figure, it is a direction that recent critical attention has not neglected. It has become clear to modern readers that it is not the immediate message of Persius’ poetry that demands our concentration: for the most part, he offers us the basic tenets of Stoic philosophy. In satire 2, for example, he mocks men’s prayers to the gods for wealth, heirs, and a healthy old age, and declares that purity of intent is more pleasing to the gods than lavish sacrifices. In satire 3 he lambastes the lack of self-control of the lazy and the irascible, the self-indulgence of those who need to be shaped as much as if they were wobbly clay on

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the potter’s wheel. These men should reflect on their role in life, what it is right to desire, what to bestow on friends and family, whom the god wishes them to be. Satire 4 takes up the themes of the pseudo-Platonic dialogue Alcibiades I and revisits the figure of the young Alcibiades, chided by Socrates for his unfounded ambition: how can Alcibiades hope to lead the state when he has as of yet no self-knowledge? His focus on wealth, luxury, and fame as the chief goods reveals his moral weakness, and he would do better to dwell with himself and reflect on his limitations. In satire 5 the satirist recounts his own apprenticeship to the Stoic philosopher Cornutus, who molded Persius’ soul with reason; the second half of this satire dwells on the Stoic paradox that only the wise man is free; although the ex-slave vaunts his freedom, he— like the general walk of mankind— is at the mercy of his passions, the real “masters” (domini) of the non-Stoic. Less obvious, but worth pointing out, is that in those areas where Persius might seem to have drifted away from orthodoxy, or where his emphasis falls on one area of Stoicism to the detriment of others, his deviations are those of his Stoic peers in first-century CE Rome. That is, Persius’ Stoicism specifically reflects the orientation and emphases of his fellow Stoics Seneca and Epictetus. Among all three writers specific philosophical themes are emphasized, the most important three being the treatment of the body as a debased container for the mind rather than a neutral material coextensive with it; the interest in self-shaping and self-improvement via the meditatio and/or internalized dialogue; the importance of the retreat into the self and the dismissal of the opinions of the crowd (and political life generally). These are the concerns that are processed through Persius’ poetic grinder, coming out the other side as satura (fittingly, a Latin term for a kind of forcemeat) and reshaped into strikingly repulsive images and metaphors that imprint themselves upon the soul. Most strikingly, the debased status of the body in Roman Stoicism represents a movement away from the orthodox Stoic view of the body as ethically neutral and physically coextensive with the pneuma of the soul; instead, it tends toward the view of the body-as-container that emerges from the Platonic school.12 Seneca dismisses the body as “a digestive pipe for food and drink,” a thing diseased and disintegrating, putrid and perishable (“putre . . . fluidumque,” Ad Marc. 11.1ff.). Clearly, he says, this is the meaning of the ancient command to know thyself: it reminds us that the body is a weak and fragile thing, an earthenware vessel that breaks when it is shaken, a thing unable to bear cold or heat, 12. Persius veers away from satiric precedent here too: contrast Horace’s matterof-fact tale of his wet dream on the road to Brindisium.

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doomed to decay, quick to sicken and quick to rot (Ad Marc. 11.1ff.). Epictetus in turn, dismissing the value of a body if the soul is cowardly, denigrates it as “a carcass and a pint of blood, and nothing more” (Disc. 1.9.33); “a little portion of paltry flesh” (4.104). And indeed, the body in Persius is likewise a disaster-zone of liability and the site of the grotesque. Inside the casing of flesh, there is nothing where there should be a divine soul: the body is caelestium inanis. And the flesh itself is repulsive: it is meat, pork, organs; bodies are scabrous and swollen with bile; we guess at what gods want by extrapolating from “this wicked flesh” (“scelerata pulpa,” 2.64). Angry men split in rage, boastful men explode their lungs, the ignorant drown in their own flesh. Persius’ vile bodies are as Stoically oriented as their Senecan and Epicurean fellows. None of this is surprising from a Stoic philosophical point of view, at least in terms of its content. But recent scholars have significantly developed our understanding of Persius by taking the imagery in which he couches these teachings, in all of its disturbing complexity, to be a crucial part of his ultimate aims for his verse rather than a feature to be laid down to poetic liberty.13 Persius himself seems to announce his dedication to a program of difficult metaphor when he characterizes himself as “iunctura callidus acri” (Sat. 5.14), skilled at the harsh juxtaposition. (For a full discussion of the term, see chapter 4). For his metaphors are indeed difficult— this much we must grant to Dryden. Not only do they often make no sense upon a first reading, their vehicles are drawn from unsavory walks of life and aspects of human existence more usually kept under covers. Nor are they always without victims within the body of the Satires. Where his predecessor in satire, Horace, settled for making fun of human weaknesses by provoking laughter from the very subject of his lambasting (cf. Hor. Sat. 1.116– 17),14 Persius’ persona often goes for the jugular in a series of attacks on his peers that are couched in violent and distasteful imagery: unholy combinations of eyeballs and orgasms, pork products and people, statecraft and sodomy punctuate these rebukes of folly. What sense are we to make of the author’s fondness for these metaphors that are strained, sometimes disgusting, and in flagrant violation of the classical guidelines for poetic propriety and utility? Despite the scholarly explication of many of Persius’ metaphors and the understanding that his corpus relies on a certain shock value, here is still 13. After the pioneering studies by Bramble (1974) and Dessen (1996), I have found Freudenburg (2001), Gowers (1993) and (1994), Hooley (1997), and Reckford’s three studies especially illuminating. 14. Also Sat. 2.1.7, though here Horace notes this isn’t enough: brevity and variatio are needed.

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no satisfactory answer to the question of what the philosophical impact of this choice may ultimately be. The Satires’ Stoic framework adds to the difficulty of this question, for Stoic philosophy was not silent on the topic of language. Instead, the evidence suggests that the school favored plain speaking and avoidance of figure: a sort of language degree zero, if that were ever possible. Cicero’s famous comments in the De oratore (2.159; 3.65– 66; cf. Brutus 118) on the dry and jejune nature of Stoic “rhetoric” and on its failure to persuade provide a backdrop against which Persius’ wild language and lavish use of figure looks decidedly odd. It is true that there is precedent in Cynic philosophy for coarse speech and action in the name of philosophical instruction, in order to expose human custom as false coin; the fourth-century BCE Cynic Diogenes of Sinope famously urinated and defecated in public and generally insulted his interlocutors. But we have to acknowledge a serious difference between acting out a form of parrhesia in public, and writing difficult and obscure satires framed by metaphors while professing no interest in reaching a wide audience— as our satirist does. Faced with two reasons why Persius’ metaphorical usage is counter to norms— Stoic-philosophical and normative-poetical norms— we must, I think, accept that his practice has a significant importance for the body of his work, and that Persius’ revolution in the poetics of metaphor is the place to look for his contribution to the ancient quarrel between poetry and philosophy. It goes without saying that to take Persius’ imagery seriously in this way is also to move beyond the idea that poetic accoutrements such as figure and imagery function to create a pleasurable but essentially trivial poetics that, like the honey on the cup, induces us to take the philosophical medicine that lurks within the cup.15 It is to suggest instead, as I will eventually do, that both the content of these images and our very distaste for them becomes part of what Persius is trying to do via his strange marriage of satire and philosophy, and part of what is didactically meaningful in the reading experience. The predominance of the vividly imagistic in the Satires ends up being a gateway into some of the more wide-ranging interpretive issues that come with this poet: How can the satirist justify writing in a medium (verse) that his own school, Stoicism, believes should be approached with caution and strict pedagogical guidance? What is accomplished by bringing together satire (and its metaphors) and philosophy (and its content) into a single medium? How do we avoid (as some critics have done) privileging one of them, depending on which the critic chooses to identify as his real purpose? (Is he a Stoic 15. On Lucretius and the idea of poetic sweetness, see chapter 4.

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philosopher, compromising his teachings by violent verse, or an outrageous satirist, with shock factor stapled to a dull moral backbone?)16 Lector intende: this volume is not a comprehensive study, and its scope is limited to the claims of its title. In the five chapters that follow, I do not pretend to offer an analysis of all of Persius’ poetry, satire by satire, or to engage with every passage in the corpus. Instead, I try to keep in mind three particular backdrops: Persius’ literary manipulations of his predecessors (especially Horace);17 the role of Roman Stoicism in his program;18 and most importantly, the extended cultural significations and connotations that are embedded in Persius’ strange repertoire of figures and imagery. So while there is much interesting work to be done on the issue of, say, persona, in the Satires, this will not be within my scope; instead, I use “Persius” as a shorthand for “the personae Persius uses” (they are not necessarily identical from poem to poem). Even satire 6 is left aside as nonrepresentative of the project of satires 1– 5; its epistolary form, its imagery, the change in its tone, all mark it as part of a new direction— perhaps one cut short by Persius’ fatal stomach ache of 62 CE. And another absence from the volume is Nero himself— just as in Persius’ Satires, for like Seneca in his Letters to Lucilius, Persius never once mentions Nero by name. It is undeniable that Nero’s exis16. The Satires, in short, seem to delineate of set of interpretive problems that mark them off sharply from their closest generic predecessor, Horace. For example, they are less autobiographical; less interested in satire as a genre; less concerned with delineating a persona. Instead, the offer challenges because the speaker’s identity is not always certain; because he does not seem to practice what he preaches; because there is little didactic address. On autobiography in Horace, see recently Mayer (1995), Nisbet (2007) and Harrison (2007b). On the difficulty of knowing who is speaking at any point, see Ehlers (1990) 171– 81, Reckford (2009) 16– 25. On persona in Roman satire, see esp. the multiple studies by Braund. On satire 6, see esp. Hooley (1991), (1993) and (1997) 156– 74, and Rudd (2008). This is Persius’ only epistolary satire, and it is markedly different in tone from satires 1 through 5. As such, it has little to do with the major metaphorical subject areas with which this study is concerned. 17. On Persius’ reception of Horace, see especially Hooley (1997) passim, along with Hooley (1993) and (1984), Morford (1984) 97– 107; Rudd (1976), Faranda (1955) 522– 33, Henss (1955), Kenney (2012). On his “Imitationstechnik” in general, see Pasoli (1985) 1822– 28. For a related discussion of imitatio and intertextuality, see the appendix to Hooley (1997) 242– 67. 18. On Persius’ Stoicism, see Martin (1939), Anderson (1982), and the discussion with bibliography in Hooley (1997) 2– 3, with nn. 2– 4. Much ink has been spilled on the question of how “doctrinaire” Persius is; a good response would be to say that he resembles his fellow Roman Stoic, Seneca, in his emphasis on ethics, his use of metaphors and examples, and his negative treatment of the human body. He does not address fine points of Stoic doctrine in the Satires.

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tence shadows this body of work, as it does the Letters, and many scholars (and even scholiasts) have traced his presence in particular parts of the Satires— for example, in the rich and tasteless poetasters of satire 1, in the repressed comments about people with asses’ ears, or in the narcissistic Alcibiades of satire 4.19 Still, I have taken to heart the cautions of K. Freudenburg (2001, 45– 46) that to look too hard for Nero is to forget that the Satires are about us. Persius makes it clear that criticizing others rather than oneself represents a failure of self-knowledge on our own part: satire 4 puts on display just this kind of deferral, showing us one figure after another intent on ripping into someone else’s narcissism, sexuality, and avarice. Descend into yourself instead, is the satirist’s advice. In concentrating on Persius’ metaphors as its main topic, and in exploring how several central motifs in Persius’ oeuvre define his mission qua philosopher-satirist, this short book presents instead a series of case studies in specific semantic fields, especially the alimentary, the bodily, digestion, medicine, poison, male-male sexuality, and philosophy. The scope of these programmatic issues is broad enough that each of them has been noted and remarked upon by previous scholarship; none, however, has received sufficient credit for its programmatic pervasiveness in the Satires, nor has Persius’ originality in developing them as the framework of his literary project been recognized. These metaphors give shape to such topoi as literary reception as a form of cannibalism; the idea of a good poetics as having curative force for the insanity of the nonphilosopher; the idea of metaphor itself as a medicine that can be sweet and harmful, or unpleasant and salutary; the criticism of the Platonic philosophic model as based on pandering and desire. In the end, the body of Persius’ satires is driven by metaphor. It is metaphor that supplies the culinary framework for his aesthetic program; it is metaphor that suggests that reading the satires is a healing draught; it is even the use of metaphor that strips his poetry of the taint of pleasure by contravening the received wisdom on what metaphors do and what their purpose should be. It is through metaphors of pedagogic internalization that we see how we are to come to a more Stoic form of wisdom— or do we? In the final chapter of this study, I move away from these claims about the content of the metaphors and look, instead, for the points where the edifice of the Satires, if pressed, collapses upon itself. For it is my contention that such spots exist, and that their 19. For some examples of work discussing Nero as a subtext in, or influence on, the Satires, see Dintner (2012), Gowers (1994), Korfmacher (1938), Reckford (2009) 124– 26, Sullivan (1978), Witke (1984).

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existence is deliberate. If Persius has puzzled us by taking on a markedly corporeal world in a philosophical context that points to the nonsignificance of such a world, perhaps it is because he plans to leave us with a self-canceling collection of images that demand to be transcended in favor of something else. Letting us choose, he nonetheless offers up the possibility of reading the Satires in order to get to a place where we can dismiss bodies and boils, sweet pleasures and sex, earthly disease and death, and rejoin the Stoic view of the world from its famously detached Archimedean point.

Ch a p t e r On e

The Cannibal Poets

One of Persius’ most striking conceits is that of the poem made flesh. This idea does not merely recycle the synesthetic metaphor (common in antiquity, as in the present) of poetic taste, but links fleshiness to particular kinds of poetry— the styles and genres that Persius despises and that he sets in opposition to his own satiric verse. Nor is he content to let the metaphor stop here, but pushes it to an extreme by suggesting that consuming such “bad” poetry, like stuffing ourselves with too much heavy meat, will render us dyspeptic to the point of possible death. The starting point for this conceit is not an unfamiliar one, since it relies upon a cluster of prior literary traditions: the treatment of literary texts as bodies, the idea that good literature could be “nourishing,” and even the famous Horatian image of poetic words taken out of context as the “limbs of a dismembered poet” (Sat. 1.4.62). What Persius adds to the mix is the grotesque suggestion that reading bad poetry is akin to the worst and most savage kind of flesh-eating that can exist, cannibalism. If the path to this conclusion already lay open at the crossroads of the poem-as-food and the text-as-body, the idea of cannibalism remained up to his time all but untapped as the next step on the metaphorical road. Persius develops his motif from an innocuous starting point in Horace’s Ars poetica, whose injunctions on what is not decorous in poetry— precisely tales of human dismembering and consumption— he reworked to introduce a sharp contrast between his own “vegetarian” verse and his rivals’ disgusting and inappropriate fare. Like Horace, Persius is concerned to distinguish between low and high genres of poetry and their content; unlike Horace, he systematically uses meat eating and cannibalism to demarcate the difference between humble satire and the loftier genres. The metaphor is evocative on many levels: cannibalism was not only the most degraded form of meat eating (and a pos-

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sibility that lurked behind all consumption of animals, according to the reincarnation-preaching philosopher Pythagoras): the desire to engage in it was also Greek epic’s ultimate expression of murderous hate, while the fact of having engaged in it provided the tragic denouement of several Greek dramas. The metaphor thus provided Persius with a genreappropriate way of criticizing these literary forms in his own day while relying on cannibalism’s native shock value to disgust his readers and reinforce his point: that only his own satires, and not the high-falutin’ production of his peers, provided healthy foodstuff for consumption. And if poetry is food for men— whether they be vegetarian or carnivorous— then poetry can take on much of the metaphorical weight assigned to foodstuffs as a cultural element as well: it can work in a symbolic field that engages with the ethically charged ideas of greed, desire, sickness, self-control, health, and wisdom, all to make philosophical points about the value of poetry and its “consumption.” The analogy also provides Persius with a way to talk about poetic reception and poetic imitatio: do poets suffer from the anxiety of influence, as Harold Bloom would have it, or can they simply consume the prior tradition and eliminate parts of it as waste while producing an entirely new concoction?1 Can they (as Seneca and others would so nicely put it) flit from work to work, drawing sustenance from each one but blending them together in their poetic bellies to create something both derivative and new, like honey from nectar? If so, of course, poets had better be careful of what they take in, in the search for good raw materials: pollen is one thing, and pork is another— and now we have come full circle back to meat and its various gastric effects. Meanwhile, what Persius himself consumed above all seems to have been the work of his satiric predecessor, Horace, turning his well-known texts into a startlingly new body of satires with a very different message. And so, to trace Persius’ development of the elaborate sustaining metaphor of flesh-loving poets, we must return to his own sources for the figure, especially Horace’s famous Ars poetica. If this poem begins by evoking the comparison of bad poetry to paintings of badly formed bodies, its eventual foray into questions of propriety, pleasure, and poetic inspiration allow Persius to borrow from it widely while formulating his own content for an “art of poetry.” And while the Ars has little to say about 1. Aelian 13.22 claimed that “Galaton the painter drew Homer vomiting, and the rest of the Poets gathering it up.” If so, Galaton seems to have his digestive metaphors a bit askew: in the case of the ur-poet Homer, his poetry should not be represented by vomit, since he would not have had anything to “digest” himself.

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cannibalism, it says just enough that Persius can regurgitate his predecessor in an entirely new form.

1. The Ars poetica and the Body of Verse In their reception of Horace’s Ars poetica, Persius’ first and fifth satires re-evaluate one of the best-known texts of classical antiquity, a poem as well known as Persius’ own are obscure. Horace’s programmatic work functions as the main backdrop against which our satirist chooses to carve out his own programmatic path,2 and Persius’ statements about poetry— both his own verse and that of his peers— borrow deeply from this treatise, echoing its language and its concerns even while transforming and reversing several key Horatian themes.3 While Horace’s instructions for propriety in poetic composition purported to offer guidance to composers of the high genres of epic and tragedy, Persius reworks the Ars not to instruct other poets, but to condemn them, and to set himself up— like a new and irascible Horace— as the avatar of good taste. Accordingly, Persius does not offer us abstract rules in a witty guidebook, but counts on us to understand that his own verse constitutes the rebuttal to the deplorable poetry of his peers. In so doing, he selects and develops a set of analogies between poetry and bodies that he takes from Horace’s work, where they play a limited role. In Persius’ hands, however, they provide a jumping-off point for a new conceptualization of what a Roman satirist does and what his product represents. This transformation of Horace’s imagery and purpose demands, first of all, that we turn back to Horace himself and the literary motifs of the Ars poetica. The Ars poetica opens with a famous analogy between painting and poetry, a comparison already with long roots in Horace’s day (AP 1– 4):4 2. Fiske (1913) offers an exhaustive account of the echoes of Horace’s AP in Persius’ Satires. Hooley (1997) 26– 63 discusses the first satire as “the Ars Poetica of Persius,” and traces the contextual meaning of his intertexts from Horace in that satire; this develops ideas already present in Hooley (1984). 3. As Hooley (1997) 57 remarks of Persius’ treatment of the AP in satire 1, “So great has been Persius’ progressive divergence from the spirit of Horatian models in the AP that he and Horace are now at almost complete cross-purposes.” That is, Persius’ relationship with Horace is never just intertextual, but always agonistic; “Persius’ agon is with Horace . . . [yet] Persius does not announce his differences programmatically, but demonstrates them through radical deformation of his literary father-model (2007b, 89). 4. For commentary on these specific lines, see, Brink (1971) ad loc. Early comparisons of the poet and painter and of poetry with painting are to be found in Plato, Republic 10.605a and Aristotle, Poetics 1460b.25; cf. Dissoi logoi 3.10.

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Humano capiti ceruicem pictor equinam iungere si uelit et uarias inducere plumas undique collatis membris, ut turpiter atrum desinat in piscem mulier formosa superne, spectatum admissi, risum teneatis, amici? If a painter wanted to join a horse’s neck to a human head, and to draw multicolored plumage over a random collection of limbs, so that what was a gorgeous woman on top ended grossly in a black fish, could you stifle your laughter, friends, when let in to see?

These lines invite our mirthful reaction to an image that is most indecorous, one to be avoided at all costs: a hypothetical painting of a nonsensical and disunified body, a grotesquely chimeric creature that is bound to provoke ridicule in its viewers. But for all its ridiculousness, the image is in the service of an important point of doctrine, the linking of “art” and “unity”— which as Brink (1971, 78) notes, can be traced to Aristotle’s Poetics. The point that Horace will draw is that as in painting, so too in poetry we must consider unity and its relation to propriety. For the painting’s representation of a human head separated from its natural home and attached to a strange body serves as an analogy for the tasteless poem, a text whose parts (like those of the painting) are equally distanced from their correct and appropriate place (AP 5– 8): Credite, Pisones, isti tabulae fore librum persimilem, cuius, uelut aegri somnia, uanae fingentur species, ut nec pes nec caput uni reddatur formae. Believe me, Pisos, that very similar to such a painting would be a book in which meaningless images are fashioned, like the dreams of a sick man, so that neither the foot nor the head could be restored to a single body.

Horace thus characterizes the bad writer’s output as a badly jointed body whose form is so lacking poetic unity that its feet and heads cannot be attributed to a single shape. His focus on the abstract concept of the unity appropriate for composition and subject matter not only takes pride of place at the very opening to his poem, but finds expression in the concrete and negatively charged image of grossly repositioned hu-

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man and animal body parts, whether in a painting or in a fever-ridden dream. In their brief scope, these few lines already offer us a twist on two separate Platonic ideas in the Republic’s critique of poetry: the philosophical injunction against poikilia, or excessive variety, in verse,5 and the use of the visual arts as analogous to poetry (i.e., “ut pictura poesis,” which Horace brings in at AP 361).6 In Republic 10.605a, of course, the comparison of poetry to painting served to condemn both arts as illusory and at multiple removes from reality. But Horace is not concerned to develop the analogy, as Plato does, into a critique of the mimetic nature of the creative arts and of their capacity to deceive; instead, his injunction against inappropriate variety looks to the Platonic praise of the integral and well-assembled whole.7 Horace’s analogy, in short, brings together painting, poetry, and the human body to suggest that there is a correct and natural form for all three, one in which their internal elements follow a natural order and fall into the appropriate place. Horace’s target is not just any librum, for already here the missing head and feet of the sick man’s dream include a sly metapoetic reference that brings poetry and poetic meter into his critical purview. With the distorted limbs of the painting still in our mind’s eye, Horace’s comment on pes simultaneously calls up human feet and poetic “feet,” and we can read the misplaced pes of the bad poem, the foot without a home, as a metric foot missing or put in the wrong place: the poetic, pictorial, and living body continue to reference each other in these prescriptions.8 In fact the metric-foot / human-foot pun was not an obscure one in Roman poetry; Ovid, for example, later used the same figure to describe his transition from writing epic hexameters to amatory elegiac couplets. According 5. On the negative associations of poikilia in the Republic, see Moss (2007a). Elsewhere, however, Horace emphasizes the need for variatio, as at Sat. 1.10.11– 14. Contrast also Cicero De oratore 3.25.99, in which Cicero presses for contrast in both  poetry and prose, where excessive and unalleviated sweetness would be cloying. 6. On the history of this conceit, see Markiewicz and Gabara (1987). On its use in Horace, see esp. Laird (2007) and Trimpi (1978). Plutarch attributes the original version of the quotation to Simonides of Keos, De gloria Atheniensium 3.347a. 7. At Plat. Rep. 588c– 589a, the Chimaera, Scylla, or Cerberus— i.e., manifold beasts who combine several forms in one— function as the image of the unjust soul. For similar emphasis on unity, see, e.g., Plat. Phaed. 264c, Statesman 287c, and Cratylus 387a, discussed in Gini (1992) in reference to Hor. AP 291– 305 in particular. 8. Horace may even be going so far as to pun on Ennius’ self-conscious introduction of hexametric “pedes” when he opens the Annales with “Musae, quae pedibus magnum pulsatis Olympum.”

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to his claim in Amores 1.1, Cupid stole a foot from every other line of his would-be martial poem, thus forcing a change of genre to elegy— in effect, hobbling his martial hexameter march— and making short work of his grand ambitions (Amores 1.1.1– 4).9 In Horace, however, the missing foot of the poetic text leads to nothing so cleanly transitional as epic’s metamorphosis into the body of elegy. Instead, an aesthetics of inappropriate segmentation and misguided jointings sets the terms in which Horace describes the poetic counterpart to the tasteful composition. Strikingly, his opening gambit has twice rung the changes on dismemberment, both in the opening idea of membra put together (cf. iungere in AP 2) badly and in the subsequent image of a headless and footless body. Persius will pick up this Horatian metaphor, so closely identified with propriety and the Ars poetica, and develop it into the major programmatic theme of his own aesthetic program. Of course, in so doing, he is not only modifying the Horatian intertext but looking to earlier usages of the notion of the “body” of the text. This metaphor belonged to a well-worn classical tradition of comparing the integrity of a literary work with that of the bounded and organic human form.10 In what is possibly the earliest example of this comparison, Socrates in Plato’s Phaedrus compares the body of an oration to the organic whole of the human body, which needs to have all its parts in the right place (264c). The conceit endured down to Persius’ era and beyond; it was popular in Roman rhetorical handbooks, which used corpus, membra, articuli, and even sanguis to refer to the sections of an oration (cf. Rhet. Her. 4.58). By the late Roman republic and early empire, the figure had become pervasive in both rhetoric and poetic theory, recurring in Cicero, Ovid, Quintilian, and others.11 Features of the body could even be used as metaphors for style: Tacitus, for example, remarked that a beautiful oration, like a body, should not be marked by protruding veins and bones that can be counted (Dial. 21.8), and Persius himself repeatedly depicts 9. “Arma gravi numero violentaque bella parabam / edere, materia conveniente modis. / par erat inferior versus— risisse Cupido / dicitur atque unum surripuisse pedem.” On Ovid, see esp. Farrell (1999). Note that Horace describes satire as “the muse who goes on foot,” “a musa pedestris,” at Sat. 2.6.17, bringing the issue of feet into satire’s self-definition as well. 10. On the metaphor, see Fantham (1972) 164– 74 and Most (1992) 391– 419, both with extensive bibliography; also Farrell (1999) 131– 33; Keith (1999). On Rome herself as a body, see Gowers (1993) 12– 16. 11. Rhet. Her. 4.58, Cic. Tusc. 5.54, Brut. 64, De orat. 2.325, Quint. Inst. 12.10.10; also Plato Phaed. 264c. For the figure in the Atticist/Asianist controversy, see Keith (1999). Cicero uses critical metaphors based on “the scrawny and undeveloped physique” when talking of Stoics in particular; see Fantham (1972).

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the body of poetry as the blemished body of a human. In satire 1, for example, we meet in short succession both “the veiny book of Accius” (1.76) and “Pacuvius and his warty Antiope” (1.77– 79).12 Perhaps most famously, Horace himself in satire 1.4 remarks of his own and Lucilius’ linguistic register that if the meter and composition were taken away from their satires, there would be no sign that the text was in fact poetry; in the subsequent mass of verbiage, one would not find even the limbs of a dismembered poet, the disiecti membra poetae (Sat. 1.4.160– 63).13 As Kirk Freudenburg (1993, 148) has pointed out, the metaphor buried in the phrase is a deliberately violent one: “To dissolve the contexture of verse is to ‘butcher’ the poet” (perhaps itself not an unfamiliar notion, given the story of Orpheus’ dismemberment at the hands of angry maenads.)14 Already in Horace, then, the metaphor has been put to a new use. To do metaphorical violence to the human body within a tradition that analogizes text and body functions is to make a metapoetic claim about decorum, unity, and intertextuality in a way that leaves lingering, in the background, unsavory afterimages of metaphorically segmented human— even poets’— bodies. Persius’ specific use of the Ars poetica as his main referent relies on this Horatian innovation. In fact, the Ars poetica goes further than we have yet seen in developing the conceit, for Horace gestures toward a new direction for the metaphor by eventually turning to literal examples of human dismemberment, borrowed from the gruesome case histories of mythology. When later in the Ars he addresses the nature of subjects inappropriate to the comic stage, he returns to the idea of the dismembered body by citing its most famous mythological manifestation (AP 89– 92). Versibus exponi tragicis res comica non uult; indignatur item priuatis ac prope socco dignis carminibus narrari cena Thyestae. 12. Rimell (2002, 20) points out that Encolpius’ discussion of oratory is likewise strung with bodily metaphors of castration and bloatedness. 13. On this passage, see Freudenburg (1993) 145– 50. For punning on corpus as the poet’s own body, see also Ferriss-Hill (2012) 382– 85 and discussion below. 14. I here diverge from Freudenburg’s reading of these lines (1993, 146– 50) as representing the view of Horace’s critical opponents. Freudenburg reads them as being about the unimportance of word arrangement (which of course would be alien to Horace’s point of view), but Horace here seems to be concentrating on issues of high and low register; the reason Lucilius doesn’t sound like a poet when you take him apart is that he is not using Ennius’ lofty vocabulary.

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Comedy doesn’t want to be presented in tragic verses. Likewise, the feast of Thyestes is indignant at being told in domestic language nearly worthy of the comic slipper.

Thyestes’ feast involves not only the dismemberment of human bodies, but also their use as food.15 And the injunction against showing Thyestes’ “feast”— the consumption of his children, served up to him in a stew by his brother Atreus— is stressed when Horace returns to the story of the house of Pelops a hundred lines later. This tale, he says, is not only unsuited to the comic stage, it is unsuited to any stage, because, like other stories that involve human slaughter or human metamorphosis, it is inappropriate as public spectacle (AP 185– 87). Ne pueros coram populo Medea trucidet, aut humana palam coquat exta nefarius Atreus, aut in auem Procne uertatur, Cadmus in anguem. Medea should not slaughter her boys with people present, nor abominable Atreus cook human guts publicly, nor Procne be turned into a bird, Cadmus into a snake.

Medea, Atreus, Procne, and Cadmus together exemplify transitions from life to death, from human flesh to dinner meat, from person to animal. Horace has returned to the opening image of bodies undergoing strange metamorphoses— the human horse-bird-fish, the forms without heads and feet— but here the hybrid creature has changed from a metaphor for impropriety to the improper subject matter itself, and literal cannibalism has been introduced as that which the stage should not show. In AP 40 we find yet another version of this ban on anthropophagy when Horace reminds us that a play “should not extract a living child from the stomach of the ogress, Lamia, after she has dined” (“neu pransae Lamiae uiuum puerum extrahat aluo”).16 Since Lamia is a halfwoman half-serpent who eats other people’s children, she provides a particularly handy shorthand for all that is taboo in good poetry: human metamorphosis, hybridity, and cannibalism. The Ars poetica’s teachings on propriety, then, touch on several inter15. For an anthropological and religious approach to the Thyestes story, see Halm-Tisserant (1993) 89– 101. She argues that Greek myth figures the relationship between cannibalism and immortality as “la concomitance du statut existential et du régime alimentaire dans la logique antique” (12): gods/men/beasts are distinguished by what they eat. 16. On Lamia, see Schwenn, RE xii.544.35ff.

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related themes that span the literal and the metaphorical. Figuratively, Horace opens with misplaced and missing limbs in order to populate a repeated metaphor for what epic and tragic poetry should avoid: lack of unity, purple passages, the grotesque. On the literal level, he informs us that certain kinds of subject matter have no place in tragedy, especially those related to the mutilation or consumption of the human body.17 Finally, when he mentions characters such as Thyestes or Lamia, their consumption of human body parts sets up a suggestive but underplayed parallel with the mutilation and rearrangement of the poetic text. This parallel is strengthened via the Horatian intertext from satire 1.4, where Horace ties the body of poetry to the body of a (previously whole) human, so that it is hard to read of compositions lacking feet and heads (in the AP) or torn-apart poets (in Sat. 1.4) and not think, in turn, of Thyestes’ children themselves, mistakenly consumed by their father because Atreus cut off their feet and their heads to render them unrecognizable.18 Finally, this Thyestean hint is re-echoed in Horace’s satire 2.8, the socalled Feast of Nasidienus, in which the main course is a medley of disconnected joints of meat, the membra discerpta and avulsi armi of cranes and hares (Sat. 2.8.85– 91).19 As Emily Gowers (1994, 176– 77) suggests, there is something of the house of Atreus here too: “The elegant dish is transformed into a tragic sparagmos . . . . It becomes still more sinister when we remember that Nasidienus was described as cenae pater (7), and that when his dinner went wrong he wept ‘as though his son had died young’ (58– 9). These well-garnished but mutilated limbs reek of a Thyestean feast.” Still, the metaphor of the poet or his reader as also consumers of not-merely-textual bodies stays almost unvoiced in Horace even if his subject matter and his metaphors partake of the same realm of disfigurement and violence. I say almost because the Ars poetica ends with a hint in just such a direction: in the final lines of the poem, Horace introduces the mad poet, a man so desperate to recite his work that he fastens onto his victims like a blood-drinking leech. This image too Persius charges with new meaning, as we will see below. How strongly should Horace’s passing references to Thyestes and the dismembered body of the poet make us imagine, as readers, that reading bad poetry is like sitting down to Thyestes’ feast? It is worth noting that Atreus’ specific amputation of the children’s extremities is a topos that 17. As Aristotle had already opined in the Poetics 14: to accomplish pity and fear by mere spectacle, such as in the case of Oedipus, is less artistic and risks being monstrous. 18. As Gowers (1993) 177 in fact does think. 19. On culinary metaphors and culinary topoi in Horace’s satires, Gowers (1993) 126– 79.

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may have been so characteristic of poetic treatments of his crime that the missing feet and hands functioned, as it were, as a shortcut for the atrocity, so that to talk about the missing “feet” of poetry brings together the poetic body and the human body in an uncomfortable combination for the readerly consumer. The motif is at least as old as Aeschylus’ Agamemnon (1590– 95), where passing reference is made to Atreus’ removal of the children’s feet and hands. Although much of what was written about Atreus in this period is no longer extant, Matthew Leigh (1996) has suggested that the story was a popular choice for dramaturgy in the late republic and early empire, and provided veiled critique of various forms of tyrannical excess. A version by L. Varius Rufus was performed in 29 BCE at the ludi celebrating Octavian’s triumph over Cleopatra and Marc Antony, for example, and it seems all but certain that the tyrannical Atreus, no master of his appetites, was meant to recall Antony himself, whose deranged appetites gave Cicero much ammunition for cannibal metaphors in the Philippics (cf. Phil. 2.7, 2.59 on Antony “drinking deep” the blood of citizens. The trope was also used of Sulla, another bloodthirsty tyrant).20 It is suggestive— as Leigh points out— that Antony’s taste for butchery was supposedly so viciously perverse that he enjoyed identifying the hands and faces of men proscribed and killed at his orders above all while he was feasting (“cum inter apparatissimas epulas luxusque regales ora ac manus proscriptorum recognosceret,” Sen. Ep. 83.25). The Atrean echo here lends support to the notion that such plays could function as implicit criticism of Antony’s character and actions.21 As Kirk Freudenburg points out, Antony’s violent response to Cicero’s Philippics shared in these same tropes: he not only had Cicero murdered, but arranged for his “grotesque dismemberment and display,” cutting off his offending parts (his hands and head) to sate his rage.22 Interestingly enough, one of the guests at Nasidienus’ feast, in Horace’s satire 2.8, is none other than this same L. Varius, the tragedian of the Thyestes, whose presence at that culinary sparagmos suggests that that the author was in fact indelibly associated with culinary dismemberment. Unfortunately Varius’ Thyestes is lost, and we have no way of telling if Horace’s attention to feet and hands was mediated by other authors before being picked up by Persius and Seneca in the mid-first cen20. Antony, of course, cut off Cicero’s head and hands and exhibited them on the rostra (Plutarch Cicero 49.1– 2). For the tyrant as cannibal, see, e.g., Herod. 1.119, 3.25, Plato Rep. 565d– e, 571d, Sall. Cat. 22. 21. On the Thyestes as politically charged drama, see also Tac. Dialogus de oratoribus 3 and Bartsch (1994) 98– 147. 22. K. Freudenburg in his comments on the ms. for the University of Chicago Press; he also notes the presence of Varius at Nasidienus’ table, below.

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tury CE.23 Accordingly, we cannot tell how strongly Horace’s references to these body parts in the AP are meant to make us think of Thyestes’ dinner in particular. That the hands-feet-head topos was closely tied to this act of cannibalism by Persius’ own time is, however, supported by Persius’ contemporary Seneca in his tragedy Thyestes.24 As the messenger relates to the shocked chorus, in preparing the meal Atreus “keeps back only the heads, the hands once pledged in faith” (“tantum ora seruat et datas fidei manus,” 764). Atreus then has some postprandial fun by putting on display the parts he did not cook, while Thyestes bitterly laments that “I see / their sawn-off heads, the hands he ripped away, / the feet he tore from broken shins” (“abscisa cerno capita et avulsas manus / et rupta fractis cruribus uestigia,” 1038– 39). Atreus (unlike Antony?) is however unsatisfied, realizing that even this recognition scene is not the maximally cruel possibility: Thyestes ate his children without knowing what he was doing while he was doing it (1067– 68). Thyestes, for his part, deeply feels the indigestion that cannibalism brings in its wake, for having stuffed himself with his children he is overwhelmed by the tumult in his intestines and the noises from his innards (999– 1001) even before knowing what has been wrong with the menu. Cannibalism, dismemberment, indigestion: these unattractive elements of the Thyestes story, perversely connected to a metapoetic theme made possible by the old metaphor of the text as body and mediated through glancing hints in Horace, are the topics that Persius will dwell upon in his own treatment of the poetic text. But he will use them specifically as a reflection on contemporary literary culture, in which well-off but tasteless poets stuff their audiences with both banquets and bad poetry, and in which the ethical and philosophical effect of the latter must run in parallel to the physical cruditas caused by the former.

2. Consuming the Poets If Persius shares the dramatists’ and Horace’s fascination with Thyestes’ unspeakable meal,25 for him it is the metapoetic component rather than the question of stageability that is to the fore. Like Horace, Persius wishes to demarcate, in his programmatic satires, what is proper for tragic and epic poets; also like Horace, Persius uses a particular group 23. Ovid’s tale of Philomela (Met. 6.424– 674) has Itys’ decapitated head thrown in front of his father Tereus— but no hands and feet. 24. Giordano Rampioni (1983) has argued for Seneca’s influence on Persius in these lines. 25. For an approach to ancient myths of cannibalism, see Halm-Tisserant (1993), with discussion of Thyestes and the sacrificial elements of the story at 89– 101.

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of metaphors to convey his program, especially metaphors of the body and its dismemberment. But Persius’ goal, unlike that of the Ars poetica, is not to put these metaphors to use to prescribe a good poetics but to tear to pieces the extant poetry of his peers. And while the influence of Horace’s poetic program is visible in the first satire as well (on which more anon),26 it is in the fifth that Persius pointedly turns to the Ars poetica’s treatment of decorum, mutilated bodies, and the tragic theater in order to critique the poetasters of his day and set up his own poetic project in opposition to theirs. Taking up Horace’s injunction on the indecorous “body” of bad poetry, Persius too critiques the subject matter of contemporary poetry. Here, however, the similarities end, for Persius happily uses hints of cannibalism in spite of the Horatian concern with propriety, and does to attach a violent taboo to the excesses of style, composition, and subject matter in which his fellow poets engage.27 For Horace, a bad poem was like a painting of a badly jointed body; in Persius’ metapoetic world, this body has come apart at the seams, and the consumption of its vile limbs now functions as the master metaphor for what it means to read poetry.28 It is a metaphor that works because the available prehistory of the body-of-poetry metaphor, because (as we will see) reading and digesting were figured as analogical activities, and because he can rely on this metaphorical language to express, in the most rebarbative way possible, what an exposure to bad verse does to one’s health. Reading bad poetry, it will emerge, is not merely a revelations of stylistic bad taste; it is akin to the consumption of sickeningly meaty dishes. And by the end of this process, Persius has assimilated his own poetry, in contrast, to a nonfleshy, noncannibalistic, healthy edibility that we will be all too happy to consume as the antidote or pharmakon to what we have already read. Persius’ fifth satire starts with a scornful description of the opening gambit of epic and tragic poets alike (Sat. 5.1– 4): Vatibus hic mos est, centum sibi poscere uoces, centum ora et linguas optare in carmina centum, fabula seu maesto ponatur hianda tragoedo, uolnera seu Parthi ducentis ab inguine ferrum. 26. For the relationship between Pers. Sat. 1 and the Ars poetica, see Hooley (1997) 26– 63. 27. On the common Roman notion of “style is the man” in satire 1, see the extended discussions in Korzeniewski (1970) 348– 438 and Bramble (1970) 16– 25. 28. As Dessen (1996) 32 already perceived, “The dominant metaphor in this Satire equates the poets literally and physically with the poems they write.”

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This is the way of bards: to demand a hundred voices for themselves, and a hundred mouths, and to want a hundred tongues for their poetry, whether a drama served up for a glum tragedian to gape forth, or the wounds of a Parthian pulling the sword from his groin.

As the charged word vates immediately makes clear, the topic is not Persius’ own satirical production, but the high genres that are the subject of Horatian concern in the Ars poetica.29 While tragedy is the referent in line 3, the need for a hundred mouths to tell a grand story points directly to epic: Homer at Iliad 2.489 says that ten mouths would not suffice to tell of the catalogue of ships without the Muse’s help, Ennius borrows the ten mouths, and by the time the figure has been taken up by Vergil and Ovid it has expanded to ten times the original ten.30 Persius simply takes the farcical next step up in grandiosity, requiring threefold hundreds (mouths, voices, and tongues) for his proposed project, whether it is to be tragic or epic.31 Of course, our satirist does not actually plunge into either genre. As if the traditional recusatio of the poet to engage in high genres had been ceded to the intervention of an interlocutor instead, an anonymous voice soon interrupts to tell the satirist he had better try something else (Sat. 5.5– 13, 17– 18):32 “Quorsum haec? aut quantas robusti carminis offas ingeris, ut par sit centeno gutture niti? grande locuturi nebulas Helicone legunto, si quibus aut Procnes aut si quibus olla Thyestae feruebit saepe insulso cenanda Glyconi. tu neque anhelanti, coquitur dum massa camino, folle premis uentos nec clauso murmure raucus 29. For the epic topos of the wounded Parthian falling from his horse, see Hor. Sat. 2.1.15; for the wound in the groin, see Verg. Aen. 10.486. 30. For the epic antecedents: Enn. Ann. 469– 70 Skutsch (= schol. G. 2.43) with 10 mouths; Hostius apud Macrob. Saturnalia 6.3.6 with 100 mouths; likewise Verg. Georg. 2.43– 44 and Aen. 6.625 (where the sibyl is speaking); Ovid Met. 8.533. On the history of the cliché, see Gowers (2005). On Persius’ “rehabilitation” of the trope later in the satire when he speaks of Cornutus, see Hooley (1997) 67– 70 followed by 77– 78. 31. There may have been satiric precedent too: either Lucretius or less likely, Lucilius, apparently needed a hundred tongues and mouths with a brazen voice to tell his story. Cf. Serv. Ad G. 2.42. 32. The clearest identity for this figure is Cornutus, who speaks later in the satire; but see Kissel (1990) ad loc.

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nescio quid tecum graue cornicaris inepte nec scloppo tumidas intendis rumpere buccas. . . . mensasque relinque Mycenis cum capite et pedibus plebeiaque prandia noris.” “Where to with this stuff? How many gobbets of sturdy song are you serving to be worthy of the effort of a hundredfold throat? Let those who want to speak grandly gather clouds on Helicon, if Procne’s pot or Thyestes” will be a-bubble for anyone, a meal be dined on often by tasteless Glycon. Don’t compress the air with a gasping bellows while your lump cooks on the hearth, nor, hoarse, with a constricted murmur, squawk some pompous nonsense to yourself, nor strain to burst your puffed-up cheeks with a POP . . . Leave behind the feasts of Mycenae, heads, feet, and all, and learn plebian meals.”33

Persius is told not to try for the hundredfold vocal apparatus of the epic poets. Nor should he emulate the gaping of the stage actor, whose widestretched mouth must struggle to accommodate the high style of tragic utterance, the fabula . . . hianda tragoedo of satire 5.3. So too Horace in the Ars poetica (138– 39) had mocked the affected straining of the cyclic poet, whose gaping hiatus merely produced a mouse: “What will this boaster produce that’s worthy of this gaping? The mountains will go into labor, a ridiculous mouse will be born.” In Persius, however, we are dealing not just with a straining or hiatus; we are firmly put in the realm of the digestive. Persius is told not to try for a hundred throats, not mouths, and high poetry consists of “gobbets” or lumps of food being swallowed or vomited up; as Gowers (2005, 173) well notes, “Persius, after saying nothing more can be done with the expression, twists it by putting it into the service of ‘alimentary’ satire, picturing the hundred mouths and tongues as digestive rather than vocal organs, which irreverently regurgitate ‘gobbets’ (offas) of tragic poetry.”34 The same observation holds for his interlocutor’s mention of 33. The shared imagery of the gaping mouth is already pointed out by Fiske (1913) 28. Note that Seneca’s Thyestes is also described as eating a (cannibalistic) meal that is “ingestum,” Thy. 282, like the “offas ingeris” of Pers. Sat. 5.5– 6. 34. On these lines, see also Bramble (1974) 55– 56, Connor (1987) 64. Cf. Hooley (1997) 68– 80 on Persius’ use of the metaphor to describe the multiplicity of voices in his satires. As the verb dine suggests, it is not only a regurgitive metaphor, but also one of consumption.

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the two best-known stewpots (thus the colloquial term olla) of mythology, those of Procne (containing her son Itys) and of Thyestes (likewise containing his children), which are to be “served” to one Glycon (“Sweetie”), whom the scholiast identifies with a slave and tragic actor who was manumitted by Nero. Because the children in their pots are made to stand in metonymically for the poetry that is about them, satire 5 now takes its first steps toward the notion that the actor who recites the lines is involved in a form of metaphorical cannibalism.35 Consequently, the unfortunate Glycon who “eats” the verse he simultaneously pronounces is caught up in a confusing conflation of two digestive directionalities (swallowing down/vomiting up) that aims precisely at suggesting that poetry is not only a “body,” but flesh, and can be consumed by those who have a taste for it.36 The tragic figures Persius picks out as typical of bad epic poets also offer an explicit echo of the content of the Ars poetica. Thyestes and Procne, as we have seen, are Horace’s stand-ins for what one does not show on stage, and the reappearance of the amputated hands and feet as part of the Thyestean meal inappropriate for a satirist inevitably points back to the “body” of poetry, its misplaced feet, and its mutilation and reassembly by the painter-poet of the Ars poetica’s first lines. While Persius’ own fare, his interlocutor tells him, should consist of simple meals— ones that do not contain hands and feet— the stewpots of Procne and Thyestes ensure that what the tragic poet serves up to Glycon is nothing other than a cannibalistic meal of body parts, later to be supplemented by a gleeful display of the kept-back hands and feet. Accordingly, if Horace gestured toward onstage cannibalism as an example of bad tragic practices, Persius seizes upon the consumption of human flesh as a metaphor for what is wrong with the versifiers of his day even as he repeats the Horatian condemnation of the literal staging of such proceedings. The vehicles for this analogy— flesh, pots, throats, eating— create a vivid if polyvalent picture in which poetry can be vomited or swallowed, in which the poet can be the cook or the speaker, in which poet and actor 35. Gowers (1993) 187 remarks: “[Persius’] use of the phrase olla Thyestae . . . seems to be specifically flouting Horace’s dictum in the Ars Poetica that tragic feasts should never be described in common language.” 36. In the Greek tradition, gluttony and cannibalism are most associated with the attacks launched by poetic invective: as Steiner notes (2002) 301, “Those who engage in abuse and blame poetry within epic and lyric texts are repeatedly portrayed not just as eating, but as devouring their food in a particularly animalistic and/or cannibalistic fashion.” See further Nagy (1979) 225– 27. On the ties between the belly and rhetoric in Euripides, see Worman (2002).

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are both implicated in the cannibalistic quality of the feast they portray on stage, and in which, above all, the central metaphor is that of a literary tradition that is represented as a consumable human body.37 This notion of epic and tragic poets as cannibals consuming the poetic “body” of the mythological topics bequeathed to them is powerful on several levels. For one, in using this language and these images, Persius adopts but transforms an extant but still uncommon metaphor for intertextuality: that is, not the borrowing, nor the inheritance, of a prior literary tradition, but its consumption by would-be imitators.38 The trope is obviously related to the idea of the text as body that we have explored above. It is also, however, a development of the separate but related ancient treatment of literature as food. As Emily Gowers has shown, this notion had a long pedigree in antiquity; its corollaries are the idea of the writer as cook or caterer and the literary text as having a stylistic “taste,” as well as the representation of reading itself as a form of literary or educational nourishment.39 There is even an ancient trope that new plays put together morsels from previous texts: “Aeschylus is reputed to have termed his plays ‘slices (or steaks) from the banquet of Homer.’ And one anonymous ‘recipe’ for a good tragedy (or comedy?) calls for ‘a pinch of Sophocles, a pinch of Aeschylus, a whole Euripides, with salt added.’”40 Plautus in particular is fond of the metapoetic conceit of the plot within the comic plot as a product of cookery, while the beginning of Petronius’ picaresque Satyricon features the ne’er-do-well Encolpius comparing declamation to an emasculating foodstuff, honeyed and sprinkled with sesame.41 This is not unlike Horace’s earlier description of a grand 37. For similar metaphors throughout Petronius’ Satyricon, see Rimell’s provocative 2002 study and the discussion below. 38. The claim of the Vita that Persius died of a stomach ailment must by now seem suspiciously apropos. A fiction derived from the satirist’s obsession with indigestion? 39. On the text as food in antiquity, see Gowers (1993) 40– 46, 180– 88 and Ferriss-Hill (2012); on satire as food in Persius in particular, Bramble (1974) 45– 59; Gowers (1993) 180– 188; Keane (2012) 87– 90. Steiner (2002) traces out the relation between decorous eating and decorous speaking in Pindar and other Greek poets. 40. Gowers (1993) 83, citing Ath. 8.347e and Com. adesp. 12a Demiańczuk. She also notes Aelian 13.22 on the vomit of Homer being “consumed” by other poets. See also Bramble (1974) for a list of stylistic metaphors that include foodstuffs. 41. “Mellitos verborum globulos, et omnia dicta factaque quasi papavere et sesamo sparsa.” For a comparison of this passage to Persius’ first satire, see Dessen (1996) 24– 25. On the text as food in Petronius, see especially Rimell (2002) 9– 17, 20– 28; on the human body as food, Rimell (2002) 53– 59. As she says of the zodiac dish in Sat. 35, it “suggests not only that we are what we eat but also, more graphically, that the guests are about to eat themselves” (53). Here she suggests that this trope has to do with the effeminization of the consumer.

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poem with flaws as a feast where unnecessary additions give offence (AP 374– 76): ut gratas inter mensas symphonia discors et crassum unguentum et Sardo cum melle papaver offendunt, poterat duci quia cena sine istis. just as, during a pleasant meal, a discordant orchestra and thick unguent and poppy seeds with Sardinian honey give offence, because the meal could have served without them.

In Persius’ Satires, however, bad poetry is not only consumed to the detriment of those who eat/hear it. It is also to the detriment of the poet himself, whose own body will finally be as food. That is, if poems can be bodies and literature can be food, the unholy conflation of these metaphors results in the consumption of truly fleshy, nonpoetic bodies as well. Persius’ play with this tradition will thus present the poet or tragic reciter as one who not only “consumes” the texts of his predecessors, but does so as a cannibal. The metaphor is cashed out in two ways; not only does the bad poet eat the bodies in the poetic text, he also consumes the bodies of prior poets/reciters themselves. By thus adopting and combining two related literary motifs (poems as bodies, literature as food), Persius has introduced into his satire a metaphor that deals with the most vile of human taboos— specifically in order to criticize the dramas of his day. And as one might imagine, this metaphor (or should we say meataphor?) of eating the poet (rather than eating texts) had a far more tenuous backstory in antiquity. We can summon up some approximations to the idea— for example, Pindar’s first Olympian, in which the poet announces that he is rejecting the tasteless myth handed down about Pelops, that his father Tantalus cooked him and fed him to the gods.42 In Pindar’s version, digestion creeps back into the story even where banned: the poet tells us that Tantalus, even if he did not cook up his son, met with divine disfavor because he could not “digest” (katapepsai) his good fortune.43 Perhaps closer to home, Persius characterizes his own predeces42. Pindar Ol. 1.35– 64. On the relationship of the alimentary and the poetic in this ode, see Steiner (2002). As she remarks, “Quite literally ‘standing off’ from the charge of gastrimargon at line 52, Pindar reminds his audience that such a characterization has no place in his verbal register” (302). 43. The Greek verb καταπέψαι is surely no accident in this context. For credibility as an issue in cannibal tales, cf. Juv. Sat. 15.14– 26, where the satiric persona scoffs at Ulysses’ tale of the cannibal Cyclops and then goes on to narrate his own tale of cannibalism.

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sor, the satirist Lucilius, as having “broken his molars” on the political enemies of his patron Scipio, Lupus and Mucius (Sat. 1.114– 16)— although this is not an attack on the poetic tradition and prior poets.44 Ultimately it is Persius’ contemporary Petronius, himself writing a form of satire, who offers the only close parallel.45 The Satyricon, as Victoria Rimell has shown, shares Persius’ fixation on the notion of the text as food and, as a corollary, the text’s various effects on the human body. In the Cena Trimalchionis especially,46 but also in other parts of the novel, such as the recitation scene with which it opens, literature is presented as not only culinary in nature but also (like food) having the potential to enter bodies, since the reciter’s “bait” is his speech his audience “swallows.” As Rimell points out, these metaphors “can easily transform into a complicated vicious circle in which . . . it is very difficult to distinguish between the roles of fisherman and fish, teacher and pupil, orator and audience” (2002, 23). The famous scene at Croton (Sat. 141), in which the poet Eumolpus literally asks his would-be heirs to consume his dead body, takes the metaphor to its extreme in melding the poet’s corpus with his literary output. In Petronius, this confusion between the culinary and the literary ultimately engages— Rimell argues— with questions of identity; it serves to undermine the boundedness of any of its protagonists, raising questions about the relationship between poet and poetry. As she puts it, “Repeated visions of the consumption and ejection of literature evoke intellectual and bodily self-consciousness by dramatizing a breakdown of the integral self, and an inversion or confusion of the distinctions between interiors and exteriors which constitute that self ” (2002, 10). Persius’ imagery is similar, but ultimately his usage of the metaphor seems to point to a different emphasis: in his work, cannibalistic consumption metaphors are put to work above all in order to draw a sharp line between good forms of literature and bad. As we have seen, the metaphor characterizes his response to the contemporary reception of the epic and tragic traditions in particular. Why these genres, we might ask? 44. Thus changing Horace’s metaphor, in which Lucilius “sale multo / urbem defricuit,” Sat. 1.10.2– 3. Kissel (1990) ad loc. suggests that not only genuinem fregit but even secuit (“cut”) refers in Persius to the action of the incisor teeth. 45. See Rimell (2002) 18– 23 for interesting observations about Eumolpus’ actual poetry in the Satyricon. She argues that (17) “The Troaie Halosis is performed as a physically threatening outburst of ‘diseased’ poetry from Eumolpus’ belly, set in direct parallel to the exit of the Greek soldiers from the horse, and to the similarly fake guts spilling out from Daedalus’ roast pig.” 46. “In the Cena especially, a dramatic awareness and confusion of what eats and what in turn gets eaten is manifested in a vacillating characterization of humans as animals, animals as human” (2002, 49).

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As it happens, they are not innocent of cannibalistic content themselves. On the side of tragedy, we have the mythological topics we have already considered; on the side of epic, stimulus might come from the Iliad’s several expressions of desire for omophagy. Achilles expresses his rage by his famous wish to eat Hector raw in Iliad 22.346– 47,47 and Hera too is scolded by Zeus for pushing her wrath against the Trojans so far that it seems she will be satisfied with nothing other than consuming Priam, his sons, and all the Trojans raw (Il. 4.35– 36). Even Hecuba voices a desire to eat Achilles’ liver in return for the sons of hers he has murdered (Il. 24.212). Achilles in fact ends his speech by saying he will throw Hector to the dogs and birds for their feasting, recalling the first lines of the epic in which the poet laments the bodies thrown to these prey, and thus softening his own cannibalistic threat. If these links to epic cannibalism seem obscure, nonetheless Persius has but to mention a contemporary epic poet, Attius Labeo, and his scholiast fastens upon— and quotes— a line in which that poet has introduced cannibalism. We first meet Attius Labeo in satire 1 as an example of a poet for whose judgment Persius cares not a whit; we know little about him other than the fact that he translated both the Iliad and the Odyssey into Latin and earned at least Persius’ scorn for the quality of his verse. In his comment on the line in which Persius mentions Attius (Sat. 1.50), the scholiast cites as an example of Labeo’s “crude” (which also means “undigested”) style a single line of his Latin Iliad, “crudum manduces Priamum Priamique pisinnos,” “You would munch on Priam raw, and Priam’s little ones.” Of all the lines of Attius to choose from, it seems the scholiast is most interested in the one in which Labeo translates Hera’s omophagic wish from Iliad 4.35– 36: “ὠμòν ßεßρώΘοις Πρίαμον Πριάμοιó τε παîδας” (“you’d eat Priam, and Priam’s children, raw,” Iliad 4.35).48 This line combines in itself the two traits Persius refuses to allow in his own verse, highfalutin mythological material and the cannibalistic incorporation of the other. The scholiast, in other words, sees Persius’ rejection of Attius Labeo’s poetry in these lines at the beginning of satire 1 as being based on exactly those criteria Persius himself has raised.49 47. On Achilles’ anthropophagic rage, see Buchan (2001). For a brief discussion of cannibalism in epic, see Braund and Gilbert (2003) 275– 80. 48. Achilles’ choice— birds and beasts rather than cannibalism— mirrors Seneca’s depiction of Thyestes’ plight in reverse; learning that his children are dead, he asks: “Utrumne saeuis pabulum alitibus iacent, / an beluis seruantur, an pascunt feras?” (1036– 37) before being told he himself has eaten them. 49. Compare the similar play of ideas in Petronius, where the bad poet Eumolpus asks his potential heirs to eat his corpse, Sat. 141, with Rimell (2002) 166– 69.

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There are in fact deep-seated connections between Homeric epic and meat that come into view if we move from cannibals to carnivores more generally. As Egbert Bakker has shown, the ritual feasting of epic heroes after battle and the distribution of meat to warriors according to their merit also works as a metapoetic device that reflects the concerns of epic itself. On the one hand, the ritualized division meal, the dais, and its connection to the verb daiein “highlights the feast as a moment of distribution in which aristocratic bond and balances are created or confirmed by means of the division of the slaughtered animal” (2013, 38). Meat and kleos are the compensation for bravery in battle, as Plato himself noted (Rep. 404b– c, cf. Il. 12.310– 21; Bakker 2013, 36– 37). On the other hand, the Odyssey repeatedly evokes the heroic meat-eating of the Iliad’s feasts in order to reflect on Odysseus’ status as hero, reminding us of the Iliadic subtext when, for example, the swineherd Eumaios honors the visiting beggar (Odysseus in disguise) by giving him slices from the chine of the boar (Od. 14.137– 38). Perversions of correct feasting and meat distribution represent the failure of epic values, as the fates of the suitors and of Odysseus’ companions shows. The suitors’ crime is that they “ate up” Odysseus’ life/livelihood (biotos), a phrasing which Bakker characterizes as almost cannibalistic (2013, 45); Odysseus pays them back in kind, apparently, since after he has killed them he is compared to a lion who has slaughtered and consumed a bull, covered in blood (Od. 22.401– 6). In short, for Persius to condemn meaty poetry— and especially epic cannibalism— is to condemn a genre closely associated with heroic feasting and in which cannibalism itself is used to categorize epic heroism gone awry. Let us turn now from satire 5 to satire 1 to see how Persius’ examples of literary cannibalism lead here to a related topic, that is, the result of such a diet for those who indulge in it. Satire 1, even more so than satire 5, represents the substance of Persius’ programmatic claims and his critique of contemporary poetry. As with satire 5, it offers us a sustained metaphorical framework based on the notion that poetry, like food, is consumable, sometimes unhealthily so. And finally, satire 1 introduces us to the idea of indigestion as the outcome of both producing and hearing/ eating verse that is reprehensible in style and content. Given that Persius returns to the cannibalistic hints of satire 5 in his description here of the meal served up by the poet-host to his audience, cannibalism and indigestion become— reasonably enough— linked, an association which will pick up further semantic weight once we turn to some of the basic features of ancient medical beliefs about the digestive process. The targeted individuals of satire 1 have the same inclinations as those

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of satire 5; among them are admirers of the tragedian Pacuvius and his Antiope, readers of the epic Iliad of Attius Labeo, and also poetasters fond of such mythological topics as the emasculated Attis or the ecstatic Bacchants; the latter now produce “wee elegies” even though they were until recently easily identifiable as mere hacks (Sat. 1.50– 51). Everything is to be found is this smorgasbord praised by its audience but disdained by Persius: Sed recti finemque extremumque esse recuso “euge” tuum et “belle.” nam “belle” hoc excute totum: quid non intus habet? non hic est Ilias Atti ebria ueratro? non siqua elegidia crudi dictarunt proceres? non quidquid denique lectis scribitur in citreis? (Sat. 1.48– 53) I refuse to make your “bravo” and “nicely done!” the final arbiter of what’s right. For shake out this entire “nicely done”: what doesn’t it contain? Isn’t Attius’ Iliad here, drunk on hellebore? Aren’t the wee elegies dictated by our dyspeptic leading men? Isn’t there, lastly, whatever is composed on citrus-wood couches?

When Persius mocks these poems, he invites us to see all the garbage they contain— like the poetry of Attius Labeo. As ever, the Ars poetica lurks in the background, since Horace’s description of the poetic tradition in that poem (1.73ff.) starts with Homer, goes on to iambic and lyric, and then turns to “little elegies” (“exiguos elegos,” 1.77) and drama. As part of the received tradition that Persius condemns, these elegidia, with their neoteric connotations, are just another example of the corrupted output of bad poets.50 Persius also, somewhat surprisingly at first, labels the writers of elegidia as themselves crudi, or dyspeptic, repeating the digestive underpinnings of his language about epic and tragedy in satire 5 and extending this language to a third genre. Persius’ pun on the word crudus that we just encountered with Labius plays up the associations between reception and consumption; it also links reception and indigestion, since the term can variously mean raw, causing indigestion, or having indigestion. Although the scholiast’s citation from the poetry of At50. On epic in Sat. 1, see further Sullivan (1985) 92– 114 and Freudenburg (2001) 151– 58. We will discuss the several verses quoted as examples in satire 1 and their cloying features in chapter 4.

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tius Labeo used the word in the sense of raw, translating the Greek ὠμòς, in the body of the satire (perhaps the scholiast was thinking ahead?) crudi is used of the outcome of “consuming” too much lofty verse.51 Satire 1 is not content to condemn the dyspeptic reciters of their poetry; it also damns the whole economy of poetic appreciation, a system in which the poet-host feeds his audience both literally and metaphorically in return for their praise and appreciation.52 The main theme here is that poetry provides succulent foodstuff for those who hear it— the richer and more varied the poetry, the more succulent the foodstuff.53 “Do you ask,” Persius says, “when even children are imbued with poetry like the Antiope of Pacuvius, how it is that this sautéing pan of speech has come into our mouths?” (Sat. 1.79– 81). Tidbits from the frying pan of speech, an unholy mixture of bad meats— this is satire 1’s complement, as it were, to the olla Thyestes of satire 5. The result of these morsels goes beyond the sautéing pan in one’s mouth, wrecking the entire economy of critical praise and blame on which the poet must rely for unbiased opinions of his work. For as Persius points out, because the poet has craftily supplied a rich meal to his audience beforehand, there is no truth-telling to be had when he asks for critical feedback (Sat. 1.53– 57): Calidum scis ponere sumen, scis comitem horridulum trita donare lacerna, et “uerum,” inquis “amo, uerum mihi dicite de me.” qui pote? uis dicam? nugaris, cum tibi, calue, pinguis aqualiculus propenso sesquipede extet. You know how to put on a hot sow’s paunch, you know how to present a shivering retainer with a worn-out cloak, and then you say “I love the truth; tell me the truth about myself.” Who could? You want me to tell you? You’re a trifler, baldy, since your fat pig-belly sticks out a drooping foot and a half.54 51. Passarella (2010) 279: “As an obvious counterpart to the idea of digestion involving cooking there is the idea of indigestion being characterized by the raw, the ‘uncooked’ crudus/cruditas . . . . Both the substantive cruditas and the adjective crudus are frequent in Celsus and the Elder Pliny and beyond.” 52. Roller (2012) 292 points out that the patron is trying to cash out his socioeconomic superiority for improved status as a poet. 53. On rich food as on object of moral and aesthetic disgust in Persius, see especially Bramble (1974) 46– 47, 54– 56, 111– 12, 114– 15. 54. For further Horatian parallels to elements of this passage, see Conington (1874) ad loc. and Kissel (1990) ad loc.

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Only Persius, it seems, is willing to tell it like it is. Horace too had views on the easily corruptible exchange between host and audience. The Ars poetica linked food, money, and patronage quite generally to the presence of false friends; when poetry and praise come in, the caveat is that one should not ask for an honest opinion of one’s writing after having given a gift to the listener (AP 422– 30):55 Si uero est unctum qui recte ponere possit et spondere leui pro paupere et eripere atris litibus implicitum, mirabor si sciet inter noscere mendacem uerumque beatus amicum. Tu seu donaris seu quid donare uoles cui, nolito ad uersus tibi factos ducere plenum laetitiae; clamabit enim: “Pulchre, bene, recte,” pallescet super his, etiam stillabit amicis ex oculis rorem. If he’s the sort who can serve up a rich dinner well, and provide surety for an irresponsible pauper, and save a man tied up in gloomy litigation, I’ll be surprised if the lucky fellow knows how to tell between a liar and a true friend. You too, if you’ve given or intend to give a gift To someone, don’t take him to verse you’ve written while he’s full of happiness: he’ll cry: “Beautiful, good, well done!” and grow pale over them, and he’ll even drip some dew from his loving eyes.

In Persius, however, it is rich food that provides the bribe; in this satire where food and poetry are literally served up side by side, and where poetry itself is characterized as tasty “tidbits” or “bait” (escas, 1.22),56 there 55. On the relationship between Persius and Horace on the topic of praise, see Hooley (1997) 46– 49. As he points out, a specific case in Horace becomes the norm in Persius: “‘Approved’ aesthetic standards and the conditions that make for it have become so debased as to render virtually any opinion but Persius’ own suspect” (47). Cf. Bramble (1974) 133. The bribe of the luxurious dinner is a satiric topos also in Lucilius, cf. frs. 662, 664, 665. 56. For other examples of dinner punctuated by the host’s recitation of poetry or other compositions, see the satiric Cena Trimalchionis in Petronius’ Satyricon and the more sober accounts in Pliny Ep. 3.1. As Short (2009) 120 reminds us, “At least during the late Republican and early imperial periods the convivium seems to have been an important occasion for the production, enjoyment and criticism of literature.”

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is a clear connection between being fed and offering up compliments. The mawkish verse on mythological topics that is cooked up by the reciting poet (or poets) here provokes a quasi-sexual ecstasy in both its writers and its audience (cf. 1.18– 21; perhaps not surprising, since both lust and hunger are appetites of the body),57 but it is significant that the tipsy audience members who inquire after the latest in verse styles are also characterized as “stuffed” or “full,” saturi (Sat. 1.30– 35):58 ecce inter pocula quaerunt Romulidae saturi quid dia poemata narrent: hic aliquis, cui circum umeros hyacinthina laena est, rancidulum quiddam balba de nare locutus Phyllidas, Hypsipylas, uatum et plorabile siquid, eliquat ac tenero subplantat uerba palato. Look, the replete heirs of Romulus inquire, while in their cups, as to what divine poetry has to say. Hereupon someone with a purple cloak around his shoulders strains out something rancid, speaking through a stopped-up nose, about Phyllises or Hypsipyles, or any tear-jerking tale of the bards, and minces out the words from his delicate palate.

It seems the saturi members of the audience have benefited from the host’s culinary generosity in feeding his guests beforehand. As a result they are fully appreciative of the “grace and smoothness” (“decor est et iunctura,” one says, Sat. 1.92) of the poet’s style, despite Persius’ characterization of it as enervated and frothy with spittle (1.103– 6). This poetry is “grand,” and panted out with an oversized lung “(pulmo . . . praelargus anhelet”), much like what the tragedian of satire 5 has written (1.13– 14); the gasping bellows with which the tragedian stoked the flame under the pot of body parts in satire 5 (“anhelanti folle,” 10– 11) is recalled 57. As Miller (1998) 267 puts it, the reciter’s throat is the site not only “of poetic articulation and potential gluttony” but also of the poet’s passive sexuality. “The poetry itself becomes the instrument by which the audience is sodomized, unmanning even the most burly of old time Romans.” The confusion of passive/active, oral/aural penetration and consumption is striking— and bizarre. For Persius’s use of words connoting effeminacy for rival poets, see, e.g., Dessen (1996) 34– 35. Short (2009) 111– 12 well points out that in Roman culture “metaphors drawn from oral experience— eating— appear to have constituted a coherent system for not only speaking but also for thinking about aural experiences— hearing.” 58. On the connection between the saturi listeners and Persius’ chosen genre of satura, see Gowers (1993) 185.

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here in the same straining of the lungs to deliver large gobbets of epic verse.59 If we look at Persius’ language closely, we find that so far the gastric distress in satire 1 has been on the side of the crudi poets rather than their lying and well-fed audience. But there is an uncomfortable detail about the content of dinner that suggests that the audience’s consumption of it here too verges on cannibalism. For one, when Persius describes the menu, he lets us know that the host knows how to “serve” a rich dish of pig’s belly (“calidum scis ponere sumen”). The Latin verb pono of course means both to serve and to stage, and the pork dish thus approximates the stews of satire 5: like the pots of Thyestes and Procne, the pig’s belly is both served and dramatized. As J. C. Bramble (1974, 113) comments, “In a society dedicated to corporeal appetites, the summit of ‘poetic’ experience is no longer literary: it is nothing more than a dish of food.”60 Second, at this juncture the reciter-poet himself seems to undergo a metamorphosis into meat. Not only does our versifying gourmandizer “stage” sow’s paunch for his audience, he himself has a sow’s paunch, since he is endowed with a protruding aqualiculus, the sort of stomach that the scholia (ad loc.) and Isidore (Orig. 11.1.136) identify as properly being that of a pig.61 It seems that both the meal and its host consist of pork: Mr. Pigs-Belly serves pig’s belly, as if having chopped off a Shylockian pound of flesh to feed his ravenous guests. Indeed, to drive home the transition between flesh and verse, Persius borrows another rare term from the Ars poetica, the adjective sesquipedalis, “foot and a half long.” Sesquipedalis is how Horace described the polysyllabic words characteristic of high tragedy (AP 96– 98): 59. On the apparent qualities of the bad verse of Persius’ targets, see below, chapter 4. A kind of Alexandrianism here seems to go hand in hand with concepts of bombast and excess, with our poet rejecting both received strands; indeed, behind “baldy” and his polysyllabic belly, we might see the neoteric poet Calvus. Seneca has the same view of such poetry as Persius: cf. De ben. 1.4.5– 6: the poets’ purpose is to delight the ears and weave a sweet story. Staley (2010) 77 suggests that the loaded vocabulary of ineptiae points to disapproval of the programmatic language of Roman neoterics and Alexandrian models. 60. For commentary on these lines, see Bramble (1974) 112– 13; on cookery and poetry, 122– 23; Pasoli (1978). 61. Aqualiculus also appears in a variant reading at Sen. Ep. 90.22. Kissel (1990) ad loc. has a list of late authors who use the term for humans. Gowers (1993) 122 points out that the term is used of a horse’s belly in Vegetius’ Mulomedicina 40: “When it was not a sign of pregnancy, the swollen stomach was a physical and moral aberration.” Cf. Gowers (1993) 119: “Persius uses aqualiculus, a word for a pig’s stomach, to describe human pot-bellies, which at the same time exposes the animal aspects of the human body.”

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Telephus et Peleus, cum pauper et exul uterque proicit ampullas et sesquipedalia uerba, si curat cor spectantis tetigisse querella. Telephus and Peleus, when both paupers and in exile, throw aside their bombast and foot-and-a-half long terms, if they want to touch the heart of the spectator with their lament.

But what characterizes high poetry in Horace is transformed, in Persius, into the protruding pig-tummy of the poet: the word become flesh in a transubstantiation of Horace’s literary term.62 Finally, in his choice of meats, our porcine host is once again connected to the cannibal practices that bad poetry likes to dwell on.63 It’s not inconceivable that Persius and others knew of the culinary reputation of human flesh as reported a century later by Galen in his On the Properties of Foodstuffs: “The flesh of pigs and of human beings must be similar, since people have eaten human flesh in place of pork without suspecting either the taste or the smell; the possibility has been discovered, before now, by unscrupulous innkeepers and others.”64 If Persius’ denunciation of poets who seek truth from flatterers has its roots in the Ars poetica, then, the cannibalistic overlay he adds takes us from the mere mention of a rich meal once again to an insistent and nonHoratian equation of the foodstuff of poetry and the foodstuff of the poet’s body. We end up far from Horace, in a complicated trope of exchange between poet and audience that undermines the difference between the poet and the meal he offers by metaphorically reducing both to the same porcine meatstuff. He is, in effect, serving up himself as the delicacy for consumption. The description of poets as cannibals who consume the poetic “body” of prior authors or who as victims who serve themselves up to flesh-eating audiences is therefore a shaping motif in at least two of Persius’ six satires. Taking several extant metaphors (literary works 62. It is tempting to see here a mutation of the Odyssey’s Circe episode, in which the greedy companions of Odysseus drink potions and are turned by Circe into pigs. See also below, section 4, with discussion of Bakker’s (2013) connection of meat and heroic epic. 63. Clark and Motto (1984) have nothing to say about cannibalism in Persius, merely noting that “because of its perennial power to startle, . . . cannibalism has been throughout history the subject of satire” (176). 64. Galen, On the Properties of Foodstuffs, Powell (2003) 115 = 6.663K. Bakker (2013) 86 points out that “Pigs and humans can be said to form an exclusive subgroup within which the dividing line between human and animal is further weakened.” Both are omnivores, and both have similar digestive tracts.

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as food, the body of the text, reading as nourishment), Persius conflates them into a master metaphor that treats the bad poets of his satires as cannibals; he pushes this metaphor so far that eventually we end up with the suggestion that it is their own flesh they are serving up to their tasteless audience, so that the barriers between eaters and feeders, poets and listeners, animal meat and human flesh, are all put into question.65 But if Persius uses ethically charged consumption of forbidden foodstuff to reflect upon the ethically charged production of bad poetry, the two united by their common passageway through the throat, he will return to the culinary to suggest that the solution to moral failings can also be figured as an object of consumption.

3. A Discourse on Digestion Everyone in Persius is sick. The poet-reciter of satire 1 was fortunate to merely have a pig’s belly to show for his excesses of style and taste; the ailing sybarite of satire 3 fares less well (3.88– 106). “Examine me,” he asks of his doctor, worrying about the fluttering in his chest, the pain in his throat, his foul breath, and the jaundiced tone of his skin; and the doctor advises him to take a three-day break from high living. Instead (3.98– 102), turgidus hic epulis atque albo uentre lauatur, gutture sulpureas lente exhalante mefites. sed tremor inter uina subit calidumque trientem excutit e manibus, dentes crepuere retecti, uncta cadunt laxis tunc pulmentaria labris. our chap takes a bath, swollen with food, his stomach pale, his throat slowly emitting sulfurous gases; but a shivering overtakes him amid the wine, and he drops the warm cup from his hands, his bared teeth chatter, then the oily meat falls from his open mouth.

And the next thing you know, the man is being carried out for burial, trumpets and all.66 It’s hard not to wonder what role his diet played in 65. As Most (1992) 403 remarks, the sight of an animal chopped up for cooking would be a familiar one, so any kind of dismemberment of a human would automatically gesture toward the body as food. Cf. the emphasis in Sen. Thy. 60– 61: “membra per partes eant / discerpta.” 66. Horace makes an appearance here too, linking the state of being crudus to that of being indecorous: “Crudi tumidi lavemur; quid deceat, quid non, obliti,” Ep. 1.6.61– 62; cf. Persius Sat. 3.98.

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his death; he is, in fact, as sick as he would be if he had dined on human flesh. Indeed Seneca’s Thyestes is his mirror image (Thy. 985– 89):67 Sed quid hoc? nolunt manus parere, crescit pondus et dextram grauat; admotus ipsis Bacchus a labris fugit circaque rictus ore decepto fluit, et ipsa trepido mensa subsiluit solo. But what’s this? My hands don’t want to obey, the cup’s weight increases and pulls down my hand; wine brought up to my very lips shuns them and spills around my gaping maw; my mouth is tricked, and the very table shakes on the fearful ground.

Meanwhile, the heir of satire 2 has scrofula and is swelling with bitter bile (2.13– 14); the choleric scholar of satire 3 has a surplus of clear bile (known to cause anger) and suffers from chronic sleepiness. One Natta in satire 3 is so obese that fat has surrounded his liver68 and he is drowning in his own flesh (3.32– 33); another victim of gastric distress later in the same satire seems to have a painful ulcer in his mouth (3.113).69 What’s wrong with these people? Doctor Persius, who likes to combine the aesthetic and the culinary in his critique of human excess and bad human “taste,” might trace everything back to problems of literary/ culinary digestion.70 Even more interestingly, it seems that contemporary doctors of the first and second centuries would turn to digestion (if not reading) to find the cause of most diseases as well. Digestion was in 67. Behind Thyestes himself, of course, is the punishment meted out to Tantalus in the underworld for trying to feed the gods human flesh: the water that evades his mouth, the fruit that evades his hands. 68. Fibra is generally a sacrificial term for the lobe of an animal’s liver; variations in its appearance during extispicy boded ill. More generally it can mean animal entrails or innards. 69. Richardson-Hay (2009) 77, speaking of Seneca: “The images of fat people, over-indulged, ill, and enervated (Epp. 95.18; 114.25) by the grossness of their appetites (Ad. Helv. 10.2– 7) are the bodily forms of animi that have sat down to dinners of self-delusion and moral apprehension.” 70. Similarly in Seneca, though less explicit. Richardson-Hay (2009) 77: “Stressing the simplicity of an earlier age in contrast to the complexity of the foods in which people now indulge (illa purulenta, Ep. 95.25), Seneca keenly lists the multiplicity of resulting diseases in Ep. 95.16– 18, from dropsy to a fevered brain and internal ulcers. Ironically, the pleasures of eating end up being tortures, not only physically . . . but also spiritually, in their effect on the animus.”

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antiquity a fraught and complicated medical issue, and such problems as an excess of various kinds of bile (and their attendant psychological effects), scrofula, tumors, narcolepsy, ulcers, stomach pain, were frequently diagnosed as flaws, or, vitia, present in the process of the concoction and distribution of what had been swallowed.71 As a physiological process, too, digestion was understood quite differently from how we conceptualize it today; food not only had to be swallowed into the stomach cavity but once there had to be treated and forwarded to the liver, from which (in its new forms) it was distributed in very specific ways, all of which contained room for error and mishap, all potentially offering correspondingly distressing outcomes when the stomach— the human body’s warehouse for all it took in— broke down in one way or another. The ancient understanding of this process already emerges from its metaphorical treatment in literary terms not only in Persius but also in Seneca and Quintilian.72 Seneca, in fact, provides us with a bridge between the metaphorical and the medical by not only using the consumption trope for reading but also attaching some scientific speculation.73 In letter 84, he links literary consumption to the idea of the would-be litterateur’s necessary training in a way that draws tight analogies between what happens during literary “digestion” and real digestion (at least in bees).74 Describing the process of culling material from different works as analogous to the honey-making activity of bees, he insists that broad reading feeds (alit) the mind and endorses the value of the scientific hy71. For example, jaundice comes of eating foods that produce too much yellow bile; see De diff. sympt. 7.72K, On black bile (Grant 2000, 26, 28, 35). 72. On the metaphor of reading as nourishment in antiquity, see RichardsonHay (2009). Among ancient texts, she cites Cic. De div. 1.29.61; Brutus 126; De officiis 1.105; Quint. 1.8.6, 1.8.8, 2.4.5, 8 pr.1; Hor. Ep. 2.2.61– 64, Pliny Letters 3.5. See also Gowers (1993) 40– 46. The trope of digesting a text would become extremely popular in the early modern period. Maggie Kilgour (1990), for example, highlights the use, especially pervasive in the Renaissance and early modern period, of “digestive metaphors for poetical imitation, imitatio,” writing that a common way of expressing the relationship between a poet and an earlier source was in terms of eating. In order to create his own poetic identity, the later poet absorbs the substances of his predecessors. So, in his Discoveries, Jonson claims that the poet must “be able to convert the substance, or riches of another poet, to his own use. . . . Not, as a creature, that swallows what it takes in, crude, raw, or indigested, but, that feeds with an appetite, and hath a stomach to concoct, divide, and turn all into nourishment” (104– 5). Schoenfeldt (1991) suggests that “in early modern England, the consuming subject was pressured by Galenic physiology, classical ethics and Protestant theology to conceive all acts of ingestion and excretion as very literal acts of self-fashioning” (11). 73. On food metaphors and their relationship to philosophy in Seneca, see Richardson-Hay (2009). 74. On bees and literary imitatio, see Hooley (1997) 247– 52.

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pothesis that bees make honey by transforming the pollen they pick up, thus producing a new literary/alimentary product. While he admits that men do not know if the pollen that has been culled from flowers turns directly to honey or if the bees create it by a particular property of their breath, nonetheless (Ep. 84.5– 7), nos quoque has apes debemus imitari et quaecumque ex diversa lectione congessimus separare (melius enim distincta servantur), deinde adhibita ingenii nostri cura et facultate in unum saporem varia illa libamenta confundere, ut etiam si apparuerit unde sumptum sit, aliud tamen esse quam unde sumptum est appareat. Quod in corpore nostro videmus sine ulla opera nostra facere naturam (alimenta quae accepimus, quamdiu in sua qualitate perdurant et solida innatant stomacho, onera sunt; at cum ex eo quod erant mutata sunt, tunc demum in vires et in sanguinem transeunt), idem in his quibus aluntur ingenia praestemus, ut quaecumque hausimus non patiamur integra esse, ne aliena sint. Concoquamus illa; alioqui in memoriam ibunt, non in ingenium. We too ought to imitate these bees, and put in order whatever we have collected from our varied reading (such things are better preserved if kept separate); then, by applying the care and faculty of our native intelligence, we should blend those various libations into a single flavor such that, even if its source is clear, nonetheless it is something other than its source. What we see nature doing in our own bodies without any effort (the foods we have eaten, while they retain their original quality and float about undigested in our stomachs, are burdens; but when they have been transformed from what they were, they then are converted into energy and blood), we too should do, ensuring that we do not allow the foods with which our minds are fed, whatever we have consumed, to remain whole, lest it remain someone else’s. We should digest them; otherwise they will enter the memory, but not the mind.

We can see here that Seneca’s use of the digestive metaphor focuses on two problems: first, that the food might not be blended correctly in the stomach and thus not made into a unique individual product (“something other than its source”), but remain a mixing-pot of separate elements; Seneca’s prescription for reading profitably for the creative imitatio of literary texts demands that these texts be not only consumed but also digested (“concoquamus illa”), a process that like the application of apian breath transforms the source material into something unique

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to the author.75 Second, he is concerned that once digested, the “food” will take the wrong path, entering the memory but not going so far as the mind or the poet’s native talent (the ingenium), or else not being digested in the proper sequence but being eliminated at once, leaving no nourishment behind. Quintilian likewise describes the process of reading in terms of nourishment (Inst. 10.1.19), emphasizing however his own view of the importance of the “ruminating” action of frequent rereading and thus suggesting perhaps more of a bovine than an apian model: Repetamus autem et tractemus et, ut cibos mansos ac prope liquefactos demittimus quo facilius digerantur, ita lectio non cruda sed multa iteratione mollita et velut confecta memoriae imitationique tradatur. Let us return [to our reading material] and reflect on it; and, just as we swallow food after it has been chewed and almost liquefied so that it can be digested more easily, so too our reading should be handed over to memory and imitation not in a raw state, but softened and so to speak digested76 by frequent rereading.

Rumination leads to proper nourishment via digestion; since he is talking about the training of children and young men rather than the creative output of literary authors, Quintilian highlights the nourishing quality of a good basic education; at Institutes 2.4.5 for example, the first steps in learning are equated to having a wet-nurse (see also 10.1.31, 10.1.58, etc.).77 Conversely, it seems that having digested your food properly is particularly conducive to learning by rote and writing essays; at Institutes 11.2.35 Quintilian tells us that “learning by heart and composition share the feature that good health, proper digestion, and a mind free of other thoughts have the best result in both” (“Illud ediscendo scribendoque commune est, utrique plurimum conferre bonam valetudinem, digestum cibum, animum cogitationibus aliis liberum”).78 Whether we 75. Lucretius in DRN 3.11– 12 uses a similar bee metaphor for how Epicurus’ followers should “feed upon” (depascimur) his golden words. 76. Cf. Passarelli (2010) 278 for this technical term: “Apart from concoquere and digerere, Latin speakers also used conficere of the elaboration of food inside the body. This is a very general expression tied neither to any particular transformation, nor to any specific part of the body, and so we find it used of all three stages of digestion, in the mouth, the stomach, and the intestines.” 77. On reading literature as educational nourishment, Bramble (1974) 51– 52. 78. Lucretius treats his relationship to Epicurus’ words also as a process of gathering wisdom, bee-like, so that “depascimur aurea dicta.”

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want to emphasize the necessity for slow and deliberate digestion, or the importance of successfully combining different elements into an original whole, or coming to study with well-digested material in one’s stomach in the first place, parallel practices for eating and reading must reinforce each other. Perhaps not surprisingly, effective nourishment of the literary or culinary kind can run into several difficulties. One danger that Seneca mentions in yet another discussion of reading as eating is the problem of too much variety: one should endeavor to read a few authors deeply and not change authors and books too frequently.79 For this would have an insalubrious effect on the workings of (literary) digestion (Ep. 2.2– 4): Illud autem vide, ne ista lectio auctorum multorum et omnis generis voluminum habeat aliquid vagum et instabile. Certis ingeniis immorari et innutriri oportet, si velis aliquid trahere quod in animo fideliter sedeat. Nusquam est qui ubique est. Vitam in peregrinatione exigentibus hoc evenit, ut multa hospitia habeant, nullas amicitias; idem accidat necesse est iis qui nullius se ingenio familiariter applicant sed omnia cursim et properantes transmittunt. Non prodest cibus nec corpori accedit qui statim sumptus emittitur . . . “Sed modo” inquis “hunc librum evolvere volo, modo illum.” Fastidientis stomachi est multa degustare; quae ubi varia sunt et diversa, inquinant non alunt. Probatos itaque semper lege, et si quando ad alios deverti libuerit, ad priores redi. Aliquid cotidie adversus paupertatem, aliquid adversus mortem auxili compara, nec minus adversus ceteras pestes; et cum multa percurreris, unum excerpe quod illo die concoquas. Be careful, however, lest this reading of many authors and books of every sort may tend to make you discursive and unsteady. You must linger among a limited number of master thinkers, and be nourished by their works, if you would derive ideas which shall win firm hold in your mind. Everywhere means nowhere. When a person spends all his time in foreign travel, he ends by having many acquaintances, but no friends. And the same thing must hold true of men who seek intimate acquaintance with no single author, but visit them all in a hasty and hurried manner. Food does no good and is not assimilated into the body if it is passed as soon as it is eaten. . . . “But,” you reply, “I wish to dip first into one book and then into another.” I tell you that it is the sign of an overnice appetite to taste many things; for when 79. See Richardson-Hay (2009) 73– 74, with Sen. Ep. 2.2, 2.4, 6.5, 39.1– 2, 108.35; De tranq. 9.5.

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they are manifold and varied, they pollute you but do not nourish. So you should always read standard authors; and when you crave a change, fall back upon those whom you read before. Each day acquire something that will fortify you against poverty, against death, indeed against other misfortunes as well; and after you have run over many thoughts, select one to be thoroughly digested (concoquas) that day. (Tr. J. W. Basore)

The problem presented by too much literary variety is echoed in the repeated recommendation of plain foods in the medical parallels to this passage; as Pliny writes in Naturalis historia 11.282, “Homini cibus utilissimus simplex, acervatio saporum pestifera et condimento perniciosior” (“Simple food is the most useful for man; an accumulation of flavors is harmful, and even more dangerous if accompanied by sauces”).80 And the whole of Horace Satires 2.2 is more or less devoted to this topic; as we read in 2.2.71– 73, Nam variae res ut noceant homini credas, memor illius escae, quae simplex olim tibi sederit. You’d believe how assortments of courses harm a man, if mindful of that simple tidbit which once suited you.

Pliny’s observation suggests that to understand these odd metaphors of digestion and nourishment correctly, we should consider the medical beliefs about digestion on which they were based. Generally these described the process as involving above all a dual action of concoquere (to cook together) and digerere (to separate and distribute). Discussions of digestion in the works of Galen and Celsus (the latter Persius’ contemporary, the former writing within a century of Persius’ death) suggest that the main function of the stomach qua organ was to cook whatever had been eaten (in Greek, pepsis, i.e., “cooking by heat”), thus breaking it down and enabling it to form a new composite before it was processed any further. This heat of the stomach was said to be supplemented by the heat of the adjacent organs, which are “like a lot of burning hearths around a great cauldron (“λέβης,” Galen, On the Natural Faculties 3.7 = 80. The beneficial quality of a simple diet is a moral concept in Horatian satire as well; see, e.g., Hor. Sat. 1.1.74– 74, 1.6.115, 2.2.117, 2. Persius, as we shall see, associates it closely with being a Stoic philosopher.

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2.164K).81 The second digestive term, digerere, has as its root meaning to separate and distribute,82 and indeed the separation and distribution of the postcooked nourishing mush from its location in the stomach to its proper destinations (first to the liver, which changed it into blood, bile, phlegm, semen, and then to the other organs as necessary) was the fundamental principle of “digestion.”83 As J. K. Purnis (2010) 87 sums up the process described in Galen’s On the Natural Faculties,84 Digestion, or concoction, was believed to take place in three stages: in the first concoction, ingested food was transformed into chyle in the stomach, which was then delivered from the stomach and small intestine to the liver by way of the vena porta, or gate vein. . . . In the second concoction, the chyle, which had been partly altered along its journey, was made into blood in the liver and distributed throughout the body by the veins, thought to originate in the liver. Vital spirits were added to the blood in the heart and transported from there through arteries. In the final concoction, blood was assimilated by individual parts according to their needs. Excrement and the humours arising during these stages of digestion were collected by various organs, including the gall bladder, the spleen, the kidneys, and the large intestine.85 81. On Latin terms for digestion, see Passarelli (2010). As Passarelli shows, the distinction between digerere and concoquere was not always upheld, especially after Celsus. Powell (2003) 23 describes the process: “‘Digestion,’ as nowadays understood, is a process that results in the chemical breakdown of food into simpler, absorbable components, and this was certainly not what Galen would have meant by pepsis. In a nonmedical context the word means ‘ripening,’ ‘changing (by heat)’ and ‘cooking,’ and this is very much the sense in which Galen uses it. He envisaged the food, under the influence of the innate heat of the stomach, undergoing a process much like cooking.” 82. Cf. Durling (1981) 61– 62: “Latin digero meant properly to force apart, to separate, hence to distribute. . . . Applied to mental activity, digero meant especially to set in order. . . . For any expression to take place, a prior digesting must take place.” 83. Aristotle in Generation of Animals specifies that semen is made by concocting blood together with pneuma, which is added to blood from the heart when it passes from the stomach to the diaphragm (725a11– 22; see Dugan 2001, 404). Galen, however, says this cooking takes place in a man’s coiled spermatic vessels, De usu partium 14.10 = Kühn 4.184. See Laqueur (1990, 35– 43). 84. The tripartite division of the process is also described by Galen in In Hippocratis librum de alimento commentarii 15.233K. 85. For the stomach as instrument of concoction, Galen De usu partium 3.284Kff. Excrement is separated out in the jejunum, before its arrival in the liver. The liver converts the chymos to blood and is the starting point of all the veins. Blood distributed via vena caval system. On the difference between chyle and chymos, see Powell (2003) 15. In general Galen’s theory of digestion can be pieced together from On the

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The passage leaves out the fact that semen was also a by-product of internal cooking and also directed to the proper organ.86 In addition, waste products that were not eliminated were thought to mature further in the body and give rise to disease. The full valence of the metaphors connected with this digestive model suggests that we must take them, too, as referring to a multistep process. Accordingly, any discussion of “consuming” poetry would naturally bring with it, as part of its metaphorical baggage, the related ideas of (1) cooking the verse in the stomach “as if in a great cauldron”; (2) blending it together so as to create something different from what was swallowed; (3) making sure this chyle was sent to the right place for correct processing; (4) making sure the right parts of the body got the right sort of resulting nourishment; and (5) getting rid of any poetic waste products in the natural way. Stages 1, 2, and 3, at least, have resonances in Persius, whose own creativity has surely created something unique out of the bits and pieces he has digested. Since digero also meant to arrange the parts of a literary or rhetorical body of work correctly, proper “distribution” is echoed in Horace’s injunctions against incorrectly placed poetic passages, and food/poetry divided up and put in the wrong places would end up in the wrong place, or produce too much of one psychological effect rather than another, as if a meal had generated too much black bile and too little healthy blood; or even lead to “tumors” of the mind to match tumors of the body.87 Similarly, “eating” well-ordered (digesta) reading material presumably led naturally to facility in digestion, the opposite of the hybridity that caused severe indigestion in the reader.88 The emphasis on the correct distribution of Natural Faculties and On the Use of the Parts. For a general survey of ancient theories of digestion, see Mazzini (1997). 86. De simp. med. temp. ac. fac. 5.23 (K11.776– 77). 87. It is interesting that the same debate in Seneca about the bees’ breath and its transformative power (or not) is repeated in the medical texts about the stomach’s transformative power; both Celsus and Galen react against earlier medical writers who felt that this transformation did not take place: “Celsus appears to allude to the long-standing debate on the nature of digestion, where Herophilus, following Aristotle, argues that it involves ‘concoction,’ while Erasistratus and the Erasistrateans explain the process in purely mechanical terms, as the result of the trituration or pounding that the food is subjected to in the stomach before being absorbed, as chyle, into the blood-vessels communicating with the liver.” 88. Rimell (2002) argues of Petronius’ Satyricon that its poets and declaimers have to stuff themselves with food/literature before they can start writing/ejecting it as an altered, digested project (cf. 47, 170). However her focus is on vomiting rather than the more natural outcome (one presumes) of defecation. Cf. the similar point made in the AJP 125 (2004) review of her book by Costas Panayotakis.

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what is eaten to its proper destinations throughout the body plays out on the level of physiology with what Horace and Persius are already doing metaphorically when they show their concern for poetic bits and pieces going into their proper places. In addition, the metaphor of digestion as a form of cooking also means, as we now see, that Persius’ cauldron of Procne and Thyestes, abubble on the flames in satire 5, is itself a kind of stomach even as it stands for the gross mass of bad tragic poetry. The Thyestean lump (massa) refuses to be cooked properly in the cauldron/body/poem, rendering all who eat it/hear it/compose it ill. As Purnis (2010, 3) reminds us, Digestion involved not only the transformation of food into a form suitable for assimilation by the body but also the production of spirits and humors, black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood. The stomach and digestion were linked to mental and emotional experience since the proportion of these humors within an individual affected temperament, making a person melancholic, choleric, phlegmatic, or sanguine, respectively.

That is, given digestion’s connection to blood and to the humors (let alone to semen), when the process was felt to have gone awry the physical and psychological upshot was significant. Even the head could be affected: Good digestion is a necessity, as in all affections of the body, for indigestion is very harmful and whenever the body suffers an attack, it is always the affected part that feels it most. For the brain transmits to the stomach, and the stomach to the head, its own affections, by reason of the abundance of nerves passing from the brain to the mouth of the stomach.” (K 8.179)89

Other diseases or symptoms caused by the “depravation” of the mass in the stomach besides the ones I have already mentioned included insomnia, torpor, nausea, swelling, erysipelas (a skin infection marked by inflamed red tissue), abscesses, jaundice, boils, scirrhous (a hard cancerous growth), fever, shivering, phlegmon (pus in the soft tissue), and so forth.90 This is why the Satires are so keen to take up digestion as the 89. Galen says that headache may be caused by yellow bile either in the stomach or the head, On diseases and sympt. 8.178– 79K, De humoribus 16.49K. 90. See Galen, De caus. symptomat. 3.3, 7.224K. We read in Celsus De med. 1.2.2 that people with trouble digesting should stay in bed: “Anyone therefore who has digested properly (“bene concoxit”) can safely rise early; if not enough, he should

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master metaphor for poetic reading— badly done, its side effects are beyond the reach of a few doses of Prevacid.91 Seneca and Quintilian chose to consider only the positive application of digestion as a metaphor for reading, viewing this process as a salutary and even necessary one: we take in poetry and literature in order to improve the mind, to educate ourselves, to nourish ourselves on the classics of time gone by.92 In fact, in focusing on bees, they present the metaphor in the most positive light possible: bees make sweet honey out of what they “eat,” whereas human stomachs transform what they take in into something much less pleasant. As Grant Williams insightfully puts it, “The Senecan analogy projects the narcissistic illusion that subjectivity can effect a miraculous sublimation of literature without leaving behind any troubling material remainder” (2004, 72). We will recall that the poetic tradition, too, used the bee metaphor in this positive sense, and that Lucretius himself compares his process to that of a bee (DRN 3.10– 13). In contrast, Persius, in adopting the metaphor of consumption but exploring its darker side and indeed pushing it to the level of cannibalism, flips all such positive connotations on their head.93 Those who read or listen to the bad poetry of their peers are not being healthfully nourished by what they “consume”; they are engaging in the disgusting act of (metaphorically) consuming human flesh and each other, and instead of being steeped in learning they are merely grotesquely ill. Some of the more bizarre elements of what happens in the Satires make more sense when viewed through this digestive lens. For example, every reader of Persius pauses at the grotesque image of the poetic reciter of satire 1, the host whose verse is described as sodomizing its all too willing audience (1.15– 23):94 stay in bed, or if he had to get up early, he should go to sleep again; he who hasn’t digested should rest completely, and neither entrust himself to work nor to exercise nor to business.” 91. Dyspepsia may have been indistinguishable from food poisoning; in any case it seems a curiously common plaint, as the long list of potential cures for it listed by Pliny the Elder in the Naturalis historia can attest. Galen lists three sorts of indigestion, each more severe than the latter: cruditas, bradypepsia, and dyspepsia (De diff. symptomat. 3.4). 92. But cf. Plutarch, who notes that even though poetry can be put to educational use, it is like eating fish heads: delicious, but it can give you bad dreams (Quomodo adulescens 15b– c). 93. On the negative associations of food in satire 1, see Bramble (1974) 84– 87, Gowers (1993b) 182– 85, Miller (1998) 267; in satire 2, Flintoff (1982). 94. The passage of course can be read in both digestive and sexual terms simultaneously, given that the listeners are quivering in delight at the perversion of the normative digestive (excremental) and sexual (aggressive) functions of the body.

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Scilicet haec populo pexusque togaque recenti et natalicia tandem cum sardonyche albus sede leges celsa, liquido cum plasmate guttur mobile collueris, patranti fractus ocello. tunc neque more probo uideas nec uoce serena ingentis trepidare Titos, cum carmina lumbum intrant et tremulo scalpuntur ubi intima uersu. No doubt you’ll read this stuff to the people at last, groomed and resplendent in a new toga, wearing your jeweled birthday ring, on a high seat, once you’ve cleared your supple throat with a fluent arpeggio— an effeminate with an ejaculating eye. Then you’ll see burly Romans95 squirming neither decently nor with calm voices, when the poetry enters their loins and their insides are tickled with the quivering verse.

The orgasmic tears coming from the reciter’s eyes really seem a bit de trop.96 Unless, that is, you know your Galen, Celsus, and Aristotle. Not only is semen (in Aristotle, Generation of Animals 725a) a residue made from food, blood, and pneuma, but it is the region around the eyes that is most full of seed.97 An excess of food creates an excess of semen, and the inevitable result is— leakage. In short, the fact that the poetreciter of satire 1 weeps tears of semen in pleasure at his own poetry while his listeners quiver in responsive sexual pleasure suggests both a misweighted conversion of foodstuffs and a perversion of digestion in which the foodstuff of poetry is taken in by the body by the very orifice where it should be coming out. Ironically, Persius himself is said in the Life to have died at age twenty-nine of a “fault of the stomach” (“vitio stomachi”)— who knows in what manifestation. On escas (1.22) as morsels of poetry, see Reckford (1962) 479– 81 with similar metaphors of feasting one’s ears. 95. Persius’ “burly Romans” who enjoy their verse too much parallel the “celsi Ramnes” at Hor. AP 342 who likewise demand sweet verse— and have Horace’s cooperation. 96. Freudenburg (2001) 163– 65 mounts a convincing defense of “ejaculating” for patranti. As he points out, the lines pick up Horace AP 428– 30, where it is the flattering listener who drips a drop of dew from his eye. Lucilius fr. 335 has a weeping penis— in other words, the trope is reversed. 97. “For the region about the eyes is, of all the head, that most nearly connected with the generative secretions; a proof of this is that it alone is visibly changed in sexual intercourse, and those who indulge too much in this are seen to have their eyes sunken in. The reason is that the nature of the semen is similar to that of the brain, for the material of it is watery (the heat being acquired later)” (tr. Arthur Platt).

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4. The Echoing Belly Persius may carefully position himself on the right side of this sorry tale of gastrico-poetic excess, and yet as the satires start, the question of how he will be able to reconcile the demands of the belly (and the necessity of making a livelihood) with his own injunction against pandering to the sexual, appetitive, or aesthetic demands of his audience is very much at issue. Whatever the poet’s actual economic circumstances (and there is no need to suppose he went hungry), the persona who speaks in the prologue to the Satires is deeply concerned with the indecorous demands of the belly.98 Indeed, the poet’s belly has a history of its own; present already in the epic past, in Odysseus’ story and in Hesiod’s, its growling need for food is repeatedly represented as resulting in an unavoidable tension in the poet’s production of an art form that transcended the here and now and transcended the circumstances of its production. In Homer the bard eats, then sings to pay back his debt; and if his song is not to his audience’s liking, he is told to stop. The history of the poet is partially the history of a mercenary. The ur-point of this history resides, of course, in the famous lines addressed to the shepherd/poet at the beginning of Hesiod’s Theogony. When the Muses of Olympus stoop to accost him on the slopes of Mt. Helicon, they both insult him for being a mere belly (gaster) and give him the gift of poetry (Theog. 24– 28): όνδε δέ με πρώτιστα θεαὶ πρὸς μῦθον ἔειπον, Μοῦσαι Ὀλυμπιάδες, κοῦραι Διὸς αἰγιόχοιο: ποιμένες ἄγραυλοι, κάκ’ ἐλέγχεα, γαστέρες οἶον, ἴδμεν ψεύδεα πολλὰ λέγειν ἐτύμοισιν ὁμοῖα, ἴδμεν δ’, εὖτ’ ἐθέλωμεν, ἀληθέα γηρύσασθαι. This word first of all the goddesses addressed to me— the Muses of Olympus, daughters of aegis-holding Zeus: “Rustic shepherds, wretched objects of shame, mere bellies, we know how to speak many false things resembling the truth; and we know, when we want, to utter true things.” 98. Cf. Seneca on the belly’s intractableness: De brev. 18.5: “cum uentre tibi humano negotium est; nec rationem patitur nec aequitate mitigatur nec ulla prece flectitur populus esuriens.” See also Epictetus on the contrast between the belly and the philosopher, Disc. 1.9.25– 26: “This is what it means for a man to be in very truth a kinsman of the gods. We, however, think of ourselves as though we were mere bellies, entrails, and genitals, just because we have fear, because we have appetite, and we flatter those who have power to help us in these matters, and these same men we fear” (tr. W. A. Oldfather).

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The shepherds are objects of shame because they are mere bellies; the gift that Hesiod receives is to be the mouthpiece of the Muses, which can elevate him above the level of a man who would swap poetic recital for food.99 A similar theme runs through much of the Odyssey, where we hear on several occasions that hunger may drive a storyteller to say what his audience wishes to hear. As Nancy Worman (2002, 104) has remarked, “Hesiod’s all-belly shepherds . . . and Odysseus in the Odyssey both suggest a connection between the belly’s demands and speaking to please. There, as elsewhere, the idea is that appetite will drive the indigent man to flatter and deceive.”100 The rich poet of Persius’ satire 1, of course, is no rhapsode; but the presentation of verse as a form of exchange that drives (in one direction or the other) the exchange of food and flattery is, as we have seen, a dominant theme. Our poet-host feeds his audience with rich food before his performance, but in each case, the currency of exchange is food, whether food drives the poet to say what he does, or drives his audience to respond in the way they do. The subtext in all this talk of the poet’s belly is the Odyssey, in which the gaster plays a key part; Bakker’s recent work has shown how it stands in for the self-reflexive, metapoetic and “interformulaic” aspects of Odysseus’ nostos (2013, 136), and indeed, it can be read as providing motivation for the events of the Trojan War (as a counter to the Iliadic menis). As Odysseus himself laments to Eumaios, the belly is “a cursed thing, which bestows many evils on men, seeing / that even for its sake the strong-built ships are handled / across the barren great sea, bringing misfortune to enemies” (Od. 17.286– 89, trans. Lattimore).101 In that the gaster receives the distribution of meat at heroic feasts, it stands in for the warriors of epic; but in that it dooms Odysseus’ companions and the suitors alike, it is a sign of human animality manifesting itself in greed for food. The belly also stands in for the winsome material of poetry itself, since the gaster has the ability to bring forgetfulness of sorrow, just as poetry does (cf. Od. 7.215– 21); as Bakker reminds us, the bard of Theogony 99– 103 can make one forget one’s misery and one’s cares (2013, 148– 49). So the poetic gaster can play several roles, mediating uneas99. This is the traditional interpretation; for a more recent view see Volk and Katz (2000). 100. Both she and Svenbro (1976) 50– 59 link the Hesiodic text to Od. 14.124– 25, where Eumaios complains about hungry visitors weaving any pleasing story for Penelope to get a meal. The disguised Odysseus at the court of Alkinoos expressly blames his hungry belly for insisting on being fed under any circumstances (Od. 7.215– 21). As Worman (2002) points out, the figure of the hungry poet also occurs several times in Hipponax. 101. See further Pucci (1987, 176).

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ily between Homeric grandeur and the poets’ need for sustenance; and when Persius evokes porcine poet hosts, he can rely on the belly’s epic history to condemn the protruding bellies of the rich poets, with their greed for applause, while contrasting his own satires to epic grandeur and epic meat. These are the themes of the prologue to the Satires, which begins with a series of negations invoked by the poet to clarify his own nonepic identity (Prol. 1– 7).102 Nec fonte labra prolui caballino nec in bicipiti somniasse Parnaso memini, ut repente sic poeta prodirem. Heliconidasque103 pallidamque Pirenen illis remitto quorum imagines lambunt hederae sequaces; ipse semipaganus ad sacra uatum carmen adfero nostrum. I didn’t rinse out my mouth in the nag’s fountain nor do I remember having napped on twin-peaked Parnassus, so that I’d suddenly emerge thus as a poet. I leave Helicon’s muses and etiolating Pirene to those whose busts the clinging ivy licks; I myself add my song to the rites of the bards as a half-rustic type.

Persius abruptly invokes one of the most famous locales of poetic inspiration— the fountain Hippocrene on Mount Helicon, from which both Hesiod and Callimachus were said to have drunk a draught from the muses104— to make it clear that there was no moment of Hesiodic metamorphosis for him, no transcendent movement from Belly to Poet.105 The reference to the Heliconian Muses and Persius’ selfidentification as half-rustic (cf. ἄγραυλοι, Theog. 26)106 point firmly back 102. The majority of the mss. have the prologue following the satires. On the implications of its positioning, see Freudenburg (2001) 139– 40. 103. With most editors, despite ms. alpha which has aeliconiadas. 104. Archias Anth. pal. 9.64 and several other sources show the Muses letting Hesiod drink from the Hippocrene; Callimachus may have done so as reported in the Aetia, but the text is unclear; cf. fr. 4 Massimilla. 105. On these themes, see similarly Runchina (1983), who focuses on their relationship to ars and ingenium in Ennius. 106. On semipaganus, see Wehrle (1992a) 65: “What Persius means, then, by calling himself a semipaganus is that he is not, and would not wish to be, a vates . . . at

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to the Hesiodic opening if only to highlight, by contrast to Hesiod, Persius’ rejection of inspiration from the muses.107 Persius also brings in Mount Parnassus to gesture toward Ennius, whose Annals seem to have begun with a dream of Homer that came to him as he slept there.108 In this dream Ennius literally underwent a metamorphosis, taking in the spirit of Homer (who came to him as a peacock) via metempsychosis.109 On Propertius’ witness in Carm. 3.3.5– 6, Ennius too dreamed he took a drink from a fountain on Mount Parnassus, obviously not the Hippocrene, nor the Pirene; in short, all the intertexts point to the topos of refusing poetic inspiration of either sort— Callimachean or epic.110 We will recall that in satire 5 Persius bid farewell to “those who want to speak grandly,” telling them to go and “gather clouds on Helicon, if Procne’s pot or Thyestes’ will be a-bubble for anyone” (Sat. 5. 7– 9).111 Not only does Persius not take a draught of the inspiring spring, the vocabulary of his refusal is highly charged. The satirist refuses to “rinse his mouth out” (proluit) in the sacred fountain, using (instead of a verb of drinking) a verb that has medical connotations with enemas; usually, it is the colon that is rinsed out in order to clean it of lingering (badly digested?) foodstuffs. Although the verb proluo occurs in Vergil and Ovid in the pedestrian sense of “washing off, washing clean,”112 it also has less savory uses in medicine and animal husbandry. Columella at De re rustica 7.3.25, for example, employs it to describe a “flushing-out of the all.” On the ambivalence of the term, see also Witke (1970) 84– 85; on a possible Horatian echo, Witke (1962) 156; for further discussion and bibliography, Hooley (1997) 235– 37, Kissel (1990) ad loc., and Pasoli (1985) 1815– 22. For the idea of a community of poets, to which Persius does not fully belong, see Bellandi (1972); Runchina (1983); Villeneuve (1918) 369– 70. 107. On this refusal of divine inspiration as a programmatic pattern, see Miller (1986). 108. Prop. 3.3.5– 6, “Parvaque tam magnis admoram fontibus ora / Unde pater sitiens Ennius ante bibit.” Callimachus may have been the source of the tradition that Ennius was relying on, namely, that the Muses inspired both Hesiod and Callimachus by giving them a drink of water; cf. Anth. Graeca 7.42. Hooley (1997) 160– 61 asks if Persius’ evocation of an Ennius who finally stops dreaming of himself as a fifth Homer (Sat. 6.6– 11) suggests that Ennius is willing to leave the grandness of the Annales behind. 109. Cf. the Scholiast to Persius 6.9– 11. 110. On the relationship of the prologue to Callimachean aesthetics, see Cucchiarelli (2012) 171– 73, McNelis (2012) 243– 52, and Wimmel (1960) 310– 11. 111. Even in Lucilius “Iuvat integros accedere fonts / Atque haurire,” fr. 1061 Warmington. 112. In Horace it is used adjacent to a sentence about curing constipation, Sat. 2.4.26, leading Pasoli (1985) 1821 to suggest that here in Persius it is hard not to think about the same bowel issue via a sort of “horizontal contamination.”

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belly” (i.e., a bowel movement: “Nam pruinosa herba pecudi gravedinem creat ventremque proluit”); in Plautus’ Curculio an old procuress is told to “scour out her sewer” (i.e., her stomach) with a glass of wine (“cloacam prolue,” 1, 2.29). So it would seem that unlike his forbearers, Persius is not only refusing to drink the sacred spring, but also repurposing it as a sort of Metamucil drink for other poets; ideally, it would make their digestion work better. The digestive system is, after all, the most important recipient of good poetry in this body of work.113 The thematic link between the belly and its effect on poetry is renewed with still greater gusto in the second half of the prologue, where Persius speaks to the topic of satire 1 and the fraught relationship between culinary bribery and praise. Having asserted his distance from the bards who drink the waters of the Hippocrene for divine inspiration, the satirist returns to the polluted poetry churned out in this economy of food and flattery. Quis expediuit psittaco suum “chaere” picamque docuit nostra uerba conari? magister artis ingenique largitor uenter, negatas artifex sequi uoces. quod si dolosi spes refulserit nummi, coruos poetas et poetridas picas cantare credas Pegaseium nectar.114 Who supplied the parrot with his “Bonjour!” and taught the magpie to try out our words? That teacher of craft and bestower of talent, the belly, skilled at pursuing speech not granted to it. But if the hope of a beguiling coin should gleam, you’d believe these crow-poets and magpie-poetesses were singing pure Pegasian nectar.115 113. Pasoli (1985) 1820– 21 argues likewise that it is the purgative force of proluo that is at work here. 114. The variant reading for “nectar,” melos (Greek for song), has a short epsilon. For a summary of the arguments against it, see Kissel (1990) 98– 99 with bibliography. 115. One interpretation of these lines is that Persius is actually damning himself as the imitator; see, e.g., Relihan (1989) 152. This seems to me to be unlikely, given the content of satires 1 and 5. Hooley (1997) 232 recognizes the dual possibilities, and also sees here “Neronian patronage and its debilitating effects on both the quality of current poetry and criticism” (especially given the political connotations of largitor and sequi).

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The belly, not the Muses, is the real artifex of poetic inspiration, forcing its owner to become skilled at pursuing a speech “not its own”: when the parrot and magpie mimic human speech, their leap into the unnatural is driven by the eternal force of hunger. Persius means to be telling us something about human speech, of course, and the sense in which it too springs from the belly. But in the context of the satires, his magpie/ parrots and magpie/crows take on a certain referential slipperiness. At first it is clear that the parrot who apes human speech “sings” for his supper, like the bard of old; but when these meretricious birds are mapped onto satire 1, they also become the audience members in the recital, the flatterers who are willing to shout “Bravo” in order to get fed a good meal. That is, the inauthentic speech of the parrot and magpie is also the pandering speech of those who praise the bad poet in words they do not believe. Persius effectively collapses the boundaries between the derivative poets (and the food-poetry they toss to their admirers) and the admirers themselves, and both parties are implicated in the indecorous reduction of poetry to units of exchange.116 This is just as in the satires themselves; in satire 5 the bellies belong to the poets and actors who are consuming and vomiting up their Thyestean lumps, while in satire 1 the bellies belong to the flattering audience chowing down their dinner, the ones all too willing to pretend that what they are listening to is “Pegaseium nectar.”117 And now our “dolosus nummus,” the beguiling coin, makes sense as well. Just as magpies will go for anything bright, whether it is real money or simply a beguiling and shiny piece of metal (or foil), the authenticity of what they are seeking as their reward is as tarnished as the authenticity of what they have to offer. It seems, then, that there are deceptive users of language on both sides of this equation: The poetic scene is awash in people using language “not their own,” whether in praise or in poetry, whether as unoriginal hacks taking in the works of their predecessor poets with little originality or “mixing” (i.e., concoction), or as lying listeners responding to cheap titillation and the promise of a good meal. Even the ivy that clung adoringly (sequax) to the busts of great poets and licked them in the first half of the prologue is transformed into something that is a follower/flatterer (cf. sequi) in the second, the belly; poets are fawned over 116. Wehrle (1992a) 59 recognizes the application to mercenary poets, but leaves out the audience. 117. Hooley (1997) sees here a reference to “Neronian patronage and its debilitating effects on both the quality of current poetry and criticism” (232), as does Dessen (1996) 20– 23, who points out that the parrot was often given to rulers as an exotic present and knew how to say “ave, Caesar.” Cf. “quails artifex pereo,” Suet. Nero and the political connotations of largitor and sequi.

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and fawn, and the ivy that “licks” the great poets of the tradition is not unlike the belly that will flatter whomever it needs to, a similarity that ties the high genres and their audience yet again to falseness and flattery. Or perhaps we should ask if licking the busts is just another way of consuming (albeit slowly) the poetic body? There remains one final alimentary motif in the prologue that deserves our critical attention. Persius’ parrots and magpies and crows have introduced the notion not only of inauthentic speech, but of parroted speech: the parrot’s “chaere” is a response to hearing “chaere” many times, and not a “composition” on his part. In what sense, however, can Persius claim that the poets themselves are parrot-like or magpie-like, repeating a language that is recycled, mimicked, a mere echo? We might think once again of Seneca’s and Quintilian’s insistence that a broad reading in poetic texts as an educational necessity118 must be digested properly in order to become truly one’s own; otherwise what stays in the stomach is unoriginal, a mere copying of the poetic tradition rather than an innovation. The poet-actor of satire 5 who regurgitates his lines has certainly not digested them; the dyspeptic audience of satire 1 has not either; in fact, all the verse Persius has contaminated with his cannibalistic metaphors refuses to be digested properly, just as Seneca’s postprandial Thyestes responds to his own cannibal meal with uncomfortable belches (Thy. 911).119 (In fact to belch, ructare, was thought to be precisely a response to indigestion, as pointed out by Celsus De medicina 1.2.2.) Belching and vomiting up what one has eaten or read is to give the foodstuff or words back to the world undigested and thus unaltered, “unconcocted” in the way the Seneca and Pliny advise the consumer of literary tradition to be sure to avoid.120 It is a sign of being a repeater, and not an original. It is to eat a text but then to echo it back to the world, unchanged, as a parrot might do.121 118. Also a theme in Petr. Sat. 5. 119. Horace likewise hints at a digestive problem when the mad poet of the Ars poetica is said to “belch” up his verses, as if his assimilation of the poetic tradition has not been properly digested (“Hic dum sublimis uersus ructatur et errat,” AP 457. On Atreus as cannibal-poet, see Schiesaro (2003) 126– 27. In Hor. Sat. 2.5.40– 41, the overfed Furius “spits up” his verse. On literary qualities as causing indigestion, see Quint. 10.1.19. Galen tells us that a hot stomach will have a hard time digesting soft meats (presumably such as the stewed bodies of young boys); instead, “the stomach corrupts them and turns them into belchings,” De temperamentis 3.14.103). 120. On “vomiting” words, e.g., Caecil. ap. Gell. 2, 23, 13, Cic. Cat. 2.5.10, Cic. Phil. 5, 7, 20. 121. On the unoriginality of the speech of the crow and the parrot, see Apul. Flor. 12.8. Is it a coincidence that the lines of “bad” poetry cited at Sat. 1.99– 102 (said by the scholia to be Nero’s) include the words “reparabilis adsonat echo”? Note, too,

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No wonder, then, that we find that Persius’ presumed inspiration for his crows is the passage in Horace Ep. 1.3.15– 20 where Horace criticizes his poet friend Celsus as a crow himself.122 Why? Because Celsus is a plagiarizer, and decks himself with the stolen plumage of the books in Palatine library. Quid mihi Celsus agit? Monitus multumque monendus, priuatas ut quaeret opes et tangere uitet scripta, Palatinus quaecumque recepit Apollo, ne, si forte suas repetitum uenerit olim grex auium plumas, moueat cornicula risum furtiuis nudata coloribus. What’s my Celsus up to? He’s been warned and deserves much warning still, that he should seek out his own resources and avoid pawing the books Apollo’s received for the Palatine library, lest by chance when the flock of birds will return some day to seek their former plumage, the silly crow will make them laugh stripped of his stolen colors.

Persius’ own preferred target in satire 1, Attius Labeo, also falls into the category of crow/parrot. His sin is not plagiarism, but a translation that is so literal as to be artless. As the scholiast remarks (ad loc.) in explaining Persius’ choice of Labeo, “Labeo translated the Iliad and the Odyssey word for word, with quite a comic outcome, since he paid attention to the words rather than to the meaning” (“quia Labeo transtulit Iliaden et Odissian verbum ex verbo ridiculose satis, quod verba potius quam sensum secutus est”).123 that Cornutus remarks kindly of Persius that he does not engage in crow-speak: Sat. 1.11– 12: “nec . . . / nescio quid tecum grave cornicaris inepte.” 122. Horace famously declared his independence from the worthless throngs of poetic imitators in Epistle 1.19.21– 23; in the Ars poetica 317– 18, he urges the would-be playwright to be a “doctus imitator” of what he hears in daily life, here not talking about a poetic tradition but perhaps supplying ammunition for Persius’ comments on the parrot. 123. The crow is a symbol of shallow learning at Pindar Ol. 2.87. Obviously human sounds coming out of birds led to all sorts of perverted play in the fertile Roman imagination: Gowers (1993) 42 notes that “Claudius Aesopus was said to have staged a quasi-cannibalistic banquet out of birds that imitated the human voice.” Further on comparisons of human and animal voices, see Runchina (1983) 19– 21.

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There are tensions in this opposition of the original to the imitation, of course; no piece of ancient poetry (even Persius’ satire) is so simple as to be either imitated or original, and the two extremes exist mostly, it seems, to be played with in a delicate process that involves decorum, genre, creativity, and one-upmanship.124 We return, ultimately, to the question of whether the material has been concocted and digested sufficiently before being made public to the world, whether its consumption has led to a sound constitution or to a protruding pig belly. And we return as well to the vexed question of how Persius can issue his gustatory condemnations within the confines of a genre that derived its name and form from the idea of a mixed smorgasbord of foodstuffs. As many scholars of Roman satire have noted, satura, the feminine form of the adjective satur, “full,” seems to have come to refer to the genre through the mediation of the idea of being stuffed or crammed with different foodstuffs— a startling notion, given how we have seen Persius take up the cudgel against this kind of poetry/cuisine. Although the fourth-century grammarian Diomedes offered four possibilities for the etymology— (1) satyri, satyrs; (2) a lanx satura, literally, a full dish; (3) a kind of forcemeat or stuffing, a farcimen; (4) the name of a political bill with many headings, the lex per saturam— scholars today very much favor the culinary etymology: that is, the lanx satura, a dish of harvest fruits, which is personified by the adjective as though it had eaten its fill. The consensus, then, as Gowers sums it up in The Loaded Table, is that “satura was originally some kind of mixed dish named by analogy with a person or his stomach, mixed with a great variety of things and bursting at the seams” (1993, 110). This association has endlessly puzzled readers of Persius, who see a contradiction between his criticism of rich foods, especially meats, and his choice of genre.125 How can he blithely criticize these foods, and those who consume them, while writing in a genre whose very origin lies in a sort of sartago edendi? The dyspeptic pig-eating audience of satire 1, the fools who propitiate the gods with dishes of lungs and chitterlings in satire 2, the bloated gourmand of satire 3 expiring in the bathhouse, the richly fed Alcibiades of satire 4, and, of course, our tragedian-cannibal of satire 5: these figures are all the butts of Persius’ critical disgust, but at the same time, they are curiously like the genre that Persius seems 124. For an excellent discussion of these issues, see the appendix on imatatio in Hooley (1997) 242– 67. 125. It is irresistible to point out that Thyestes, as sausage casing for his children’s meat, acts as a figure for Persianic satire, which is replete with pieces of Horatian satire— stuffed, as it were, with the father, if not the children.

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to have approved for his own writing. That is, aren’t Persius’ distasteful images of mixed-up meals and dyspeptic poets themselves reminiscent of the medium in which he has chosen to write, satura? As Gowers eloquently states the problem: “The muse of satire was none other than the bloated bodies, protuberant guts, and messy stews that are the chief objects of the satirist’s abuse. . . . The fat stomachs, distended with tripe, that fill Persius’ pages not only embody moral laxity and crass sensibilities; they are also walking figures of the text itself, the farcimen or stuffed gut” (124, 185).126 To simplify grossly: can one use a stuffed gut to criticize stuffed guts?127 To the critics one might respond: This is a legitimate question, but it is also very easily flipped on its head. In choosing digestion as his metaphor for poetic reception, in wishing to describe the grotesque bodies and foodstuffs of his literary Thyestes, Procnes, and Lamias, and in wishing to separate himself from the epic and tragic hexameters of his peers, Persius has to write satire: into what other genre could he fit this bulging mishmash? Pacuvius’ Antiope, Accius’ Bacchae, the porcine rhapsodizing of his host, the distended belly of the dying gourmand, all the disgusting tastes of the grand style favored by his victims can only be served up in the stewpot of satire.128 As Horace himself points out, they are unfit topics for higher genres.129 Still, we can mount a better defense of our satirist than this. If satire itself is to be seen as akin to a large plate (or pot) of mixed meatstuffs, then we can justifiably claim that Persius is carrying out a special culinary operation in his own satiric pot. That is, what Persius threatens to do to the mass in his “pot” (as we will see in the next chapter) is cook it yet some more— to “concoct” it into something that can be digested and will distribute nourishment properly to those who read it. We recall that one of Seneca’s injunctions on reading/digestion was that too many different “foodstuffs” not be sampled at once, precisely because this would interfere with digestion and nourishment (Ep. 2.2). Persius’ Satires both raise this problem and promise to resolve 126. On references to food in satire, see also Bramble (1974) 45– 59. 127. Gowers (1993) 185 suggests that Persius’ expression of a preference for simple food in satire creates complications because of his prejudices against composite food and because of satire’s internal critique of rich style. 128. On the notion that literature has a taste, cf. Bramble (1974) 50– 51, Gowers (1993) 292– 93; cf. the metaphor of a lecture “non publici saporis” in Petr. Sat. 3.1, and discussion by Rimell (2002) 21; on the taste of human flesh, Rimell (2002) 166– 68. 129. Gowers (1993) 121: “According to the long metaphorical tradition we have seen, bloated or cloyingly rich food embodies the excesses of contemporary style, while a simple and wholesome diet stands for literary restraint.” So, for both Horace and Persius, rich food is simultaneously the object of moral and aesthetic repugnance. See likewise Bramble (1974) 46– 47, 54– 56, 111– 12, 114– 15; Hudson (1989).

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it: they will render these rich dishes into something much more simple. In making this promise, they will explicitly move away from the idea of poetry as meat to characterize Persius’ own writing— the Satires, genre be damned— as the most stringent of vegetarian diets, and indeed, as nothing less than a cure for the stomach ailments caused by bad poetry.

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1. Satire’s Decoction When Socrates famously declares in Gorgias 465c that “rhetoric is to justice what cookery is to medicine,” his purpose is to critique the deceptive counterparts of the arts that truly aim at the good. Cookery (opsopoiike) and rhetoric (rhetorike) are dismissed not only because they are “knacks” rather than true arts, but more significantly because they are forms of flattery (kolakeia) and as such partake in falsehood and deception. They pander to people by pleasing their tastes, and fool them into thinking that what they are partaking of is good for them. Despite the pleasure they provide, both these pseudo arts ultimately corrupt their recipients by pandering to their lower senses rather than their higher senses, to appearances rather than truths; although in each case the consumer thinks he is making a good choice, in fact he believes so wrongly, and for the constitution of both body and soul this incorrect decision will have damaging consequences. When faced with a chef brandishing a roast leg of pork or a doctor offering a regime of careful abstinence, the unenlightened individual is likely to go for the former, especially if the cook claims to know that pork is good for what ails you. As Socrates sums it up in Gorgias 463b, 464d– e: [Flattery] as I view it, has many branches, and one of them is cookery; which appears indeed to be an art but, by my account of it, is not an art but a habitude or knack. . . . [Through flattery] cookery assumes the form of medicine, and pretends to know what foods are best for the body; so that if a cook and a doctor had to contend before boys, or before men as foolish as boys, as to which of the two, the doctor or the cook, understands the question of sound and noxious foods, the doctor would starve to death. (Tr. W. R. M. Lamb)

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Socrates thus offers a direct rebuttal to the real Gorgias’ claim, in his Defense of Helen, that rhetoric’s relationship to the soul was in fact that of medicine to the body (Helen 14).1 Plato’s philosophical use of the contrast between the pleasure-giving and the healthful components of what the body takes in was a component of Stoic thought as well, unsurprisingly so in a philosophy in which the state of the body is so often a metaphor for the state of the mind.2 Contrasting what pleasures the body to what heals it, Persius’ contemporary Seneca often invokes the potentially deadly effects of rich food over against the salutary outcome of simple foods. The illusory lure of a delicious meal can lead to “indigestion and drunkenness and the other things which kill via pleasure” (De prov. 3.2); it may even result in a need for forms of medical intervention that were unnecessary in the good old days (Ep. 95.15): Nec est mirum tunc illam minus negotii habuisse firmis adhuc solidisque corporibus et facili cibo nec per artem voluptatemque corrupto: qui postquam coepit non ad tollendam sed ad inritandam famem quaeri et inventae sunt mille conditurae quibus aviditas excitaretur, quae desiderantibus alimenta erant onera sunt plenis. It’s not surprising that medicine had less to do in the past, when our bodies were still firm and strong, and food was simple and not corrupted by art and pleasure. But when food began to be sought not for the sake of removing, but of stimulating, hunger, and a thousand sauces were invented to excite gluttony, what was nourishment to those who wanted it became a burden to men who were full. 1. On the analogy of cookery and rhetoric in the Gorgias, see esp. PlastiraValkanou (1998); on medicine itself as a metaphor in Plato, see Lidz (1995). Cf. Richardson-Hay (2009) 72 on the tradition of gastronomic description in ancient philosophical writing. On the connection between pleasure and deception in the Gorgias, see Moss (2006); on the painfulness of both philosophy and medicine, Moss (2007b). Clay (2003) 190– 92 sets Plato’s Gorgias and the connection of deception and pleasure as a backdrop to his discussion of Lucretius’ honeyed cup. 2. In his Tusculan Disputations, for example, Cicero draws on the early Stoic Chrysippus in comparing the arts of healing for the body and for the soul, the latter (philosophy) less developed despite its greater urgency (Tusc. 3.1– 6; cf. 4.23). Seneca Ep. 120.5 is crystal clear: “I will tell you what this analogy is. We understood the health of the body: from this we gathered that there is a health of the mind. We understood bodily strength: from this we gathered that there is also a strength of the mind.” On Plato’s use of metaphors of bodily sickness to refer to the mind, see Anton (1980), Berg (1904) 18– 21, Lidz (1995), Moss (2007b).

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As Christine Richardson-Hay (2009, 84) illustrates, Seneca accordingly condemns cooks such as Apicius for being practitioners of a dangerous scientia of the snack bar, and caterers to the tastes of men already corrupted by the desire for what is the rarest and most extravagant of foodstuffs.3 On this view, poverty can be a hidden blessing to a man, “for he is made healthy against his will, and, if he won’t take his medicine even when forced, in the meantime at least, while he cannot get what he wants, he is like a man who does not want them” (Ad Helv. 10.3).4 Seneca’s view extends to the common trope that what humans eat can either degrade them to the level of an animal or render them second only to the gods (Ep. 60.4). Man’s noblest part, he tells us, “is virtue itself; there is joined to this, useless and perishable flesh, fit only for the reception of food, as Posidonius says. This divine virtue ends in what is transient, and an inert and drooping animal is fastened onto those parts that are heavenly and worthy of respect” (Ep. 92.10).5 Food, in short, comes with medical and ethical baggage. The Platonic analogy between justice/rhetoric and medicine/ cookery is likewise reproduced in Seneca’s writing. Like Plato before him, Seneca declares that the true healer does not need fancy rhetoric, and while an eloquent doctor called in to help does not hurt, his skill in speaking is fundamentally irrelevant to the business at hand (EM 75.6– 7): Non quaerit aeger medicum eloquentem, sed si ita competit ut idem ille qui sanare potest compte de iis quae facienda sunt disserat, boni consulet. . . . Quid aures meas scabis? quid oblectas? aliud agitur: urendus, secandus, abstinendus sum. Ad haec adhibitus es; curare debes morbum veterem, gravem, publicum; tantum negotii habes quantum in pestilentia medicus. A sick man does not look for an eloquent doctor; but if it turns out that the same man who is able to cure him expounds elegantly about what has to be done, the patient will consider it a plus. . . . Why do 3. Cf. Athenaeus Deipnosophists 3.349 Kock, where Damoxenus speaks of a cook who compares his “science” to Epicurean physics; also Gowers (1993) 84– 85. 4. “Inuitus enim sanatur et, si remedia ne coactus quidem recipit, interim certe, dum non potest, illa nolenti similis est.” 5. “Prima pars hominis est ipsa virtus; huic committitur inutilis caro et fluida, receptandis tantum cibis habilis, ut ait Posidonius. Virtus illa divina in lubricum desinit et superioribus eius partibus venerandis atque caelestibus animal iners ac marcidum adtexitur.”

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you give my ears a scratch?6 Why do you delight me? Our task is otherwise: I must be cauterized, cut into, or put on a diet. You were summoned for this; you must cure a disease that is chronic, serious, of public import. You have as much work at hand as a doctor has in a plague.

Rhetoric and cookery here play the same role as in the Gorgias, providing false comfort to the man who needs a more serious intervention and offering the ears a pleasant scratch when what needs to be cured has nothing to do with the aural. Philosophy, represented by the figure of the stern and cauterizing doctor, is not about pleasure from language; it calls for an intervention in a disease that is even more chronic than indigestion, the disease of human folly.7 Persius wants to make the same claim, but about literature: like food, it enters us; if healthy, it can help us see the world aright; if bad— like the cannibalistic poetry of his peers— it inflicts upon us a potentially deadly form of cognitive indigestion. Before we return to Persius, however, the Platonic analogy between cookery and medicine that lies at the basis of these comparisons between the welfare of the soul and the body itself calls for a degree of explanation. As Maria Plastira-Valkanou (1998) has noted, the Gorgias’ treatment of fine cuisine and medical intervention as deceptively similar approaches to the health of the body is not (to us) a self-evident analogy. Unlike the comparison of true and false arts, or the notion that we might not fully know what is best for us, the worry that the cook could put the doctor out of business has little resonance in the modern period, and the apparent interchangeability of these two fields seems odd in our day of antibiotics and injections. And yet it made sense to Plato and Seneca, because in antiquity, generally speaking, most of what was used as medicine was food. Indeed, if we want to properly understand the role that foodstuffs play in Persius’ Satires, we must understand that ancient food and medicine were located on a spectrum in which they constituted opposite extremes along a single parameter— that of the comestible. From the earliest days of classical medical advice, dietetics was the major approach to healing sickness; accordingly, what was edible— especially plants and small animals— was the material from which medical treatments were constituted. As Owen Powell has explained (2003, 6. Scabo (unlike scalpo) is regularly used of pleasurable scratching rather than of abrasive scratching; see OLD s.v. 1: “to relieve irritation.” 7. As Moss (2007b, 236) sums up the claims of the Gorgias, “Flattery of all kinds is persuasive because it gratifies people’s appetites, causing pleasure; correction of all kinds is unpersuasive because it frustrates people’s appetites, and causes pain.”

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2– 3): “As the ancients saw it, foodstuffs (or many of them) had a dual role— on the one hand as nutriment necessary for life and to provide the wherewithal for growth and reproduction; on the other as a drug (pharmakon), or better, pharmacological agent, with an effect, good or bad, upon the physiological processes of the body.” Regular comestibles consumed for the purpose of nourishment simply took up a place in the ancient kitchen that was intermediate between foodstuffs with curative properties and rich and exotic meals that threatened the indulgent with a stewpot of maladies. There were high stakes attached to understanding these distinctions between the curative, the nourishing, and the dangerous, both in the maintenance and in the restoration of health. Not only the foodstuff but even the amount consumed could make all the difference in whether a given substance was medicine, nutrition, or poison. Democritus is known to have written a treatise on diet; the Pythagoreans were particularly concerned with it; and Hippocrates’ treatment and advice were inherited and debated by the Greek and Roman physicians and polymaths of Persius’ time as well, especially Pliny the Elder, Celsus, and (slightly later) Galen. Medically speaking, what had to be figured out by the doctor each time he was presented with a sickness and once the diagnosis had been made, was: what sort of curative foodstuff should be prescribed? What quantity should be given to the patient (different people having different reactions and different tolerances)? And, very importantly, how was it to be prepared so that it was in fact no longer food but medicine?8 For these physicians, so close were the contents and methodologies of cooking to those of medicine that Galen would call the former “the physician’s assistant” (Galen De tuenda valetudine secunda 2.11 = 6.155– 6K). In short, Plato’s use of the medicine-cookery analogy was a distinction between two forms of consumption (one curative, one damaging) that were similar enough that the physician could be said to risk losing his position to the cook. Two caveats need to be added to this general picture of the ancient overlap between food and medicine. First, what is defined as edible in Pliny, Celsus, and Galen covers a wider variety of materials than what we would strictly call food. Powell points out that Galen’s definition covers marijuana and poppy seeds, and many of the healing draughts in Pliny’s recipes are outright repellant.9 Second, ancient doctors did 8. Plastira-Valkanou (1998) makes this point well. For a study of medicine as an informing metaphor in Plato’s thought, see Lidz (1995). 9. I always steer clear of children’s urine (NH 28.18.65), hyena eyeballs (NH 28.27.105), and foxes boiled alive (NH 28.62.220).

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have an awareness of the distinction between food as medicine and the inedible as medicine (the latter usually known as medicamentum).10 Celsus addresses this distinction in the proem to book 5 of De medicina, pointing out that some doctors refuse to use medicamenta because they are believed to damage the stomach— though he himself finds them useful. The medicines Celsus then goes on to discuss not only include ores, metals, minerals, and resins, but are also combined with some of the edible foodstuffs he lists elsewhere: we find, mixed or alone, such items as leeks and honey, wine and lentils, suggesting that even these distinctions are somewhat malleable. Unlike the dietetic cures, however, most medicamenta were toxic and had to be handled with care; indeed, the online editor of the De medicina finds Celsus’ prescriptions alarming enough that he has put a medical disclaimer on his website.11 Ores and metals aside, most often an ancient Roman who had fallen prey to some disease— including the ones Persius displays for us in the pages of the Satires— would turn to remedies based on the special preparation of materials familiar in ordinary culinary practice. As we’ve seen, the extravagant cooked meals of these satires carry an ethically negative charge; used metaphorically to signify the flattering language of both poets and listeners, they inevitably recall Plato’s critique of pandering language as “cookery.” Yet to counter such cookery, Persius does not urge us to seek the cure of “medicine” from afar in some pharmacologist’s stash, nor does he even set up a contrast between bad poetry as food and good poetry as not food. Instead he impresses upon us the need for the right kind of poetic food, the kind opposed to all that reeks of cannibals and pigs. If grotesque, meaty, over-rich dishes serve as satiric metaphors for a certain kind of literature, Persius imports another kind of culinary metapoetics to come to the rescue, for in exporting the cook, he does not need to exile all foodstuff altogether. Moreover, he links this curative culinary metapoetics to the style and content of his own Satires.12 Perhaps surprisingly, given the history of satura as a sausage-laden smor10. “Dixi de iis malis corporis, quibus victus ratio maxime subvenit: nunc transeundum est ad eam medicinae partem, quae magis medicamentis pugnat.” 11. Http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Celsus/home.html. 12. Can a particular form of language usage literally have an effect on the body? The Romans seem to suggest this is the case. Not only does oratio reflect vita (as in Seneca’s Ep. 114), but things one did to one’s body could affect the register of one’s speech, and vice versa. Dugan (2003) explores this idea in Roman rhetorical theory and practice; Quintilian, for example, “has a compromise position on the issue of controversiae, allowing occasional indulgence so long as they are followed by a regimen of thinning, ‘bloodletting,’ and the expulsion of ‘corrupt humor’ in order to regain oratorical health” (Inst. 2.10.5– 7; Dugan 2003, 419).

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gasbord, it turns out that the poetry with the right characteristics to cure what ails us lies in our hands as we read his nonfleshy corpus. What then are the traits of this Persian dietetics of poetry as Persius himself describes it? We will not be surprised, perhaps, to find that it is characterized as simple, vegetarian, and indifferent to gustatory pleasure. To be sure, not all of its characteristics have to do with the culinary; for example, his work attracts no favorable audience (Sat. 1.1– 11), avoids grace and smoothness (“decor et iunctura,” Sat. 1.92), and is not afraid to state the biting truth (Sat. 1.107). It makes assaults on men’s ears, steaming them clean with its penetrative content (Sat. 1.126). And it is didactic, offering instruction in self-knowledge rather than providing a frisson for decadent readers (Sat. 3.66– 76, 4.51– 52). But when we do turn to culinary adjectives, we find that unlike the frothy blather and cauldrons full of flesh produced by his peers, Persius’ verse offers a strict diet indeed. It is analogized to raw vegetables such as beets (Sat. 3.112, 114) and to vegetarian fare in general; it is nowhere described as giving pleasure or providing satiety; and in Persius’ strangest adjective, one straight from the kitchen or the pharmacy, it is decoctum, boiled down to a residue, or rather, as Persius puts it, decoctius, more boiled down to a residue than anything else available.13 The context of this word decoctius is worth consideration. When Persius turns to compare his own poetry to that of the comic playwrights of classical Athens, Cratinus, Eupolis, and Aristophanes, he applauds their outspokenness and their willingness to alienate their audience, a quality Horace shrinks from.14 His own poetry, however, is somehow still more effective (Sat. 1.123– 26): Audaci quicumque afflate Cratino iratum Eupolidem praegrandi cum sene palles, aspice et haec, si forte aliquid decoctius audis. inde uaporata lector mihi ferueat aure. Whoever you are, who feel bold Cratinus’ inspiration, and grow pale as you hear angry Eupolis and the great old man, 13. For pioneering work on this term as typical of Nero’s aesthetics, see Gowers (1994). 14. See Kissel (1990) 273– 76. Persius here takes up Hor. Sat. 1.4.1– 5, in which Horace attributes a bygone frankness to Old Comedy and stresses its influence on Lucilius. Relihan (1989) 155 thinks this means Persius is looking for a select audience of pedants. He points out that one’s ears would get “dirty” from hearing Aristophanes. Selden (1971) takes it as having to do with invective; Miller (2006) links it to political freedom.

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look at my lines too, in case you can hear anything more boiled-down. From these lines let my reader seethe with a steamed-out ear.

Persius thus characterizes his own verse as more “boiled-down” than any blanching attacks the Attic comedians could make.15 But how does this quality assist the satirist in impacting his audience? The term has sometimes been taken as a reference to the density of Persius’ poetry; Bramble, for example, writes that “decoquere describes the refined density of Persius’ manner, the opposite of the undigested style . . . of his opponents” (1974, 139); Andrea Cucchiarelli (2012, 177– 78) expands on this by pointing to the Callimachean aesthetics underpinning a program of compression, while Gowers (1994, 140) suggests that Persius’ six satires, the entirety of his corpus, represent a boiling-down of Horace’s more voluminous work.16 Catherine Keane (2012, 88) appropriately links the term back to the kitchen, suggesting that “decoctius also nicely represents the way the Satires pack such a large amount of gastronomic imagery into a small space.”17 In short, Persius’ verse is dense, a brew tightly packed with strong and occasionally assaultive imagery, perhaps more outré than the comedians themselves. All of this is unassailable. Decoctus, however, is above all a medical term,18 referring most often to the ubiquitous Roman practice of boiling things down to medical strength: that is, the making of medicine out of food. Indeed, a jaunt through the approximately 580 uses of the term decoctus in Pliny the Elder’s Naturalis historia and the 70 or so uses in the eight books of Celsus’ De medicina (both first-century texts) shows that the boiling down of foodstuffs such as radishes and lentils and of herbs such as hyssop, vervain, or linseed into various kinds of decocta 15. Decoctius is also addressed in e.g., Gowers (1994) passim, Bramble (1974) 139, Anderson (1982) 173– 74, Cucchiarelli (2005) 68, Keane (2012) 88– 89, Reckford (2009) 50– 51. Freudenburg (2001) 181– 82 interprets it properly with reference to the medical manuals. Funnily enough, in Aristophanes Knights 1321, the sausage seller claims that he has made the Demos better by “boiling it down”— τὸν Δῆμον ἀφεψήσας ὑμῖν καλὸν ἐξ αἰσχροῦ πεποίηκα. 16. Dugan (2003, 418) adduces Quintilian’s rhetorical usage of the term as a way to condense oratory that is too rich or copious; cf. Inst. 2.4.6– 7. Relihan (1989) 156, however, may miss the linguistic register of this usage, since he thinks that any reference to the obscene and vulgar Aristophanes as a potential cleaner of ears must be purely comic. 17. The scholiast meanwhile refers us to wine boiled down to sweetness or to the smelting of silver, and often the term is applied to bankruptcy. 18. A fact that only Korzeniewski (1970) 426– 27 has recognized, if only partially; he sees it can be used of plasters, but leaves out potions. Crook (1967) examines the word in its financial meaning by looking at Roman legal history.

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was particularly common as a way of making medicine out of regular comestibles. To decoct was, in short, a well-known procedure for transforming the alimentary into the medicinal.19 Of course, not all decocted substances were medicine; not all decocted medicines were from foodstuffs; and finally, not all decocta were consumed. For example, as D. Korzeniewski (1970) 426– 27 has shown, Persius’ decoctius here probably refers to a poultice or plaster applied to the skin; the ear of line 126 is thus “steamed out” because a hot plaster has been applied to it.20 And indeed, the adjective is used liberally in the medical texts to describe how one makes such a plaster (the plaster itself being a kataplasmata or an emplastrum), and Pliny suggests various plaster decoctions for earache in a number of places in the Natural History: a decoction of capers, at NH 20.59.167; of sow thistles, NH 22.44.90; of the mysterious plant brya, NH 24.42.71– 72— though it is not clear that these are all applied when hot and thus able to steam out ears.21 As a clearer example of his argument, the steam from decocted absinthe is said to cure ear problems when applied (NH 27.28.50). But Persius’ concerns are more often alimentary than aural, and in his suggestion that his verse will provide us with “aliquid decoctius” we must also hear all the other places in the Satires in which his poetry is indeed alimentary, and not only edible but also bitter, condensed, and unpleasant— like Lucretius’ wormwood without the honeyed cup. So it is not surprising to see that many of the medical decocta we come across in Pliny and Celsus are not only made out of foodstuffs but also prescribed for internal consumption. The array is dazzling— and frankly bizarre; the various problems that ailed the Romans of the first century CE apparently called for some very strange boilings-down. For example, chowing down a decocted lizard cures dysentery (NH 30.19.55), as does a dosage of decocted chicks in their eggs (NH 29.11.45); a decocted wood pigeon dissipates flatulence (NH 30.20.61), decocted snails break up stones in the bladder (NH 30.21.66), and decocted tortoise flesh is a remedy (when eaten, it seems, but it is hard to tell) for pus in the ears (NH 32.14.37). Such potions are to be found across the board of medical prescriptions, even for what we would consider issues of men19. Here I thank my graduate student Diana Moser, who as my research assistant charted all of Pliny’s and Celsus’ uses of decocted substances. See the appendix for a list of decoctions and their relevance (or not) to stomach ailments. 20. Korzeniewski refers to an “Ümschlage,” and cites Celsus 6.7.1 as an example of the term decoctus used of ear medicine. 21. At NH 23.81.163, a decocted plaster of white myrtle removes pus from the ears, while NH 32.25.78 suggests pouring hot concocted garum (fermented fish sauce) into your ears to help hearing problems.

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tal health: an enema of decocted vervain is recommended for madness (Celsus 3.18.8), a draught of decocted rue for a sort of acedia (3.20.4). Given Persius’ obsession with the digestive tract and its ailments, it is worth remarking that many of these decocted remedies— about 120 of those in the Naturalis Historia, and a cluster in De medicina 4.12– 26— are particularly recommended for maladies of the stomach and intestinal tract, especially indigestion, stomach pain, and various forms of dysentery. In Pliny, such maladies can be eased or cured by the consumption of decoctions of pine bark, radishes, chicory, rue, anise, poppy, sorrel, mallow, fennel, apples, pomegranate, pears, figs, carob, acorns, fenugreek, deer’s rennet, goat’s blood, honey in which bees have died, frogs, and more; in Celsus, relief comes from decocted rue, hyssop, bramble-tops, dates, and quinces (also decocted vervain— but one must sit in it, not drink it!). It seems one cures the stomach by decoction, just as one makes it ill with fancy cookery. And the medical utility of decoction for gastric distress must nowhere be more called for than in Persius’ decocted verse, applied as a curative to all those who have listened too long to tales of Thyestes and his kind. If the perversion of proper digestion is what Persius laments in satires 1 and 5, it is clear that where concoction goes astray, decoction (we might say) steps in. The satires seem to represent themselves as a sort of stomach cauldron that boils down froth into density, transforming unpalatable foodstuffs into the medically beneficial. Like Plato five centuries earlier, then, Persius is making the jump from cookery proper (that master metaphor for the output of his inferior fellow poets) to “medicine” and its own constituent foodstuffs.22 In his own words, his satires are a decoction whose effect upon their audience is boldly claimed to be curative— a rare prescription for poetry in antiquity. If we are to think of the satires as aliquid decoctius and as such having a not-so-tasty medicinal force, we must also accept that Persius is deliberately setting himself apart from his most influential predecessor, Horace. In satire 1.1, Horace identifies his work not so much by analogy to overstuffed plates or boiled-down potions as to simple snacks: Quamquam ridentem dicere verum quid vetat? ut pueris olim dant crustula blandi doctores, elementa velint ut discere prima. 22. It is perhaps worth noting that decocta were also used as enemas; for example, among the cures for dysentery (brought on by too much mystery stew?) was a decoction of linseed introduced into the bowels (Celsus 4.22.3). This stands in direct contrast to the titillating verse penetrating the audience’s posterior in satire 1.

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What’s to stop one from speaking the truth while laughing? It is just like when coaxing teachers sometimes give pastries to boys so that they’ll learn their ABCs.

The wheedling teacher, here, is a figure for Horace; his work, harmless crustula with edifying content to be offered to his audience.23 Horace’s modest bribe at the opening to his book of satires is a long way from his images elsewhere of overblown excess that typify men whose urges break normative bounds, whether it is Stertinius’ gourmands in satire 2.2 or Nasidienus and his feast in satire 2.8, and thus it is hardly to be classified as a damning concession to the tastes of his readers. It is also a far cry from Lucretius’ bribe of sweet honey. But there is no parallel to Horace’s friendly tidbit in Persius’ satires, which proudly trumpet their absolute refusal to offer the reader anything sweet on their Stoic plate. Like Celsus (De med. 2.25.1), Persius seems to feel that anything which is too sweet is bad for digestion; indeed, it runs the same risk that cookery runs with respect to medicine. More of it is consumed precisely because it tastes so good, even as the foodstuff itself— and overindulgence in it— lead to deleterious effects on one’s health.

2. The Philosopher’s Plate As a metaphor for the remedial qualities of the Satires, decoction does not stand alone. Persius’ verse is not only analogized to a boiled-down and medicinal foodstuff with curative powers, a reduction of satire’s traditional association with satura to what is pungent, medical, and unappetizing (if good for you). It is also figured as a food in its own right, a healthy collection of appropriate comestibles to be categorized under “nourishment” rather than “medicine.” If Persius’ poetic targets were contaminated with meatstuffs, we see in contrast that his Satires claim to be offering simple and meat-free food— the same kind of food, in fact, that the Stoics who appear in his pages themselves consume. The Satires’ allegiance is to the modest meals of the philosophers, the humble beans and legumes on which Cornutus and Stoic students subside, the vegetarian diet that for the Romans symbolized the simple, old-fashioned way of life.24 So, 23. As Kirk Freudenburg (1993) 120 has pointed out, Horace’s punning references to satire in the satires point not at the alimentary origin of his genre in satura, but rather at the concept of limitation, the philosophical stance of “iam satis est” that he adopts in Sat. 1.1.120. 24. Detienne (1977) traces the symbolism of vegetable produce from the point of view of Greek religious practice, contrasting the sterility of the so-called gardens of Adonis with their fertile counterpart in Demeter’s fields.

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for example, when Persius describes in satire 3 the students who stay up all night learning Stoic doctrine, he makes a point of telling us they subsist on pulse (i.e., chickpeas, lentils, and beans) and barley (“siliquis et grandi . . . polenta,” Sat. 3.55); there is no sow’s paunch here.25 Nor do Persius himself, or his teacher Cornutus, dine on anything different; their culinary loyalty is with these sleepless students of philosophy. Exactly like the Stoic scholars, Persius’ teacher is said to stay up late into the night, distributing to his students a salutary vegetarian meal of Stoic philosophizing (5.62– 65); as Persius says to him, At te nocturnis iuuat inpallescere chartis, cultor enim iuuenum purgatas inseris aures fruge Cleanthea. petite hinc, puerique senesque, finem animo certum miserisque uiatica canis. But it pleases you to grow pale over your nocturnal papers; a farmer, you sow the weeded ears of the young with Cleanthean grain. Seek from here, boys and old men, a set limit for your mind and provisions for your wretched gray hairs.

The grain that Cornutus sows in the ears of the young stands at a far cry from the pork deposited in the bellies of the poets.26 Ears in general play a special part in Persius’ corpus, taking in both words and food, providing receptive entryways for sexual frissons and tasty tidbits, or for the good teachings of philosophy. They stand for the audience’s willingness— or not— to be cured; as with Seneca’s refusal to have his ears pleasantly scratched or itched, Persius disdains aural pleasure in favor of a more stringent approach.27 For the ears are the pathway to the mind, and Persius echoes in his language the famous Platonic metaphor of the Phaedrus in which the lasting impact of dialectic is contrasted to 25. Cf. Bion of Borysthenes, the writer of diatribe, who describes himself as a vegetarian at fragment 17 (ed. Kistrand), and Hor. Sat. 1.1.74; at Sat. 2.6.64, however, he adds bacon to his greens. Purcell (2005) shows that pulse was taken by the Romans to be a sign of old-fashioned moderation in diet. 26. For an account of the cultural valences of grain, pulse, legumes, and meat in Roman history in general, see Purcell (2005). Varro wrote a (lost) De vita populi romani that included, inter alia, an account of the earliest customs connected to food. 27. On Persius’ treatment of ears and ear metaphors, see especially Bramble (1974) 26– 27 and Reckford (1962) 476– 83. As the latter points out, in Horace Ep. 1.2.53 dirty ears can’t hear the lyre; it’s Persius who emphasizes philosophy. For the pun auri-culis (asshole ears), see Freudenburg (2001) 172. On the asses’ ears of satire 1, see Anderson (1982) 174ff., Morford (1984) 30– 31, 37– 38, 82– 83, and Sullivan (1978) 160– 61.

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the dead letter of any written document that claims to teach.28 Socrates in that dialogue praised the use of dialectic to “plant and sow in a fitting soul intelligent words which are able to help themselves and him who planted them . . . and which make their possessor happy” (Phaed. 276e– 277a, tr. H. N. Fowler);29 similarly, the Stoic philosopher here “sows” the seeds of wisdom, as Cornutus the farmer-philosopher plants permanently in his students’ ears the philosopher’s habitual frux. Opened up by the steam of Persius’ decocted verse, their ears and ours await this salubrious planting.30 As with the Stoic frux, vegetables too are presented as a food morally superior to meat throughout the Satires. As Dan Hooley (2012, 338) nicely sums it up, “Persius is rough veg for the system, full of purgative imagery: clean the ears, chew down the scratchy stuff, clear out the mind.”31 The satirist mocks those accustomed to easy living and soft food who can’t even get a raw beet down their ulcerated throats— the result of too much dissipation (Sat. 3.111– 14): Positum est algente catino durum olus et populi cribro decussa farina: temptemus fauces; tenero latet ulcus in ore putre quod haut deceat plebeia radere beta. A hard vegetable is served on a cold dish, and flour sifted in a common sieve: let us try out your jaws; a rotting ulcer hides in your tender mouth, of the sort that (no doubt) a plebeian beet shouldn’t scrape. 28. Reckford (1962) 479 notes that only here does the term auris rather than the diminutive form auricula occur, and only here is the ear designated positively; elsewhere Persius uses auricula as a term of disapprobation for the bad taste of contemporary audiences. 29. The whole passage runs, “πολὺ δ’ οἶμαι καλλίων σπουδὴ περὶ αὐτὰ γίγνεται, ὅταν τις τῇ διαλεκτικῇ τέχνῃ χρώμενος, λαβὼν ψυχὴν προσήκουσαν, φυτεύῃ τε καὶ σπείρῃ μετ’ ἐπιστήμης λόγους, οἳ ἑαυτοῖς τῷ τε φυτεύσαντι βοηθεῖν ἱκανοὶ καὶ οὐχὶ ἄκαρποι ἀλλὰ ἔχοντες σπέρμα, ὅθεν ἄλλοι ἐν ἄλλοις ἤθεσι φυόμενοι τοῦτ’ ἀεὶ ἀθάνατον παρέχειν ἱκανοί, καὶ τὸν ἔχοντα εὐδαιμονεῖν ποιοῦντες εἰς ὅσον ἀνθρώπῳ δυνατὸν μάλιστα.” 30. Is Persius’ sowing superior to Plato’s? It is at least provocative that the Demiurge in the Timaeus seems to sow a seed (sperma) in the marrow of the human body that ends up as the rational part of the soul, forming the brain (73c– d). Given the medical association between semen and brain matter, we are left with a curious version of husbandry here. Pender (2000) 163 is willing to entertain the possibility that divine seed and semen are one and the same. 31. On satirists as healing, and satire as curative writing in general, see Kivistö (2009) 7, 37, 170– 74.

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The jaws of this individual, ulcerated by his diet of fine spreads (pulmentaria, 3.102), represent the general ill health that later contributes to his death in the bathhouse; it seems the challenge of this humble vegetarian foodstuff proves too much for him. In addition, while any “hard vegetable” would presumably be difficult to swallow with an ulcerated throat, Persius’ mention of the beet has special significance.32 This vegetable was not only served as simple rustic fare, but was specifically prescribed for stomach problems caused by an excess of rich food because of its purgative side effects. In the third book of Apicius’ De re coquinaria (The Art of Cooking) beet dishes are twice recommended as a laxative (3.2.67, 69), and Apicius is in accord with the medical advice of both Galen and Pliny (On the Properties of Foodstuffs K630 = Powell 101– 2; NH 26.58.6, 28.209.7). That even the epigrammatist Martial notes this use of the vegetable in Epigrams 3.47.9 (“Pigroque ventri non inutiles betas”) suggests that its utility was not particularly abstruse as medical lore. And though it may seem incredible to suggest that Persius is concerned with the constipating effects of rich meaty food (and hence with laxative relief) even as a metaphor (this is poetry?), the sly joke in satire 2 relies on this understanding: Jupiter’s ability to grant wishes is “delayed” by the huge dishes and greasy sausages chowed down by those who supplicate him (Sat. 2.42– 43). All that is missing is the suggestion that the Olympian should find himself some beets— or at least provide some to those who appeal to him. In short, the beets are not only morally commendable because of their affiliation with a simple diet; they also approach the decocta in helping the digestive process and eliminating the food already in the belly. The raw beets of satire 3 have yet another salutary effect: they scrape (radere) the throat.33 This scraping is figured as a painfully abrasive way of getting rid of diseased morals, just as in the medical literature it is consistently recommended as a form of debridement to get rid of diseased flesh or bone. But are Persius’ satires as a text figured as vegetarian fare, let alone actually abrasive fare? The answer is yes. When, in satire 1, 32. None other than Burrus, Nero’s praetorian prefect, seems to have had difficulty with a throat ulcer. According to Tacitus (Ann. 14.51.1), Nero sent a doctor to smear it with salve which was possibly poisonous (a pharmakon?) In his account, medicine and poison alternate closely; Burrus’ throat was swabbed with a “toxic medicine” (“noxio medicamine”) as if it were a cure (“remedium”). The word medicamen here has the ambiguity of “drug” in English. 33. Cf. Conte (1999) 469: “Radere, defigere, revellere, terms recurring in his poetry, which denote the individual actions of this severe therapy, point to the process of demystifying reality, the removal of the scab of deceptive appearances that is necessary for a radical renewal of the conscience.”

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the satirist comments of his degenerate audience, “What’s the use of scraping tender little ears with the biting truth?” (“sed quid opus teneras mordaci radere uero / auriculas?” Sat. 1.107– 8) or, in satire 5, praises Cornutus for knowing how to “scrape away pallid mores” (“pallentis radere mores / doctus,” Sat. 5.15– 16), his point is that both his poetry and Cornutus’ Stoicism perform a parallel function to the coarse beet the ulcerous man would be swallowing were he not so far corrupted with the pleasures of cookery. Moreover, the beet-poetry-philosophy of the Satires, inasmuch as its action is to radere, itself imitates the common surgical procedure recommended in Celsus and other medical texts for removing various forms of corrupt matter from the healthy part of the body: in Celsus, for example, for debriding diseased bone and cartilage (8.2.2); for cleaning wounds (5.26.35B), (8.2); for pulling teeth (7.12.1) and getting rid of caries (6.13.4); for tonsillectomy (7.12.2); and (ouch) for reducing eye inflammation (6.6.27). Even scraping the head seems to have a salutary effect on lethargy (5.28.14). The scraping beets of satire 3, then, stand for Persius’ poetry— even as he wonders if it is worth inflicting it on us— and for Stoic wisdom; they are meant to figuratively scrape away our diseased softness, our pallid mores— not to scratch them pleasurably, but to scrape them away medically. To return to our vegetarian concerns, when Persius, in his description of his lifestyle with Cornutus in satire 5, takes the time to spell out what they eat and when, this passage sets itself off from the gory imagery of its opening in deliberately contrasting the simple meals of the philosopher and satirist to the hellish meat of the poet and actor: what the former “consume” are not dubious stews, but long days, while the nights are spent in philosophical conversation accompanied by modest food (Sat. 5.41– 44): Tecum etenim longos memini consumere soles et tecum primas epulis decerpere noctes. unum opus et requiem pariter disponimus ambo atque uerecunda laxamus seria mensa. I remember I consumed long days with you, and with you I enjoyed the evenings with feasts. The two of us set in order our work and our respite together and we ease our serious business with a modest meal.

This “verecunda mensa,” modest meal, is (like its synonyms brevis mensa or tenuis mensa) a meal without meat. Indeed the language of this rem-

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iniscence is laden with references to what is not happening at the Stoic dinner table. First, unlike Atreus and Procne and the pots with which this satire began, what Persius consumes is not flesh but abstract time. Second, when the satirist says he “enjoyed” the evening, it is hard not to hear the primary meaning of the verb, to tear apart. Decerpo can denote the action of plucking fruit off trees (cf. OLD s.v. 1) but it is also the catachrestic verb Seneca uses to describe what will happen to Thyestes’ children at the opening of his Thyestes (58– 62):34 as the Fury asks, Nondum Thyestes liberos deflet suos? et quando tollet? ignibus iam subditis spument aena, membra per partes eant discerpta, patrios polluat sanguis focos, epulae instruantur. Why is Thyestes not yet sobbing for his sons? When will the uncle raise his hand? Let the cauldrons bubble, their fires lit, let the arms and thighs be hacked away, partitioned [decerpta], and put in. Let blood discolor the family hearth, and the dinner party start.

Persius’ decerpo, far from Seneca’s Thyestes and his own Thyestean pot, simultaneously echoes and negates its flesh-laden shadow, sticking to the realm of the orchard and the field rather than the cauldron.35 Finally, the ethically superior nature of vegetarian produce to meat is a theme of satire 2 as well as satire 5; here the men who sacrifice animal flesh to the gods are depicted as fools if they think gods care for meat (2.29– 30, 45– 50). Rem struere exoptas caeso boue Mercuriumque arcessis fibra: “da fortunare Penatis, da pecus et gregibus fetum.” quo, pessime, pacto, tot tibi cum in flamma iunicum omenta liquescant? et tamen hic extis et opimo uincere ferto intendit. 34. On the probable dating of Seneca’s dramas, see, e.g., Nisbet (1990). It is generally agreed that they precede the Letters and as such were probably written in the late 50s. 35. In Horace AP 198– 207, the men who watch a scanty meal being served in drama are themselves verecundi.

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You hope to build up your wealth by slaughtering your oxen, and you summon Mercury with the entrails: “Let my Penates prosper, grant me cattle and offspring for my herds.” “How can they, you wretch, when the fat of so many of your bullocks is melting in the flames? And yet the man keeps trying to win his goal with guts and rich cakes.

Not only do these worshippers destroy their herds and flocks by making such sacrifices even as they pray to the gods to increase them, but they project onto the gods a desire for the same kind of meaty food that they, the mortals, value; they think (erroneously) that they can win the ear of Jupiter with a dish of lungs and greasy tripe (2.30, “pulmone et lactibus unctis”).36 Their misguided view of the world and the gods leads directly to their implication in a meat-and-guts world even as it turns them figuratively into meat and guts themselves: as Persius utters deploringly (Sat. 2.61– 63), O curvae in terris animae et caelestium inanes quid iuuat hoc, templis nostros inmittere mores et bona dis ex hac scelerata ducere pulpa? O souls bent to the earth and devoid of the divine! What does it help to import our habits into the temples and to infer what’s good for the gods from this wicked flesh?

As I am not the first to observe, pulpa, the word used here for human flesh, is a curious import indeed, and renders the sacrificers into a meaty substance not unlike what they sacrifice. But it should also be pointed out that while pulpa is a comparatively rare word in Latin, it crops up often in Apicius’ cookbook De re coquinaria, where it can mean any food beaten into a pulp but is most often used of meat such as sausage stuffing (insicia), chicken brains, offal, and even sow’s belly.37 Thus our ignorant farmer who sacrifices animal meat and guts to the gods not only ends up on the level of an edible offering himself; he calls out, in fact, to be cooked. Now, the satirist’s ethically correct vegetarian meal is not an entirely novel development in Roman satire— even though, as usual, Persius takes his inheritance one step further by actually assimilating his own 36. For an excellent study of the food imagery in this satire, see Flintoff (1982). 37. E.g., De re coquinaria 5.1.1.4, 5.1.1.7, 5.1.4.3, 5.1.4.6, 6.2.2.7, 6.8.14.2, 7.7.1.2, 8.8.8.1, 8.8.9.4.

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poetry to lowly vegetarian fare, and then hitching this meal to the wagon of Stoic philosophy. Horace likewise treated simple food as a morally charged concept (cf. Sat. 2.2.1170); both he and Lucilius, he claims, had a vegetable diet (Sat. 2.1.73– 74, 1.6.115), and the bulk of satire 2.2 is devoted to the peasant Ofellus’ denunciation of decadent food.38 In Persius, however, the correct diet is not just a matter of “quid deceat” (Hor. Ep. 1.6.61), but a characteristic of the good Stoic philosopher in particular; it is as closely linked to philosophy as to propriety. As Gowers aptly comments, “Unlike Horace’s sunny Epicureanism, Stoicism is an uphill struggle, a goal with a strict regimen attached: sleepless nights, a morbid pallor, and stodgy meals. Horace’s securum olus (safe vegetables) is no durum olus (hard vegetables), the Stoic’s diet of unappetizing beets and heavy lentils” (1993, 181).39 Accordingly, Seneca writes at length in his ninety-fifth letter on the moral failings of those Romans who stuff themselves with luxury foods and yet are never sated. Indeed, like Persius, he traces a veritable laundry list of diseases back to the problem of too much rich food (Ep. 95.16– 17): Inde pallor et nervorum vino madentium tremor et miserabilior ex cruditatibus quam ex fame macies; inde incerti labantium pedes et semper qualis in ipsa ebrietate titubatio; inde in totam cutem umor admissus distentusque venter dum male adsuescit plus capere quam poterat; inde suffusio luridae bilis et decolor vultus tabesque in se putrescentium et retorridi digiti articulis obrigescentibus nervorumque sine sensu iacentium torpor aut palpitatio [corporum] sine intermissione vibrantium. Quid capitis vertigines dicam? quid oculorum auriumque tormenta et cerebri exaestuantis verminationes et omnia per quae exoneramur internis ulceribus adfecta? Innumerabilia praeterea febrium genera, aliarum impetu saevientium, aliarum tenui peste repentium, aliarum cum horrore et multa membrorum quassatione venientium? From this came pallor, and the trembling of muscles drenched in wine, and emaciation from indigestion worse than that from hunger. From this came the unsteady steps of tottering men and always a staggering like in drunkenness itself; from this came dropsy throughout all the skin, and a distended belly that isn’t used to taking in more 38. Bramble (1974) 47– 48; as Gowers (1993) 159 remarks, “It becomes clear that . . . sophisticated cookery and morals are anathema to each other.” Further on Horace’s ethical use of food see Muecke (1993) 9– 11. 39. Horace looks forward to the vegetarian feast of beans and vegetables that awaits him back in the country, Sat. 2.6.63– 64.

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than it can hold; from this a spreading of yellow bile and a maculated face and the rot of bodies decaying inwardly and fingers gnarly with their stiffening joints and an inertia of muscles lying there without sensation or spasming without relief. Why mention dizziness in the head? Or agony in the eyes and ears and itchiness in one’s fevered brain and the affliction of the parts we use for defecation with ulcers? And innumerable sorts of fevers besides. . . .

Here as in Persius, overeating leads to the all too physical diseases of indigestion, dropsy, yellow bile, fevers, and ulcers.40 Seneca’s repeated descriptions of the excesses of human consumption are born out of a philosophical injunction against self-indulgence that in Persius supplies both literal and metaphorical fodder for his poetry.41 For both authors, in Richardson-Hay’s words (2009, 96), “The question of whether to eat or not to eat is code for moral purpose, ethical perception, interpretation, rational capability, and personal fortitude. Gastronomic description and images of food are . . . information about the actions of an individual in the service of his Self, his integrity, happiness, and self-sufficiency.”42 It is one thing, however, to use “gastronomic description and images of food” to supply moral evaluation of an individual or an age of decline— as Persius’ predecessors in satire have done— and another to suggest that the very medium of such images— the text itself— is a comestible. Needless to say the pages of the Satires are not meant to be literally eaten by their readers, despite their metaphorical selfrepresentation as a vegetable dish or their claim that they have been decocted for our consumption. They are only meant to be digested in the 40. On these associations between food, disease, and decay, see Gowers (1993) 182– 85; Bramble (1974) 84– 85, 87; Miller (1998) 267; Lee and Barr (1987) ad loc. On ulcer-causing bile, see, e.g., Galen MM 1005K. 41. The particular vehemence of Persius’ and Seneca’s attacks on excess notwithstanding, the Stoics were not the only philosophers to recommend an abstemious diet. The ethically superior nature of vegetarian produce to meat was in fact a view originally associated with the Pythagoreans, who urged abstention (or restraint) in the consumption of animal flesh for ethical reasons, including their belief in metempsychosis. Cf. Iamblichus’ Life of Pythagoras. The words Ovid puts in Pythagoras’ mouth at the end of the Metamorphoses 15.459– 78 are particularly interesting, since his vegetarianism is contrasted here to the Ur-case of flesh-eating, Thyestes’ consumption of his children. Note that even “sunny” Epicurus served barley rather than beef: he will welcome you with barley meal and serve you water also in abundance “te polenta excipiet et aquam quoque large ministrabit,” Sen. Ep. 21.10. For a treatment of Pythagoras, sacrifice, and meat-eating, see Detienne (1977) 81– 58. 42. Cf. Richardson-Hay (2009) for a full treatment of the many loci where Seneca moralizes about food and consumption.

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metaphorical sense, like the readers of chapter 1 who mentally digested their texts and made honey-like concoctions of them. How, then, do the Satires link their curative claims to the rest of their content? How does what we eat/read cure? The obvious answer is, by dint of the lecturing and philosophizing on common Stoic truths in which Persius engages; as he hectors us, he is not unlike the Stoic figures gently sent up in Horace’s own Satires, but here in deadly serious mode. It is selfevident that his denunciations of human greed, the urgent call for us to know ourselves, prescriptions for appropriate prayer, the description of what true freedom is, and even the chastising of imaginary interlocutors echo the most basic prescriptions of Roman Stoic philosophizing. Just as Seneca can believe that moral improvement attends upon our reading philosophically sound texts, so too the moralizing of the Satires is meant to cure us of the common misperceptions that ail us, and to lead us to a correct understanding of our place in the world. But this is not an entirely satisfactory answer. For one, it does not explain the particular set of metaphors to which Persius has gravitated and which this study has already spent much time unpacking. One can lecture on Stoic truths without the use of startling images of obesity, cannibalism, and consumption,43 and indeed, we might expect Persius— as a satirist of philosophical bent— to be careful and judicious in his exploitation of the emotional and highly charged medium of metaphor. A second problem is that the speaking voice of the Satires does not exemplify Stoic calm himself: he berates the foolish insultingly, uses hairraising language, loses his temper, assimilates himself at times to those he is criticizing, despairs that his poetry will ever teach anything (and shows potential audiences laughing at it), and describes his peers as sexually receptive cinaedi spewing out trash.44 How can this figure point out our route into wisdom? And finally, such an answer does nothing to explain why Persius chooses to put his philosophizing into verse. How, we might ask, does writing satire instead of prose further his didactic aims? How exactly do these strange features of his work relate to the question of why we are presented as “swallowing” his decocted vegetable poetry? These questions will be addressed in chapter 4, in which we turn to look at ancient treatments of metaphor in both a poetic and a philosophical context, review the famous term acris iunctura (sharp/bitter joining) with which Persius characterizes his innovation in writing satire, 43. As Reckford (1962) 483 well points out, studying content in Persius is not informative unless we study his metaphors too. Metaphors both include denotative meaning and encourage us to adopt new perspectives on old topics. 44. Not like Seneca on admonition at all, in which such measures are reserved for a very few cases. On this topic, see van Wassenhove (2014).

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and consider the polarity involved in the notions of sweet poetry and bitter teaching, so dramatically brought to the fore by Lucretius in his explanation of why he, an Epicurean, had turned to verse for his teaching. For Lucretius, philosophy without a honeyed overlayer is admittedly bitter— tristior, DRN 1.1944.45 But because Persius’ verse sets itself up as a new sort of poetry, one which radically breaks with the ancient notion that verse provides a pleasurable medium for painful truths, it turns out to be more effective than Aristophanes’, more decoctum than anything else we can read, and more curative (albeit violently) of our ailment of not being among the wise. But before we turn to these topics, one more curative substance awaits us— one that is important for the light it throws on some of the paradoxes of writing vegetable verse in the meaty smorgasbord of satura.

3. Madness, Bile, and Hellebore Given Persius’ use of the digestive process and its difficulties as a central metaphor in his satires, we will not be surprised to see one of the known by-products of digestion, bile, feature prominently among the volatile protagonists of his pages. For bile was thought to be both an outcome of the digestive process, and a potentially disruptive force in mental selfpossession. According to the ancient humoralists (among them, Hippocrates and his school, Galen, and Aretaeus), the four humors— yellow bile, black bile, blood, and phlegm— were produced by the digestive activity of the liver.46 If present in unbalanced quantities rather than in a harmonious blend— the result of incorrect diet— they could have a negative effect on both mental and physical well-being.47 Even in popular belief, and among physicians not dependent on the theory of the humors, such as Celsus, an excess of black bile in particular (cf. the English melan-choly) was thought to lead to episodes of melancholy, rage and insanity.48 Hippocrates writes in his Treatise on Epilepsy that black bile is the cause of dark passions, such as jealousy, hatred, and revenge; Galen, who devotes a whole treatise to the humors, believed that too much black bile in the stomach caused melancholic insanity (On the 45. On the synaesthetic metaphor here, see Clay (2003, 183). 46. Cf. Galen On the Affected Parts 5.8 = K358– 59. 47. The production of bile from luxurious food is already a topic in Horace Sat. 2.2.2.73– 75, where it causes a “tumult” in the stomach. 48. On black bile and melancholy, see esp. Toohey (1990). As Celsus puts it in De med. 2.7.19, “But if there is prolonged despondency with prolonged fear and insomnia, the cause is the black bile disease.”

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Affected Parts 3.9– 10 = K177– 78); Pliny opines that “in black bile is the cause of human insanity” (“in felle nigro insaniae causa hominis,” NH 11.75.193). Among nonmedical authors, the same connection between black bile and mental disease obtains: Vergil’s Hercules goes nuts with rage from “atro felle” (Aen. 8.219– 20); in Plautus’ Amphitruo, Sosia is accused of having too much black bile and hence being insane (Amph. 727– 28); likewise in the Captivi Aristophontes’ wrath and apparent delirium are attributed to “atra bilis” (Capt. 596– 98). As Aristo is made to remark of a madman in Seneca’s letters, “His black bile must be attended to, and the very cause of his furor thus removed” (“bilis nigra curanda est, et ipsa furoris causa removenda,” Sen. Ep. 94.17).49 This connection between excess bile and surges of rage or insanity is repeatedly asserted in Persius’ Satires. When, in satire 3, a lazy young writer (taken by some to be the poetic persona himself) rousted from his bed complains that his pen and his paper are not up to snuff, his unhealthy state of mind and angry outburst at a dawdling servant are put down to the black bile in his system: “‘Somebody get here, on the double! / What, no one?’ His glassy bile swells up: / ‘I’m bursting!’” (“‘ocius adsit / huc aliquis! Nemon?’ Turgescit vitrea bilis: ‘findor.’”)50 The angry mob of satire 4 is likewise seething with plebecula bile (Sat. 4.6), and when the greedy merchant of satire 5 does not realize that his desire for profit is a form of madness, Luxuria denounces his efforts by asking him: “‘Where are you rushing off to now, you madman? Where? / What do you want? Masculine bile / has swelled in your hot chest, which an urn of cold hemlock could not extinguish’” (“‘Quo deinde, insane, ruis? Quo? / quid tibi vis? Calido sub pectore mascula bilis / intimit, quod non extinxerit urna cicutae,’” Sat. 5.143– 45). Even the young heir of satire 2 is destined for a premature end, scabby as he is and swelling with “bitter bile” (Sat. 2.13– 14), signs of an intestinal system gone badly wrong. If a number of Persius’ protagonists are not only just plain mad, but 49. The sorts of insanity that black bile was thought to cause are of greater scope than our term encompasses; according to Celsus, three major classifications are possible, phrenitis, mania, and melancholia, and Galen’s division is also triplicate, but with slightly different terminology (Celsus, 3.18– 23, cf. Galen On the Affected Parts 3.0 = K178). For a comparative discussion of the terminology in Latin and Greek, see Stok (1996); on the biological basis of insanity in ancient literature, O’Brien-Moore (1924) and Padel (1992) 12– 48. 50. Cf. Horace Sat. 2.7.34, where the failure to answer his summons also results in a loss of temper, proving the poet’s lack of Stoic self-control; and Horace Sat. 2.3.1–8, where Damasippus lectures Horace on being slow to produce any writing. For Casaubon’s emendation “findor” see Kissel (1990) ad loc. On vitrea bilis describing the shining, translucent appearance of black bile, see likewise Kissel (1990) ad loc.

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mad due to an excess of bile, what is available to cure them? We have already seen that the satirist’s plate holds decoctions of various sorts, pulse and vegetables, and even the occasional hard beet, but none of these are indicated for madness in antiquity. Another remedy is called for and appears in his pages, and once again its metaphorical valence extends far beyond the simple question of how to cure a bout of ill temper. This is the medication made from the dangerous plant hellebore, whose roots were known to be highly toxic in the wrong doses: a misapplication of the so-genannt remedy, and the patient would die.51 Despite these dangers, however, ancient physicians prescribed hellebore (both white and black) for the treatment of a broad spectrum of diseases; most importantly for our purposes, insanity, but also gout (identifiable by the hot red swelling of the affected part), paralysis, and “epilepsy, vertigo, melancholy, insanity, delirium, elephantiasis, leprosy, tetanus, palsy, . . . , dropsy, incipient tympanitis, stomachic affections, grinning spasms, sciatica, quartan fevers which won’t cease otherwise, chronic coughs, flatulence, and returning colic in the bowels” (Pliny NH 25.24.60, speaking of white hellebore).52 From Hippocrates onward, however, it was the various forms of insanity for which both white and black hellebore were most commonly indicated, with different physicians observing different distinctions among the kinds of madness and the efficacy of the white versus the black varieties of the plant.53 Celsus, for example, writes that “black hellebore root is given either to those with black bile and to those suffering from insanity with melancholy, or to those who have their sinews in some part paralyzed” (De med. 2.12.1, tr. W. G. Spencer; cf. 3.18.17); elsewhere he takes pains to distinguish between three different kinds of insanity (phrenesis, melancholia, and hallucinations), and recommends white hellebore for the second, and white or black for the third, depend51. Pliny remarks of white hellebore that it was a particularly risky cure in “ancient days,” when the correct dosage was not known (Pliny NH 25.23.57; cf. Lucr. DRN 4.640). 52. “Medetur ita morbis comitialibus, ut diximus, vertigini, melancholicis, insanientibus, lymphatis, elephantiasi albae, lepris, tetano, tremulis, podagricis, hydropicis incipientibusque tympanicis, stomachicis, spasticis cynicis, ischiadicis, quartanis, quae aliter non desinant, tussi veteri, inflationibus, torminibus redeuntibus.” O’Brien-Moore (1924) 36 notes the efficacy of hellebore against black bile, but also points out that it could purge both phlegm and bile. 53. Cf. Aristophanes’ Wasps 1489, Hippoc. De victus ratione 1.35 and On Internal Diseases 7.284– 89; Pliny NH 25.22.54– 23.58; Celsus 2.12, 3.18, Dioscorides On Medical Materials 4.162.4. Coincidentally, decocted beets were also believed to be useful in restoring sanity, cf. Celsus 5.27.13. On hellebore, see also Stadler RE 8.165ff.

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ing on the nature of the hallucinations (3.18, 3.20). The mechanism of the cure seems to have been simply the elimination of the excess of bile from the body: since white hellebore was largely emetic in its effect, and black violently laxative, both kinds were felt to achieve their effects through purging the problematic element (Galen De aliment. fac. = K467, Seneca EM 83.27, Pliny NH 25.21.51).54 As such, hellebore bears a certain resemblance to some of the other substances to which Persius assimilates his verse, such as the stomach-loosening beet. Outside the medical sphere, reference to hellebore was mostly made idiomatically; saying that someone needed hellebore simply became an expressive way of saying “so and so is nuts.”55 Importantly for us, however, philosophers invoked hellebore as a convenient parallel to the mentally beneficial effects of philosophy, the one curing insanity brought on by black bile, the other curing the human ailment of the wrong understanding of the world.56 Indeed, since the Stoics held the paradoxical doctrine that only the wise man was truly sane, that is, had the correct view of what was valuable and important in life, they could rhetorically claim that hellebore was a remedy much in need for all men, to cure their all-too-human madness. Seneca opines that just as hellebore cures those who are insane for physiological reasons, so too philosophy can cure “the insanity of people in general” (Ep. 94.17 et passim),57 and likewise in the mouth of Horace’s Stertinius, a fervent convert to Stoicism, the notion of curing misguided souls— such as the greedy— through philosophy calls for “all of Anticyra” (traditionally the site of the best hellebore plants; Sat. 2.3.82).58 As an extreme example, Antisthenes the Cynic recommended hellebore as a cure for pleasure, which he claimed 54. Pliny specifically notes the efficacy of white hellebore as an emetic and to purge black bile (NH 25.94.150, 25.22.54). On the medical uses of hellebore (Latin veratrum) in antiquity, see O’Brien-Moore (1924) 29– 36, Lackenbacher (1937) 131– 33 and Anderson (1982) 177. On medical terms in Persius in general, see Lackenbacher (1937) and Migliorini (1990) and (1997). 55. E.g., Plautus Pseudolus 1185; Rudens 1106; Mos. 952. 56. Cf. Plut. De cohib. ira 2.1. 57. An older source, the Stoic Aristo of Chios, compared philosophy to hellebore for just the same reason (Stobaeus in SVF 1.394). The insanity of the general populace is nicely expressed by Stertinius in Horace Sat. 2.3.43– 46: “The school of Chrysippus, and his flock, / call anyone insane / whom evil stupidity and ignorance of the truth drive / blindly on. This rule includes nations, great kings, / with only the wise man excepted.” 58. At the end of the same satire, the Stoic suggests the rich miser should set sail for Anticyra, Sat. 2.3.166.

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was a form of madness worse than madness itself (DL 6.3., Stobaeus Eclogue 3, 285.13– 16 Hense; cf. Sextus Empiricus PH 1.206). Finally, hellebore was also believed to have a salutary effect upon the mind when used by the sane.59 It could apparently be taken to hone one’s intellectual acumen: as Pliny goes on to note, “Numbers of studious men are in the habit of taking it for the purpose of sharpening the intellectual powers required by their literary investigations” (NH 25.21.51). According to Valerius Maximus, the skeptic philosopher Carneades purged himself with hellebore when about to engage in argument with Chrysippus, “in order to express his arguments more accurately and refute the other’s more pointedly (acrius).”60 Petronius reverses this story, saying that it was the Stoic philosopher Chrysippus who “purged his mind three times with hellebore in order to find good arguments” (“Chrysippus, ut ad inventionem sufficeret, ter elleboro animum detersit,” Satyr. 88.4). Philosophers and hellebore thus seem to have had an association from the start; for whatever reason, no one but the philosophers seems to have experimented with this ancient formulation of NoDoz. Persius brings up this drug that cures insanity and good living at the same time that he most openly urges his readers to give up their lives of gourmandizing and to turn to philosophical wisdom.61 Echoing the kind of banishing of illusory beliefs to which Lucretius devoted the De rerum natura, he condemns the swollen skin and diseased appearance of those who have dined too well and too richly, who struggle with gout in their joints, who have the various signs of men who have not followed his joint medical and literary prescriptions; and he suggests that it is long since time for them to turn to better habits and learn the truth about the “causas . . . rerum” (Sat. 3.63– 69): Elleborum frustra, cum iam cutis aegra tumebit, poscentes uideas; uenienti occurrite morbo, et quid opus Cratero magnos promittere montis? 59. To my astonishment, one can still buy hellebore on various homeopathic websites and it is advocated for many of the same mental issues. See, e.g., http:// www.nationalcenterforhomeopathy.org/content/helleborus-niger. 60. Val. Max. 8.7, ext. 5: “Idem cum Chrysippo disputaturus elleboro se ante purgabat ad expromendum ingenium suum attentius et illius refellendum acrius.” Cf. the same story in Pliny NH 25.21.51, where it is Zeno who is Carneades’ debating partner: “plerique studiorum gratia, ad pervidenda acrius quae commentabantur, saepius sumptitaverint. Carneaden responsurum Zenonis libris . . .”; Aul. Gell. NA 17.15. For the argument that this is not Carneades the Skeptic, but another Carneades, see Leon (1952). 61. Here following in the footsteps of Horace Sat. 2.2, but without Horace’s appeal to a mean.

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discite et, o miseri, causas cognoscite rerum: quid sumus et quidnam uicturi gignimur . . . You can see people demanding hellebore in vain, when their diseased skin will already have started to swell. Intercept the sickness as it comes, then what need to promise Craterus great mountains of money? Learn the causes of things, you wretches, and understand them: what we are, and for what lives we are born.62

What is the sickness here? The diseased skin is a sign of gout caused by rich living (also treatable by hellebore); but behind that, the sick man’s ignorance of the “causas rerum” and of what we really are bespeaks the kind of “insanity” that Persius finds among his misguided peers in general. Hellebore thus simultaneously cures the two main categories in Persius’ rolodex of sinners: the overeaters and the insane. But Persius chastises those who ask for hellebore long after the disease (gout or insanity) has set in; at this point it is too late to hope for a cure. His point for us, his readers, is that philosophical intervention must happen earlier as well, in fact as soon as possible. As Gowers aptly remarks, “Instead of soothing his readers, [Persius] stings them with a biting solution of vinegary truth or purges them with hellebore” (1993, 181). His poetry is the “mordax acetum” (“biting vinegar”) with which the Stoic cleans his own ears and others’ via the teaching of philosophy (Sat. 5.86).63 Just so Persius’ imaginary interlocutor warns the satirist about the effects of his “biting truths” on the unhabituated ears of the lovers of epic and lyric: “What’s the use of scraping tender little ears with the biting truth?” (“sed quid opus teneras mordaci radere uero/auriculas?” Sat. 1.107– 8). Elsewhere Persius notes hellebore’s use as a remedy for uncritical thinking to implicate the production of bad poetry and those who praise it— the bad poet, it seems, needs to find some hellebore himself. As we recall from satire 1, Persius is scathing about the value judgments of his fellow versifiers, who like such pabulum as the poetry of Attius Labeo (Sat. 1.48– 51): Sed recti finemque extremumque esse recuso “euge” tuum et “belle.” nam “belle” hoc excute totum: 62. The doctor Craterus turns up in Horace Sat. 2.3.161 as well, also tending to a patient who (says the Stoic Stertinius) needs hellebore. He is mentioned in Cicero Ad Att. 12.13.14. 63. A recognized medical remedy for deaf ears: cf. Celsus De med. 6.7.7B.

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quid non intus habet? non hic est Ilias Atti ebria ueratro? I refuse to make your “bravo” and “nicely done!” the final arbiter of what’s right. Shake out this entire “nicely done”: what doesn’t it contain? Isn’t Attius’ Iliad here, drunk on hellebore?

When we encountered Attius Labeo’s Ilias in chapter 1, it was representative of all that was crudus among the hack producers of epic poetry: the verse in bad taste, the figural consumption of raw food, the rote echoing of poetic topoi in a literal translation, the triggering of dyspepsia among listeners. But how is it that the epic can be said to be “drunk on hellebore”? Would we not expect a work purged with hellebore to represent an improvement over the original? The key term here is ebria, “drunk”: as the scholia suggest, despite taking hellebore to excess, Attius Labeo’s epic remains all too dreadful; its self-purgation has accomplished nothing (50.2.7). Alternatively, the scholia suggest that we can take Persius to be referring to the acumen-sharpening properties of the drug: that is, “Attius Labeo was a hack poet of that time who wrote up Homer’s Iliad in verse so foully that even he himself would not have understood it afterward unless he were purged with hellebore” (50.2.4).64 Given what we have seen of the causes of cruditas, we could also posit that as a purgative, the hellebore that Attius’ epic swallows represents its desperate attempt to get rid of what is crudum in itself— the raw desires of Achilles, the rawness of its style.65 It is worth remarking that hellebore’s strikingly anceps nature applies perfectly to what the Greeks meant by pharmakon (drug)— that is, the simultaneous cure and poison.66 Indeed, in at least one Hippocratic 64. “Attius Labeo poeta indoctus temporum illorum qui Iliadem Homeri versibus foedissime composuit ita ut nec ipse se postea intellexisset nisi elleboro purgaretur.” 65. Kissel (1990) 176– 77 thinks Attius Labeo needs hellebore because it makes people think more clearly, citing NH 25.51. Conington in Nettleship (1893) ad loc. suggests “the madness which requires deep and intoxicating draughts of hellebore to cure it.” The scholia ad loc. suggest that Attius was drunk with hellebore in a futile attempt to get better; Scivoletto (1973) has it backward— the poetic inspiration of a crazy person. 66. Hellebore was not the only such pharmakon. Plutarch in Quomodo adu. 22b references a certain kind of beetle with the same anceps use in medicine as an analogy for how we should read poetry: “But as doctors use the feet and wings of the cantharis beetle, even though it is deadly, believing that they are medicinal and undo its effects, so must we deal with poems.”

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medical text pharmakon is simply used to stand in for hellebore, which need not be named, so obvious is the correlation.67 In our Roman medical sources, pharmakon (spelled pharmacum) is most often used to designate a purge (again like hellebore; see, e.g., Celsus De med. 5.19.10)— or a plaster (by nature decoctum; see, e.g., Celsus. 7.26.5).68 The pharmakon and hellebore thus share characteristics of the curative elements in Persius’ pantry, even if they are not explicitly linked. To us, of course, the dual nature of the pharmakon is best known from King Thamus’ treatment of it in Plato’s Phaedrus, where he denounces the invention of writing as a pharmakon (274e), because it is a false remedy for forgetfulness, one that will bring forgetfulness in its wake; as such, it is in fact a poison and not a cure, and stands in contrast to the effective pharmakon cure that Socrates praises elsewhere, the pharmakon teleotaton named at the beginning of the Critias which is living knowledge.69 But for Persius, the pharmakon-like qualities of hellebore render it a medicine-poison that exemplifies the curious paradox of potentially being its own cure. This is like Persius’ satire itself. We have already noted the oddity of writing anti-meat verse in the meaty genre of satura. We have also noted how the poetic persona seems to exemplify few of the virtues he touts. And we cannot fail to have noticed that Persius’ evocation of the Horatian “membra disiecti poetae” is a curiously apt description of his own practice of borrowing Horace’s expressions and vocabulary for his verse, always altered in such a way as to highlight his difference from his predecessor. There is a sense, then, in which one could argue that the Satires, curative though they are meant to be, contain some of the very poison they are meant to eject from us. Perhaps one might speculatively think of them in this regard as homoeopathic. Indeed, hellebore may have been effective against black bile (in ancient thought) because its action was precisely felt to be homeopathic. As Ruth Padel (1992, 69) writes,70 Madness, above all, darkens innards. Melancholāo, “I am filled with black bile,” means “I am mad.” Darkness repeatedly qualifies Greek 67. Wesley Smith, the editor/translator of Hippocrates’ Epidemics, writes of his use of pharmakon at 5.2 that the term when used in a specific sense “is probably hellebore, a violent gastrointestinal poison.” 68. A century later Aulus Gellius claims that the Latin venenum (poison) itself originally held this double meaning of poison and cure, Noctes Atticae 12.9.2. 69. When the cure for this forgetfulness, that is, use of the living language “inscribed in the soul” is itself called a pharmakon, Plato’s oppositions seem to selfdestruct in a way that spurred Jacques Derrida to write his famous essay on the selfdeconstruction of Plato’s invidious distinction between writing and speech. 70. In reference to Choephoroi 413.

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madness. . . . Black hellebore as a treatment for madness may reflect homeopathic therapeutic principles important in Hippocratic thinking, for they worked among many magical lines. Hellebore is in fact a poison. It causes convulsive retching. It is dark and violent and therefore cures dark inner violence, madness.71

There is much in the Satires that is “like” what we should let go of. It is not their Stoic content: it is their imagery, the use of metaphor that we will examine more closely in chapter 4.

4. The Mad Poet In the Ars poetica— Persius’ backdrop on all issues programmatic— Horace linked the good poet to the avoidance of hellebore, since this allowed the “mad” to remain mad, and madness was prerequisite to greatness. Pointing out that he himself preferred sanity to inspiration (AP 295– 308), Horace abjures the practice not only of mad poets but of those who pretend to be mad as well: Ingenium misera quia fortunatius arte credit et excludit sanos Helicone poetas Democritus, bona pars non unguis ponere curat, non barbam, secreta petit loca, balnea uitat; nanciscetur enim pretium nomenque poetae, si tribus Anticyris caput insanabile nunquam tonsori Licino commiserit. O ego laeuus qui purgor bilem sub uerni temporis horam! Non alius faceret meliora poemata; uerum nil tanti est. Ergo fungar uice cotis, acutum reddere quae ferrum ualet exsors ipsa secandi; munus et officium, nil scribens ipse, docebo, unde parentur opes, quid alat formetque poetam, quid deceat, quid non, quo uirtus, quo ferat error. Because Democritus thinks talent has a better outcome than craft, and shuts all sane poets out from Helicon, a good part of them don’t bother to cut their nails or their beard, and look for lonely places and shun baths; 71. For the homeopathic principle in Greek material, Padel cites Dodds (1951) 98n100; Lloyd (1966) 180– 81.

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for they’ll win the reward and name of “poet” if they never entrust their heads (too mad to be cured even by three doses of hellebore)72 to Licinus the barber. Unlucky me, who purges my bile at the very start of spring! No one would write better poems if I didn’t. . . . But nothing’s worth that. So I’ll play the role of a whetstone, which can make iron sharp while having no share in cutting: I’ll teach the duty and task of the poet, writing nothing myself, where his sources can be found, what feeds and forms the poet, what is fitting, what isn’t, the paths of excellence and error.

Democritus, of course, was like Plato using madness in the sense of “inspiration,” not insanity, but Horace’s poets aspire to resemble real madmen and thus shun both barbers and doctors bearing hellebore.73 With fine irony, Horace considers this belief of theirs the true evidence of their madness, which would be incurable even with multiple dosages of the remedy; and goes on to point out that he himself prefers to remain too “sane” to write lyric poetry himself. If Horace’s lyric poets are mad for wanting to seem mad, the end of the Ars poetica shows us why: when a genuinely mad poet makes his appearance, his verse is so intolerable that people run when they see him, and indeed with good cause; he not only bores his audience, but feeds on them. The Ars poetica, which began with a disconnected human head as a sign of faulty poetic skill, now ends with the three words “plena cruoris hirudo,” “a leech full of blood” to indict not the untalented man, but the crazy one (AP 453– 56, 470– 76). Ut mala quem scabies aut morbus regius urget aut fanaticus error et iracunda Diana, uesanum tetigisse timent fugiuntque poetam, qui sapient . . . Nec satis apparet cur uersus factitet, utrum minxerit in patrios cineres, an triste bidental mouerit incestus; certe furit, ac uelut ursus, obiectos caueae ualuit si frangere clatros, 72. The three doses of hellebore here recall Chrysippus’ supposed dosage in Petronius; cf. Brink (1971) ad loc. 73. Tate (1928) 70 remarks that “Cicero similarly misinterpreted Democritus and Plato in attributing to them the view that madness is a necessary element in the poet’s character. Democritus and Plato had spoken of divine madness. Cicero and Horace, and the Greek critics whom they follow, have removed the epithet ‘divine.’”

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indoctum doctumque fugat recitator acerbus; quem uero arripuit, tenet occiditque legendo, non missura cutem nisi plena cruoris hirudo. Like someone stricken with leprosy or jaundice or mad delusions and the wrath of Diana, those who have sense fear to touch the mad poet and flee him . . . It’s not really clear why he keeps writing verse— if he peed on his father’s ashes, or sacrilegiously disturbed a glum spot struck by lightning; certainly he’s on a rampage, and like a bear, if he’s been able to break the bars of his cage, the astringent reciter routs both the learned and the ignorant: and once he’s grabbed someone, he holds him and kills him by reading, and won’t release the skin till gorged with blood— the leech!

Here we meet again the Horatian mad poet briefly mentioned in chapter 1. But where are the compliments due to inspiration that we might expect from having read the lines on hellebore? On the contrary, as the mad poet wanders around “inspiredly belching verses” (“sublimis versus eructatur,” AP 457), he stands revealed as everything Persius rejects, his madness comparable to the diseases caused by bile and curable by hellebore, his belching a sign of indigestion, his bloodsucking ways redolent of the poet-cannibals of the Satires. We might remember that Persius himself at the end of the programmatic satire 1 is told by his interlocutor not to poop where he shouldn’t (1.112); in other words he is urged not to publish his sane poetry for the unappreciative public. The specter of the Horatian mad poet is raised only to be reversed:74 what Persius does in response to this warning is purge himself of his verse, as if after a dose of the purgative herb hellebore, by digging a hole in the dirt and “burying” his book of poems (1.120).75 There is no doubt about how we are supposed to visualize this production, since Persius acts in defiance of the interlocutor’s warning, “hic . . . ueto quisquam faxit oletum” (“I forbid anyone to defecate here,” Sat. 1.112). What he is burying in the dirt is, in fact, a literary corpus figured as fecal matter. But the poems that are treated like sewage by their author end up being published anyhow, again in defiance of Hora74. As Hooley (1997) 59 notes, this is a deliberate evocation of Horace’s mad poet, but in order to point out that Persius is isolated in his sanity. 75. On the purgative effects of hellebore— also a treatment for madness— see chapter 3.

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tian procedure:76 if we are told at AP 389– 90 “You can always destroy / what you haven’t published; once public, what you’ve said can’t be called back” (“delere licebit/quod non edideris; nescit uox missa reuerti”), Persius nonetheless dredges up again his book of poems and sends it out into the world. It is what he has digested, and it has work to do. It is not the product of constipation or looseness of the bowels, of gourmandizing, of indulgence in meatstuffs, or of the consumption of rare foods to tickle the bored palate. Its “truths,” if one can speak metaphorically of scatology, are those of the doctor, not the cook, of the true friend, not the flatterer; as Plutarch puts it in “How to Tell a Flatterer from a Friend,” the friend, like a doctor who makes you drink hellebore when you need it, will tell you unpleasant truths when that will make you well (Moralia 55b). Likewise, Persius’ stringent advice to us, not unlike the advice that Seneca commits to writing in his Letters, is supposed to have an effect because it is a medical kind of philosophic intervention. Seneca compares his writings and what they contain to prescriptions of helpful drugs that can minister to his “sores”— which have at least ceased to spread, even if they are not yet healing (Ep. 8.2).77 Persius’ verses are akin to these letters, but couched in violent poetry instead of appealing prose: a harsh production that does not titillate, but medicates, a good helping of cold, scraping, purgative satire. In short, our satirist has appropriated the role of philosophy as curative while simultaneously figuring it as organic matter that stands for what can be digested and purged without complication. As he tells us, literature too, not only philosophy, can play the role of the doctor— and of hellebore.

76. To treat Persius’ buried satires as “seeds” that will grow, as does Plaza (2006, 44) seems to be mixing one’s metaphors. 77. “Illis aliqua quae possint prodesse conscribo; salutares admonitiones, velut medicamentorum utilium compositiones, litteris mando, esse illas efficaces in meis ulceribus expertus, quae etiam si persanata non sunt, serpere desierunt.”

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The Philosopher’s Love

Persius’ first satire harshly targeted the poets of his day: as literal and metaphorical chefs, they fed their audience with the soft verses and meaty sustenance they desired, and in return, they received the praise they craved— an economics of exchange based on the mutual satisfaction of desire, but without moral benefit to either side. Their insincere usages of language were spurred by the urgings of the belly, producing a debased literature badly in need of an ameliorating process such as decoction. In representing this literature, the satires were finally figured as a giant stew pot of human folly, a place in which men do not realize, and do not want to realize, that what they eat and what they hear are devastating for their bodies and souls. Persius’ own poetry of truth-telling, by contrast, seemed to have few takers among such a crowd. And since no one wanted to hear the truth, our satirist, having pronounced that everyone had asses’ ears, ended the satire by burying his poetry where he stood (Sat. 1.119– 20)— though not for long, since this metaphor of the satires as the end-product of a healthy digestive system was soon discarded for the competing metaphor of the satires as a curative and highly concentrated medicine. Among these poems devoted to the topics of culinary health and culinary excess, sexuality seems to have played (so far) only a limited role. The squirming “burly Romans” of satire 1 who enjoy the enema-like (but not medically helpful) sensation of meaty verse entering their posteriors are a striking exception, as is the poet who reads to them while ejaculating from his eyes; once these figures have faded from our view, there is little in satire 2’s condemnation of misguided prayers or satire 3’s treatment of misguided ambition that can be understood as an attack on the sexual habits of Persius’ fellow Romans— let alone fellow philosophers. This changes abruptly with the beginning of satire 4, a poem

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that has long confounded scholars who have found no way to tie its first half— an adaptation of the pseudo-Platonic philosophical dialogue Alcibiades I— with the second half— in which various figures hurl ever more devastating critiques at each other, many of them sexual in nature.1 Why should sexuality play such a large role in this satire? How is it linked to Persius’ borrowings from this pseudo-Platonic dialogue that was taken to be authentic by readers ancient and modern up to the beginning of the twentieth century?2 And how can it be related to the Stoic philosophical project of bringing us to self-knowledge? In short, what brings together the different aims and discourses of philosophy, sexuality, and satire in this puzzling (and often expurgated) poem? The answer lies in Persius’ dual role as satiric poet and philosophical pedagogue. Qua poet, he used the culinary tropes of satire to condemn contemporary poetics in favor of a philosophical abstemiousness. Qua philosopher, he turns in Satire 4 to an arena in which pedagogy has likewise been perverted by its inappropriate and pleasure-seeking context: Platonic philosophy. For if the good poet refuses to pander to his pleasure-seeking audience, the good philosopher, Persius argues, must likewise refuse to seduce his audience. He must avoid not only the pretty tales he could tell the student, but the sexual bait with which he might lure the student into professing a love for philosophy. In sum, Plato’s erotic metaphors for the attachment of the philosopher to the Forms, his tales of eros sublimated from bodies to metaphysical entities, and most especially his depiction of a Socrates whose sexual allure seems all but irresistible, are all to be condemned in the service of a less compromised and purer philosophical stance.

1. The Seduction of Alcibiades Let us start by noting that while Persius’ Satires often expound on Stoic themes derived from Socrates’ legacy, of all his work it is this fourth satire that engages most conspicuously with well-known Platonic issues and themes. While its connection to the first Alcibiades is clear from the start, the poem also owes some of its philosophical staging to the Symposium and the Apology. The satire shares with the first Alcibiades the topos of a conversation between Socrates and Alcibiades on the latter’s ethi1. The subject of complaint as early as Casaubon’s 1605 edition ad loc. See, e.g., Rudd (1982b) 507, Lee and Barr (1987) 139 ad 52– 65: “Probably no other satire takes so long to get down to the main subject.” But contra Dessen (1996) 62, who focuses on the examples of the wrong sort of epimeleia heautou at Alc. I 124b– 131a. 2. For an overview of the scholarship on the authenticity of the dialogue, see the edition by Pradeau (1999) 24– 29.

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cal fitness to lead the Athenian demos when he lacks self-knowledge;3 it shares with the Symposium the evocation of the sexual component to the Socrates-Alcibiades relationship (cf. Symp. 216d– 219d); and it shares with the Apology the implicit questioning of the value of Socratic pedagogy. It has in common with all three of these dialogues the ultimate Socratic question: how does one come to know oneself (cf. Littlewood 2002, 56)? Yet Persius’ fourth satire does not only inherit these themes, but also revisits and reworks them in a way that renders deeply problematic the Platonic assumptions that underpin their philosophical teachings— all, as I will argue, in the service of a new, desexualized, and particularly Stoic model for the correct relationship of the student of Stoicism and his teacher. In short, what Platonic cookery was to Persianic medicine in chapters 1 and 2 of this study, Platonic pederasty is to Persianic asexuality here in satire 4. The complication of what is philosophically good for you by the corrupting influence of culinary or erotic pleasure is what Persius aims to eradicate, and, as before, his metaphorical language is the principal arena where this correction takes place. He thus once again corrects Plato, finding fault not only with his opposition of medicine and cookery in the Gorgias, but also with the erotic backdrop to Socrates’ pedagogy and indeed, the erotic metaphors of Platonic philosophy more generally. The first Alcibiades, whatever its authenticity, was often placed at the head of collections of Plato’s works because it seemed to represent so many of his arguments in nuce;4 among the neo-Platonic commentators it was considered not only a fine introduction to Plato’s thought, but also a protreptic to philosophical study ( Jordan 1986, 314). The original dialogue certainly has protreptic-like features: first, its dramatic timing at a particular point in a young man’s life, when he is just getting ready to enter the political sphere; second, its rare happy outcome, in which Socrates actually succeeds in persuading the young Alcibiades that he needs to know more about himself before he enters politics and offers advice to the Athenian assembly; and third, by implication, its revision of the some charges against Socrates as reported in Plato’s Apology, Xenophon’s Memorabilia, and the lost Kategoria Socratous by Polycrates— in partic3. On the Alcibiades I as model for satire 4, see, e.g., Dessen (1996) 58– 70; Jahn (1843) 167– 72; Littlewood (2002) 56; Miller (2007); Morford (1984) 50– 51; Ramage (1974) 121– 25. Dessen (1996) 104 notes that the reference to the Alcibiades I at Epict. Disc. 3.1.42 suggests particular Stoic interest in that dialogue. 4. According to the testimony of Diogenes Laertius 3.62. See Pradeau (1999) 22– 24 on the Alcibiades in antiquity. The most comprehensive treatment of its reception in antiquity, from Plotinus to Olympiodorus, is in A.-P. Segonds’ 1986 introduction to Proclus’ commentary on the Alcibiades.

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ular that he corrupted the young with his philosophical arguments.5 In contrast, the Alcibiades of this “Platonic” dialogue is no corrupted young dandy with narcissistic ends, but rather an interlocutor who leaves his session with Socrates much the wiser about his deficiencies, and fully resolved to address them (Alc. I 134c, 135d– e): Socrates: Then you or anyone else who is to be governor and curator, not merely of himself and his belongings in private, but of the state and its affairs, must first acquire virtue himself. Alcibiades: That is true. . . . And yet I say this besides, that we are like to make a change in our parts, Socrates, so that I shall have yours and you mine. For from this day onward it must be the case that I am your attendant, and you have me always in attendance on you. Socrates: Ah, generous friend! So my love will be just like a stork; for after hatching a winged love in you it is to be cherished in return by its nestling. (Tr. W. R. M. Lamb)6

In the Alcibiades I alone among Platonic dialogues, both the sexual tension between Alcibiades and Plato and the pedagogical issue of whether Alcibiades can be brought to know himself are satisfactorily resolved; this resolution hints also at the love relationship to follow, taking up the erotic wing imagery of the Phaedrus to point to the reciprocity of this feeling. In sum, Persius picks as his model for critique and alteration a dialogue that illustrates most clearly how Socrates’ love for Alcibiades, together with his dialectic, pay off in the end. To show the rarity of this happy ending, we might contrast the Alcibiades of the Symposium, the handsome youth more concerned with Socrates’ erotic rejection than with learning philosophy. As for the historical Alcibiades, he too posed a conspicuous stumbling block for adherents of Platonic pedagogy— why was he an unrepentant philosophical failure? Why did Socrates, like Pericles too, not leave men better rather than 5. According to Isoc. Busiris 5, Polycrates named Alcibiades in particular as a pupil of Socrates. Polycrates does not survive but is cited in Diogenes Laetius’ treatment of Socrates’ life, 2.39. 6. “αὐτῷ ἄρα σοὶ πρῶτον κτητέον ἀρετήν, καὶ ἄλλῳ ὃς μέλλει μὴ ἰδίᾳ μόνον αὑτοῦ τε καὶ τῶν αὑτοῦ ἄρξειν καὶ ἐπιμελήσεσθαι, ἀλλὰ πόλεως καὶ τῶν τῆς πόλεως. / ἀληθῆ λέγεις. . . . καὶ πρὸς τούτοις μέντοι τόδε λέγω, ὅτι κινδυνεύσομεν μεταβαλεῖν τὸ σχῆμα, ὦ Σώκρατες, τὸ μὲν σὸν ἐγώ, σὺ δὲ τοὐμόν: οὐ γὰρ ἔστιν ὅπως οὐ παιδαγωγήσω σε ἀπὸ τῆσδε τῆς ἡμέρας, σὺ δ᾽ ὑπ᾽ ἐμοῦ παιδαγωγήσῃ. / ὦ γενναῖε, πελαργοῦ ἄρα ὁ ἐμὸς ἔρως οὐδὲν διοίσει, εἰ παρὰ σοὶ ἐννεοττεύσας ἔρωτα ὑπόπτερον ὑπὸ τούτου πάλιν θεραπεύσεται.”

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worse after leading them?7 Alcibiades’ bad example, along with that of several other infamous Socratic students, is probably the reason why in the Apology Plato has Socrates exonerate himself by insisting that he is not actually a teacher of men and therefore cannot assume responsibility for such characters.8 The equally problematic Alcibiades of the Symposium confesses in fact that his best way of dealing with Socrates’ attempts to shape him up is to run away from him (Symposium 216b):9 “I know that I cannot answer him, or say that I ought not to do as he bids, but when I leave his presence the love of popularity gets the better of me. And therefore I run away and fly from him, and when I see him I am ashamed of what I have confessed to him” (tr. B. Jowett). In the idealizing Alcibiades I, by contrast, Alcibiades admits that he has failed to learn from his guardian, the statesman Pericles, but blames himself for inattention (118e), and he explains his siblings’ bad behavior by claiming they are demented or, alternatively, stupid. But where Pericles has failed, Socrates of course succeeds, highlighting all the more the particular talent for dialogue and persuasion that the philosopher possesses. In picking the Alcibiades I as his model, then, Persius is picking a story of Socratico-erotic success: Alcibiades has listened, he has understood, and he has agreed to take up Socrates as teacher and lover.10 The beginning of Persius’ satire 4 immediately establishes the Alcibiades I as the satirist’s model. Already in the first lines of the satire the correlation with the original dialogue is striking, as Socrates and Alcibiades take up a conversation about self-knowledge spurred, apparently, by Alcibiades’ misguided decision to take up a career in politics (Sat. 4.1– 6). “Rem populi tractas?” barbatum haec crede magistrum dicere, sorbitio tollit quem dira cicutae, “quo fretus? dic hoc, magni pupille Pericli. scilicet ingenium et rerum prudentia uelox ante pilos uenit, dicenda tacendaue calles.” 7. In reality, too, Socrates’ most famous student came to a bad end: audacious and flamboyant, an advocate of the disastrous Sicilian expedition, he betrayed Athens for Sparta, Sparta for Persia, Persia for Athens, and finally met a violent death in Phrygia. 8. E.g., Apol. 19d– e, 33a. 9. He also confesses to wishing Socrates were dead! Symp. 216c. 10. If, as Epictetus tells us in Discourses 3.1.19, Socrates persuaded not one in a thousand, his success in the first Alcibiades is noteworthy indeed. Contrast Callicles’ sneer at Gorg. 513c: not only is he himself not persuaded by what Socrates is saying, but this “is the experience of most people.”

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“You’re handling public affairs?” Imagine the bearded teacher says this, the one a drink of terrible hemlock [i.e., Socrates] carried off. “Relying on what? Tell me, ward of great Pericles. I suppose intelligence and swift discrimination in affairs have come before your beard, and you know how to speak or hold your peace.”

So too in the Alcibiades I Socrates is incredulous that Alcibiades is preparing to take up his place among those entering civic politics (“πραττόντων τὰ τῆσδε τῆς πόλεως,” Alc. I 118b), and there too, Alcibiades’ confidence seems to be incorrectly placed in his natural abilities rather than in the philosophical training that Socrates offers. The echoes are noteworthy. The “quo fretus?” of line 3 recalls Socrates’ question at Alc. I 123e: “τί οὖν ποτ’ ἔστιν ὅτῳ πιστεύει τὸ μειράκιον;” and the mention of “great Pericles” hearkens back to Alcibiades’ confidence in Pericles’ power at Alc. I 104b. And when Persius’ Socrates sarcastically imagines Alcibiades addressing the crowd on what is right and wrong— “Citizens, this (say) is unjust, that’s ill-advised, that’s a better choice” (“hoc puta non iustum est, illud male, rectius illud,” Sat. 4.9)— the verse recalls Socrates’ statement in the Greek original that Alcibiades cannot yet have any conception of right and wrong (“πῶς οὖν εἰκός σε εἰδέναι τὰ δίκαια καὶ τὰ ἄδικα, περὶ ὧν οὕτω πλανᾷ καὶ οὔτε μαθὼν φαίνῃ παρ’ οὐδενὸς οὔτ’ αὐτὸς ἐξευρών;” Alc. I 112d). Finally, in the lines that follow, Socrates continues his commentary on Alcibiades’ philosophical ignorance, invoking both the “scale of justice” and the Stoic idea of the moral rule (regula) (Sat. 4.10– 13): Scis etenim iustum gemina suspendere lance ancipitis librae, rectum discernis, ubi inter curua subit uel cum fallit pede regula uaro, et potis es nigrum uitio praefigere theta. For you know how to weigh justice on the twin scale of the wavering balance; you distinguish what’s right from the wrong on either side, when the rule misleads with incorrect markings, and you can mark a black theta next to a vice.

The weighing of moral choices is a metaphor used by Plato himself (cf. Plato Prot. 356b, Rep. 8.550e), while much of the Alcibiades I delves into the possibility of errors over just and unjust choices based on incorrect criteria. So, if at this point we were to look for any divergence from the

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Platonic dialogue in the satire, it would only be Persius’ change of the original political context from Athenian democracy to the Roman republic. Apart from this, we would seem justified in saying that Persius’ fourth satire seems to produce the modeling of a successfully philosophical dialectic between Alcibiades and Socrates as imagined by Plato or one of his followers in the Alcibiades I. And we might feel justified, also, in anticipating that Persius picked this dialogue to imitate in order to enact for us effective dialectic in a satiric format, or at least, effective philosophical pedagogy in action.11 At this juncture, however, the dialogue between Alcibiades and Socrates swerves violently off course and reveals itself as neither the scene of a successful dialectic nor a protreptic that shows the happy consequences of embracing the Socratic or the Stoic life.12 What follows is so confusing that few scholars have known quite what to make of it: the attribution of interlocutors becomes less and less clear, teacher and student no longer play the appropriate roles, the original question of the priority of politics or philosophy disappears, and graphic insults implicate the interlocutors in deviant sexual practices. It seems that Socratic dialogue has become a free-for-all in finger-pointing vitriol. The pivot point is at line 14: with no warning, the satirist disengages himself from the Platonic master text, and where the Alcibiades I continued in a giveand-take between the two men about the qualities necessary for leadership, an unnamed speaker— perhaps the satirist’s persona himself, perhaps Socrates, perhaps a third party— launches into a violent attack on Alcibiades’ relationship with his flattering audience, the popellus, and Alcibiades’ luxurious tastes (Sat. 4.14– 18):13 11. Persius’ philosophical orientation is Stoic, of course, whether we feel the philosopher or the satirist has the upper hand in his corpus; but the Stoics themselves were quick to trace their intellectual descent from Plato, and the main themes of satire 4— self-knowledge, the folly of seeking public approval, and the primacy of philosophy over politics— are staples of both schools. Persius himself draws attention elsewhere to the Socratic allegiance of his Stoic teacher, Cornutus, by referring to the latter’s Socraticus sinus (Sat. 5.37). On the Stoic outlook of the Satires, see, e.g., Martin (1939); Ramage (1974); Reckford (2009) 65– 67, 118– 21, et passim. 12. It is interesting that the note of discordance introduced here by the Ovidian “animus fert,” from the first line of the Metamorphoses, leads in fact to a metamorphosis of this happy scene. 13. As Bellandi (1988) 58 notes, instead of Socratic irony, we get lacerating sarcasm. On the attribution of the lines in this dialogue, see the various solutions summed up in Kissel (1990) 495– 98 and Hooley (1997) 122– 42. The cacophony of critical voices without easy attribution increases, rather than lessens, the effectiveness of Persius’ final point.

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Quin tu igitur, summa nequiquam pelle decorus, ante diem blando caudam iactare popello desinis, Anticyras melior sorbere meracas? quae tibi summa boni est? uncta uixisse patella semper et assiduo curata cuticula sole? Why don’t you stop tossing your tail before your flattering public before your time, Mr. Good-Looking on the surface (no use in that), when you’d be better off sucking down undiluted hellebore? What’s the Highest Good to you? To have lived without cease off an epicure’s plate, your skin always nursed by the sun?

The general import of these lines is clear: Persius’ Alcibiades, far from debating the meaning of justice, has yielded to a life of luxury and already needs the philosophical cure provided by hellebore.14 That is to say, he is insane, literally, to have chosen politics and pleasure over philosophy.15 And his taste for rich food and for mutual pandering with his audience associates him closely with the pandering poets and audiences of satires 1 and 5 who themselves could use a cure from their disease. As we saw, hellebore, according to Chrysippus, was the prerequisite drink to cure men who wished to become wise (“οὐ θέμις γενέσθαι σοφόν, ἢν μὴ τρὶς ἐφεξῆς τοῦ ἐλλεβόρου πιῃς,” Lucian Vitarum auctio 23). Its use, moreover, had good satiric precedent: Horace’s Damasippus (quoting one Stertinius in turn) expounds on the Stoic paradox that most men are mad and opines that the largest doses of hellebore should go to the covetous (Sat. 2.3.82; cf. AP 300). And of course, it was a purgative for “an epicure’s plate” as well. Madness, however, is not all that ails our Platonic version of a Stoic student wishing to make good. To make matters worse, the tail-tossing metaphor (“Why don’t you stop tossing your tail before your flattering public?” [14]) introduces a sexual element into Alcibiades’ failure. As W. Kissel and others have remarked, there is no reason to pick a single option as the referent of this image of a fawning display, and dogs, peacocks, even lion cubs have been suggested as the possessors 14. As Dessen (1996) 62 has seen: “Persius . . . introduces Alcibiades after he has entered politics and his corruption by the people has already begun.” 15. Socrates in Epictetus Discourses 3.1.34 remarks on the impropriety of letting a self-plucker take civic office, and at 3.1.42 emphatically does not tell Alcibiades to engage in such plucking. This, of course, is a far more normative treatment of the whole depilatory motif. But Persius is intent on showing off his Alcibiades as a pervert.

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of the tail.16 But cauda is also a slang term for penis, as Cicero observes (ad Fam. 9.22), and Persius has good Horatian precedent for this usage: Horace employs the term cauda in this way twice, once when an adulterer is deprived of the offending member, the other time when his slave Davus describes how he sates his lust (Sat. 1.2.45, 2.7.49).17 The presence of the penis in Alcibiades’ hands is not just a giggleworthy addition to the satire, nor a sly allusion to the mutilation of the Herms for which Alcibiades was held responsible; the presence of the penis on display before the polis is significant because it, too, looks back to one of the principal concerns of the Alcibiades I. That is, Alcibiades’ sexual self-display picks up on Socrates’ (fortunately unfounded) fear in the Alcibiades I that Alcibiades will emerge as a lover, erastes, of the demos rather than as a good student of Socratic philosophy.18 Here, Socrates is concerned that Alcibiades might find himself “seduced” by the prospect of popular influence (Alc. I 132a): And now, unless you are corrupted/seduced by the Athenian people and become base, I shall never forsake you. For I fear this especially, that you become a demos-lover and be corrupted. Many Athenians have come to that already, noble ones too. For “the demos of the greathearted Erechtheus” is attractive [Hom. Il. 2.547], but you must see it naked: so take the precaution that I recommend.

In this erotic metaphor the young and beautiful eromenos Alcibiades is cast as an erastes, and of the demos at that. But Alcibiades needs to realize that the demos is ugly: Socrates advises him to get a look at his love object in the nude— if nothing else turns him off, that will. This literal nudity represents, of course, the moral ugliness of the demos when scrutinized from a philosophical point of view and the moral poverty of its choices. As an eromenos, a love object, the demos has 16. The scholiast suggests that Persius is thinking of a pet dog (cf. the Horatian precedent in Odes 2.19.30 and 3.11.15); Kissel (1990) 518 takes it to refer to a peacock, also with a parallel in Horace (Sat. 2.2.26); in their commentaries ad loc, Jahn argues for a horse, and Conington offers a lion cub. 17. Dessen (1996) 67 and Littlewood (2002) 67 take cauda here to mean “penis.” Littlewood similarly takes nervi at line 45 to refer to a penis, and draws the point (p. 79) that “Alcibiades’ effeminate body, the truth, is concealed by his beautiful words. Socrates’ criticism is true because it tears away the words to reveal the body beneath. Socrates’ last attack on Alcibiades (47– 50) represents him as the slave of his penis and his thirsty ears.” 18. Dessen (1996) 62– 63 points out the parallel.

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the potential to corrupt its lover (the erastes) rather than producing in him the sublimated sort of love that leads to self-improvement and self-knowledge. In the Alcibiades I, such a fate is happily averted. But not so, it seems, in Persius’ satire. Here, Alcibiades’ apparent failure to show himself responsive to Socrates’ teachings— together with his interest in leading by charisma rather than wisdom, his taste for the self-indulgent lifestyle, his rich dinner plate, and his erotic self-display— suggests that this Alcibiades represents the worst-case scenario worried about by the Platonic Socrates: that Alcibiades’ relationship with the demos will be erotic rather than philosophical. In Persius, in fact, Alcibiades and his body parts are shown as already having entered into an erotic relationship with the demos/popellus: it is as if we have jumped forward to the end of the Socratic dialogue, and indeed beyond it— to the historical failure of Alcibiades to turn out as he promised and as Socrates hoped. In Persius’ revisionary view, Alcibiades has already been revealed as having failed to follow the correct path, despite the optimism of the Alcibiades I.19 This Alcibiades is, as it were, postcorruption: he cares more for the opinion of others and for popularity with the mob than for the values of the philosopher. The satirist drives this home by comparing him to an old crone who hawks herbs to slaves for a living (19– 22): both make their living by selling what they have, with the implication that the pretty-boy Alcibiades, more like an eromenos here than an erastes, has effectively prostituted himself to the people.20 Indeed, the “rem populi” of the opening line may now take on its own sexualized hue: Alcibiades is handling not so much the body politic as its “thingy.”21 By these modifications to the Alcibiades I, then, Persius reraises the very question which that dialogue tried to put to rest: that of how to effectively teach philosophy to the future politician in the face of Socrates’ fail19. Thus the assembly referred to as a potential future audience in the Alcibiades I is already in the past, cast as the occasion on which Persius’ Alcibiades was engaged in displaying himself to his audience. 20. Not only is the politician a passive male prostitute— Socrates’ worst-case scenario in the Alcibiades I— but in this satire, Socrates himself emerges as dangerously close to one. A problem addressed, e.g., by Seneca at Ep. 16.2– 3, Martial Epig. 9.7, Epict. Disc. 3.12.1. On Alcibiades as an eromenos-like erastes, see Miller (1998) 258. On the politician-figure as a prostitute, see Dessen (1996) 66; Pasoli (1972); Reckford (1962) 486. Dessen (1996) 68 additionally points out the the herbs in question are ocima, apparently an aphrodisiac (Pliny NH 24.48). 21. Dessen (1996) 66 points out that “rem tractare” to refer to politics is much rarer than “rem gerere.” Barr (1981) argues for “penis” with reference to Cic. Phil. 2.78. Cf. also Adams (1990) 62 and Reckford (2009) 106.

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ure to do so.22 For he has made of the idealized Alcibiades a demagogue and a practitioner of very much the wrong kind of the care of the self, and his choice of the only dialogue in which Alcibiades shows promise of philosophical progress merely highlights Alcibiades’ failure to do so in this satire: our revisionist Alcibiades is a philosophical flop. This rewriting of the Alcibiades I suggests that in the eyes of our satirist, Socrates’ pedagogic technique leaves something to be desired. At the very least, Socrates was wrong, Persius seems to say, to approach his student as a lover, for it is precisely his student’s erotic proclivities, his love of the popellus, that have led him astray. Alcibiades likes the naked demos, and, in turn, displays himself to it naked as well in a debauched version of the erotic reciprocity that lies at the basis of the sublimated love of the Phaedrus, Symposium, and Alcibiades I. What Persius seems to be suggesting is the instability of an eroticized philosophy in which the erotic impulse can be stirred up only to go astray, as it does with his Alcibiades— who found he could no more sublimate it than a dish of pork belly or some prettified verse. In Plato’s authentic dialogues, the blame for Socrates’ historical failure is put squarely at Alcibiades’ own feet. As a number of scholars have argued, in the Symposium Plato seeks to exculpate Socrates by showing that Alcibiades’ character, and in particular his excessive self-regard and hybris, predetermined the outcome of their mutual association.23 That is, in his account of how he failed to seduce Socrates, Alcibiades complains that he was forced become an erastes instead of an eromenos because Socrates did not respond to his sexual cues, and that in fact this was Socrates’ regular methodology: “He has ill-treated not only me, but Charmides . . . and Euthydemus . . . and many others in the same way: beginning as their lover he has ended by making them pay their addresses to him” (Symp. 222b). Worse still, Socrates’ arrogance in rejecting him led Alcibiades (he claims) to a state of humiliation and misery: This man so much got the better of me, looked down on me, laughed at my beauty, treated it criminally— and it was just in that respect that 22. Persius’ manipulation of the Socrates of the Alcibiades I is even more striking in that we don’t expect a Socrates to be obsessed with personal grooming. This is Epictetus’ point at Disc. 3.1.43 (tr. G. Bell): “But see what Socrates says to the most beautiful and blooming of men Alcibiades: ‘Try, then, to be beautiful.’ What does he say to him? ‘Dress your hair and pluck the hairs from your legs.’ Nothing of that kind. But ‘Adorn your will, take away bad opinions.’ ‘How with the body?’ Leave it as it is by nature.” 23. Although Alcibiades launches the charge of hybris at Socrates here, it is Alcibiades who was traditionally associated with this trait. See, e.g., Xen. Mem. 1.2.12, Thuc. 6.15, and Plut. Alc. passim.

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I thought I was something, gentlemen of the jury; for it is up to you to judge Socrates’ arrogance. . . . What state of mind do you think I was in after that: on the one hand thinking I’d been humiliated, on the other admiring this man for his nature, his self-control, his courage? (Symp. 219c– d, tr. Rowe)

Here it is at least possible to argue that Socrates has caused a flawed and narcissistic Alcibiades to reject philosophy.24 In the first Alcibiades, by contrast, Socrates’ eagerness to associate with the beautiful Alcibiades is unambiguous. He starts the dialogue by referring to himself as the first of all Alcibiades’ lovers, but it is Alcibiades who has rejected Socrates through his conceited self-regard; at the end of the dialogue he reconsiders and rejoins his ever-faithful lover.25 In contrast to both these accounts, Persius’ Alcibiades is an evident failure without any possibility that an exoneration of Socrates’ erotic methodology can emerge from the text.

2. The Philosopher-Sodomite The erotic question is not put to rest by the end of the attack on Alcibiades’ self-display in line 18. Instead, it continues as the subject of virulent critique even as other topics are introduced as causes for criticism, so that the satire moves from loving public praise too much, loving money too much, loving the body too much, to loving, finally and surprisingly, criticizing others too much— exactly what all the interlocutors in this poem seem to start doing at this point. Soon after the caustic remarks to Alcibiades about his rich tastes and his self-exposure to the public, a new voice breaks in to complain of the miserliness of one Vettidius, who can barely spare the money to buy himself an onion. In contrast (he— or a new interlocutor— continues, picking up the thread) any time you 24. For interpretations that understand the Symposium as critical of Socrates, see Bloom (2001) 104– 5, 127, 135– 39; Gagarin (1977) 22– 37; Lutz (1998) passim; Nussbaum (1986) 166– 67, 173– 74; Rosen (1987) passim; Vlastos (1981) 31– 32. Significantly, of the two other individuals in the Symposium who are called victims of Socrates’ hybris by Alcibiades, one, Charmides, was also a student and possibly an eromenos of Socrates, but abandoned philosophy for politics and became a leader of the hated Thirty who overthrew the democracy in 404 BCE. Gagarin (1977) 35 remarks that “Charmides is then another example of Socrates’ failure to produce intellectual or moral improvement in the promising young men with whom he associated.” 25. The philosopher comments that it is difficult for a lover to have dealings with a man who does not yield to lovers (104e). Note however that Socrates’ daemon has advised him for many years not to speak with Alcibiades, Alc. I 103a.

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actually try to enjoy yourself, some busybody breaks in with criticism (Sat. 4.33– 38):26 At si unctus cesses et figas in cute solem, est prope te ignotus cubito qui tangat et acre despuat: “hi mores! penemque arcanaque lumbi runcantem populo marcentis pandere uuluas.27 tum, cum maxillis balanatum gausape pectas, inguinibus quare detonsus gurgulio extat?” But if, oiled up, you take a break, and focus the sun on your skin, there’s a stranger next to you to nudge you with an elbow and spit out: “Such habits! That a fellow should weed his penis and the nooks of his privates, and spread his saggy hole for the public! Since you comb out a pomaded beard on your jaws, why does a shaven worm stick out from your groin?

Our speaker complains that when he takes a break from his exercises and relaxes in the sun, he is attacked by some morally outraged figure who focuses on the fact that our sunbather has a beard but no pubic hair.28 So who is the sunbather, this bearded yet genitally depilated figure? Given the reference to sunbathing, the oiled body on display, and Alcibiades’ known narcissism, a number of scholars have concluded it is he: but the beard militates against such an interpretation. Alcibiades is after all “ante pilos” (too young to have facial hair) in line 5.29 But if 26. On the distribution of the dialogue’s speakers, I am in agreement with the sensible views of Henderson (1991) and Hooley 1997, neither making formal allocations of the spoken lines. Cf. in a similar vein Dessen (1996) 4. After the first twentytwo lines, it is impossible to make definitive claims about who is speaking at any given time, which seems to be part of the point of a satire in which the endless reciprocity of attacks on others is a principal theme. This feature is not uncharacteristic of Persius’ Satires generally: as Gowers remarks of satire 3, for example (1993, 184), “The self-criticism that began to erupt through the surface of Horace’s second book of satires here becomes an obsession: the author’s voice splits into schizophrenic dialogues between sage and novice doctor and patient and it is no longer certain where to divide their speech. The poet’s ulcers, hangovers, false starts, vacillations, and eruptions of spleen must alter any impression that Persius ‘is the steady incarnation of sapientia’” [a reference to Anderson (1982, 179)]. 27. Kissel has Richter’s hypothesis bulbos for vulvas, but I prefer to follow the ms. tradition here. 28. Miller (1998) 270 points out that the verb pandere repeats a similarly obscene context in Catullus Carm. 6. 29. For the identification with Alcibiades, see, e.g., Miller (1998) 271. But as Behr (2009) 242– 44 points out, Alcibiades was famously unbearded. Since Socrates has

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not Alcibiades, who? Even if the figure is meant to remain anonymous, what is the import of this particular criticism? We cannot answer the question without turning to the satiric representation of self-professed philosophers, in Martial, Juvenal, and elsewhere, as hypercritical fakers and sexually deviant hypocrites. While putting on display an ascetic lifestyle, preaching Stoic or Cynic philosophy, and publically criticizing others who failed to live up to certain standards, these men were themselves (or so our satiric sources would have it) the most debauched of all, hiding under their rough-woven garments and generally unkempt appearance— including a bristly beard, the sign of a philosopher— all manner of soft and depilated body parts.30 Despite their ability to discourse knowledgably about the various philosophical schools, their volubility merely concealed the pathic nature of their sexual desires— which were supposedly taken to such excess that they were all plagued by hemorrhoids.31 Martial addresses a virulent epigram to such a philosopher (Epigrams 9.47): Democritos, Zenonas inexplicitosque Platonas quidquid et hirsutis squalet imaginibus, sic quasi Pythagorae loqueris successor et heres. praependet sane nec tibi barba minor: sed, quod et hircosis serum est et turpe pilosis, in molli rigidam clune libenter habes. Tu, qui sectarum causas et pondera nosti, dic mihi, percidi, Pannyche, dogma quod est? You prattle about Democritus, Zeno, and enigmatic Plato, And any grubby figure shown hairy on a bust— As if you were successor and heir to Pythagoras! And sure, your beard is just as long as theirs. But you have something those goaty, hairy types abjure: That stiff-with-dirt beard over a baby-soft bottom! You who know the origins and arguments of the schools: Tell me, Pannychus, what’s the dogma on buggery? a beard in line 1, and the beard is the traditional mark of the philosopher, it seems it is the philosopher himself whose habits are degenerate. So too Peterson (1972– 73) 271, Hooley (1997) 131, Gildersleeve (1875) ad loc. 30. See Reckford (1962) 486– 87 on the fake profession of both masculinity and philosophy in these figures. As he points out, male prostitutes, politicians, the old lady, and the fruitless fields are all images for sterility. 31. On this topic, see Bartsch (2006) 95– 103, 168– 71; Richlin (1984) 138; Taylor (1997) 338 with bibliography.

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In Epigrams 7.58, Martial takes a similar tack, advising the much-wed Galla to steer clear of philosophers: they look stern and hairy on the outside, but under the rustic appearance lurk cinaedi, “pansy-boys” who only want to be penetrated by other men. One such false philosopher, a man who needs surgery to restore him to health, is the object of a particularly distasteful attack by Juvenal (Sat. 2.8– 13): Frontis nulla fides; quis enim non uicus abundant tristibus obscenis? castigas turpia, cum sis inter Socraticos notissima fossa cinaedos? hispida membra quidem et durae per bracchia saetae promittunt atrocem animum, sed podice leui caeduntur tumidae medico ridente mariscae. One can’t rely on men’s faces: every street overflows with austere-visaged perverts. How can you reprove immorality, most notorious man-hole among the Socratic pansy-boys? Your hairy limbs and the stiff bristles on your arms promise a stern soul, but the doctor has to mock you as he cuts the swollen piles from your depilated anus.32

Even Epictetus, in his sober Stoic essays, is willing to condemn fake philosophers, with the sexual details left out. They are busybodies, proselytizing annoyingly to people who have no interest in listening to them. In Discourses 3.22.2, he takes on the voice such an aspiring philosophermoralist himself: “I wear a cloak now and I shall wear it then: I sleep hard now, and I shall sleep hard then: I will take in addition a little bag now and a staff, and I will go about and begin to beg and to abuse those whom I meet; and if I see any man plucking the hair out of his body, I will rebuke him, or if he has dressed his hair, or if he walks about in purple” (tr. G. Bell). Elsewhere in the Discourses, Socrates himself is made to remark that he was condemned by his career choice to have a gray beard and to wear a rough cloak— using this periphrasis for being a philosopher even though he is hardly accusing himself of insincerity (Disc. 3.1.24).33 If some Romans had it out for hirsute men who “played the philosopher” in public (as indeed Socrates did by accosting all and sundry) but 32. Richlin (1984) 76n30 remarks that “pathic homosexuals were proverbially afflicted by anal warts or piles.” 33. For a comparison of Persius’ ethical teachings to those of Epictetus in general, see Reckford (2009) chap. 2.

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whose piety concealed their deviance,34 the anonymous sunbather of Persius’ satire 4 comes with definite baggage attached. Indeed, we seem to have not one but two ersatz philosophers here, both the moralizer who takes it upon himself to attack the suntanner, and the victim with his facial hair and effeminized body. Shoring up the philosophical reference, but perhaps offering cause for concern, the only bearded man in the vicinity of these lines is none other than the magister barbatus of the satire’s opening: Socrates himself.35 But what would Persius intend by implicating him in this distasteful exchange, that is, by having an interlocutor attack him as a faux philosopher, a man who suntans naked with depilated genitalia and shows to the public a “saggy hole” that suggests (at least in Roman invective) pathic sexual activity?36 The earlier half of the satire provides the only answer available: we have already seen that Persius tars the Platonic Socrates of the Alcibiades I, the Symposium, and the Phaedrus with the brush of a polluted eroticism. If, in his famous complaint in the Symposium 222b, Alcibiades blames Socrates for forcing him, Alcibiades, to turn into the active pursuer (the erastes) and for putting himself, Socrates, in the position of the young beloved (the eromenos), here Persius has brought the reversal of roles to its gruesome, typically satiric climax. Socrates, who grooms himself to resemble a young boy while still hanging on to the beard of the philosopher, is now put in the position of being accosted and attacked for his sexual self-display.37 Not only Alcibiades but his teacher here seem tarred with “Greekling” sexuality. In Persius, then, it seems that the sublimation of erotic desire that transforms Plato’s seeker of beauty into a philosopher in love with the Good neither manifests itself nor even makes an appearance in the text; instead, the whole sexual underpinning of the Platonic enterprise seems to have gone dangerously off track.38 We hardly need recall Diotima’s 34. For a contemporary example of Socrates’ emphasis on accosting everyone, see Epictetus Disc. 3.1.20. 35. For the periphrasis of “bearded man” as naming a philosopher, see, e.g., Pers. Sat. 1.133, Hor. Sat. 2.3.161, Juv. 13.185– 87 as well as the sources gathered in Kissel (1990) 502– 3. Epict. Disc. 4.4.22 depicts Socrates as precisely the type who would not suntan himself, however tempting; spending time in the sun seems to be the quintessential philosophical failure. 36. Richlin (1984) 76n30 lists similar usages for the anal orifice of men calumniated as “pathics.” 37. As Littlewood (2002) 57 politely remarks: “The authority of Socrates and the philosophical dialogue are compromised as they are reworked in the context of Persius’ satire.” 38. Persius here is, I think, only criticizing the Platonic Socrates; the Socrates of the Memorabilia is distinctly less frisky, and in fact criticizes Critias for loving Euthydemus in such a lustful way.

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account in the Symposium, which reminds us that we need to beget in the beautiful body, and that only if the soul is housed in such a body can the lover finally “have revealed to him, as he draws to the close of his dealings in love, a wondrous vision, beautiful in its nature . . . the final object of all those previous toils” (Symp. 210e, tr. H. N. Fowler). At the ending of the first Alcibiades, the mutual gaze of the two lovers permits each eye to see itself in the other’s pupil: an exchange that stands as an analogy for the way in which a human soul, seeing itself in the divine part of the soul of the loved other, can ascend to true self-knowledge (Alc. I 133b– c). Likewise in the Phaedrus erotic reciprocity based on the vision of beauty (accompanied by erotic imagery of swelling and desiring) leads to an outcome similar to that of the Symposium. That is, a significant theme of these three Platonic dialogues is that the erotic attention of an older teacher/erastes leads to a reciprocal development that spurs self-knowledge and philosophical knowledge. In Persius’ Satires, however, the satirist waxes scornful about physical beauty, characterizing it as literally skin-deep (cf. “summa nequiquam pelle decorus,” Sat. 4.14) and emphasizing instead that what matters lies deep within (see, e.g., Sat. 4.23). Plato’s philosophical inclusion of eros— as a metaphor, and as reality— emerges as deeply problematic. Persius’ distaste for the assumptions of the Alcibiades I is not surprising, nor is it isolated. I have discussed elsewhere (Bartsch 2006, 95– 103, 168– 71) the effect of Roman homophobia (for want of a better word) on the reception of the Greek philosophical tradition, as well as the satiric representation of the erotic component of that tradition. The Roman intolerance of the idealized pederastic relationship which had been featured (if only to be sublimated) in several of the Platonic dialogues manifested itself not only in the contempt the Romans felt for the “philosophizing Greeklings” but even in the context of Roman Stoicism, where the more tolerant attitude of the Greek Stoics was criticized by Cicero and others on at least two grounds: it was both unmanly and philosophically incoherent. Stoic attitudes toward same-sex love show a marked shift from the Hellenistic period to early imperial Rome; Chrysippus and Zeno, who seem to have supported the “philosophic” love of boys,39 took up a stance similar to the Platonic one in focusing on the philosophical possibilities inherent in eros and in attempting to identify it with friendship.40 As a Roman, however, Cicero mocked 39. See Diog. Laert. 7.129– 30 and SVF 3.650– 53. This citation is repeated in Latin by Cicero at Tusc. 4.72. 40. See Babut (1963); Nussbaum (1993) 261; Rist (1969) 65– 68, 79– 80.

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this Stoic “amor amicitiae” and the principles on which it stood (Tusc. 4.33.70– 71);41 perhaps more pertinently, the first-century Stoic Musonius Rufus condemned male-male sex as para phusin, against nature, and only endorsed sex within marriage and for the propagation of children (86.4– 10 Lutz).42 Indeed, Seneca identified as Stoic frauds those philosophers who did urge their followers to find young men for philosophical loving: such men urge us to vices under the disguise of the Stoic school (Epist. mor. 123.15). If Persius attacks these features of the Platonic Socrates, he does not, however, reject the Socratic imperative to “know yourself.” The Stoics may have rejected Platonic metaphysics, and the Roman Stoics may have rejected Plato’s eroticizing of the philosophical project; the emphasis in knowing oneself may have shifted from the cultivation of sophrosyne to a form of thought that sought to dismiss everything that was not eph’hemin, under our control— but they still identified with the quest to find the divine within. In Roman Stoicism, however, this quest is cast in the language of internality and a retreat into second-order selfquestioning, with dialectic playing very much a secondary role.43 If, in the Natural Questions, Seneca says that nature has given us mirrors so that we may know ourselves (“ut homo ipse se nosset”), he adds that we must direct ourselves into ourselves (“in se recedendum”) and retreat from ourselves (“a se recedendum”) (NQ 4.20).44 Likewise, the old elite emphasis on living up to historical exempla under the gaze of a watchful public and one’s peers is, in Seneca, very much internalized, so that he exhorts us repeatedly to imagine a Cato, or Laelius, or some other longgone hero watching us. Seneca will also split the proficiens’ self into an 41. See similarly Plutarch De comm. not. 1072f– 1073d and Lucian Dialogue of Courtesans 10, which includes mockery of such “philosophic” boy-love. 42. See Foucault (1986) 150– 85 on the focus on heterosexual marriage found in the Stoic writers of the imperial period. For two important texts on the care of the self and the question of self-knowledge, see Foucault (1986) and Hadot (2002). 43. So too Persius’ representation of dialogue in the Satires (like that of Seneca in the essays and letters) is often best understood as modeling internalized discourse; for treatments of the issue of dialogue in Persius, see: on satire 3, Gowers (1993) 142; Behr (2009) 231; Hendrickson (1928a); Housman (1913); Reckford (1962) and (2009) 350– 51; Rudd (1970); Jenkinson (1973); Kissel (1990) 368– 73; on satire 1, Hooley (1997) 26– 27; Hendrickson (1928b) 102– 7; Dessen (1996) 29; even on satire 5, Witke (1970) 89– 90; in general, see, e.g., Relihan (1989) 147– 54, 158; Wehrle (1992b) 16, 102; Ferri (1993) 174– 76. For discussion of examples in Seneca, see Bartsch (2006) 239– 46. 44. See, e.g., Ep. 1.1, 2.1, 10.2, 20.2, 28.2. For a full list of these usages, see Traina (1974) 14– 19, 52– 65 and further bibliography in Bartsch (2006) 247n25.

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observer/agent pair, providing us with a model for internal corrective dialogue rather than a chance for literal dialectic in the streets.45 Persius himself helps us to understand these dialogues as such when he writes, as he does at Satires 1.47, that the respondent is an “adversarius fictivus,” and in this way internal.46 For a man whose view on public opinion is already voiced in Satires 1.5– 7, the procedure is clear:47 Non, si quid turbida Roma eleuet, accedas examenue inprobum in illa castiges trutina, nec te quaesiueris extra. Nor, if chaotic Rome should make light of something,48 should you approach and reprove the lying tongue of the balance, nor seek yourself outside yourself.

The question the fourth satire raises is simply: how best can we do this? The answer becomes clearer via a detour through satire 5, where instead of hearing what is wrong, we hear, for once, and for a little while, what is right.49

3. Cornutus and the Stoic Way As if to replace the erotic dialectic à deux practiced in the Alcibiades I, Persius introduces, in the subsequent satire, the single scene of successful pedagogy in his work. This is Persius’ glowing account of his own relationship with his Stoic teacher, Cornutus.50 About the historical figure Cornutus himself, relatively little is known; he was the author of works on rhetoric, orthography, and philosophy, as well as a commen45. On these topics, see Bartsch (2006) 9– 10, 193– 94, 204– 9, 231– 34, with bibliography. 46. As Behr (2009) 231 says of satire 3, “We have the reversal of the typical satirical situation in which the poet criticizes someone else in the second person.” 47. See Bramble (1974) 70n1; cf. Hor. Ep. 1.16.19 and Sen. Ep. 39.12. 48. Elevo: literally to “raise,” but here the metaphor is one of a scale, as Conington points out ad loc. in Nettleship’s (1893) edition. 49. For an excellent treatment of the whole body of satire 5, see Hooley (1997) 64– 121. 50. On the problem of Cornutus’ identity, see Braund and Osgood (2012) 439– 42. On Cornutus’ surviving work, a compendium of interpretations of Greek mythology, see Most (1989), Paladini (1936), and Boys-Stones (2007). Boys- Stones suggests that it is a work of “ethical pedagogy,” while Most (1989) 2039 suggests that the Epidrome offers philosophical justification for some of Nero’s Apolline activies.

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tary on Vergil.51 Perhaps most importantly, he seems to have authored a work on figures of thought, De figuris sententiarum; it would be tempting to speculate that Persius’ usage of metaphor owed something to his teacher. In any case, as we shall see, Persius represents this relationship in a way that offers a direct challenge to the Platonic erotic model, and, in the process, transforms the procedures of the Platonic Socrates in two other significant ways. As the improved heir to Socrates and Socratic thought, Cornutus is depicted as focusing deeply on the needs of a single student, rather than directing his attention to the citizens at large (and producing Critias and Alcibiades in the meantime). Moreover, Persius’ Cornutus— in contrast not only to Plato’s Socrates in the Alcibiades I, but also Xenophon’s in the Memorabilia— seems to have no use for politics and no involvement in the city’s political life.52 Nor does he train his student, Persius, with any thought to turning him, like Alcibiades, into a politikos aner (Alc. I 133e).53 The somewhat critical comments about Socrates as a teacher in Memorabilia 1 provide, in fact, a useful parallel to Persius’ and an apparent corrective to Plato’s apologetic stance. We left satire 4 at the point where it had become clear that neither an eroticized dialectic nor an education that ultimately looked toward political leadership had the satirist’s stamp of approval as an appropriate path toward the Stoic goal of philosophical self-knowledge. In the Memorabilia, Socrates emerges still more clearly as a political instructor: a man engaged with the potential leaders of the state and concerned with training them for public life in particular. In Memorabilia 3.1– 7 in particular, as Carol McNamara (2009, 223) demonstrates, “Xenophon shows us that Socrates devoted considerable effort to the political education of his young companions which had the chief purpose of benefiting them in relation to their political ambitions but also the secondary objective of offering advice that might, if taken, reverse the effects of Athenian decline.”54 So when at Memorabilia 1.2.17 51. Most (1989) 2031 notes of his one surviving work, the Epidrome, “The total absence of Stoic logical terms in the treatise, and the virtual absence of Stoic ethical doctrines in it, are quite striking, particularly in view of the interest on the part of Cornutus in ethical issues to which Persius’ fifth satire refers.” 52. But note that he was banished by Nero in 66 or 68 CE, according to Dio Cassius 62.2.9, for having indirectly disparaged the emperor’s future epic about Rome. 53. Persius also echoes, but depoliticizes, the teacher-student relationship of the Horatian Epistle to Augustus. See Freudenburg (2002). 54. In Mem. 3.1, for example, Xenophon presents Socrates’ criticism of the content and quality of the political and military education offered to young Athenian men by the recently arrived sophist Dionysodorus and his teachings on generalship. McNamara (2009, 226) notes, “In this chapter, and in each one that follows, Xeno-

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Xenophon reflects on the unsavory careers of both Critias and Alcibiades, he draws the moral that “Socrates should have taught his companions prudence before politics”— which apparently was not the order of instruction. As in Persius, but not in the Alcibiades I, Xenophon represents Alcibiades as ruined by the easy flattery he won from the people (Mem. 1.2 24): “The honor in which he was held, the cheap triumph he won with the people, led him to neglect himself ” (tr. W. R. M. Lamb).55 As to the erotic question, Xenophon has already indicated his disapproval of Socrates’ desire to train men for political life and his way of going about it: as he points out, “Instead of listening to him or being persuaded by his discourse, they resented being cross-examined about their errors” (Mem. 1.2.47).56 No such critique, as we shall see, can be aimed at Persius’ teacher Cornutus. In satire 5, Persius starts the story of his education with a look back at the moment he was growing out of boyhood and becoming a man— that perfect time, we might infer, in which the down was just beginning to appear on his cheeks, and when, if he were a member of the Greek elite, some statesman might have suddenly taken an interest in him. Instead, it was Cornutus who noticed him, and indeed saved him, keeping him far from the prostitutes of the Subura (the red-light district in Rome) and straightening out his soul as it was on the verge of going awry (Sat. 5.30– 44). Turning to address his mentor in a striking apostrophe, and using a series of unobjectionable and indeed common metaphors, Persius writes: Cum primum pauido custos mihi purpura cessit bullaque succinctis Laribus donata pependit, cum blandi comites totaque inpune Subura permisit sparsisse oculos iam candidus umbo, cumque iter ambiguum est et uitae nescius error diducit trepidas ramosa in compita mentes, me tibi supposui. teneros tu suscipis annos Socratico, Cornute, sinu. tum fallere sollers phon’s account establishes Socrates’ own authority as a qualified teacher of leadership in war and politics.” 55. “ὑπὸ πολλῶν καὶ δυνατῶν κολακεύειν ἀνθρώπων διαθρυπτόμενος, ὑπὸ δὲ τοῦ δήμου τιμώμενος καὶ ῥᾳδίως πρωτεύων, ὥσπερ οἱ τῶν γυμνικῶν ἀγώνων ἀθληταὶ ῥᾳδίως πρωτεύοντες ἀμελοῦσι τῆς ἀσκήσεως, οὕτω κἀκεῖνος ἠμέλησεν αὑτοῦ.” 56. When Socrates succeeds at being taken as Alcibiades’ lover in the Alcibiades I, his goal is not so much to train him properly for the state as to impress on him the need for self-knowledge before political participation— exactly the opposite of Xenophon’s Socrates.

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apposita intortos extendit regula mores et premitur ratione animus uincique laborat artificemque tuo ducit sub pollice uoltum. When the purple-edged toga was no longer my strict guardian and boyhood’s medal dangled as an offering to the high-girt household gods, when my companions were alluring, and the white toga now let me cast my eyes with impunity over the whole Subura, and when life’s path was uncertain and wanderings ignorant of life led my bewildered mind to the branching crossroads, I gave myself to you. You take up my tender years in your Socratic breast, Cornutus. Then, your rule, skillful at being undetected, straightens out the twisted character to which it is applied, and my spirit is molded by reason, and works at being persuaded, and takes on a crafted look under your thumb.

This passage in praise of Cornutus offers a parallel of sorts to Alcibiades’ praise of Socrates from the Symposium and functions also as an answer to the failed educational program of satire 4.57 We have, once again, a young man just exiting boyhood and looking to find guidance for the future. Like the Alcibiades of satire 4, who announces, “sum candidus,” Persius too describes himself as clad in the white toga of the Roman adult citizen of the res publica; we may even see in this candidus (34) the idea of candidatus, or running for political office, an echo of Alcibiades’ political aspirations in that dialogue.58 Just like Alcibiades’ public (Sat. 4.15), Persius’ friends are blandi— flattering— as they draw him down the wrong path.59 The Stoic rule, or regula, of Satires 4.13 returns, here invoked not sarcastically but described as effectively straightening out the wayward Persius.60 And for the description of Cornutus’ character 57. Hooley (1997) 80– 87 likewise sees the young Persius here as a parallel to Alcibiades. Reckford (2009) 114 points to another model active here as well: “The subtext . . . of Persius’ ‘revelation’ to Cornutus is the difference between their philosophically grounded friendship and the patron-client relationship of Maecenas and Horace.” 58. Cf. Lewis and Short s.v. IIA1. 59. Cf. Harvey (1981) ad loc: “Cum blandi comites probably means ‘when my companions were coaxing me.’ The words take on from what follows the idea of his friends encouraging P. in vice.” 60. The Horatian intertext here is likewise biographical, as it is for Persius; Horace too links the “straight path” and the legacy of Plato’s school, Ep. 2.2.43– 45: “Adiecere bonae paulo plus artis Athenae / scilicet ut uellem curuo dinoscere rectum / atque inter siluas Academi quaerere uerum.”

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as “sollers fallere,” the scholia suggest that this term refers to the gentleness with which the sapiens must approach his student, lest he scare him off the pursuit of wisdom by the harshness of his doctrine, the asperitas doctrinae.61 The passage, then, sets itself up as a sort of counterpart to Socrates’ relationship with Alcibiades in satire 4 and in the Symposium. But the differences between the Cornutian and Socratic methods are pointed. Instead of appealing to Persius as an erastes might lure his eromenos, with the promise of wisdom in exchange for erotic license, the friendship that Cornutus offers is strictly platonic— no pun intended. Alcibiades in the Symposium claimed that the effect of Socrates’ words on him were erotic; that Socrates, like a flute player who charms the souls of men, made him feel like a Corybantian reveler (Symp. 215b– 216a); that Socrates so much resembled the Sirens that Alcibiades had to shut his ears— presumably since the Sirens too held out the promise of knowledge, but offered only destruction to the man who approached them (Symp. 216a– b). Here, on the other hand, eros is absent and there is no need for a beautiful body to provide the spur to philosophy. Moreover, Persius and Cornutus spend entire days together, but not entire nights (as per Alcibiades’ lament at Symp. 219d): “I remember I consumed long days with you, / and with you I enjoyed the evenings with our meals” (“tecum etenim longos memini consumere soles / et tecum primas epulis decerpere noctes,” Sat. 5.41– 42). So the two enjoy the day and its conclusion (“primas noctes”) with a modest meal. It is in this context that the phrase “You take up my tender years in your Socratic breast [Socratico sinu], Cornutus” takes on a particularly charged meaning. Since sinus commonly designates a fold in a piece of clothing, Cornutus’ “Socratic fold” sounds much like a reference to the Socratic cloak in which Alcibiades, to his disgust, lay unmolested all night— “ὑπὸ τὸν τρίβωνα κατακλινεὶς” (Symp. 219b).62 But the metaphor here is one of adoption of a child, not seduction of a teacher. In taking shape under Cornutus’ guidance, Persius resembles the clay pot that needs to be molded in satire 3.20– 24.63 There a critical 61. Harvey (1981) ad loc. argues instead that “Cornutus’ subtle inculcation of Stoicism is apparently meant, cf. 1.116– 17.” 62. Harvey (1981) ad loc. suggests that the model Persius is using here is that of Roman contubernium, which “comes to denote the close contact experienced among friends and by pupils with their teachers. . . . The aspiring philosopher, taking advantage of contubernium, may model himself on, or at least be greatly influenced by, his teacher, cf. Sen. Ep. 6.6.” 63. The “shaping” metaphor recurs often in Roman Stoic texts, while the denigration of the body as “clay” is common to both a Platonic and a Roman stoic

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voice commented, “You are soft, wet clay; you need to hurry to take your shape on a sharp potter’s wheel” (“udum et molle lutum es, nunc nunc properandus et acri / fingendus sine fine rota”).64 Here, as we’ve seen, Cornutus duly molds him with reason, and the student, cooperating instead of fighting back, takes on a crafted look under his thumb (Sat. 5.39– 40). The vessel metaphor works well with the language of interiority with which Persius describes his newly “straightened-out” soul, where Cornutus, it seems, has taken up permanent residence (Sat. 5.21– 29): Tibi nunc hortante Camena excutienda damus praecordia, quantaque nostrae pars tua sit, Cornute, animae, tibi, dulcis amice, ostendisse iuuat. pulsa dinoscere cautus quid solidum crepet et pictae tectoria linguae. hic ego centenas ausim deposcere fauces, ut, quantum mihi te sinuoso in pectore fixi uoce traham pura, totumque hoc uerba resignent, quod latet arcana non enarrabile fibra. To you, I give my heart now, at the Muse’s urging, to be sifted thoroughly, and I am happy to show you, Cornutus, how great a part of my soul is yours, sweet friend. Tap on me, you who are skilled in distinguishing what sounds solid versus the plaster of a deceitful tongue. For this I would dare to demand a hundred voices, in order to express in a clear voice to what degree I have fixed you in my breast, and that my words reveal all of what lurks, indescribable, in my deepest entrails.

Persius’ twisted character (cf. the “intortos mores” of line 38) is here introduced via a description of his chest as literally sinuous or snakelike (“sinuoso pectore”). The Stoic rule to which Cornutus now subjects him straightens out this contorted and snaky soul, and in the details we are given we hear of the heart, the soul, the breast, the entrails, all the viewpoint. Cf. Seneca Ep. 18.12, Epict. Disc. 3.22.5, where the body is represented both as clay and as vulnerable to some of Persius’ favorite diseases: gout, defluxion, dysentery. 64. On this passage, see the perceptive comments of Reckford (1998) 340– 42, drawing an analogy to Plato’s Gorgias 494a: satisfying one’s every desire is akin to carrying water in a sieve to pour it into a leaky vessel, the epithymeticos part of the soul. Reckford points to other philosophical usages of the body-as-vessel metaphor at Lucr. DNR 3.434– 41, 3.551– 57, 3.935– 37, 3.1008– 10, and 6.17– 25.

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literal contents of the body’s interior, alongside the metaphor of the internalized Cornutus.65 In the Symposium, Alcibiades saw the beauty of the wisdom within the Silenus-figure of Socrates, but the latter refused to give it up, comparing such an exchange to the famous swapping of armor by Diomedes and Glaucus in Iliad 6, gold armor for brass (Symp. 218e).66 Cornutus by contrast does not hide his goodness within; it is readily available, and readily exchanged with his pupil, who has indeed internalized his teacher altogether.67 He can tell the difference between what rings solid and what shows a discrepancy between inside and outside, and there is no Silenus-like Socrates here, hiding within himself under a layer of irony.68 This emphasis on interiority and exchange is striking in the light of the ending of the Alcibiades I. There, Socrates greets the news that Alcibiades is finally interested in becoming his student with a metaphor for erotic reciprocity that likewise suggests a pedagogical exchange based on the teacher’s embedding a part of himself (here figured as his offspring) in the student: “So my love will be just like a stork; for after hatching a winged love in you it is to be cherished in return by its nestling” (Alc. I 135e; tr. W. R. M. Lamb). But the hatching of the winged love inside Alcibiades, and the chick-Alcibiades’ return of this love, is phrased both 65. Contrast Persius’ description of Horace’s relationship to his reader: “admissus circa praecordia ludit” (Sat. 1.117). Now, it is not the satirist but the philosopher who is figured as the internalized best friend. On this phrase, see also Tzounakas (2005) 566, who emphasizes the difference between the Horatian ludit and Persius’ excutienda. 66. Persius, then, would seem to agree with Michael Gagarin’s closing comments in his study of the erotic failure of the Symposium (1977, 37): “It thus seems legitimate to conclude that the educational theory which emerges from Socrates’ doctrine of eros and which seems to be embodied in Socrates himself has, in spite of its advantages, certain inherent difficulties. Although it permits the perfect learner . . . to attain ultimate knowledge of the Forms, by placing most of the burden of learning on the learner himself it seems to ensure that most who seek to learn will fail. . . . In this regard, Socrates’ doctrine of eros . . . justifies his own career as a perfect example of the lover/philosopher’s progress, while at the same time implying that others who do not succeed have only themselves to blame. . . . As a teacher of others, Alcibiades reveals, Socrates is a failure.” 67. Reckford (1962) 490– 91 suggests that the Horatian allusions in this satire set up Persius and Cornutus as parallels to Horace and Maecenas; cf. Hor. Odes 2.7.17– 30 and Sat. 1.6.51. 68. What is the use of a teacher who by his own account knows nothing, Persius seems to be asking. The only time Socrates does claim knowledge (besides knowing that he knows nothing) is his confession in the Symposium: “I know nothing other than erotics” (Symp. 177d– e). On Cornutus as Silenus-like, see Hooley (1997) 82.

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as a parent-child relationship and as a reference to the erotic growth of the wings of the soul in the beloved as a response to the eros of the lover (Phaed. 255d); this confusion of parent-love and erotic love is one that Persius would no doubt find anathema. By contrast, when Persius says he has fixed his teacher in his breast, or that a great part of his soul belongs to Cornutus, he is developing a common Roman Stoic recommendation that the proficiens, or Stoic student, should internalize a worthy source of moral authority. In fact this notion that Persius has embedded his teacher within him, as well as other aspects of the relationship the satirist describes here, resonates closely with the terminology which Persius’ fellow Stoic and Neronian contemporary, Seneca the Younger, uses to describe his pedagogical relationship with Lucilius, the recipient of his letters and himself a proficiens on the way to Stoic wisdom. The notion of the ruler or model, the embeddedness of one’s teacher within, and even the term “indescribable” to refer to the divinity inside one all find expression in Persius’ contemporary, suggesting that he in fact appeals to a readily recognizable and distinctly Stoic model. In epistle 11.10, as we saw, Seneca specifically tells us that we need a regula, a ruler by which we can straighten our moral character,69 thus echoing Persius’ metaphorical description of Cornutus as precisely just such a regula. Seneca goes so far as to point out that this talk of rulers is a metaphor and not a reality: “Thus we say that the law is the standard (regula) of right and wrong, while we understand that an actual ruler is not a thing to be sought out by itself ” (De ben. 4.12).70 Seneca also repeatedly emphasizes that our best teacher and guardian is within us: it is the divine logos, our connection to God, but a logos that is figured in terms of an observer of the good and bad things we do and a regulator of our behavior.71 Thus Seneca writes in epistle 41: “This is what I mean, Lucilius: a holy spirit dwells within us, 69. As Armisen-Marchetti (1989, 159) notes, Seneca often uses the metaphor of the geometer’s ruler to point to the moral norm in its various manifestations as reason, virtus, the moral law, etc. 70. Cf. also Sen. Ep. 108.6 on those who listen to philosophers merely for pleasure: “Quidam veniunt ut audiant, non ut discant, sicut in theatrum voluptatis causa ad delectandas aures oratione vel voce vel fabulis ducimur. Magnam hanc auditorum partem videbis cui philosophi schola deversorium otii sit. Non id agunt ut aliqua illo vitia deponant, ut aliquam legemvitae accipiant qua mores suos exigant, sed ut oblectamento aurium perfruantur. Aliqui tamen et cum pugillaribus veniunt, non ut res excipiant, sed ut verba, quae tam sine profectu alieno dicant quam sine suo audiunt.” 71. Cf. Sen. Ep. 104.21– 22; on this topic, see Bartsch (2006) 199– 203, 245– 46, with notes and bibliography.

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one who marks our good and bad deeds, and is our guardian.” Persius, on the other hand, has taken this up a notch: his teacher Cornutus is a divine spirit, lodged permanently in his breast. Furthermore, a striking parallel between the Senecan and Persianic descriptions of the internalized Stoic logos serves to confirm Cornutus’ quasi-divine status here. For Persius claims he finds it impossible to describe the presence of Cornutus’ embedded spirit within him: it is “non enarrabile.” So too the divine ruling principle is described with the same rare word enarrabile in Seneca’s epistle 121.10: it is “vix enarrabile.”72 “Constitutio” inquit “est, ut uos dicitis, principale animi quodammodo se habens erga corpus. Hoc tam perplexum et subtile et uobis quoque uix enarrabile quomodo infans intellegit?” He said: “One’s constitution, as you say, is a ruling power in the soul which holds a certain relation toward the body. But how can a child understand this so complicated and subtle idea which even for you can scarcely be put into words?”

This is one of only six occurrences of the term in extant Latin literature.73 Its usage in Persius and Seneca represents a manifestly Stoic way of talking about Cornutus’ soul, and any human soul, imbued as the soul is with a potential to develop that in it which is divine. However, the choice of the term brings with it other ramifications as well, for enarrabile must necessarily evoke its single prior usage in extant Latin literature, in a famous passage from Vergil’s Aeneid that every Roman schoolboy would already know. This is the description of the shield that Vulcan crafts for Aeneas (Aen. 8.619– 21, 24– 25) emblazoned with figures from Roman history, and showing, in its center, Augustus’ triumph at the battle of Actium. As Aeneas receives the shield along with the other godcrafted weapons from his mother, miraturque interque manus et bracchia uersat terribilem cristis galeam flammasque uomentem, fatiferumque ensem, loricam ex aere rigentem . . . , tum leuis ocreas electro auroque recocto, hastamque et clipei non enarrabile textum. 72. On “non enarrabile fibra,” see also Bramble (1974) 10n2. 73. Based on a search using the Latin PHI databank. The six occurrences are in Vergil (1), Persius (1), Quintilian (2), Seneca (1), and Servius (1, commenting on Vergil’s usage).

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admiring, with arm and hand he turns the helmet over, tremendous with its crests and flood of flames, the sword that deals out fate, the stiff brass corselet . . . , the polished greaves made of electrum and of gold, resmelted many times, the spear, the shield, its texture indescribable. (Tr. A. Mandelbaum)

Thanks to this striking intertext, Cornutus’ human soul is also akin to the “indescribable” (“non enarrabile”) workmanship of the shield; like the shield, it is a god-crafted source of both wonder and protection for the man who chooses to use it. And unlike the “smelted” or twicecooked (recocto) metal of the greaves, it is the Stoic philosopher who is the real work of art, decocted if not recocted into the final product toward which all Stoic students strive, the perfect Stoic sage.

4. Vel duo vel nemo We left satire 4 at the point where it had become clear that neither an eroticized dialectic nor an education that ultimately looked toward political leadership had the satirist’s stamp of approval as an appropriate path toward the Stoic goal of philosophical self-knowledge. This critique primarily targeted the erotic element highlighted in several of the Platonic dialogues; but in the attention it paid to the inefficacy of Socrates’ teaching, the satire also seemed to glance toward Xenophon’s representation of Socrates in the Memorabilia. These passages on Socrates help us draw a sharp contrast between his practice and that of Cornutus, next to whom Persius seems to find Socrates too outward-oriented, too concerned with the life of the polis, too eager to chastise rather than teach introspection.74 For introspection and self-critique are in fact the twin goals held up at the end of satire 4, a satire whose bulk is given over to people— perhaps philosophers— spiritedly criticizing each other while remaining blind to their own faults. Referring back to the sequence of harsh critical judgments that make up the body of the satire, Persius lamented this fact (Sat. 4.42– 45):75 74. One thinks here especially of the Socrates of the Gorgias and his willingness to drive the argument by causing Callicles shame. Even in the Symposium Alcibiades says that Socrates is the only man who can make him feel shame (Symp. 216a– b). 75. Cf. Hooley (1997) 136: “Vivitur hoc pacto / sic novimus confirms this: not ‘we recognize that we may be hurt in turn,’ but ‘we understand this process, this convention.’ Peterson has keyed on this line: our self-knowledge is this, to concur in this process of fruitless critical exchange, thus keeping ourselves from far more painful inward regard. ‘Sic novimus,’ in this way we know. The pact: ‘not to know.’”

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Caedimus inque vicem praebemus crura sagittis. vivitur hoc pacto, sic novimus. ilia subter caecum uulnus habes, sed lato balteus auro praetegit.76 We wound each other and in turn provide our shins to the arrows. This is how we live, this is what we know. You have a hidden wound in your groin, but a belt of broad gold covers it.

Persius’ theme here picks up his earlier comment that no one attempts to descend into themselves, looking instead to the faults of others (“ut nemo in sese temptat descendere, nemo, / sed praecedenti spectatur mantica tergo!” 23– 24), which introduced the series of attacks that followed. Accordingly, when Persius laments that in our eagerness to reciprocally criticize each other, we fail to examine ourselves, it is clear that he is including in this lament all the examples of critical attacks he has just delineated— including the castigating, castigated Socrates of satire 4, who is as implicated in the lack of self-knowledge as his failures of students.77 Even eros returns in these lines, for the curious description of the hidden wound looks back to passages in Lucretius, Horace, and Vergil, each with different but relevant implications. As Hooley (1997, 142) points out, the theme of not relying on public opinion echoes the Horatian intertext in epistle 1.16: “The relations of Persius’ caecum vulnus [hidden wound] to Horace’s occultam febrem [secret fever] and incurata ulcera [untended boils] is obvious, as is the relation of the satire’s interjected “egregium cum me vicinia dicat, / non credam? [when the neighbors call me excellent, should I not believe them?].” But perhaps more significantly still for our purposes, the hidden wound also recalls the “tacitum vulnus” that Dido carries within her (Aen. 4.67), her unrequited love for Aeneas. Here the allusion is unmitigatedly erotic; the wound we bear unknowingly thus carries multiple valences simultaAs Hooley points out, these lines are modeled on Horace Epist. 2.2.97, about mutual flattery. 76. In Lucretius DRN 4.1120, the hidden wound refers to the desires caused by false evaluations of things: “usque adeo incerti tabescunt volnere caeco.” In Seneca Ep. 68.8, Seneca emphasizes that a moral failing is like a tumor within the body, like the ulcer in the gourmand’s mouth at Pers. Sat. 3.113– 14. 77. Contrast to Horace Sat. 1.3 on the mutual forgiveness of bad qualities: “He who requires that his friend should not take offense at his own protuberances, will excuse his friend’s little warts. It is fair that he who entreats a pardon for his own fault, should grant one in his turn.”

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neously: it is our vulnerability to the views of others, our lack of selfknowledge, and the erotic sting that careless Socrates has inflicted on us. The Lucretian echo also addresses the hidden wound of love; for lovers, not knowing what has “hit” them, and not having philosophy’s cure to hand, “tabescunt volnere caeco,” “grow weak through a hidden wound,” DRN 4.1120.78 Don’t aim at others, but take a look at yourself: This philosophical position on the value of interiority and introspection has a direct corollary in Persius’ attitude toward his readership. As is well known, the issue of the satirist’s relationship with his public had been a feature of satire since its inception. Both Lucilius and Horace portrayed themselves as closely related to their urban audience, drawing their material from it and trying to offer it moral instruction in turn.79 While Lucilius excludes only the uneducated and the very learned, Horace is more selective, claiming that he writes for a few discriminating readers (“pauci lectores,” Sat. 1.10.74) and for his friends (Sat. 1.10.81– 90). But Persius takes this to the extreme,80 announcing in satire 1 that his audience will consist of “two people or none” (Sat. 1.44), the ones unburdened with the asses’ ears of the general population.81 Accordingly— although satire is “outwardly, not inwardly, directed” and “usually has as its generically legitimate forum the larger (literary or social) world” (Hooley (1997, 58)— our Stoic satirist, like his Stoic contemporaries, evinces a total lack of interest in this forum.82 Unlike Lucretius and Horace, he rarely turns outward to 78. The wounded shins also suggest that the criticism is misplaced; the assailants hope to deliver a fatal blow, thinking in heroic/Achillean terms, but in fact they do not see the real weakness, which lies not in the shins, but the part under the golden belt. 79. On the satirist’s relationship to the city, see, e.g., the essays in Braund (1989, Reckford (2009) 17– 20, Hooley (2007b) 92, Keane (2006) 4. 80. Cf. Henderson (1999, 235), “The literary policing of the body politic by that vox populi, the Lucilian social satirist, gets displaced from the hexameters of Roman satura. Instead, its voice dives into introversion, and patrols the boundaries of a subjectivity in what is represented as a solitary, indeed near-solipsistic, performance.” As Relihan writes (1989, 146), “The recurrent metaphor of doctor and patient in the Satires describes an ideal state of affairs, but Persius seems to have no interest in the patient’s cure.” 81. Obviously enough, we are privy to what he has written. Persius’ refusal to publish his poetry has meaning in the context of his own poetic complaints about what kind of audience is out there; it is, in other words, part of a closed circuit that would seem less paradoxical in a recital to a small like-minded group— as Roller (2012) 307 points out. 82. As Tzounakis points out (2005) 568– 69, Persius rejects society and withdraws, as he categorically states immediately before his reference to his predecessors (1.114; discedo). See also Anderson (1966); Keane (2006) 24– 28, Relihan (1989)

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address us.83 The pedagogical impulse of Roman satire, so often expressed in second-person exhortations and advice, ethical datives, and first-person plurals (see Volk [2002] 77– 80) finds little expression in this text.84 Nor, as Antonio La Penna (1998, 28) points out, is there much by way of positive precepts or teaching to be gleaned from these vituperative poems: it is the criticism of vice that is predominant in Persius’ satire, while “positive prescriptions leading to the recte vivere have in it a minor role. . . . We can obtain from Horace much more (than in Persius) in terms of a positive didascalism.”85 Persius’ lack of interest in reaching a wide audience echoes Seneca’s stance on the same subject, suggesting a level of orthodoxy of practice (or at least of representation) among first century Roman Stoics.86 Seneca puts it trenchantly in Epistles 7.9, Non est quod te gloria publicandi ingenii producat in medium, ut recitare istis velis aut disputare. . . . Aliquis fortasse, unus aut alter incidet, et hic ipse formandus tibi erit instituendusque ad intellectum tui. There is no reason why pride in publishing your talent should draw you into the public realm, so that you would wish to recite or engage in argument with them . . . One or another person will perhaps chance upon you, but even this man himself will have to be shaped and trained by you in order to understand you.87 153, Ferri (1993) 154. When Persius does turn to address people, it is as miserable wretches, not friends (e.g., 3.66, 5.64– 65, 2.61) 83. On the contrast with Lucilius and Horace as teachers, see esp. Bellandi (1988) 165, Ferri (1993) 154– 57, 161– 66; Fiske (1913) 3– 4. 84. The one use of docemus at Sat. 1.69 is not spoken by the satirist’s persona. Contrast, e.g., Lucretius, as described by Classen (1968) 96: “Lucretius shows immediate and continued concern for the attention, understanding, judgment . . . , consent, and active cooperation of the listener.” See the many examples in Fiske (1913) 3– 4; also Ferri (1993) 161– 66. Cf. Horace AP 6, “credite Pisones”; 38, “sumite materiam vestris . . . versate diu”; 153, “Tu quid ego . . . audi”; 269, “versate manu, versate diurnal”; 292, “Vos, O Pompilius sanguis, reprehendite”; 366, “O maior iuvenum . . . tolle memor.” Lucilius, book 26, frag. 603, “vide ne . . .”; 609, “quid cavendum,” etc.; 610, “haec tu si voles”; 620, “nunc laborem sumas”; 621, “percrepa . . . cane.” Teaching by personal example: Horace AP 35, 55, 85– 87, 234, 301, 304– 6, 409– 10 (ipse); Lucilius frags. 590, 593, 609, 628, 630, 650. 85. The original is in Italian. 86. On the similarity between Persius’ and Seneca’s rejection of a broad audience, see Bramble (1974) 67– 68, Harvey (1981) 24, Kissel (1990) 147n127, and esp. Hooley (1997) 37 and Sosin (1999). 87. On these parallels in Seneca, see Sosin (1999) 289, Bramble (1974) 67– 68, Harvey (1981) 24, Lee and Barr (1987) 67– 68, Kissel (1990) 147n127, Hooley (1997) 37.

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Similarly in Epistles 52.9– 14 he lambastes any philosopher who might seek the applause of his audience, asking: “What is more shameful than Philosophy hoping for applause? Does the sick man praise the surgeon who is cutting him open?” (52.9).88 If we are praised by the crowd, it is cause for sorrow, not joy: says Seneca to Lucilius, “How could I help pitying you, when I know by what path you reached that popularity?” (Ep. 29.11). Joshua Sosin (1999, 289) puts it well: “Persius’ narrator says that his learning does not require another’s awareness of it . . . and Seneca urges his pupil to learn for himself.”89 It seems that Stoic philosophy, once we have been shown the way, is a solitary project. And if we ask, borrowing Persius’ words but not his sarcasm, “Quid intus non est?” (Sat. 1.50), the answer to what is missing is this: there is precisely no Symposium here, nor even a gathering of the city’s elite at one person’s house, each to be tormented by Socrates in turn. There is not even a loving father to help with schoolwork, for Persius’ “father’s” concerns are all wrong. We will recall that when Horace spoke of his own education, he described the important role his own father played in teaching him right from wrong (Sat. 1.4.105– 29). Persius’ fictionalized father, however, only cares about his son’s performance in school rhetoric: characterized with the same culinary language as all bad poetry, it is a “sartago loquendi” (Sat. 1.80) that dad sweats over, not the values of philosophy. Finally, all of this parallels Cornutus’ practice of philosophy as we see it in Satire 5: unlike Socrates who wanders through the streets of Athens, accosting one and all, Cornutus stays in his house tutoring a single disciple. We hear of no lectures or displays of philosophical learning, and in fact those philosophers who do circumambulate the city, denouncing vice in their fellow citizens and resting their credentials on their beards and rough cloaks, are shown to be frauds through and through— like the poets, flapping the plaster of their deceitful tongues. We might contrast Persius’ expression of love for his teacher in satire 4 with the many 88. Lucian’s Nigrinus is very amusing here: as he writes of bumping into a philosopher at Rome, “But that men who call themselves philosophers should actually outdo the rest in degradation,— this, indeed, is the climax. Imagine my feelings, when I see a brother philosopher, an old man, perhaps, mingling in the herd of sycophants; dancing attendance on some great man; adapting himself to the conversational level of a possible host! One thing, indeed, serves to distinguish him from his company, and to accentuate his disgrace;— he wears the garb of philosophy” (tr. H. W. Fowler). 89. Miller (2006) by contrast reads Persius as a Stoic parrhesiast, whose authenticity “stands as a critique of the surrounding falsehood, as a resistance to hegemonic power” (54). This seems to me overstated; unless one reads Nero into Persius’ abuse, there is little in the Satires to suggest any attempt at resisting hegemonic power. The most likely form of critique would be satire 1’s commentary on poetry.

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frustrated recipients of Socrates’ dialectic, reduced to saying “Evidently” over and over again as they are led to a place of self-destabilization and confusion without being offered a path up and out of their new quandary. Seneca likewise has much to say about claimants to wisdom who run around criticizing others rather than engaging in introspection, such as the Cynics (Ep. 29.1– 2) who indiscriminately offer moral criticism without a real desire to help the persons they’re criticizing.90 The shaming language, the public setting, the compromised status of the moralizers, and the complete lack of concern for one’s own interiority are condemned in favor of introspection as the end goal of study under a modest Stoic teacher.91 And once this human regula has been internalized, then we need no longer worry that Socratic irony, dialectical hubris, and (at least for Alcibiades) the correlated fear of rejection can interfere in the philosophical project. Persius ends satire 4 with an image that many readers have found puzzling. In the last line we are told: “Tecum habita; noris quam sit tibi curta supellex.” “Live with yourself ” is an expressive term that uses reflexivity to underline the Stoic’s inward turn, but “Know how incomplete your belongings are”92 is an odd expression for the lack of selfknowledge. Since curta implies a negative state of affairs— truncated or incomplete— and given that the context here suggests a situation that needs to be corrected, one might think that realizing that one’s supellex was insufficient would lead to a new dedication to self-improvement. Yet the word supellex is problematic, since it repeatedly crops up in Seneca precisely as a reference to what one should not waste thought on, not what one should restore to a state of being whole; it functions as a sort of shorthand for the things of this world, the fancy tables and marble beams of aristocratic houses. In Seneca Epistles 114.9, for example, caring about one’s furniture is a step away from self-knowledge, not toward it. “When prosperity has spread luxury far and wide, self-grooming begins to be a greater subject of attention. Next, furniture is all the rage.”93 90. I thank Bart van Wassenhove for drawing this passage to my attention. As he notes in the draft of his 2014 dissertation, “Seneca explicitly distinguishes castigatio, which restrains such people by making them feel ashamed (inponere pudorem) from the admonitio which brings less severely corrupted individuals back to a virtuous disposition by using ‘bare precepts’ (nudis praeceptis)” (chap. 2, p. 7). 91. Of course, Socrates’ representation of dialectic emphasizes precisely its oneon-one nature, as with Cornutus and Persius. The difference lies in his scope for multiple such conversations, in the use of irony as a pedagogical tool, and in the nature of his public persona. 92. Or, more figuratively, “your supply,” such as an orator’s stock of words. 93. “Ubi luxuriam late felicitas fudit, cultus primum corporum esse diligentior incipit; deinde supellectili laboratur”; Similarly, in Ad Helviam 1.3 Seneca points out

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Only the Alcibiades I seems to offer some understanding of Persius’ odd ending. For at the end of that dialogue, when Socrates has brought Alcibiades, through dialectic and erotic appeal, to a position where he finally accepts the importance of knowing yourself, Socrates phrases such knowledge in the language of “other people’s things” and “one’s own things” (Alc. I 133b): For I expect it seems impossible to you that without knowing Alcibiades you should know that the belongings of Alcibiades are in fact his. Nor could we know that our belongings are ours if we did not even know ourselves . . . And so, if we did not so much as know our belongings, we could not know the belongings of our belongings either? . . . And anyone who is ignorant of his belongings will be similarly ignorant, I suppose, of the belongings of others. . . . And if ignorant of others’ affairs, he will be ignorant also of the affairs of states.

Socrates concludes that such a man can never be a statesman. Drawing our attention to the unique Platonic locus where the knowledge of one’s belongings stands as an indication of how well one knows one’s soul, Persius takes this conclusion to the dialogue about self-knowledge and rewrites it, as it were, by keeping the belongings— but noticeably removing the statesman— from his writing about how to know the self. Persius’ satires 4 and 5 offer by way of revision of the Socratic dialectic a scene of pedagogy that leaves out the elements that Persius (and perhaps his Stoic peers) found most troubling about the Platonic model of philosophical education. Socrates may have warned Alcibiades about the risk of becoming a demos-lover and thus entering into a form of political prostitution, but Persius eliminates all forms of eros from his idealized philosophical relationship and replaces erotic reciprocality with a purified metaphor of the exchange of hearts and minds. Knowing your soul’s belongings is, in Persius, its own end. But the problem of how to reach this point still remains; it is if anything underscored by Persius’ participation in the language of vituperation. Although he rarely turns outward to address us in the second person, nonetheless, his saliva-spewing rants directed against all who fail to measure up to his culinary, poetic, or Stoic ideals (in which correct poetry, correct eating, correct philosophy can all stand as metaphors for each that those who measure wealth by objects rather than by the virtue of the mind are insatiable, no matter how rich and fancy their supellex; in Ep. 5.6 he urges that we, not our furniture, be what is admired by visitors; in Ep. 88.36 he asks, “Do you not consider blameworthy a man who has allowed himself to become absorbed with the useless furniture of learning?”

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other, all holding at arm’s length the troublesome concept of pleasure) are themselves the very instantiation of the criticisms he critiques in satire 4.94 Their language, content, and imagery— for example, the misguided concern for external appearances, the love of rich food or conversely a pathological miserliness, the recommendation of hellebore— are all too familiar from the remaining body of the Satires. Is Persius blind to the obvious contradiction? Is it simply an inevitable side product of writing satire, an ethical oxymoron we must let go? Or can there be something about Persius’ project, his use of poetry to write philosophy, his choice of imagery, that can offer a different answer to the problem? In the next chapter, we will explore this problem precisely through an investigation of Persius’ metaphors for metaphor— a figure highly charged in antiquity because of its association with pleasure, and therefore inherently problematic (or so it would seem) for our satirist’s ends.

94. As many scholars have rightly pointed out.

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The Scrape of Metaphor

Persius’ metaphors of cannibals and vegetables, of consumption and digestion, of pedagogy and perversity, may not strike us as a natural locus of pleasure in reading, but metaphor itself, as a figure, was associated with pleasure in antiquity. This presents a potential difficulty for Persius’ satiric program, devoted as it is to the stance of providing an anhedonic, albeit salubrious, tonic for our ailments. If we turn at this juncture from metaphorical practice to metaphorical theorizing, however, we will find that the satirist comments on his own use of metaphor via metaphor to distance himself from a poetics of pleasure and cultivate a harshness reminiscent of his philosophico-digestive regime of scraping beets. Persius’ metaphors about metaphor in fact enable us once again to bridge the poetic and the philosophical, for if we are to take his claim of writing curative poetry seriously, we must understand how he claims to be pressing into service a form of language— that is, figural language— deemed problematic for moral instruction by many ancient schools of philosophy.

1. The Pleasures of Figure The synesthetic characterization of poetry as sweet (Gk. glukus, hedus; Lat. suavis, dulcis) was widespread in Greco-Roman antiquity.1 In her 1. See most recently Liebert (2013) 48– 50. Heath (1985) 259– 63 criticizes the view of Homeric and Hesiodic epic that emphasizes didacticism over pleasure as a goal; Ford (1992) points out that Homer and Hesiod “describe the purpose of poetry as pleasure” (49), which he argues we should understand as related to its special vividness. In the ancient sources, see esp. Hom. Od. 8.44– 45, 17.385; Hes. Theog. 37, 51, 917.

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recent study of the notion of “honeyed verse” in Greek poetics and philosophy, Rana Liebert has demonstrated the consistency of this trope in early Greek epic and lyric, arguing that “poetry’s oldest somatic feature . . . is its sweetness of taste, already a well-worn metaphor at the dawn of Greek literature” (2010, 28). Already among the earliest poets we find the sweet-speaking Muses of Olympus in Hesiod’s Theogony, 965– 66, and the “sweet song” that the Homeric Muses bestow on the bards (Od. 8.64). As Liebert goes on to point out, the usual metaphorical vehicle for this sweetness is “the quintessentially sweet food, honey” (2010, 39)— one thinks of Pindar’s “sweet perfection of honey” (Pae. 6.58– 59) or Simonides’ picture of his muse as culling honey from every flower (Diehl fr. 43).”2 Nectar, the drink of the gods, may also stand in for honey, as in the “poured nectar” (Ol. 7.8) with which Pindar characterizes his epinicians.3 Both the association of poetry with sweetness and the employment of honey as its vehicle are inherited by Roman poets and rhetoricians, if more often mitigated by simultaneous claims about utility.4 Horace, for example, can refer offhand to “poetica mella” (poetic honey, Ep. 1.19.44), compares himself to a bee (Carm. 4.2.27), and emphasizes that poems must be sweet as well as beautiful (“non satis est pulchra esse poemata; dulcia sunto,” AP 99); Pliny praises the Iliad and Odyssey as the “Homerici senis mella,” “the honey of aged Homer” (Ep. 4.3.3); Cornelius Lepos surmises that Atticus tried his hand at writing poetry lest he be deprived of the experience of its “sweetness” (Att. 18.5).5 Quintilian, when he advises prose writers not to employ metaphors as the poets do, reminds them that the poet’s criterion is only to give pleasure (“omnia ad voluptatem referunt,” Inst. 8.6.17); however, orators may cite the poets here and there, to let the audience “enjoy a respite from forensic asperity with poetic pleasures” (“cum poeticis voluptatibus aures a forensi asperitate respirent,” Inst. 1.8.11).6 2. Liebert (2010) 97, with a review of scholarship in note 1. Liebert suggests that the connection arises from the sympotic context in which poetic performance began in Greece (32). For a recent list of examples, see Nünlist (1998) 60– 63 and 300– 306. For the fragments of Simonides/Semonides, see Diehl (1949– 52). 3. Liddell-Scott s.v. 2. 4. See Horsfall (2010) 41– 43 both on Greek and Roman bees as metapoetic symbols and on the bee as a symbol not only for poetry but also for the soul. 5. Cf. also Cic. Nat. deor. 1.22.60. 6. Of course there was also a long poetic tradition that associated poetry (especially Homer’s and Hesiod’s epics) with pedagogical utility, from the earliest allegorical interpretations to Plutarch’s De audiendis and beyond. On metaphor’s proper home, see contra Aristotle Rhet. 3.1405a, who uniquely argues that it belongs in prose.

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Whence this sweetness? It was attributed to a number of features predominantly associated with poetry— figures of thought and speech, rhythm, euphony, melody, the mythopoetic freedom to create or retell stories— and these in turn were felt to stimulate pleasure in the listener. Our hostile witness Plato criticizes poetry, inter alia, because the seductive spell of rhythm and song arouses the emotions in a fundamentally irrational way and because the pleasure they give nonetheless seems a good to those who experience it.7 Crassus in Cicero’s De oratore (3.44.174) likewise attributes the voluptas of poetry to the combination of meter and vocal modulation: Namque haec duo musici, qui erant quondam idem poetae, machinati ad voluptatem sunt, versum atque cantum, ut et verborum numero et vocum modo delectatione vincerent aurium satietatem. For musicians, who in those days were poets too, contrived these two things, their verse and their song, to give pleasure, so that both by the rhythm of the words and the modulation of the voice they might overcome aural fatigue with delight.

And Quintilian too invokes the issue of pleasure when comparing oratory and poetry, stressing the role of fictitious narrative, figure, and liberty of expression (Inst. 10.1.28):8 Meminerimus tamen non per omnia poetas esse oratori sequendos, nec libertate verborum nec licentia figurarum: genus ostentationi comparatum, et, praeter id quod solam petit voluptatem eamque fingendo non falsa modo sed etiam quaedam incredibilia sectatur, patrocinio quoque aliquo iuvari: quod alligata ad certam pedum necessitatem non semper uti propriis possit, sed depulsa recta via necessario ad eloquendi quaedam deverticula confugiat. 7. For pleasure as an apparent good, see Moss (2006). For Plato on poetry, see most basically, Else (1986), Ferrari (1989), Moss (2007b), and Rosen (1988). Plato’s attack focused on poetry’s appeal to the emotions, its degraded ontological status as the imitation of an imitation, the fact that the poets lied, and the irresistible lure of music and rhythm. Liebert (2010, 97) argues that the association of poetry with sweetness (and its correlated result, pleasure) was so extensive in antiquity that Plato could attack poetry via an attack on sweetness itself as “a toxin inimical to a healthy state and incommensurate with the philosophical values of purity and moderation.” The forgetfulness of ills that poetry could cause is sometimes figured as a good, sometimes not; see Liebert (2010, 41). 8. On the sexual and political ramifications of Quintilian’s discussion of poetic pleasure, see Dozier (2012).

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We will recall, nevertheless, that the orator must not follow the poets in every regard, neither in the freedom of his vocabulary nor in the license of his figures; the genre of poetry is developed for display, and apart from the fact that it only aims at pleasure and it pursues this by fabricating what is not only false but even unbelievable, it is also helped by a particular defense: that it is bound to the inflexible necessity of meter and cannot always use literal terms, but driven off the right path it necessarily takes refuge in certain byways of expression.

Quintilian here introduces another feature that was felt to be characteristic of poetry rather than of most prose, the “byways of expression” (“eloquendi quaedam deverticula”) that must be used when the proper nouns are not available.9 It is most likely the use of figure that he has in mind here; elsewhere, as we saw above, he remarks that “some speakers think whatever is allowed to poets (who make it their sole object to please and are obliged by the necessity of the meter to adopt many metaphorical expressions) is permissible also to those who express their thoughts in prose” (Inst. 8.6.17, tr. D. Russell).10 This affiliation of nonliteral expressions with the source of pleasure is echoed by other views on figural expression and its role in poetic texts versus oratory.11 It is metaphor above all that emerges from these texts as the most consistently sweet and pleasurable ingredient of poetry’s honeyed dish.12 In Aristotle’s Rhetoric 3.2.8 (1405a6– 10) metaphor 9. This is not the place for a full treatment of ancient theories of metaphor. Among recent useful articles the reader is directed to Barker (1999), Innes (2003), Kirby (1997), Lloyd (1996), Nimis (1988), Parker (1990), Psaty (1978), and Silk (1996) and (2003). On Cicero, see Innes (1988). 10. On the uncommon expression “plurima vertere” taken by Russell here to denote figurative language, see the OLD s.v. verto 24b. Russell’s sense that Quintilian refers here to figure rather than paraphrase is not explained in a note. However, if Quintilian simply meant that for metrical reasons the poets picked one word rather than another, there would be no reason to imply this was forbidden in prose. 11. The primary purpose of Quintilian’s prescriptions is to delineate how orators may borrow the pleasurable elements from poetry without tainting their deliberative or forensic speeches with too much of the pleasurable, an excess linked to epideictic and to the “Asiatic” style characterized by effeminate use of figure and rhythm. On the Asiatic/Attic debate, see Leeman (1963) 91– 111 and 136– 67; Dugan (2001). Our best source is Cicero, who distinguishes between Attic and Asiatic style in Brutus 51, 284– 91, Orat. 23– 32, 75– 90. See also Dion. Halic. On the Ancient Orators 1– 3. 12. In many ancient critics simile (and sometimes other figures, such catachresis and metonymy) is classed under metaphor, suggesting that the comparative function of this language was felt to trump formal composition. See, e.g., Aristotle Rhet.

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is a purveyor of clarity and sweetness, adding “lucidity [to saphes], pleasure [to hedu] and a foreign quality [to xenikon].”13 In Rhetoric 3.2.6, Aristotle traces this pleasure back to the metaphor’s ability to make things unfamiliar, because what is marvelous produces pleasure.14 On the Roman side, Cicero in the Orator 27.92 describes the three occasions when metaphor is to be used: either in a case of similarity, or for lack of a proper word, or to introduce suavitas, sweetness;15 at Orator 134 he defines the result of metaphor as a pleasurable movement in the soul (“motus cogitationis celeriter agitatus per se ipse delectat”). Similarly in De oratore 3.38.155 we are told that even though metaphor had its origin in necessity, it became common because of the pleasure and delight it gives. Like Aristotle, Cicero here suggests that the pleasure comes from the mind’s movement between what is immediately to hand and what is far away; he adds that all metaphors appeal to the senses, especially vision (De or. 3.40.160). A century later, Plutarch in his essay on how to use poetry pedagogically lists metaphor along with 1457b; also 1407a14 and 1410b18; also Demetrius On Style 80 and 89. On the other hand, Quintilian treats metaphor under the rubric of a short simile, Inst. 8.6.8. 13. In the Poetics, after a fourfold taxonomy of metaphors in terms of genera and species, he adds that for poets, “the greatest thing by far is to have a command of metaphor. This alone cannot be imparted by another; it is the mark of genius, for to make good metaphors implies an eye for resemblances.” 14. In the Poetics 4 (1444b8– 19) the association of houtos (this) with ekeinos (that), so characteristic of metaphor, provides pleasure. Strictly speaking, Aristotle here is talking about visual comparisons, but in the context of a broader discussion of literary mimesis. Paradoxically enough, this analogical force also lies at the basis of our desire to know, and thus provides the backbone of the philosophical impulse. Cf. the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, s.v. Aristotle: “Aristotle stresses the cognitive function of metaphors. Metaphors, he says, bring about learning (Rhet. III.10, 1410b14f.). In order to understand a metaphor, the hearer has to find something common between the metaphor and the thing which the metaphor is referred to. . . . This is why Aristotle says that the metaphor brings about learning.” For discussion on this point see Ricoeur (1977) 9– 43, Moran (1996), Halliwell (2002) 189– 91. As Stellardi (2000) 24 puts it, “If one looks closely, there is also, already, with the weight attributed to the faculty of ‘receiving resemblances,’ the core of a possible conjunction between poetics and ontology, which, if carried forth to its logical consequences, would place metaphor right at the heart of the processes of knowledge acquisition.” This epistemological undercurrent, however, seems to have been brushed aside in later theorists of style, and only the pleasure provided by such analogical activity is consistently cited. 15. “Translata dico, ut saepe iam, quae per similitudinem ab alia re aut suavitatis aut inopiae causa transferuntur.” Cf. also Part. or. 17. On why we find metaphor sweet, Cicero offers four reasons (de Orat. 3.159– 61): it is a mark of natural talent, it stimulates intellectually, it embeds a comparison in a single word, and it offers sensual/visual stimulation.

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meter and diction as a source (though not the main source) of sweetness, to hedu.16 Not coincidentally, it is the middle style of oratory, which is given over to delighting, delectare, that is most marked by its use of figurative language.17 The sweetness of poetry and the charms of its figural language, however, were almost never perceived as unmitigated goods. For one, the stimulation of pleasure could lead to deceptive or misguided results, beguiling the reader or listener into wrong action or beliefs.18 This viewpoint was not only held by the philosophical schools in their commentaries about the treacherous shoals of poetry, but by the very authors who sought to defend poetry from its detractors; as a result, many sought to introduce guidelines for reading practices that would shield the young from being moved by pleasure to adoption of immoral beliefs. The first-century geographer Strabo adopts this stance, admitting that poetry provides pleasure, but countering that it can teach the first elements of philosophy at the same time, thus providing the lure that gets children involved in moral inquiry in the first place. Similarly addressing poetry’s use in education, Plutarch suggests that young people may read it as long as they have proper guidance and do not overindulge. In a famous passage comparing poetry to fish heads, he writes that poetry “affords sweet and withal wholesome nourishment to the minds of young men, but yet contains likewise no less matter of disturbance and emotion to them that want a right conduct in the study thereof.” Accordingly, we should keep an eye on youthful readers of poetry and make sure to “preserve them from being seduced to their hurt by that which affords them so much delight” (Quomodo adulescens 15c; tr. F. C. Babbitt). In an alternative defense of poetry’s pleasure, the pleasure and sweetness of verse and figure could be considered as a medium that distracted the reader from the presence of severe teachings in its content, and thus helped these messages to “slip in” while the reader was still beguiled by the taste of sweetness. This of course is the procedure most famously described (and practiced) in Lucretius’ De rerum natura. His programmatic statements in DRN 1 and 4 (1.935– 50, 4.1– 25) justify the versifi16. Plut. Quomodo adulescens 16b. 17. Demetrius links metaphor to the grand style (On Style 78) but agrees that it contributes pleasure and magnitude. However, put in too many and “we end up composing a dithyramb rather than a speech.” 18. On sweetness and deception in narrative and philosophy, see Graverini (2005) 184– 88 and Trapp (2001). On pleasure and deception, see also the discussion of the Gorgias in chapter 2.

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cation of his Epicurean teachings by appealing to the metaphor of the honey-rimmed cup, whose sweetness will beguile the reader of his verse to drink in its bitter philosophical/Epicurean content.19 Sed vel uti pueris absinthia taetra medentes cum dare conantur, prius oras pocula circum contingunt mellis dulci flavoque liquore, ut puerorum aetas inprovida ludificetur labrorum tenus, interea perpotet amarum absinthi laticem deceptaque non capiatur, sed potius tali facto recreata valescat, sic ego nunc, quoniam haec ratio plerumque videtur tristior esse quibus non est tractata, retroque volgus abhorret ab hac, volui tibi suaviloquenti carmine Pierio rationem exponere nostram et quasi musaeo dulci contingere melle, si tibi forte animum tali ratione tenere versibus in nostris possem, dum perspicis omnem naturam rerum, qua constet compta figura. But just as doctors, when they try to give foul wormwood to children, smear the rim around the cup beforehand with the sweet and golden syrup of honey, so that the children’s careless youth is tricked up to the lips, and meanwhile drinks down wormwood’s bitter liquid, and though deceived is not harmed, but rather grows well, restored by this act, so too, I now— since this philosophy generally appears too severe to those who haven’t practiced it, and the crowd shrinks back from it— have wanted to set out my philosophy to you in the sweetly speaking song of the Muses, and so to speak smear it with the Muses’ sweet honey, in case I could hold your attention by such a means in my verses, while you contemplate the whole nature of things, in what shape and frame it consists. 19. Scholars often polarize the argument about why Lucretius uses verse into two sides, the poet versus the philosopher. There is even the theory that Lucretius himself was in two minds about many of his doctrines and that on occasion the poet in him revealed his true feelings, denied or suppressed in the “philosophy,” a theory first put forward by Patin (1883) as “l’anti-Lucrèce chez Lucrèce.” On the question, see more recently Waszink (1954), Classen (1968), Volk (2002) 69– 118.

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As Katharina Volk (2002) points out, not only does Lucretius repeatedly figure poetry as sweet (dulcis, suavis, and suaviloquens), but “the persona also implicitly suggests . . . that the sweetness of poetry and the pleasure derived from it are crucial elements in his enterprise” (116)— despite the clash here with Epicurus’ own teachings on poetry.20 Lucretius’ point is precisely that the deceptive sweetness of the cup’s rim has in the end a philosophically beneficial effect that justifies the means. Diskin Clay shows that he makes this claim against the backdrop of Plato’s teachings as well as Epicurus’, thus countering Socrates’ denunciation of the “pleasure-giving Muse” at Republic 10.607a, and stepping beyond “the common view of the pleasure of poetry and rhetoric to vindicate for himself a properly philosophical rhetoric” (2003, 183– 85). Philosophy is inherently bitter (DRN 1.944), but this combination of honey and teaching is both deceptive and salutary, a philosophia fallax.21 Later, Plutarch will adopt this perspective when he characterizes verse as a “relish” for its pedagogical content, returning us to the idea of the rich treat that gives pleasure (“ὥσπερ ὄψῳ χρωμένους μετρίως τῷ τέρποντι,”14– 15).22 In his own didactic poem, the Ars poetica, Horace like Lucretius draws attention to the tension between the sweet qualities inherent in poetry and the importance of instruction. His claim that the best poet will be he who combines the dulce with the utile (the sweet with the useful), sounds like a Lucretian defense of the pleasures of poetry, even if the goal is to get across commonsense moral teachings rather than the rigorous praecepta of a specific philosophy (AP 333– 34, 343– 44):23 20. For the possibility of a pun on suavis-suadere here, see Schrijvers (1970) 33– 34, 37 and Clay (2003). Schrijvers (1970) 87– 140 suggests a connection between the honeyed-cup metaphor and Epicurean theories of perception. As Classen (1968) has shown, Epicurus’ preference for clarity and literalness went hand in hand with a disdain for the way poets used metaphor to spread lies about the world and to encourage belief in the gods, a trait he deplores in fr. 31.14 of the Arrighetti edition of Deperditorum librorum reliquiae; cf. Heraclitus fr. 229 Usener. For Philodemus’ view, see Asmis (1992). On Lucretius’ metaphor, see especially Classen (1968), Clay (2003) and Gale (1994) 2– 4 with bibliographical discussion and 139– 43. 21. Clay’s term. 22. For further commentary on the “sanitization” of poetry, see especially Nussbaum (1993). As Nussbaum points out, a common procedure was to find aphormai or starting points for analysis in the text which would enable the reader to extract a morally upstanding reading of the whole and to counteract other, contradictory passages. The long history of this stance, which can be traced back to as early as the sixth-century BCE allegorization of Homer and Hesiod, is well treated by, e.g., Ford (1992) 67– 90, Long (1992), and Steinmetz (1986). 23. At AP 375, to be sure, Horace speaks of flawed poetry as an already pleasant meal to which the cooks have offensively added Sardianian honey.

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Aut prodesse uolunt aut delectare poetae aut simul et iucunda et idonea dicere uitae. . . . Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci, lectorem delectando pariterque monendo. Poets wish either to be helpful or to please, or to say simultaneously what is both pleasant and appropriate for living. . . . He who has mixed usefulness and sweetness wins every vote, by delighting and advising the reader equally.

Although Horace here as elsewhere in the Ars poetica is addressing genres such as tragedy, epic, and lyric rather than satire itself, it is clear that even for satire he aspires to the twin goals of sweetness and utility; the satires are openly didactic (as is the Ars poetica itself),24 and when in satire 1.1.25– 26 he compares the effect of telling his audience the truth while smiling to handing out the pastries (crustula) with which schoolteachers cajole their students into learning their ABCs, he sounds once again Lucretian— except that the honey of verse is now replaced by Horace’s light wit, which is implicitly compared to the sweet bribes of schoolteachers.25 It seems even the genre of satire is expected to provide poetic pleasure.

2. The acris iunctura In the long history of discussions of poetic sweetness, then, while narrative and meter are often invoked as contributors, it is mostly the metaphors characteristic of the genre that are figured as “sweet” as well (the discussion of metaphors being thus metaphorical itself), so that poetic sweetness and the sweetness of figure occupy much the same conceptual space. If we now turn to Horace’s satires, we find not so much an obsession with sweetness as a concern with another property of taste: 24. On Horace’s didacticism in the Satires and Epistles, see (e.g.) Freudenburg (2002). 25. “Quamquam ridentem dicere verum / quid vetat? ut pueris olim dant crustula blandi / doctores, elementa velint ut discere prima.” On this cake bribe, see Gowers (1993) 152– 53 and (2012) ad loc., where she remarks: “The image of teachers sweetening the pill of instruction has a distinguished philosophical pedigree, e.g., in a fragment ascribed to Diogenes the Cynic: ‘Just as physicians sweeten the bitterness of their pills with honey, so philosophers sweeten their instructions to irritable men with cheerfulness’ (ap. Antonius Melissa = Diogenes V B 330 Giannantoni).” On philosophical anxiety over this pleasure, see Trapp (2001). Ovid plays with this idea at Ars am. 1.479– 80, when he tells us that love needs no teacher, since Venus leads the way; here pleasure and instruction are one and the same.

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not being sharp or vinegary, acer. That is, in wishing to instruct his audience as well as please them, Horace is eager above all to avoid adopting another extreme; this is, apparently, a quality that others have criticized in him and which he himself abjures. Addressing his critics at the beginning of satire 2.1, he notes: Sunt quibus in satura videar nimis acer et ultra legem tendere opus; sine nervis altera quidquid conposui pars esse putat similisque meorum mille die versus deduci posse. To some people I seem too cutting in my satire, and to push my poetry beyond the limit; another part thinks what I’ve written has no sinews, and that verses like mine could be composed a thousand a day.

Now, in avoiding the unpleasing quality of being acer,26 Horace takes a step away from his predecessor in satire Lucilius,27 the violence of whose verse he compares to the attacks of the Attic comedians (Sat. 1.4.1– 8). Whenever some thief or adulterer needed to be pointed out, Horace says, Eupolis, Aristophanes and Cratinus “marked him with great license,”28 and Lucilius followed suit: Hinc omnis pendet Lucilius, hosce secutus, mutatis tantum pedibus numerisque, facetus, emunctae naris, durus conponere versus.29 All of Lucilius draws on this source, following these men, changing only the meter and the rhythm— he was witty, and wiped his nose on the bunch, tough-skinned in writing poetry.

But Horace puts a distance between his predecessor and his own practice. Unlike the comedians and their follower Lucilius, he prefers to 26. As Gowers (1993) 132 points out, his term “nimis acer is the first of many culinary puns spilling over from the gastronomic passages into moral, literary or social contexts.” 27. On Horace’s attitude toward Lucilius, see esp. Rosen (2012); Rudd (1982a) 86– 131; Scodel (1987). 28. Cf. also Sat. 2.1.68– 70: “Lucilius satirized / The leading men and the people tribe by tribe, / kind to Virtue alone and her friends.” 29. On durus as a term for harsh compositio, see Quint. 9.4.142 and Freudenburg (1993) 156– 57.

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chastise people gently, a mildness that even casts doubt on whether satire can be poetry, so mild is his writing, so devoid of “acer spiritus ac vis” (“a sharp spirit and vehemence,” Sat. 1.4.46).30 Horace sticks to his guns: he is willing to give up this zestfulness, since in satire, what is funny is always more effective than what is acer (Sat. 1.10.11– 15). Et sermone opus est modo tristi, saepe iocoso, defendente vicem modo rhetoris atque poetae, interdum urbani, parcentis viribus atque extenuantis eas consulto. ridiculum acri fortius et melius magnas plerumque secat res.31 One needs a style sometimes serious, often playful, representing now the orator, now the poet in turn, and sometimes the witty type, sparing his strength and using it up carefully. What’s funny generally decides important matters more powerfully and better than what’s harsh.

And to drive the point home, Horace contrasts himself to the acer types he does not resemble: the acer lawyer Sulcius in Satires 1.4.65, and the acer martial epic poet Varius in Satires 1.10.43.32 It has taken us some time to prepare the ground for Persius’ arrival onto this scene of poetic sweetness and satiric unsharpness. When we turn to his satires, however, we find that he not only deviates from his immediate predecessor in keeping his distance from cake bribes; he also fastens both on the Attic comedians and the Horatian (and, not incidentally, culinary) term acer to characterize the distinctive quality of his own verse. His programmatic language suggests Persius wants his satires to be sharp, vehement, and unconcerned with (gustatory or auditory) pleasure.33 Our first clue comes in the prologue, where sweet nectar is 30. Similarly in Sat. 1.4.93 he also wishes to avoid being mordax, biting. For further thoughts on acer in Horace, Gowers (1993) 132– 33, Freudenburg (1993) 102, 164, 189. Only in his iambic verse is he happy to be mordax and acer; Gowers (1993) 294. 31. In what follows, Horace now claims this quality for the ancient comedians, a different perspective from that of the beginning of Sat. 1.4. 32. Rosen (2012, 34) points out that in Sat. 2.1.28 Horace claims to derive pleasure (delectat) from writing verse, one aspect of his complicated stance as satirist. 33. For Persius’ relationship to Lucilius, see Gaar (1909), Fiske (1909) and (1913) 1– 36, and note the Vita Persi 51– 53: “Sed mox ut a schola magistrisque deuertit, lecto Lucili libro decimo uehementer saturas componere instituit. cuius libri principium imitatus est.” In Sat. 1.114– 18 Persius notes Horace’s affability and Lucilius’ ferocity as a prelude to asking “me muttire nefas?” On these lines see Paratore (1968) 161– 62;

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explicitly rejected, and with it, the idea that the pleasure of poetry could be in any way put to good use. If, in Lucretius’ medicinal cup, honey was the first thing the reader’s lips touched, Persius’ first note to us is not to expect anything like a honeyed verse:34 he mocks those who praise reciters of poetry for producing “Pegaseium nectar” (“the nectar of the Muses,” Prol. 14), and portrays it as a hackneyed old saw, used by flatterers to praise the vile compositions of human parrots and magpies. This nectar is a cheap concoction whose praise is motivated by the desire for a meal. Nor can we find praise for any culinary item that might be potentially sweet. Honey, the relish extraordinaire, is absent from his programmatic language; it has no place in the simple philosopher’s meal.35 Indeed, honey and the philosopher have a quarrel too, one as long as that of poetry and philosophy. Plato makes it clear in the Republic that, like poetry itself, honey had no place in the philosophical city; as a tasty “relish” rather than a culinary mainstay, honey was as objectionable as the poetry and the lifestyle it represented. Thus, if Glaucon in the Republic objects to the city of pigs because it has no such relishes (Rep. 372c), he thereby reveals himself as something of a pig himself: as Liebert (2010, 101– 2) points out, such culinary delicacies “symbolically represent the finer things in life to which an aristocrat like Glaucon is accustomed.”36 Liebert links the guardian’s diet to the restrictions on both music/poetry and variegation itself: Wehrle (1992b) 29; Powell (1992) 50– 72 and 248– 51; Merwin (1961) 18– 24, 27. For a comparison of the programmatic aims of the three satirists, see Fredricksmeyer (1990). At Pers. Sat. 5.16 the phrase “ingenuo ludo” suggests, according to Fiske (1913) 31, a sort of Aristotelian mean; but “figere culpam” (pierce/transfix the fault) seems too violent for such a reading. Bellandi (1988) 68 agrees. 34. Cf. Freudenburg (2001) 182: “Lucretius rimmed his bitter cup with honey. Horace passed out cookies to recalcitrant schoolboys. Persius intensifies. His patients are not suffering from slave-boy sniffles. They are ravaged from within by a fatal disease. . . . So Persius gives it to them, and to us, boiled-down, straight and hot. No ‘pleasurable’ honey around the rim.” On Persius’ rejection of Lucretius’ metaphor, see similarly Bellandi (1988) 34– 38. His fellow Stoic Seneca would agree: As van Wassenhove (2014) writes, Seneca “vehemently criticizes Metrodorus’ suggestion that we should try to soften our grief by mixing it with pleasures and . . . portray[s] the Epicurean’s consolatory method as shameful: ‘[F]or what is more shameful than to hunt after pleasures when you’re in mourning— or rather by means of mourning— and to look for something pleasing even when you are in tears? . . . That’s how we console little boys with a cookie, that’s how we pacify infant’s cries with milk’” (26– 27). 35. That Persius’ “harshness” is a programmatic response is further corroborated by the suggestion of Gigante (1983) that Lucretius’ metaphor of the honeyed cup may derive from Philodemus’ comparison between wormwood and harshness in speech. 36. Too much variety has harmful effects here in the Republic too, as did diverse reading and diverse consumption in the texts cited in chapter 2. Liebert (2010) 103

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Socrates takes this danger quite literally when he bans sweets (ἡδύσματα) from the guardians’ diet, which he does not only to preserve the physical condition of their bodies, but because eating sweet food implies a way of life that is devoted to “sweetness” understood as the appealing quality of variegated and immoderate pleasures (404c– e). He likens this way of life— and the corresponding way of eating— to the panharmonic mode of music (404d– e).

The close parallel drawn here between the seductive relish and the sweetness of poetry is a connection that is explicitly theorized also in Quintilian’s treatment of figures in oratory: “If one uses [figures]sparingly and as the matter demands, like a kind of sprinkled-on seasoning [“uelut adsperso quodam condiment”], he will be more enjoyable” (Inst. 9.3.4).37 No wonder Persius’ corrupted Roman aristocrats, as they succumb to disease, reveal that their mouths are full of relishes as these tumble from their lips (“uncta cadunt laxis tunc pulmentaria labris,” Sat. 3.102). It is as if on the far side of the analogy between medicine and cookery we could add the ur-culinary sin, honey or the relish; and, as its parallel on the far side of justice and rhetoric, perhaps, certain forms of poetry. So much for poetic delicacies. Acer, on the other hand, is claimed by Persius as a piece of his critical vocabulary. The adjective is not only alimentary in its reference, but also commonly found in medical prescriptions for problems of the digestive system.38 It seems that food and drink that were acer (sharp, sour, bitter), like the beet remedies above, were generally considered to have a laxative effect on the stomach.39 Vinegar (acetum) in particular, because of its bitter nature, was often recommended for problems of the digestive tract; as the good Pliny notes of the lees of vinegar (23.32.66), “This substance prevents the increase of suppuration, and, employed topically, is good for the stomach, intestines, and regions of the abdomen.”40 In a similar vein, Celsus recomnotes that “without regulation, the sweetness of music, like the sweetness of food, corrupts body and soul, and variety or poikilia . . . plays a crucial role in making the source of corruption paradoxically pleasant and alluring.” Interestingly Persius avoids honey even though it turns up as in ingredient in the medical recipes. 37. Cf. Petronius’ declaimers, with “omnia dicta factaque quasi papavere et sesamo sparsa.” 38. OLD s.v. acer: 2c bitter; 2f bitter or acid food; 10d of rivers and other things, rapid, swift; 12 of remedies, drastic. 39. Bitter foodstuffs as good for indigestion: cf. the evidence of Pliny NH 19.26.85. 40. On vinegar for the stomach, cf., e.g., Pliny NH 20.48.122, 25.96.84. It is often the liquid in which other substances are “decocted.” Likewise Celsus advocates vinegar (plus a decocted pigeon) for constipation at De med. 2.30. We might protest that

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mends vinegar to cure constipation (3.16.1).41 As we saw in chapter 2, it is also used to wash out ears unreceptive to philosophy: Persius’ own poetry is the “mordax acetum” (“biting vinegar”) with which the Stoic has cleaned his own ears and cleans those of others (Sat. 5.86).42 For once, Persius’ usages, however, are not predominantly medical; they are intertextual, evoking and negating Horace’s critique of what is acer. In embracing this quality of sharpness that Horace has declined to associate with his own poetic output, Persius identifies it not only with a pleasureless poetry, but with the strictures of a philosophical education. For when the young Stoic student43 cannot get out of bed in the morning, a harsh voice warns him that he has much progress to make before he is properly formed (3.21– 24): Sonat uitium, percussa maligne respondet uiridi non cocta fidelia limo. udum et molle lutum es, nunc nunc properandus et acri fingendus sine fine rota. The earthenware sounds flawed when struck, and, being ill-baked with green clay, gives a tinny response. You’re damp and squishy mud: quick, you should be rushed along, and shaped on a sharp [acri] wheel without end.

It would be difficult not to see in this acris rota a reference to Persius’ own poetry of sensory assault, and in the soft clay, of course, us, his listeners. As has often been observed, the language of “shaping” ( fingere) is common in the imagery of his fellow Stoics Seneca and Epictetus for what the student of philosophy must undergo in the process of improvement; Seneca, for example, uses the metaphor (if metaphor it is) in Epistulae 50.6:44 vinegar is “sour” not “bitter,” but a “sharp taste” seems to be descriptive enough to cover this range in ancient taste, since vinegar is routinely acer. 41. Vinegar also had a host of applications for infections of the eyes and ears. For example, it is indicated for pus or infections in the ear (De med. 6.7.3– 7 passim; sometimes mixed with hellebore); if drunk, it suppresses ulcers (De med. 4.9.2.4); with decocted wormwood, it is good for a swollen spleen (4.16.1). 42. A recognized medical remedy for deaf ears: cf. Celsus 6.7.7B. 43. Identified by some scholars as the satirist’s persona himself; for our purposes, it makes little difference if Persius, like Seneca, sometimes takes on the role of a flawed proficiens. He still gets to lecture the rest of us. 44. For similar language, see, e.g., Sen. Ad Helv. 18.8, Ep. 18.12, 31.11, 92.29; Epict. Disc. 2.8.21– 23. On the metaphor of the artifex of the soul, see Bartsch

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Curvatas trabes calor explicat et aliter natae in id finguntur quod usus noster exigit: quanto facilius animus accipit formam, flexibilis et omni umore obsequentior! Heat can unbend curved beams of wood, and wood that naturally grows one way is shaped into what our need demands: how much more easily the soul, which is pliable and more yielding than any liquid, takes on a form!

We too are readers who must be shaped: by the sharp edge of the potter’s wheel, or in turn what it stands for, the sharp edge of the discourse of Persius’ Satires. While the satires contain dialogue, they are not styled as logical arguments; nonetheless, it bears noting that Stoic skill in philosophical dialectic was characterized as a “sharp” trait; Diogenes Laertius claims that the Stoics felt that being “sharp” in dialectic was characteristic of the wise man (Lives 7.48; the Greek term is ὀξὺs);45 on the Roman side, Lucilius complains to Seneca that the philosopher Fabianus’ style is not acer enough (Ep. 50.10).46 (And we will recall that Chrysippus and others purportedly took hellebore to prepare themselves for just such mental rigors!) Acer, it seems, is a culino-medico-philosophical term just right for the Satires’ particular effect on us. We will not be surprised, then, when his teacher Cornutus praises such sharpness as a quality of Persius’ verse (Sat. 5.14– 16):47 Uerba togae sequeris iunctura callidus acri, ore teres modico, pallentis radere mores doctus et ingenuo culpam defigere ludo.48 (2009). On the literal shaping of the pneuma of the soul as a possibility in Stoic metaphysics, see Graver (2007) 64– 65. Persius is likewise “shaped” by Cornutus’ thumb, Sat. 5.40. 45. “οὐκ ἄλλως τ᾽ ὀξὺν καὶ ἀγχίνουν καὶ τὸ ὅλον δεινὸν ἐν λόγοις φανήσεσθαι τὸν σοφόν: τοῦ γὰρ αὐτοῦ εἶναι ὀρθῶς διαλέγεσθαι καὶ διαλογίζεσθαι καὶ τοῦ αὐτοῦ πρός τε τὰ προκείμενα διαλεχθῆναι καὶ πρὸς τὸ ἐρωτώμενον ἀποκρίνασθαι, ἅπερ ἐμπείρου διαλεκτικῆς ἀνδρὸς εἶναι.” 46. Seneca’s stance on the sharp or rough style varies however according to the immediate agenda. In Ep. 114.15 he criticizes stylists who feel they need to be virile by using “rough [aspera] joinings.” 47. On acer as a critical-rhetorical term, see Kenney (2012) 115, Jahn (1843) 321– 22, Dessen (1996) vi– vii, Bellandi (1988). 48. In this description of his own style, the only stylistic term Persius copies wholesale from Horace is the idea of the ore rotundo, the rounded expression, of AP 324. But even this is a confusing metaphor, since in yet another acris iunctura Persius

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You pursue everyday language, clever at the sharp (acer) joining, rounded with a moderate tone, learned at scraping sickly habits and at piercing a fault with freeborn play.

Once again, as many scholars have pointed out, Persius modifies Horace to make his point.49 When Horace describes the foundation of good verse, he praises the poet who can make an old idea new by the use of a callida iunctura, a clever joining: “Being subtle and careful in joining words, you will speak outstandingly well, if a clever connection renders an expression new” (“In uerbis etiam tenuis cautusque serendis / dixeris egregie, notum si callida uerbum / reddiderit iunctura nouum” [Horace AP 46– 49]).50 A clever connection is clearly distinct from the kind of faulty iunctura that we saw Horace criticize at the beginning of the Ars poetica, the painted horse-human-fish body that stood as an analogy for bad verse (AP 1– 9; cf. “iungere si uelit,” in line 2).51 The Horatian concept of rendering a well-known term new seems to depend upon the juxtaposition of unusual ideas, even paradoxical ones, presumably to be done in a way that does not violate propriety in the horse-humanfish way; it may also, in context, look forward to Horace’s comments on innovation via the coining of new words, which are likewise concerned with propriety; such innovation must be carried out pudenter (51), parce (53) and pauca (55).52 Horace himself innovates when introducing his puts the ore rotundo and the harsh joining side by side as twin characteristics of his poetry— and thus undoes mildness in the very line he lays claim to it. So also Bellandi (1988) 68. More importantly, the phrase takes up Horace’s “ore rotundo / . . . loqui” but injects it with the hint of a Stoic sage (cf. Hor. Sat. 2.7.86 with Kenney [2012] 116, Roche [2012] 207). Calcante (2002) 404 notes that teres is hard to reconcile with acer and suggests that ore modico may provide a link to the comic, low style of comedy. 49. See Freudenburg (2001) 127– 128, Hooley (1997) 73– 74. 50. For an extensive bibliography on this literary-critical phrase, see Calboli (1996) 288. Horace seems to innovate in moving away from metrical/euphonic considerations (Oberhelman and Armstrong 1995, 252; but contra Calcante 2002). See also Brink (1971) 139– 40: “H is concerned with semantic collocation.” Cf. Dozier (2011) 157: “Not the usual rhetorical concepts of euphony and rhythm called iunctura by Quintilian.” For an example of a callida iunctura in Propertius, see La Penna (1979a). 51. As we’ve seen, in the AP, bad joinings of animal parts are themselves a metaphor for bad paintings and bad poems. So in Horace we might surmise that an acris iunctura reveals bad poetry. And so Freudenburg (2001) well calls Persius’ satires “the counter-image to Horace’s neatly unified picture-poem, with head joined neatly to neck, and neck fitted tightly to collar” (127). On this see also Hooley (1997) 73– 74. 52. See Calboli (1996) 291.

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notion of a callida iunctura, since his usage at least partly points away from the concerns with word order and euphony that characterize the term iunctura in the rhetorical tradition and emphasizes, instead, a clever semantic effect. But now consider Persius. When, in the lines just cited (Sat. 5.14– 16), he picks up and modifies the idea of the clever iunctura and uses it to describe his own poetry, he stresses not the cleverness, but the sharpness of his joinings. The term callidus, meanwhile, is reapplied to the poet and not his verse. Perhaps, unlike a smooth joining, we are to imagine that a sharp joining scrapes us (radere) as we read/eat it, in this resembling Persius’ curative alimentary substances, or the process of debriding a wound. Indeed Persius derides those poets who have too-smooth joinings, the bombastic epic and tragic poets he criticizes in satires 1 and 5. These representatives of popular taste win the people’s praise for their unabrasive verse (Sat. 1.63– 65); as Persius’ interlocutor (“quem ex adverso dicere feci,” Sat. 1.44) puts it, Quis populi sermo est? quis enim nisi carmina molli nunc demum numero fluere, ut per leue seueros effundat iunctura unguis? What do the people say? What indeed, except that poems now at last flow with a smooth rhythm, so that the joining doesn’t snag the critical nail on the surface?53

This sounds very different from Horace’s praise for the poem that is so smooth that the critical nail is unable to detect any seams (AP 294: “castigavit ad unguem,” cf. Sat. 1.5.32– 33). A smooth joining may usually win critical praise, but what exactly does the term mean? There are at least three (not mutually exclusive) possibilities, one having to do with meaning, one with sound, and the last with metrical arrangement.54 They can be taken all together to refer to a general sensation of jerkiness and abruptness, as W. S. Anderson (1982, 186– 90) understands the terminology: Instead of following the trend set in motion by Ovid with his fastmoving hexameters, the satirist does his best to avoid all mollitia of 53. On the analogy to marble carving here, see Kissel (1990) 193– 94 with sources. 54. Kissel (1990) 587– 89 is aware of all three meanings. The arrangement of words (compositio) is an aspect of iunctura that is usually discussed in terms of both metrical effect and sound effect, since long and short syllables can be rearranged and since both hiatus and euphony depend on word beginnings and endings.

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meter. Jerky assertions, angry elliptical comments, sardonic questions that break the line into half or thirds, crude enjambement that defies the normal rules of proper stylists, all these are quite conscious achievements of Persius’ poetics. . . . The abruptness, the ellipsis, the deliberate effort to shatter the line’s unity, the catachresis, the abuse of “proper” grammar, the chiasmus, rhetorical questions, and carefully placed vulgarity, all manifest the callidus poeta as Persius seems to have intended him. (187, 190)

Anderson’s analysis of Satires 1.85– 87 illustrates all these features; metaphor, grammar, meter are in cahoots to make our reading experience anything but gliding. J. A. Kestner (1975, 8) likewise understands the acris iunctura as broadly as possible, pointing to a whole list of characteristics which we could call “rough joinings” and which characterize these satires: “the difficult harshness of the metrics, the ‘elliptical’ quality of the metaphors, the weakness or nonexistence of transitions, the lack of internal integrity, the abrupt shifts between undifferentiated speakers”— all jolting the reader who expects a smoother ride. Other scholars have chosen to parse the term acris iunctura more specifically as referring to one meaning rather than another, whether harsh metaphors, harsh sounds, or harsh elisions. For the last two, we have specific corroboration in ancient discussions of word arrangement (compositio or collocatio; in Greek, synthesis) that treat the production of metrical variation and/or euphony. This was a topic of some concern to the ancient rhetoricians and poets, who seem to have been much more sensitive than modern audiences to “clashing” consonants or the pause caused by hiatus. Synthesis is treated in detail by Dionysius Halicarnassus, whose On Word Arrangement (roughly contemporaneous with Horace’s later work) is the only full surviving treatise on the topic from antiquity.55 It was a topic of enough popularity to be taken up by Cicero in the Orator, by Varro in the lost De compositione saturarum and by Philodemus in his fragmentary On Poetry; a famous example of compositio at work comes from Lucretius, who compared the arrangement of letters to the arrangement of atoms in the universe, which, when differently combined, produced different elements (DRN 1.820– 27, 907– 14).56 Later Quintilian would treat the same topic in Institutes 8.3.45 and 9.4.32– 43 (throughout using the term iunctura to refer to the “joinings” 55. Cf. Arist. Rhet. 3.1408b214– 1410b; Poet. 8.1451a30– 35. 56. On Philodemus’ compositional theory, his view of the (non-)importance of sounds, and his criticism of the Stoic Aristo, see especially the detailed treatment of Asmis (1990). On Lucretius’ metathesis in AP 46– 49, see Freudenburg (1993) 144– 45.

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of words).57 Like almost all issues connected to style, compositio too was charged with ethical and sexual ramifications; there existed so-called smooth combinations and harsh combinations of both sounds and syllables, smoothness treading a dangerous line in its proximity to effeminate softness and overnicety, harshness in turn the tool of those who wanted to seem stern and rugged, old-fashioned, and averse to the sweetness of euphony.58 Dionysius, who speaks of austere style versus smooth style (austera, glaphura) uses the same analogy to marble jointing that we saw in Persius to praise and condemn these ways of joining words (On Word Arr. 22– 23). The austere style uses harsh and dissonant collocations “like blocks of natural stone laid together in building, with their sides not cut square or polished smooth,”59 while the smooth style requires that “words shall be properly fitted and smoothed together”60 (tr. Stephen Usher). And Quintilian too turns to the analogy to praise the apta iunctura, the close-jointed fit of stones used in a construction (“sicut in structura saxorum rudium etiam ipsa enormitas invenit cui adplicari et in quo possit insistere,” Inst. 9.4.27). Cicero’s and Quintilian’s treatments of the elements of compositio are of the most relevance to us, since not all of Dionysius’ rules are relevant when transferred from the Greek language to Latin (e.g., in Latin one cannot follow sigma with xi, nor nu with chi).61 Cicero addresses the topic in Orator 47.157– 64, remarking on such unpleasant combinations as tm (itself Greek) and bf and attributing the iotization of vowels in compound words as well as the dropping of terminal s to a concern for euphony. Quintilian offers clear rules for good word sequences: he tells us to avoid juxtaposing terminal o or u followed by initial a, because the juxtaposition is pronounced with a rounded mouth and is thus particularly unpleasant. Again for reasons of euphony, he would have us avoid following terminal s with another s. Care must also be taken that the last syllables of one word do not duplicate the opening syllables of the next, nor should we have too many monosyllables in succession.62 Dionysius 57. The following discussion of Horace and contemporary theorists of compositio is greatly indebted to Freudenburg’s treatment in his 2001 volume. 58. Cf. Rhet. ad Her. 4.16 and similarly so Hor. Sat. 2.1, with Freudenburg (1993) 198. 59. “οἷαι γίνονται τῶν λογάδην συντιθεμένων ἐν οἰκοδομίαις λίθων αἱ μὴ εὐγώνιοι καὶ μὴ συνεξεσμέναι βάσεις, ἀργαὶ δέ τινες καὶ αὐτοσχέδιοι.” 60. “τὰ ὀνόματα τοῖς ὀνόμασιν ἐπιτηδείως συνηρμόσθαι βούλεται καὶ συνεξέσθαι.” 61. On the history of theories of synthesis, see Freudenburg (1993) 128– 45; on compositio in Horace, ibid. 145– 50; on the “rough” style, 150– 73. 62. His comments about rhythm have to do with prose clausulae and are less relevant here.

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would also have us avoid final i before initial a; he also lists a sequence of sounds that are considered more euphonious than others, such as the liquids rho, lambda, and mu (De comp. 15). All these measures are in the interesting of avoiding harshness, that is, sounds that in Latin would be termed durus, asper, or acer.63 It is clear that in poetry elision takes care of all issues concerning hiatus but for when the elided final syllable is itself preceded by a vowel, causing a nonelided meeting of two vowels, or when a hiatus is allowed for some other reason, such as the caesura. The rhetoricians’ concern for clausulae likewise cannot be imposed on hexameter poetry. But we can add a few more observations about compositio specific to poetry. For one, as Nils-Ola Nilsson’s stylistic studies have shown, excessive elision was also considered dysphonic, and thus a mark of the rugged or harsh style.64 Freudenburg’s recent study of Horace’s Satires 2.3 and 2.4, for example, has shown us how Horace deliberately manipulates the principles of compositio to characterize the different ethos of the speakers of these satires.65 The criteria he uses show that the Stoic speaker of Satires 2.3 (Damasippus) produces some fifty-nine harsh juxtapositions while the Epicurean speaker of Satires 2.4 (Catius) has exactly one, findings which accord well with that fact that the support of harsh or dysphonic arrangement was a trait particular to contemporary Stoic66 and Attic stylists. Such self-professed despisers of pleasure considered harshness as the goal of arrangement, and held that this practice reflected upon their moral character as well. Cicero provides us with good examples of the terminology of the smooth versus the harsh joining. He says of the Stoic Quintus Aelius 63. E.g., Quint. 9.4.31, 70, though on some occasions these sounds are desired. 64. Nilsson (1952) 20n9 writes: “Der Grund der Abneigung gegen derartige Elisionem muss wohl mit Mueller darin zu suchen sein, dass, weil die elidierte ultima quadamtenus absorbeatur synizesi, eine Art Hiatus nach dem Paenultimavokal entsteht.” 65. Freudenburg (1996), examines in particular (1) the cases where elision leads to the clash of vowels (i.e., when an elided vowel is immediately preceded by another vowel); (2) instances of pause-elision (when elision takes place over a distinct pause in the sense, such as sentence-ending or the conclusion of an internal quotation); (3) the elision of middle vowels (final vowel + m) before short initial vowels; and (4) the elision of dactylic, iambic, or anapestic words. Indeed, the rate of elisions in Horace’s Satires can vary from a low of 27.4 per 100 lines to a high of 69. 66. Contemporary is the key word here. Based on the evidence of Philodemus about Zeno and Aristo, older Stoic schools seem to have favored euphony as an important part of poetic composition. See Asmis (1990) and (1992) 397– 401. However, since the Stoics cannot endorse pleasure, it remains unclear how euphony was to be apprehended (Asmis 1990, 189).

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Tubero that he was “in life, as in oratory, rugged, uncultivated and harsh” (“ut vita sic oratione durus incultus horridus,” Brutus 117), and calls P. Rutilius Rufus, likewise Stoic, austere in both speaking and character (“vehemens et acer,” Brutus 113; Freudenburg 1993, 156; cf. Freudenburg 1996).67 Both seem to have showed an utter disregard for word order, or, worse still, says Cicero, they deliberately created elision.68 Cicero likewise has little good to say about the Atticists, who in his opinion use “a loose and broken” style (“diffluens ac solutum,” Orator 234);69 his criticism of the Atticist Calvus represents his style as marked by “fasting and dryness and poverty.”70 Horridus is likewise the word Quintilian uses for those orators who pay no attention to compositio, thinking this a more masculine an approach71— and we are about to see Horace’s use of durus to characterize Lucilius’ compositio. Of course Cicero’s own preference is for the smooth and carefully jointed; in De oratore 3.171 he defines collocatio as putting together words in such a way that their meeting is neither rough (asper) nor gaping (hiulcus) but well joined and smooth (levis).72 67. Dionysius of Halicarnassus complains that the Stoic work On the Arrangement of the Parts of Discourse is about dialectic, not compositio, and does not address matters of euphony; he adds that Chrysippus’ treatises on logic are the absolute ugliest specimens of arrangement, On Word Arrangement 4.16– 18. Freudenburg (1993) 150 remarks that their favoring of “rugged” word arrangement pitted Stoics against other theorists. He also suggests that Sat. 1.4 offers a polemic against the Stoic compositional style. Quint. Inst. 9.4.76 on Brutus points out that this style can artificially look unartificial. 68. For the view that there were specific Stoic theories of composition available in the late first century BCE that focused on producing harsh collocations of words, see Freudenburg (1993) 132– 62. The evidence is somewhat tenuous, although the Atticist preference for harsh compositio is amply documented in these pages. 69. On Atticist/Asianist controvery, see esp. Leeman (1963) 1.136– 67. On Cicero and Calvus, see Dugan (2001). 70. On the other hand Cicero himself, much to his own discomfort, was often associated with the Asiatic style by his rivals, perhaps not surprisingly, since he felt that “our words should be so conjoined that the last parts cohere as well as possible with the former, and with the sweetest possible sound” (Or. 44.149). Cf. Quintilian’s testimony that Cicero’s critics considered him “in compositione fractum exsultantem ac paene, quod procul absite, viro molliorem” (Inst. 9.4.1); and see further Winterbottom (1982) 258– 66, who links Cicero’s Asianism to his compositio, sententiae, and use of pathos. 71. Inst. 9.4.3: “Neque ignoro quosdam esse qui curam omnem compositionis excludant, atque illum horridum sermonem, ut forte fluxerit, modo magis naturalem, modo etiam magis virilem esse contendant.” Cf. also 12.10.10, where the Stoic Cato is said to use “genera horridiora.” 72. Cf. Orator 70.232: “Close-fitting speech” depends on good collocatio of words and that “the whole thing is wrecked” if the order is altered (“corrumpatur enim tota res”).

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Given that the Stoic Damasippus preferred to avoid smoothness in favor of a philosophical rusticity, it stands to reason that as a Stoic philosopher (and Persius’ contemporary), Seneca would have us avoid excess concern with fitting our words together well. As he points out in Epistles 115.18, a well-styled speech does not lead to improved pedagogy: “Words closely fitted will not lead you to safety, nor a gently flowing speech. Let words go as they will, so long as the composition of your soul is steady” (“non perducent te apte verba contexta et oratio fluens leniter: eant ut volent, dum animo compositio sua constet”). Seneca’s response to an interlocutor complaining about another philosopher’s style of oratory runs along the same lines: “You criticize his word arrangement, forgetting that you are dealing with a philosopher” (“oblitus de philosopho agi, compositionem eius accusas,” Ep. 100.1). Of course, one can err to the other extreme as well, and Seneca comes down harshly on the artificers of excess acerbity and excess smoothness in Epistles 114.15: some people use an arrangement that is “praefractam et asperam” (broken up and harsh), avoiding a healthy iunctura: they think to do so is masculine. Others, on the other hand, practically engage in singsong, so smoothly do they glide along.73 Most theoreticians of collocatio prefer to suggest that their own practice is somewhere in the middle, as Seneca does here— the exception, of course, being Persius. This debate evidently crossed over into satire. Harsh compositio was attributed to Lucilius, at least by Horace, who critically characterized him as durus at composing verse (Sat. 1.4.8).74 In satire 1.10.51– 54 he repeats the claim, though uncertain as to whether he should blame Lucilius or his times: Quid vetat et nosmet Lucili scripta legentis quaerere, num illius, num rerum dura negarit versiculos natura magis factos et euntis mollius ac siquis pedibus quid claudere senis.

Meanwhile, Lucilius was said to have made fun of Titus Albucius for fitting his phrases together too smoothly and closely, “like mosaics in a 73. “Ad compositionem transeamus. Quot genera tibi in hac dabo quibus peccetur? Quidam praefractam et asperam probant; disturbant de industria si quid placidius effluxit; nolunt sine salebra esse iuncturam; virilem putant et fortem quae aurem inaequalitate percutiat. Quorundam non est compositio, modulatio est; adeo blanditur et molliter labitur.” 74. On the complexities of Lucilius’ style, which could be seen as both rugged and neoteric, see Freudenburg (1993) 163– 73. Ultimately Horace’s criticism in Sat. 1.10.7– 14 seems to have been about the need for euphonic variety; ibid. 180– 81.

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pavement.”75 As to Horace’s own evaluation of good iuncturae, it is unequivocal: the result of much labor, smooth joinings essentially make the poet (AP 240– 43): Ex noto fictum carmen sequar, ut sibi quiuis speret idem, sudet multum frustraque laboret ausus idem; tantum series iuncturaque pollet, tantum de medio sumptis accedit honoris. I’ll pursue poetry composed from what’s known, same as anyone could hope for, but if he dared he’d sweat much, and toil in vain: so much are order and iunctura worth, so much beauty is won by topics open to all.

But the smoothness that in Horace and in polished oratory is a source of praise is in Persius, as we saw, yet another condemnation of contemporary style:76 he must have a “sharp” joining for the curative process of reading his verse. It is interesting, then, that Persius himself is not particularly fond of elision, being far closer to Horace’s practice than to the all-time record set by Lucilius: in Lucilius’ case, an average of 84.8 times per 100 lines, as best as we can tell from the fragments. Horace’s average is 40.1 per 100 lines— marking him as much less acer than Lucilius, though (as Freudenburg has shown) he approaches Lucilius’ numbers when he speaks in the voice of a Stoic. As for Persius, E. J. Kenney (2012, 123) sets his elision rate at 48.3.77 Nor does Persius indulge more than Horace in particularly harsh forms of elision, so drawing distinctions between degrees of elision does not produce more interesting numbers.78 75. Lucilius fr. 84– 85 Marx. 76. Later in Sat. 1.92ff., he again imagines the praise of the objectionable phrase “Berecyntius Attis” as being couched in terms of “joinings”: “iunctura addita crudis.” On the mollitia of these lines cited by Persius, see the analysis of Calcante (2002) 403– 4. Harvey (1981) ad loc. points to the euphony produced by the Grecisms in these lines. 77. Perhaps, like the speakers described at Inst. 9.4.3– 4, Persius is affecting to pay little attention to the niceties of word arrangement, with a rugged result that is however “natural.” To put these figures in context, Kenney (2012) points out that the rate of elision in Ovid’s Met. is 19.17 and in Lucretius, 13.8. 78. Having conducted my own investigation on a group of elisions that are by ancient standards particularly noteworthy for their ugliness— elisions that lead to hiatus between vowels, when words beginning with a vowel or h occur after terminal -ium, -eum, -ia, -iae, or -uum, excluding -quum of course— I find 12 instances in

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This, of course, does not stop our satirist from adopting the programmatic stance of being acer and thus referring back to Stoic stylistic principles; but it does suggest that we should look elsewhere than elision for the locus of acerbity. There is one important exception to this general picture. If we look at the distribution of certain forms of elision in the Satires, we find that the two programmatic satires, 1 and 5, show a greater frequency of difficult iuncturae than others; and that the very beginning of satire 1 is especially striking in this regard, as if to start off with a manifesto linking philosophy, elision, and harsh joinings. First, in the case of “middlevowel elision” (-um or -am before initial vowel or h), 37 of the 66 occurrences of this apparently harsh elision take place in those two satires alone. Second, satire 1 contains the only three instances of pause-elision in Persius, and the first one occurs already in line 1, between hominum and the following O. O curas hominum! O quantum est in rebus inane! “quis leget haec?” min tu istud ais? nemo hercule. “nemo?” O the petty concerns of men! O how much nonsense in human affairs! “Who’ll read this?” You talking to me? Bloody well no one. “No one?”

The elision between hominum and exclamatory O is particularly noteworthy if we contrast Catullus’ emotional line “o factum male! o miselle passer!” (Carm. 3.16) in which there is no elision between male and O, so that each phrase is distinctly pronounced as a separate exclamation. As a result the effect is pathetic rather than (as in Persius) jolting.79 In fact line 1 contains two instances of “harsh” middle-vowel elision as well; line 2 follows with another two elisions. These two lines are uncharacteristically acer, right at the beginning of Persius’ literary program. The first two lines of satire 1 are also the locus of a long debate about influence. According to the scholiast’s lemma for the beginning of line 2, “Quis leget haec?” Persius took “hunc versum” from Lucilius. The genPersius and 37 in Horace, that is, approximately 2.1% vs. 1.8% in each corpus respectively: an unremarkable difference. Similarly, difficult elisions caused by the juxtaposition of o or u and a over word boundaries (as per Quintilian’s view) come in at 0.7% for Persius, 1.8% for Horace: also unremarkable. What about terminal s before initial s? 4.2 % for Persius, 4% for Horace. Another source of harshness, the clash of ictus and accent in the fifth and sixth feet, occurs only rarely in our satirist. 79. One could object that the line is an emendation of the corrupt ms. However, this kind of emotionally charged hiatus also occurs in Cat. 66.11 and 68.158 and Prop. 2.15.1, another first line.

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eral consensus is that the scholiast must in fact be commenting on the first line, not the second,80 and accordingly “O curas hominum! O quantum est in rebus inane!” is included as fragment 9 in Marx’s edition of Lucilius (repr. Amsterdam 1963). But the accuracy of the attribution is far from clear. Already in 1928 G. L. Hendrickson posited confusion in the scholia between Lucilius and Lucretius, pointing out that “in rebus inane” is a recognizably Lucretian phrase summing up his atomist view of the world (1928b, 98– 100). Although Bramble (1974, 67n1) thought it was unlikely that Persius would “make his debut with an imitation of a writer who was not a member of the satura tradition,”81 James Zetzel remade the case for the Lucretian allusion, pointing out both that Persius’ satire has a markedly philosophical bent, and that we can understand a clever twisting of the sense of inane in his usage.82 Apart from the similarity to DRN 2.14, “O miseras hominum mentis, o pectora caeca” (note the absence of elision in this line!), one might also point out that Satires 3.66, “Discite et, o miseri, causas cognoscite rerum” is not only a metaphysical version of Vergil’s line at Georgics 2.490 (“felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas”), with the miseri substituted for Vergil’s felix, but is obviously Lucretian.83 But to call these lines Lucretian is, in a way, to discount their new Stoic context. For it was a tenet of Stoicism, too, that men grant too much importance to the empty possessions of this world, and that they judge incorrectly where lies the true locus of moral value. Thus Seneca, in trying to explain the nature of indifferents, uses inane repeatedly to convey how meaningless such things are in reality: “I’ve always thought there was nothing true or good in the things which everyone hopes for; I have found them empty [inania] and coated with a false and deceptive dye” (Ad Helv. 5.6); “just as you see happening to mute animals, we are riled up by frivolous and empty [inanibus] matters” (De ira 3.30.1); the cause of our anxiety is that “we are empty [inanes] of all that is good, and we suffer through this wasting of life” (Ep. 22.13). And when Seneca makes Fortune speak, she says the same thing: “I have surrounded other men with false goods and I have tricked their empty [inanes] minds with a sort of long and deceptive sleep; I have adorned them with gold and ivory, but there is no good inside them” (De prov. 80. Scholia (ed. Jahn) ad 1.2: “hunc uersum de Lucilii primo transtulit.” On the attribution see, e.g., Zetzel (1977), Fiske (1909) and (1913), Kissel (1990) 109– 12, Sosin (1999). 81. Likewise Harvey (1981) 14. 82. So too more recently Sosin (1999), who points to Senecan parallels for line 2. 83. And also, of course, Stoic; cf. Epict. 1.1.10, 2.4.2, and the many parallels cited in Kissel (1990) ad loc.

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1.6.3). It is not that Seneca is unaware of the Lucretian usage of the term, which he occasionally brings to the fore, as when he talks about the “Epicurean chaos, void [inane] without end” at Ep. 72.9.5. But this is not his primary usage. It seems, then, that the beginning of satire 1 aims to wallop us at once with its programmatic philosophical content that stands as a revision of Lucretian atomism, even as it repeatedly acts out Persius’ acris iunctura by a fourfold elision.84 Inane means exactly here what it means in Seneca, and when Persius takes up the word again at Satires 2.61– 63, it is once again in a distinctly Roman Stoic context, reminding us that our flesh is the least divine part of us: O curuae in terris animae et caelestium inanis, quid iuuat hoc, templis nostros immittere mores et bona dis ex hac scelerata ducere pulpa? O souls bent to the earth and devoid of the divine! What does it help to import our habits into the temples and to infer what’s good for the gods from this wicked flesh?

Coincidentally or not, this inanis likewise— the only other place Persius uses it— occurs in a line in which endings are elided with gusto: three times in six feet.85 However, if Persius does not act out an acris iunctura of elision in other parts of the Satires to any noticeable degree, he nonetheless provides us with explicit examples of anti-Persianic verse— conveniently cited within the Satires themselves— in which compositio, content, meter, and euphony are all implicated in a poetics of unmanly lubricity. When Persius’ interlocutors in satire 1 name the smoothly gliding and euphonious poetry of the day as what most deserves their approval (Sat. 1.92– 93), they simultaneously criticize verses without smooth iuncturae, which they categorize as crudi, raw. 84. Dessen (1996) 34 adds: “As an echo of Lucretius this line hints that Persius’ Satires, like the De rerum natura, will offer men philosophical guidance. But on another level, through the play upon the meaning of res, this line denounces the empty (inane) subject matter of modern poetry, the emasculated poets. It therefore forms an appropriate introduction to the entire Satire.” 85. In this context, it is hard not to find meaning in Persius’ choice of choliambic for the Prologue, an unusual meter whose use would be most familiar from Catullus 8 and its philosophically charged opening line: “Miser Catullus, desinas ineptire.” To cease from being idiots is in fact our Stoic goal.

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“Sed numeris decor est et iunctura addita crudis. cludere sic uersum didicit ‘Berecyntius Attis’ et ‘qui caeruleum dirimebat Nerea delphin,’ sic ‘costam longo subduximus Appennino.’” “But beauty and joining(s) have been added to crude rhythms! He’s learned to end his verse thus: ‘Berecyntius Attis’ and ‘the dolphin cleaving the Nereid blue’ and ‘we stole a rib from the long Appennine.’”

Well might Persius shudder. This passage is sprinkled with Grecisms (which, according to Quintilian Inst. 12.10.33, are particularly euphonic) and marked by the presence of the spondaizing line ending with a single four-syllable word, Appennino (a feature criticized by Quintilian at Inst. 9.4.65 as “excessively soft/effeminate, “praemolle,” even in poetry”).86 In addition, the lines are full of euphonious m and n sounds and do not contain a single elision, harsh or otherwise. In short, they offer up an exemplification of the sort of poetry the satirist found unacceptable in the programmatic comments of satires 1 and 5. They are too “rich,” too “sweet,” to have a beneficial effect upon those who hear them, and they are the sign of the sickness that riddles those who produce them. The sounds themselves are “effeminate,” and the presence of the Grecisms prompts the scholiast to write ad 1.95, “just so, we have emasculated the virility of the Latin language by mixing in Greek terms” (“sicut robur Latinae eviravimus linguae intermiscendo Graecas glossulas”). To drive home the point, when Persius’ interlocutor— or Persius himself, it is not clear— then goes on to quote another four lines of bad contemporary versifying at 1.99– 102, these verses are characterized by the same features as the earlier quotation:87 86. On these sample lines that Persius quotes at Sat. 1.93– 95 and 99– 102, see Calcante (2002) 401– 4, McNelis (2012) 242, pointing out not only the well-worn erotic topics but also the use of Grecisms, archaisms, and patronymics; Kenney (2012) 119– 20, noting the topic (orgiastic cult), the use of the golden line, the preponderance of Greek words, and the profusion of liquid sounds. 87. This anti-Persianic poetry is also a portal by which the figure of Nero most explicitly enters the Satires, since one of the scholiasts attributes these lines (as well as 93– 94) to none other. Indeed Dio Cassius 61.20 says Nero put verses about Attis and the Bacchae to the lyre. For a summation of the argument, see Kissel (1990) 241– 44. We have an actual line of Nero quoted by Seneca in NQ 1.5.6, “dissertissime,” says Seneca: “Colla Cytheriacae splendent agitata columbae.” This displays many of the same features as the lines discussed above.

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Torua Mimalloneis inplerunt cornua bombis, et raptum uitulo caput ablatura superbo Bassaris et lyncem Maenas flexura corymbis euhion ingeminat, reparabilis adsonat echo. They filled the fierce horns with Bacchant-like boomings; the Bassarid about to detach the proud calf ’s head and the Maenad about to rein in the lynx with ivy strands redouble the cry “euhios”; the restoring echo resounds.

Here again we find spondaizing verse endings, euphonious sounds, and the presence of Greek terminology, both technical and commonplace: Mimalloneis and Bassaris represent different subgroups of maenads, while bombis, lyncem, corymbis, euhion, and echo are all based on Greek nouns. And still more fuel for our distress: obscure mythological references, polysyllabic words, even end rhymes, and the complete avoidance of elision. As Kissel (1990, 245) points out, a part of this quotation reappears in Diomedes the Grammarian, where it has been pressed into service precisely to illustrate the qualities of smooth (teretes) verses.88 Almost too perfectly for our purposes, the lines quoted in satire 1 also describe a particular Bacchic ritual: the gruesomely violent act of ripping the head off a live calf and eating it raw. Dismemberment, meat, and omophagia (perhaps with hints of Pentheus’ fate at his mother’s hands) are all present in the content of these lines that Persius finds so contrary to his poetic program; who is crudi now, he might ask his interlocutors. As for the masculinity of this style of composition: would anyone be writing such trash, he queries, “if a single vein of our fathers’ testicles were alive in us?” (“si testiculi vena ulla paterni / viveret in nobis?” Sat. 1.103– 4).

3. The Maculate Metaphor So far we have only looked at the phonetic and metrical aspects of Persius’ acris iunctura. Although we might have expected Persius to endow his verse liberally with harsh elisions and so live up to the expectations suggested by Cornutus’ characterization of his verse, the surprising fact is that Persius’ usage is for the most part consonant with Horace’s and not Lucilius’. If his satires are not harsh in phonetic and metrical terms, then, where are we to look for the harsh joinings for which the satires 88. Diomedes 1.499 (ed. Keil), “teretes sunt (sc. versus), qui volubilem et cohaerentem continuant dictionem, ut ‘torva Mimalloniis inflator tibia bombis.’”

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are praised? Clearly not to meter or collocatio, but to the other possible meaning of the acris iunctura: a juxtaposition of words or images that are strikingly semantically dissonant or unusual,89 carrying an oxymoronic or unexpected (aprosdoketon) sense.90 In his commentary, R. A. Harvey (ad loc.) discusses several varieties of such a (semantic) joining: literal and figural combinations of words, transferred epithets, the conflation of distinct ideas. On this reading, Persius creates what is acer by combining high registers with low ones, or by inserting sexual or gastrointestinal language into contexts where it has no normal business, or by simply conjoining semantic fields that are completely alien to each other, as when he measures the size of bellies in metrical terms.91 Many— indeed most— of these instances are metaphorical by nature, suggesting that the acres iuncturae might reasonably be seen as the metaphors that have startled Persius’ readers since Dryden turned his nose up at his “insufferably strained” tropes.92 Cynthia Dessen, for example (1996, x), analyzes the term as Persius’ tendency to use metaphor to unite disparate ideas in order to “shock his reader into a new perspective,” while Richard Jenkinson (1990) links it to Persius’ use of paradox and metaphor, and sees all as contributing to a sense of disorientation.93 Peter Connor (1987, 55) says the iunctura acris pervades Persius’ verse with “a sharp ferocity of expression and a certain aggressively extravagant imagination,” and Susanna Braund (1992, 37) notes, “His graphic language . . . is a central 89. But see contra the arguments of Calcante (2002, 351), who argues based on the rhetorical tradition that both in Horace and in Persius, the iunctura is merely a “phono-rhetorical strategy” that has no semantic effect. 90. Conte (1999) 472 mentions these two possibilities (semantic or aural); most scholars seem to emphasize the first. For a list of usages of acer in rhetorical terminology to mean “sharp” or “vehement,” see Kenney (2012) 115. 91. See similarly Bellandi (1988) 28, Bardon (1986) 3– 6, Harvey (1981) ad loc.; Jenkinson (1980, 5), (1989), and (1990); Kissel (1990) ad loc.; Scivoletto (1973) 102– 3; Wehrle (1992b) 38. Calcante (2002), however, argues that a clash in meaning or register is not implied by the term. 92. Cf. the sensible remarks at http://www.latinovivo.com/schedeletteratura/ Persio.htm: “La figura che Persio utilizza più spesso è l’acris iunctura, in pratica l’evoluzione della callida iunctura oraziana”; This consists in (a) “la frustrazione dell’attesa, che consiste nel creare un’aspettativa nel lettore per poi deluderla di proposito, con un effetto di aprosdòketon (= “inatteso”)”; and (b) “l’alternanza di registri: l’acris iunctura è realizzata in genere mediante la comparsa inaspettata di termini decisamente ‘alti’ e ricercati su una base di sermo cotidianus, o viceversa mediante l’inserimento in contesti ‘seri’ ed aulici di termini inerenti alla sfera sessuale o gastrointestinale.” 93. Likewise Kissel (1990) ad loc. argues that in context Persius seems to indicate “eine gewisse Kühnheit, ja Härte in Anspruch” that produces the effect of the unexpected.

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element of his satire— and undoubtedly his most important and original contribution to the genre.” And with a clever pun on the acris iunctura itself, Freudenburg (2001, 128) describes Persius’ poems and their world as “glaringly ‘out of joint.’”94 Would the ancient critics find pleasurable a collocation of poetic figures and images characterized by sharp joinings, heterogeneous ideas, alien registers, and gastrointestinal content? Despite the association of metaphor with sweetness and pleasure, a brief detour into some of the theories of bad metaphor suggests that the answer is, there would be no pleasure here. These theories of bad metaphor tend to focus on the use of a metaphorical vehicle that violates propriety; the general use of a “substitution” theory of metaphor in antiquity— the vehicle is brought in from elsewhere to replace the proper word, or because there is no proper word95— meant that metaphor tended to be discussed in terms of single words that were or were not appropriate for the task.96 If bad vehicles were selected, the consensus was that the metaphor itself was flawed; as a result, the pleasurable frisson of figurative language would fail to be provoked in the reader or listener. In the earliest systematic discussion of metaphor, that of Aristotle’s 94. The paradoxical presence of “ore teres modico” next to “acri iunctura” is itself an acris iunctura; more importantly, it takes up Horace’s “ore rotundo / . . . loqui” but injects it with the hint of a Stoic sage; see Kenney (2012) 116. 95. The latter case is usually categorized by our ancient sources as “catachresis,” despite the modern meaning of this term as a “violent” or “unexpected” metaphor. See the discussion of Quintilian Inst. 8.6.34– 36 in Parker (1990). For examples of this theory of substitution or bringing in an alien term, see Arist. Poet. 1457b6, Rhet. ad Her. 278; Cic. De or. 3.157, Quint. Inst. 8.6.5, etc. Allegoria comes closer in some cases to what we might think of as metaphor, but it also brings with it moral or theological baggage. However, Dessen (1996) 12 believes that Persius’ use of metaphors bears resemblance to allegoria because of his repetition of given metaphorical schemata throughout a satire: “From his study of Stoicism Persius probably learned the value of developing his satiric-philosophic themes through a controlling metaphor and related images. His use of metaphor is much more complex than the rhetorical concept of allegoria, but to a contemporary Stoic his Satires no doubt seemed allegorical in the classical sense because they did not always make literal sense.” 96. Contemporary theorists of metaphor like to tell a story about the history of the trope. On their view, we can identify a substitution theory of metaphor, traceable to Plato, that implies that metaphor is a matter of words, not thought; that it is typical to poetry, but not to “ordinary” language; and that it is a sort of deviance from a linguistic norm. Only in modern times did we start to see metaphor differently. See, e.g., Lakoff and Johnson (1999) 119. But the story is made more complicated by the evidence of Aristotle and by other views present in antiquity, such as that of Hermogenes of Tarsus (ca. 200 CE) at Inv. 4.10, whose view comes closer to an “interaction” theory.

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Rhetoric, we are urged to observe “proportionality” and to derive the metaphor from the same genus as the tenor (Rhet. 3.2.10).97 We are then presented with three striking criteria for a good metaphor: the sound of the metaphor must be pleasant; it must be compatible with its tenor; and it must derive from something that is itself naturally beautiful (Rhet. 3.2.11– 13): Forms of words also are faulty, if they do not express an agreeable sound; for instance, Dionysius the Brazen in his elegiacs speaks of poetry as the scream of Calliope; both are sounds, but the metaphor is bad, because the sounds have no meaning. Further, metaphors must not be far-fetched, but we must give names to things that have none by deriving the metaphor from what is akin and of the same kind, so that, as soon as it is uttered, it is clearly seen to be akin. . . . [Metaphors] should be derived from what is beautiful either in sound, or in signification, or to sight, or to some other sense. For it does make a difference, for instance, whether one says “rosy-fingered morn,” rather than “purple-fingered” (20) or, what is still worse, “red-fingered.” (Tr. J. H. Freese)

The concern with propriety, suitability, and beauty is widely shared. Like Aristotle, Demetrius criticizes metaphors whose vehicle is taken from too far away (On Style 78– 79): they should not be “far-fetched, but natural and based on a true analogy.” As he goes on to explain, “There is a resemblance, for instance, between a general, a pilot, and a charioteer; they are all in command. . . . Not all metaphors can, however, be used convertibly like the above. Homer could call the lower slope of Ida its ‘foot,’ but he could never have called a man’s foot his ‘slope’” (tr. W. Rhys Roberts).98 Demetrius continues to lay out various types of impropriety 97. Again, we must keep in mind the distinction between ancient and modern definitions of metaphor: as Diomedes defines it in his Ars grammatica, metaphor can be a universal term for metaphor, catachresis, metalepsis, metonymy, antonomasia, synecdoche, onomatopoeia, periphrasis, hyperbaton, hyperbole allegory, and homoeosis. However, I have limited reliance on ancient rhetorical texts to the passages in which this broader sense does not seem to be at issue. 98. Baake (2003) 67 point outs that a 1980 study showed that humans have directionality preferences in metaphor: “When given a pair of words like ‘ancient tree’ and ‘grandfather,’ for instance, the subjects clearly preferred metaphor in which the grandfather was the tenor and the tree was the vehicle.” (I.e., it felt better to hear that grandfather was like an old tree than that the old tree was a grandfather.) Possibly such imagery as the plaster of the tongue, or the furniture of the soul, would run against such directionality preferences— “this couch expresses me perfectly” is less strange than “I express this couch perfectly.”

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in metaphor, such as trivialization of the subject matter, and concludes that “usage, which is our teacher everywhere, is so particularly in regard to metaphors” (86). The Roman discussion more or less mirrors the Greek. Crassus in Cicero’s De oratore is willing to make some room for slightly daring metaphors (“paulo audaciores,” De or. 3.38.156) but still emphasizes that clarity must be sought above all. Metaphors, he says, give people pleasure if the analogy is in accordance with reason and method (“si sunt ratione translata, delectant,” 3.40.159). Baseness, caused by far-fetched or vulgar metaphor, is above all to be avoided (De or. 3.41.163– 64): for that reason, Cicero says, we shouldn’t say the state was “castrated” by Africanus’ death, and Glaucia shouldn’t be called “the feces of the senate-house.” There may be a likeness, but in each case the likeness contains an ugly idea. Quintilian (Inst. 8.6.14– 17) relies heavily on Cicero’s treatment, adding that harsh (durae) metaphors that lack proper resemblance are also to be avoided: Some metaphors, too, are mean, as that which I recently mentioned, “There is a wart of stone, etc.” Some are repulsive, for though Cicero uses the expression sentina rei publicae, “sink of the commonwealth,” with great happiness, to signify a herd of bad characters, yet I cannot for that reason approve of the saying of an old orator, Persecuists rei publicae vomicas, “You have lanced the ulcers of the commonwealth.” Cicero himself excellently shows that [a metaphor should not be] too great, or, as more frequently happens, too little for the subject; and that it be not inapplicable. He who knows that they are faults will find numerous such examples. But an excess of even good metaphors is vicious, especially if they are of the same kind. Some are harsh, that is, based on a resemblance not sufficiently close, as “The snows of the head,” and, “Jove over the Alps spits forth the wintry snows.” But the greatest source of error in regard to this subject is that some speakers think whatever is allowed to poets (who make it their sole object to please and are obliged by the necessity of the meter to adopt many metaphorical expressions) is permissible also to those who express their thoughts in prose. (Tr. J. S. Watson)

As Quintilian here, and many others, pointed out, there was greater scope for metaphor in verse; orators faced the danger of stylistic effeminacy, less so poets. But with Persius, we are far from pleasure, let alone effeminacy. It seems that according not only to our experience but to ancient theorizing, harsh-sounding, far-fetched, or foul-tenored metaphors do not provide pleasure— and thus are inherently oppositional

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to a principal function of verse. Keeping these ancient prescriptions in mind, we see all the more clearly that Persius’ metaphors flaunt precisely what they are not supposed to. It would be difficult for us to experience pleasure as we read of the rotting oral ulcer that stands in for overluxurious tastes (Sat. 3.113– 14; unpleasant vehicle); or the wild thicket of weeds that needs to be mowed from the groin of the philosopher outside the gymnasium (Sat. 4. 35– 40; base due to vulgarity); or of Natta, a fellow so obese that he has drowned in his own flesh and cannot bubble to the surface (Sat. 3.31– 34; reverses direction of animation, so that a human is like a pool). There’s that fellow with the orgasmic eye (Sat. 1.18; base due to vulgarity and far-fetched); poetry figured as something entering the anus (Sat. 1.20– 21; vulgarity again, and a kind of reverse enema to boot); a poem that has overdosed on hellebore (Sat. 1.50– 51; mixture of genera), another poem figured as saliva (Sat. 1.104– 5), a third poem (Persius!) buried as waste in a place where people urinate (Sat. 1.120; definitely base). There’s the harmless, but odd, exhortation to know the furniture of our soul (Sat. 4.52; harsh, because the resemblance is not close enough and because furniture is usually contrasted to inherent value). And throughout, as we have seen, low-register metaphors reign: human flesh is food, poetry is meat, and Stoic thought is vegetarian. Persius’ readers have reacted on cue, characterizing his metaphors as anything from striking to disgusting, but never claiming beauty or sweetness for them.99 Ulrich Knoche (1971, 82) feels that reading him can give the modern reader no real satisfaction and pleasure.100 Freudenburg (2001, 127) writes that the satires “land us in that aegri somnia (“sick man’s dream”) of Horace, Ars poetica 7, a Daliesque world of psychedelic images, disjointed, cluttered, and frequently pornographic.”101 Hooley (1997) 9 calls them “lurid in detail, visceral in character and effect.” Braund (1996b, 15) writes that Persius’ subjects “are deglamourised by the startling, shocking metaphors.”102 And Freudenburg, speaking spe99. For a similar point, see Hooley (1997) 73– 74. 100. Further on his strained metaphors, see of course Dryden (1693) 51; also Jenkinson (1980) 5, (1989) and (1990) passim. 101. Cf. Wehrle (1992b) 128. Reckford (1998) 340 comments: “Persius is . . . an anti-aesthetic artist.” Following Patin’s 1868 view of Lucretius’ ambivalence about his stated Epicurean views, he asks, “Do these images and scenes [of decay, suffering, and death] get out of hand? Do they subert the Stoic moral they were meant to support? Shall we find an anti-Perse, so to speak, chez Perse, as others found (or seemed to find), in his passionate images of dissolution and desire?” (1998, 240). 102. Kissel (1990) suggests that his goal is not to stimulate pleasure through wonder, but rather to provoke thought: “Gibt es für Persius in gleichen Zusammenhang die didaktisch-psychagogische Funktion der Sprache den Ausschlag” (589).

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cifically of the grotesque metaphor in satire 1 in which the poet ejaculates tears from his eyes (2001, 165), sums up the situation as well as one could:103 What in H is a “clever” (callida) image of teary “dew,” in Persius is a “harsh” (acris) metaphor that leaves us disgusted, but never to think of teary recitations in quite the same way. And so here we have a telling case-study in the ways of metaphors respectively “clever” and “harsh,” Horatian and Persian. Both poets have exceptional talents for putting together mismatching things, a penchant for metaphor that makes us actively imagine things in unaccustomed ways. But whereas Horace’s images, at times, border on the risqué, Persius’ have the potential to shake us to the core, to disorient and disgust.

Many scholars have seen that such metaphors take work to process (against Aristotle’s strictures) precisely because they are so far-fetched, like the ejaculated tears of the poetic reciter in satire 1. And some, trying to recuperate Persius’ poetry out of the cesspool, find this intellectual effort a saving grace; others find the very effort to do so an obstruction to the desired effect.104 Why take the sweetest and most pleasurable feature of poetry and render it distasteful? Why not just write without metaphors? Indeed the notion of an unadorned and hence unhoneyed verse is precisely what we might expect from a Stoic poet.105 Not only were the Stoics staunchly favor of a hypothetical “language degree zero” (a perfect correlation be103. Is it possible to read this weeping eye as a perversion of the flow of the eye of the lover in Plato’s Phaedrus 255c? One wonders. 104. “One is carried to such extremes in its departures from clarity and simplicity that it ends by obstructing the very didactic objectives intended” (so W. S. Anderson in his introduction to W. S. Merwin’s translation, [1961] 34– 35.) Similarly, Marsha Colish (1990) 203 thinks he simply fails: “It is difficult to accept as Stoic in execution a style whose harshness and complexity stand as far away from the plain style as the Alexandrian grandiloquence which Persius himself attacks.” This degree of obscurity goes against frequent prescriptions for clarity in metaphor: cf. Arist. Poet. 12.4– 6, Dem. On Style 2.99– 102, Cic. De or. 3.42.167. 105. Both pleasures of the body and of the mind were thought to weaken and effeminize their recipient (Sen. Ep. 84.11); Seneca called voluptas “enervated and rouged and soft” (Vit. beat. 7.3) and “a thing that is infamis” (Sen. Ep. 59.2). On the effeminizing effect of voluptas in general, see e.g., Sen. Ep. 92.10; also Wistrand (1990) 32– 34; Dozier (2012). At Ep. 59.1– 4, Seneca acknowledges the common usage of voluptas to mean any pleasure, but points out that the Stoic meaning of this term is sharply distinguished from that of gaudium: “vitium esse voluptatem credimus.” On this topic, see also Asmis (1990) and Ep. 13.1 and 72.4, as well as Epictetus 2.18 and Marc. Aur. Medit. 6.16.

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tween object and expression), the Stoic Manilius proudly reminds us at the beginning of book 3 of his impenetrable Astronomica (3.38– 39) that he has abjured sweetness in favor of pure instruction that will not admit any metaphors or other ornamentation (“nec dulcia carmina quaeras / ornari res ipsa negat, contenta doceri”), presumably avoiding any conflicts between figure and philosophy by this rather dry means.106 But Persius does use metaphor: in fact he revels in metaphor; and this is an innovation in Stoic poetics.107 I will return to his reasons later in this study. For now, I will just suggest that his unpleasant, even disgusting metaphors may have a curative potential just as much as the harsh beet. His acres iuncturae have a serious role to play.

4. A Stoic Poetics As a devotee of Stoic thought, Persius could not but be aware of the presence of certain difficulties in the idea of a Stoic poetics. Chief among them would be the question of pleasure. Stoic philosophy was meant to cure, but not to please in the process: as Seneca points out, a doctor’s eloquence offers no benefit to the patient’s cure.108 In fact, listening improperly could ruin the message of prose lectures in philosophy: in Epistles 108.6 Seneca complains of students who can focus only on pleasures of the ear and learn nothing: that is, they treat philosophy like poetry.109 As Epictetus put it, “the lecture room of the philosopher is a hospital: you ought to leave it not having enjoyed yourself, but in pain” (Disc. 3.23.30).110 If poetry is a source of pleasure, then, what to do? Lucretius had to wax apologetic for his anti-Epicurean choice of medium 106. Honey on the cup and Stoicism just don’t go together: sweetness is “decisamente rifiutato in nome di un rigorismo stoico che non vuol concedere nulla ai sensi,” Bellandi (1988) 36. Cicero went so far as to say that the Stoic sect avoided all use of figure (Paradoxa Stoicorum praef. 2). 107. On Seneca’s innovative use of metaphor in philosophical prose, see, e.g., Armisen-Marchetti (1989), Bartsch (2009), Roller (2001) esp. 213– 19. 108. “Our words should aim not to please, but to help. . . . A sick man does not call in a physician who is eloquent. . . . Why do you tickle my ears? Why do you entertain me? There is other business at hand; I am to be cauterized, operated upon, or put on a diet”; Ep. 75.5– 7. 109. Ep. 108.6: “Quidam veniunt ut audiant, non ut discant, sicut in theatrum voluptatis causa ad delectandas aures oratione vel voce vel fabulis ducimur. . . . Non id agunt ut aliqua illo vitia deponant, ut aliquam legemvitae accipiant qua mores suos exigant, sed ut oblectamento aurium perfruantur.” 110. On these texts, the similar view of Musonius Rufus in Aulus Gellius NA 5.1, and further passages on listening to philosophy without undue pleasure, see Trapp (2008).

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(epic hexameter), but at least the Epicureans endorsed pleasure, and some of them seem to have endorsed a pleasurable poetics, as long as it did not claim to teach. The Epicurean Philodemus, for example, argued that poetry should be beautiful and produce pleasure, not serve any moral or utilitarian purpose or represent truth (On Poems 5).111 This view was considered characteristically Epicurean in Cicero’s time (Fin. 1.71– 72); it represents an acceptance of poetry, but not to serious ends. It may help that the Stoics seem to have been less critical of poetry’s value than other schools of philosophy. Indeed, Stoicism was the single school of ancient philosophy that waxed positive about the poets as pedagogues and that gave poetry a propaedeutic role in the training of the young. In this it was both responding to and innovating beyond Plato’s resilient doubts about what poetry did to those who heard it.112 Stoicism seems to have been alone in doing so; Epicurus, head of the other main school of Hellenistic philosophy, condemned all poetry as “a destructive lure [delear] of fictitious stories”113 and forbade the wise to write poetry themselves (Diog. Laert. 10.120). At best one could enjoy poetry for pleasure’s sake alone; hence Philodemus argued that poetry should be beautiful and produce pleasure, not serve any moral or utilitarian purpose or represent truth (On Poems 5). This view was considered characteristically Epicurean in Cicero’s time (Fin. 1.71– 72); it 111. Contrast the view of the anonymous Stoic in On Poems who feels poetry should have educational value, cols. 17.18– 20 and 18.2– 3. 112. Plato’s stance is well known: as his mouthpiece in the Republic explains, the poet “arouses, nourishes, and strengthens this [irrational] part of the soul and so destroys the rational one, in just the same way that someone destroys the better sort of citizens when he strengthens the vicious ones and surrenders the city to them” (605b2– 5). The poet’s sort of imitation is therefore able to corrupt even the most ethical people by playing upon the baser parts of their souls. For a view that emphasizes the role of variability in Plato’s view, see Moss (2007a). Recently Ledbetter (2002, 2) argues for a different stance toward poetry in the earlier dialogues: “Socratic poetics, I shall show, contrasts starkly with the Republic by endorsing the traditional view that poetry harbors wisdom; by rejecting the view (common to Plato and to the tradition that emerges in fifth-century Athens) that credits the author with responsibility for his verses’ moral content; and by claiming for the Socratic inquirer authority over the interpretation of poetry.” 113. Heraclitus, Homeric Problems 4 = Epicurus fr. 229 Usener; Sextus Empiricus (Against the Mathematicians 1.296– 97). Epicurus was also hostile to the use of metaphor in philosophical exposition, like Plato; as reported by Sextus Empiricus, he felt that falsehood was naturally attractive to poets because it moves the soul more than truth, and because it inflames the baser human passions. One of Epicurus’ followers, the third-century Colotes, devoted part of his Against Plato’s Lysis to attacking the idea that truth rather than opinion could be represented in poetry (see Kechagia 2001, 55– 69).

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represents an acceptance of poetry, but not to serious ends. Lucretius’ heretical choice to offer an exposition of Epicureanism in his epic On the Nature of Things was defended by Lucretius himself in terms that explicitly refer to the deployment of pleasurable poetry to sweeten the bitterness of doctrine.114 By contrast, the Greek Stoics claimed to find their own cosmology represented allegorically in Homer and Hesiod, using etymological interpretations to “explain” that badly behaving gods were symbols for cosmological or meteorological entities.115 As A. A. Long (1992) notes, the Stoics applied such readings to poetry because they believed that the poets were distorting what were actually ancient beliefs about the world: “Behind the earliest Greek poetry, and distortedly present in it, are ways of understanding the word whose basic correctness the Stoic interpreter . . . can reveal” (54).116 The Roman Stoic Cornutus offers his readers similar cosmological interpretations of the Iliad in the Theologiae graecae compendium, for the most part using (often forced) etymology as his tool.117 A Stoic whose views are recorded, if critically, in Philodemus’ On Poetry held that poetry, as an activity, can have moral goodness if the mental disposition of the poet who is producing it is good, and that poems can aim specifically at education.118 The Stoic praises Antimachus’ poetry, but Philodemus feels that no such poem had been or could be written.119 Elizabeth Asmis (1990, 170n124) notes that An114. On Lucretius’ use of poetry, see, e.g., Classen (1968) 110– 18 with bibliography in n. 49. 115. Cf. Heraclitus and Ps. Plutarch especially. Ps. Plutarch tries to show that Homer anticipated the doctrines of several philosophical schools. De Lacy (1948) 259– 63 discusses several forms of allegorizing: catachrestic, metaleptic; through ainigma, emphasis, or symbolism. Long (1992) also cautions against believing that the Stoics took the poets (or in this case the painter, presumably) to be “strong” allegorizers, that is, deliberate allegorizers of truths they themselves knew but shrouded. Contrast may be drawn with Metrodorus of Lampsacus, who seemed to believe that Homer chose to recast the parts of the universe as epic heroes— Agamemnon being the air, Helen the earth, and so forth; also Boys- Stones (2003b) and Most (1989). 116. On the development and the moral and philosophical motivation of these interpretations of Homer, see Long (1992) 30– 34 and 41– 66. 117. Cf. Most (1989), updating the work of Tate (1929); Steinmetz (1986) 23– 25, who writes “Il a fallu attendre les études de G. Rocca-Serra, de G. W. Most et de I. Ramelli pour découvrir que l’auteur, si hostile soit-il aux allusions mythologiques des poètes, révèle un intérêt discret mais réel pour la religion et l’allégorèse.” 118. On the Stoic doctrine that only the sapiens can be a true poet, see SVF 3.654, 655. 119. See Asmis (1990) 161– 68, to whom these brief observations are indebted. Apparently Antimachus provided his own moral explanations for his text; see Asmis

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timachus is cited as “an example of a poet who provides explanations of his own. . . . There is a story, told by Cicero, that when Antimachus read his ‘long, famous poem’ (probably Lyde), he drove away all listeners except Plato; whereupon Antimachus remarked that ‘Plato is worth all the rest to me.’ . . . He put into practice Plato’s demand for moral explanations of immoral myth.” No pleasure and much moralizing: a sort of Persius sans figure. Even Quintilian remarks that Antimachus lacked iucunditas, pleasantness (Inst. 10.1.53).120 In addition, the collected evidence from Epictetus, Strabo, Plutarch and others suggests that the Stoics felt that poetry, if properly interpreted (whether by allegory or other means), could be regarded as a sort of “first philosophy” for the young and inexperienced, a preparation for the more serious teachings to come (Strabo 1.2.3; De Lacy 1948).121 As Martha Nussbaum has argued, because Chrysippus, Zeno, Seneca, and Epictetus followed the orthodox Stoic line that the passions are actually judgments and that the soul is unitary rather than bi- or tripartite, they were able to include poetry’s effects within the sphere of judgments rather than seeing them as irrational movements of the soul.122 Accordingly, the locus of change in “right reading” (or hearing) had to be the (1990) 170 on the evidence in Philodemus, and Dozier (2012) 361– 62 on Cicero’s comments. Further on Philodemus on poetry, see Clay (2003) 193– 94. 120. As noted by Dozier (2012) 361. Aristo also seems to have believed that specific (euphonic!) sound patterns could reinforce a poem’s effect on its audience. On Stoic theories of language and their relevance to Stoic poetics, see De Lacy (1948) 234– 48 and Cucchiarelli (2005) 72ff. On sound (phone) in Philodemus’ treatment of Aristo and Crates, see Asmis (1990) and (1992) and De Lacy (1948) 253. Philodemus is scornful of the fact that the Stoic lists euphony as a feature of good poetry. The impact of music and meter drives truths home more effectively: the result is akin to the way a trumpet transforms our breath into a louder sound, a statement Seneca attributes to Cleanthes (Sen. Ep. 108.10). 121. Cf. similarly Ps. Plut. Hom. 2.92. This attitude toward poetry emphasized that its impact could be cognitive as well as or instead of spurring a purely irrational response, a perspective endorsed by what Martha Nussbaum has termed the “cognitive school” among the Stoics. As Nussbaum points out (1993, 106) there is Platonic precedent for this in books 2– 3 of the Republic, where Plato refers to the doxai (opinions) taught by poetic texts. Poetry contains false doxai (377b7) which shape the soul of the listener. 122. The Stoics could suggest that right training would let one know when those judgments were wrong. In contrast, the psychological dualists who disagreed with the view that passions were in fact judgments took the line that poetry appealed only to the irrational element of the soul, and waxed negative (and Platonic) on poetry’s arousal of the passions. Plato’s own view in the Republic has varied emphases. As Nussbaum notes (1993, 111), Republic 10 and Laws 2 and 3 make no room for the more cognitive approach of Republic 2– 3. On Diogenes’ view that sounds shaped the disposition of the soul, see De Lacy (1948) 247– 48.

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reader. One simply had to understand that, say, Medea’s rage and her actions were based on incorrect judgments about the value of the straying Jason and that therefore were not to be empathized with; as Epictetus put it (Disc. 2.17.21– 22):123 “She did not know where the power lies to do what we wish— that we cannot get this from outside ourselves, nor by disturbing and deranging things. Give up wanting to keep your husband, and nothing of what you want fails to happen. Give up wanting him to live with you at any cost.” We, like Epictetus, are expected to find the right reading in ourselves. Some techniques for this “critical readership” that can address Medea’s misjudgment and epic/tragic narratives in general are offered by Plutarch’s essay How the Young Man Should Listen to Poetry (Quomodo adulescens), a text deeply influenced by earlier Stoic writings.124 Plutarch recognizes above all the importance of a teacher or guide to help with the reading process: since all the instruction in the world about “critical readership” might fail to get us to stop feeling bad for Dido, we need (at least initially) a philosophically trained teacher or guide along with the basic tenets for how to read appropriately.125 Addressing himself to such teachers, and chiding those who would ban poetry outright, Plutarch tells us that we are not to plug the ears of the young with wax as if they were Odysseus sailing past the sirens in his “Epicurean skiff,” but instead to “stand their judgment up and tie it to some straight reasoning, lest it be diverted in a harmful direction by delight” (15D).126 While he is 123. See also, e.g., Disc. 1.24.16– 18, 1.28.31– 33. Gill (1983) offers an explanation of Chrysippus’ interpretation of Medea’s choices. 124. For good discussions of Plut. De aud poet. see Konstan (2004), Blank (2011), Hunter (2009). What of Seneca? Determining what he might have intended in his dramas is a task further complicated by the antipoetic slant of the prose letters and essays. There he sometimes falls in line with the general sentiment that, properly read, poetry may prepare the soul for more developed philosophical thought (Ep. 88.20); but despite this, he is not reluctant to repeat the traditional disparagement of poets as unconcerned with truth, lying about the gods, praising wealth, and feeding the passions. In one spot Seneca’s emphasis on the powerful effects of meter on the auditor (following Cleanthes’ view) seems to suggest that dramas could be replaced by a collection of maxims rendered into verse for maximum effect (Ep. 108.10; cf. Batinski 1993, 70). Satire is nowhere addressed. For Seneca’s views on poetry in general, see Staley (2010) 36– 41. 125. This approach is not entirely unrelated to allegorizing, since the Stoic attention to such “under-meanings” (hyponoiai) suggests that they did not feel poetry could lead an audience to virtue without right reading practices, allegorical or otherwise. 126. Poetry, then, “should not be avoided by those who are intending to study philosophy, but they should use poetry as an introductory exercise in philosophy, training themselves habitually to seek what is useful in the pleasurable and to be happy with it” (Quomodo adulescens 15f– 16a).

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scornful of Stoic etymologizing (11, 31D– E),127 he urges the teacher to bring to bear such distancing or corrective procedures for questionable ethical content as, for example, countering what the poet says wrongly in one place with a correct sentiment taken from elsewhere in his opus, or from another poet; or noting the undesirable character of the person speaking; or recognizing that the names of the gods often stand for qualities or actions related to them. So, for example, when we read in the first lines of the Iliad that the war’s heavy casualties were the fulfillment of Zeus’ design, Plutarch exhorts us to remind our students that Zeus had no such plan, and his name here simply means Fate (Quomodo adulescens 23d). All these procedures select and correct specific problem passages in the poetry; the question of what to pick and where to start is left up to the teacher, who is to recognize the “starting points” (aphormai) provided by the poet and to develop them for moral correction; the ordinary student cannot do it by himself.128 The emphasis on critical readership, of course, had to do with the fact that the Stoics were mostly addressing themselves to the large body of extant poetry, rather than offering guidelines on how to compose poetry with philosophically beneficial effects.129 These few points already put into relief the benefits of writing in a genre no philosopher had ever used to express his viewpoint: satire. It was, as Quintilian said, “tota nostra.” Satire did not have a pedigree old enough to be subject to the criticisms of a Plato or Aristotle, and it did not attract the interest of later critics, who like their predecessors were most interested in a set of circumscribed issues: the truth content and emotional impact of epic and drama, the effect of narratives of suffering and downfall, the mimetic lure of heroic figures voicing attractive but unphilosophical perspectives.130 Satire stood outside this debate because it was late, because it 127. However, he too argues that the names of gods may, by metonymy, designate states of human affairs rather than divine individuals with agency— Ares as a general term for war, for example (23a). 128. Plut. Quomodo adulescens 22b; Philodemus De rege bono on starting points in Homer (col. 43.16– 18). 129. The Stoics repeatedly observed that only the wise person is a poet; this is a reference to an idealized poetry that would not need philosophical intervention. Ditto for the other forms of knowledge: We are told by Stobaeus (SVF 3.654) that “only the wise person is a good seer, poet, speaker (rhêtor), dialectician, and critic.” 130. But see recently Ledbetter (2002) 2, who argues for a different stance toward poetry in the earlier dialogues: “Socratic poetics, I shall show, contrasts starkly with the Republic by endorsing the traditional view that poetry harbors wisdom; by rejecting the view (common to Plato and to the tradition that emerges in fifth-century Athens) that credits the author with responsibility for his verses’ moral content; and by claiming for the Socratic inquirer authority over the interpretation of poetry.”

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was not authoritative, because it was not heroic, because it did not even have allegiances to lesser genres such as lyric or elegy.131 It was a genre without music, prolonged narrative, the spoudaios protagonist, epic warfare, or anything to dazzle its audience into misplaced reverence. It had focused since its Lucilian beginnings on the criticism and correction of less-than-perfect human beings, voiced by a persona who was ready to turn the critical spotlight upon himself as well. It had none of the ambiguity of Senecan tragedy, not to mention the music and dance of Greek tragedy. And most of all, it was a genre in which the presence of the authorial voice allowed a “commentator” into the action even without a philosophical teacher nearby to hold one’s interpretive hand— without the need to hunt for aphormai, without the need to invent doctrinally correct allegorizing or etymology to pull one’s philosophical bacon out of the frying pan. In some ways, it came as close as possible to the form of poetry that Philodemus (in his day) said had never been written and never would. For precisely these reasons, Persius’ Satires do not line up with the traditional Stoic views on how to read poetry safely: because he is not writing unsafe poetry in the first place. Persius’ verse, unlike Homer’s or Euripides’ or Vergil’s, does not need to have a wise guide attached to it to interpret the dangerous passages for us, or to balance its sweetness with prudent thoughts.132 His poems, unlike even Plato’s dialogues, are content to put their truth in writing, while the lack of emotional involvement with a protagonist, and especially the avoidance of a poetics of pleasure, render his Satires a different species of literature from philosophy or poetry altogether. Persius’ choice of the culinary metaphor for poetry tout court— both the good and the bad— situates his work in the line of descent from the Platonic analogy ut cucina rhetorica even as it rings the changes on Plato’s set of analogies. Where rhetoric and cookery shared an unholy alliance in the Gorgias, Persius substitutes rich poetry and rich foods; where justice and medicine took up their philosophically 131. Even if Horace traces satire’s genealogy to Old Comedy. 132. As Nussbaum puts it, tragedy needs a Stoic interpreter to show that “the sufferings shown in tragedy are important only to one who has the wrong view about what is important” (1993, 137). Poetry is phantasia, appearance, and not the way the world is, so we cannot assent to it, as Epict. Disc. 1.28.31– 33 points out about watching the character Medea. Plato’s Protagoras makes much of the inherent instability built into the interpretability of poetry, which can mean too many things in too many ways. As Gerald Bruns (1992) 21 comments, glossing Plato’s treatment, “Poetry belongs with darkness and ambiguity, outside the philosophy of light . . . not just radically unstable but linked metaphysically to anarchy and the derangement of the sense and of reason.”

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sanctioned positions, we now find healthy satire and healthy foods. His extended development of the analogy of poetry to food and reading to eating lets him characterize his own satires as a remedy for the diseases of philosophical digestion that ail his fellow Romans— a disease that is the result of unhealthy living in all its aspects, including the incorrect assessment of what is valuable in this world, and what is not. His answer for the Platonic quarrel between poetry and philosophy simultaneously elevates his writing-qua-foodstuff to the status of philosophy via the culinary connection first used by Plato. The satirist’s plate is not over-rich, like that of the other poets. We can read his verse and be the better for it. It does not glide down smoothly, nor does it give us pleasure— but then nor does any medicine. And his synesthetic language for both the sweet, smooth verses of his peers and his own rough and bitter verse manages to make the metaphorical also literal: if his verse, whether metrically or semantically, is acer, then it will scrape as we take it in. Persius’ use of metaphor may thus be said to avoid the criticism leveled against Plato for his use of figural language, which post-Platonic philosophy seems to have viewed very warily.133 Aristotle’s critique of Plato on this ground is the most substantive one, having less to do with style or pleasure than simply with metaphor’s inherent untruth. As he remarked of Plato’s ontology in the Metaphysics, “To say that the Forms are patterns and that the other things participate in them is to use empty words and poetic metaphors” (Met. 1.991a).134 Others objected on stylistic grounds, with Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Longinus both criticizing Plato’s reliance on metaphor as excessive and immoderate. Longinus praises his clarity and style, but nonetheless finds cause to remark (On the Sublime 32.7): “That the use of figurative language, as of all other beauties of style, has a constant tendency towards excess, is an obvious truth which I need not dwell upon. It is chiefly on this account that even Plato comes in for a large share of disparagement, because he is often carried away by a sort of frenzy of language into an intemperate use of violent metaphors and inflated allegory” (tr. H. L. Havell). Dionysius likewise finds fault with the immoderation of Plato’s metaphors (Pomp. 5.760).135 Demetrius (On Style 51) seems to acknowledge that at least 133. See Bigger (2004) 24; Lidz (1995); Lloyd (1996); and Pender (2003). On metaphor in philosophical texts more generally, including modern ones, see of course Lakoff and Johnson (1999); also Black (1962); Green (2005); Pepper (1928), (1953), and (1982); Stellardi (2000). 134. “τὸ δὲ λέγειν παραδείγματα αὐτὰ εἶναι καὶ μετέχειν αὐτῶν τἆλλα κενολογεῖν ἐστὶ καὶ μεταφορὰς λέγειν ποιητικάς.” 135. “μάλιστα δὲ χειμάζεται περὶ τὴν τροπικὴν φράσιν, πολλὴ μὲν ἐν τοῖς ἐπιθέτοις, ἄκαιρος δ᾽ ἐν ταῖς μετωνυμίαις, σκληρὰ δὲ καὶ οὐ σῴζουσα τὴν ἀναλογίαν ἐν ταῖς

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some of Plato’s tropes contribute strength and vividness to his arguments, but later acknowledges that Plato’s use of metaphors rather than similes is a risky feature of his style (80).136 For an extreme view on the issue, we might turn to Bishop Samuel Parker’s 1666 fulmination about Plato’s soul metaphors, which he finds to be utter nonsense: pointing out that Platonists find their metaphors in all the realms of the senses, nature, and the heavens, he complains that “because they are altogether ignorant of the nature and substance of the Soul and are not able to express the greatest part of these things by proper terms, all these metaphors must pass for idle and insignificant Non-sense.”137 These past detractors aside, to speak of Plato’s metaphors demands at least a quick glance at the modern conversation about metaphors, images (eikones) and models (paradeigmata) in the dialogues. As Elizabeth Pender’s 2000 study has illustrated, while the word μεταφορά does not occur in Plato’s writings, eikones and paradeigmata can both refer to metaphorical usages. His metaphors can be didactic or heuristic; in the former function, they are used by Socrates or the Athenian to “clarify” their abstract subject, such as virtue or vice; in the latter, a likeness will help the listener grasp the nature of the new subject from the familiar one compared to it.138 Pender sums them up as “a developed form of language use, whose help is required to explain the ‘greater’ subjects, which turn out to be incorporeal and conceptual” and adds that “they can work only when there is the presence of a common element between the familiar x and the unfamiliar y” (2000, 56). She thus links them to the modern theory of metaphor represented by Eva Kittay (1987) in which metaphors, while cognitively irreducible to nonfigural language, do not provide new information about the world but reconceptualize what we already know.139 This raises the possibility that we need not criticize Platonic metaphor as Parker did, but simply take his metaphors and myths as supplements to logical discourse.140 But even so, Persius would no doubt argue they offer reason for caution. μεταφοραῖς. ἀλληγορίας τε περιβάλλεται πολλὰς καὶ μακράς, οὔτε μέτρον ἐχούσας οὔτε καιρόν.” 136. We will recall that Cicero censured Lucretius’ use of metaphor as inappropriate as well. 137. Bishop Samuel Parker, A Free and Impartial Censure of the Platonick Philosophie, Being a Letter Written to His Much Honoured Friend Mr. N.B. (Oxford, 1666), 76– 77. 138. Lloyd (1966), 397– 400; cf. e.g., Politicus 277d– 278b, Laws 644b– c for didactic metaphor, Politicus 278e– 279a. Many further examples are listed. 139. Pender (2000) 77. 140. As per Anton (1963– 64) 165– 66.

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Persius’ grounds for critique would differ, however, from those of the ancient rhetoricians, Bishop Parker, and the modern philosophers who argue that Platonic myths and metaphors represent irrational “truths of religion.”141 Persius would point out not the violence of Platonic metaphor (hardly) or its excess (again, hardly, given his own practice) but its seductive value, the way that the metaphors, myths, and allegories interspersed among the dialogues distract our attention from the basis of Plato’s argument in logic and dialectic— as they were probably intended to do— and present us with pleasing images for difficult-to-grasp philosophical abstractions.142 As a brief backdrop to Persius’ practice, consider Plato’s famous characterization of the Form of the Good as the sun in the Republic (the one providing worldly, and the other intellectual, illumination, Rep. 507b– 509c); the spiritual pregnancy of the Symposium, with its “reproduction and birth in beauty”; the many references to a guiding God as the helmsman of the ship of the universe, or its father; the Phaedrus’ chariot of the soul, with charioteer and its two horses, which Pender suggests might have been inspired by the horse and chariot imagery of Greek erotic poetry (2000, 161, 220);143 and most of all, the erotic experience of philosophy as Plato presents it. Both in their beautiful or erotic content and in their connection to beautiful vehicles, these metaphors appeal;144 indeed, Socrates himself speaks of the content of the Republic as a charm to counter the false effects of poetry (Rep. 10.608a). Persius’ metaphors are anything but charming, and this fact itself has philosophical import, both as an implicit response to Plato’s procedure and as a meaningful deviation from normative poetic practice. In short, as the primus inventor of a Stoic poetics (pace Manilius), Persius has already offered us some useful answers to the problem of his medium, both in his programmatic claims and in his choices of meta141. So, for example, Dodds (1951) 23– 24. See discussion in Pender (2000) 81– 82. 142. Many of these examples are introduced by Plato with an initial comparative word; the metaphor then continues without further reference back to the terminology of example or simile. 143. Lebeck (1972) has explored in detail the erotic imagery of the Phaedrus’ chariot of the soul. As she writes, “The delineation of sexual excitement stimulates intellectual excitement, the two being, for Plato, inextricably linked” (273). 144. Perhaps this is why in the Laws a space is found for the honeyed Muse after all. As Clay (2003) 185– 89 points out, the Athenian stranger suggests that just as the doctor uses tasty food, the legislator should use attractive poetry to attract the young to virtue! In the end, then, both Plato and Lucretius seem to agree on “the need for deception; the role of poetry as the agent of deception; and the salutary ends of the deception” (186). Clay also notes the anecdote that the bees of Mt. Hymettos smeared Plato’s mouth with honey, “reflecting the ‘honeyed’ eloquence that he seems both to condemn and to exemplify in the Republic and Laws” (2003, 187).

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phor. By figuring itself as curative in the process of being read, his poetry seeks to redeem its raison d’être even as it describes it. Persius’ final claim will not be that his verse can do the same thing as Platonic philosophy; it will be that a Stoic poetics has advantages altogether missing from Platonic philosophy. For here is what it does not have: extended stories that please the audience; metaphors using erotic language for our relationship to philosophical knowledge; a beautiful prose style; a distancing irony that leaves the audience uncertain of where it stands; and a valorization of beauty rather than a harsh look at the bodily functions that make us of this world. Perhaps Plato could be seen, through this lens, as being as culpable as the titillating poets at Persius’ recital.

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The Self-Consuming Satirist

Persius’ preoccupation with the realms of literature, food, philosophy, and the body has a solid satiric genealogy; his predecessors Horace and Lucilius likewise turned their attention to questions of genre, the ethics of eating, the needs of the body, the foibles of the unwise. In Persius’ case, however, the complex web of imagery that brings together these different subject domains not only embeds them in a morally charged framework, but is itself implicated in the philosophical implications of Persius’ teaching: that we should evaluate all that appeals to the senses— including, presumably, the vivid imagery embedded in his own Satires— according to the distancing perspective of Stoic ethics. For Stoicism, as the satirist makes clear in satire 5 and elsewhere, is the only transcendent set of values we are to embrace; everything else is fleeting and illusory, and the satirist mocks us— and his interlocutors— for thinking otherwise. Again and again the upshot of Persius’ abuse is that we should turn our gaze inward— that very same gaze, of course, to which metaphors are said to appeal beyond all the other senses (Cic. De orat. 3.160– 61). Vivid appeals to the senses tell us the senses are not the source of value, while the sheer weight of unpleasant negative imagery by far outweighs any actual Stoic instruction to be found. As Hooley (1997, 145) has put it (speaking of Sat. 4.35– 41 in particular, but with application to the entire body of work), “Images drawn from a setting, or frame of reference, highly charged with ethical concerns . . . set off the decadence of the scene described. . . . The reader’s mind is caught in a strange diffraction of vision juxtaposing radically different ‘worlds’ in almost painful simultaneity.” For this reason too, it can be said that Persius gives us his philosophical teaching in an odd and apparently paradoxical form. Figural or literal, we are given very little by way of pleasant pictures of the happiness of the

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Stoic sage, no delightful intimation of reason brought to perfection in the soul, and no happy metaphors of self-governing to lure us in the direction of wisdom. Apart from the limited description of his interaction with Cornutus in satire 5, Persius’ extravagantly sensual figural language is not put to the service of Stoic proselytizing. In this he provides a surprising counterpart to Seneca, whose metaphors were precisely put to work to help the proficiens conceptualize abstract concepts and to help him reach his goal, whether it was thinking of the soul as an impervious fortress, conceiving of oneself as the captain of one’s own boat, or recasting bravery in the face of an illness as martial valor.1 Instead, as we have noted, Persius’ Satires are determinedly sensory in a way that is only negative, every drop of saliva, every foul-smelling belch, every titillated organ part of an extended assault on our senses, an onslaught of images that remind us of what not to be. Even the dialogic segments of the Satires are a far cry from Seneca’s depiction of mutually helpful conversation or encouragement; nowhere does Persius suggest that philosophy’s first goal is fellow human feeling, as Seneca does (Sen. Ep. 5.4); nowhere does he offer light-hearted irony, or provide a positive model for the self-questioning and self-review that helps the Stoic proficiens to advance in the cultivation of sagehood. Unlike Seneca’s concern for his epistolary companion, Lucilius, whose progress he encourages by both exhortation and gentle criticism, Persius comes down on his reader like, dare one say, a nabob of negativism. Given this situation, it has been difficult to pin down whether and how the author plans to bring about any positive philosophical result. As we wallow in the Satires’ fleshy troughs, the way forward is unclear, and the confusing possibility of an anti-Perse chez Perse is difficult to dismiss. I refer, of course, to M. Patin’s concept of an “anti-Lucretius” in his 1883 essay “Du poëme De la Nature: L’anti-Lucrèce chez Lucrèce.”2 Patin famously argued that the philosophical poem De rerum natura revealed Lucretius’ unconscious ambivalence about the very Epicureanism he advocated. This was evident not only in his religious imagery (e.g., in such passages as the proem to book 1 and the treatment of the Magna Mater in book 2), but also in his metaphorical language: because Lucretius personified the random and impersonal force of nature, the behavior of atoms, and other elements of the world around us, even he could not buy into the existence driven by chance that he described.3 1. On the pedagogical value of Stoic metaphor, see, e.g., Bartsch (2009); ArmisenMarchetti (1989); for a counterview, Inwood (2005) 31– 52 2. Patin (1883) 117– 37. 3. The bibliography on this topic is vast. For a concise treatment with recent bibliography, see Gale (1994) 14– 18 and 129– 55.

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Has Persius, as Patin argued of Lucretius, revealed his hand? Or maybe we should ask: has he unwittingly overplayed it, not realizing that his vivid negative images in fact overwhelm any Stoic aim he might have espoused, and that they leave us, like Dryden, to wince and quickly turn the page?4 As Kenneth Reckford writes, even in rejecting an anti-Perse, “The poetic images . . . show Persius at his best, as a master of ‘uglification and derision.’ They also convey the horror of nonbeing so powerfully that it threatens to subvert, not just revivify, the Stoic equation of physical and moral sickness” (1998, 348).5 As readers, we may find we are unable to generate a philosophical Archimedean point over this material, when we, and Persius, are so deeply imbedded in it.6 One solution might be to create our own “positive image.” We could argue that Persius only offers us the “before” picture and leaves the rest to us, as if the yucky humans of the Satires provided the tenor, but not the vehicle, of a sort of translatio. After all, each of Persius’ four major topics— literature, food, philosophy, and the body— are shown being trans-lated from a corrupt to a beneficial form of being; like metaphor itself, each offers us a vehicle in which (if we follow Persius’ instructions) the endpoint can be different from its original state.7 His prescriptions 4. Dryden, “Origin and Progress of Satire,” cited in Hooley (1997) 144. 5. Reckford goes on to suggest that (1998, 350) “compositio, the poet’s craft, literally the “putting together” of words— the craft learned well and gratefully from Horace’s callida iunctura, and improved on too— has become a way of modeling that other moral and spiritual recomposition, or reconstruction, of all those dissolving fragments of ourselves, the potsherds, the liquid clay, the decomposing corpse so briefly and ironically ‘gotten together’ for his own funeral. It is, we might say, an exercise in reconstructive surgery, performed for medical students, and patients too, in the great operating theater of satire, and first and most remarkably performed by the poet himself upon his own corpus vile.” Of course, given my discussion of compositio in Persius, I disagree with this interesting idea; I see no reconstructive surgery. 6. It is true that Persius’ shock value, like that of the Cynic philosophers, will always already be compromised by its generic status as a literary art form; his metaphors may be vile, but the artistry of his creation of figure may offer some route to pleasure— or at least acceptance— nonetheless. As Ineke Sluiter has recently suggested (2005, 163), speaking of Diogenes’ use of bodily functions for shock value: “A systematically self-undermining and artistically allusive philosophy, conveyed in a scandalous register, goes the way of all satire: it can never be more than partially successful. Either the sting is removed, or the artistry.” Another paradox to go with the many instantiated by the Satires. 7. See the interesting comments of Kilgour (1990) 13: “As it brings opposites together, metaphor can itself be read antithetically, as a source of both alienation and identification, which enacts either the estrangement of the familiar or the familiarization of the strange. . . . Metaphor, the trope by which opposites— guest and host, body and mind, food and words— meet, is a means of incorporation that subverts normal definitions of identity.”

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replace fatty foods with nourishing ones, purge indigestion with hellebore, deny us the pleasure of listening to figure, and desexualize the erotic scene of pedagogy modeled in the Alcibiades I, Phaedrus, and Symposium. This is a process in which the relationship of the final product to its original substance is one of moral superiority, whether bodily or mentally incurred, while the presence of an un- Stoic pleasure remains tightly affiliated with the premetamorphic state of each subject. Providing a parallel to this undelicious and untitillating metamorphosis of the perverted into the pure, the metaphors that Persius uses to describe such transitions similarly refuse to please; the Cleanthean grain inserted into the ear on the way to moral improvement, the decocta blends we are supposed to swallow down, surely refuse to take on the mantle of Plato’s beautiful myths and the erotic metaphors of our search for philosophical knowledge. Thus the satirist writes out the prescription for changing what we are like into what we should be like in every regard except for the final product that we ourselves would be. Here there is no illustrative transition provided: we see the unpleasant before, but not the pleasant after. On this scenario, we accept our affiliation with the premetamorphic material, realizing that we must extrapolate from this to a path beyond, to the correct procedures and outcomes for the norms of interiority and imperturbability that Persius seems to endorse; and if a pretransformed reader is blubber and pork belly, tears and prayers, we take our cue from Persius’ metaphorical framework to move ahead to something beyond. Here, unfortunately, a problem rears its head. This is the surprising fact that Persius’ favorite metaphors and metamorphoses do not, in the end, let us lean on them as a source of interpretive stability. Instead, the poet takes the time to show us that metaphorical language is itself unstable and an unreliable path to Stoic meaning. This is true, obviously, of the literal elements his metaphors use; the wrong dose of hellebore can kill instead of cure; mistakes in teaching lead to rapscallion students;8 inherent weaknesses in digestion can produce ulcers and cancers;9 and presumably readers’ reactions to metaphor can likewise go awry, promoting an un-Stoic cast of mind (one need but confess to liking the genital weeds and boiled buttocks of Sat. 4.39– 41).10 But metaphori8. Even Persius himself, at Sat. 3.44– 46, points out how misguided his own schoolteacher was in teaching him the wrong things and valuing applause for his lessons (that is, before he met Cornutus). 9. I.e., certain bodies are more prone to gastric-related disease than others, or respond differently to different foods, a concept frequently voiced by Galen and Celsus. 10. Enjoying boiled buttocks is not the same as enjoying the metaphor itself, of course, but I believe Persius would find both responses problematic.

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cal instability is also built into the metaphorical framework of the Satires explicitly: a fact that up to now has been left conveniently by the wayside of this book’s arguments. For up to now, the Satires, despite all their authorial passion and grotesque imagery, have seemed to offer us a coherent semantic structure on which to hang our metaphorical hat.11 If we have not been in danger of confusion— of, say, mistaking pork bellies and shaven groins as sharing the attributes of raw beets and philosophers— this is because the vivid visuals have consistently corresponded to specific philosophical faults or strengths. The Satires (we thought) instantiated a puzzling, to be sure, but at least coherent example of Stoic poetics, offering us aphormai to set off from, thanks to the authorial persona’s constant moral judgments. However, it seems that in the end, Persius’ metaphorical framework is not a watertight system at all, but leaks conspicuously at very inconvenient moments.

1. Satire’s Shifting Figures This study has spent most of its pages explicating Persius’ metaphors, and to that degree it has presented the Satires as a closed system, a body of work sufficient unto itself. It is true that much of this explication leaned on the cultural context of the Satires in first-century Rome, especially in matters medical and digestive; but it was in fact that context that helped us to depict Persius’ small body of work as an internally consistent whole, especially in the unity of its figural language. In effect, we have been practicing a sort of New Criticism on the Satires, emphasizing a close reading of Persius’ figures to discover how his poems function as aesthetically self-contained works of art. Such a reading leaves us weighted toward the literary rather than the philosophical side: on this view, one can read the Satires, appreciate their artistry, understand what they are saying about the degradation of the nonphilosophical life, and then move on. As readers, we would not have to do anything: the message would be enough. We could even refuse, if we so wished, to go further and imagine the philosophically pleasing life as a corollary to what Persius is saying. We would appreciate Stoicism and its perspective upon the sensory world, but we would not be forced to practice any kind of mental action upon Persius’ poet in order to make further sense of it. All this would be true if the Satires were in fact an internally coherent 11. See, e.g., Pasoli (1985) 1842: “Immagini e metafore aventi il valore di simboli, tanto da poter costituire una trama di collegamenti a distanza, che assicura, al di là dello svolgimento dialettico, l’unità intima ed essenziale di taluni componimenti o parti di essi.”

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aesthetic unit, if their metaphorical framework let us walk away, our “decoding” complete. But, with some reluctance, we must acknowledge, I think, that they do not present such a consistent semantic system. For, as several scholars have recently noticed, the more familiar we become with Persius’ language, the more we realize that the Satires ultimately seem bent on destroying the figural cohesion that forms their conceptual backbone, and that lets us read them as a body that makes sense. When metaphors start cropping up where they do not belong and doing what they should not be doing, the philosophical teaching mapped out by specific usages falls apart— inner is not better than outer, pale is not better than ruddy, meat creeps into vegetarian bodies, sexuality into classroom exchanges. In the end Persius’ metaphors cannot guide us as to how to “translate” figures into philosophical meanings; instead they put on display their own flexibility, the way metaphors can exist differently depending on what aspect of the tenor or vehicle is being emphasized. The impact of this unreliability— much like the unreliability of the world of the senses and the values we distribute incorrectly to things that seem good but are not— will be, I argue, a crucial part of Persius’ poetic program for those of us well versed in the language of his Satires. J. C. Bramble (1974) seems to have been the first to emphasize the programmatic inconsistencies of the poems; as he remarks perplexedly of satire 1, the first half of the satire seems at pains to set up programmatic figural language that sections of the second half systematically undo. Consider the important declaration at Satires 1.123– 25, already encountered in chapter 2: audaci quicumque afflate Cratino iratum Eupolidem praegrandi cum sene palles, aspice et haec, si forte aliquid decoctius audis. Whoever you are who feel bold Cratinus’ inspiration and grow pale as you hear angry Eupolis and the great old man, look at my lines too, in case you can hear anything more boiled-down.

As Bramble (1974, 138– 39) points out, these lines, with their positive imagery of pallor, inspiration, and grandeur, come after Persius’ prior use of similar terminology to describe, in negative terms, the grandiose recitation of the bad poet: “Derogatory motifs from the earlier part of the poem are here redefined, applied to virtues instead of vices: adflate refers to true inspiration, not to the panging of an oversized lung, line 14 . . . ; praegrandi describes real greatness, not the false bombast of grande aliquid, line 14, or res grandes, line 68; palles is now applied to the

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virtuous whiteness of study, not exhausting sexual exertions, line 29.” To these observations one might add that similar language is scattered throughout the Satires: in 5.62, pallor characterizes Cornutus himself, who stays up all night with his philosophical texts (positive valence), while in 3.44 pallor is once again the sign of internal vice and, at 3.94 and 96, the cast of the man who dies in the baths; the pallor-inducing Pirene is abjured in the Prologue (4), while at 3.82 a hairy centurion mocks paleness as the sign of Stoic dedication.12 Persius makes sure to use the verb pallere for all of these usages, characterizing an unhealthy consumption of what is wrong, or a strict self-application to what is right.13 Pallere, of course, is just one verb, and one whose status as metaphor is weak. So let us return to Persius’ other metaphors from satires 1 and 5, the powerful evocations of meat, indigestion, and disease along with their positively charged corollaries in vegetables, healthy innards, and medical treatments. As we remarked, in those poems the cannibal feast was Persius’ response to the model of well-jointed corporality which Horace had left him in the Ars poetica. Persius’ own programmatic language introduced unpleasant joinings, unconnected body parts, and flesh as food, all images to characterize his depiction of the pandering and pandered-to poets. Indigestion was linked to the consumption of such foul meats/verse; against the effects of dyspepsia, a panoply of medicines were set into action, all figured as parallel to Persius’ own poetry and own Stoic goals. Meanwhile, in satires 4 and 5, a further set of programmatic metaphors set off Persius’ teacher Cornutus and his relationship with Persius from Socrates and his relationship with his eromenoi: the solid ring of noncounterfeit coin, the molding of the soul, the contrast between pretty skin and the depths of the psyche. Throughout, such common philosophical metaphors as the body or flesh as a diseased container for the soul (e.g., Sat. 3.21– 24), the contrast of surface with depth and value (e.g., Sat. 5.24– 25), the complete lack of value in gold and seemingly precious things (e.g., Sat. 2.51– 60) played their role in structuring Persius’ satiric-figural framework. But, as Bramble shows with just a few well-picked lines, there are cracks in this large metaphorical edifice. Above all, the idealizing, vegetarian, and sexless tale of Persius’ relationship with Cornutus turns out 12. The figure of the ignorant centurion returns at the end of satire 5 (5.176– 77), where, as Anderson (1966, 410) writes, “Just as the poets pray for a hundred mouths by which to utter their grandiloquent nonsense, so now Pulfenius pretends to consider buying the doctrine of Persius, if it is also multiplied and expressed by a hundred mouths.” See also Hooley (1997) 119– 21. 13. The Horatian intertext, AP 429, has poets becoming pale over bad poetry— and evokes no other pallor. But cf. the pallor of inspiration at Ep. 1.3.10.

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to have troubling Thyestean overtones, relying on sacrificial language and echoing swatches of Seneca’s Thyestes (and perhaps the other, lost Latin Thyestes dramas) in a way that recalls the poetic anathema of satires 1 and 5: people as meat.14 Indeed, as we read of Persius’ training with Cornutus and the strong father-son bond they share, it is difficult not to think of other, less happy tales of fathers and children (Sat. 5.21– 25). secrete loquimur. tibi nunc hortante Camena excutienda damus praecordia, quantaque nostrae pars tua sit, Cornute, animae, tibi, dulcis amice, ostendisse iuuat. pulsa dinoscere cautus quid solidum crepet et pictae tectoria linguae. We speak in private. At Camena’s instance now I give my heart/entrails [praecordia] for your inspection and am pleased to show how large a portion of my soul is yours, Cornutus, sweet friend. Tap it. Your skill distinguishes a solid resonance from the tongue’s painted stucco.

Praecordia is an unusual choice of word for the poetic expression of one’s soul, since it usually refers to the heart or the intestines in the context of the sacrifice of animals, and the subsequent extispicy of their organs. But there is Horatian precedent (Sat. 1.4.89) and a handful of other examples,15 so we can continue to read without (yet) being troubled (Sat. 5.26– 29): hic ego centenas ausim deposcere fauces, ut, quantum mihi te sinuoso in pectore fixi uoce traham pura, totumque hoc uerba resignent, quod latet arcana non enarrabile fibra. It’s here I’d dare demand one hundred throats to express in purest speech as much of you as I have planted 14. The question of temporal priority is impossible to answer, but if we agree with the general dating of the tragedies to the 50s and early 60s CE, it would seem likely that Persius is using Seneca as his intertext rather than vice versa. On the dating of the tragedies, see Fitch (1981) on sense-pauses. The combined consensus, including the evidence of Tac. Ann. 14.52.3, seems to be that the tragedies were written up to 62 CE, with the Thyestes being a later rather than earlier composition. 15. See Kissel (1990) ad 1.117.

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inside my tortuous breast, unsealing verbally all that inarticulately lurks in secret fibers.

Persius remarks that he’d like those hundred throats after all, so that he can tell Cornutus all the unspeakable stuff that lurks in his, Persius’, intestines— his fibra. Now fibra is not used metaphorically in extant Latin to refer to human organs; the word once again refers to animal innards used in sacrificial offerings.16 There is one lone parallel in Seneca’s Thyestes, published at most a few years before Persius penned the Satires. In that drama, Atreus, having killed off Thyestes’ children in preparation for the feast, conducts an extispicy of their organs as if he were a seer: “He handles their guts and inspects the fates / and remarks on the still-warm veins of their innards” (at ille fibras tractat ac fata inspicit / et adhuc calentes uiscerum uenas notat,” 757– 58).17 Atreus’ usage of fibra, then, is bad enough— treating children like sacrificial animals— but Persius’ is outright bizarre, since fibra here is a metaphor for affection brought in after the references to Atreus and Thyestes in the first lines of the satire.18 The same word fibra earlier in Persius’ own corpus (Sat. 2.26) refers to the guts of a sacrificial cow. If we are now unsettled at Persius’ self-representation as sacrificial meat, the remaining language in this passage offers no comfort. When Persius tells Cornutus that a great part of himself is actually Cornutus’ (“quantaque nostrae / pars tua sit, Cornute, animae”), he enacts a macabre parallel to Thyestes’ consumed children at Thyestes 977, where Atreus plays games with the postprandial Thyestes by telling him his children are “in his embrace.” And now we can see that Persius’ whole tutelage under Cornutus is described in terms that evoke damage done to the human body (5.30– 44): Cum primum pauido custos mihi purpura cessit bullaque succinctis Laribus donata pependit, cum blandi comites totaque inpune Subura permisit sparsisse oculos iam candidus umbo . . . me tibi supposui. teneros tu suscipis annos Socratico, Cornute, sinu. tum fallere sollers apposita intortos extendit regula mores 16. As it does in poetic precedents: Tib. 2.1.26, “nuntia fibra”; Prop. 4.1.103 “fibra locuta.” Horace never uses the word. 17. On the sacrificial overtones of this passage, see Schiesaro (2003) 93– 94. 18. When Horace delicately touched upon Thyestes’ meal in the AP 186– 87, his term for it was the far less marked word exta. Cf. “Praecordia vocamus uno nomine exta in homine,” Plin. NH 30.5.14.

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et premitur ratione animus uincique laborat artificemque tuo ducit sub pollice uultum. tecum etenim longos memini consumere soles et tecum primas epulis decerpere noctes. unum opus et requiem pariter disponimus ambo atque uerecunda laxamus seria mensa. When first my timid self dismissed the guardian purple and hung the bulla up in gift to girdled Lares, when flattering friends and fresh white toga gave me leave to scatter my eyes over the Subura with impunity, . . . I submitted to you. You take up my tender years, Cornutus, in your Socratic breast. Then unawares the skillful rule, applied, straightens my crooked ways, my spirit, under reason’s pressure, strives to be conquered and by your thumb is molded into artistic shape. With you, yes, I remember spending the long suns and enjoying / tearing apart night’s first hours in splendid meals with you. Together both, we arrange our work and rest as one, relaxing at a modest dinner our seriousness.

First Persius scatters his eyes around the Subura, and then he lodges himself in Cornutus’ chest, the very place where, in Seneca’s drama, Thyestes’ children take up residence once their father has consumed them; in an eerie line, Thyestes is said to hear a groaning from his pectus that is not his own.19 And the sequence finally ends with another mensa, not the one that Atreus served, but one that Cornutus and Persius share, or should one rather say, one that they rip apart, decerpere. This verb too figures in Seneca’s description of the dismembered children, who are discerpta before they bubble in the bronze cauldron.20 It seems that the entire episode in which Persius describes his Stoic tutelage under Cornutus is shot through with metaphors that recall the story of Atreus and Thyestes, itself a metaphor for the kind of poetry Persius (as a good Stoic?) will never deign to write. In his subject matter, Persius talks about the values of a Stoic education. But in figurative terms, the satire that Persius writes as a corrective to bad tragic drama is 19. Cf. Sen. Thy. 1000– 1001: “Sentio impatiens onus? meumque gemitu non meo pectus gemit.” 20. As the Fury orders, Thy. 60– 63: “Ignibus iam subditis, / spument aena, membra per partes eant / discerpta, patrios polluat sanguis focos, / epulae instruantur— non noui sceleris tibi / conuiua uenies.”

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the same story all over again: a young man is dismembered and provides a hearty meal for a father figure. In this particular case, it is especially problematic because Atreus and Thyestes are famous emblems of the anti-Stoic, the men whose desires and passions turn them respectively into a monster and a victim. If the philosopher Seneca wrote a Thyestes in the first place, it is at least arguable that he did so to show the failure of the Stoic viewpoint in a weak proficiens (Thyestes) whose endorsement of poverty crumbled with the possibility of a return to the throne. Satire 2 plays exactly the same game with its readers. After citing examples of the ignorant prayers offered up by people who hope for rich inheritances or upward mobility, Persius moves on to mock the farmers who sacrifice all their livestock while idiotically asking for more livestock (2.44– 49): rem struere exoptas caeso boue Mercuriumque accersis fibra: “da fortunare Penatis, da pecus et gregibus fetum.” quo, pessime, pacto, tot tibi cum in flamma iunicum omenta liquescant? Et tamen hic extis et opimo uincere ferto intendit. You hope to build up your wealth by slaughtering your oxen, and you summon Mercury with the entrails: “Let my Penates prosper, grant me cattle and offspring for my herds.” How can they, you wretch, when the fat of so many of your bullocks are melting in the flames? And yet the man keeps trying to win his goal with guts and rich puddings.

Here the meaty entrails offered to the gods not only instantiate the paradox of using up what you hope to gain, but also (as we have seen) seem to give Jupiter constipation (2.43) and certainly play into the insistent contrast between negatively charged flesh and positively charged vegetarianism that pervades the Satires. In fact, so deluded are these human souls that they have come to resemble that which they sacrifice (2.61– 63): o curuae in terris animae et caelestium inanis, quid iuuat hoc, templis nostros immittere mores et bona dis ex hac scelerata ducere pulpa?21 21. Pulpa usually means animal flesh; see OLD s.v. 1c and Lewis and Short s.v., both of which list Persius’ use of the transfigured sense as its earliest instantiation.

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O souls bent to the earth and empty of the divine! What’s the use of imposing our own habits onto the temples and deducing what the gods find good from this wicked flesh?

In contrast, in the closing lines of the poem Persius offers his own practice as the model for what one should request from, and offer to, the gods. To replace the “pulmone et lactibus unctis” “lungs and greasy tripe” (2.30) with which other men seek to propitiate the gods,22 he offers up his own pure soul and the inward recesses of his mind (2.73– 74): compositum ius fasque animo sanctosque recessus mentis et incoctum generoso pectus honesto. haec cedo ut admoueam templis et farre litabo. Law and righteousness blended in the soul, and the holy recesses of the mind, and a heart cooked in noble honor. Give me these to take them to the temples, and I will win favor with grain.

On the one hand, Persius’ offering of far (faro, or emmer, a wheat-like grain) points back again to the philosophical grain-stuffs with which the satires have associated themselves; Nicholas Purcell (2005) points out that far in particular had archaic and health-giving associations for the Romans. And we might even add that Persius’ “cooked” (incoctum) chest represents a praiseworthy contrast to the “uncooked” or “unbaked” earthenware that characterizes the unwise soul at Satires 3.20 (“non cocta fidelia”). But on the other hand, we run once again into the same carnal confusion which Gowers (1993, 82) has described perfectly: as she writes, “Even Persius’ recipe for salvation uses unsettlingly culinary metaphors: A blend of ius (justice/sauce) and integrity, the recesses of the mind untainted and a heart stewed in honor.” Everard Flintoff (1982, 352) is blunter: “Meat himself, he turns everything around him into meat.”23 Persius here cooks some guts as effectively as any of the despised poets of satires 1 and 5. More disturbingly, he uses a violent and unprecedented metaphor to turn himself into meat 22. These greasy lungs (pulmone) that clog up Jupiter belong, in satire 1, to the human reciter of bad poetry, while in Sat. 5.92 their usage is figural and seems to stand for animus: Persius wants “to pull old grandmothers” (i.e., old wives’ tales, mistaken beliefs) out of his addressee’s lungs. 23. Henderson (1991) 137 refers to “Persius’ policing with his rasp of warped words the boundaries and surfaces of the Self as a bodily network of tainted orifices, perferous skin, so many plates of meat.”

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as well. As Diana Moser has well put it, “While expounding the inanity of appeasing the gods with animal sacrifice, Persius uses a metaphor that draws an equation between the human body and the animal/gastronomic world.”24 Enough of meat? Let us turn to other metaphors. To return to satire 5 briefly, the contrast there between the eroticism of Socratic pedagogy versus the pure internalization of the Stoic teacher runs into difficulty in the midst of Persius’ description (Sat. 5.36– 37), where— if we are aware of the Greek philosophical context of Symposium 219b, that is, the naked Alcibiades in Socrates’ arms— the conjunction of the phrases “me tibi supposui” (suppono commonly meaning to set one animal under another for the purpose of breeding) and “teneros . . . annos” (i.e., before the growth of facial hair) seems unfortunate.25 Is Persius so safe from Cornutus’ advances after all? In the first satire, by contrast, a pun on the latter’s name deliberately contradicts his idealized internalization by the poet: when Persius announces (Sat. 1.47) “neque enim mihi fibra cornea est” (“my innards are not made of horn/of Cornutus,” it’s hard not to reflect on the fact that cornutus, the past participle, is all but synonymous with “corneus,” made of horn.26 The presence of fibra here becomes doubly charged if we recall Persius’ praise of his internal Cornutus as “quod latet arcana non enarrabile fibra” at Satires 5.29. Is Persius meat or vegetable, victim or student? Does he let Cornutus inside him willingly, or not? The laughing centurion of satire 3 picks up the game. Announcing that he knows what is truly satis, he mocks the philosophers and lawgivers as hopelessly detached from society (3.78– 83):27 Quod satis est, sapio mihi. non ego curo esse quod Arcesilas aerumnosique Solones obstipo capite et figentes lumine terram, murmura cum secum et rabiosa silentia rodunt atque exporrecto trutinantur uerba labello, aegroti ueteris meditantes somnia . . . 24. Graduate student paper, Persius seminar, University of Chicago, 2006. 25. As Hooley (1997) 82n41 remarks, this language is “not so subtly physical.” Of the satire’s depiction of affection as a whole, he notes: “In Satire 5 Persius uses love, seemingly paradoxically, as an image of hopeless addiction in one passage, and, in another, as a metaphor for the imperfect revelation of some secret, inexpressible, identity” (240). 26. And horns are themselves sinuosus, of course. 27. On these lines, see Hooley (1997) 218– 21. On the question of the satis/satura pun in Horace, see Dufallo (2000); Gowers (1993) 126, 129; Hubbard (1981).

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I know what smacks of “enough” for me. I don’t care to be like those Arcesilases and wretched Solons with their heads bent forward, fixing their eyes on the ground, gnawing their murmurs and mad-dog silences within, weighing out their words on lips extended like a balance beam, mulling over the dreams of some sick old man.

Just one satire earlier, at Satires 2.61, it was not the philosophers but those devoid of any philosophy whom the satirist derided as “bent toward the ground” (“O curvae in terris animae”), while, as we saw, the careful weighing out of right and wrong on the balance was what Socrates wanted to teach Alcibiades (but failed to, Sat. 4.10– 12). The sickly dreams have made an earlier appearance as well. We saw them in Horace’s Ars poetica 6, where the “aegri somnia” were a metaphor for the painting of the man-horse-fish, itself a figural representation of the body-poem out of joint, this in turn the perverted model of what Persius’ fellow poets are producing. And Persius, too, has used the word aeger or its cognates to describe those unhealed by philosophy both before and after our centurion breaks in, at Satires 3.63 and 3.88 (and also at 5.129). It seems the centurion has learned Persius’ language and his imagery, putting them to good use to undermine their ethical intent. As he ends his mocking riposte, he points out that the only response the philosopher will get from the crowd is a whole lot of snickering (cachinnos, 3.87). It is too bad that these snickers were originally those of Persius, directed against his audience, the ass-eared populace he derides in satire 1: “sed sum petulanti splene— cachinno” (1.12).28 Who has the last cackle? These examples of metaphorical or terminological instability can be multiplied at some length. Even Persius’ medical terminology is not exempt from the fractures in its seemingly smooth-jointed surface. It is peculiar, for example, that when the burly audience members of satire 1 have their innards “tickled” (a pleasurable sensation) by the entry of corrupt verses into their posterior (“tunc neque more probo uideas nec uoce serena / ingentis trepidare Titos, cum carmina lumbum / intrant et tremulo scalpuntur ubi intima uersu,” 1.19– 21), this tickling is represented by a verb that in all its other attestations for humans and animals refers to an unpleasant scraping or carving action, often medical in nature,29 and 28. Consider also “Hoc ridere meum” at 1.22 vs. other laughter at 3.86– 87, 5.189, and see Henderson (1991) 139. 29. Cf. Pliny NH 32.17.6, 37.53.1, 37.64.3, 37.200.6; Juv. 10.195; Mart. 3.93.23; Suet. Dom. 16.2.2; Columella, De re rustica 7.5.6.2; and scalpel, scalpellus. The closest the verb comes to Persius’ usage is single usages in Calvus, Seneca, and Juvenal to indicate scratching the head with a single finger.

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synonymous with the programmatic term radere. Why distort the verb to describe wriggling deviants enjoying sexual penetration? Compositus offers us another example: Persius uses this past participle three times, once to describe his offering to the gods of “ius compositum,” once to describe healthy circulation (Sat. 3.91, a medical term; cf. Celsus De med. 3.4.16), and once to characterize a corpse carried out for burial— of a man dead from indigestion (3.104). Even decoctus is not safe. It is not so much that we encounter decoquit at Satires 5.57 in the common sense of “to go bankrupt”; it is that decoctus itself is used in other medical and rhetorical intertexts to refer to that which is dulcis, sweet. Cicero in the De oratore advises the orator to use pleasant and ornate language, but this should be an austere sort of pleasantness (“suavitatem . . . austeram”) and not the overly sweet and decoctus kind.30 David Mankin in his 2011 edition of De oratore 3 (ad loc.), points to boiled-down wine as the reference here. Aulus Gellius (Noctes atticae 10.11. pr. 3) uses the same term of overripe apples, on the verge of decay.31 Probably of greater significance, the very medical remedies we considered in Pliny’s Natural History and Celsus’ De medicina themselves often use decocted honey as the major ingredient in their boiled-down potions (about one hundred instances), and Pliny at least several times recommend this decocted honey as a cure for stomach ailments specifically.32 The point is that Persius’ readers cannot not have had knowledge of this common remedy even as the satirist associated decocta with everything that was bitter, scraping, and medicinal. Many of Persius’ metaphors, then, openly contradict each other, as if to show up figural language as unreliable rather than as a helpful pathway to wisdom. Accordingly, it is difficult to “save” these metaphors for philosophy.33 Other readers besides Bramble have noted that the Satires as a whole seem self-contradictory; John Henderson (1991, 141) remarks that “Persius’ Satires problematise the categories they evoke. This is what they do; they are this.” Hooley (1997, 221) narrows the problem down to linguistic usage specifically: as he sees it, Persius’ contrariness reminds us that language itself is context-driven. Speaking of satire 3, he writes, “Tersely put, it is an assertion of the boundedness of words to context and perspective, a statement of their fundamental contingency.” And he 30. “Ita sit nobis igitur ornatus et suavis orator— nec tamen potest aliter esse— ut suavitatem habeat austeram et solidam, non dulcem atque decoctam,” De or. 3.26.103. 31. Much of Gowers (1994) contrasts the precocious with the over-ripe as a characteristic feature of Nero’s regime. 32. See, e.g., NH 20.15.1– 2, 20.251.5– 6, 20.260.3, 22.113.3– 4, 23.102.3, 23.102.4, 23.102.5, 23.115.2– 5, 24.146.2– 4. 33. Now we see why Freudenburg (2001, 137) refers to “the constant suturing we have to do to keep Persius from falling apart.”

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adds to this observation the difficulty of finding any stable ground in this medley of voices and perspectives (1997, 222): “As the reader follows along there is in mind a natural and countervailing hope for the cool distance of assured prospect (Horatian irony or Persianic Stoicism or something) from which to watch, disinterestedly, the diatribe go through its scathing, other-directed paces. It is just this purchase that Persius refuses us. We know of course that the young man is the initial focus of criticism, but both he and the censorious comes quickly lose definition.” Indeed. I would amplify by adding that this is not particular to any Persianic satire, but a feature of the whole; and it applies most strikingly not to any Persianic language, but to his figures. It is precisely because his figures carry so powerful a force that their confusion leaves us, in turn, confused.

2. Shins and Arrows Persius’ metaphors are confusing not only because they undermine their figural basis. They present us with an additional problem in that they corroborate our sense of the satiric narrator as an entirely un-Stoic voice. Whether we wish to see him as one persona throughout the satires, or as a less stable voice now taking on the role of the pedagogue, now of the student, and now of others still, there is no getting away from the fact that often we must ascribe to him sentiments couched in jarring and insulting figures. This is particularly glaring in satire 4, whether he is to be understood as only one or all of the irascible “philosophical” gossipers in that piece. Political ambition, miserliness, the cultivation of the exterior at the expense of the interior, gourmandizing, sexual deviance, avarice, the “nailing” of vices, basking in the praise of others— all are traits attacked by the mutual critical voices of the satire, all of which in turn sound very much like each other, and very much like Persius himself. As Hooley (1997, 131) pertinently observes, “It is difficult, at least problematic, for a satirist to satirize a gossip who exercises the customary language and topics of satire. And Freudenburg (2001, 193) adds, “The difficulty is doubled when the gossip-mongers happen to sound so much like Persius himself.” And sometimes these speakers are Persius himself. At the end of the satire, for example, there is no question that it is the narrator who tells us (or tells the failed Alcibiades, still too eager for popular acclaim) that we are no Stoics “if you pale at the sight of money, you scoundrel, or if you do whatever comes into your— dick” (“viso si palles, improbe, nummo, / si facis, in penem quiquid tibi venit,” Sat 4.47– 48). Dessen sums up our satiric persona well (1996, 8): “The private personality of this “satirist” is much more disturbing [than that of prior satirists]. He claims to describe the world as it is but actually

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distorts it greatly, and although he says he despises evil, the vigor and passion of his descriptions betray a morbid fascination with perversity. Furthermore, in attacking those who are enslaved to their emotions he often loses control of his own.”34 In short, Persius is just as abusive, irascible, and obsessed with the themes of money, food, and sexuality as any other speaker in the Satires. This observation is generalizable to the body of the Satires as a whole: either the speakers are the poet’s persona, or they sound like him. Consider the angry intervention of the interlocutor in satire 3: “You’re still snoring, your drooping head is yawning off yesterday’s excess, your jointure’s undone, your jaws unhinged on all sides” (“stertis adhuc laxumque caput compage soluta / oscitat hesternum dissutis undique malis,” Sat. 3.58– 59). Here the person who reviles the lazy student deliberately brings in the Persianic metaphors of unjointedness and of frameworks falling apart at the seams in order to damn the effects of drink and the unregulated life, letting insult and metaphor work hand in hand. And what are we to make of the narrator’s attack on “our” vanity that is phrased in the language of the straining reciter of satire 1 (oversized lungs), or of the cannibalistic actor of satire 5 (panting bellows) or of the gouty twig-fingers of the sick man still later in satire 5, when he asks: “Is it appropriate to burst your lungs with air, because you are the thousandth branch on a Tuscan lineage?” (“an deceat pulmone rumpere ventis, / stemmate quod Tusco ramum millesime ducis?” Sat. 3.27– 28). There is no getting away from it: the language of criticism used in the body of the Satires and the mutual criticisms of its interlocutors rely on the vocabulary and conceits used by our “Stoic” poet in person. We have to ask: is this really a Stoic? Would Seneca speak thus to Lucilius? The Satires, as we have had cause to remark, are a classroom in which the protagonists never have a gentle Horatian chuckle for each other. Instead they engage in cruel attacks on others, often using these metaphors, while exposing themselves to similar violence. The most cogent expression of this ongoing mutuality of attack is that of satire 4 (4.42– 43). Caedimus inque uicem praebemus crura sagittis. uiuitur hoc pacto, sic nouimus. We wound each other and in turn expose our shins to the arrows. This is how we live, this is what we know. 34. On Persius’ vitriolic persona, see, e.g., Anderson (1966), Relihan (1989), Braund (1996a) chap. 2.

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Now, in attacking other people’s vulnerable shins with their arrows, the critics who speak the satirist’s language may think they have taken on the heroic responsibility of felling an Achilles, a worthwhile foe whose defeat reflects favorably upon their own bravery in taking him on. But they do not realize that their actions are not heroic, and their victims are not epic giants. Instead, everyone hides the wound in their groin, doesn’t see the wound in any one else’s groin, and fails to reach any other human being in an effective way, simply missing the target over and over again, discharging their shafts at each other while remaining blind to their own faults. As far as the violence of the mutual attack, perhaps one might defend the technique by saying that tough times call for tough measures; strict chastisement calls for shooting arrows, not offering treats, and pain is an effective deterrent. But a suggestive, if playful, contrast is offered in Lucian’s much later dialogue Nigrinus, in which another way of talking about arrows once again suggests that Persius’ shooting model has little to recommend it. In this dialogue, Lucian tells the story of his visit to the Platonic philosopher Nigrinus and his (Lucius’) subsequent transformation for the better. As he describes Nigrinus, the philosopher is a master archer, for his arrows not only wounded Lucius but also gave him pleasure: and this, he says, is the goal and nature of an accurate and well-aimed philosophical protreptic. As life goes on, many archers take aim thereat; and every man’s quiver is full of subtle and varied arguments, but not every man shoots aright. Some draw the bow too tight, and let fly with undue violence. These hit the true direction, but their shafts do not lodge in the mark; their impetus carries them right through the soul, and they pass on their way, leaving only a gaping wound behind them. Others make the contrary mistake: their bows are too slack, and their shafts never reach their destination; as often as not their force is spent at half distance, and they drop to earth. Or if they reach the mark, they do but graze its surface; there can be no deep wound, where the archer lacks strength. But a good marksman, a Nigrinus, begins with a careful examination of the mark, in case it should be particularly soft— or again too hard; for there are marks which will take no impression from an arrow. Satisfied on this point, he dips his shaft, not in the poisons of Scythia or Crete, but in a certain ointment of his own, which is sweet in flavour and gentle in operation; then, without more ado, he lets fly. The shaft speeds with well-judged swiftness, cleaves the mark right through, and remains lodged in it; and the drug works its way through every part. (Nigr. 36– 37, tr. H. W. Fowler)

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Here Lucretian honey and Persianic arrows come to meet: Nigrinus is pointing out that pleasure and instruction can reside as it were in the same wound of philosophy, if only the archer shoots well; indeed, Lucian’s character in the dialogue professes himself full of both angst and joy as his outlook on life is changed for the better.35 To be sure, Nigrinus’ solution of bringing honey and pain together in the teaching of philosophy was in antiquity more often judged a fraught and self-contradictory process than a viable procedure. The difficult question of how to effect persuasion without a pleasurable element goes far back in protreptic’s long history, but for our purposes we may note the cluster of attestations to this concern in the first centuries CE.36 Despite the precedents of the Horatian cake bribe and Lucretian honey, most teachers of philosophy seem to have come down clearly against the production of pleasure in their audiences, finding it an insidious distraction; as Michael Trapp (2008, 121) puts it, there was “a per vasive anxiety among first- and second-century authors and thinkers concerned with the communication of philosophy: a concern that the improving message of philosophy is at risk of being consciously or unconsciously side-stepped and blunted by evasive strategies of listening on the part of audiences.” Indeed, Nigrinus’ facility with honeyed bows and arrows may be meant to be funny: in the end Trapp argues that Lucian’s essay represents a satiric response to the question of how to hear philosophy without a view to enjoying the pleasures of good prose. As such, the essay might suggest that philosophy is hog-tied by its own prescriptions, for one cannot reach an audience without any honey, and attempts to do so (like Persius’!) must be doomed. To many ancient thinkers, however— even if Lucian did not believe there were many besides his Nigrinus— it seemed evident that philosophical protreptic could not and should not be merely harsh and negative without including, at the very least, the picture of a goal to strive for. This was usually represented not only in the negatives of the nonphilosophical life so vividly pictured in Persius, but also in the positives that followed upon the acceptance of philosophy’s precepts, so that a mixture of both positive inducements and negative injunctions were considered 35. As Trapp writes, comparing the passage to Lucretius’ lines on the honeyed cup (see “Honey and Arrows” p. 4, readable at http://kcl.academia.edu/MichaelTrapp), “The parallel is not in fact all that close. . . . The mechanics of the interplay between the sweet and the biting are different in the two cases: whereas Lucretius envisages the sweet element as a cover for the active, bitter agent, in Lucian’s construction the active agent is simultaneously biting and sweet.” 36. E.g., Musonius in Aulus Rufus NA 5.1; Epictetus Disc. 3.23.27– 32; Seneca Ep. 108.5– 7.

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to be necessary elements of any individual essay or dialogue. Thus Sextus Empiricus tells us that Aristo of Chios felt that the good protreptikon was “an account that makes its hearers friends of virtue and strangers to wickedness, while denigrating the many attractive mis-directions in between” ( Jordan 1986, 316, on Sextus Empiricus Adv. math. 7.12). Stobaeus, reporting on Eudorus of Alexandria, mentions both the positive elements of the protreptic and the account of what should be avoided, the paramuthetikos or pathologikos ( Jordan 1986, 316); Philo of Larissa specified likewise that protreptics to philosophy should employ some form of suasio showing the advantages of conversion, to provide “an urging toward virtue”; he continues to speak about how both medicine and philosophy speak of health and happiness.37 Seneca’s entire corpus attests to this practice; for example, his protreptic Epistle 90, which comments on a lost protreptic of Posidonius, is no mere rant against bad habits, but evokes the happiness of the philosophical life. We have come no closer, then, to understanding Persius’ sustained negativity. Even if we wished to read him as merely giving us one half of the story of how to change ourselves in his metaphors, we would be troubled by the fact that his metaphors do not bother to be internally coherent. If we wanted to accept his irascibility as part of a perhaps Cyniclike attack on us, we would have difficulty explaining why we should not expect instead a more Stoic attitude from a narrator who self-identifies as a vegetarian philosopher-student chatting nicely with Cornutus. And we accordingly have a difficult time interpreting the Satires as a protreptic to virtue when there is no honey on his arrows at all. The satirist’s selfenactment as irascible, sharp-tongued, and ready to deploy the same language as he criticizes in his victims hardly meshes with other examples of philosophical protreptic we have to hand. It is one thing to admit one is still on the road to wisdom, as Seneca often does; it is quite another to rail like a nut, as we might feel characterizes the first-person voice that opens satire 3. Indeed, that voice is self-avowedly “braying” and full of bile (“turgescit uitrea bilis / findor, ut Arcadiae pecuaria rudere credas,” 3.8– 9)— and this from the man who criticizes asses’ ears? Not 37. Stobaeus Anthol. 2.7.2, Wachsmuth 39.20– 41.25; cited in Jordan (1986) 316– 17. As Jordan says (320), “The whole argument [of protreptic], from beginning to end, plays upon the given question, how to get what one wants.” The Westminster Dictionary of New Testament and Early Christian Literature (s.v. protreptic) tells us: “The positive arguments emphasize the fact that philosophy is the only road to happiness by (1) making a comparison with other goods, (2) defining philosophy and the tasks included, (3) establishing its connections with other arts and sciences, (4) demonstrating that philosophy derives from the true nature of humanity, and (5) ultimately affirming philosophy by the divinization of the philosophers.”

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surprisingly, just as satire itself is an oxymoronic medium for a discourse against mixed foodstuffs and rich stuffmeats, so too Persius’ trumpeted stance that “all who criticize the vices of others lack self-knowledge” is manifestly self-destructive, a kind of Cretan liar’s paradox along the lines of “everyone who generalizes is stupid.” We are left, it seems, in an untenable position.38

3. The Return of the Cannibal It is time to return to Persius’ master metaphor of the cannibal poet, the man who turns poetry into meat and thereby ends up taking in what he himself is made of. In chapter 1, I suggested that the satirist uses the imagery of cannibalism as the ultimate boundary in a text that leans on metaphors of digestion; disgusting and psychologically nauseating, cannibalism is an overdetermined cause of indigestion, a consumption of humans by humans that (even when they are unknowing, like Thyestes) causes the stomach to violently reject what it has eaten. As such, it suggests that the consumption of bad poetry (as in satires 1 and 5) is likewise indigestible, causing an indigestion of the soul: like eating or hearing what is too rich or smooth, eating or hearing what is crudus (raw) only leads to the response of being crudus (dyspeptic). Earlier in this chapter, we saw, however, that the taint of cannibalism seems to be everywhere in the Satires, staining Persius’ vegetarian metaphors, polluting his pure offerings to the gods, and spreading an unsavory patina over the general body of the Satires. This insistence on metaphors of anthropophagy, both to cause repulsion and, ultimately, to unsettle us about what Persius means to do, suggests that a further look at ancient cannibalism might be in order. I have proposed that in introducing the theme of cannibalism in the first place, Persius relies on the visceral reaction to a taboo that was as strongly held in antiquity as in the present. Cannibals play a role in some of the earliest works of the Greek tradition, and the distinction between anthropophagic and nonanthropophagic societies was often treated as the defining line between civilization and barbarity, as an ultimate de38. To some degree, a self-contradictory stance is generic in the very satiric (or at least Lucilian/Persianic) project of being a harsh critic of other’s morals. Kernan (1959) is good at pointing out the tensions between the moral judgments passed by the narrator’s public persona while his private persona (Kernan’s terms) is marked by aggression and sensationalism. As Kernan notes, the satirist insists on truth, but exaggerates it; hates vice but is marked by it; is violent despite a show of moral probity; and is both self-righteous and cruel to his victims.

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terminant of otherness.39 Homer’s Cyclops in Odyssey 9, isolated, extracultural, a savage both in the manner and the content of his meals, which are torn apart and consumed raw,40 has scattered epigones (as it were) in Herodotus’ Histories,41 in Hesiod’s Works and Days (267ff.), in Strabo, and elsewhere, always embodied by such liminal people as the Scythians42 and Massagetae,43 and duly characterized as violating all human sanction. In these texts and elsewhere, cannibalism elicited expressions of authorial disgust, as it has done to this day— disgust in the sense of “an emotion that polices the boundary between people and some aspect of their own animality (waste products, decay) that they wish to repudiate or keep at a distance” (Nussbaum 2009, 107).44 At the same time, anthropophagic practices were not unknown in Greco-Roman culture itself, leading to still more expressions of revulsion and condemnation. Galen, for example, complains of Xenocrates (a first-century CE physician of Cilicia) that he made use of disgusting medical remedies, including human brains, organs, and excrement,45 while Pliny the Elder notes with horror that Roman epileptics think it medically useful to drink the blood of slaughtered gladiators (NH 28.4).46 Pliny’s outrage over this does not stop him from launching into a list of 39. The dividing line between the two extremes of vegetarianism and cannibalism is not always so clear, as Vidal-Naquet (1978, 138– 39) points out; Plato may call the age of Cronos a time when cannibalism was unknown, but other parts of the tradition about primitive ages suggested cannibal practices. See also McVay (2000). 40. For some representative scholarship on the cannibal Cyclops, see VidalNaquet (1986) 18ff., Longo (1983), Buchan (2001). 41. E.g., Histories 1.216, 3.99, 4.26, 4.106. Scythophiles will be pleased to hear that Murphy and Mallory (2000) argue, based on Scythian-era digs at Aymyrlyg, that this is a misunderstanding of actual Scythian funerary practices. 42. See also Arist. Pol. 8.3.4, Pomponius Mela, Chronographia 2.1.2, Pliny the Elder NH 7.9– 10. 43. Halm-Tisserant has argued (1993, 12) that the logic of Greek myth equated human beings’ “existential status” to their “régime alimentaire”: “Consume only nectar and ambrosia, enjoy the smell from cooked sacrificial meat, and you are a god. Sacrifice to the gods, eating your share of roast and boiled meat, and you are human properly located between beasts and gods.” 44. In support, see Kaster (2001) 158– 59 on the fastidium of eating human flesh in Latin texts. Describing one meaning of the term as the instinctive revulsion one feels at a contaminant, he cites the Croton episode in Petronius’ Satyricon as well as Ovid Ibis 427– 48, and [Quint.] Decl. 12.2. More generally, see Miller (1997), who also links disgust to the boundaries between one’s humanity and some aspect of one’s animality. 45. Cf. Gal. De simplic. medicam. temper. ac facult. 10.1 = Kühn 12.248– 49. 46. See Leigh (1996) 176– 77.

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unpalatable corpse remedies recommended (apparently) by contemporary Greek doctors and duly consumed by their patients (NH 28.2.4– 5): Alii medullas crurum quaerunt et cerebrum infantium. nec pauci apud Graecos singulorum viscerum membrorumque etiam sapores dixere, omnia persecuti ad resigmina unguium, quasi vero sanitas videri possit feram ex homine fieri morboque dignum in ipsa medicina. Others try to obtain the leg marrow and brain matter of babies. Not a few among the Greeks even talk about the flavors of individual organs and limbs, going into details right down to the nail parings, as if sanity in truth could be thought to be becoming a beast instead of a man and deserving of death in the very remedy!

Some Hippocratic medical texts similarly prescribe “pollutant therapy” for various ailments: that is, the use of “the polluted blood of violence, menstrual blood, and ‘corpse-food’ to fight impurity or disease” (Sugg 2011, 11). Paradoxically enough, the fact that medical uses of corpses existed already in antiquity47 means that even here Persius’ forceful binaries must crumble a bit; it seems there were those who believed that the human body, consumed in small amounts, would be more curative than legumes and the various decocta.48 Nonetheless, we are probably on safe ground if we suggest that the metaphors of flesh consumption that run like warty veins through the corpus of the Satires provoke, at least on one level, distaste in their readers. 47. Medical cannibalism is a subset of cultural endocannibalism in general. Washington (2012, 48) writes of this, “The magic of literal cannibalism involves the belief that by the ingestion of body parts, properties were passed from one human to another, or from human to god and vice versa. . . . Cannibalism was believed by many groups to be able to transfer traits or power from the consumed to the consumer. These abilities could be physical or metaphysical. An enemy who had fought bravely before being vanquished was partly consumed so that the eater would absorb those positive qualities. For example the legs of a swift runner were eaten to increase speed, his heart to increase bravery and courage, his arms to facilitate spear throwing or bow-man-ship etcetera. However the most common example of the transference of powers attributed to cannibalism is in relation to those believed to be witches. Witches consumed human flesh to increase their own powers by absorption.” 48. This is not an isolated conceit. English doctors of the Renaissance and Early Modern periods prescribed “mummy” (dried strips of meat taken from corpses) for their patients. On this fascinating topic see Noble (2011) and Sugg (2011). Apparently many Europeans, especially those of high status or privileged positions, routinely engaged in medical cannibalism even as their cultures decried anthropophagy in newly discovered areas of the world. For a history of cannibalism in European intellectual history, see Avramescu (2009).

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Juvenal’s fifteenth satire offers us not only further hysterical expressions of distaste, but also an entry into philosophical views of the practice.49 In his passionate disquisition on the foulness of Egyptian religion and social mores (Sat. 15.11– 13), the satirist refers to a recent incident of “mob crime” that purportedly set him off: the news that an entire tribe of Egyptians (the Ombi) had carried out an act worse than one might find in any tragic plot. Having routed in battle the neighboring people of Tentyra, they pursued the defeated survivors until one of them unfortunately slipped (Sat. 15.77– 83) labitur hic quidam nimia formidine cursum praecipitans capiturque. ast illum in plurima sectum frusta et particulas, ut multis mortuus unus sufficeret, totum corrosis ossibus edit uictrix turba, nec ardenti decoxit aeno aut ueribus, longum usque adeo tardumque putauit expectare focos, contenta cadauere crudo. Here one of them, going too fast due to great terror, slips, and is captured. And the triumphant crowd eats him, all of him, cut up into many morsels and pieces and even his bones gnawed upon, so that one dead man could be enough for a multitude. They didn’t cook him in a blazing pot or on skewers, and they thought it too slow and time-consuming to wait for the oven: they were happy with raw corpse meat.

For Juvenal, these Omboi are actually beyond the common liminal groups: “No dread Cimbrians or Britons, no savage Scythians or monstrous Agathyrsians, ever raged so furiously as this unwarlike and worthless rabble” (15.124– 6, tr. G. G. Ramsay)— even as he comically portrays 49. Juvenal’s angry persona in this satire is a vexed issue; on this see Anderson (1988), and McKim (1986); Singleton (1983) defends Juvenal against charges of depravity. I am most in agreement with the conclusion of Keane (2007) 71, who suggests that as a dramatic monologue the satire ends up implying that “civilization and barbarism are pretty much on a par.” As she puts it earlier (2007, 48), “In Satire 15, far from serving as a refuge for troubled souls, philosophy fails to comfort even one of its most famous spokesmen. . . . Juvenal illustrates the failure of philosophy itself by leaving us with the image of Pythagoras’ shocked, directionless flight. This satiric experiment in philosophy defeats the very heroes of its model text: the sapientes.” On Petronius and cannibalism, see Rankin (1971) 100– 101, a section entitled “Eating People Is Right.”

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them as sharing their feast as politely as a group of Homeric heroes. In contrast, the satirist notes, one can’t blame the Spanish tribes who prolonged their lives by eating humans during desperate sieges, the Vascones and Saguntines (Sat. 15.93– 114).50 Nonetheless, they could have benefited, Juvenal says, from the Stoic Zeno’s teaching (Sat. 15.104– 5). His meaning is not entirely clear; an excised line in the text suggest that the lesson is that human life should not be prolonged under all circumstances.51 In the context of a rebuke to the Vascones and others, this makes perfect sense. But there is perhaps more to Stoic teachings on cannibalism than the lesson that some outcomes are worse than death— and if so, this must impact Persius’ choice of imagery. The best-known ancient philosophical viewpoint on both cannibalism and incest is undoubtedly that of Plato, whose analysis of the tyrant soul in the Republic notoriously draws a connection between uncontrolled passions and the appetite for human flesh. Book 9 of the Republic uses the cultural taboo against incest and cannibalism to figure the uncontrolled desires and crimes of the tyrannic soul (571c– d, tr. F. M. Cornford):52 The beastly and savage part, replete with food and wine, gambols and, repelling sleep, endeavors to sally forth and satisfy its own instincts. You are aware that in such case there is nothing it will not venture to undertake as being released from all sense of shame and all reason. It does not shrink from attempting to lie with a mother in fancy or with anyone else, man, god or brute. It is ready for any foul deed of blood; it abstains from no food, and, in a word, falls short of no extreme of folly and shamelessness.53

As Brian Hook has pointed out (2005, 22), “When asked what the desires of the tyrannical soul are, Socrates answers with examples that 50. The Vascones (at Calagurris in 72 BCE) ate human flesh after a prolonged siege by Metellus, while the Saguntines (in 219 BCE) were reduced to the same necessity by Hannibal. 51. For discussion, see Keane (2007) 43. The line, which reads “nec enim Omnia quidam / pro vita facienda putant,” was excised by J. V. Francke in the early nineteenth century and is bracketed in Clausen’s Oxford edition. 52. See Hook (2005) 22 for discussion. Cannibalism is treated as parallel to incest in Plato’s Rep. 8.565d– 566a. 53. “οἶσθ᾽ ὅτι πάντα ἐν τῷ τοιούτῳ τολμᾷ ποιεῖν, ὡς ἀπὸ πάσης λελυμένον τε καὶ ἀπηλλαγμένον αἰσχύνης καὶ φρονήσεως. μητρί τε γὰρ ἐπιχειρεῖν μείγνυσθαι, ὡς οἴεται, οὐδὲν ὀκνεῖ, ἄλλῳ τε ὁτῳοῦν ἀνθρώπων καὶ θεῶν καὶ θηρίων, μιαιφονεῖν τε ὁτιοῦν, βρώματός τε ἀπέχεσθαι μηδενός: καὶ ἑνὶ λόγῳ οὔτε ἀνοίας οὐδὲν ἐλλείπει οὔτ᾽ ἀναισχυντίας.”

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are specifically drawn from the tragic stage: the appetitive part of the tyrant’s soul, while the other parts sleep, attempts sex with its mother (and with anything else), pollutes itself with murder, and refrains from no food.” Similarly, at Republic 10.619b– c, the soul that receives first choice of lot chooses the greatest tyranny, not noticing that “part of the fate of his lot was the eating of his own children” (tr. Cornford). Tyranny and child eating? This sounds like none other than Thyestes, and indeed Hook goes on to argue persuasively that Plato’s philosophical attention to the actions of mythological figures such as Thyestes and Oedipus is precisely because these figures can be read Socratically “as examples of souls out of control, ungoverned by self-knowledge and reason” (2005, 26). Given Plato’s interest in cannibalism and incest as illustrative cases for the unregulated soul, it is perhaps less surprising to find that cannibalism and incest also play a part in early Stoic teachings, as well as those of Diogenes the Cynic.54 But in a striking contrast to Plato’s treatment in his Republic, a broad collection of texts and testimonia attest that the early Stoics were willing to sanction the two unspeakable extremes of cannibalism and incest.55 Diogenes Laertius (7.188 = SVF 3.744) reports of Chrysippus that “in his Republic he permits marriage with mothers and daughters and sons. He says the same in his work On Things for Their Own Sake Not Desirable, right at the outset. In the third book of his treatise On Justice, at about line 1000, he permits eating of the corpses of the dead” (tr. R. D. Hicks).56 In the Lives of Diogenes Laertius 7.121 (= SVF 3.747) we read a similar statement about Zeno and Chrysippus both, but with an important qualification: they say that the wise man “will even eat human flesh in a crisis” (“γεύσεσθαί τε καὶ ἀνθρωπίνων σαρκῶν κατὰ περίστασιν”; my translation and emphasis). This new information is repeated, but this time in the context of cannibalism’s partner, incest, in the Christian source Origen (Contra Celsum 4.45 = SVF 3.743), who defends the biblical story of Lot and his daughters by recourse to the early Stoics. 54. Diogenes wrote now lost plays titled Atreus, Oedipus, and Thyestes (cf. Diog. Laert. 6.73, Dio Chrys. 10.29, Phil. De Stoicis 16.29– 17.4, apparently to show the arbitrariness of human convention. 55. For the collection of sources, from antiquity to early Christianity, see SVF 1.254– 56 and 3.743– 56. 56. “ἐν δὲ τῷ Περὶ πολιτείας καὶ μητράσι λέγει συνέρχεσθαι καὶ θυγατράσι καὶ υἱοῖς: τὰ δ᾽ αὐτά φησι καὶ ἐν τῷ Περὶ τῶν μὴ δι᾽ ἑαυτὰ αἱρετῶν εὐθὺς ἐν ἀρχῇ. ἐν δὲ τῷ τρίτῳ Περὶ δικαίου κατὰ τοὺς χιλίους στίχους καὶ τοὺς ἀποθανόντας κατεσθίειν κελεύων.” Other sources, such as Philodemus’ De Stoicis 16.20– 25 and Theophilus SVF 1.254 likewise show that Zeno justified cannibalism in his Republic.

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The nature of actions— good, bad, and indifferent— has been investigated by the Greeks; and the more successful of such investigators lay down the principle that intention alone gives to actions the character of good or bad, and that all things which are done without a purpose are, strictly speaking, indifferent; that when the intention is directed to a becoming end, it is praiseworthy; when the reverse, it is censurable. They have said, accordingly, in the section relating to” things indifferent,” that, strictly speaking, for a man to have sexual intercourse with his daughters is a thing indifferent, although such a thing ought not to take place in established communities. And for the sake of hypothesis, in order to show that such an act belongs to the class of things indifferent, they have assumed the case of a wise man being left with an only daughter, the entire human race besides having perished; and they put the question whether the father can fitly have intercourse with his daughter, in order, agreeably to the supposition, to prevent the extermination of mankind. Is this to be accounted sound reasoning among the Greeks, and to be commended by the influential sect of the Stoics, [but not by us]? (Tr. Rev. Frederick Crombie)

Origen’s emphasis on the nature of actions as being dependent on intentionality is one way to eliminate the anthropophagic tabo, but his citation of the Stoics on his side once again offers a context in which to understand their teaching. Finally, there is the interesting possibility that the Stoics made their comments about cannibalism as a consolation for those who had actually had to do these things, lest they feel emotionally disturbed by it. Lactantius tells us that the Stoics do not advise that we not bury our parents, but they do tell us we should not consider ourselves wretched if we cannot (“ut si forte id sapienti eveniat, ne se ob hoc miserum putet,” SVF 3.752 = Div. instit. 6.12). Some modern views have given credence to the more hostile of the sources, which report that the Stoics not only sanctioned cannibalism but recommended it. For example, Sextus Empiricus (Adv. math. 11.192– 94 = SVF 3.745, 748) gives us the deprecatory report that an example of their piety towards the departed would be their recommendations about cannibalism; for they think it right to eat not only the dead, but also their own flesh, if some part of their body should ever happen to be cut off. And the following is said by Chrysippus in his On Justice: “And if some part of our limbs is cut off which is useful for food, do not bury it or otherwise dispose of it, but consume it, so that from our own parts another part may come into being.” And in his On What Is Proper, in discussing the burial of one’s parents, he says

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explicitly . . . : If their flesh is useful as food, people will use it, like their own parts as well— for example, when a foot is cut off, it is incumbent on one to use it, and similar things. (Tr. Richard Betts)

This report and variants on it (such as the injunction to eat your parents when fresh) are echoed in other texts, some of which go so far as to say the Stoics bid us to eat people who refuse to eat people (SVF 1.254 = Theophilus Ad Autol. 3.5)!57 Paul Vander Waerdt and Brian Hook both argue sensibly that even the hostile accounts reflect an underlying truth: not that the early Stoics encouraged the consumption of one’s friends and parents, but that these reports reflect their use of incest and cannibalism “as test-cases of moral prohibitions that might be thought to apply without exception. . . . Thus he does not advocate incest or cannibalism but merely insists that they do not constitute immutable moral prohibitions” (1994, 300– 301).58 Harking back to the Platonic intertexts, we can follow Hook in taking this argument one step further. If Plato used the examples of Thyestes and Oedipus to exemplify the furthest depravities of the soul ruled purely by appetites, then the Stoics’ rebuttal that the wise man could engage in cannibalism and incest without horror or disgust if the circumstances called for it was precisely the response of one philosophical school to another. That is, as Hook argues (2005, 39), “because Plato used the actions of cannibalism and incest to describe his view of a particular cast of soul, the Stoics chose these very actions to distance themselves from Plato’s psychology, as well as from his political philosophy.” Only the wise man could do these things with justice, and with a soul that remained as much in control of its parts (so to speak; the Stoics did not believe in a tripartite soul) as those considered to be wise and well balanced in the Platonic model. So rational would be the sage’s outlook 57. See the recent best seller, People Who Eat People and the People Who Eat Them. On a more serious note, cf. Epiphanius Adv. haeres. 3.39 = SVF 3.746 (about the Stoics’ unholy laws, including incest and cannibalism); Plutarch De esu carnium 2.3 997e = SVF 3.749 (“Consider which of the philosophers better civilize us, those who tell us to eat our children and friends and fathers and wives after their death, or Pythagoras and Empedocles who accustom us to be just toward other species too?”); Theophilus Apology to Autolycus 3.5 (“What is your opinion of the precepts of Zeno, and Diogenes, and Cleanthes, which their books contain, inculcating the eating of human flesh: that fathers be cooked and eaten by their own children; and that if any one refuse or reject a part of this infamous food, he himself be devoured who will not eat?” [tr. Rev. Marcus Dods]). 58. Thus like Vander Waerdt and Hook, I do not follow Daraki (1982), who gives credence to hostile sources claiming that the Stoics taught that the dead should be eaten rather than buried.

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on the world of human laws and customs that he could recognize that there was nothing inherently evil about eating a piece of human flesh; the act was, in fact, an indifferent.59 It seems, then, that for the early Stoics, being able to override basic societal taboos functioned as an extreme proof or test case of the Stoic ability to look at the world in rational rather than emotive terms— one could say, to put mind over matter.60 Eat some human flesh without gagging, and you had mastered a view of the world that was supremely rational. (Presumably you would be able to act with the same detachment if circumstances dictated that you had to have sex with a parent or child).61 And if the views of Zeno and Chrysippus seem too remote from those of a satirist (albeit Stoic) writing in the first century CE to have had any impact or influence, we cannot say the same of Persius’ own contemporaries. For it was not only the early Stoics who treated cannibalism as a potential litmus test for the serenity of the Stoic sage. We find corroboration of their views in Seneca and his own discourses upon cases of cannibalism, deliberate or unwitting. In the third book of De ira, for example, the philosopher decries anger’s tragic results and repeats the Stoic mantra, “There is no surer proof of greatness than not being disturbed by anything that can happen” (“Nullum est argumentum magnitudinis certius quam nihil posse quo instigeris accidere,” 3.6.2). Later in the same book he offers us the story of Harpagus as an educational instance of someone— and not even a Stoic— showing precisely such self-control. When the king of the Persians avenged a perceived slight by secretly feeding Harpagus his own children’s flesh, he ordered the heads of the children to be brought out after dinner so that Harpagus could learn what he had done. Looking at these heads, and realizing what he had done, Harpagus was able to reply: “At the king’s table, every meal is delightful” (3.15.1). The motto of the story seems to be: if 59. To quote Bett (2000, 208): “It follows from Stoic views about the good, the bad, and the indifferent that incest and cannibalism will be indifferent (see PH 1.160 for Chrysippus’ admission of this in the case of incest).” 60. See Diog. Laert. 7.121, SVF 3.745– 46 (on Zeno), and SVF 3.743– 53 on Chrysippus. Lévi-Strauss (1981, 141) sees cannibalism as an alimentary form of incest. 61. And certainly the Roman Stoic fondness for the praemeditatio malorum, the advance reflection on the possibility of some disaster coming your way, was geared specifically toward developing so rational a view of such misfortunes that they could not shake you if they befell you; included among the topics of meditation were, of course, death and dismemberment. For example, in De prov. 3.5 Seneca meditates on death by different body parts, all graphically described, but all in the service of making death not fearful. See, e.g., Cic. Tusc. 3.28– 31; Sen. Ad Marc. 9.1– 11.5; Ad Polyb. 11.1; Ep. 63.15, 76.33– 35, and discussions in Newman (1989), ArmisenMarchetti (2008).

The Self-Consuming Satirist

207

Harpagus could respond so calmly (whatever his internal state), how much the more must the Stoic sage be able to face even cannibalism with equanimity? Seneca also puts on display an unsuccessful Thyestes-type, who laments what he is being forced to eat and finds it a great tragedy. He is evidently a man without the requisite Stoic detachment from indifferents (who cares what meat this is?). The philosopher, completely unsympathetic to his distress, censures the victim and not the criminal, calling him insane (demens): Dicam  . . . et illi cuius dominus liberorum uisceribus patres saturat: “quid gemis, demens? quid expectas ut te aut hostis aliquis per exitium gentis tuae uindicet aut rex a longinquo potens aduolet? quocumque respexeris, ibi malorum finis est. vides illum praecipitem locum? illac ad libertatem descenditur. vides illud mare, illud flumen, illum puteum? libertas illic in imo sedet.” I would say to the man who whose despot stuffs [saturat] fathers with the guts of their children, “Why are you groaning, madman? Why are you waiting for some enemy to avenge you by the destruction of your nation, or for a powerful king to fly to your help from far away? Wherever you look, there is the end to your troubles. Do you see that steep place? That path descends to liberty. Do you see that sea, that river, that well? Liberty is sitting at the bottom there.” (De ira 3.15.4)

For this man, Seneca does not even bother to praise an otherworldly detachment: he is insane in the same way that all non-Stoics are. The point is simply that the man’s sense of victimhood belies the truth of the fact that freedom lies but a precipice, a river, a well away; death is as much an indifferent as the consumption of human flesh. If real cannibalism should not ruffle the sage’s feathers, all the more, one might imagine, should metaphors of cannibalism leave him cold. And indeed our text is full of metaphors of cannibalism to show us that we are precisely not Stoic sages— just like the figures in the Satires themselves. Persius, then, borrows from the tradition of the grotesque and cannibalizing treatment of the tyrannical soul in Platonic philosophy, first to show how little control over their selves the sick figures of his satires have; second in order to evoke Stoic theorizing about the ideal detachment of the sage; third to create distrust and distaste in us nonsages for the subject matter of his verse, not only the cannibalism but also the other manifestations of everything that is inherently disgusting or at least distasteful: reeking breath, obese corpses, semen, ulcers, sa-

208

Ch a p te r F i ve

liva, guts, mud, jaundice, gout, and drooping hairy genitalia, for starters. The satiric images of cannibalism stand as an exemplum of all Persius’ metaphors, unpleasant and repulsive as they are. Cannibalism is simply the ultimate case of disgust-provoking writing, of metaphors that violate classical prescriptions, of using taboos to get a rise. Persius’ metaphors are both inconsistent and repellant— and let us not forget the figuring of the Satires themselves as what comes out one end of our bodies, but should also be consumed at the other end. Surely this, too, is a repellant way to suggest the reader’s response to a purgative corpus? The next step we have to take in the face of these powerful and contradictory metaphors is, it seems, eph’hemin, up to us.

4. Mind over Matter When Lucretius allows metaphors into De rerum natura, he offers a concessive nod to the danger of his undertaking: the very same verb he uses for the honey touching the cup, contingere, is used for how humans contaminate the invisible atomic world with the qualities of the world of the senses— presumably using metaphor to do this as well.62 So it is that Lucretius “warns his readers not to taint (contingere) the insensible and insentient with the qualities of the sensuous world: proinde colore cave contingas semina rerum (2.755).”63 That Lucretius does this himself— that is, use synesthetic and anthropomorphizing metaphors— does not detract from his basic point: metaphors that treat the atomic world as somehow sentient or like human societies gravely distort the philosophical truths of Epicureanism. Persius’ approach is different, but not unrelated. We too are ideally not to contaminate a philosophical world— the rational, Stoic world— with our misguided images. Although this world can be made to look appealing, it is to be left behind in favor of reason and reason’s realities. Misguided humans, like those in Persius’ satires, place too much significance on the materiality of the world, fetishizing objects whose value is nothing. So Persius makes it, and his metaphors, both unreliable (to deter us from ascribing to them truth value) and 62. Snyder (1973) does not focus on this meaning. Clay (2003) links the verb to the sonority of Lucretius’ verse. For a brilliant discussion (and defense) of Lucretian metaphor, see chapter 9 of Clay (1998). For a sustained analysis, see Garani (2007). 63. (Clay 1998, 166). Some metaphorical error Lucretius can make room for, such as the personification of the elements, but on one condition: that they not be taken for gods. For Lucretius, contamination by the false superstition that is called religion, is, in the end, the worst of all these evils, and perhaps the greatest metaphorical misreading of them all. In animating the godless world, it leads humans into meaningless forms of ritual activity and instills in us a false fear of death.

The Self-Consuming Satirist

209

disgusting (to help us on our way out of the sensual world; to help us see it differently and withdraw from it). He is engaging in a practice that would be nicely illustrated by Marcus Aurelius in his own Meditations, where, reflecting on things that seem attractive to us— the purple togas, the fancy fish dishes, the naked lovers— he takes care to render them all most unappealing. Like seeing roasted meat and other dishes in front of you and suddenly realizing: This is a dead fish. A dead bird. A dead pig. Or that this noble vintage is grape juice, and the purple robes are sheep wool dyed with shellfish blood. Or making love— something rubbing against your penis, a brief seizure and a little cloudy liquid. (Med. 6.13.1, tr. Gregory Hays)64

Like Persius, Marcus Aurelius takes our positive predications and helps to replace them with negative ones. He is like Lucretius in reminding us that the object of our passion is never quite as desirable as our mind has made him or her or it, and that the best cure for the sensory world (being repelled will help us on our way) is to have no reaction to it at all, to understand it as a collection of indifferents. No more will we slobber after that which seems desirable than we will shudder at that which seems unspeakably vile. Here, at the end of our musings, it might be time to return to one more Persianic metaphor that we have already dwelled upon at some length— the one in which our satirist tells us explicitly what he is doing. When Persius quotes Cornutus praising Persius for being “iunctura callidus acri” (5.14), the meaning of callidus— wise from experience— might cause us to pause for a moment and think of the adjective’s ultimate derivation from calleo, to be hard or calloused; in the figurative sense, to be insensible to, or undisturbed by.65 If we are sufficiently callidus in one sense of the word, we have become desensitized to the sharp joining of unpleasant metaphors and shocking images; we have grown a callum, a hard outer skin that leaves us immune to such worldly problems. Seneca provides us with the perfect example of how this might work: the man whose exterior has become callous through suffering is essentially indomitable thereafter (De prov. 2.6): 64. “ὅτι νεκρὸς οὗτος ἰχθύος, οὗτος δὲ νεκρὸς ὄρνιθος ἢ χοίρου: καὶ πάλιν, ὅτι ὁ Φάλερνος χυλάριόν ἐστι σταφυλίου καὶ ἡ περιπόρφυρος τριχία προβατίου αἱματίῳ κόγχης δεδευμένα: καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν κατὰ τὴν συνουσίαν ἐντερίου παράτριψις καὶ μετά τινος σπασμοῦ μυξαρίου ἔκκρισις.” 65. I owe this fruitful observation and the idea of the calloused skin of the satirist to Kirk Freudenburg, to whom I offer grateful thanks.

210

Ch a p te r F i ve

Non fert ullum ictum inlaesa felicitas; at cui adsidua fuit cum incommodis suis rixa, callum per iniurias duxit nec ulli malo cedit, sed etiam si cecidit de genu pugnat. Unwounded happiness cannot withstand any blow; but a man who has had a constant struggle with his misfortunes becomes calloused through suffering and yields to no ill fortune; even if he falls, he fights on his knees.

A few prickings or scrapings with the sharp edge of Persius’ metaphors, and we might well be the more indomitable for it as well; less soft and tender-skinning, and more like Valor herself, who, as Seneca tells us, has calloused hands (VB 7.3). Where do Persius’ Satires finally leave us, then? They have taken us on a journey that reminds us that relying on metaphors to help us value what really matters is a useful procedure, but ultimately only a crutch.66 On this journey, we have seen that Persius’ anti-Perse is real, and as important as any other Persius, for in these writings, his overwhelmingly negative images are crucial participants in the outcome. These images have played their role in blending teaching with disgust and in dissuading us from sticking faithfully to our incorrect values. But they have also shown us that the emotive responses we attach to particulars through metaphors cannot be taken as a sign of those particulars’ philosophical meaning: interiority is not automatically better than exteriority, despite the conceit of “searching deep within”; meat is inconsistent as a shorthand for an attachment to the pleasures of the flesh; your neighbor’s pallor may betray his studiousness or his indigestion; having your teacher within may suggest he used the same path as the sodomitic verse of pork-bellied princelings; Persius’ own satires are either sewage in a ditch or the curative beet that will scrape us clean (or any one of a number of other alternatives); and so forth. Relying on the ethical valences of these metaphors is not a surefire way to proceed down the path to wisdom, for the Satires deliberately show us that appearances are not real, that human predication is inconsistent, that our judgments— good or bad— will wobble without the steadying guide of the rational Stoic perspective. Instead, the wise man— the sapiens— must ultimately leave behind these value-laden propositions, evincing no more of an emotional reaction to them than he would to the prospect of having to eat his kin. 66. The very word Seneca himself uses in Ep. 59.6 to describe how he employs metaphors to help his readers’ understanding; see Bartsch (2009).

The Self-Consuming Satirist

211

He must understand that the Satires themselves are a pharmakon in that (like hellebore) they can be taken rightly or wrongly; they can cure the disease by warning us off the experience of disgust and confusion, or they can kill the reader off altogether if he or she takes the dosage in the wrong way, looking for philosophical truth to the metaphors that point to the material world without understanding that they are bad for us even as they guide us; even as they can be both what you eat and what you ultimately eliminate. As a corollary, it is not enough to read the Satires. Having been through their dietetic regime, we must act on their aim to help us leave the material world behind by showing that it is inconsistent, unappetizing, false. We must recognize their own fleshy, literary, poetic mutability. And then we must put them down, readied for a world of stabler (and more Stoically informed) perceptions.67 As such, the Satires turn out to be not so much a pro-treptic (“Go do A, B, and C!”) but an apotreptic (“Stop doing this!”). In this pharmakon of a text, in which cure and disease must be so carefully pried apart, the images of poetry and the warnings of philosophy join forces to help us give up the life of vulgar appearances for the life of Stoic reality. First, we must leave behind the Satires, and with them our too too sullied flesh. The sage’s heights of equanimity await, where we will finally have reached the Stoic end goal of a lack of emotive reactions.68 If for Seneca, this can be the outcome 67. In taking this tack, Persius is perhaps not alone. Though no other contemporary text is as extreme in its message and methods as his, both Petronius’ Satyricon and Seneca’s Apocolocyntosis, those purported descendents of Menippean satire, can be read as aiming at a similar goal accomplished by similar means. Martha Nussbaum (2009) has recently argued that Seneca’s purpose in provoking the dark laughter of the Apocolocyntosis is to trigger readerly disgust for Claudius; this disgust in turn spurs a Stoic devaluation of external goods. And similarly Victoria Rimell notes of Petronius’ Satyricon that for its protagonists the senses of smell and taste, as guides for knowing, cannot be trusted; instead, “physical urges lead to misinterpretation, pain, and a demeaning loss of self-control” (2002, 11). 68. The sage, of course, may feel propatheiai (or in Latin, impetus)— involuntary and prerational movements of the soul that occur in response to certain stimuli; see Seneca Epistle 113.18 (= SVF 3.169) and De ira 2.2.1, where it is clear that the involuntary response precedes cognitive assent. So at De ira 2.2.1 he explains why it is we blush at dirty words, or feel revulsion at touching foul things: “Omnes enim motus qui non uoluntate nostra fiunt inuicti et ineuitabiles sunt, ut horror frigida adspersis, ad quosdam tactus aspernatio; ad peiores nuntios surriguntur pili et rubor ad inproba uerba suffunditur sequiturque uertigo praerupta cernentis: quorum quia nihil in nostra potestate est, nulla quominus fiant ratio persuadet.” On propatheiai in general, see Graver (2007) 85– 108. On propatheiai as a response to the depiction of certain things in literature, see Schiesaro (2003) 232.

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Ch a p te r F i ve

of a series of misfortunes, for Persius the process relies more on the digestion of his satires than the endurance of fate’s slings and arrows. You have read the Satires? Great. Now you know how to correctly value the material world— and how not to get drawn into it by either loving it or railing against it, but rather to leave it by pulling on the callum of the good Stoic and simply leaving the rest behind.

Appendix: Medical prescriptions of decocta for stomach ailments or other problems (A) In Pliny’s Natural History (drawn from H. Rackham, W. H. S. Jones, and D. E. Eichholz, trans., Pliny Natural History, 10 vols., Loeb Classical Library [Cambridge, 1938– 1962]) Section

Decocted substance

Relevant to stomach? Uses

12.16.32 13.2.16 13.22.72 13.32.110 13.47.131 14.3.17 14.11.80 14.12.86 14.19.109 14.23.119 14.24.121 14.25.126 15.7.27 (1949 Loeb) 15.8.34 (1949 Loeb) 15.9.36 (1949 Loeb) 16.22.54 (1949 Loeb) 16.23.60 (1949 Loeb)

Bark Plants resembling Indian nard Papyrus Lotus Cytisus Grapes Must Grapes Wormwood Vines Must Seawater Myrtle Lees of olive oil Pityis (pine) Pitch resin Pitch

Yes No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No

16.71.180 (1949 Loeb) 16.76.205 (1949 Loeb) 17.47.260 17.47.264 18.26.104 18.34.126 18.45.160 18.61.229 19.15.43 19.18.48 19.28.90 19.29.91

Elder tree berries Walnut and pear trees Lupines Lees of olive oil Flour Turnip Weasel or cat Wild poppy Silphium Rootlet Skirret Elecampane

No No No No No No No No Yes No No No

Cure for dysentery Used to make perfume Used to make chewing gum Used for food Used to enhance for breast milk Used to make wine Used to make wine Used to make wine Used to make wine Used for food Used for unspecified medicine Used to make wine Used to make oil Used to make oil Cure for cough Used to make distilled pitch Related to the process of obtaining pitch Used as food Used to make dye Used as fertilizer Repels caterpillars Used for food Used as bird food Repels mice Soothes the throat Acts as a purgative Used for food or perfume Used as food Used as food

214

A p p e ndi x

Section

Decocted substance

Relevant to stomach? Uses

19.54.171 19.58.179 20.4.9 20.4.9

Mustard Wormwood or houseleek Cucumber Cucumber

No No No No

20.8.14

Colocynthis

Yes

20.8.15

Yes

20.8.16

Colocynthis with decocted honey Colocynthis

20.9.18 20.11.21

Rape Bunion (a kind of turnip)

No No

20.13.23

Radish skins

No

20.13.24 20.13.26

Radishes Radishes

No Yes

20.14.29 20.19.38 20.22.49 20.23.53 20.23.54 20.27.70 20.28.72 20.30.74

Hibiscum Elecampane Leek skin Garlic Garlic Beet Wild beet Chicory

No Yes No No No No No Yes

20.30.74 20.30.74 20.33.81 20.33.82 20.33.82 20.34.87 20.35.90 20.36.95 20.42.109 20.43.110 20.43.110 20.43.111

Chicory Chicory Cabbage Cabbage Cabbage Cabbage Cabbage Cabbage Asparagus Wild asparagus Wild asparagus Wild asparagus

No No No Yes No No No No No No No No

20.43.111

Wild asparagus

No

No

Used as food Used to repel caterpillars Used to repel mice Used to relieve gout/disease of the joints Used as an enema for all bowelrelated complaints (Also good for kidneys, loins, paralysis) Benefits the stomach Used for toothache, to make teeth firm, and to relieve eye inflammation Used to cure gout Used to promote menstrual discharge and to purge the bladder Used to eliminate gallstones, and for snakebites Used to get rid of head lice Cure for intestinal hernia (draws off superfluous blood) Used to relieve gout Expels worms Used as hair dye Used for toothache Used for coughs Used to relieve chilblains Used as stain remover Loosens bowels, benefits liver, kidneys, stomach Used for painful urination Purges women of dead fetuses Benefits sinews and joints Cure for colic (tormina) Used prevent insomnia Used to cure gout Many uses Used to clean pots Used to cure elephantiasis Used as an aphrodisiac Used for snakebites Decreases harm of asparagus to bladder Used for toothache

Medical Prescriptions of Decocta

215

Section

Decocted substance

Relevant to stomach? Uses

20.44.112 20.44.115

Parsley Parsley

No No

20.46.117 20.46.117 20.49.126 20.50.128 20.51.133

Olusatrum/horse parsley Olusatrum/horse parsley Rocket seed Cress Rue

No No No No No

20.51.136

Rue

No

20.51.136 20.51.136

Rue Rue

No Yes

20.51.138 20.51.139 20.51.139 20.51.141 20.51.142 20.52.145 20.54.153 20.54.155 20.55.157

Rue Rue Rue Rue Rue Mentastrum Pennyroyal Pennyroyal Wild pennyroyal

No Yes No No No No Yes No No

20.56.158

Catmint

No

20.59.166

Caper

Yes

20.59.167 20.69.178

Caper Heraclium

No No

20.69.179

Heraclium

No

20.69.179 20.72.185 20.73.189

Heraclium Anise Anise

No No Yes

20.73.190

Anise

No

Good for the eyes Acts as diuretic, aids the menses and afterbirth, cures bruises Relieves painful urination Relieves back pain, expels stones Extracts broken bones Relieves chest pain Used to repel snakes and insects and relieve their bites Used in cases of dropsy, asthma, coughs, pains in the lungs, liver, kidneys, etc. Used to prevent hangover Cure for colic (Also for hemorrhage and nosebleeds) Used as a Cure for epilepsy Cure for colic (ileum) Used to stop spitting of blood Applied to swollen breasts Used as antiperspirant Used for multipede bites Cure for intestinal complaints Used to relieve snakebites Used to replace displaced uterus, and for insect and man bites Used to help menstruation and to disperse chills and alleviate heat Used to relieve toothache, earache. Also harmful to the stomach. Used to cure mouth sores Used to repel snakes, relieve snakebites, ruptures, itches, dropsy, etc. Used to neutralize the poison of opium and gypsum Used to cure parotid tumors Used for scorpion stings Cure for indigestion, stops vomiting (Also used to cure hiccups and stop sneezing, promote sleep, etc) Used for headache

216

A p p e ndi x

Section

Decocted substance

Relevant to stomach? Uses

20.73.192 20.76.202 20.77.204 20.79.208

Anise Poppy Poppy Poppy (Heraclium)

No No No Yes

20.81.211

Peplis

No

20.84.223 20.84.224 20.84.226 20.84.227

Mallow Mallow Mallow Mallow

No No No Yes

20.84.228 20.84.228

Mallow Mallow

No Yes

20.84.229 20.84.229 20.84.229 20.84.230

Mallow Mallow Mallow Mallow

Yes No No No

20.85.232

Sorrel

No

20.86.234

Sorrel

No

20.86.235 20.89.241 20.89.242 20.90.245 20.90.246

Sorrel Horehound (marrubium) Horehound (marrubium) Wild Thyme (serpyllum) Wild thyme (serpyllum)

Yes No No No No

20.92.249 20.92.251

Linseed Linseed

No No

20.92.251

Linseed

Yes

20.94.253

Spignel (meum)

Yes

20.96.256 20.96.257 20.96.257 20.98.260 20.99.263

Hippomarathum Hippomarathum Hippomarathum Fennel giant ( ferula) Thistles

No No No Yes Yes

Used for fatigue Used to cure insomnia Used to cure insomnia Used to induce vomiting, help epilepsy Used for toothache and sore tonsils Counteracts sea hare poisoning Cures dandruff and loose teeth Given to women in labor Cure for flatulence, colic (Also used for tetanus, stones, epilepsy) Cure for erysipelas Cure for intestinal pain (Also used for sinews, bladder, womb) Cure for loose bowels Removes superficial abscess Cure for cough Helps wounded men who have lost blood Good for the teeth and cure for jaundice Used for scrofula and parotid abscesses Cure for loose bowels Used for spitting blood Used to cure coughs Used for snake and insect bites Used for headache, phrenitis, lethargus Used for quinces Used to prevent sores from spreading Cure for stomach ache, or used as an enema Cures flatulence, colic (Also cures troubles in bladder, womb) Enhances breast milk Cleanses the kidneys Soothes the genitals Benefits the stomach Strengthens the stomach (Also creates thirst in drunkards)

Medical Prescriptions of Decocta

217

Section

Decocted substance

Relevant to stomach? Uses

21.17.31 21.48.82 21.56.95 21.67.107 21.71.119 21.72.120 21.74.126

Wild saffron Honeycombs Scolymus (thistle) Cypiros root Rush root Rush Lily

No No No No No No No

21.74.126 21.77.132

Lily Hazelwort

No No

21.80.136

Phu

No

21.83.144

Celtic nard root

Yes

21.84.145

Hulwort

No

21.84.145

Hulwort

No

21.85.148 21.86.150

Holochrysos Melissophyllum (balm)

No No

21.87.151

Melitot

Yes

21.87.151

Melitot

No

21.87.151

Melitot

No

21.88.152 21.88.152 21.89.156 21.92.160

Trefoil Trefoil Thyme Southernwood (habrotonum)

No No No No

21.93.163 21.94.166

Leucanthemum Anemone

Yes No

21.99.172 21.100.173

Vicapervica Butcher’s broom (ruscum)

No No

21.104.176

Parthenium

No

22.8.18

Erynge

No

Used for perfume Used to make vinegar Used for food Used for food Cure for cough Used for female complaints Used to remove corns on the feet and to stimulate hair growth Used to heal cuts in the sinews Relieves cramps, convulsions, asthma, and is good for women after miscarriage Relieves suffocation of the womb, chest or side pains Stops vomiting and strengthens the stomach Used to win glory (Musaeus and Hesiod) Used to cure dropsy and heal wounds Relieves pains in the womb Promotes menstruation, cures inflammations and sores Used for stomach ache (Also used for pains in the womb) Used for the testes and prolapsus of the anus Used to treat tumors called melicerides Used for snake and insect bites Described as poisonous Used to remove dead fetuses Good for sinews, cough, asthma, convulsions, ruptures, back pain Cure for colic Used to stop fluxes of the eyes and heal scars Used to dry tumors Used for complaints of the bladder Used to relieve inflammation of the womb Used as an antidote for aconite and other poisonings

218

A p p e ndi x

Section

Decocted substance

Relevant to stomach? Uses

22.11.25 22.13.28

Liquorice Stoebe

Yes Yes

22.21.46

White chamaeleon

Yes

22.21.46 22.21.47 22.23.49

White chamaeleon White chamaeleon Alkanet in decocted behen nut

Yes No Yes

22.23.49 22.29.58 22.29.59 22.29.59 22.29.61

Alkanet Heliotropium Heliotropium Heliotropium Heliotropium

No Yes No No No

22.30.62 22.30.64 22.30.65

Maidenhair Maidenhair Maidenhair

No Yes Yes

22.32.67 22.32.69 22.32.69 22.32.70

Asphodel Asphodel Asphodel Asphodel

No No No No

22.32.70

Asphodel

No

22.32.71

Asphodel

No

22.32.71 22.32.72

Asphodel Asphodel

No No

22.32.72 22.32.72 22.38.80 22.38.80

Asphodel Asphodel Scandix Scandix

No No Yes Yes

22.41.84

Sium

No

22.43.87 22.44.89 22.44.90

Scolymus (thistle) Sow thistle Sow thistle

No No No

Used as a suppository Cure for dysentery and hemorrhage injected into the bowels Expels intestinal parasites (Also cures dropsy, kills dogs, pigs, mice) Stops fluxes (of any kind) Tightens loose teeth Relieves biliousness (Also relieves fever, pains in the liver or spleen) Kills fleas Used as a laxative and a purge Used as mouthwash Used to cure gout Draws corrupt blood from the spine Used as hair dye Stops loose bowels Relieves biliousness (Also benefits asthma, liver, spleen, dropsy) Remedy for consumptives Stops fluxes of the eyes Good for an aching body Used to cure scrofulous swellings and sores on the face Remedy for chilblains and burns, deafness, toothache Used for parotid abscesses and scrofulous swellings Cure for chilblains Removes lichen, itch-scabs, leprous sores Removes kidney stones Promotes hair growth in animals Checks loose bowels Good for the stomach (Also good for the liver, kidneys, bladder) Good for the urine, kidneys, spleen, and for menstruation Used as deodorants Used to enhance breast milk Used for ear complaints

Medical Prescriptions of Decocta

219

Section

Decocted substance

Relevant to stomach? Uses

22.49.103

Laser

No

22.49.105 22.50.108 22.53.113 22.57.120 22.57.121 22.57.121 22.58.122

Laser Honey Honey Bran Wheat or barley chaff Olyra/arinca (wheat) Barley meal

No No No No No No No

22.58.125 22.60.127

Barley meal Flour of bolted meal

No Yes

22.61.128 22.61.129 22.63.131 22.64.132 22.65.134

Alica Alica Millet Sesame Barley

No No Yes No Yes

22.67.137 22.69.140

Starch Beans

No No

22.69.141

Beans

No

22.69.141 22.70.143

Bean husks Lentils

Yes No

22.70.144

Lentils

No

22.71.147 22.71.147

Wild lentil Wild lentil

No No

22.72.150 22.72.150 22.73.153 22.74.155 22.74.156

Wild chickpea Wild chickpea Bitter vetch Wild lupins Wild lupins

No No No Yes No

22.74.157

Wild lupins

No

22.75.160 22.80.162 23.9.13

Darnel Broom rape/dodder Grape stones

No No No

Remedy for growths around the anus Cure for sciatica and lumbago Cure for pneumonia and pleurisy Used to make wine Used as a throat gargle Used as a fomentation Used for babies and as a liniment Used to cure inflammation/ abscesses Used for scrofulous swellings Used for condyloma and complaints of the anus Unspecified benefits Cure for consumptive conditions Checks loose bowels Good for the eyes Used to make a suppository for ulcerations of the intestines (Also for the uterus) Removes moles Relieves swelling of the testicles and genital complaints Used for tumors, contusions, burns Checks loose bowels Heals sores of the mouth or genitals Relieves pustules, erysipelas, complaints of the breasts, scrofulous swellings Checks excess menstrual fluid Remedy for pruritus of the testicles Relieves gout Relieves agues Relieves chilblains and pruritus Expels worms Removes freckles, cures black eruptions and leprous sores Used as a diuretic, cures sick cattle and Relieves itch on all quadrupeds Relieves painful limbs Used for food Relieves itch scab and pruritus

220

A p p e ndi x

Section

Decocted substance

Relevant to stomach? Uses

23.10.14

Grape skins

Yes

23.14.19

Wild vine

Yes

23.16.21 23.16.23 23.30.62 23.31.64 23.33.68

Yes No No No No

23.34.69

Common bryony Common bryony Sapa Lees of wine Lees of concentrated grapejuice Lees of concentrated grapejuice Olive leaves

23.37.74 23.37.75

Lees of oil Lees of oil

No No

23.38.77 23.38.78 23.40.80 23.40.81 23.40.82 23.41.84 23.42.85 23.46.90 23.51.97 23.53.99

Wild-olive leaves Wild-olive leaves Oil of oenanthe Oil of oenanthe Oil of oenanthe Castor oil Almond oil Cyprus oil Dates Elate Palm

No No No Yes No No No No No No

23.53.99

Elate Palm

Yes

23.54.100

Apples

Yes

23.54.101 23.54.102 23.54.103

Apples Apples Apples

Yes Yes Yes

23.56.105 23.57.107 23.58.108

Citron Pomegranate Bitter pomegranate

No No No

23.58.109 23.59.111

Bitter pomegranate Cytinus

Yes No

23.33.68

No No

Cure for dysentery and coeliac complaints Evacuates watery humor in the belly Used as a laxative Removes skin blemishes Antidote to poisonous bites Relieves lichen, sores, ulcers Relieves coughs Used for tumors of the jaws and neck Used for inflammation of the gums, sores, checks bleeding from sinewy parts Unspecified benefits Extracts diseased teeth, heals itch scab in beasts of burden Benefits the eyes Reattaches skin to skull Antidote to various poisons Cures colic, expels worms Benefits the oil itself Relieves inflammations Good for the ears Good for burns and sprains Restores strength to invalids Remedy for diseases of the testicles Checks fluxes of the belly (Also fluxes of the uterus) Cure for dysentery, cholera, coeliac disease (Also for spitting of blood) Used for stomach ache Used for stomach ache Remedy for prolapsus of the intestines (Also of the uterus) Freshens breath Strengthens loose teeth Used for mouth, ears, nostrils, genitals, and to counteract sea hare poison Cure for colic Heals teeth and gums

Medical Prescriptions of Decocta

221

Section

Decocted substance

Relevant to stomach? Uses

23.60.113 23.62.115 23.62.115 23.62.116 23.63.122

Cytinus Pears Pears Pears Figs

Yes Yes No Yes Yes

23.64.128

Wild Figs (caprificus)

No

23.66.132

Plums

No

23.68.133

Wild plums

Yes

23.71.136 23.71.138 23.71.140 23.74.142 23.74.142 23.74.143 23.75.144 23.79.151 23.80.152 23.80.153

Mulberry Mulberry Mulberry Pine cones Pine bark Pine cones Bitter almonds Carobs Bay Bay

No No No No Yes Yes No Yes No No

23.80.156 23.80.157 23.81.162

Bay berries Bay leaves White myrtle

No No Yes

23.81.163 23.83.165

White myrtle Wild myrtle (oxymyrsine)

No No

24.2.6

Lotus wood

Yes

24.3.7 24.3.7 24.3.7

Acorn Acorn Acorn

Yes No Yes

24.5.9 24.7.13 24.18.27 24.19.28

Gallnuts Turkey oak Turpentine tree (terebinth) Pitch pine and larch leaves

Noyes No Yes No

Kills tapeworms Benefits the stomach Used for indurations Checks loose bowels Clears away “troubles at the anus” (Also relieves swelling of the jaw, boils, superficial abscesses, parotid swellings, female complaints, pleurisy, pneumonia) Disperses sores of the parotid glands Good for the tonsils, gums and uvula Checks loose bowels and cures colic Used as mouthwash Remedy for snakebites Remedy for burns Cure for spitting of blood Cure for colic Used to expel bile Clears the complexion Remedy for stomach Good for the uterus and bladder Used for coughs and chest complaints Remedy for scorpion stings Used as a gargle for the uvula Cure for dysentery (Also for dropsy) Removes pus from the ears Relieves pains in the kidneys and strangury Cure for dysentery (Also for irregular menstruation, epilepsy, giddiness) Cure for coeliac complaints Antidote for poisons Cure for dysentery (Also for snakebites) Good for the ears, eskin Strengthens paralyzed limbs Strengthens the stomach Good for toothache

222

A p p e ndi x

Section

Decocted substance

Relevant to stomach? Uses

24.20.29

Ground pine

No

24.21.31

Pityusa

Yes

24.21.31

Pityusa

Yes

24.23.39 24.27.41 24.28.42 24.28.42

Pitch Pitch pine Lentisk tree Lentisk tree

No No No No

24.28.42

Lentisk tree

Yes

24.28.43 24.29.44

Lentisk tree Plane tree

No No

24.32.47 24.33.48 24.33.49 24.34.50 24.35.51

White poplar leaves Elm sap Elm leaves Linden leaves Elder leaves

No No No No Yes

24.35.52

Elder root

No

24.35.53 24.36.55

Elder leaves Juniper

No Yes

24.37.58 24.38.62

Willow Agnus castus

No Yes

24.38.63 24.41.67 24.42.71– 72

Agnus castus Tamarisk Brya

No No No

24.42.73

Byra

No

24.47.76

Ivy

No

24.47.76

Ivy

No

Good for the kidneys and bladder, jaundice, strangury, difficulty urinating Purges bile and phlegm through the stool Cure for colic (Also for skin eruptions, breast complaints, snakebites) Remedy for scrofulous sores Used for toothache Used for creeping sores Strengthens loose teeth and dyes the hair Benefits the stomach (Also used for headache) Used to treat abrasions Used for suppurations, toothache, eyes Used for gout Used for wounds and burns Cure for tumors and pus Acts as diuretic Purges watery humors through the bowels Remedy for dropsy, softens the uterus Kills flies Cure for colic (Also for sprains, ruptures, uterine disorders, sciatica) Cure for gout Purges the bowels (Also used for headache and as a purge for the uterus, applied to boils and superficial abscesses) Used for lethargus and phrenitis Heals cancerous sores Used to soothe, cure for epinyctis, toothache, earache Good for jaundice, phthiriasis, nits, and Checks excessive menstruation Benefits the brain, relieves headache Remedy for shivers of ague and outbursts of phlegm

Medical Prescriptions of Decocta

223

Section

Decocted substance

Relevant to stomach? Uses

24.47.78 24.49.84 24.50.85

Ivy Clematis Reeds

No Yes No

24.54.92

Rhus

No

24.58.96 24.58.97 24.69.113 24.70.114

Radicula Radicula Erysisceptrum (shrub) Appendix (thorn)

No No Yes Yes

24.71.115

Paliurus (thorn)

Yes

24.72.116

Holly

No

24.73.119

Brambles

No

24.73.119 24.73.120

Brambles Brambles

No No

24.74.122

Cynosbatos (bramble)

Yes

24.76.124

Rhamnos (bramble)

No

24.79.129

Yes

24.80.131 24.82.133 24.87.137

Quinces, pomegranates, sorb apples, sumach, saffron Chamaedrys (ground oak) Chamelaea (ground olive) Clinopodium

24.92.144

Dracunculus/aron

Yes

24.92.146 24.93.150 24.94.151 24.100.157 24.102.165

Dracunculus/aron Dracontium Aris Minyas Helianthes, lion’s fat, saffron, palm wine Grass

No No No No No

24.118.179

No Yes No

No

Heals ulcers Loosens the bowels Acts as a diuretic, emmenagogue, cures scurf and running sores Used as ear drops, mouthwash, and for dropsical swellings Cures jaundice and chest troubles Disperses superficial abscesses Checks loose bowels Checks loose bowels and cures colic Checks loose bowels (Also neutralizes the poison of snakes) Extracts objects from flesh, used for dislocations and swellings Remedy for complaints of the uvula Strengthens loose teeth Relieves sores of the mouth and anus Checks loose bowels (Also checks hemorrhage, is used to make mouthwash, and relieves sores of the anus and genitals) Makes a drug called lycium, makes an ointment Makes oporice, used to treat dysentery and stomach troubles Cure for dropsy Purges the bowels Used for sprains, ruptures, strangury, snakebites Used for ulcerated stomach and bowels Remedy for cough Remedy for snakebites Remedy for corroding ulcers Remedy for snakebites Gives the body a pleasing appearance Used to close cuts, remedy for toothache, eye fluxes

224

A p p e ndi x

Section

Decocted substance

Relevant to stomach? Uses

24.118.180

Grass root

Yes

24.118.181 24.120.184 24.120.185

Grass Fenugreek Fenugreek

No No No

24.120.186 24.120.187

Fenugreek Fenugreek

No Yes

24.120.187 24.120.188

Fenugreek Fenugreek

No No

24.120.188 24.120.188

Fenugreek Fenugreek

No No

25.18.29

Linozostis

No

25.18.41

Linozostis

Yes

25.30.67 25.42.82 25.50.90 25.55.100 25.58.104 25.67.115 25.70.118 25.83.133 25.89.139 25.94.148 25.94.149 25.105.165 25.105.166 25.105.166 25.105.166 25.107.170 25.107.170 26.10.21 26.10.22 26.11.23 26.15.29 26.17.31

Centaury Buphthalmus Chelidonia Teucria, sideritis, or scordotis Personata Cyclamen Peucedanum Hellebore Hellebore Mandrake Mandrake Plantain Vervain Cinquefoil Verbascum Ephemeron Chelidonia or hellebore Fig tree or hibiscus root Tithymallus Hyssop Hyssop, rue, and figs Hyssop, honey, verbascum, and rue

No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No

Cure for colic (Also for strangury and sores of the bladder) Remedy for bladder pain Relieves complaints of the uterus Relieves complaints of the spleen, liver Relieves complaints of the uterus Remedy for ulcerated intestines (Also for ulcerated uterus) Used for deodorant Remedy for genitals, abscesses, gout, parotid tumors, flesh receding from bone) Relieves complaints of the spleen Remedy for ulceration of the chest and for chronic cough Given to pregnant women to control the sex of their babies Loosens the bowels and acts as a purge through the bowels (Also for strangury and bladder troubles) Cures diseases of sheep Used as food Remedy for dimness of vision Remedy for snakebites Remedy for snakebites Remedy for snakebites Remedy for snakebites Removes dandruff Relieves headache Medicine for the eyes Medicine for the eyes Remedy for the teeth Remedy for the teeth Remedy for the teeth Remedy for the teeth Remedy for the teeth Remedy for the teeth Cure for lichen Cure for lichen Cure for quinsy Cure for cough Cure for cough, pains in the side and chest

Medical Prescriptions of Decocta

225

Section

Decocted substance

Relevant to stomach? Uses

26.25.41

Plantain

Yes

26.28.44 26.28.45 26.34.53 26.34.54

Scordotis Acorn Cinquefoil or aristolochia Hyssop

Yes Yes Yes Yes

26.38.61 26.39.64

Scamonium Tithymallus

No Yes

26.48.75 26.48.76

No No

26.49.79 26.49.80 26.50.83

Agaric Hyssop, lonchitis root, or peucedanum root Cinquefoil Acorn Crethmos

26.55.87 26.56.88 26.58.90 26.58.90 26.58.91 26.60.93 26.64.100 26.64.101 26.66.105 26.66.105 26.66.106

Vervain or perpressa Wild apple Aristolochia Scammony Acoron Scammony Cyclamen Vervain Mandrake Amomon or centunculus Cyclamen

No No No No No No No No No No No

26.68.110 26.73.120 26.75.122

Plantain Vervain Verbascum

No No No

26.76.124 26.78.126 26.79.127 26.80.129 26.83.132 26.85.137

Linozostis Centaury in decocted honey Cinquefoil or acoron root Arctium leaves Equisaetum Gentian root or symphytum root Taminian grapes Centaury Gentian root Tithymallus

No No No No No No

26.86.138 26.87.140 26.87.140 26.87.146

No No Yes

No No No No

Cures distaste for food and indigestion Checks loose bowels Cure for tenesmus Cure for dysentery Expels intestinal worms and phlegm Cure for leprous sores Acts as a purgative (Also used as mouthwash) Cure for splenic troubles Cure for splenic troubles Cure for strangury Cure for bladder troubles Loosens the bowels (Also brings away urine and humors from the kidneys) Expels stones from the bladder Expels stones from the bladder Cure for sciatica Cure for sciatica Remedy for swollen testicles Cure for superficial abscesses Cure for gout and chilblains Cure for gout Benefits the joints Benefits the joints Remedy for chilblains and complaints caused by the cold Cure for consumption Cure for dropsy Relieves pain and swellings of dislocations Cure for jaundice Relieves fistulas Cures indurations Heals burns Cure for splenic troubles Remedy for ruptures, sprains, falls Cure for phthiriasis Cure for ulcers Cure for ulcers Heals gangrenes, phagedaenic sores and purulent ulcers

226

A p p e ndi x

Section

Decocted substance

Relevant to stomach? Uses

26.87.147 26.88.149

Asphodel root or callithrix Verbascum

No No

26.90.151 26.90.153 26.90.155 26.90.159

Achillia Dittany Thessalian nymphaea Artemisia

No No No No

26.93.164 27.3.12

Polemonia Aethiopis

No No

27.5.20 27.9.25 27.12.29 27.16.33

Aloe Androsaces Anonis Arction

Yes No No No

27.17.34 27.21.28

Asplenon Aphaca

No Yes

27.24.41

Alum

Yes

27.27.44 27.28.46 27.28.47 27.28.50 27.34.57 27.36.58 27.47.71

Ampelos agria Absinthium Absinthium Absinthium Bupleuron seed Calyx Dipsacus

No Yes Yes No No Yes No

27.49.73 27.51.75

Drabe Empetros

No No

27.57.81

Galeopsis

No

27.60.86

Glycyside

Yes

27.84.108 27.88.111 27.88.111 27.91.116

Odontitis Osyris Osyris Polygonum

No No Yes No

27.94.120

Periclymenon

No

27.97.123

Poterion

No

Cure for ulcers Removes everything embedded in the flesh Checks excessive menstruation Acts as an emmenagogue Remedy for bladder troubles Acts as an emmenagogue and hastens afterbirth Used as hair dye Cure for sciatica, pleurisy, and rough throats Acts as a purgative Cure for dropsy Cure for toothache, epilepsy Cure for toothache, sciatica, strangury Reduces the spleen Checks fluxes of the stomach and bowels Cure for colic (Also for complaints of the sides, kidneys, chest, lungs, throat) Cure for dropsy Strengthens the stomach Strengthens the stomach Cure for the ears Heals wounds Cure for tenesmus Heals chaps of the anus, fistulas, warts Used as food? Acts as diuretic and breaks up stones in the bladder Heals festering sores and gangrenes Benefits the stomach (Also the trachea) Cure for toothache Cure for jaundice Cure for catarrhs of the belly Heals ulcerations of the mouth and excoriated bruises Acts as a diuretic, benefits asthmatics, aids birth and afterbirth Benefits weak or cut sinews

Medical Prescriptions of Decocta

227

Section

Decocted substance

Relevant to stomach? Uses

27.105.129

Rhecoma

No

27.105.130 27.111.138 28.18.65

Rhecoma Trichomanes Children’s urine

No No No

28.27.94

Hyena’s gall

No

28.27.105

No No No Yes Yes No No No No No No No

Acts as an antaphrodisiac Used as food Relieves dysentery Cure for colic Cure for cough Treatment for consumptives Unspecified benefits Remedy for snakebites Remedy for scorpion stings Remedy for dog bites Remedy for dog bites

No No

Remedy for sea hare poison Counteracts poisons

28.47.170 28.47.171 28.48.177 28.49.182 28.50.184

Ash of Hyena bones or Hyena’s eye Scincos (land crocodile) Milk Milk Fresh cheese Axle grease Axle grease Kidney fat She-goat’s dung She-goat’s dung Veal Badger’s, cuckoo’s, and swallow’s dung Ass’s bones Goat’s, kid’s, or bull’s blood, or kid’s rennet She-goat’s liver Goat’s liver Fenugreek Workman’s glue Bone of a white bull-calf

Heals ruptures, sprains, bruises, falls Cures roughness of the trachea Cure for strangury Removes pus and worms from the ears Prevents ophthalmia, disperses film and cataract Provokes universal hatred

No No No No No

28.50.186 28.51.189

Calves’ genitals Goat’s milk

No No

28.51.191 28.53.194

Goat suet Butter

No No

28.54.197 28.58.202 28.58.205

Cow’s milk Goat’s blood, or goat’s hair Cow’s milk

No Yes Yes

28.58.205 28.58.206 28.58.207 28.58.208 28.58.208

Mallows (malva) with butter Goat’s blood Goat’s blood or goat’s marrow Goat’s suet Honey and goat’s dung

Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Helps night vision Benefits the eyes Reduces parotid swellings Heals teeth Smoothes wrinkles and whitens skin Remedy for leprous sores Remedy for ulcerated tonsils or trachea Cure for scrofulous sores Cure for ulceration of the chest or lungs Cure for asthma Checks loose bowels Cure for dysentery and coeliac complaints Cure for dysentery Cure for dysentery Cure for dysentery Cure for dysentery Cure for coeliac complaints

28.30.120 28.33.124 28.33.128 28.34.132 28.37.137 28.37.139 28.37.142 28.42.153 28.42.155 28.43.156 28.43.156 28.45.158 28.45.161

228

A p p e ndi x

Relevant to stomach? Uses

Section

Decocted substance

28.58.209 28.58.209

Yes Yes

Disperses flatulence Cure for intestinal complaints

Yes Yes

Cure for intestinal rupture Cure for tenesmus

28.60.213 28.60.214

Calf’s dung Deer’s rennet, or ash of hare’s fur, or goat’s milk Hare’s dung with honey Polea (the first dung passed by an ass’s foal) Pig’s bones Beets

No No

28.60.215 28.61.218 28.62.220 28.62.223

Calf’s dung He-goat’s flesh or dung Fox boiled alive Calf’s dung

No No No No

28.62.223 28.63.226 28.67.230 28.69.234 28.71.236

Goat’s dung Goat’s suet Calf’s dung Goat’s dung Old hides and shoes

No No No No No

28.72.237 28.77.252 28.77.254 28.78.259 29.10.35

Goat’s dung Deer’s horns Calf’s marrow Calf’s spleen Sheep’s sweat (oesypum, suint)

No No No No No

29.11.41 29.11.45 29.11.50

No Yes Yes

29.15.59 29.33.103

Egg whites Chicks in their eggs Oil, pine bark, rhus, and honey Sheep’s dung Hen’s dung (white)

Cure for bladder troubles Cure for creeping sores of the genitals Cure for swelling of the testicles Cure for abscesses Cure for gout Relieves varicose veins, cure for gout and diseases of the joints Relieves chafed joints Cure for epilepsy Cure for melancholia Cure for sores Used to make cheap glue, heal burns Relieves sinew pain Prevents hair growth Benefits the uterus Cures sores of the mouth in babies Relieves inflammations of the eyes and hard places on the eyelids Relieves chaps on the feet Cure for dysentery Cure for dysentery

29.38.125 29.38.126

Hawks Partridge eggs

No No

29.38.126 29.38.127 29.39.134 29.39.135

Plaster and wool Sheep’s liver Mice ash Dormice, or earthworms and goose grease Millipedes Beetles Beetles

No No No No

Remedy for snakebites Relieves flatulence (Also acts as antidote for poisonous fungi) Relieves complaints of the eyes Cure for ulcers of the eyes and dim vision Applied to the eyes Enhances night vision Relieves ear pain Cures ‘desperate’ ear complaints

No No No

Relieves ear pain Cures ear complaints Cures warts

28.58.210 28.59.211

29.39.137 29.39.139 29.39.140

No Yes

Medical Prescriptions of Decocta

229

Section

Decocted substance

Relevant to stomach? Uses

30.8.22 30.8.23 30.9.27 30.12.36 30.14.43 30.16.49 30.16.50 30.18.53 30.18.53 30.18.53 30.19.55

Dog’s teeth Earthworms Swallows Weasel Mice Snails Quinces Snails Lizard Snails Leg of mutton

No No No No No No No No No No Yes

30.19.55

Mutton suet

Yes

30.19.55 30.19.57 30.19.58

Lizard Cast slough of snakes Wood pigeon’s flesh

Yes Yes Yes

30.20.60 30.20.61 30.20.62

Yes Yes Yes

30.26.86 30.26.86 30.34.108 30.37.111 30.41.120 31.22.36 31.23.40 31.23.40 31.23.40 31.33.63 31.33.64

Wood pigeon Wood pigeon Honey in which bees have died Snails Lamb’s feet Pigeon’s dung Python’s tongue, eyes, gall, and intestines Dormice and shrew mice Lizard Stork’s crop (ventriculus) Dog’s uterus Cast slough of snakes Water Water Water Water Sea water with barley meal Sea water

31.40.83 31.46.117 31.46.117 31.46.117 31.46.119

Ash of reeds and rushes Soda Soda Soda Soda

No No No No Yes

30.21.66 30.21.68 30.23.80 30.24.84

No No No No No No No No No No No No No No Yes

Relieves toothache Relieves toothache Heals sores of the tongue and lips Cure for ulcerated scrofula Cure for complaints of the lungs Cure for spitting of blood Cure for coughing blood Cure for pains in the side Cure for lumbago Cure for lumbago Cure for dysentery and ileos (Also for cough) Cure for dysentery and ileos (Also for cough) Cure for dysentery Cure for dysentery and tenesmus Cure for dysentery and coeliac complaints Checks loose bowels Disperses flatulence Cure for colic Breaks up stone in the bladder Benefits the urine Cure for corns on the feet Wards off night ghosts and goblins Prevents paralysis Cure for consumption Cure for boils Cure for hangnails and whitlows Heals scars Test for water quality Procedure for making ice water Improves water quality Purifies water Cure for parotid swellings Cure for tenesmus, acts as a purgative by vomit or stool (Also used for agues, diseased joints) Used to make salt Remedy for the eyes Improves vision Whitens teeth Cure for colic

230

A p p e ndi x

Section

Decocted substance

Relevant to stomach? Uses

31.47.127 32.14.37 32.14.38 32.14.39

Honey Tortoise flesh Tortoise Tortoise flesh

No No No No

32.16.43

Tortoise or scincus

Yes

32.17.46 32.18.48 32.18.48 32.20.58

Tortoise Sea frogs River frogs Sea crabs

No No No No

32.25.78 32.26.79 32.26.81 32.26.81 32.27.84 32.27.85 32.28.89 32.28.90 32.29.92 32.31.101 32.32.102 32.34.106 32.34.107 32.36.110 32.38.113 32.38.114 32.38.115 32.39.117 32.40.119 32.46.129 32.47.136 32.51.140 33.25.85 (1938 Loeb) 33.47.133 (1938 Loeb) 33.57.163 (1938 Loeb) 34.32.123 (1938 Loeb)

Garum Dogfish brain Frogs Frog’s liver Fish glue Frogs Frogs Frogs Frogs, or fish Frogs and squills Pulmo marinus Sea scorpion Ash of the head of menae Frog’s intestines Frogs Frog’s entrails River crabs Water frogs Stingray’s liver Zmarides Frogs Frogs Gold Metaphorical: bankruptcy Violets Shoemakers’ black (chalcanthon) 34.32.127 (1938 Loeb) Shoemakers’ black (chalcanthon) 35.18.36 (1938 Loeb) Cimolian clay 36.34.142 Jet 37.12.47 Honey

No No No No No No No No No Yes No No No No No No No No No No No No Yes No No No

37.74.195

No

Gems

No No No No

Cure for abscesses Remedy for pus in the ears Remedy for salamander bites Cure for paralysis and diseases of the joints Relieves nausea and indigestion caused by honey Antidote for poisons Antidote for poisons Antidote for poisons Counteracts dorycnium and sea hare poison Remedy for ear complaints Relieves toothache Strengthens loose teeth Relieves toothache Removes wrinkles Removes itch-scab Relieves stiff necks Cure for quinsy, diseased tonsils Cure for cough Cure for dysentery Cure for stone Disperses superficial abscesses Relieves pustules on the pudenda Cure for gout Cure for quartans Relieves chills of fever Cure for quartans Cure for dropsy Cure for pruritus and itch-scab Enhances breast milk Acts as a depilatory Relieves itch scab in horses Loosens the bowels Bankruptcy metaphor Used to adulterate Indian blue Used to make something that looks like blue glass Relieves swelling of the uvula Used to adulterate Paraetonium Cure for toothache Describes the color of decocted honey Makes gems more colorful

Medical Prescriptions of Decocta

231

(B) In Celsus’s De medicina (drawn from W. G. Spencer, trans., Clesus De medicina, 3 vols., Loeb Classical Library [Cambridge, MA, 1935– 1938]) Section

Decocted substance

Relevant to stomach? Uses

1. 6

Honey

Yes

2. 12 2. 12 2. 12

Milk from an ass, cow, or goat Yes Fenugreek, pearl barley, or Yes marrow Saltwater Yes

2. 30 2. 30 2. 30 2. 33

Cabbage Doves Cheese Bran

Yes Yes Yes No

3. 9 3. 18 3. 18 3. 20 3. 21

Water with salt Vervains Poppy or hyoscyamus Laurel or rue Iris root, spikenard, saffron, cinnamon, cassia, myrrh, balsam, galbanum, ladanum, oenanthe, opopanax, cardamomum, ebony, cypress seeds, the Taminian berry, southernwood, rose leaves, sweet flag root, bitter almonds, goat’s marjoram, styrax, costmary, or seeds of rush Water

No No No No Yes

No No No No No

4. 7 4. 9 4. 11

Sulphur Laurel Thyme, hyssop, or mint Fenugreek Hyssop, catmint, thyme, wormwood (or bran), and dried figs Honey-wine Quinces or dates Astringents

4. 13

Hyssop or rue

No

3. 23 3. 27 4. 2 4. 4 4. 6 4. 7

No

No No No

Tightens loose bowels when mixed with wine Used as a purge Used as an enema to loosen the bowels Used as an enema to loosen the bowels Tightens loose bowels Tightens loose bowels Tightens loose bowels Used to repress and mollify disease when mixed with greasy wool Used to relieve fever Used to cure insanity Used to induce sleep Used to cure insanity Used to treat excessive water in the belly (and other forms of hydrops)

Makes water safe for patients who suffer from seizures Relieves pain in the sinews Relieves headache Cures paralysis of the tongue Relieves diseases of the neck Relieves diseases of the neck

Relieves diseases of the neck Used for ulcerations of the throat Used for internal bleeding when there is fever Relieves pain in the sides

232

A p p e ndi x

Section

Decocted substance

Relevant to stomach? Uses

4. 14 4. 19

Hyssop or rue Rainwater

No Yes

4. 22 4. 22 4. 23 4. 24

Vervains Linseed Vervains Wormwood, hyssop, or cress seeds Lupins or mulberry bark Vervains Myrtle berries Bramble tops Dates, quinces, sorb apples, or bramble Wheat Mastic Vervains Figs Poppy or cucumber root Mastic or other vervains Dried figs Olive leaves Lentils, rose leaves, blackberries, quinces, or dates Peppercorns, saffron, myrrh, or frankincense Pole-reed root Leaves of lily, hound’s tongue, or beets Olive leaves Turnip or vervains Flour Dried figs or linseed Lees of olive oil Figs Rose leaves or myrtle Ripe figs and mint

Yes Yes Yes Yes

Used for complaints of the lungs Used to cure coeliacus (Tightens the bowels) Used to cure dysentery Used to cure dysentery Used to cure leienteria Used to expel worms

Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Used to expel worms Used to cure tenesmus Tightens the bowels Tightens the bowels Tightens the bowels

Yes No No No No No No No No

Tightens the bowels Relieves bladder pains Cures excessive outflow of semen Relieves pain in the hips Relieves pain in the joints Relieves pain in the joints Causes blisters Checks the spread of rotten flesh Used as a gargle to repress disease

No

Used in a medicine for the windpipe Used to draw out splinters Used to treat burns

4. 24 4. 25 4. 26 4. 26 4. 26 4. 26 4. 27 4. 28 4. 29 4. 31 4. 31 5. 12 5. 22 5. 22

5. 25 5. 26 5. 27 5. 28 5. 28 5. 28 5. 28 5. 28 6. 3 6. 6 6. 6 6. 6 6. 6

No No No No No No No No No No

Barley meal No No Verdigris, roasted antimony sulphide, shoemakers’ blacking, cinnamon, saffron, nard, poppy tears, myrrh, roast copper, ash of aromatic herbs, peppercorns

Used to cure ulcerations Used to cure ulcerations Used to cure ulcerations Used to cure ulcerations Used to cure ulcerations Used to cure ulcerations Used to treat the eyes Used as a gargle to treat eyelash lice Used to treat eye inflammations Used to make a salve for the eyes

Medical Prescriptions of Decocta

233

Section

Decocted substance

Relevant to stomach? Uses

6. 7 6. 7 6. 7 6. 7 6. 7 6. 9 6. 10 6. 13

Fenugreek, linseed, or meal Poppy-head rind Rose leaves Lycium Horehound Figs Sweet root Figs

No No No No No No No No

6. 14 6. 15

Blackberries and lentils Vetches, olives, or vervains

No No

6. 18

Lentil meal, horehound, or olive leaves Vervains Alum and honey Pomegranate rind Horehound, cyprus, or myrtle Lentils and pomegranate rind Blackberries or olive leaves Mallow or fenugreek Myrtle, ivy, or similar vervains Pomegranate rind

No

Used to treat the ears Used to treat the ears Used to treat the ears Used to treat ear pus Used to draw out ear maggots Used to relieve toothache Used to treat the tonsils Used to treat ulcerations of the mouth Used to treat inflamed uvula Used to treat gangrene in the mouth Used to treat swelling of the penis

No No No No No No Yes No No

Used to treat condyloma Used to treat whitlows Used to strengthen loose teeth Used to treat sores of the genitals Used to treat sores of the genitals Used to treat sores of the genitals Used to move the bowels Used to heal wounds Used to heal fractured limbs

6. 18 6. 19 7. 12 7. 27 7. 27 7. 27 7. 27 8. 10 8. 10

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Index

Accius, 62 acer: as critical term, 145– 48, 174; in Horace, 142– 43; as quality of metaphor, 161; as quality of sound and elision, 152– 56; as salubrious quality of foodstuffs, 145– 46 Achilles, 33 acris iunctura, 83– 84, 147– 62, 166. See also acer; compositio; iunctura Aeschylus, 24, 30 Albucius, Titus, 154– 55 Alcibiades, 6, 97– 109, 115, 116, 117– 18, 120, 129, 190, 191, 193; hybris of, 106– 7. See also erastes; Plato, work of: Alcibiades I Anderson, W. S., 149– 50 Antimachus, 169– 70 Antisthenes the Cynic, 87 Antony, as metonymic cannibal, 24 aphormai, 172– 73, 182 Apicius, 66, 77, 80 aqualiculus, 36, 39 Aretaeus, 84 Aristo of Chios, 197 Aristophanes, 70, 84, 142 Aristotle, 52, 166, 172, 174 Aristotle, works of: Poetics, 18; Rhetoric, 136– 37, 162– 63 Asmis, E., 169 Atreus, 22– 25, 79, 186, 188 Atticists, 152, 153 Attius Labeo, 33, 35, 60, 89– 90 audience: of bad poetry, 32, 35– 41, 57– 59;

of Persius’ Satires, 8, 70, 71, 73, 75, 78, 83, 97, 125– 28; uselessness of, 126– 29 Augustus, 122 Aulus Gellius, 192 Bakker, E., 34, 54 bees, activity of, 43– 44, 51, 134 beets, 70, 76– 78, 81, 86, 87 belly, of poet, 36, 40, 53– 58, 96. See also aqualiculus; poet, belly of bile, 42, 43, 48, 49, 84– 92, 94, 197 bile, black, 84– 85, 86, 91 Bloom, H., 16 body, human: as container for soul, 6– 7, 184; as metaphor for the mind, 65– 67; ill-jointed, 18– 19, 184 Bramble, J. C., 39, 71, 157, 183, 184, 192 Braund, S., 161, 165 Brink, C. O., 18 Cadmus, 22 callida iunctura, 148– 49 Callimachus, 55, 71 Calvus, G. Licinius, 153 cannibalism: implicated in epic and tragedy, 33– 34, 69; as metaphor for poetic reception, 10, 40– 41, 51; practice of in antiquity, 198– 202; shock value of, 15– 16; as Stoic touchstone, 205– 8; in works of Horace, 22– 25 Carneades, 88 Casaubon, I., 2

256

In de x

Catullus, 156 cauda, 103– 4 Celsus (author of De medicina), 47, 52, 59, 68– 69, 71– 73, 74, 78, 84, 86, 91, 145– 46, 192 Celsus (friend of Horace), 60 Chrysippus, 88, 103, 112, 147, 170, 203, 204– 5, 206 chyle, 48– 49 Cicero, 20, 24, 104, 112– 13, 168, 192 Cicero: on Stoic rhetoric, 8; on poetry, 135, 170; on metaphor, 137, 164, 178; on compositio, 150, 151, 152– 53 Clay, D., 140 Columella, 56– 57 compositio, 150– 55, 158 concoction, 48, 58, 60, 62, 73 concoquere, 47 Connor, P., 161 constipation, 77, 146 consumption: of bad poetry, 26, 28– 32; as metaphor for intertextuality, 30– 31, 49 Cornelius Lepos, 134 Cornutus, 6, 74, 75, 76, 78, 114– 23, 127, 147, 159, 169, 179, 184– 87, 190, 197, 208 Crates, 70 Cratinus, 70, 142 Critias, 115, 116 criticism, reciprocal, 124– 25, 128, 193– 97 Croton, 32 crowd, opinions of, 6 crow-poets, 57– 61 crudus, 25, 35– 36, 39, 90, 158, 159, 198 Cucchiarelli, A., 71 Cupid, 20 Cyclops, 199 Cynics, 4, 8, 128 De Lacy, P., 170 decerpo, 79 decoctum, 70– 74, 84, 91, 181, 192, 199 defecation, 8, 94 Demetrius, 163– 64, 174– 75 Democritus, 68, 92– 93, 109 Dessen, C., 161, 193 dialectic, 75– 76, 102, 112, 128, 129, 147 dialogue, internalized, 6 Dido, 124, 171

digerere, 47– 71. See also digestion; concoquere digestion: in ancient medicine, 47– 52; of characters in the Satires, 41– 43; of texts, 43– 46, 49, 59, 60, 84. See also indigestion Diogenes Laertius, 147, 203 Diogenes of Sinope (the Cynic), 8, 203 Diomedes (grammarian), 61, 159 Dionysius Halicarnassus, 150– 52, 174 Diotima, 111– 12 dismemberment, 15, 18, 23. See also poet Dryden, J., 2, 161, 180 dyspepsia. See indigestion; crudus ears, 66– 67, 75– 76, 89, 167 ears: of an ass, 10, 96, 125 eikon, 175 elision, 150– 58. See also compositio Ennius, 27 epic, Greek, 16, 34, 55– 57 Epictetus, 6, 7, 110, 146, 167, 170, 171 Epicureanism, 4, 5, 138– 40, 158, 168, 179, 208 Epicurus. See Epicureanism erastes: relationship with eromenos, 111, 112, 118; of the polis, 104– 5 eros, 124– 25; Platonic, 97, 100, 112– 13, 123, 129, 176. See also pedagogy: Platonic Eumaios, 34 Eumolpus, 32 euphony, 151– 52 Eupolis, 70, 142 Euripides, 30, 173 Fabianus, 147 fibra, 42n68, 119, 186 fingere, 146– 48 Flintoff, E., 189 Freudenburg, K., 10, 20, 24, 152, 153, 155, 162, 165– 66, 193 frux, 75– 76 Galen, 40, 47– 48, 52, 68, 77, 84, 87, 199 gaster, 53– 55. See also belly genres, of poetry, 15, 17, 20, 35, 54– 55, 61– 62, 93, 172– 73 gluttony, 65– 66

In de x

Glycon, 27, 29 Gorgias, 65 gout, 86, 88– 89, 208 Gowers, E., 23, 28, 30, 61– 62, 71, 81, 89, 189 Harpagus, 206– 7 heads and feet sans body, 18– 20, 23– 25, 29 Hecuba, 33 hellebore, 35, 86– 92, 93, 94, 103, 130, 181, 211 hellebore: as pharmakon, 90– 92 Henderson, J., 192 Hendrickson, G. L., 157 Hera, 33 Hercules, mad, 85 Herms, mutilation of, 104 Herodotus, 199 Hesiod, 53– 54, 55, 134, 169, 199 hexameters, metrical quality of. See elision Hippocrates, 68, 84, 86, 92, 199 Hippocrene, 55– 56, 57 Homer, 27, 30, 53, 56, 90, 134, 169, 173, 199 honey, 69, 73, 74, 134, 144, 145, 192, 196, 197. See also bees; sweetness honey: quarrel of with philosophy, 144– 45; rimming the cup, 5, 8; 16, 51, 72, 138– 40, 144, 208 Hook, Brian, 202– 3, 205 Hooley, D., 76, 124, 165, 178, 192– 93 Horace, 7, 15, 21, 49, 50, 70, 83, 87, 91, 92– 94, 126, 146, 150, 155, 159, 166, 178; on his own education, 3, 127; on not being harsh, 141– 43; as a whetstone for poets, 93; on the wise man, 4 Horace, works of: Ars Poetica, 4, 15– 23, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30– 31, 35, 37, 39– 40, 62, 92– 95, 134, 140– 41, 148– 49, 155, 165, 184, 191; Carmina 4.2, 134; Epistle 1.3, 60; Epistle 1.6, 81; Epistle 1.16, 124; Epistle 1.19, 134; Satire 1.1, 73– 73, 141; Satire 1.2, 104; Satire 1.4, 23, 127, 143, 154, 185; Satire 1.10, 125, 154; Satire 2.1, 81, 142, 143; Satire 2.2, 47, 74, 81; Satire 2.3, 87, 103, 152; Satire 2.4, 152; Satire 2.7, 104; Satire 2.8, 23, 24– 25, 74 humoral theory, 48– 51 humors, 84. See also bile

257

imitatio, 16 inane, 156– 58 indigestion, 25, 31, 34– 36, 50, 59, 67, 73, 82, 90, 184. See also crudus insanity: as a result of digestive process, 84– 88; in poets, 92– 95; cured by hellebore, 86– 89, 91– 92 interpretation: allegorical, 169– 70; corrective, 172 introspection, 124– 25 Isidore, 39 iunctura, 7, 70, 148, 151, 154– 58 Jenkinson, R., 161 Jerome, 2 joining. See acer; elision; iunctura; juxtapositions; smoothness, metrical Jordan, M. D., 197 Jupiter, constipation of, 77 Juvenal, 3, 4, 110, 201– 2 juxtapositions, surprising, 7 Keane, C., 71 Kenney, E. J., 155 Kestner, J. A., 150 Kissel, W., 3, 103, 160 Kittay, E., 175 Knoche, U., 165 Korzeniewski, D., 72 La Penna, A., 126 Lactantius, 204 Lamia, 22, 23, 62 laxatives, 77, 87, 145 leech, 93– 94 Leigh, M., 24 lex per saturam, 61 Liebert, R., 134, 144 Long, A. A., 169 Longinus, 174 Lucan, 1 Lucian, 195– 96 Lucilius (correspondent of Seneca), 121, 122, 127, 147, 179, 194 Lucilius (satirist), 3; 21, 32, 81, 125, 142, 153, 154– 55, 156– 57, 159, 173, 178; Stoicism of, 3n8, 4

258

In de x

Lucretius, 4– 5, 51, 72, 74, 81, 84, 88, 124– 25, 138– 41, 150, 157– 58, 167, 169, 179– 80, 196, 208– 9

Orpheus, 20 overeating, results of, 81– 82 Ovid, 19, 20, 27, 56, 149

madness. See insanity magpie, 57– 59, 144 Manilius, 167, 176 Mankin, D., 192 Marcus Aurelius, 209 Martial, 1, 77, 109– 10 Mayer, R., 3 McNamara, C., 115 meat, 34, 39– 41; 186, 188– 90. See also fibra meat: metapoetic, 334; and kleos, 34; raw (see crudus) Medea, 22, 171 medicamentum, 69 medicine, as a foodstuff, 67– 70 meditatio, 6 melancholy, 84– 85, 91– 92. See also insanity metaphor: ancient treatments of, 162– 64; difficulty of, 7– 8; distasteful, in Persius, 5– 6, 83, 165– 57, 174; Lucretian, 208; as medicine, 10; in Plato, 174– 76; pleasure of, 5, 130, 133– 41, 163– 63, 166– 67; as relish, 145; unstable, in Persius, 181– 93 mos maiorum, 3 Moser, D., 190 mouths, a hundredfold, 27– 28 Muses, 53– 54, 56, 58, 134, 139, 140 Musonius Rufus, 113

Pacuvius, 21, 35, 36, 62 Padel, R., 91– 92 Parker, S., 175, 176 Parnassus, 56 parrhesia, 8 parrot, 57– 59, 144 Patin, M., 179– 80 pedagogy: Persianic, 97, 98, 102, 112– 14, 115– 23, 127– 30; Platonic, 97– 98, 99– 100, 105– 7, 111, 191; in Roman satire, 126 pederasty. See eros: Platonic Pelops, 31 Pender, E., 175 Pentheus, 159 Pericles, 99– 100, 101 Persius: as an anti-Perse, 179– 80, 210; bibliography on, 1n1; on the body, 6– 7; distemper of, 1, 83, 193– 94; Life of, 1, 52; persona of, 9, 85 Persius, works of: Prologue, 55– 59, 184; Satire 1, 10, 21, 33, 34– 39, 41, 51– 52, 54, 57, 58, 59, 61, 70, 77– 78, 89– 90, 94– 95, 96, 114, 125, 127, 149, 150, 156– 60, 165, 166, 183– 84, 190, 191, 194; Satire 2, 5, 42, 61, 80, 83, 85, 96, 158, 184, 185, 188– 90, 191; Satire 3, 5– 6, 41– 42, 61, 70, 75– 77, 88– 89, 96, 146, 157, 165, 184, 189, 190– 91, 192, 194, 197– 98; Satire 4, 6, 10, 61, 70, 85, 89– 90, 96– 98, 100– 109, 111, 117, 123– 25, 127, 129– 30, 165, 181, 191, 193, 194– 95; Satire 5, 6, 7, 26– 29, 50, 56, 58, 59, 61, 78– 79, 85, 89, 116– 20, 129, 146, 147– 48, 149, 156, 184, 185– 88, 190, 191, 192, 194; Satire 6, 9; Satires, first edition of, 2n3 persona. See Persius Petronius, 32, 88 pharmakon, 26, 68, 90– 92, 211. See also hellebore Philo of Larissa, 197 Philodemus, 150, 168, 169, 173 philosophers: debauched, 109– 11; in satire, 3– 4. See also Stoicism

nectar, 16, 57– 58, 134, 144 Nero, 9– 10, 29 New Criticism, 182 Nigrinus, 195– 96 Nilsson, N.-O., 152 Nussbaum, M., 170, 199 Octavian, 24 Odysseus, 34, 53, 54, 171 Oedipus, 203, 205 Ombi, 201 omophagy, 33 Origen, 203– 4

In de x

Pindar, 31, 134 Plastira-Valkanou, M., 67 Plato, 65, 66, 68, 69, 73, 93, 97, 111– 12, 170, 172, 174– 77 Plato: on cannibalism and incest, 202– 3, 205; city of pigs of, 144– 45; on poetry, 135, 140, 168, 174; on unity, 20 Plato, work of: Alcibiades I, 6, 97– 109, 111, 112, 114, 120, 129, 181; Apology, 97– 98, 100; Critias, 91; Gorgias, 5, 64– 65, 67, 98, 173; Phaedrus, 20, 75– 76, 91, 99, 106, 111, 112, 121, 176, 181; Protagoras, 101; Republic, 19, 34, 101, 140, 144, 176, 202– 3; Symposium, 97– 98, 99– 100, 106– 7, 111– 12, 117, 118, 120, 127, 176, 181, 190 Plautus, 30, 57, 85 pleasure: cured by hellebore, 87– 88; death via, 65; of ears, 66– 67, 75– 76; problematic, 130, 167– 68, 196– 97; provided by rhetoric and cookery, 64– 65, 173– 74; and utility, 5 Pliny the Elder, 47, 59, 68, 71– 73, 77, 85, 86, 87, 88, 145, 192, 199– 200 Pliny the Younger, 134 Plutarch, 95; on poetry, 137– 38, 140, 170, 171– 72 pneuma, 6, 52, 79 poet: belly of, 53– 59; as cannibal, 31– 34, 40– 41, 94; limbs of, 20, 91; mad, 23, 92– 95; as meat, 36, 40– 41, 185, 188– 90; as mercenary, 53; neoteric, 35; as parrot or crow, 59– 61 poetry: as a body, 17, 23, 26; curative, 41, 70– 78; as “first philosophy,” 170– 72; as flesh, 15– 17; as food, 16, 28– 31, 36– 41, 50, 58; as a painting, 17– 19, 26; sweetness of, 134– 36; vegetarian, 74– 78 poikilia, 19 Polycrates, 98 pork, 7, 16, 36, 39, 40, 61, 75. See also meat Posidonius, 66, 197 Powell, O., 67, 68 praecordia, 185 praise and blame, poetic economy of, 36– 39, 54, 57– 60, 96 Priam, 33 Procne, 22, 27– 29, 39, 50, 56, 62 proficiens, 114– 15, 121, 179, 188

259

proluo, 56– 57. See also defecation Propertius, 56 protreptic, 98– 99, 102, 195– 97, 211 pulpa, 7, 80 Purcell, N., 189 purging, 87, 89– 91, 95, 181. See also hellebore Purnis, J. K., 48, 50 Pythagoras, 16, 70, 109 Quintilian, 1, 4, 20, 43, 45– 46, 51, 59, 134, 135, 136, 145, 150– 53, 159, 164, 170 Rabelais, 1 radere, 77– 78 Reckford, K., 180 recusatio, 27– 28, 56 rhetoric, 65, 66, 145, 173 Richardson-Hay, C., 66, 82 ridiculus mus, 28 Rimell, V., 32 Rutilius Rufus, 153 sapientia, 3 satire, uniquely Roman, 4, 172– 73 satur, 38, 61 satura: as forcemeat, 6; implications of genre, 61– 62, 69– 70, 84 scholia to Persius, 33, 35, 39, 60, 156, 159 self-knowledge, 6, 10, 70, 97, 98, 113– 14, 123– 25, 128– 29 self-shaping, 6, 119, 123 semen: as byproduct of digestion, 48; issuing from eyes, 52 Seneca, 24, 43, 65– 67, 75, 81– 82, 85, 87, 113, 121– 22, 128, 157– 58, 167, 170, 179, 184, 185, 188, 194, 197, 206– 7, 209– 10, 211– 12 Seneca: on the body, 6, 66; on digesting texts, 43– 45, 46– 47, 51, 59, 62; Letters of, 9, 95; on poetic nourishment, 16; on seeking an audience, 126– 27; on shaping the soul, 146– 47; on smoothness, 154; Thyestes of, 25, 42, 79 sesquipedalis, 39– 30 Sextus Empiricus, 88, 197, 204– 5 shield of Aeneas, 122– 23 smoothness, metrical, 151– 56, 158– 60

260

In de x

Socrates, 6, 20, 64, 76, 97– 102, 104– 7, 110, 111, 115, 124– 25, 127– 29, 140, 145, 176, 190, 191, 202 Sophocles, 30 sophrosyne, 113 Sosin, J., 127 Stobaeus, 88, 197 Stoic orthodoxy of Persius, 6, 8, 9n18 Stoic pedagogy. See pedagogy Stoicism: on cannibalism, 203– 8; dialectic of, 147; dietetics of, 74– 83; internalized logos of, 121– 22; painful but salutary, 89, 167; paradoxes of, 6, 103; philosophical thought of, 83, 97– 98, 157– 58, 178; on pleasure, 166– 68, 181; on poetry, 8, 166– 73; preference for acris compositio of, 152– 53, 156; regula of, 101– 2, 117, 119, 121, 186; in satire, 4; treatment of rhetoric, 8; view of the body, 6– 7, 65; on the wise man, 87, 179, 205– 7, 210 stomach, as oven, 47– 48 Strabo, 170, 199; on poetry, 138 Sulla, 24 Sullivan, J.P., 2 sweetness: combined with utility, 140– 41; effeminate, 159– 60; of poetry, 134– 41; of “relishes,” 144– 45 Tacitus, 20 Tantalus, 31 text: as body, 15, 20– 22; nourishing, 15 Thyestes, 21– 25, 27– 29, 36, 39, 42, 50, 56, 58, 59, 62, 73, 184, 185– 87, 198, 203, 205

tragedy, 16, 28– 29, 38– 40, 173, 203 Trapp, M., 196 Tubero, Q. Aelius, 152– 53 unity, and propriety, 18– 19, 21 urination, 8, 94 Valerius Maximus, 88 Vander Waerdt, P., 205 variety, unhealthy, 46– 48 Varius Rufus, 24 Varro, 150 Vascones and Saguntines, 202 vates, 27 vegetarian diet, as metaphor for Satires, 70, 74– 84. See also poetry: curative Vergil, 27, 56, 85, 115, 122– 23, 124, 157, 173 vinegar, 89, 142, 145– 46 virtus, 2, 66 Volk, K., 126, 140 waste, 16. See also defecation Williams, G., 51 Worman, N., 54 wound, hidden, 124– 25, 195 Xenocrates, 199 Xenophon, 98, 115– 16, 123 Zeno, 109, 112, 170, 202, 203, 206 Zetzel, J., 157 Zeus, 172