# Juvenal and Persius/The Satires of Persius/Satire 2

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SUMMARY OF SATIRE II
Persius takes advantage of the birthday of his friend and fellow-pupil Plotius Macrinus to discourse on the folly of the prayers usually offered to the Gods (1–7). Men pray openly for worthy objects; they pray secretly for money, for inheritances, for the death of all who stand in their way, besieging Jupiter with petitions at which any ordinary citizen would stand aghast (8–30). Old women offer the most silly prayers on behalf of babes (31–40). One man prays for health and strength, while raining his constitution by rich living (41–43); another for riches, while wasting his substance in costly sacrifices (44–51). Thirsting ourselves for gold, we believe the gods must love it also: we overlay their images with gold and use gold vessels in their service in place of the delf of Numa (52–60). O fools and grovellers! Why measure the Gods by our own fleshly lusts, and by our own joy in gratifying them? Nay, rather let us approach them with clean hands and a pure heart, and the homeliest offerings will win their favour (61–75).
SATIRE II
​$^{17}$Come now, answer me this question; it is a very little thing that I want to know; What is your opinion of Jupiter? Would you rank him above—"Above whom?"—Above whom, you ask? Well, shall we say Staius? or do you stick at that? Could you name a more upright judge than Staius; or one more fitted to be a guardian to an orphan family? Well then, just whisper to Staius the prayer with which you would impress the ear of Jupiter:—"O gracious Jupiter!" he would cry, "O Jupiter!" And will not Jupiter call upon himself, think you? Do you imagine that he has condoned everything because, when it thunders, the sacred fire rends an oak-tree in twain sooner than you and your house? Or because you are not lying in a grove, at the bidding of Ergenna and a sheep's liver, an accursed and abhorred object, will Jupiter therefore offer you his foolish beard to pluck? And what is the price by which you have purchased a kindly hearing from the gods? Is it a dish of lights and greasy entrails?
$^{31}$See how a granny, or an auntie who fears the gods, takes baby out of his cradle: skilled in averting the evil eye, she first, with her middle finger, applies the charm of lustrous spittle to his forehead and slobbering lips; she then dandles the wizened Hopeful in her arms, and destines him in ​her prayers to the domains of a Licinus, or the mansion of a Crassus; "May kings and queens desire him for their daughter! May the maidens scramble for him! May roses bloom wherever he plants his foot!"—No! never shall prayer of mine be committed to a nurse; reject, O Jupiter, her petition, though she be clothed in white to ask it of thee!
$^{41}$You pray for strength of limb, and for a body that shall not fail you in old age. Good; but your grand dishes and rich ragouts forbid the gods to listen to you, and stay the hand of Jupiter.
$^{44}$Lusting for wealth, you slay an ox, and summon Mercury with a liver. "Grant that my household gods may prosper me!" you cry; "grant increase to my flocks and herds!" But how can that be, poor fool, when the fat of all those heifers is melting away in the flames? Yet on the fellow goes, bent upon winning his wish with his entrails and his rich cakes:—"I am now adding field to field, and flock to flock," he cries, ever hoping and hoping on, till at length his last coin, duped and disappointed, heaves a vain sigh at the bottom of his purse!
$^{52}$ Were I to offer you cups of silver, or gifts richly inlaid with gold, your heart would beat high with joy, and drops of sweat would trickle from your left breast. Hence your idea of overlaying the faces of the gods with triumphal gold; for you say, "Let those among the brazen brothers rank highest ​who send us dreams most free from gouty vapours, and let their beards be all of gold! Gold has now ousted Numa's crockery, and the bronze vessels of Saturn; it has supplanted the urns and Tuscan pottery of the Vestals.
$^{61}$O Souls bowed down to earth, and void of all heavenly thoughts! What avails it to bring our ideas into the temples, and to infer from this sinful flesh of ours what is pleasing to the gods? It is the flesh that has spoilt our oil by mingling it with casia, and misused Tyrian purple for the soaking of Calabrian fleeces; it is this that has bidden us pluck the pearl from the shell, and tear out the veins of shining ore from the native clay. The flesh indeed sins, it sins, and yet it gets profit from its sinning But tell me this, ye priests, what avails gold inside the sanctuary? Just as much as the dolls which maidens dedicate to Venus! Nay rather let us offer to the gods what the blear-eyed progeny of the great Messala cannot give out of his lordly salver;—a heart rightly attuned towards God and man; a mind pure in its inner depths, and a soul steeped in nobleness and honour. Give me these to offer in the temples, and a handful of corn shall win my prayer for me!
* ↑ Lines 8-11 are a close imitation of Hor. Epp. I. xvi. 59-62.
* ↑ Apparently a slang expression like "going off the hooks" or "kicking the bucket."
* ↑ Hercules is the god of windfalls or unexpected gain.
* ↑ Perhaps the usurer mentioned by Horace, Sat. II. iii. 69.
* ↑ Sancte is emphatic. However unholy his prayers, he hopes to keep on the right side of the gods, and so neglects none of the proper religious observances. See Hor. Sat. II. iii. 290-2, and Juv. vi. 523.
* ↑ Staius is taken as a representative of an average respectable citizen.
* ↑ An obviously Etruscan name. Etruria was famous for its soothsayers.
* ↑ Bidental is properly a spot struck by lightning, purified or consecrated by the sacrifice of a bidens (a two-year-old victim), and enclosed with a fence. Such spots were of evil omen. Here the bidental stands for the body of the man killed by lightning.
* ↑ Persius and Juvenal are continually ridiculing the offering of exta to the gods (Juv. x. 354, xiii. 115).
* ↑ This passage bears a close resemblance to Juv. x. 289 foll.
* ↑ Various were the virtues of saliva, especially in magical and semi-magical ceremonies. See Pliny, H. N. xxviii. 4, 22. It was especially efficacious against the evil eye.
* ↑ The contemptuous epithet heightens the contrast. Professor Housman takes spem to mean simply hope; hope lean and hungry, and therefore insatiable.
* ↑ Both men of proverbial wealth. Crassus was the Triumvir slain at the battle of Carrhae B.C. 53; Licinus was an enfranchised slave of Caesar who became Procurator of Gaul. See Juv. i. 109 and Mayor's note.
* ↑ Mercury also (merx) was the god of gain.
* ↑ Several fanciful interpretations have been given of this phrase. The "brazen brotherhood" seems to refer to the gods as a whole, whose statues were usually of bronze. If any of these, says Persius ironically, send us dreams free from gouty humours, they should be highly honoured and given beards of gold. See Professor Housman, l.c. pp. 15–16.
* ↑ The bronze vessels of the Saturnian age, with a possible reference to the bronze coinage of early Rome.
* ↑ cp. Juv. xi. 115. Fictilis et nullo violatus Iuppiter auro.
* ↑ Just as boys dedicated the bulla on assuming the toga virilis, so did maidens hang up their dolls to Venus on attaining womanhood.
* ↑ A degenerate descendant of the distinguished Messalae, a family of the Valerian gens, with a possible reference to L. Aurelius Cotta Messalinus, mentioned with contumely by Tacitus {Ann. v. 3 and vi. 5).