page_title: Juvenal
section_title: Life
hierarchical_section_title: Juvenal / Life
caption_attribution_description: English: Juvenal's fictitious portrait, 19th century (S. H. Gimber) In: Juvenal. Translated by Charles Badham. New York, 1837. Published by Harper &amp; Brothers
context_page_description: Decimus Junius Juvenalis, known in English as Juvenal, was a Roman poet active in the late first and early second century AD. He is the author of the collection of satirical poems known as the Satires. The details of the author's life are unclear, although references within his text to known persons of the late first and early second centuries AD fix his earliest date of composition. One recent scholar argues that his first book was published in 100 or 101. Because of a reference to a recent political figure, his fifth and final surviving book must date from after 127.
  Juvenal wrote at least 16 poems in the verse form dactylic hexameter. These poems cover a range of Roman topics. This follows Lucilius—the originator of the Roman satire genre, and it fits within a poetic tradition that also includes Horace and Persius. The Satires are a vital source for the study of ancient Rome from a number of perspectives, although their comic mode of expression makes it problematic to accept the content as strictly factual. At first glance the Satires could be read as a critique of pagan Rome.
context_section_description: Details of the author's life cannot be reconstructed definitively. The Vita Iuvenalis (Life of Juvenal), a biography of the author that became associated with his manuscripts no later than the tenth century, is little more than an extrapolation from the Satires.
  Traditional biographies, including the Vita Iuvenalis, give us the writer's full name and also tell us that he was either the son, or adopted son, of a rich freedman. He is supposed to have been a pupil of Quintilian, and to have practised rhetoric until he was middle-aged, both as amusement and for legal purposes. The Satires do make frequent and accurate references to the operation of the Roman legal system. His career as a satirist is supposed to have begun at a fairly late stage in his life.
  Biographies agree in giving his birthplace as the Volscian town of Aquinum and also, in allotting to his life a period of exile, which supposedly was due to his insulting an actor who had high levels of court influence. The emperor who is said to have banished him is given variously, as either Trajan or Domitian. A preponderance of the biographies place his exile in Egypt, with the exception of one, that opts for Scotland.
  Only one of these traditional biographies supplies a date of birth for Juvenal: it gives 55 AD, which most probably is speculation, but accords reasonably well with the rest of the evidence. Other traditions have him surviving for some time past the year of Hadrian's death (138 AD). Some sources place his death in exile, others have him being recalled to Rome (the latter of which is considered more plausible by contemporary scholars). If he was exiled by Domitian, then it is possible that he was one of the political exiles recalled during the brief reign of Nerva.
  It is impossible to tell how much of the content of these traditional biographies is fiction and how much is fact. Large parts clearly are mere deduction from Juvenal's writings, but some elements appear more substantial. Juvenal never mentions a period of exile in his life, yet it appears in every extant traditional biography. Many scholars think the idea to be a later invention; the Satires do display some knowledge of Egypt and Britain, and it is thought that this gave rise to the tradition that Juvenal was exiled. Others, however - particularly Gilbert Highet - regard the exile as factual, and these scholars also supply a concrete date for the exile: 93 AD until 96, when Nerva became emperor. They argue that a reference to Juvenal in one of Martial's poems, which is dated to 92, is impossible if, at this stage Juvenal was already in exile, or, had served his time in exile, since in that case, Martial would not have wished to antagonise Domitian by mentioning such a persona non grata as Juvenal. If Juvenal was exiled, he would have lost his patrimony, and this may explain the consistent descriptions of the life of the client he bemoans in the Satires.
  The only other biographical evidence available is a dedicatory inscription said to have been found at Aquinum in the nineteenth century, which consists of the following text:
  
  
   
  ...]RI·SACRVM
  ...]NIVS·IVVENALIS
  ...] COH·[.]·DELMATARVM
  II·VIR·QVINQ·FLAMEN
  DIVI·VESPASIANI
  VOVIT·DEDICAV[...]UE
  SVA                     PEC
   
  [CERE]RI·SACRVM
  [D(ECIMVS) IV]NIVS·IVVENALIS
  [TRIB(VNVS)] COH(ORTIS)·[I]·DELMATARVM
  II·VIR·QVINQ(VENNALIS)·FLAMEN
  DIVI·VESPASIANI
  VOVIT·DEDICAV[ITQ]VE
  SVA PEC(VNIA)
   
  To Ceres (this) sacred (thing)
  (Decimus Junius?) Juvenalis
  military tribune of the first cohort of the Dalmatian (legions)
  Duovir, Quinquennalis, Flamen
  of the Divine Vespasian
  vowed and dedicated
  at his own expense
  (Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum X.5382)
   
  Scholars usually are of the opinion that this inscription does not relate to the poet: a military career would not fit well with the pronounced anti-militarism of the Satires and, moreover, the Dalmatian legions do not seem to have existed prior to 166 AD. Therefore, it seems likely that this reference is to a Juvenal who was a later relative of the poet, however, as they both came from Aquinum and were associ
caption: Juvenal, S. H. Gimber, 1837
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