Richard Stanley
Well-Known Member
Part 1
For some time I have mentioned Juvenal's Satire IV as Domitian's Big Fish Story. It's possible that I may have been too hasty in making this about Domitian, yet an important meeting was held at his summer villa, which now belongs to the papacy. I should have done this some time ago, but I was too hasty, letting a summarized translation suffice, when it nowhere came close to doing it justice. Cui bono? Thanks to my re-reading of Joseph Atwill's discussions of Juvenal's satires in his Caesar's Messiah, I was inspired anew. Fortunately, my overall conclusion stays the same, but I missed a lot of important and bolstering detail, albeit that my first readings of this, as well as some other materials may not have provided me the same benefit. Now I have read a better translation of Juvenal's Satire IV and what a difference.
In the first paragraph, in addition to learning that a man named Crispinus is a lecher, he has been responsible for the live burial of a Vestal Virgin, wearing her vitta or sacrificial 'fillet'. We know she is buried alive, because this was the Roman punishment for a violated Vestal Virgin, and Juvenal tells us her blood is still warm.
Rufrius Crispinus was commander of the Praetorian Guard under Claudius, who Juvenal cryptically tells us is from Egypt. The Wikipedia link tells it is thought that he came to Rome as a fish merchant. How fitting for this tale and in other ways. In any case, Agrippina the Younger (the fourth wife of Claudius) removed him from his position as she regarded him as loyal to Messalina's (the third wife of Claudius and cousin to Nero) memory. Crispinus went on to marry Poppaea Sabina, the future wife of Nero. They would get divorced, and then as Josephus Flavius tells it he would later become friendly with Poppaea while she was married to Nero (after she had also married a future brief emperor, Otho.
The "maidens of Piera", are the Greek Muses, of which Piera is one of their cult centers. These including Calliope, the very chief of the Muses. So what is Juvenal telling us in this sentence. In honoring these goddesses of Thracian yore, albeit always depicted as being young, just how should we interpret 'mere fable' and 'true tale'? Especially as a 'sprat' is a small fish. He is comparing men to being small fish. So what to make of this 6 pound fish ... and a 'filleted' priestess?

We are now told that, curiously in relation to both 'bad boys' Domitian and the earlier Nero, a net 'fell' into the Adriatic Sea, in front of the shrine of Venus at Dorian Ancona, and a huge fish finds its way into the net. This monster fish has been fattening up for some time, yet at the beginning of the satire, it was only 6 pounds.
However, we've already figured out that these 'fish' are humans. This fish, the "master of the ship" has designs on the office of the Pontifex Maximus, the religious high priest of both pagan Rome and the later Roman Catholic Church, the universal church of amalgamated paganism covered with a Judaic gloss. Furthermore, the fish is reputed to have been a run-away from Caesar's fishponds, had escaped, and should be restored to his former master. It seems that it is decided that Crispinus must offer the fish back to Caesar, Domitian, as a gift.
End of Part 1
For some time I have mentioned Juvenal's Satire IV as Domitian's Big Fish Story. It's possible that I may have been too hasty in making this about Domitian, yet an important meeting was held at his summer villa, which now belongs to the papacy. I should have done this some time ago, but I was too hasty, letting a summarized translation suffice, when it nowhere came close to doing it justice. Cui bono? Thanks to my re-reading of Joseph Atwill's discussions of Juvenal's satires in his Caesar's Messiah, I was inspired anew. Fortunately, my overall conclusion stays the same, but I missed a lot of important and bolstering detail, albeit that my first readings of this, as well as some other materials may not have provided me the same benefit. Now I have read a better translation of Juvenal's Satire IV and what a difference.
In the first paragraph, in addition to learning that a man named Crispinus is a lecher, he has been responsible for the live burial of a Vestal Virgin, wearing her vitta or sacrificial 'fillet'. We know she is buried alive, because this was the Roman punishment for a violated Vestal Virgin, and Juvenal tells us her blood is still warm.
Crispinus once again! a man whom I shall often have to call on to the scene, a prodigy of wickedness without one redeeming virtue; a sickly libertine, strong only in his lusts, which scorn none save the unwedded. What matters it then how spacious are the colonnades which tire out his horses, how large the shady groves in which he drives, how many acres near the Forum, how many palaces, he has bought? No bad man can be happy: least of all the incestuous seducer with whom lately lay a filleted 1 priestess, doomed to pass beneath the earth with the blood still warm within her veins.
Rufrius Crispinus was commander of the Praetorian Guard under Claudius, who Juvenal cryptically tells us is from Egypt. The Wikipedia link tells it is thought that he came to Rome as a fish merchant. How fitting for this tale and in other ways. In any case, Agrippina the Younger (the fourth wife of Claudius) removed him from his position as she regarded him as loyal to Messalina's (the third wife of Claudius and cousin to Nero) memory. Crispinus went on to marry Poppaea Sabina, the future wife of Nero. They would get divorced, and then as Josephus Flavius tells it he would later become friendly with Poppaea while she was married to Nero (after she had also married a future brief emperor, Otho.
Today I shall tell of a less heinous deed, though had any other man done the like, he would fall under the censor's lash: for what would be shameful in good men like Seius or Teius sat gracefully on Crispinus. What can you do when the man himself is more foul and monstrous than any charge you can bring against him? Crispinus bought a mullet for six thousand sesterces----one thousand sesterces for every pound of fish, as those would say who make big things bigger in the telling of them. I could commend the man's cunning if by such a lordly gift he secured the first place in the will of some childless old mail, or, better still, sent it to some great lady who rides in a close, broad-windowed litter. But nothing of the sort; he bought it for himself: we see many a thing done nowadays which poor niggardly Apicius 2 never did. What? Did you, Crispinus----you who once wore a strip of your native papyrus round your loins----give that price for a fish? A price bigger than you need have paid for the fisherman himself, a price for which you might buy a whole estate in some province, or a still larger one in Apulia. What kind of feasts are we to suppose were guzzled by our Emperor himself when all those thousands of sesterces----forming a small fraction, a mere side-dish of a modest entertainment----were belched up by a purple-clad parasite of the august Palace----one who is now Chief of the Knights, and who once used to hawk, at the top of his voice, a broken lot of his fellow-countrymen the sprats? Begin, Calliope! let us take our seats. This is no mere fable, but a true tale that is being told; tell it forth, ye maidens of Pieria, and let it profit me that I have called you maids!
The "maidens of Piera", are the Greek Muses, of which Piera is one of their cult centers. These including Calliope, the very chief of the Muses. So what is Juvenal telling us in this sentence. In honoring these goddesses of Thracian yore, albeit always depicted as being young, just how should we interpret 'mere fable' and 'true tale'? Especially as a 'sprat' is a small fish. He is comparing men to being small fish. So what to make of this 6 pound fish ... and a 'filleted' priestess?
What time the last of the Flavii was flaying the half-dying world, and Rome was enslaved to a bald-headed Nero,3 there fell into a net in the sea of Hadria, in front of the shrine of Venus that stands in Dorian Ancona, a turbot of wondrous size, filling up all its meshes,----a fish no less huge than those which the lake Maeotis conceals beneath the ice till it is broken up by the sun, and then sends forth, torpid through sloth and fattened by long cold, to the mouths of the Pontic sea. This monster the master of the boat and line designs for the High Pontiff 4; for who would dare to put up for sale or to buy so big a fish in days when even the sea shores were crowded with informers? The inspectors of sea-weed would straightway have taken the law of the poor fisherman, ready to affirm that the fish was a run-away that had long feasted in Caesar's fishponds; escaped from thence, he must needs be restored to his former master. For if Palfurius 5 is to be believed, or Armillatus,5 every rare and beautiful thing in the wide ocean, in whatever sea it swims, belongs to the Imperial Treasury. The fish therefore, that it be not wasted, shall be given as a gift.

We are now told that, curiously in relation to both 'bad boys' Domitian and the earlier Nero, a net 'fell' into the Adriatic Sea, in front of the shrine of Venus at Dorian Ancona, and a huge fish finds its way into the net. This monster fish has been fattening up for some time, yet at the beginning of the satire, it was only 6 pounds.
However, we've already figured out that these 'fish' are humans. This fish, the "master of the ship" has designs on the office of the Pontifex Maximus, the religious high priest of both pagan Rome and the later Roman Catholic Church, the universal church of amalgamated paganism covered with a Judaic gloss. Furthermore, the fish is reputed to have been a run-away from Caesar's fishponds, had escaped, and should be restored to his former master. It seems that it is decided that Crispinus must offer the fish back to Caesar, Domitian, as a gift.
End of Part 1
Last edited: