Readers have struggled to interpret an image from the end of Juvenal's fifth satire, a poem which focusses upon the poor hospitality shown to a dinner guest, Trebius, at the hands of his host, Virro. After repeatedly juxtaposing the luxurious food served to Virro with the scant fare served to Trebius, Juvenal describes the final course of the cena. He again contrasts the host's hyper-abundance with his guest's mere scraps (5.149–55):

While the core contrast between the quality of each type of fare is clear, the concluding qui-clause is less intelligible. Who could this entity be? On line 153, the scholiast comments: quale simia manducat.Footnote ³ While quale could refer to the object being eaten (scabie mali quod) rather than to the qui-antecedent, it is clear in any case that the ancient reader felt that 5.153–5 evoked the image of an ape. Recent commentaries on Juvenal's fifth satire reflect a scholarly consensus: J.D. Duff, Edward Courtney, Susanna Braund and Biagio Santorelli all follow the scholiast's suggestion and believe that the passage describes a trained ape, as do recent readers of the poem.Footnote ⁴

In this article, however, I will first argue against the standard reading, which is prompted by the scholiast's misreading, and then propose an alternative suggestion, namely that the passage depicts a dwarf entertainer enacting the mythical battle between Pygmies and cranes.

Commonly cited in arguments in favour of the reading ‘monkey’ is the ancient awareness—and reality—of monkeys’ ability to imitate human action. In fact, the uncanny similarity between monkeys and humans as well as monkeys’ mimetic properties were subject to significant and well-attested fascination by the Romans.Footnote ⁵ In support of the standard reading, both Braund and Santorelli cite a passage from Aelian that stresses these very qualities of the creature (NA 5.26):

Certainly, it is well within the realm of ancient imagination that an ape could be trained to act as the qui-antecedent in Satire 5, if taught properly.

The whip, used to train the qui-antecedent, has also been taken as evidence for the mainstream reading. J.E.B. Mayor references a wall-painting at Pompeii featuring a boy, whip in hand, training a monkey (VI.ix.6).Footnote ⁶ That the flagellum is sometimes used to discipline animals—specifically mules and horsesFootnote ⁷—supports this reading. However, punishment with the whip is not limited to animals, as Roman enslavers are frequently described using the flagellum to punish the enslavedFootnote ⁸ or, as Nicolas Lemaire conjectured in his 1823 commentary on Juvenal, the flagellum may refer to a centurion-in-training (although that reading has since been rightly rejected).Footnote ⁹ The flagellum could certainly be used to train an ape, but the word is inconclusive.

Yet, despite the possibility that a simia could be trained to play soldier, there is no attestation of monkeys being trained to act like a soldier or to wear armour, on the agger or otherwise.Footnote ¹⁰ Outside of Aelian's description of a monkey charioteer—quoted above—the closest evidence is a Martial epigram about a monkey often cited in support of the standard reading (14.202):

Mayor cites this passage as an example of a ‘soldier-ape’.Footnote ¹¹ That the monkey is described as callidus certainly implies that its skill is not innate but acquired by practice and, as it dodges spears, the monkey acts as a soldier might. The epigram does not, however, provide sufficient context to determine whether the ape is meant specifically to imitate soldiers along the lines of Juv. 5.153–5 or simply to dodge thrown spears as a parlour trick; Martial does not describe a monkey trained to wear armour or to fight like a soldier. Moreover, the passage lacks any clear performance context, whether a dinner party or on the agger. As such, the relationship between this passage and Juv. 5.153–5 is less close than has been previously assumed.

Although not cited by the above readers to support the standard reading, the lines preceding the image may prime the reader to interpret qui as an ape. The poem describes the apples of Virro as credere quae possis subrepta sororibus Afris, a clear reference to the Hesperides; the final word, Afris, may point to the Roman pet apes which, as William McDermott suggests, were Ethiopian monkeys and Barbary apes.Footnote ¹² As I will suggest, however, this points to a dwarf acting as a Pygmy just as well.

The most compelling evidence given for a reading of monkey is the verb rodit; it is likely that this triggered the scholiast's comment—quale simia manducat—in the first place. As Braund rightly points out, the verb rodo often describes animalsFootnote ¹³ including goats (Ov. Fast. 1.357, Met. 13.691), moths (Plin. HN 16.220) and mice (Juv. 3.207; Cic. Diu. 2.59), though, it is important to note, never an ape. The verb is not limited to animal subjects, however: the term is sometimes used to describe humans with unflattering intent. Seneca, amidst a list of men's sins that women emulate, uses the verb to describe women gnawing on snow to soothe their stomachs (Ep. 95.21). Horace uses the verb three times, one time of a witch gnawing on her thumb (Epod. 5.48), another of a poet that anxiously gnaws on his fingernails (Sat. 1.10.71), and a third of a city-dweller's time in town (Ep. 1.14.37–40):

The poet portrays the urban addressee's meal, gnawing on rations amongst slaves, as patently inferior to easy country-living; the verb rodere, often used to describe animals, bolsters the degrading tone of the image. Likewise, Juv. 5.153–5, which describes the subject in negative terms, need not describe an animal.

Those who read 5.153–5 as a reference to a trained ape emphasize the demeaning nature of the image. Braund argues that the image ‘symbolizes Trebius’ degradation and servile status’.Footnote ¹⁴ Along similar lines, Santorelli argues that the martial gear of the ape bears epic associations that are then undercut by the creature's low status.Footnote ¹⁵ Kirk Freudenburg detects a similar deflation of epic, but instead ties the passage to the programmatics of satire and Juvenal's inability to live up to the satirist Lucilius, whom Juvenal elsewhere describes in martial terms (1.19–21, 1.165–7).Footnote ¹⁶ As he suggests, the monkey, as ‘a sideshow parody of a real warrior and knight, such as Lucilius’, thereby ‘bears a certain figurative resemblance to the satirist’.Footnote ¹⁷ But even Freudenburg's argument, which makes more of this passage than most, depends little on a positive identification of the qui-clause with a trained monkey; for his degraded satirist, any low-status creature would do.

The above readers, in their attempts to follow the scholiast's suggestion, have done well to demonstrate why the scholiast might have been drawn to the reading ‘monkey’; but while they have succeeded in demonstrating that this passage could represent a trained monkey, readings of this passage have failed to explain why an audience would read the simile as such. It is here where the reading of ‘monkey’ falters: there is no impetus from within the text for a reading of ape.

The Romans found those with non-normative body types, such as dwarfs, to be a source of laughter.Footnote ¹⁸ As such, it should come as no surprise that dwarfs are well attested as a form of entertainment in Imperial Rome in a variety of contexts, including elite dinner parties. Lucian in his Symposium describes the comical exploits of Satyrion, a dwarf jester who, after mocking the guests, earns the ire of a philosopher in attendance (Lucian, Symp. 19):

The two battle and the rest of the guests laugh at them. The scene not only situates dwarf performances in the context of elite dinner-parties, but also captures the laughter directed towards nanoi as both performers and as perceived lessers. In the eyes of the contemporary audience, the inherent comedy of dwarfs makes them an appropriate target of comparison with Trebius, whose degrading treatment at the hands of his superiors provides much of the poem's satiric force.

The humorous quality of dwarven performers is elsewhere attested in an epigram of Martial, which depicts a quite similar scene to the qui-clause in Juvenal's fifth satire (Mart. 14.213):

Here, Martial describes a small, ineffectual parma. The force of the joke is that, in the hands of a non-dwarf, the shield is a parma, or buckler, the small shield used by uelites (Polyb. 6.22.2), cavalry (Livy 26.4.4) and the thraex, a gladiator favoured by Domitian (Suet. Dom. 1.10). However, in the hands of a dwarf, it is a full-blown scutum, a larger and heavier shield used by heavy infantry (Polyb. 6.23.1–5, 16). Martial's comical image is not pure invention, as armoured dwarfs are attested in visual art, particularly in figurines.Footnote ¹⁹ Martial strikes a similar mocking tone in another epigram featuring a dwarf, this one contrasting two epic characters (2.214):

The dwarf's head, likely covered in a helmet, resembles the great hero Hector, but once his whole body is visible, his stature betrays his first impression. While it is unclear whether Juvenal had these epigrams and their depiction of an armed dwarf in mind when composing the qui-clause at 5.153–5, Juvenal was certainly familiar with the epigram above, at least by the time of Satire 6, as he alludes to the passage when describing the hairstyle of a short Roman woman (6.504–7):

Like Martial, Juvenal draws attention to the disparity between the subject's imposing first impression and the unflattering reality, substituting the dwarf-performer's martial visage for an elaborate hairstyle and Hector for Andromache.Footnote ²⁰ Here, though, the image shifts. The short woman is no pumilio. Rather, she is likened to a Pygmy, a diminutive African (or sometimes Indian) race that wages perpetual war with cranes in what is called the geranomachy.Footnote ²¹ As diminutive participants in an absurd battle, Pygmies frequently serve to undercut martial or epic themes.Footnote ²² That Juvenal redirects the Martial epigram towards Pygmies suggests an easy connection, in a Roman mind, between the two types of smaller people.

This permeability between dwarf and Pygmy is further exemplified in a scene from Statius’ Siluae, which describes a gladiatorial match between dwarfs during a public spectacle hosted by Domitian (1.6.57–64):Footnote ²³

While Mars and Courage laugh on at the dwarfs’ battle, cranes loom overhead. Statius casts his dwarf performers as Pygmies, and imagines them in their traditional role in the geranomachy.

It is difficult to ascertain the outfit of the would-be Pygmies, though Stephen Brunet argues that, in this instance, the dwarfs/Pygmies were unarmed boxers as opposed to traditional gladiators.Footnote ²⁵ At any rate, Pygmies are frequently depicted with weapons. A prominent example comes from Juvenal himself in the thirteenth satire (167–71):

Like Mart. Epigr. 14.213, Juvenal's geranomachic image here stresses the small size of the Pygmy's weapons, as well as his martial incompetence, to comedic effect. As in Stat. Silu. 1.6 (discussed above), here the absurdity of the Pygmies is front and centre.

This example of dwarf performers under Domitian suggests that a dwarf enacting martial scenes—and in particular the geranomachy—had cultural resonance in Juvenal's time. Indeed, an association between Domitian and performing dwarfs is also attested in Dio Cassius, who, after describing Domitian's enthusiasm for hosting nighttime feasts, notes his habit of hosting nighttime games (67.8.4):

This cultural resonance, I suspect, is the source of the scholiast's misreading. Given that the Scholia Vetustiora, following Alan Cameron's suggestion, date from the fifth century c.e.,Footnote ²⁶ the possibility that qui refers to a dwarf might not occur to the scholiast, as this type of dwarf performance is largely associated with the then-distant reign of Domitian.

The preceding line (154), discussed above as possible evidence for a reading of ‘monkey’, primes the audience to think of Pygmies; the concluding word, Afris, prepares the audience not only to think of Pygmies, a race often located in Africa, but also to consider Hercules, whom visual representations of Pygmies frequently parody.Footnote ²⁷ Further, the image may recall Hercules’ specific escapades in the region, which included an encounter with Pygmy warriors according to one strand of the myth (Philostr. Imag. 2.22).Footnote ²⁸

The most convincing textual support for this alternative reading, though, comes at the conclusion of the passage. Our dwarf performer, javelin in hand, sits atop a shaggy capella. The performer's choice of mount is no coincidence, as there is a long-standing association between Pygmies and goats. The François Krater dating to the early/mid fifth century b.c.e. depicts pygmies mounted on goat-back, advancing against their foes, the cranes.Footnote ²⁹ This association is still live in Juvenal's day, as Pliny also describes the Pygmies with similar imagery (HN 7.26):

Given the associations between Pygmies and goat-riding, the concluding capella reads as something of a punchline, the moment when the qui-antecedent, apparently vague, has become clear.

Given our association between Domitian and dwarf spectacles, especially the geranomachy described in Statius' Siluae 1.6, the simile at Juv. 5.153–5 firmly places the cena of the fifth satire in a Domitianic context. In her reading of Siluae 1.6, Carole E. Newlands has argued that the poem's banquet and games, part of a Saturnalia celebration, are depicted as a form of social control, where deriding the performers brings the guests closer to their emperor.Footnote ³⁰ Yet, this unity is an illusion; despite the notionally permissive environment of the Saturnalia of which Statius reminds us (Silu. 1.6.84), the spectators enjoy bodily pleasures that only further bind them to the emperor, who looms over them as a god.Footnote ³¹ The minimization of Siluae 1.6's guests is shown shortly after Statius’ allusion to geranomachy, which ends with cranes who are about to descend, casurae (1.6.63). As the guests fight over expensive gifts—diues sparsio quos agit tumultus (1.6.60)—exotic birds fall down upon them. Given that it follows Statius’ humorous reference to the geranomachy, which was inspired by the sight of battling dwarfs, the descent of the birds upon the disordered guests, cadunt (1.6.75), invites us to imagine the spectators as Pygmies; the guests become assimilated to the marginalized performers, the inferior targets of their mockery. Yet, the guests are not entirely out of luck, as they rejoice in snatching up all the birds they can (1.6.79–80). Regardless of their minimization before a godlike Domitian, the guests at least enjoy a plentiful feast. Juvenal's reference to a geranomachy recalls these associations and the disparity between godlike host and guest in the Siluae,Footnote ³² yet amplifies them. His guest, too, is likened to a dwarf-performer, but Trebius receives no lavish feast to soften the blow; instead, he must content himself with the scab of an apple. As terrible as Domitian was, in Juvenal's own time the guest's suffering is even greater.

The disparity between Virro's men and poor Trebius is characterized by repeated epic allusion. As Braund and Santorelli argue, the courses served to Virro and his comrades are frequently given elaborate epic or mythic origins that emphasize their disparity with the scant fare reserved for the likes of Trebius. Virro does not eat mere apples but rather apples like those of Phaeacia, or the golden apples of the Hesperides. The scab of an apple left to the guest strikes a comic contrast with the epic image; it is appropriate that, given the repeated deflation of epic throughout the poem, Trebius should be likened to one of the Pygmies, who as figures make light of the martial scenes endemic to epic. Trebius, who dines on the degraded versions of epic fare, himself becomes a figure who undercuts epic.

However, Trebius’ fare falls short of Virro's not just in its unimpressive genealogy but also in terms of volume. Satire 5 repeatedly contrasts the massive portions of the stingy host with the mere morsels left to his guests. But now, in the final course of the cena, the poem's polarities between minimum and maximum shift from the food on the table to the host and dinner guest, the former Virro ‘Mr Man’ and the latter a homunculus.

As I discussed above, much of the image fits a reading of ‘monkey’: trainability, African origin, performative context. However, the explanation is less satisfactory in explaining goat-riding, armour-wearing and weapon-wielding, activities which a performing ape certainly could do, though for which we lack attestation. I argue that the imagery in the simile more strongly suggests a dwarf impersonating a Pygmy. The reading is not, of course, without weaknesses. The verb rodo often refers to animal-chewing, though, as I have shown, it can be used of humans with disparaging intent. Further, that the individual in the passage is trained by a whip might fit better with a performing ape, as I have discussed, since we have no textual attestation for a dwarf trained by whip. Yet, that the performer was likely enslaved explains this detail, as Roman enslavers are frequently depicted using the flagellum to inflict punishment. Like a reading of ‘ape’, reading the passage as a dwarf playing a Pygmy is perfectly compatible with an African origin and a performative context, and provides a better explanation for goat-riding, armour-wearing and weapon-wielding. Further, an allusion to a dwarf pretending to be a Pygmy evokes a specific memory of Domitianic rule, used by Statius to stress the inequality between host-emperor and puny guest; in a poem concerned with the tyrannical behaviour of Virro, this memory drives home that the distance between host and guest is akin to that between emperor and those enslaved for his enjoyment.