We often study and consider Roman satire chronologically, from Lucilius (or sometimes as early as Ennius), to Horace, then Persius and finish with Juvenal – if time allows. This volume challenges this notion by approaching satire with its belated authors, Persius and Juvenal, at the epicentre, the point from which the scholarly focus shifts forwards, backwards and sideways. This companion does not provide a complete overview of the Roman satiric tradition, nor does it claim to (for this task belongs to K. Freudenburg [ed.], Companion to Roman Satire [2005], among others). Here the editors set out to do for Persius and Juvenal what P. Hardie did for Silver epic (Epic Successors of Vergil [1993]): treating the imperial satirists as heirs to their genre and observing what it means to be a literary heir. This companion features how Persius and Juvenal adopted, redefined, vied with and passed down the satiric tradition established by their generic predecessors and other literary influences. By tracing the thread of satiric succession this volume can, as O. writes, ‘open new perspectives; it can help illuminate aspects of their poetry that might otherwise seem strange or unappealing’ (p. 10).
The 22 essays are divided into three parts that convey the theme of satiric succession. Part 1, ‘Persius and Juvenal: Texts and Contexts’, highlights historical, cultural and literary perspectives of the imperial satirists themselves. Rosen's essay offers a traditional overview of the history of satire through the lens of libertas – free speech, or ‘how much … can the satirist actually get away with saying?’ (p. 39) – which is idealised in Lucilius through the lens of Horatian critique, self-imposed in Horace, but problematic for later writers of satire. Dinter and Armstrong provide historical context for each author: Dinter situates Persius within the milieu of the Neronian Renaissance with contemporaries Lucan, Seneca and Petronius; and Armstrong's chapter, echoing themes from his previous study (‘Horatius Eques et Scriba: Satires 1.6 and 2.7’, TAPA 116 [1986], 255–88), argues that Juvenal was a member of the equestrian class, yet adopted the conventional persona in which satirists claim ‘they are poorer than they actually are’ as a form of deference to their wealthy patrons (p. 76). In her indispensible introduction to Persius' poetry, Keane investigates its prominent themes and conventions, such as rejection of society, identification of a select audience, Stoic undercurrents and the impact of material imagery on the audience's sensory experience. Despite Juvenal's ‘changes of tone, of self-presentation and performance’ and use of multiple personae throughout his satires (p. 111), Gold argues that he exhibits both consistent style and narrative voice to affirm single authorship. Kenney's and Parker's densely packed technical chapters complete Part 1, where Kenney examines the poets' style, word choice, metres and rhetoric, and Parker expands L.D. Reynolds et al. (edd.), Texts and Transmission (1983) by tracing the manuscript tradition of Juvenal and Persius (including a table of principal manuscripts for the satirists [pp. 138–43] and the Commentum Cornuti [pp. 143–4], along with a diagram of textual transmission [p. 148]).
Part 2, ‘Retrospectives: Persius and Juvenal as Successors’, looks backwards to the foundations of and influences on imperial satire from Lucilius, Horace and beyond. Cucchiarelli, after his La satira e il poeta (2001), argues ‘it was Horace who spread the principles and ideas of Callimacheanism in Latin literature and culture’ (p. 187), which were then ‘collected and amplified’ (p. 189) by the imperial poets and preserved into posterity. Roche discusses autobiographical reminiscences in imperial satire and evaluates the poetry's overall dramatic and performative aspect. Bartsch covers much ground as she explores how Persius innovatively enriches satire with Stoic teachings through literary criticism, interlocution and references to food and the body; Juvenal's verse, on the other hand, is driven by indignatio, not a unified philosophical vision. The next set of chapters observes the influences of various genres on imperial satire: McNelis writes about the transmission of Greek iambic and comedic influences through the Lucilian and Horatian satire; van den Berg, after discussing the ‘indefinability’ of satire (pp. 266–9), extols rhetoric as the most important interpretative angle when studying satire; and Roller observes how politics (which he defines generally as ‘competitive moves made within and across various fields of competition’ that ‘seek to advance their interests against others’ [p. 287]) and invective are intertwined in satire, but realised differently in imperial satire compared with Lucilius. Miller completes Part 2 with a Bakhtinian perspective of satire, which expands the scope of his ‘The Bodily Grotesque in Roman Satire: Images of Sterility’, Arethusa 31 (1998), 257–83. Contrary to Bakhtin's concept of the carnivalesque, which has roots in the Roman festival Saturnalia, Miller observes that imperial satire highlights a sterile vision of the body intended to elicit disgust.
The essays in the final section, ‘Prospectives: the Successors of Persius and Juvenal’, look forwards to the reception and longevity of imperial satire in Late Antiquity, the Renaissance and into the Media Age. Although there is some content overlap among these chapters, the contributions are thought-provoking and unique for a companion book. Hooley traces the Nachleben of Persius and Juvenal, and the latter's rediscovery and predominance in later public opinion over his satiric predecessors. Sogno demonstrates the preservation of imperial satire into modernity via ‘Christian Satire’, a genre influenced by Persius' and Juvenal's moralising message. Sogno writes that reception of satire into Late Antiquity is ‘among the best and most emblematic examples of the blending of genres and blurring of boundaries between genres that constitute the most characteristic and defining features of late antique literature’ (p. 364). Gillespie examines sixteenth-century writers of satire, translations and imitations of classical satire, such as Scaliger, Casaubon, Dryden, Donne and Holyday, and concludes that ‘changing conditions naturally changed the way the ancients were viewed’ (p. 392). The editors contribute a must-read chapter that begins with a coda to the volume's theme of satiric succession. What follows is an analysis of ‘father’ Dryden's Discourse Concerning the Original and Progress of Satire considered together with his translations of imperial satire (p. 410), situated within the theme of poetic succession: ‘translators are successors too’ (p. 426). B. collaborates with Parker to discuss the imperial satirists' commentaries from Late Antiquity to the twentieth century; it is best read alongside Parker's previous chapter and Richlin's upcoming chapter. B. and Parker include an enlightening ‘Examples’ section in which several textual issues are explored in light of extant scholia and commentaries. Richlin's contribution treats modern school texts of the imperial satirists in light of expurgation, passage selection based on tests, annotations and piracy, among other things. This is an interesting and unusual addition to a companion book and Richlin's introduction lends a refreshing perspective to modern consumerism of Classical academia. Nisbet explores various English translations of Persius and Juvenal, which have had to tackle the problem of obscenity within the emergence of a mass reading population. And finally Winkler's reception essay observes Roman satire's contribution to cinema. Rather than addressing the direct influence of imperial satire on modern film, which is an entirely different topic, Winkler suggests the influence of satiric style on Western civilisation manifests itself in films like Hitchcock's Suspicion (1941) and Coppola's The Conversation (1974). This is an intriguing contribution, although a more focused study on Roman satire's reception in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries remains to be done.
The companion is accessible to students of Classics and related fields who have little or no prior knowledge of Roman satire. All Latin text is accompanied by English translations, and most technical terms (e.g. scholia [p. 144] and scriptio continua [p. 155]) are glossed. But this companion, highly specialised, also appeals to a more knowledgeable readership. The contributions are written by eminent scholars in the field of Roman satire and Classical scholarship, many of whom have contributed previously to similar companions (M. Plaza [ed.], Persius and Juvenal [2009]; K. Freudenburg [ed.], Companion to Roman Satire [2005] and the recently published E. Buckley and M. Dinter [edd.], Companion to the Neronian Age [2013], which is referred to erroneously throughout the current companion as the Blackwell Companion to Neronian Literature and Culture). The narrative voices and various approaches nevertheless communicate deeply with one another and effectively transmit the volume's unifying vision of satiric succession.
