G.’s introduction, translation and commentary of Juvenal's Book 4 (Satires 10–12) offers a welcome and well-produced addition to a series of commentaries on the market that have not often addressed this specific and penultimate book of Juvenal's Satires (exceptions are J. Ferguson, The Satires [1979] and E. Courtney, A Commentary on the Satires of Juvenal [1980], but are now nearly 40 years old). For this reason G.’s book will certainly be greeted with some excitement and curiosity by Juvenalian scholars who wish to investigate the satirist's unique contribution to Roman satire's function and form beyond any one individual book (of five) within the corpus of sixteen individual satires.
In the preface G. declares the purpose of his commentary: ‘to help readers to understand the ideas being discussed and also to appreciate the literary quality of the Latin in which these ideas are expressed’ (p. vii). Such an objective is both admirable and one that G. in the main achieves. G. admits that it is a difficult task to make all explanations of Juvenal comprehensible, but that his edition's English translation and commentary seek to facilitate the understanding of Juvenal for a reader with ‘little (or even no) Latin’ (p. vii). To illuminate the nuances of Juvenalian Latin to one with ‘little (or even no) Latin’, however, is a challenge, and at times G.’s clarifications of the Latin keyed to his English commentary might be a strain for those without an adequate background in Latin. Overall, the edition's introduction to the author, his genre and style is impressive, if not succinct; G.’s English translation is fluid, and commentary fairly extensive and informative, although it pays little attention to questions of coherence between Satires 10–12 and the rest of the collection, which I will address below.
G.’s introduction to Juvenal covers much informative ground in the limited space of 20 pages; the Aris and Phillips Classical Texts series is generally aimed at the intermediate to advanced student of the ancient language. This instalment explores the author through the following series of subsections: ‘I. What is Satire?’ discusses broader themes (p. 1); ‘II. Satire before Juvenal’ offers an overview of Juvenal's Roman satiric predecessors (pp. 2–4); ‘III. Juvenal's Satires’ assigns a publication date to each book followed by a brief one-sentence thematic description about each satire, then a ‘rapid summary’ (p. 6) of ‘some key targets of Juvenal's satire’ (pp. 4–6); ‘IV. Juvenal and his Times’ raises questions about the author's biography and the publication dates of particular books, although there are issues with G.’s methodology for dating Juvenal's initial book or Satires 1–5 (pp. 6–8; see B. Santorelli's discussion of publication dates in BMCR 2017.09.45); ‘V. Style’ summarises key stylistic features of the satirist, including his use of irony, parody, rhetorical devices such as apostrophe, anaphora, hyperbole, and his treatment of epic, to name just a few (pp. 8–13); ‘VI. Do the Poems have a Purpose?’ posits ways of reading and understanding the satirist's intent (pp. 13–16); ‘VII. The metre’ offers a basic and useful primer to quantitative metre and the dactylic hexameter (pp. 16–18); and ‘VIII. The Transmission of the Text’ (p. 19). An intermediate to advanced student of Latin could not ask for a better-defined and concise roadmap to brave Juvenal.
Occasionally, some points of discussion in the introduction and commentary leave something to be desired. In the introductory section ‘VI. Do the Poems have a Purpose?’ (p. 13) G. explains the virtues of using persona theory to interpret the many characters and voices Juvenal employs to ask whether the Latin reader ought to interpret, for example, the speaker of Satire 6 (Book 2), a sustained attack on women, as ‘ironic mockery of misogyny rather than the real thing, assuming that the poet … adopts a “mask” (persona) of “woman-hater”’ (p. 15). G. goes on to warn sensibly that the persona Juvenal adopts ‘is not co-extensive with the poet himself’ (p. 15), but that it offers the reader an opportunity to reflect on how various personae might reveal not only something about Juvenal's time, but also about our own. G. misses a key opportunity here to suggest a use(s) of the satirist for reading ‘today’ (p. 15) that might also convince a sceptic to appreciate Juvenal in a worldly and substantial manner. No doubt issues of xenophobia, class inequality and the rise of right-wing nationalism are as germane today as immigration, increased commerce and institutional decay were in Juvenal's. Why not suggest how Juvenal is good for thinking about, for instance, the contemporary rise of nationalism; or how the satirist's viewpoints, or other personae, might correspond to those of a conservative or liberal politician, talk show host or even a comedian, just as G. aptly likens Juvenal to ‘an old-testament prophet’ or ‘stand-up comedian’ (p. vii)? Perhaps such discussion in the classroom is too taboo or risky, but it says something about how Juvenal does ‘make us think’ (p. 16) not only about thorny matters relevant both to ancient and modern eras, but also the psychology – i.e. anger (ira, bilis), humour, irony, parody etc. – behind the author's and/or reader's negotiation and understanding of them.
The substantial commentary sections for each satire (Satires 10–12) are the edition's greatest strength in their exhaustive display of stylistic, lexical and grammatical information. Line-by-line commentary for all three satires is preceded by a brief introduction about each satire's themes and imagery, which culminates in suggestions for additional secondary reading, though slightly incomplete (the useful Italian commentary by A. Stramaglia, Giovenale, Satire 1, 7, 12, 16: Storia di un poeta [2008], has been overlooked). Explanatory notes are often accompanied by an impressive list of citations, including references to other authors and genres beyond the Roman satirists ranging from Homer and Aristophanes to Lucretius and Diogenes Laertius.
Whereas such breadth demonstrates G.’s adept handle of primary sources, less attention to stylistic and thematic resonances between the satires accounts for some missed chances to articulate better Book 4's unity and relationship with the rest of the collection. Satire 11, for example, is all about food and the narrator's invitation to a certain Persicus, referred to by G. as ‘Mr. Softy’ (p. 165), to enjoy a meal at his country estate in Tivoli. Yet, a more sustained reflection on the satire's meaning alongside an earlier counterpart in Satire 5, another dinner-party, would have greatly enhanced the purpose and meaning of similar discussions raised by the satirist in Satire 11 such as the state of patron–client relations as well as locally and globally sourced foods; might Satire 11 represent a marked shift, for better or worse, since Satire 5 in the satirist's attitude towards these same issues? Has Juvenal's style or tone transformed, too, as a result? What social or political factors may have influenced their transformation? How might this have happened?
Such minor reservations, however, do not take away from the overall value of G.’s new edition. G.’s commendable reassessment of Satires 10–12 should lure in a new generation of Latin readers who can appreciate Juvenal's complexity and emotion.
