Customer Reviews

Sixteen Satires (Penguin Classics)

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Juvenal, is by far one of the greatest writers of the Roman era. His biting style and keen insight is a pleasure to read, and has not lost its appeal after the long years since it was written. Many of the subjects that Juvenal lashes at with his sharp wit are still apply today (government corruption and decadence among others).
However, Juvenal clearly wrote his satires for the era of the roman empire, not the 21st century, and his refferences often fly over the reader's head. The translator has done a fabulous job in explaining these details in the copious notes at the back of the book. It is highly suggested that one reads sections of the notes before reading those sections in the satires to gain the greatest understanding.

Peter Green's latest revision to his earlier translations of Juvenal's satires is an absolute joy to read! In the Introduction he recounts the changes he has made with a refreshing candor. In addition, he neatly summarizes the various viewpoints about the problematic portions of the Satires -- possible lacunae (gaps), possible line shuffling, possible transcription errors, etc. While such problems occur with any ancient text (such as the Bible), it is rarely that a translator will discuss the problems, the solutions the translator has employed, and the reasons for his or her choices outside of scholarly works. Peter Green's clear and persuasive arguments are a welcome change from the usual practice.

The translations themselves preserve the sense of the original Latin, with little or no modern colloquialisms. As the translator noted in his Introduction, he was aghast to note in the first edition the extent to which he had both varied from the original line structure of Juvenal's works and the extent to which he had employed contemporary language, which now seemed dated. As a result, Peter Green retranslated most of the Satires to correct these errors. The latest edition of this work thus is far truer to the original work. The resulting text provides fascinating insights into Roman life duriung Juvenal's lifetime.

Another wonderful aspect of this edition are the clear and self-contained footnotes. The reader is not left having to scramble to find some obscure text in order to understand the footnote. Peter Green puts all the information necessary into each footnote, and also provides external references as necessary.

This work stands in stark contrast to Walsh's translation and footnoting of Petronius' Satyricon (Oxford Classics series),which I also reviewed.

Peter Green's translation of Juvenal's Satires is well worth purchasing and reading for anyone at all interested in life and issues in life in late first and early second century Rome.

Juvenal was a misanthrope who looked around at the people he saw in ancient Rome and decided that most people were dishonest, corrupt, obsessed with sex, stupid, cheaters, etc. It's an ugly picture but hard to argue with as people are pretty much the same now. There are some masterly depictions here and some very good common sense, too. Not a pick me up. More like a "pull you down". Still worth reading to confirm your worst suspicions and also as an antidote to much positive thinking nonsense.

Yes, Dr Jones may well be right in suggesting that there are better editions than this (although it would have been useful if he'd told us exactly which ones and why!). However, Peter Green arguably offers the best introduction to Juvenal's Satires. After all, Green is not writing for the specialist but for the average, intelligent reader - the kind of reader that Penguin Classics habitually caters for. Jones probably has scholars like Susanna Braund in mind and I'd imagine that her editions are those that professional classicists like him find most valuable. She offers an extremely perceptive commentary, full Latin text and a translation that is, I suspect, closer to the letter than Green's. But Braund comes at a hefty price - £18 for Volume I alone.

In any case, this Penguin edition has lots to offer besides value. Green captures the spirit and vitality, as well as the sharply ironic humour, of the original at least as well as Braund or Rudd, the two main competitors. His Juvenal sounds fresh, witty and modern (as well as occasionally loathsome, misogynistic and xenophobic). His Introduction, moreover, is extensive and engaging. It may well be 'old-fashioned' in its lack of enthusiasm for the 'persona theory' (ie the view that the poet is donning a mask and not voicing his own opinions, thereby preventing us from reading the satires as self-revelation). But Green does at least address 'the much-vexed question of Juvenal's satirical persona', and gives us an alternative approach. He inclines to the view that Juvenal's savage indignation resulted from humbling personal experience. According to long-held tradition, he was exiled - probably to Egypt. Green surmises that this story of exile is true, and that it might well have taken the harshest form - 'deportatio' - involving the confiscation of everything dear to a Roman citizen: land, money, status. In the early satires, Green sees Juvenal as 'a waspish gadfly from Aquinum' and a 'snarling chip-on-the-shoulder flay-all'. The gradual softening of tone (anger - cynicism - irony) can be accounted for, Green thinks, by a gradual improvement in Juvenal's material circumstances. In this reading, therefore, the Satires are at least partly autobiographical.

So, maybe not definitive and certainly not radical, but an edition that's good enough for the vast majority of interested readers. Good enough even for Dr Jones himself, otherwise he wouldn't have used Green's translation in his (excellent) article 'The persona and the addressee in Juvenal's Satire 11' in Ramus, vol.19, no2, pp160-68, 1990, when Braund's and Rudd's alternatives were also available.

Oh, that mullet. You'll have to read Green's illuminating note to line 317 of Satire X.

Juvenal had an acid tongue and were he alive today he would be a blogger satirizing the doings of the celebrated and the wealthy. Reading Juvenal is akin to reading the most viciously funny writings of Jonathan Swift. The translation of Juvenal makes it readily accessible to the modern reader.

Thankyou for The 16 Satires. I definitely wish this book & a The Iladw/ a few Norse sagas were in our grade schools. Too bad for political correctness eh. Anyways, one can very easily see why politicians & media heros didn't like this guy. He simply told it like it was (is). Ahead of his time. ;)

Having recently finished Stephen Colbert's I am an American, this book hit me with a strange "de ja vu" feeling (go figure). Never mind that Juvenal wrote his Satires around 80 to 90 AD in/around the city of Rome. Like Colbert, Juvenal concocts a bombastic, "holier than thou" alter ego narrator who rails on every vice afflicting his contemporary culture, from avarice to homosexuality to the female sex. Although Juvenal the narrator voices his strong opinions in an over-exaggerated way (some times to the point of the reader's irritation) he provides an eye-opening window into Roman society. Effeminate men in see-through robes, women dressing up like soldiers and training in swordplay, noblemen serving themselves lobster and peacock and making their lower-ranking guests eat stale bread--all this disgusts Juvenal. Sometimes his tirades go on a bit long on subjects of less interest to modern readers (out-of-context discussions of now-forgotten politics), and some are flinchingly harsh (Satire 6 "against women"--I suspect the man was never married). For the most part, Juvenal provides an eye-opening and accessible look at how ancient life parallels the modern.

This book was totally sweet. The Roman satirist Juvenal's biting critiques of Roman civilization are as informative as they are fascinating(and I must say biting critiques make my little bitter person inside happy). His writing style and the English rendering of it flow rather nicely. Perhaps most importantly is Juvenal is able to paint a portrait of a civilization, warts and all, that has been gone for 2000 years. It's kind of like he took a snapshot of his own day that has endured until our time. Now that's what I call sweet history action!!! In fact this book is such sweet history action that when I took a Roman history class and my professor told a student to use just one of Juvenal's satires for an assignment I thought to myself it's cruel and unusual punishment to make a student just read one satire, you just have to read all of them!!!