Satires 1.6 (Fairclough)

Though of all the Lydians that are settled in Tuscan lands none is of nobler birth than you, and though grandsires of yours, on your mother’s and father’s side alike, commanded mighty legions in days of old, yet you, Maecenas, do not, like most of the world, curl up your nose at men of unknown birth, men like myself, a freedman’s son.

When you say it matters not who a man’s parent is, if he be himself free-born, you rightly satisfy yourself of this, that before the reign of Tullius and his lowly kingship, numbers of men, sprung from ancestors of no account, often lived upright lives and were honoured with high office; that Laevinus, on the other hand, descendant of that Valerius through whom Tarquin the Proud was driven from his throne to exile, was never valued higher by the price of a single penny, even when rated by the people—the judge you know so well, who in folly often gives office to the unworthy, is stupidly enslaved to fame, and dazzled by titles of honour and waxen masks. What, then, should we do, we who are set far, far above the vulgar?

For let us grant that the people would rather give office to a Laevinus than to an unknown Decius, and that an Appius as censor would strike out my name if I were not the son of a free-born father—and quite rightly, for not having stayed quiet in my own skin. The truth is, Vanity drags all, bound to her glittering car, the unknown no less than the well known. What good was it to you, Tillius, to assume the stripe once doffed and become a tribune? Envy fastened on you afresh, but would be less, were you in a private station. For as soon as any man is so crazy as to bind the black thongs half way up his leg, and to drop the broad stripe down his breast, at once he hears: “What fellow is this? What was his father?” Just as, if one should suffer from the same malady as Barrus, and long to be thought handsome, then wherever he went he would make the girls eager to ask about details—what his face was like, his ankle, his foot, his teeth, his hair: so he who takes it upon himself to look after his fellow-citizens and the city, the empire and Italy and the temples of the gods, compels all the world to take an interest, and to ask who was his father, and whether he is dishonoured through an unknown mother. “Do you, the son of a Syrus, a Dama, a Dionysius, dare to fling from the rock or to hand over to Cadmus citizens of Rome?” “But,” you say, “Novius, my colleague, sits one row behind me,” for he is only what my father was. “Do you therefore fancy yourself a Paulus or a Messala? Why, this Novius, if two hundred carts and three big funerals come clashing in the Forum, will shout loud enough to drown horns and trumpets: that at least takes with us.”

Now to return to myself, “son of a freedman father,” whom all carp at as “son of a freedman father”—now, because I consort with you, Maecenas; but in other days, because as tribune I had a Roman legion under my command. This case and that are different, for though perchance anyone may rightly grudge me the office, yet he should not grudge me your friendship as well—the less so, as you are cautious to choose as friends only the worthy, who stand aloof from base self-seeking. Fortunate I could not call myself as having won your friendship by some chance; for ’twas no case of luck throwing you in my way; that best of men, Virgil, some time ago, and after him Varius, told you what manner of man I was. On coming into your presence I said a few faltering words, for speechless shame stopped me from saying more. My tale was not that I was a famous father’s son, not that I rode about my estate on a Saturian steed: I told you what I was. As is your way, you answered little and I withdrew; then, nine months later, you sent for me again and bade me join your friends. I count it a great honour that I pleased you, who discern between fair and foul, not by a father’s fame, but by blamelessness of life and heart.

And yet, if the flaws that mar my otherwise sound nature are but trifling and few in number, even as you might find fault with moles spotted over a comely person—if no one will justly lay to my charge avarice or meanness or lewdness; if, to venture on self-praise, my life is free from stain and guilt and I am loved by my friends—I owe this to my father, who, though poor with a starveling farm, would not send me to the school of Flavius, to which grand boys used to go, sons of grand centurions, with slate and satchel slung over the left arm, each carrying his eightpence on the Ides—nay, he boldly took his boy off to Rome, to be taught those studies that any knight or senator would have his own offspring taught. Anyone who saw my clothes and attendant slaves—as is the way in a great city—would have thought that such expense was met from ancestral wealth. He himself, a guardian true and tried, went with me among all my teachers. Need I say more? He kept me chaste—and that is virtue’s first grace—free not only from every deed of shame, but from all scandal. He had no fear that some day, if I should follow a small trade as crier or like himself as tax-collector, somebody would count this to his discredit. Nor should I have made complaint, but, as it is, for this I owe him praise and thanks the more.

Never while in my senses could I be ashamed of such a father, and so I will not defend myself, as would a goodly number, who say it is no fault of theirs that they have not free-born and famous parents. Far different from this is what I say and what I think: for if after a given age Nature should call upon us to traverse our past lives again, and to choose in keeping with our pride any other parents each might crave—content with my own, I should decline to take those adorned with the rods and chairs of state. And though the world would deem me mad, you, I hope, would think me sane for declining to shoulder a burden of trouble to which I have never been accustomed. For at once I should have to enlarge my means, to welcome more callers, to take one or two in my company so as not to go abroad or into the country alone; I should have to keep more pages and ponies, and take a train of wagons. To-day, if I will, I may go on a bob-tailed mule even to Tarentum, the saddle-bag’s weight galling his loins, and the rider his withers. No one will taunt me with meanness as he does you, praetor Tillius, when on the Tibur road five slaves follow you, carrying a commode and case of wine. In this and a thousand other ways I live in more comfort than you, illustrious senator.

Wherever the fancy leads, I saunter forth alone. I ask the price of greens and flour; often toward evening I stroll round the cheating Circus and the Forum. I listen to the fortune-tellers; then homeward betake me to my dish of leeks and peas and fritters. My supper is served by three boys, and a white stone-slab supports two cups with a ladle. By them stand a cheap salt-cellar, a jug and saucer of Campanian ware. Then I go off to sleep, untroubled with the thought that I must rise early on the morrow and pass before Marsyas, who says he cannot stand the face of Novius Junior. I lie a-bed till ten; then I take a stroll, or after reading or writing something that will please me in quiet moments I anoint myself with oil—not such as filthy Natta steals from the lamps. But when I am weary and the fiercer sun has warned me to go to the baths, I shun the Campus and the game of ball. After a slight luncheon, just enough to save me from an all-day fast, I idle away time at home.

Such is the life of men set free from the burden of unhappy ambition. Thus I comfort myself with the thought that I shall live more happily than if my grandfather had been a quaestor, and my father and uncle likewise.