Perhaps more than any other writer, Juvenal (c. AD 55-138) captures the splendour, the squalor and the sheer energy of everyday Roman life. In The Sixteen Satires he evokes a fascinating world of whores, fortune-tellers, boozy politicians, slick lawyers, shameless sycophants, ageing flirts and downtrodden teachers.
A member of the traditional land-owning class that was rapidly seeing power slip into the hands of outsiders, Juvenal also creates savage portraits of decadent aristocrats - male and female - seeking excitement among the lower orders of actors and gladiators, and of the jumped-up sons of newly-rich former slaves.
Constantly comparing the corruption of his own generation with its stern and upright forebears, Juvenal''s powers of irony and invective make his work a stunningly satirical and bitter denunciation of the degeneracy of Roman society
| Format |
Häftad |
| Omfång |
320 sidor |
| Språk |
Engelska |
| Förlag |
Penguin Books Ltd |
| Utgivningsdatum |
1998-08-27 |
| ISBN |
9780140447040 |