The Satires of Juvenal translated by Rolfe Humphries [TRADE PAPERBACK] 1972 • Indiana University Press

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The Satires of Juvenal translated by Rolfe Humphries

TRADE PAPERBACK [1972] INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS

8th printing [1972] of this classic 1960 trade paperback edition.   

Book is in very good condition.   Reads good as new with no markings and clean white pages.  Cover has some general shelf / rub wear and a creased corner.


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