Juvenal

Juvenal (55-128) was a Roman satirist whose Satires gave Latin literature some of its fiercest moral invective. Little is securely known about his life, but his poems attack corruption, luxury, hypocrisy, social climbing, cruelty, sexual vice, bad patronage, and the humiliations of city life under empire. His most important work is the collection usually known simply as the Satires, including famous passages on bread and circuses, difficult old age, and the rarity of true integrity. Juvenal matters because he made indignation into a literary instrument. His voice is severe, exaggerated, brilliant, and often troubling, exposing a society he sees as morally degraded. His quotes endure because they retain the force of compressed judgment about pleasure, aging, beauty, purity, and the costs of public corruption. His satire still warns that public vice becomes ordinary when outrage grows tired.

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