Susanna MORTON BRAUND Satirist As Private Eye: Behind Closed Doors


The aim of this paper is to supplement the approach of persona studies in Roman satire in general as established by W.S. Anderson in his seminal studies (Essays on Roman Satire, Princeton 1982) and in particular to extend the range of masks available to the satirist (as explored by e.g. S.M. Braund in The Roman Satirists and their Masks, London 1996). This paper proposes that one of the numerous masks available to the author of satire is that of the private eye. Accordingly, I shall here scrutinize the satirist as sleuth, the privately-appointed exposer of immorality whose relation to the official guardians of morality is distinctly ambivalent, as we know from the novels of Raymond Chandler.

It is well established that the satirist is typically located in the public spaces of the city (Hodgart 1969, 129; Kernan 1959, 7-8). He stands at the crossroads (Juvenal 1.63-4) or walks around and reports the excesses he sees in the streets (cf. John Gay's Trivia: The Art of Walking the Streets of London). But there are also times when the satirist goes behind closed doors and exposes to the spotlight the private vices of his victims. At such moments, his status is altered from his self-arrogated role as the guardian of public morality into something much more dubious: a private eye who investigates illicit behaviors or even a snoop who peers through keyholes and repeats the gossip that he hears. In this paper, I shall focus upon the moments when Juvenal's satirist goes behind closed doors or looks through the keyhole, the moments when he passes from the public domain into private territory. My examination of what he sees and hears will reveal a remarkably homogeneous body of material which throws light on the boundaries between public and private in Roman antiquity. Moreover, I shall argue that the passage from public to private life demonstrates clearly the ambivalence of the satirist's moral position.

My method will involve subjecting to scrutiny the satirist's intrusions into private life. Two extended passages are central to this investigation: the descriptions of cross-dressing in secret by the effeminates of Satire 2 (83-116) and the perversion of the Bona Dea rites to which no men are admitted in Satire 6 (314-41). There are also many briefer passages where the satirist appears to have privileged knowledge of what goes on behind closed doors, especially in Satires 2 and 6 but also in the programmatic satire and at the opening of Satire 14 where the satirist states explicitly that we are corrupted more rapidly and quickly by examples of vice set within the home (14.31-2). The salacious details of these scenes invite the question, how does the satirist-sleuth know all this? This question not only problematises the authority of the satirist but also invites a reappraisal of the satirist's relationship with his audience. Do his lavishly detailed accounts of gender-bending and sexual frenzy, of cruelty and lessons in adultery compromise his claims to the moral high ground?

Satire 9 is particularly important to my inquiry because it shows the satirist-sleuth in action. By encouraging the naÔf Naevolus to share confidences with him, he lures him into detailed revelations about his sexual relationship with his former patron, a wealthy pathic, and with the patron's wife. Juvenal here provides a graphic picture of the ambivalences of the satirist's position, which reveals a disturbing tension between his claim to the moral high ground and his methods and attitudes to his victims. This ambivalence, I shall conclude, is crystallized in the satirist's mask of the private eye delving into private lives.