"You, too, who divide your honours with Menander, will take your place
among poets of the highest order, and justly too, such is the purity of
your style. Would only that to your graceful diction was added more
comic force, that your works might equal in merit the Greek masterpieces,
and your inferiority in this particular should not expose you to censure.
This is my only regret; in this, Terence, I grieve to say you are
wanting."





THE LIFE OF JUVENAL.


D. JUNIUS JUVENALIS, who was either the son [944] of a wealthy freedman,
or brought up by him, it is not known which, declaimed till the middle of
life [945], more from the bent of his inclination, than from any desire
to prepare himself either for the schools or the forum. But having
composed a short satire [946], which was clever enough, on Paris [947],
the actor of pantomimes, (537) and also on the poet of Claudius Nero, who
was puffed up by having held some inferior military rank for six months
only; he afterwards devoted himself with much zeal to that style of
writing. For a while indeed, he had not the courage to read them even to
a small circle of auditors, but it was not long before he recited his
satires to crowded audiences, and with entire success; and this he did
twice or thrice, inserting new lines among those which he had originally
composed.

Quod non dant proceres, dabit histrio, tu Camerinos,