Traditionally, the country is seen as being morally superior to the city. The city and the country are used, therefore, to symbolise vice and virtue respectively: the youth of Rome. . . are always amenable to any perverse suggestion who could endure this monstrous city.
. . and swallow his wrath? When shall I see that place in the country, when shall I be free to browse among the writers of old. . . ? The moral decrepitude of the city is seen as a symptom of modern degeneration: an age when each pimp of a husband takes gifts from his own wife’s lover The inconvenience of city life: Juvenal documents the physical dangers of life in Rome – The cruel city’s myriad perils including the badly made accommodation, the danger of mugging and robbery and the constant house fires, although his contrast of this with the country’s squalor and isolation suggests that he doesn’t feel the country to be the haven that Horace sees it as.
Horace’s satires concentrate more on the lack of personal freedom and space in the city-hundreds of items of other people’s business buzz in my head and jump round my legs This lack of freedom is personified by the ‘Pest’ of Horace’s Satire 1:9. City life is characterised as unhealthy, with the leaden sirocco, which in the tainted Autumn enriches Our Lady of Funerals and heartburn and ulcers, brought on by overeating The pace of life: A major part of the inconvenience of city life seems to be the pace, which Horace finds almost unendurable: I have to barge through the crowd, bruising the slow-movers. and describes allegorically in his tale of the town and country mice – They dashed in fright down the long hall, their fear turning to utter panic when they heard the sound of mastiffs baying A large part of this problem in Juvenal’s view is the problem of traffic and, more specifically, of being a pedestrian in Rome: those behind us tread on our heels. Sharp elbows buffet my ribs, poles poke into me; one lout swings a crossbeam down on my skull In contrast, the country is described by Horace in natural, calm terms: A piece of land. .
. with a garden and, near the house, a spring that never fails, and a bit of wood to round it off. Juvenal also gives a rather idyllic description of country life, with its informality and freedom from fashion – Even the magistrates need no better badge of status than a plain white tunic. Cultural life in Rome: Although the city might be expected to be far more culturally active than the country, the Roman Satirists BibliographyTraditionally, the country is seen as being morally superior to the city. The city and the country are used, therefore, to symbolise vice and virtue respectively: the youth of Rome.
. . are always amenable to any perverse suggestion who could endure this monstrous city. . . and swallow his wrath? When shall I see that place in the country, when shall I be free to browse among the writers of old.
. . ? The moral decrepitude of the city is seen as a symptom of modern degeneration: an age when each pimp of a husband takes gifts from his own wife’s lover The inconvenience of city life: Juvenal documents the physical dangers of life in Rome – The cruel city’s myriad perils including the badly made accommodation, the danger of mugging and robbery and the constant house fires, although his contrast of this with the country’s squalor and isolation suggests that he doesn’t feel the country to be the haven that Horace sees it as. Horace’s satires concentrate more on the lack of personal freedom and space in the city-hundreds of items of other people’s business buzz in my head and jump round my legs This lack of freedom is personified by the ‘Pest’ of Horace’s Satire 1:9. City life is characterised as unhealthy, with the leaden sirocco, which in the tainted Autumn enriches Our Lady of Funerals and heartburn and ulcers, brought on by overeating The pace of life: A major part of the inconvenience of city life seems to be the pace, which Horace finds almost unendurable: I have to barge through the crowd, bruising the
