Nicola Phillips
How reliable are Juvenal’s satires as evidence.
Juvenal’s satires contain many references to life in Rome however we must remember not to take all his suggestions as the complete and absolute truth. Juvenal was a satirist so evidently much of the content in his satires will be made as humorous as possible in order to become more popular. Nevertheless we can use the satires to provide us with a certain amount of knowledge regarding life in Rome at the time of Juvenal.
We have to remember that the copies of Juvenal’s satires, which are usually available to us, are most probably translations, which will affect certain aspects of the satire. Juvenal wrote satire for his own time, however when this is translated some features of the satire will change to suit the certain period of time and present slightly different ideas and opinions to that of Juvenal. This would mean that the satire is no longer a useful piece of evidence as it has been adapted to the taste of the translator. Often in his satires, Juvenal seems to drift away from the subject and deal with matters, which are irrelevant. This may mean that we do not get an entirely full interpretation of specific issues. Juvenal tends to emphasize points, which he feels strongly about which is expected, however these details may not be entirely significant to society as a whole.
