D. Junii Juvenalis Aquinatis Satirae XVI. Ad Optimorum Exemplarium Fidem Recensitae Varietate Lectionum Perpetuoque Commentario Illustratae Et Indice Uberrimo Instructae (Two Volume Set) [LATIN TEXT] [JUVANAL]

clx, 419; 733 pp. Two volume set. Latin text. Full leather, marbled edges and endpapers. Engraved frontispiece. Decimus Junius Juvenalis, known in English as Juvenal, was a Roman poet active in the late first and early second century AD. He is the author of the collection of satirical poems known as the Satires. The details of Juvenal's life are unclear, although references within his text to known persons of the late first and early second centuries AD fix his earliest date of composition. One recent scholar argues that his first book was published in 100 or 101.[1] A reference to a political figure dates his fifth and final surviving book to sometime after 127. Juvenal wrote at least 16 poems in the verse form dactylic hexameter. These poems cover a range of Roman topics. This follows Lucilius - the originator of the Roman satire genre, and it fits within a poetic tradition that also includes Horace and Persius. The Satires are a vital source for the study of ancient Rome from a number of perspectives, although their comic mode of expression makes it problematic to accept the content as strictly factual. At first glance the Satires could be read as a critique of Rome. That critique may have ensured their preservation by the Christian monastic scriptoria although the majority of ancient texts did not survive. Juvenal is credited with sixteen known poems divided among five books; all are in the Roman genre of satire, which, at its most basic in the time of the author, comprised a wide-ranging discussion of society and social mores in dactylic hexameter. Juvenal claims as his purview, the entire gamut of human experience since the dawn of history. Quintilian - in the context of a discussion of literary genres appropriate for an oratorical education - claimed that, unlike so many literary and artistic forms adopted from Greek models, "satire at least is all ours" (satura quidem tota nostra est).[8] At least in the view of Quintillian, earlier Greek satiric verse (e.g. that of Hipponax) or even Latin satiric prose (e.g. that of Petronius) did not constitute satura, per se. Roman Satura was a formal literary genre rather than being simply clever, humorous critique in no particular format. The individual Satires (excluding Satire 16) range in length from 130 (Satire 12) to c. 695 (Satire 6) lines. The poems are not entitled individually, but translators often have added titles for the convenience of readers.--Wikipedia