Avarus felix or pauper beatus? Moral conceptions in Juvenal’s XIV Satire

Authors

  • Mateo Moreno Galeano Universidad del Valle

Abstract

This paper proposes an analysis of Juvenal’s XIV Satire based on the expressions avarus felix and pauper beatus, which shape a relevant dilemma to the interpretation of the Satire. First, I will evaluate avarus felix, looking to show that, besides being an incompatibility, it holds the notion of egestas, which would lower the individual to the moral quality of a slave. Second, I will point out that along the Satire XIV several pictures show individuals under that very conception of needed beings, so that no matter how much they show themselves publicly as free romans, in a moral level they are quite the contrary. Finally, I will evaluate pauper beatus and explain that true wealth is not the indiscriminate amassing of goods but sufficiency achieved through those owned. Thus, the relation shown by Juvenal between morality and wealth would be mediated by the ideas of sufficiency and necessity.

Keywords:

Juvenal, satire, poverty, greed, happiness

References

Fuentes primarias

Cicerón. Disputaciones tusculanas [Tusc.]. Trad. Alberto Medina González. Madrid: Gredos, 2005.

_. “Filípicas” [Fil.]. Discursos VI. Trad. María José Muñoz Jiménez. Madrid: Gredos, 2006.

_. “Cartas a los familiares” [Ad Fam.]. Cartas. Trad. Ana Isabel Magallón García. Madrid: Gredos, 2008.

_. República. Trad. Álvaro D’Ors. Madrid: Gredos, 1984.

Epicteto. Manual y fragmentos [Enq.]. Trad. Paloma Ortiz García. Madrid: Gredos, 1995.

Epicuro. Obras. Trad. Montserrat Jufressa. Barcelona: Atalaya, 1994.

Horacio . Odas. Trad. José Luis Moralejo. Madrid: Gredos, 2010.

Jenofonte. Económico. Trad. Juan Zaragoza. Madrid: Gredos, 1993.

Juvenal y Persio. Satirae. Trad. Macleane y Long. Edición bilingüe con notas. Londres: Whittaker, 1857.

_. The Satires of Juvenal. Juvenal and Persius with an English Translation. Trad. G. G. Ramsay. Edición bilingüe. Londres y Nueva York: Loeb Classical Library, 1918. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3atext%3a2007.01.0093.

Juvenal. Sátiras. Trad. Bartolomé Segura Ramos. Edición bilingüe. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1996.

_. Sátiras. Trad. Manuel Balasch. Madrid: Gredos, 2011.

Marcial. Epigramas [Epig.]. Trad. Antonio Ramírez y Juan Fernández Valverde. Madrid: Gredos, 2001.

Salustio. “Conjuración de Catilina” [Conj.]. Obras. Trad. Bartolomé Segura Ramos. Madrid: Gredos, 1997.

_. “Guerra de Jugurta” [Iug.]. Obras. Trad. Bartolomé Segura Ramos. Madrid: Gredos, 1997.

Séneca. Epístolas morales a Lucilio [Ad Luc.]. Trad. Ismael Roca Melía. Dos volúmenes. Madrid: Gredos, 1986.

Tibulo. Elegías [Eleg.]. Trad. Arturo Soler Ruiz. Madrid: Gredos, 1993.

Fuentes secundarias

Bradley, Keit h R. “Roman Slavery and Roman Law”. Historical Reflections / Réflexions Historiques 15/3 (1988): 477-495.

Conte, Gian y Alessandro Barchiesi. “Imitazione e arte allusiva. Modi e funzioni dell’intertestualità”. Lo Spazio Leterario di Roma antica. La produzione del testo. Dir. Guglielmo Cavallo, Paolo Fedeli y Andrea Giardina. Trad. V. Irribaren. Roma: Salerno, 1989. 81-114.

Corn, Alan M. “‘Thus Nature ordains’: Juvenal’s Fourteenth Satire”. Illinois Classical Studies 17/2 (1992): 309-322.

Garrido-Hory, MarguGUerITe. “Sexe, amour et dépendance à Rome”. Dialogues d’histoire ancienne, supplément 1 (2005): 125-137.

Hellegouarc’h, Joseph. Le vocabulaire latin des relations et des partis politiques sous la République. París: Les Belles Lettres, 1963.

_. “Juvénal, témoin et critique de son temps. Actualité et permanence des Satires”. Vita Latina 137 (1995): 36-45.

Highet, Gilbert. “Masks and Faces in Satire”. Hermes 102 (1974): 321-337.

Long, Anthony. La filosofía helenística. Trad. P. Jordán de Urries. Madrid: Alianza, 1984.

Roller, MattTThew B. “Exemplarity in Roman Culture: The Cases of Horatius Cocles and Cloelia”. Classical Philology 99/1 (2004): 1-56.

Rudd, Niall. Themes in Roman Satire. Londres: Duckworth, 1986.

Sharples, R. W. Estoicos, epicúreos y escépticos. Introducción a la filosofía helenística. México: UNAM, Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas, 2009.

Diccionarios

Gaffiot , Félix . Dictionnaire Latin-Français [Gaffiot]. París: Hachette, 1937. https://www.lexilogos.com/latin/gaffiot.php ..

Lewis, Charlton y Charles Short. A Latin Dictionary [LS]. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?