Juvenal, Satires 10.1-6

omnibus in terris, quae sunt a Gadibus usque
Auroram et Gangen, pauci dinoscere possunt
vera bona atque illis multum diversa, remota
erroris nebula. quid enim ratione timemus
aut cupimus? quid tam dextro pede concipis ut te
conatus non paeniteat votique peracti?

In all the lands from Gades to the East and the Ganges, there are few people who can remove the mist of error and tell apart what things are truly good and what things are much their opposite. For, when accompanied by reason, what do we fear or desire? What plan do you draw up so auspiciously that you do not end up regretting the effort and the granting of your wish?

Juvenal, Satires 3.208-211

The perils of life in Rome: the block of flats where the pauper Cordus lived has just been burned down.

nil habuit Cordus, quis enim negat? et tamen illud
perdidit infelix totum nihil. ultimus autem
aerumnae cumulus, quod nudum et frusta rogantem
nemo cibo, nemo hospitio tectoque iuvabit.

Cordus had nothing – who denies it? But the poor chap has still lost all that nothing. Yet the final straw of his hardship is that no one will help him out with food, naked though he is and begging in vain, and no one will help him out with hospitality and a roof over his head.

Juvenal, Satires 10.1-4

omnibus in terris, quae sunt a Gadibus usque
Auroram et Gangen, pauci dinoscere possunt
vera bona atque illis multum diversa, remota
erroris nebula.

In all the lands from Gades to Aurora and the Ganges, few people are able to put aside the mists of error and distinguish true good things from their complete opposites. 

Juvenal, Satires 6.347-8

Perhaps the most famous quotation from Juvenal, most often applied today to the kind of corruption in high places which has been filling the UK news in recent weeks. But in its rather less high-minded context in Juvenal it concerns an eyebrow-raising way of dealing with your unfaithful wife…

audio quid veteres olim moneatis amici,
“pone seram, cohibe.” sed quis custodiet ipsos
custodes? cauta est et ab illis incipit uxor.

I listen to the advice you’ve long been giving me, old friends: ‘Put a lock on! Keep her confined!’ But who will guard the guards themselves? The wife has made provisions and starts with them!

Juvenal, Satires 6.130

A single line of Juvenal today, but one with an interesting afterlife. Juvenal is describing the alleged debauchery of Claudius’ third wife Messalina, who, according to Juvenal, would whore herself out in a brothel, even staying on past closing-time:

et lassata viris necdum satiata recessit

And exhausted by men, but not yet satisfied, she came home.

This line has been much quoted in the modern era; I might even get around to writing a paper on it one day. Click ‘more’ for some examples!

Juvenal, Satires 1.22-30

Horrified by the degenerate state of the world around him, Juvenal decides it’s time to write satires.

cum tener uxorem ducat spado, Mevia Tuscum
figat aprum et nuda teneat venabula mamma,
patricios omnis opibus cum provocet unus
quo tondente gravis iuveni mihi barba sonabat,
cum pars Niliacae plebis, cum verna Canopi
Crispinus Tyrias umero revocante lacernas
ventilet aestivum digitis sudantibus aurum
nec sufferre queat maioris pondera gemmae,
difficile est saturam non scribere.

When a delicate eunuch takes a wife, when Mevia sticks a Tuscan boar and holds the hunting-spear by her naked breast, when one chap, who, when I was a youngster, made my beard grate as he trimmed it, now challenges the whole nobility with his wealth, when Crispinus, one of the peasants of the Nile, born a slave in Canopus, hitches up his Tyrian purple cloak on his shoulder and airs the summer gold ring on his sweaty fingers (he can’t bear the weight of a bigger gem-stone) – it is hard not to write satire.