This is Juvenal. The Satires. I think it still applies in the end of this age.
We have times of corruption. We have had times of reformation. It is our misfortune to live in the former.
When a soft eunuch takes to matrimony, and Maevia, with spear in hand and breasts exposed, to pig-sticking; when a fellow under whose razor my stiff youthful beard used to grate challenges, with his single wealth, the whole nobility; when a guttersnipe of the Nile like Crispinus —-a slave-born denizen of Canopus —-hitches a Tyrian cloak on to his shoulder, whilst on his sweating finger he airs a summer ring of gold, unable to endure the weight of a heavier gem—-it is hard not to write satire. For who can be so tolerant of this monstrous city, who so iron of soul, as to contain himself when the brand-new litter of lawyer Matho comes along, filled with his huge self; after him one who has informed against his noble patron and will soon despoil our pillaged nobility of what remains to them—-one whom Massa dreads, whom Carus propitiates by a bribe, and to whom Thymele was made over by the terrified Latinus; when you are thrust on one side by men who earn legacies by nightly performances, and are raised to heaven by that now royal road to high preferment—-the favours of an aged and wealthy woman? Each of the lovers will have his share; Proculeius a twelfth part, Gillo eleven parts, each in proportion to the magnitude of his services. Let each take the price of his own blood, and turn as pale as a man who has trodden upon a snake bare-footed, or of one who awaits his turn to orate before the altar at Lugdunum.
Why tell how my heart burns hot with rage when I see the people hustled by a mob of retainers attending on one who has defrauded and debauched his ward, or on another who has been condemned by a futile verdict—-for what matters infamy if the cash be kept? The exiled Marius carouses from the eighth hour of the day and revels in the wrath of Heaven, while you, poor Province, win your cause and weep!
Must I not deem these things worthy of the Venusian’s lamp? Must I not have my fling at them? Should I do better to tell tales about Hercules, or Diomede, or the bellowing in the Labyrinth, or about the flying carpenter and the lad who splashed into the sea; and that in an age when the compliant husband, if his wife may not lawfully inherit, takes money from her paramour, being well trained to keep his eyes upon the ceiling, or to snore with wakeful nose over his cups; an age when one who has squandered his family fortunes upon horse flesh thinks it right and proper to look for the command of a cohort? See him dashing at break-neck speed, like a very Automedon, along the Flaminian way, holding the reins himself, while he shows himself off to his great-coated mistress!
Would you not like to fill up a whole note-book at the street crossings when you see a forger borne along upon the necks of six porters, and exposed to view on this side and on that in his almost naked litter, and reminding you of the lounging Maecenas: one who by help of a scrap of paper and a moistened seal has converted himself into a fine and wealthy gentleman?
Then up comes a lordly dame who, when her husband wants a drink, mixes toad’s blood with his old Calenian, and improving upon Lucusta herself, teaches her artless neighbours to brave the talk of the town and carry forth to burial the blackened corpses of their husbands. If you want to be anybody nowadays, you must dare some crime that merits narrow Gyara or a gaol; honesty is praised and starves. It is to their crimes that men owe their pleasure-grounds and high commands, their fine tables and old silver goblets with goats standing out in relief. Who can get, sleep for thinking of a money-loving daughter-in-law seduced, of brides that have lost their virtue, or of adulterers not out of their teens? Though nature say me nay, indignation will prompt my verse, of whatever kind it be—-such verse as I can write, or Cluvienus!