Abstract/Summary

Images of fluidity are very common in Roman satire. In his work, Persius (first century ce) employs such images to support his twofold criticism. First, the notion of fluidity denotes moral decay, enabling the satirist to attack the corruption of his contemporaries. At the same time, a fluid poetic style indicates the poor taste of the masses and the poets of his time. Within this framework, this chapter examines the images of bodily fluids in Persius’ Satires, aiming to contribute to our understanding of their satirical function. Persius uses bodily grotesque to create caricatures of his targets while they are attacked for their moral corruption. Notions of fluidity enhance this grotesque and allow space for subsequent connotations. Besides this imagery, the interchange of society with literature in Persius’ criticism renders bodily fluids with some significance for the shaping of his poetics. For example, the saliva, distorting the medium of recitation and poetic performance, acts as a meta-poetic reference to the criticism of the literary production. At the same time, bodily fluids participate in the description of poetic styles of smoothness that replace substance and sense and attract the satirist’s disapproval. Therefore, the chapter sheds light to the metaphorical effectiveness of the bodily fluids in Persius’ meta-poetry and offer a new perspective in reading some of his obscure scenes. The examples of saliva and of sweat are discussed separately as indicative of the special function that Persius assigns to them.