Find me a Greek or Roman text that isn’t pure filth
After the things she read about in Latin class, nothing can shock Natalie Haynes
”Classicists are a sturdy bunch: something to do with being repeatedly told your field of interest is dead”
ALAMY
The Sunday Times
When I was studying Latin at school, we were given a chunk of Juvenal’s sixth Satire to read. It must have been a set text, because I can’t imagine our poor teacher would ever have chosen to wade through such utter filth with a bunch of teenage girls.
There are some parts of the poem so smutty that I can still see his blushes now, decades later. The women who have sex with eunuchs so they don’t get pregnant. The one who has sex with a gladiator even though he is covered in weeping sores (doesn’t matter, says Juvenal: he was a gladiator). You get a bodyguard to keep an eye on your wife, Juvenal tells us, and she has sex with him instead of
