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He, as there was a scarcity of corn in those parts, sent out some officers of cavalry and several military tribunes amongst the neighbouring states, for the purpose of procuring corn and provision; in which number T. Terrasidius was sent amongst the Esubii; M. Trebius Gallus amongst the Curiosolitae; Q. Velanius, with T. Silius, amongst the Veneti.
After intelligence of the battle of Cannae, and a report of the approach of Hannibal, circulated by the discourse of Trebius, the Mopsian party had retired from the city; which was thus given up to the Carthaginian without opposition, and a garrison received into it.
But the distance is immeasurable between Juvenal's scorching truculence and Diderot's half-ironical, half-serious sufferance. Juvenal knows that Trebius is a base and abject being; he tells him what he is; and in the process blasts him.
Hearing that the subject of Diderot's dialogue is the Parasite, the scholar will naturally think of that savage satire in which Juvenal rehearses the thousand humiliations that Virro inflicts on Trebius: how the wretched follower has to drink fiery stuff from broken crockery, while the patron quaffs of the costliest from splendid cups of amber and precious stones; how the host has fine oil of Venafrum, while the guest munches cabbage that has been steeped in rancid lamp-oil; one plays daintily with mullet and lamprey, while the other has his stomach turned by an eel as long as a snake, and bloated in the foul torrent of the sewers; Virro has apples that might have come from the gardens of the Hesperides, while Trebius gnaws such musty things as are tossed to a performing monkey on the town wall.
Evidence enough remains that he was at least a person of singular character and irregular disastrous life. Diderot's general veracity of temperament would make us believe that his picture is authentic, but the interest of the dialogue is exactly the same in either case. Juvenal's fifth satire would be worth neither more nor less, however much were found out about Trebius.
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