The Roman Equivalent of the Dive Bar

Continuing the project of going through minor poets, Greek and Latin, I ran finished off those few other poems attributed to Hadrian. Most are familiar with the lines addressed to his dying soul, but I was never bothered to read these others. I cannot say that I missed much, but I did run into the very useful vocabulary word popīna (a dive, or low-class eatery) in a retort to a poem by Florus.

Florus' poem reads:

Ego nolo Caesar esse,
ambulare per Britannos
...
Scythicas pati pruinas

I wouldn't be Caesar,
ambling among the Britons...
exposed to Scythian frosts

Hadrian answered thus:

Ego nolo Florus esse,
ambulare per tabernas,
latitare per popinas
culices pati rotundos.

I wouldn't be Florus,
ambling among the pubs,
holed up in his dives,
exposed to fat mosquitoes.

(A taberna in Ostia)

Roman Multiculturalism

While the toddler was watching his morning alphabet-indoctrination program, I read through the small amount of Latin that remains of Florus' carmina.

Sperne mores transmarinos, mille habent offucia. 

cive Romano per orbem nemo vivit rectius: 

quippe malim unum Catonem quam trecentos Socratas.

 

Shun the morals brought across seas; they've a thousand trickeries. 

None in all the world lives straighter than a citizen of Rome. 

Why, I prize one Cato more than fifteen score like Socrates.                                             (trans. Duff & Duff)

To make use of my mornings with the toddler while the wife sleeps in with the newborn, I think I shall continue this program of reading through all of select authors.