We started with
the geometrician, and so we’ll finish with him, and take a look at what
Juvenal thought. Juvenal mocks the stereotypical jack-of-all-trades Greek
immigrant, claiming to be an expert in every intellectual or mystical art — but
is mostly a charlatan. There is an absurd variety of claimed talents – from the
intellectual to cheap public entertainment – and the use of magus, the
last in the list, can refer both to a magician, but also a trickster. Graeculus
– a little Greek – is utterly pejorative.
quemvīs
hominem sēcum attulit ad nōs: │ He’s brought with him any kind of man at all:
grammaticus,
rhētor, geōmetrēs, pictor, alīptēs, │ a grammarian, rhetorician, geometer,
painter, trainer,
augur,
schoenobatēs, medicus, magus — omnia nōvit, │ soothsayer, rope-dancer,
doctor, magician — he knows it all,
Graeculus
ēsuriēns: in caelum iusseris, ībit. │ A starving little Greek: if you order him
to heaven, he’ll go.
[i] augur, -is [3 m/f]: priest; augur; soothsayer (who can
make predictions by interpreting the song and flight of birds:
ad prīmam vōcem timidās
advertitis aurēs, / et vīsam prīmum cōnsulit augur avem (Ovid)
You turn timid ears to the first word spoken, / and the augur interprets
the first bird seen.
[ii] magus, -ī [2/m]: magician, wizard, (derogatory)
sorcerer, trickster, conjurer, charlatan
The image shows “The Conjurer” by Hieronymous Bosch (c.
1502). Take a close look to the left of the work, and you’ll see a second
“sleight of hand” going on!
[iii]
grammaticus, -ī [2/m] a professional teacher who instructed
older boys in the Latin and Greek languages and literature, focusing on
interpreting classical poets and ensuring correct usage
rhētor, -is [3/m]: rhetor; rhetorician, a teacher of rhetoric
i.e. public speaking
[iv]
Note: while first declension nouns are indicated by -a, there are a few – and
they’re rare – which are of Greek origin; they are effectively Latin
transcriptions of Greek words, and three of them are in the lines from Juvenal:
alīptēs, -ae [1/f]: manager / trainer at a wrestling school < ἀλείπτης [aleíptēs]: trainer; masseur; oil anointer;
also: alīpta, -ae [1/f]
geōmetrēs,
-ae [1/m]: geometer, geometrician < γεωμέτρης [geōmétrēs]:
geometrician; land surveyor
schoenobatēs, -ae [1/m]: rope-dancer, tightrope walker < σχοινοβάτης [schoinovátis]: tightrope walker, but there is also a pure Latin word: fūnambulus, -ī [2/m] and so I suspect that Juvenal dismissively uses a Greek variant since it’s what he heard from the mouths of the circus acts.
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