The Flight of Pudicitia: Juvenal’s Vision of the Past and the Programmatic Function of the Prologue in the Sixth Satire
Abstract In the prologue to Satire 6, Juvenal depicts the primitive woman of the Golden Age as an ideal matrona, only to undercut humorously the paradigmatic value of this picture. The poet’s intentions in so doing have been variously explained; this article views the parodic tone of the passage in terms of its programmatic function. A detailed discussion is offered of Juvenal’s depiction of the cavewife and it is demonstrated how this foreshadows the speaker’s unfavourable treatment of all women, even paradigms such as Cornelia. In short, the prologue establishes the speaker of Satire 6 as a misogynist whose views are so extreme that they cannot be taken seriously.