Laronia’s revenge A female interlocutor in Juvenal’s Satire 2

Abstract

In the course of the invective against hypocrisy in Satire 2, Laronia, the only female interlocutor in Juvenal’s corpus to deliver a longer monologue, emerges to speak. In line with the overall theme of the satire, her 26-line speech targets hypocritical, effeminate men who conceal their true sexual identity. The role of these men in Satire 2 parallels the portrayal of Roman women in Satire 6, as in both cases the narrator focuses on them while presenting a central ‘sin’ (hypocrisy and infidelity, respectively), alongside other minor transgressions (e.g., distortion of religious rites, conduct unworthy of the Roman elite). However, this does not imply that they are the sole perpetrators of these transgressions, nor that they bear exclusive responsibility for such phenomena.