Juvenal's contribution to the genre of Roman satire was to apply rhetorical strategies of indignation to produce an imagining of the genre in its most virulent manifestation. But in adopting an angry voice, Juvenalian aggression enters into the contested territory of its appropriate role in the rhetorician’s appeal, even as that voice is consonant with contemporaneous expressions of angst against historical figures in the post-Domitianic period.
Michael Ritter received his Ph.D. from the University of Florida and his publications include "Sanitizing the Satirist" (Syllecta Classica, 2015), and "Historicizing Satire in Juvenal" (Classical Antiquity, 2019). He taught courses in Latin as well as Roman history at the University of North Carolina. At the University of Washington he teaches on ancient Satire as well as authoritarianism in ancient Rome with a joint appointment in Classics and the Honors program.