He constantly speaks of the malevolence and detraction of an older poet, whose name is said to have been Luscius Lavinius or Lanuvinus.
From 1832 to 1837 there was a pause in the march of Egyptology, and it seemed as if the young science might be overwhelmed by the storm of doubts and detraction that was poured upon it by the enemies of Champollion.
A systematic policy of detraction was pursued by the small section of the Radical party who objected to a peer premier as such, and a great deal of adverse criticism was also aroused by a speech in which the prime minister, taunted for not again bringing forward a Home Rule measure, insisted upon the truism that the conversion of England, the "predominant partner," was a necessary condition of success.
Though he frequently refers to the envy and detraction which pursued him, Phaedrus seems to have attracted little attention in antiquity.
Juvenal is no organ of the pride and dignity, still less of the urbanity, of the cultivated representatives of the great families of the republic. He is the champion of the more sober virtues and ideas, and perhaps the organ of the rancours and detraction, of an educated but depressed and embittered middle class.
It is, indeed, impossible to say what motives of personal chagrin, of love of detraction, of the mere literary passion for effective writing, may have contributed to the indignation which inspired his verse.