Juvenal was an influential Roman poet popular in the first decades of the Roman Empire, roughly from the late first until the early second centuries CE. Historians know little about his early life, though he was likely the son or adopted son of a wealthy Roman and was primarily active during the reigns of the emperors Trajan and Hadrian. Juvenal was predominantly a satirist, an artist who employed humor, irony, and exaggeration to ridicule social institutions and human failings. His writings were popular during his time and were intended for a well-educated and sophisticated audience.