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PETRONIUS (G. (?)1
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See also:PETRONIUS (G. (?)1 Petronius Arbiter), See also:Roman writer of the Neronian See also:age. His own See also:work, the Satirae, tells us nothing directly of his fortunes, position, or even See also:century. Some lines of Sidonius See also:Apollinaris refer to him and are often taken to imply that he lived and wrote at See also:Marseilles. If, however, we accept the See also:identification of this author with the Petronius of See also:Tacitus, See also:Nero's courtier, we must suppose either that Marseilles was his birthplace or, as is more likely, that Sidonius refers to the novel itself and that its See also:scene was partly laid at Marseilles. The See also:chief personages of the See also:story are evidently strangers in the towns of See also:southern See also:Italy where we find them. Their See also:Greek-See also:sounding names (Encolpius, Ascyltos, Giton, &c.) and See also:literary training See also:accord with the characteristics of the old Greek See also:colony in the 1st century A.D. The high position among Latin writers ascribed by Sidonius to Petronius, and the mention of him beside See also:Menander by See also:Macrobius, when compared with the See also:absolute silence of See also:Quintilian, See also:Juvenal and See also:Martial, seem adverse to the See also:opinion that the Satirae was a work of the age of Nero. But Quintilian was concerned with writers who could be turned to use in the The See also:MSS. of the Satiro,e give no praenomen. Tacitus's Petronius is See also:Gaius, though the See also:elder See also:Pliny and See also:Plutarch See also:call him See also:Titus. The name Arbiter, given him by later writers, is not an See also:ordinary cognomen; it may have been bestowed on him by contemporaries from the fact that his See also:judgment was regarded as the criterion of See also:good See also:taste. See also:education of an orator. The silence of Juvenal and Martial other era than that in which Nero's Troica and See also:Lucan's Pharsalia were fashionable poems. The reciting poet indeed is a feature of a later age also, as we learn from Martial and Juvenal. But we know from Tacitus that the luxury of the table, so conspicuous in Trimalchio's Banquet, See also:fell out of See also:fashion after Nero (See also:Ann. 3. 55). Of the work itself there have been preserved 141 sections of a narrative, in the See also:main consecutive, although interrupted by frequent gaps. The name Satirae, given in the best MSS., implies that it belongs to the type to which See also:Varro, imitating the Greek See also:Menippus, had given the See also:character of a medley of See also:prose and See also:verse See also:composition. But the See also:string of fictitious narrative by which the medley is held together is something quite new in Roman literature. This careless prodigal was so happily inspired in his devices for amusing himself as to introduce to See also:Rome and thereby transmit to See also:modern times the novel based on the ordinary experience of contemporary iife3—the pre-See also:cursor of such novels as Gil Blas and See also:Roderick See also:Random. There is no See also:evidence of the existence of a See also:regular See also:plot in the fragments, but we find one central figure, Encolpius, who professes to narrate his adventures and describe all that he saw and heard, whilst allowing various other personages to exhibit their peculiarities and See also:express their opinions dramatically. may be accidental or it is possible that a work so abnormal in See also:form and substance was more highly prized by later generations than by the author's contemporaries. - A comparison of the impression the See also:book gives us of the character and See also:genius of its author with the elaborate picture of the courtier in Tacitus certainly suggests the identity of the two. Tacitus, it is true, mentions no important work as the composition of his C. Petronius; such a work as the Satirae he may have regarded as beneath that dignity of See also:history which he so proudly realized. The care he gives to Petronius's portrait perhaps shows that the See also:man enjoyed greater notoriety than was due merely to the See also:part he played in history. " He spent his days in See also:sleep, his nights in attending to his See also:official duties or in amusement, by his dissolute See also:life he had become as famous as other men by a life of See also:energy, and he was regarded as no ordinary profligate, big as an accomplished voluptuary. His reckless freedom of speech, being regarded as frankness, procured him popularity. Yet during his provincial governorship, and later when he held the See also:office of See also:consul, he had shown vigour and capacity for affairs. Afterwards returning to his life of vicious See also:indulgence, he became one of the chosen circle of Nero's intimates, and was looked upon as an absolute authority on questions of taste (arbiter elegantiae) in connexion with the See also:science of luxurious living."' Tacitus goes on to say that this excited the See also:jealousy of See also:Tigellinus, an See also:accusation followed, and Petronius committed See also:suicide in a way that was in keeping with his life and character. He selected the slow See also:process of opening See also:veins and having them See also:bound up again, whilst he conversed on See also:light and trifling topics with his See also:friends. He then dined luxuriously, slept for some See also:time, and, so far from adopting the See also:common practice of flattering Nero or Tigellinus in his will, wrote and sent under See also:seal to Nero a document which professed to give, with the names of his partners, a detailed See also:account of the abominations which that See also:emperor had practised. A fact confirmatory of the See also:general truth of this graphic portrait is added by the elder Pliny, who mentions that just before his See also:death he destroyed a valuable murrhine See also:vase to prevent its falling into the imperial hands. Do the traits of this picture agree with that impression of himself which the author of the Satirae has See also:left upon his work ? That we possess therein part of the document sent to Nero is an impossible theory. Our fragments profess to be extracts from the fifteenth and sixteenth books of the Satirae: Petronius could not have composed one-tenth even of what we have in the time in which he is said to have composed his memorial to Nero. We may be sure too that the latter was very See also:frank in its See also:language, and treated Nero with far greater severity than the Banquet treats Trimalchio. On the other See also:hand, it is clear that the creator of Trimalchio, Encolpius and Giton had the experience, the inclinations and the literary gifts which would enable him to describe with forcible mockery the debaucheries of Nero. And the impression of his See also:personality does in another respect correspond closely with the Petronius of the See also:Annals—in the See also:union of immoral sensualism with a See also:rich vein of cynical See also:humour and admirable taste. The See also:style of the work, where it does not purposely reproduce the solecisms and colloquialisms of the Vulgar rich, is of the purest Latin of the See also:Silver age.2 Nor would there be any point in the verses on the See also:capture of See also:Troy and the See also:Civil See also:War at any 1 Ann. xvi. 18. 2 The false taste in literature and expression fostered by the declamationes is condemned by both See also:Persius and Petronius on the same grounds. Cf. too Pers. i. 121, hoc ego apertum, hoc ridere meum, See also:tam nil, nulla tibi uendo Iliade with Sat. 52, meum intellegere nulla See also:petunia uendo; Pers. ii. 9, 0 si ebulliat pa/rums, praeclarum funus, et o si sub rastro crepet argenti mini seria with Sat. 88, Alius donum promittit, si propinquum divitem extulerit, alius si thesaurum eioderit and 42, See also:home animam ebulliit; Pers. iv. 26, arat quantum non See also:muses oberrat with Sat. 37, fundos habet qua milvi volant. Both use the rare word See also:bare. Animam ebullire occurs in See also:Seneca's Apocolocyntosis, and the verbal resemblances illustrate perhaps rather the common use by both writers of the vulgar style. Cf. for resemblances to the style of the younger Seneca and the date of the work in general, See also:Studer, Rh. See also:Mus. (1843). The fragment opens with the See also:appearance of the See also:hero, Encolpius, who seems to be an itinerant lecturer travelling with a See also:companion named Ascyltos and a boy Giton, in a See also:portico of a Greek See also:town, in See also:Campania. An admirable lecture on the false taste in literature, resulting from the prevailing See also:system of education, is replied to by a See also:rival declaimer, Agamemno, who shifts the blame from the teachers to the parents. The central personages of the story next go through a See also:series of questionable adventures, in the course of which they are involved in a See also:charge of See also:robbery. A See also:day or two after they are See also:present at a See also:dinner given by a freedman of enormous See also:wealth, Trimalchio, who entertained with ostentatious and See also:grotesque extravagance a number of men of his own See also:rank but less prosperous. We listen to the ordinary talk of the guests about their neighbours, about the See also:weather, about the hard times, about the public See also:games, about the education of their See also:children. We recognize in an extravagant form the same See also:kind of vulgarity and pretension which the satirist of all times delights to expose in the illiterate and ostentatious millionaires of the age. Next day Encolpius separates from his companions in a See also:fit of jealousy, and, after two or three days' sulking and brooding on his revenge, enters a picture See also:gallery, where he meets with an old poet, who, after talking sensibly on the decay of See also:art and the inferiority of the painters of the age to the old masters, proceeds to illustrate a picture of the capture of Troy by some verses on that theme. This ends in those who are walking in the adjoining See also:colonnade See also:driving him out with stones. The scene is next on See also:board See also:ship, where Encolpius finds he has fallen into the hands of some old enemies. They are shipwrecked, and Encolpius, Giton and the old poet get to See also:shore in the neighbourhood of See also:Crotona, where, as the inhabitants are notorious See also:fortune-hunters, the adventurers set up as men of fortune. The fragment ends with a new set of questionable adventures, in which prominent parts are played by a beautif ul enchantress named See also:Circe, a priestess of See also:Priapus, and a certain matron who leaves them her heirs, but attaches a See also:condition to the See also:inheritance which even Encolpius might have shrunk from fulfilling.4 If we can sup-pose the author of this work to have been animated by any other See also:motive than the See also:desire to amuse himself , it might be that of convincing himself that the See also:world in general was as See also:bad as he was himself. Juvenal and See also:Swift are justly regarded as among the very greatest of satirists, and their estimate of human nature is perhaps nearly as unfavourable as that of Petronius; but their attitude towards human degradation is not one of complacent amusement; their See also:realism is the realism of disgust, not, like that of Petronius, a realism of sympathy. Martial does not gloat over the vices of which he writes with cynical frankness. He is perfectly aware that they are vices, and that the reproach of them is the worst that can be See also:cast on any one. And, further, Martial, with all his faults, is, in his affections, his tastes, his relations to others, essentially human, friendly, generous, true. There is perhaps not a single See also:sentence in Petronius which implies any knowledge of or sympathy with the existence of See also:affection, See also:conscience or See also:honour, or even the most elementary goodness of See also:heart. For the whole question of possible predecessors and Petronius's relation to the extant Greek romances see W. Schmid, " Der griechische Roman " in Jahrbucher See also:fur das klass. Altertum, &c. (1904). One would certainly have expected the realistic tendency which appears in the New See also:Comedy, the Characters of See also:Theophrastus and the Mimes, to have See also:borne this See also:fruit before the first century of our era.—(W. C. Su.)
' Omnes qui in testamento meo legata habent praeter libertos meos, hac conditions percipient quae dedi, si corpus meum in partes conciderint et astante populo comederint (141).
The work has reached us in so fragmentary and mutilated a shape that we may of course altogether have missed the See also: In the See also:epigram extemporized by Trimalchio See also:late on in the banquet:
Quod non expectes, ex transverso fit
Et supra nos See also:Fortuna negotia curat,
Quare da nobis vino. Falerna, puer,"
we have probably a more deliberate See also:parody of the style of verses produced by the illiterate aspirants to be in the fashion of the day. We might conjecture that the chief See also:gift to which Petronius owed his social and his literary success was that of humorous See also:mimicry. In Trimalchio and his various guests, in the old poet, in the cultivated, depraved and See also:moody Encolpius, in the Chrysis, Quartilla, Polyaenis, &c., we recognize in living examples the See also:play of those various appetites, passions and tendencies which satirists See also:deal with as abstract qualities. Another gift he possesses in a high degree, which must have availed him in society as well as in literature—the gift of story-telling; and some of the stories which first appear in the Satirae--e.g. that of the Matron of See also:Ephesus—have enjoyed a See also:great reputation in later times. His style, too, is that of an excellent talker, who could have discussed questions of taste and literature with the most cultivated men of any time as well as amused the most dissolute society of any time in their most reckless See also:revels. One phrase of his is often quoted by many who have never come upon it in its original context, " See also:Horatii curiosa felicitas."
The important See also:editions are (I) with explanatory notes: See also:Burmann (See also:Amsterdam, 1743, with See also:Heinsius's notes), and, of the Cena only, Friedlander (See also:Leipzig, 2nd ed., 1906) and See also:Lowe (See also:Cambridge, 19o4); (2) with See also:critical notes: Biicheler (See also:Berlin, 1862, 4th ed., 1904). See also:Translations into See also:German in Friedlander's edition (Cerra only), into See also:French By de Guerle (See also:complete, in See also:Garnier's Bibliotheque), into See also:English in Lowe's edition (Cena only) and See also:Bohn's series (complete). See also:Lexicon to Petronius by Segehade and Lommatsch (Leipzig, 1898). See also:Criticism, &c., in Haley, " Quaestt. Petron." (Harvard Studies, 1891); Collignon, Etude sur Petrone (See also:Paris, 1892); Emile See also: (Leipzig, 1898) ; See also:Henderson, Life and Principate of the Emperor Nero (London, 1903) ; See also:Dill, Roman Society from Nero to MarcusAurelius(London,1905) ; and the various histories of Roman literature (especially Schanz, §§ 395 sqq.). (W. Y. S.; W. C. Su.). Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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