Quint. x. 1, 90, ‘Lucanus ardens et concitatus et sententiis clarissimus et, ut dicam quod sentio, magis oratoribus quam poetis imitandus.’
PETRONIUS.
The Satirae of Petronius are attributed in the MSS. to Petronius Arbiter. It is practically certain that the author was C. Petronius, once proconsul of Bithynia and afterwards consul, who was long a member of Nero’s inner circle, and who, in A.D. 66, when accused by Tigellinus, anticipated execution by suicide.
Tac. Ann. xvi. 18, ‘Proconsul Bithyniae, et mox consul, vigentem se ac parem negotiis ostendit. Dein revolutus ad vitia, seu vitiorum imitatione, inter paucos familiarium Neroni adsumptus est, elegantiae arbiter, dum nihil amoenum et molle adfluentia putat, nisi quod ei Petronius adprobavisset. Unde invidia Tigellini ... (Ch. 19) Forte ... Campaniam petiverat Caesar, et Cumas usque progressus Petronius illic attinebatur. Nec tulit ultra timoris aut spei moras. Neque tamen praeceps vitam expulit, sed incisas venas, ut libitum, obligatas aperire rursum, et adloqui amicos, non per seria aut quibus gloriam constantiae peteret ... Flagitia principis sub nominibus exoletorum feminarumque et novitatem cuiusque stupri perscripsit, atque obsignata misit Neroni.’
The document mentioned above as sent to Nero has nothing to do with the extant Satirae. That C. Petronius is the author of the work is rendered even more certain from the fact that it was obviously written in Nero’s time by a man of high culture and knowledge of the world.
The novel contains an account of the adventures of a certain Encolpius, as told by himself. Encolpius comes in contact with Priapus in Massilia, Cumae, and Croton; and probably the wrath of Priapus (a parody of the wrath of Poseidon in the Odyssey) is the leading motive that binds the disjointed parts. Cf. ch. 139,
‘Me quoque per terras, per cani Nereos aequor
Hellespontiaci sequitur gravis ira Priapi.’
The work, the extant parts of which are from Books xv. and xvi., is in form a Satira Menippea,[78] alternately prose and verse. The longer episodes, as the supper of Trimalchio and the story of the matron of Ephesus, are exclusively prose. In the Cena Trimalchionis, where Encolpius and his company are entertained by a rich freedman, Petronius has given us a correct account of provincial life in South Italy. Mommsen (Hermes, xiii. 106) has shown that Cumae was the town where Trimalchio lived. It is a ‘Graeca urbs’ (ch. 81), and a Roman colony (ch. 44, etc.), so that it cannot be Naples. The chief magistrates are called praetores (ch. 65), which suits Cumae alone of the towns of this district. The only objection to Cumae being the place is the passage in ch. 48, where an event at Cumae is given as something wonderful and unusual:
‘Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis vidi in ampulla pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent: Σίβυλλα, τί θέλεις; respondebat illa: ἀποθανεῖν θέλω.’
This, however, may simply be given for comic effect. Friedländer thinks Cumis is a wrong reading. The date of Encolpius’ adventures cannot be under Tiberius, for the emperor is called ‘pater patriae’ (ch. 60), a title which Tiberius refused. Mommsen thinks the dramatic date is under Augustus; Friedländer,[79] towards the end of Claudius’ or the beginning of Nero’s reign. The cognomen of Trimalchio, Maecenatianus (ch. 71), means that he was a freedman of the well-known Maecenas. Trimalchio, therefore, came to Rome as a boy (ch. 29; 75) before Maecenas’ death (B.C. 8), and was probably born about B.C. 18. He is represented as ‘senex’ (ch. 27), i.e. at least sixty, but may have been over seventy. A.D. 57 is probably the later limit of date. Mommsen thinks that the words (ch. 57), ‘puer capillatus in hanc coloniam veni: adhuc basilica non erat facta,’ mean that when Trimalchio came to Cumae it was not a Roman colony. Now, Cumae became a colony between 43 and 27 B.C., and, on this supposition, the supper of Trimalchio would have to be placed between A.D. 7 and A.D. 23, as it is about fifty years since Trimalchio came to Cumae. Friedländer, however, thinks that the basilica would not have been put up immediately the town became a colony.