Delphi Complete Works of Petronius

by Petronius

  Teuffel in his masterly “History of Roman Literature” is brief, but to the point, in what he says of the Satyricon: “To Nero’s time belongs also the character-novel of Petronius Arbiter, no doubt the same Petronius whom Nero (A.D. 66) compelled to kill himself. Originally a large work in at least 20 books, with accounts of various adventures supposed to have taken place during a journey, it now consists of a heap of fragments, the most considerable of which is the Cena Trimalchionis, being the description of a feast given by a rich and uneducated upstart. Though steeped in obscenity, this novel is not only highly important for the history of manners and language, especially the plebeian speech, but it is also a work of art in its way, full of spirit, fine insight into human nature, wit of a high order and genial humor. In its form it is a satira Menippea, in which the metrical pieces interspersed contain chiefly parodies of certain fashions of taste.”

  “The narrator and hero of the romance,” Nisard writes in his Preliminary Notice to “Petronius,” “is a sort of Guzman d’Alfarache, a young profligate, over head and ears in debt, without either fortune, or family, and reduced, with all his brilliant qualitites, to live from hand to mouth by dint of a series of more or less hazardous expedients. The pictures he draws with such a bold and lifelike touch change and shift without plan or purpose, following each other with the same abrupt inconsequence we observe in real life; and we are strongly tempted to conclude Petronius has largely depicted in them the actual phases of his own, that of a self-made adventurer, appropriating as his own with extraordinary success the tone of persiflage and the ironical outlook on existence of a man of high birth and station. With equal ease he sounds the most contradictory notes. Verse and prose, precepts of rhetoric and of ethics, scenes of profligate indulgence, comic descriptions of a feast where luxury is carried to ludicrous extremes, anecdotes told in the happiest manner, notably the world-famous tale of the Ephesian Matron, epic poetry even, love letters and love talk breathing a refined, almost chivalric, spirit, — such is the strange fabric of this drama, at once passionate, derisive, fanfaronading, tragic and burlesque, where the grand style and the most graceful narrative tread on the heels of provincial patois and popular saws. . . .

  “Petronius’ book belongs essentially to the class of Satirae Menippeae, of which Varro had given the first example in the works he composed in imitation of the Greek Menippus, and of which Seneca’s Apocolocyntosis is another capital instance.”

  All critics agree upon the excellence of the Satyricon as a work of art, though many take exception to the grossness of the subject matter. Indeed there can be no two opinions as to the brilliancy and refinement of our Author’s style generally; while the vivid picturesqueness of the narrative on the one hand, and the perfect adaptation of the language to the rank and idiosyncrasy of the interlocutors on the other, are particularly noteworthy. “The very criticisms which have been launched against Petronius are mingled with admiring panegyric which a due regard for truth has forced from his assailants; and in the mouth of an enemy, praise counts for much more than blame. Even the barbarisms and vulgarities of expressions that at times seem to disfigure his style, are in the eyes of Menage the perfection of art and appropriateness; he puts them only in the mouths of servants and debuachees devoid of any touch of refinement. Note on the other hand with what elegance he makes his well-born characters speak. Petronius assigns to each one of his actors the language most suited to him. This is a merit precious in direct ratio to its rarity; the shadows with which a skillful painter darkens his canvas, only serve to bring out in more startling relief the beauties of the picture. Justus Lipsius epigrammatically styles him auctor purissimae impuritatis.” (Heguin de Guerle.)

  The first thing to strike us is the brilliancy and liveliness of the book — fragmentary as is the condition in which it has come down to us — as a Novel of Adventure. The reader is hurried on, his interest forever on the stretch, from episode to episode of the exciting, and more often than not scandalous, adventures of the disreputable band of light-hearted gentlemen of the road, whose leader is that most audacious and irresponsible of amiable scamps, Encolpius, the narrator of the moving tale. With the exception of the six chapters devoted to describing the glories and absurdities of Trimalchio’s Feast, which form a long episode apart, and a most entertaining one, the action never pauses. From lecture-room to house of ill fame, from country mansion to country tavern, from the market for stolen goods in a city slum to the Chapel of Priapus, from a harlot’s palace to a rich parvenu’s table, from Picture Gallery to the public baths, from ship and shipwreck to a luxurious life of imposture in a wealthy provincial town, we are hurried along in breathless haste. The pace is tremendous, but the road bristles with hairbreadth escapes and stirring incidents, and is never for one instant dull or tame. Probably the nearest parallel in other literatures is the so-called picaresque romances of Spain, of which Don Pablo de Segovia; Lazarillo de Tormes; and, if we regard it of Spanish origin, the incomparable Gil Blas de Santillana, may be taken as typical examples.

  A mere Novel of Adventure then? Not so! The Satyricon is this; but it is a great deal besides. It abounds in clear-sighted and instructive apercus on education, literature and art, and contemporary deficiencies in these domains; its prose is interspersed with many brilliant fragments of verse, mostly parodies and burlesques, some ludicrous, some beautiful. Over and above its merits as a tale, it is a copious literary miscellany, over-flowing with wit and wisdom, drollery and sarcasm.

  Last but not least, this work of fine, if irregular, genius contains probably the most lifelike and discriminating character painting in the realm of everyday life to be found in all the range of ancient literature. To appreciate this, it is only necessary to name three or four of the principal dramatis personae: —

  Encolpius, the gay, unprincipled profligate, but never altogether worthless, narrator of the story;

  Ascyltos, his comrade and rival, as immoral and good for nothing as the other, but without his redeeming touch of gentlemanliness and “honor among thieves”;

  Giton, the minion, changeable and capricious, with his pretty face and wheedling ways;

  Tryphaena, the beautiful wanton, who “travels the world for her pleasures”;

  Lichas, the overbearing and vindictive merchant and Sea-captain; Quartilla, the lascivious and unscrupulous votary of Priapus; Circe, the lovely “femme incomprise” of Croton; and finally, the never to be forgotten Eumolpus, the mad poet, the disreputable and starving pedant, at once “childlike and bland” with an ineffable naivete of simple conceit, and frankly given up to the pursuit of the most abominable immoralities, now bolting from the shower of stones his ineradicable propensity for reciting his own poetry has provoked, now composing immortal verse, calm amid the horrors of storm and wreck and utterly oblivious of impending death.

  Another point, the admirably clever adaptation of the language to the social position and character of the persons speaking, merits a word or two more. While both the general narrative, and the conversation of the educated dramatis personae, Eumolpus for instance, are marked by a high degree of correctness of diction and elegance of phrase, the talk of such characters as Trimalchio and his freedmen friends, Habinnas and the rest, and other uneducated or half-educated persons, is full not merely of vulgarisms and popular words, but of positive blunders and downright bad grammar. These mistakes of course are intentional, and it is only another proof of the lack of humor and want of common sense that often marked the industrious and meritorious scholars, particularly German scholars, of the old school, that some commentators have actually gone out of their way to correct these errors in the text of Petronius. There are hundreds of them; two or three examples must suffice here. Libra rubricata says Trimalchio (Ch. VII. — xlvi), meaning libros rubricatos, “lawbooks,” and vetuo “I forbid,” while his guests indulge in such glaring solecisms as malus fatus, exhortavit, naufragarunt. The whole of Chapter VII., where Trimalchio’s guests converse freely with one another
in the temporary absence of their host, and afterwards Trimalchio harangues the company on various subjects, is full of these diverting “bulls.”

  From the philologist’s point of view the book is particularly valuable as containing almost our only specimens of the Roman popular, country speech, — the lingua Romana rusticana, so all important as the link between literary Latin and the Romance languages of modern Europe. Two or three examples again must suffice: minutus populus, exactly the modern French “le menu peuple,” urceatim plovebat, “it rained in bucketfuls,” non est miscix, “he’s no shirker,” bono filo est, “he has good stuff in him.” It is also a storehouse of popular saws and sayings, sometimes of a fine, vigorous outspokenness, not to say coarseness of expression, such as: caldum meiire et frigidum potare, “to piss hot and drink cold”; sudor per bifurcam volabat, “the sweat was pouring down between my legs”; lassus tanquam caballus in clivo, “as tired as a carthorse at a hill.”

  “In addition to the corruptions in the text,” says Professor Ramsay, “which are so numerous and hopeless as to render whole sentences unintelligible, there are doubtless a multitude of strange words and of phrases not elsewhere to be found; but this circumstance need excite no surprise when we remember the various topics which fall under discussion, and the singular personages grouped together on the scene. The most remarkable and startling peculiarities may be considered as the phraseology appropriate to the characters by whom they are uttered, the language of ordinary conversation, the familiar slang in everyday use among the hybrid population of Campania, closely resembling in all probability the dialect of the Atellan farces. On the other hand, wherever the author may be supposed to be speaking in his own person, we are deeply impressed by the extreme felicity of the style, which, far from bearing marks of decrepitude or decay, is redolent of spirit, elasticity, and vigorous freshness.”

  As to the text, the following remarks by Professor Ramsay, give a complete statement which it is impossible to improve upon. “Many attempts,” he writes, “have been made to account for the strangely mutilated condition in which the piece has been transmitted to modern times. It has been suggested by some that the blanks were caused by the scruples of pious transcribers, who omitted those parts which were most licentious; while others have not hesitated to declare their conviction that the worst passages were studiously selected. Without meaning to advocate this last hypothesis — and we can scarcely believe that Burmann was in earnest when he propounded it — it is clear that the first explanation is altogether unsatisfactory, for it appears to be impossible that what was passed over could have been more offensive than much of what was retained. According to another theory, what we now possess must be regarded as striking and favorite extracts, copied out into the common-place book of some scholar in the Middle Ages; a supposition applicable to the Supper of Trimalchio and the longer poetical essays, but which fails for the numerous short and abrupt fragments breaking off in the middle of a sentence. The most simple solution of the difficulty seems to be the true one. The existing MS. proceeded, in all likelihood, from two or three archetypes, which may have been so much damaged by neglect that large portions were rendered illegible, while whole leaves and sections may have been torn out or otherwise destroyed.

  “The Editio Princeps of the fragments of Petronius was printed at Venice, by Bernardinus de Vitalibus, 1499; and the second at Leipzig, by Jacobus Thanner, in 1500; but these editions, and those which followed for upwards of a hundred and fifty years, exhibited much less than we now possess. For, about the middle of the seventeenth century, an individual who assumed the designation of Martinus Statilius, although his real name was Petrus Petitus, found a MS. at Traun in Dalmatia, containing nearly entire the Supper of Trimalchio, which was wanting in all former copies. This was published separately at Padua, in a very incorrect state, in 1664, without the knowledge of the discoverer, again by Petitus himself at Paris, in the same year, and immediately gave rise to a fierce controversy, in which the most learned men of that day took a share, one party receiving it without suspicion as a genuine relic of antiquity, while their opponents, with great vehemence, contended that it was spurious. The strife was not quelled until the year 1669, when the MS. was dispatched from the Library of the proprietor, Nicolaus Cippius, at Traun, to Rome, where, having been narrowly scrutinized by the most competent judges, it was finally pronounced to be at least three hundred years old, and, since no forgery of such a nature could have been executed at that epoch, the skeptics were compelled reluctantly to admit that their doubts were ill founded. The title of the Codex, commonly known as the Codex Traguriensis, was Petronii Arbitri Satyri Fragmenta ex libro quinto decimo et sexto decimo, and then follow the words ‘Num alio genere furiarum,’ etc.

  “Stimulated, it would appear, by the interest excited during the progress of this discussion, and by the favor with which the new acquisition was now universally regarded by scholars, a certain Francis Nodot published at Rotterdam, in 1693, what professed to be the Satyricon of Petronius complete, taken, it was said, from a MS. found at Belgrade, when that city was captured in 1688, a MS. which Nodot declared had been presented to him by a Frenchman high in the Imperial service. The fate of this volume was soon decided. The imposture was so palpable that few could be found to advocate the pretensions put forth on its behalf, and it was soon given up by all. It is sometimes, however, printed along with the genuine text, but in a different type, so as to prevent the possibility of mistake. Besides this, a pretended fragment, said to have been obtained from the monastery of St. Gall, was printed in 1800, with notes and a French translation by Lallemand, but it seems to have deceived nobody.”

  In the present version the portions of the narrative derived from this alleged Belgrade MS. are not specially distinguished from the genuine text; this is done advisedly, in order not to interrupt the continuity of the story. This does not of course for a moment imply that these interpolations are regarded as other than spurious, but as they are both amusing reading in themselves as well as admirable imitations of our Author’s style, and supply obvious lacunae in the plot, making the whole book more interesting and coherent, they have been retained as an integral part of the work.

  We append three or four extracts bearing upon Petronius and the Satyricon, and interesting either on account of the source from which they come, the quaintness of their expression, or the weight of their authority.

  From the “Age of Petronius,” by Charles Beck, 1856: “Among the small number of Latin writers of prose fiction, Petronius, the author of the Satyricon, occupies a prominent place. . . . As to this book, the quality of its language and style and the nature of its contents constitute it one of the most interesting and important relics of Roman lierature, antiquities and history.

  “The work, at least the portion which has come down to us, contains the adventures of a dissipated, unprincipled, but clever, cultivated and well-informed young man, Encolpius, the hero himself being the narrator. The book opens with a discussion on the defects of the existing system of education, in which the shortcomings of both teachers and parents are pointed out. Next follows a scene in the Forum, in which the hero and his companion, Ascyltos, are concerned, and which exhibits some of the abuses connected with judicial proceedings. After a brief and passing mention of the vices and hypocrisy of the priests, the highly interesting portion containing an account of the banquet of Trimalchio follows. This is succeeded by the account of the acquaintance which the hero, disappointed and dispirited by the faithless conduct of his companion, forms with a philosopher, Eumolpus, who besides discussing some subjects relating to art, especially painting, and to literature, gives an account of his infamous proceedings in corrupting the son of a family in whose house he had been hospitably received. The hero accepts the invitation of the philosopher to accompany him on an excursion to Tarentum. The account of the voyage, of the discovery made by Encolpius that he is on board a vessel owned by a person whose vengeance he had just ground to apprehend, of his
fruitless attempt to escape detection, of the reconciliation of the hostile parties, and of the destruction of the vessel and the greater portion of the passengers by shipwreck, is full of interest. The hero and his immediate companions, being the only persons that escaped death, make their way to Croton, where Eumolpus, by representing himself as the owner of valuable and extensive possessions in Africa, works so upon the avarice and cupidity of the inhabitants, who are described as a set of legacy-hunters by profession, that he meets with the most hospitable reception. An intrigue of the hero with a beautiful lady of the city occupies a large part of this section of the story. The book closes with an account of the measures which Eumolpus takes for the purpose of avoiding the detection of his fraud, by working anew upon the avarice of his hosts. The close is abrupt as the beginning had been; the book is incomplete in both parts; the end, as well as the beginning, is wanting.

  “That the author of this work was a man of genius is unquestionable. The narrative of the events of the story is simple, — exciting, without exhausting, the interest of the reader, the description of customs, chiefly those of the middle classes of society, is invaluable to the antiquarian, and the importance of the work in this respect can scarcely be overrated; the personages introduced into the story are drawn with such a clearness of perception of their characteristics, and such an accuracy of portraiture, extending to the very peculiarities of the language used by each, that they appear to live and breathe and move before our eyes.”