A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

216 PETRONI US, PETRONIUS.
the whole of his household was arrested. Believ- the most convincing proof of the pollution of tile
ing that destruction was inevitable, and impatient epoch to which it belongs. Without feeling any
oi delay or suspense, he resolved to die as he had inclination to pass too severe a sentence on the collived, and to excite admiration by the frivolous lector of so much garbage, the most expansive
eccentricity of his end. Having caused his veins charity will not permit us to join with Burmann
to be opened, he from time to time arrested the in regarding him as a very holy man (virum sarzcflow of blood by the application of bandages. tissimum), a model of all the austere virtues of the
During the intervals he conversed with his friends, olden time, who filled with pious horror on beholdnot upon the solemn themes which the occasion ing the monstrous corruption of his contemporaries,
might have suggested, but upon the news and light was irresistibly impelled to arrest, if possible, the
gossip of the day; he bestowed rewards upon some rapid progress of their degradation by holding up
of his slaves, and ordered others to be scourged: the crimes which they practised to view in all the
he lay down to sleep, and even showed himself in loathsomeness of their native deformity.
the public streets of Cumae, where these events took The longest and most important section is geneplace; so that at last, when he sunk from exhaustion, rally known as the Supper of Trimalciio, presenthis death (A. n. 66), although compulsory, appeared ing us with a detailed and very amusing account
to be the result of natural and gradual decay. He of a fantastic banquet, such as the most luxurious
is said to have despatched in his last moments a and extravagant gourmands of the empire were
sealed document to the prince, taunting him with wont to exhibit on their tables. Next in interest
his brutal excesses (Jlagitia Principis * * * * * * is the well-known tale of the Ephesian Matron,
perscripsil aqgue obsiigata misit Neroni), and to which here appears for the first time among the
have broken in pieces a murrhine vessel of vast popular fictions of the Western world, although
price, in order that it might not fall into the current from a very early period in the remote rehands of the tyrant. This last anecdote has been gions of the East. In the middle ages it was cirrecorded by Pliny (H. N. xxxvii. 2), who, as well culated in the " Seven Wise Masters," the oldest
as Plutarch (De Adulat. et Amicit. Discrim. p. 60), collection of Oriental stories, and has been introgive to the person in question the name of Titus duced by Jeremy Taylor into his " Holy Dying,"
Petronius. We find it generally assumed that he in the chapter "On the Contingencies of Death,
belonged to the equestrian order, but the words of &c." The longest of the effusions in verse is a
Tacitus (Ann. xvi. 17) would lead to an opposite descriptive poem on the Civil Wars, extending to
inference, " Paucos quippe intra dies eodem agmine 295 hexameter lines, affording a good example of
Annaeus Mella, Cerealis Anicius, Rufius Crispinus that declamatory tone of which the Pharsalia is
ac C. Petronius cecidere. Mella et Crispinus the type. We have also sixty-five iambic trimneEquites Romani dignitate senat~ria." Now, since ters, depicting the capture of Troy (Troiae Halosis),
Petronius, in virtue of having been consul, must and besides these several shorter morsels are interhave enjoyed the dignitas senatoria, the above sen- spersed replete with grace and beauty.
tence seems to imply that Mella and Crispinus A great number of conflicting opinions have been
alone of the individuals mentioned were Equites formed by scholars with regard to the author of
Romani. the Satyricon. Many have confidently maintained
A very singular production consisting of a prose that he must be identified with the Caius (or
narrative interspersed with numerous pieces of Titus) Petronius, of whose career we have given a
poetry, and thus resembling in form the Varronian sketch above, and this view of the question, after
Satire, has come down to us in a sadly mutilated having been to a certain extent abandoned, has
state. In the oldest MSS. and the earliest editions been revived and supported with great earnestness
it bears the title Petronii A 1bitri Satyricon, and, as and learning by Studer in the Rheinisches Mluseuzm.
it now exists, is composed of a series of fragments, By Ignarra he is supposed to be the Petroilius
the continuity of the piece being frequently inter- Turpilianus who was consul A.D. 61. [TURPIrupted by blanks, and the whole forming but a very LIANUS.] Hadrianus Valesius places him under
small portion of the original, which, when entire, the Antonines; his' brother Henricus Valesins
contained at least sixteen books, and probably and Sambucus under Gallienus. Niebuhr, led
many more. It is a sort of comic romance, in away by ingenious but most fanciful inferences
which the adventures of a certain Encolpius and derived from a metrical epitaph, discovered in the
his companions in the south of Italy, chiefly in vicinity of Naples, imagines that he lived under
Naples or:its environs, are made a vehicle for ex- Alexander Severus; Statilius would bring him
posing the false taste which prevailed upon all down as low as the age of Constantine the Great;
matters connected with literature and the fine arts, while Burmann holds that he flourished under Tiand for holding up to ridicule and detestation the berius, Caius, and Claudius, and thinks it probable
folly, luxury, impurity, and dishonesty of all that he may have seen the last days of Augustus.
classes of the community in the age and country in The greater number of these hypotheses are mere
which the scene is laid. A great variety of cha- flimsy conjectures, unsupported by any thing that
racters connected for the most part with the lower deserves to be called evidence, and altogether unranks of life are brought upon the stage, and sup- worthy of serious examination or discussion; but
port their parts with the greatest liveliness and the first, although too often ignorantly assumed as
dramatic propriety, while every page overflows a self-evident and unquestionable fact, is deserving
with ironical wit and broad humour. Unfortunately of some attention, both because it has been more
the vices of the personages introduced are widely adopted than any of the others, and because
depicted with such minute fidelity that we are it appeals with confidence to an array of proofs
pelpetually disgusted by the coarseness and ob- both external and internal, which may be reduced
scenity of. the descriptions. Indeed, if we can to the following propositions:believe that such a book was ever widely circulated 1; We can trace the origin of the name Asrbiter
and generally admired, that fact alone would afford to the expression " elegantiae arbiter," in Tacitus.