a--"Not often," says Studer (Rheinisches Museum, 1843), "has there been
so much dispute about the author, the times, the character and the
purpose of a writing of antiquity as about the fragments of the Satyricon
of Petronius." The discovery and publication of the Trau manuscript
brought about a literary controversy which has had few parallels, and
which has not entirely died out to this day, although the best
authorities ascribe the work to Caius Petronius, the Arbiter Elegantiarum
at the court of Nero. "The question as to the date of the narrative of
the adventures of Encolpius and his boon companions must be regarded as
settled," says Theodor Mommsen (Hermes, 1878); "this narrative is
unsurpassed in originality and mastery of treatment among the writings of
Roman literature. Nor does anyone doubt the identity of its author and
the Arbiter Elegantiarum of Nero, whose end Tacitus relates."
In any case, the author of this work, if it be the work of one brain,
must have been a profound psychologist, a master of realism, a
natural-born story teller, and a gentleman.
b--His principal object in writing the work was to amuse but, in amusing,
he also intended to pillory the aristocracy and his wit is as keen as the
point of a rapier; but, when we bear in mind the fact that he was an
ancient, we will find that his cynicism is not cruel, in him there is
none of the malignity of Aristophanes; there is rather the attitude of
the refined patrician who is always under the necessity of facing those
things which he holds most in contempt, the supreme artist who suffers
from the multitude of bill-boards, so to speak, who lashes the posters
but holds in pitying contempt those who know so little of true art that
they mistake those posters for the genuine article. Niebuhr's estimate
of his character is so just and free from prejudice, and proceeds from
a mind which, in itself, was so pure and wholesome, that I will quote it:
"All great dramatic poets are endowed with the power of creating beings
who seem to act and speak with perfect independence, so that the poet is
nothing more than the relator of what takes place. When Goethe had
conceived Faust and Margarete, Mephistopheles and Wagner, they moved and
had their being without any exercise of his will. But in the peculiar
power which Petronius exercises, in its application to every scene, to
every individual character, in everything, noble or mean, which he
undertakes, I know of but one who is fully equal to the Roman, and that
is Diderot. Trimalchio and Agamemnon might have spoken for Petronius,
and the nephew Rameau and the parson Papin for Diderot, in every
condition and on every occasion inexhaustibly, out of their own nature;
just so the purest and noblest souls, whose kind was, after all, not
entirely extinct in their day.
"Diderot and a contemporary, related to him in spirit, Count Gaspar
Gozzi, are marked with the same cynicism which disfigures the Roman;
their age, like his, had become shameless. But as the two former were in
their heart noble, upright, and benevolent men, and as in the writings of
Diderot genuine virtue and a tenderness unknown to his contemporaries
breathe, so the peculiarity of such a genius can, as it seems, be given
to a noble and elevated being only. The deep contempt for prevailing
immorality which naturally leads to cynicism, and a heart which beats for
everything great and glorious,--virtues which then had no existence,
--speak from the pages of the Roman in a language intelligible to every
susceptible heart."
e--Beck, in his paper, "The Age of Petronius Arbiter," concluded that the
author lived and wrote between the years 6 A.D. and 34 A.D., but he
overlooked the possibility that the author might have lived a few years
later, written of conditions as they were in his own times, and yet laid
the action of his novel a few years before. Mommsen and Haley place the
time under Augustus, Buecheler, about 36-7 A.D., and Friedlaender under
Nero.
d--La Porte du Theil places the scene at Naples because of the fact the
city in which our heroes met Agamemnon must have been of some
considerable size because neither Encolpius nor Asclytos could find their
way back to their inn, when once they had left it, because both were
tired out from tramping around in search of it and because Giton had been
so impressed with this danger that he took the precaution to mark the
pillars with chalk in order that they might not be lost a second time.
The Gulf of Naples is the only bit of coastline which fits the needs of
the novel, hence the city must be Naples. The fact that neither of the
characters knew the city proves that they had been recent arrivals, and
this furnishes a clue, vague though it is, to what may have gone before.
Haley, "Harvard Studies in Classical Philology," vol. II, makes out a
very strong case for Puteoli, and his theory of the old town and the new
town is as ingenious as it is able. Haley also has Trimalchio in his
favor, as has also La Porte du Theil. "I saw the Sibyl at Cumae," says
Trimalchio. Now if the scene of the dinner is actually at Cumae this
sounds very peculiar; it might even be a gloss added by some copyist
whose knowledge was not equal to his industry. On the other hand,
suppose Trimalchio is speaking of something so commonplace in his
locality that the second term has become a generic, then the difficulty
disappears. We today, even though standing upon the very spot in Melos
where the Venus was unearthed, would still refer to her as the Venus de
Melos. Friedlaender, in bracketing Cumis, has not taken this
sufficiently into consideration. Mommsen, in an excellent paper (Hermes,
1878), has laid the scene at Cumae. His logic is almost unanswerable,
and the consensus of opinion is in favor of the latter town.