Delphi Complete Works of Petronius Read online

  The Complete Works of

  PETRONIUS

  (c. 27 – 66 AD)

  Contents

  The Translations

  SATYRICON: 1902 Allinson Translation

  SATYRICON: 1913 Heseltine Translation

  SATYRICON: 1922 Firebaugh Translation

  POEMS

  The Latin Text

  CONTENTS OF THE LATIN TEXT

  The Dual Text

  DUAL LATIN AND ENGLISH TEXT

  The Biographies

  INTRODUCTION TO PETRONIUS by Michael Heseltine

  TACITUS’ ACCOUNT OF PETRONIUS

  © Delphi Classics 2015

  Version 1

  COPYRIGHT

  Complete Works of Petronius

  First published in the United Kingdom in 2015 by Delphi Classics.

  © Delphi Classics, 2015.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.

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  The Complete Works of

  GAIUS PETRONIUS ARBITER

  By Delphi Classics, 2015

  The Translations

  Marseille, France — Petronius’ birthplace

  The remains of the ancient Roman harbour of Massalia, near today’s old port

  SATYRICON: 1902 Allinson Translation

  Translated by Alfred R. Allinson

  The Latin novel Satyricon (The Satyrlike Adventures) is believed to have been written by Gaius Petronius, though the manuscript tradition identifies the author as a certain Titus Petronius. Along with Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, scholars often describe the Satyricon as a Roman novel, though not necessarily implying that is has a continuous narrative. The work has been identified as a Menippean satire, containing a mixture of prose and verse (known as prosimetrum), featuring serious, comic and erotic subject matter. This genre was made popular by Marcus Terentius Varro (116 BC – 27 BC), an ancient Roman scholar and writer, who imitated the Greek Menippus, giving his satires the character of a medley of prose and verse composition.

  Satyricon is regarded as useful evidence for the reconstruction of how lower classes lived during the early Roman Empire. The extant text concerns the misadventures of the narrator, Encolpius, who is a former gladiator, and his lover, a handsome servant boy named Giton. Throughout the novel, Encolpius faces the challenge of maintaining his lover’s faithfulness, as Giton is constantly enticed away by other lovers. The surviving sections of the novel begin with Encolpius travelling with a companion and former lover named Asciltos, who has joined Encolpius on numerous escapades. Encolpius’ slave Giton is apparently present at Encolpius’ lodging when the story begins. He is constantly referred to as “brother” throughout the novel, indicating that they were lovers.

  In the first extant passage, Encolpius is in a Greek town in Campania, where he is standing outside a school, railing against the Asiatic style and false taste in literature, which he blames on the prevailing system of declamatory education. His adversary in this debate is Agamemnon, a sophist, who shifts the blame from the teachers to the parents. Encolpius discovers that his companion Asciltos has left and breaks away from Agamemnon when a group of students arrive. Encolpius locates Asciltos and then Giton, who claims that Asciltos made a sexual advance on him. After some conflict, the three go to the market, where they are involved in a dispute over stolen property. Returning to their lodgings, they are confronted by Quartilla, a devotee of Priapus, who condemns their attempts to pry into the cult’s secrets.

  Although interrupted by frequent gaps, 141 sections of consecutive narrative have been preserved. Speculation as to the size of the original text has estimated Satyricon as large as a work of thousands of pages. A number of fragments are preserved in other authors. Servius cites Petronius as his source for a custom at Massilia of allowing a poor man, during times of plague, to volunteer to serve as a scapegoat, receiving support for a year at public expense and then being expelled. Sidonius Apollinaris refers to “Arbiter”, by which he apparently means Petronius’ narrator Encolpius, as a worshipper of the “sacred stake” of Priapus in the gardens of Massilia. It has been argued that Encolpius’ wanderings in the Satyricon began after he offered himself as the scapegoat and was ritually expelled.

  The date of the satirical novel was controversial in nineteenth and twentieth century scholarship, with dates proposed as varied as the 1st century BC and 3rd century AD, though a consensus on this issue now exists. A dramatic date under Nero (1st century AD) is indicated by the work’s social background and in particular by references to named popular entertainers, recently revealed in research work.

  The incomplete form in which the Satyricon survives has tantalised many readers and, between 1692 and the present, several writers have attempted to complete the story. In certain cases, following a well-known conceit of historical fiction, these invented supplements have been claimed to derive from newly discovered manuscripts, a claim that may appear all the more plausible since the real fragments actually came from two different medieval sources and were only brought together by sixteenth and seventeenth century editors. The novel is remarkable for being a source of scarce information about the language of Rome’s populace. The Satyricon provides description, conversation and stories that have become invaluable evidence of colloquial Latin. In the realism of Trimalchio’s dinner party, we are provided with informal table talk that abounds in vulgarisms and solecisms, conveying a precious insight of the Roman proletariat.

  A 1688 edition of Petronius’ work

  A 1694 frontispiece illustration for the novel

  CONTENTS

  INTRODUCTION

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Bust of Nero, Capitoline Museum, Rome — Tacitus, Plutarch and Pliny the Elder describe Petronius as the ‘elegantiae arbiter’ (judge of elegance) in the court of the Emperor Nero. He served as consul in 62 AD.

  Ancient wall painting believed to be based on Petronius’ novel

  INTRODUCTION

  Tacitus writes (Annals, XVI. Chapters 17 and 18-20, A.D. 66): “Within a few days, indeed, there perished in one and the same batch, Annaeus Mela, Cerialis Anicius, Rufius Crispinus and Petronius. . . . With regard to Caius Petronius, his character and life merit a somewhat more particular attention. He passed his days in sleep, and his nights in business, or in joy and revelry. Indolence was at once his passion and his road to fame. What others did by vigor and industry, he accomplished by his love of pleasure and luxurious ease. Unlike the men who profess to understand social enjoyment, and ruin their fortunes, he led a life of expense, without profusion; an epicure, yet not a prodigal; addicted to his appetites, but with taste and judgment; a refined and elegant voluptuary. Gay and airy in his conversation, he charmed by a certain graceful negligence, the more engaging as it flowed from the natural frankness of his disposition. With all
this delicacy and careless ease, he showed, when he was Governor of Bithynia, and afterwards in the year of his Consulship, that vigor of mind and softness of manners may well unite in the same person. With his love of sensuality he possessed talents for business. From his public station he returned to his usual gratifications, fond of vice, or of pleasures that bordered upon it. His gayety recommended him to the notice of the Prince. Being in favor at Court, and cherished as the companion of Nero in all his select parties, he was allowed to be the arbiter of taste and elegance. Without the sanction of Petronius nothing was exquisite, nothing rare or delicious.

  “Hence the jealousy of Tigellinus, who dreaded a rival in the good graces of the Emperor almost his equal; in the science of luxury his superior. Tigellinus determined to work his downfall; and accordingly addressed himself to the cruelty of the Prince, — that master passion, to which all other affections and every motive were sure to give way. He charged Petronius with having lived in close intimacy with Scaevinus, the conspirator; and to give color to that assertion, he bribed a slave to turn informer against his master. The rest of the domestics were loaded with irons. Nor was Petronius suffered to make his defense.

  “Nero at that time happened to be on one of his excursions into Campania. Petronius had followed him as far as Cumae, but was not allowed to proceed further than that place. He scorned to linger in doubt and fear, and yet was not in a hurry to leave a world which he loved. He opened his veins, and closed them again, at intervals losing a small quantity of blood, then binding up the orifice, as his own inclination prompted. He conversed during the whole time with his usual gayety, never changing his habitual manner, nor talking sentences to show his contempt of death. He listened to his friends, who endeavored to entertain him, not with grave discourses on the immortality of the soul or the moral wisdom of philosophers, but with strains of poetry and verses of a gay and natural turn. He distributed presents to some of his servants, and ordered others to be chastised. He walked out for his amusement, and even lay down to sleep. In this last scene of his life he acted with such calm tranquillity, that his death, though an act of necessity, seemed no more than the decline of nature. In his will he scorned to follow the example of others, who like himself died under the tyrant’s stroke; he neither flattered the Emperor nor Tigellinus nor any of the creatures of the Court. But having written, under the fictitious names of profligate men and women, a narrative of Nero’s debauchery and his new modes of vice, he had the spirit to send to the Emperor that satirical romance, sealed with his own seal, — which he took care to break, that after his death it might not be used for the destruction of any person whatever.

  “Nero saw with surprise his clandestine passions and the secrets of his midnight revels laid open to the world. To whom the discovery was to be imputed still remained a doubt. Amidst his conjectures, Silia, who by her marriage with a Senator had risen into notice, occurred to his memory. This woman had often acted as procuress for the libidinous pleasures of the Prince, and lived besides in close intimacy with Petronius. Nero concluded that she had betrayed him, and for that offense ordered her into banishment, making her a sacrifice to his private resentment.”

  Two questions arise out of this famous passage: 1. Is Petronius (Arbiter), author of the Satyricon, the same person as the Caius Petronius here described, and spoken of by the Historian as “elegantiae arbiter” at the Court of Nero? 2. Is the existing Satyricon the “satirical romance” composed by the Emperor’s victim during his dying hours and sent under seal to the tyrant?

  Both points have been long and vigorously debated, but may now be taken as fairly well settled by general consent, — the answer to the first query being Yes! To the second, No!

  The Introductory Notice to Petronius, in the noble “Collection des Auteurs Latins,” edited by M. Nisard, sums up the controversy thus: “Is Petronius, here mentioned by Tacitus, the Author of the Satyricon, and are we to regard this work as being the testamentary document addressed to Nero of which the Historian speaks?” These two questions so long and eagerly disputed, may be looked upon as decided by this time. The Consular, the favorite of Nero, the “arbiter of taste and elegance” at the Imperial Court, is generally acknowledged to be our Petronius Arbiter; whose book, diversified as it is with “strains of poetry and verses of a gay and natural turn,” with its tone of good company and its easy-going Epicurean morality, is so much in keeping with the cheerful, uncomplaining death of the pleasure-loving courtier who understood his master’s little peculiarities, and had, like Trimalchio, adopted for his motto, “Vivamus, dum licet esse,”— “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” At any rate in our own opinion, this first point is finally and definitely decided.

  “Can this satire (The Satyricon) be the testament of irony and hate which the victim sent to his executioner? To this further question we answer No! — and our personal conviction on the point is shared by the most weighty authorities. We will limit ourselves here to one or two observations. According to Tacitus, Petronius had already caused his veins to be opened, when he started to recapitulate the series of Nero’s debaucheries in this deposition. The document therefore must necessarily have been brief; whereas the work we possess, too extensive as it stands to have been composed by a dying man, was originally of much greater length, for it seems proved by the titles affixed to the Manuscripts that nearly nine-tenths of the whole is lost. Besides, Petronius had expressly limited his statement to an account of Nero’s secret debaucheries, with no further disguise beyond the use of fictitious names,— ‘under the names of profligate men and women.’ Lastly the extremely varied character of the Work is diametrically opposed to a view, making it out to have been a personal libel, a piece of abuse that only stops short of giving the actual name of the individual pilloried.”

  What is known of Petronius himself, the man Petronius? — Granting an affirmative answer may be given to question 1, something; but even then not much.

  His name was Caius Petronius; he was a Roman Eques or Knight, born at Massilia (Marseilles). Even these initial points are not quite firmly established; Pliny and Plutarch speak of Titus Petronius, and the facts of his being an Eques and his birth at Marseilles rest on conjectural evidence. He was successively Proconsul of Bithynia, and Consul, in both which high offices he showed integrity, energy and ability.

  He was in high favor at the Court of Nero, where he devoted his undoubted talents and genial wit to the amusement of the Prince, the systematic cultivation of an elegant and luxurious idleness and the elaboration of a refined profligacy. He won the title among his fellow courtiers of “arbiter elegantiae,” a nickname that with time appears to have grown into a sort of surname, posterity knowing him universally as Petronius Arbiter.

  Eventually he incurred the jealousy and enmity of Nero’s all-powerful Minister, Tigellinus, who contrived his ruin. Informed against for conspiracy, or at any rate association with conspirators, he voluntarily opened his veins. Displaying much fortitude and a fine indifference, he died calmly and composedly, spending his last hours in merry conversation with his friends, the recitation of light-hearted verses and the composition of a candid and circumstantial account of the Emperor’s debaucheries, which he sent under seal to his Master as his dying bequest.

  Pliny (1) and Plutarch (2) add further touch, that previous to his death he broke to pieces a Murrhine vase of priceless value, which was amongst his possessions, to prevent its falling into the tyrant’s hands.

  As to his great work, the so-called Satyricon, its characteristics and place in literature, we cannot do better than quote from what Professor Ramsey says of it in the “Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography”: “A very singular production, consisting of a prose narrative interspersed with numerous pieces of poetry, and thus resembling in form the Varronian Satire, has come down to us in a sadly mutilated state. In the oldest MSS. and the earliest editions it bears the title Petronii Arbitri Saturicon, and as it now exists, is composed of a series of fragments, the
continuity of the piece being frequently interrupted by blanks, and the whole forming but a very small portion of the original, which, when entire, contained at least sixteen books, and probably many more. It is a sort of comic romance, in which the adventures of a certain Encolpius and his companions in the south of Italy, chiefly in Naples or its environs, are made a vehicle for exposing the false taste which prevailed upon all matters connected with literature and the fine arts, and for holding up to ridicule and detestation the folly, luxury and dishonesty of all classes of the community in the age and country in which the scene is laid. A great variety of characters connected for the most part with the lower ranks of life are brought upon the stage, and support their parts with the greatest liveliness and dramatic propriety, while every page overflows with ironical wit and broad humor. Unfortunately the vices of the personages introduced are depicted with such minute fidelity that we are perpetually disgusted by the coarseness and obscenity of the descriptions. Indeed, if we can believe that such a book was ever widely circulated and generally admired, that fact alone would afford the most convincing proof of the pollution of the epoch to which it belongs. . . .

  “The longest and most important section is generally known as the Supper of Trimalchio, presenting us with a detailed and very amusing account of a fantastic banquet, such as the most luxurious and extravagant gourmands of the empire were wont to exhibit on their tables. Next in interest is the well-known tale of the Ephesian Matron, which here appears for the first time among the popular fictions of the Western world, although current from a very early period in the remote regions of the East. . . . The longest of the effusions in verse is a descriptive poem on the Civil Wars, extending to 295 hexameter lines, affording a good example of that declamatory tone of which the Pharsalia is the type. We have also 65 iambic trimeters, depicting the capture of Troy (Troiae Halosis), and besides these several shorter morsels are interspersed replete with grace and beauty.”