The Satyricon of Petronius

8/13/2019 The Satyricon of Petronius

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C A G LS E

Cludia TeixeiraDelfim F. Leo

Paulo Srgio Ferreira

T S P

G, W S


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Cludia TeixeiraUniversity of vora

Delfim F. LeoUniversity of Coimbra

Paulo Srgio FerreiraUniversity of Coimbra

Te Satyriconof Petronius

Genre, Wandering and Style

Translated from the Portugueseby Martin Earl


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A: C T, D F. L P S FT: T SATYRICON P: G, W SE: C E C H

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T.: 239 859 981 | F: 239 836 7333000-447 C

ISBN: 978-989-8281-02-9D L: 279983/08

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C D V C


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CONTENTS

PREFACE 7

Cludia Teixeira, Delfim F. Leo & Paulo Srgio Ferreira

CONTRIBUTIONTOTHEDEFINITIONOFTHE

RELATIONSHIPSBETWEENTHESOF

PETRONIUSANDMENIPPEANSATIRE 11

Paulo Srgio Ferreira

TWOCLOSEDUNIVERSESINTHESOFPETRONIUS: THEC TANDTHECITYOFCROTON 59Cludia Teixeira

PETRONIUSANDTHEMAKINGOFCHARACTERS:

GITONANDEUMOLPOS 95Delfim F. Leo


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PREFACE

e studies of Petronius presented in this book dis-

cuss three different perspectives that, despite being inde-pendent, aim at giving a general approach to the Satyricon.e first chapter explores the relation between the noveland Menippean satire: basing itself on the evolution, fromRenaissance to modern times, of the various theories ofMenippean genre and mode, it seeks to prove that, ac-cording to the theory of modern satire, the title of VarrosSaturae Menippeaemay be understood as an expression ofgenre, and also that Petronius tried to adapt some Menip-pean generic features to his own work.

e second chapter argues that the relationship

of the anti-heroes of the Satyriconwith the surroundingworld is developed within a system of wandering, markedby constant escapes and immanent demands. However,this random and erratic movement does not prevent theanti-heroes from coming into contact with cohesive andintrinsically consistent systems. Among these systems are

especially highlighted the Cena rimalchionis and the cityof Croton, an urban space that also configures a dystopia.

e last chapter focuses primarily on the charactersof Giton and Eumolpos, who are two of the most curiousPetronian inventions. e analysis of their behaviour andstyle provides us with a clarifying example of the care takenby Petronius in the construction of the main characters ofthe Satyricon and of the different levels of reading that heintentionally created, through the confluence in a singlecharacter of multiple lines deriving from literary and culturaltradition.


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ese studies are as well a way of thanking a veryspecial person, someone who was a teacher and master ofthe books three authors: Professor Walter de Medeiros.

Apart from being an enthusiastic reader of Petronius anda scholar with rare knowledge and sensibility, ProfessorMedeiros is also known for his kindness and rare personalqualities, all of which make of him a man who uniquelyexpresses academic humanitas.

May this volume pay humble and sincere homageto him.

Cludia eixeira Delfim F. Leo Paulo Srgio Ferreira


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HESOFPETRONIUSANDMENIPPEANSATIRE

CONTRIBUTIONTOTHEDEFINITIONOFTHE

RELATIONSHIPSBETWEENTHESATYRICONOFPETRONIUS

ANDMENIPPEANSATIRE

P S FU C

To Justus Lipsius falls the merit of having been

the first humanist and, in the opinion of Relihan andBranham, the first critic to give the expression Satyra

Menippea a generic status, in a 1581 work subtitled:Somnium. Lusus in nostri aeui criticos.1Among the firstand known defenders of the inclusion of the Satyriconin the genre of Menippean satire were Isaac Casaubon,

De Satyrica Graecorum Poesi et Romanorum Satirica(1605), and John Dryden in Discourse concerningthe Original and Progress of Satire, which prefacedhis translation of Juvenal (1693).2 ese critics pointof view collided with the many that sought to fit the

Petronian work into a novelesque genre of Greek origin.is conflict allows us to say that the first attempts toexplicitly configure the genre of Menippean satire oc-curred around the time of the polemic that surrounded

1R (1993) 12, and B (2005) 10.2Cf. D (1926) 66: Which is also manifest from antiq-

uity, by those authors who are acknowledged to have written Var-ronian satires, in imitation of his; of whom the chief is PetroniusArbiter, whose satire, they say, is now printed in Holland, whollyrecovered, and made complete: when tis made public, it will eas-ily be seen by any one sentence, whether it be supposititious, orgenuine.


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the first attempts to generically define the Satyricon ofPetronius.

For the commentators of the 17thand 18thcen-turies, the satire in verse consisted in the praise of aparticular virtue and the criticism of its complementaryvice.3For this reason, it is not at all strange that, in DiuiClaudii Apocolocyntosis, by Seneca, or in the Caesares, by

Julianus, what has most caught the attention of these

critics has been the punishment of the emperors, evenin the beyond, for crimes committed during life. Fol-lowing Seneca and Julian, 18th century Menippeanpractice adapts, in Weinbrots words, Roman formalverse satires insistence on overt norms, however limitedthey might be.4Due to this, to a more than probable

lack of knowledge of the works of Bion of Borysthenesand of Menippus of Gadara and to a quite limitedknowledge of the Saturae Menippeaeof Varro, it is notsurprising that there is a preference among authors ofthe 17thand 18thcenturies for the moderation and ele-gance of conservative aristocrats, like Varro and Seneca,who, in addition to having revealed a liking for philoso-phy, proposed solutions and positive rules, to the detri-ment of impudence, derision and an over-indulgent lifestuffed with the vices of the Greek authors, Bion and

3W (2005) 2.4 W (2005) 6 and 23-4: Over several centuries and

cultures some kinds of Menippean satire adapted a key structuraland more device of Roman and later French and British formalverse satire. ose forms include the praise of virtue opposed tothe vice attacked, while still preserving Menippean resistance to adangerous false orthodoxy.


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Menippus. As to Petronius, a large part of the criticsof the 18thcentury believed that the Satyriconcriticizedthe vices of Nero and of his court, without praising thecontrary virtues.

Among the modern theorists that have ponderedMenippean satire, we can count Northrop Frye, who,in hisAnatomy of Criticism, of 1957, distinguishes fourtypes of fiction: novel, confession, anatomy andromance.5

Admitting the fact that the different forms of fiction arefound to be mixed6, and defining the first two and thelast types referred to, Frye proceeds to the configura-tion of the anatomy, commonly known as Menippeanor Varronian satire. Considered to be a form in prose,it must have begun with the progressive inclusion, in

texts in verse, of passages in prose, while the poetry itselfbecame increasingly sporadic.7Centered not so muchon types, but rather on the attitudes of the characters,anatomyportrays abstract ideas and theories, and, in astylized way, characters which are no more than mou-thpieces of the ideas they represent.8ough anatomycan deal with a great variety of subjects, some of themost recurring have to do with disturbances, mentalobsessions and social vices such as philosophical pre-tension and pedantry. e anatomyexpands intellectualfantasy, and the result consists in not only a structure

whose violent dislocations alter the normal narrative

5F (1957) 303ss.6F (1957) 305.7F (1957) 309.8F (1957) 309.


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logic, but also in the exaggerated humor of caricature.9In addition to being synonymous with mythos, the termsatire may designate a structural principle or an atti-tude. As far as attitude is concerned, it combines fantasywith morality, while, as a form, it can exclusively reflectthe fantastic (for example, in fairy tales), or exclusivelyreflect morality. e purely moral type is a serious vi-sion of society as a single intellectual pattern, in other

words a Utopia.10

e most abbreviated form of Me-nippean satire is usually that of a dialogue or colloquythat, without being necessarily satirical, can be whollyentertaining or moral, and have as its scenario a cenaora symposium.

Regarding the authors that interest us, Frye ad-

mits the possibility that it was Varro who would haveassociated the exhibition of erudition with the Meni-ppean satire. He situates Petronius in the footsteps ofthe uir Romanorum eruditissimusand considers that the

Arbiterused a loosejointed narrative, that, in spite ofbeing commonly confused with the romance, does not,as the romance does, center on the heroes, but on thefree play of intellectual fantasy and in the humoristicobservation that leads to caricature. In the end, Fryeconsiders the Cenarimalchionisas an example of theabbreviated form of Menippean satire.

e spoudogeloion according to Bakhtin, wasintimately related with the carnival and characterizedby an amusing relativism, by the contemporaneity

9F (1957) 310.10F (1957) 310.


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of the subjects dealt with, by the importance ofexperimentation and free invention, by the pluralityof styles and voices.11is plurality of styles and voicesis characteristic of heteroglossiaandpolyphony. oughHolquist says, in the Glossary of Te DialogicImagination, that dialogism is the characteristicepistemological mode of a world dominated byheteroglossia, where there is a constant interaction

between meanings,12

Plaza establishes the followingdistinction between heteroglossiaandpolyphony: whilethe first one requires only sometimes that the speechstyles should reflect and interpenetrate each other;[.] polyphony always requires an interpenetrationof the different styles (dialogue), as well as the

suspension of authorial command over the work.13Bakhtine also thought that the carnival, the epic andrhetoric are the basis for the novelistic genre. It is in thecontext of these considerations that the theoreticianin the Problemy poetiki Dostoevskovo, reflects uponthe Socratic dialogue and the Menippean satire. etheoretician tells us that the second appeared outof the decomposition of the first, but its roots drawdeeply on carnivalesque folklore, and that, because

11 ese features, according to B (1981), 21-22, arepresent in the mimes of Sophron, in the bucolic poems, in the fable,

in the early memoir literature (e Epidemiaiof Ion of Chios, theHomiliaeof Critias), in pamphlets, in the Socratic dialogues (as agenre), in the Roman satire (Lucilius, Horace, Persius and Juvenal),in the literature of the Symposia, in the Menippean satire (as agenre) and in the dialogues of Lucianic type.

12B (1981) 426.13P (2005) 193-4.


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of its protean nature, it is capable of penetrating theother genres.14

Following this, Bakhtin specifies the fourteencharacteristics of the genre which, for convenience,he had begun to call simply mnippe: 1) a presence ofthe comic element far greater than that which occursin the Socratic dialogue; 2) a freeing up of historicallimitations, of the demands of verisimilitude, and a

libert exceptionnelle de linvention philosophique etthmatique;15 3) the recourse to the fantastic, witha purely ideal or philosophical intention, that is, inorder to investigate, provoke and test the idea of thephilosophical truth of the wandering sage;16 4) amixture of philosophical dialogue, phantasmagoric

and symbolic dialogue with a naturalisme des basfondsoutrancier et grossier,17that, probably, goes back to thefirst Menippean authors (cf. Bion of Borysthenes); 5)a notable philosophical universalism, a meditation onthe world carried to the limit, and, after all, a reflectionon the ultimes questions;186) development of actionon three levels, or in three spaces: earth, Olympus,and the underworld, and the presence of the dialoguesur le seuil;19 7) experimental fantasticality, that is,

14B (1970) 159, cf. 151-8.15B (1970) 160.16B (1970) 161: Dans ce sens, on peut dire que le

contenu de la mnippe est constitu par les aventures de lide, dela vrit travers le monde: sur la terre, aux enfers, sur lOlympe.

17B (1970) 161.18B (1970) 161.19B (1970) 162.


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observation from an unusual standpoint, for example,from the heights, of phenomena that, from thisperspective, acquire other dimensions; 8) moral andpsychological experimentation, which translates intothe epic and tragic monism, through the representationof uncommon and abnormal psychic states: manic-depressive dementia, double personality, extravagantfantasies, bizarre dreams, passions that border on

madness, suicides, etc.; 9) a taste for scandalousscenes, for eccentric behavior, for altered intentionsand manifestations, for everything that is an affrontto decency and the etiquette of a given occasion; 10)a preference for violent contrasts, for oxymorons,for abrupt transformations, for unexpected reversals,

for the majestic and the base, for the elevation andthe fall, for unexpected approaches to distant andvarying objects and every kind of combination; 11)occurrence of the elements of social utopia, namelyin dreams and on journeys to inexistent countries;12) the abundant recourse to genres which couldbe called intercalaires,20 like novellas, letters, thediscourses of orators and, among others, the symposia,and mixtures of prose and verse, which are generallyemployed with a certain humor; 13) le pluristylismeet la pluritonalit21 stemming from a new vision of

the word as literary material, a vision that had beenperpetuated through a dialogic current in literaryprose; 14) opting for sociopolitical actuality, which, in

20B (1970) 165.21B (1970) 165.


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treating ideas of the moment, confers a dimension ofthe journalistique22on the genre.

Before enumerating the characteristics of theMenippea, Bakhtin alerts us to the importance, in thedevelopment of the genre, of Antisthenes, the author ofSocratic dialogues, of Heraclides Ponticus, of Menippusof Gadara, of Bion of Borysthenes and of the DiuiClaudii Apocolocyntosis of Seneca, considered a classic

example of Menippean satire. De mme, le Satiriconde Ptrone, ceci prs quil est largi aux dimensionsdun roman.23

As far as polyphony in Petronius Satyriconis con-cerned, Plaza demonstrated that the different voices, in-

stead of engaging with each other in dialogue, competefor supremacy, in order to impose their truth on othervoices and on the reader.24at is why some scenes maybe interpreted in two ways, which G. Schmeling calledsyllepsisand G. Huber, relativisationof viewpoints.25isrelativisation leads, in Petronius, to scepticism based onthe inexistence of truth, while polyphony aims to pro-duce concord, the conclusion that the truth is some-where in the dialogue.26

Petronius Satyriconresists, according to Branham,fitting into the fourteen characteristics Bakhtin finds in

Menippean satire: the novels realism, underlying the22B (1970) 165.23B (1970) 158.24P (2005) 219-20.25P (2005) 206.26P (2005) 220.


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use of class and regional dialects in the characterizationof the freedmen, collides with point 2. e popular ech-oes of Epicurus teachings and the demonstration of thevalidity of magic do not illustrate conveniently point 5,mainly inspired by the impossible quests of Aristophan-ic heroes. e absence of a constructive message deniesa social utopia of the kind we find in Senecas allusionsto Nero inApocolocyntosis. e three-levelled construc-

tion will be considered below. Points 3, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12and 13 remind us of significant features of Petronius.Branham goes on to say that Petronius use of these ele-ments often seems idiosyncratic rather than representa-tive ofMenippea.27

Relihan affirms that the presuppositions

underlying Bakhtins theory coincide with a HellenisticWeltanschauung whose elasticity confers a false unityto nearly six hundred years of history (until Marcus

Aurealius and Saint Augustine); that Bakhtin seesMenippea, in integrating ideas and inexplicable andcontradictory feelings, as a factor of cohesion and forthe integration of so much diversity; that Bakhtinstheory does not reflect upon the way various serious-comedy genres attack the myth of the tragic and epictotality of life; and that Frye and Bakhtin did not takeinto account the specificity of Varro, Seneca, Petronius

and Apuleius, but only used them as a starting point,unitary and decontextualized, for the consideration ofmore recent works and authors. Relihan also notes that

27B (2005) 15.


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in the debate the expression Menippean satire wasnot used as much as the terms anatomy, Menippea,prosimetrum and spoudogeloion.28

He goes on to define Mennipean satire in the follo-wing terms: I urge that the genre is primarily a parodyof philosophical thought and forms of writing, a parodyof the habits of civilized discourse in general, and that itultimately turns into the parody of the author who has

dared to write in such an unorthodox way. What I see asessential to Menippean satire is a continuous narrative,subsuming a number of parodies of other literary formsalong the way, of a fantastic voyage to a source of truththat is itself highly questionable, a voyage that mocksboth the traveler who desires the truth and the world

that is the travelers goal, related by an unreliable narra-tor in a form that abuses all the proprieties of literatureand authorship. In this genre, fantasy is rarely libera-ting: in insisting on the value of what is commonplaceand commonsensical, Menippean satire creates fantasticworlds that are suspiciously like the flawed real world,which the voyager has foolishly left behind.29

If, as we can see, Relihans conception of Menippeansatire does not imply the existence of a poetic speaker,invested with moral authority, that critiques the socialvices that surround him, Weinbrots perspective does not

presuppose such a relativistic vision of society, becauseit proposes that, through the mixture of at least twolanguages, genres, rhythms and styles or historical periods

28R (1993) 7-9.29R (1993) 10.


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or different cultures, this type of satire aims to combata false and threatening orthodoxy. It does so in either aharsher and severe or a softer and muted way [.]. It is agenre for serious people who see serious trouble and wantto do something about it whether to awake a somnolentnation, define the native in contrast to the foreign, protestthe victory of darkness, or correct a careless reader.30

e divergences between Relihan, a classicist,

and Weinbrot, a professor of English Literature, canbe understood in light of the interference, more or lessconscious, of the readings that French and English au-thors of the 17th and 18th centuries conducted of theGreco-Latin classics, and of the general principle thatthe conception of genre evolves throughout history.

Before such profound and perspicacious reflec-tions upon Menippean satire, what is important, at themoment, is to justify the pertinence of our reflectionin light of the radicalism that has led some scholars toconsider the Satyricona Menippean satire tout courtandothers who purport that the genre and the work havenothing in common.

e final justification for the divergences betweenRelihan and Weinbrot is a good pretext for us to consi-der, provisionally, the relationships between genre andmode and of the form which the distinction between

the two is reflected in the treatment that will be given tothe evolution of Menippean satire and to its influenceon the Satyricon of Petronius.

30W (2005) xi.


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e definition of genre is invariably connectedto two types of problems: one, circularity, and the oth-er, what Alastair Fowler, in Kinds of Literature (1982:261), called ineradicable knowledge.31In one of thosequestions of the type which wonders over which camefirst, the chicken or the egg, Paul Hernadi, paraphras-ing Gnther Mller, interrogates himself about how itwould be possible to define tragedy, without the tragic

texts, or how we might consider, without having anydefinition as a base, that a given text is tragedy.32eother problem asks us to consider genre from a syn-chronic perspective, that is, to try to understand whatit began by being, so that, in the second instance, wecan look at this same genre from a diachronic point of

view, that is, by trying to understand what it has turnedinto.

Consequently, genre will consist in the activation,in the memory of each reader, or reader/author, of thosetexts already read or written which are most similar tothe text he is reading or writing. To this end, it is worthrecalling the definition that Aguiar e Silva gave it. Lit-erary genres [.] are made up of codes that result in theparticular correlation of phonic-rhythmic codes, met-rical codes, stylistic codes and technical-compositionalcodes, on the one hand, and semantic-pragmatic codes

on the other, under the influx and conditioning of aspecific literary tradition and in the context of certainsocio-cultural coordinates. Literary genres, because of

31Apud W (1989) 3.32Apud W (1989) 3.


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their connection with literary modes, depend on cer-tain eternal and universal factors, but constitute them-selves and function semiotically, as much in relation tothe emitter/author as in relation to the receptor/reader,above all as historical and socio-cultural phenomena,conditioned and oriented by the intrinsic dynamic ofthe literary system itself and by the correlations of thissystem with other semiotic systems and with the gener-

ality of the social system.33

It would be appropriate, however, to keep in mindthat the generic reading reflects one of the dimensionsthat Kristeva, in the tradition of the Bakhtinian conceptof dialogism, tempered with the Chomskian notion oftransformationand stemming from the studies of Saus-

sure on the relation between the anagram and the wordsfrom which it is formed, called intertextuality. In thewake of Russian formalism, literature is faced with aclosed system, in which the historical-social context ap-pears on the same level as the literary context (anteriortexts) and mme le destinataire est prsent commetexte.34

What is known about the work of Menippusis insignificant.35It is from the behavior of the Cyn-ic, according to what Diogenes Laertius 99-101 and

33A S (1994) 390-1.34R (2002) 55.35Cf. Diogenes Laertius 6.101, where he refers to the following

works of Menippus: Necromancy; Wills; Epistles Artificially Com-posed as if by the Gods; Replies to the Physicists and Mathematiciansand Grammarians; Te Herd (or Birth) of Epicurus; and Te SchoolsReverence for the wentieth Day.


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Lucian, in Icaromenippus, Necyomantia and Dialogimortuorum, tell us, and from his relationships, af-finities and differences with Diogenes and Bion, thatscholars have tried to reconstruct the beginnings of theMenippean genre. us, it is easy to see why the viewof the formalists and of Kristeva theoretically justifythis kind of biographical and fictional approach.

On the biographical level, there are various

points of confluence between the individuals referredto, beginning with their quite humble origins:Diogenes, Bion and Menippus were slaves who becamephilosophers (Aulus Gellius 2.18. 6-7, Macrobius, Sat.1.11.42 and Diogenes Laertius 4.46 and 6.99), butonly the parents of the first two according to one of

the versions of the life of Diogenes had committedfinancial frauds, that, in the case of the native of Sinope,caused him to have to go into exile and voluntarily leavethe city. In Bions case, these frauds caused him and therest of his family to pass into the condition of slavery.If the first two appear connected to Sinope of Pontus(Laertius 4.20, 6.95 and 99) the first and the last, at least,passed through Athens (Laertius 4.47 and 6.21-22). OfDiogenes and Menippus it is said, in another version ofthe life of the first, that they participated in shadowyfinancial negotiations (Laertius 6.20-21, 71 and 99),

and in versions that do not agree either committedsuicide or died from eating raw food (Laertius 6.76-77 and 6.100, schol. in DMort.1.1, and DMort. 4.2 e20.11). In the description that Lucian gives, in DMort.1.2, of the rags that Menippus wore, Relihan guesses


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that this is a habitual characterization of Diogenes.36Regarding these points, we can find a certain

consensus, but this is not the case when we try to un-derstand what kind of relationships existed betweenthe three historical figures: using morality underlyingbehavior and the words as a basis, French and Englishsatirists of the 17thand 18thcenturies did not establish asignificant difference between Bion and Menippus, who,

in the eyes of the first, appeared, as cultivators of Menip-pean satire, and were judged to be incoherent, depravedand, without presenting any edifying alternatives, were,besides, foul-mouthed.37 In the wake of the French andEnglish critics, Bakhtin attributed Bion with the author-ship of Menippeas.38Convinced of the collapse of the tra-

ditional Greek education system, of the ancient Olympianreligion and the small local cults, Highet and Knoche con-sider Menippus and Bion to be followers of Diogenes andof Crates, and, as a consequence, they see the two as liter-ary missionaries or propagandists of Cynical thought.39Onthe contrary, Relihan considers Bion the representative of amilder Cynicism and tries to demonstrate that Menippustargets of criticism and his caustic derision are the philoso-phers with their dogmas and their certainties, and Cynicalantiphilosophy and its representatives. Menippus lacks anyproposal for moral edification or of moderation. In the Ne-

cyia, Menippus would have staged or described his death

36R (1993) 42.37W (2005) 24ss.38B (1970) 161.39H (1962) 31 e K (1975) 56.


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in a way that was very close to Diogenes, and would havefallen into ridicule; and, according to the Suda, s.v.phaios,would have arrived from Hades in the figure of a beardedFury, with tragic high buskins and a mantle, to observehuman vices on earth.40

Before we take a position relative to these twoopposing points of view about Menippus, it would beworth noting that, in the Icaromenippus, Lucian had

described the ascension of Menippus to Heaven tofind the truth about the nature of the universe, whileinMenippus siue Necyomantia, the author from Samo-sata portrays the descent of the protagonist into Hadesto discover the correct way to live. In both works thephilosophers disagreements about the subjects dealt

with are criticized. Seneca may have been inspired bythe Necyia and perhaps a work by Menippus to de-scribe Claudius path to Heaven and, through earth,to hell.

In the Satyricons case, the path is not a verti-cal or perpendicular movement, but, in trying to es-cape from Trimalchios house, the scholasticisuddenlyfind a dog that clearly evokes Cerberus. Giton uses asimilar strategy of distraction to that employed by theVirgilian Sibyl (Petr. 72.9-10 and A. 6.417-24, esp.420). Just as the guard tells the intellectuals they can-

not leave through the same door through which they

40R (1993) 40-8, esp. 44: Menippus must be seen as alone wolf on the fringes of the Cynic movement [.] a dog of theunderworld, whereas Diogenes [.] is the dog who lives in heaven[.] a mad Diogenes.


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had entered, so Anchises leads Aeneas and the Sibyl tothe exit, and tells the son that Somnushas two doors:one of horn through which the real shadows pass andthe other of ivory through which the dreams of thenight that the Manes send to heaven proceed (Petr.72.10 and A. 6.893-9).Aeneas death was temporaryand the Shades of the underworld gave him indica-tions that were perceived as fragments of reality. e

Homeric model underlying the Virgilian passage isOd. 19.562-7. By the way that Menippean satire andPetronius parody the same epic subject we can see thatthe Satyriconcannot be considered a work of the firstgenre referred to, but rather, partly because of the lim-itations in the recourse to the fantastic, a novel with

influences from Menippean satire.Regarding the philosophers, besides being carica-

turized, as we shall see below, in the figure of Eumolpos,we also find them criticized explicitly in Trimalchiosepitaph, where the repugnance of the freedman forthat particular class of intellectuals makes him proud ofnever having heard one of them. (71.12): nec umquam

philosophum audiuit.Without taking up an exhaustive analysis of the

arguments invoked by Relihan, it would be worth ourwhile to briefly consider some of the more significant

ones: one has to do with the nearly total or even com-plete lack of knowledge on the part of the philosophicaland literary traditions of Menippus work, and with theabsence in these traditions of any relationship betweenDiogenes and Menippus, a character that, without any


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exemplary qualities or moral authority, is usually re-ferred to, above all, jokingly.41

In speaking of those who had convinced her togive them more time, Philosophy, in Lucian, Fug.11,mentions Antisthenes, Diogenes, and presently CratesandMenipposhoutos.ough the use of the demonstra-tive pronoun, with a derogatory connotation and sug-gesting exasperation (damn), is interpreted by Relihan

as a sign that Philosophy in some way distinguishesMenippus from his predecessors,42the truth is that, ac-cording to Harmon, the use of the demonstrative re-sults from the fact that, when Lucian wrote the Fugitiui,Menippus, partly because of the treatment that Lucianhimself had given him, enjoyed great popularity among

readers and so the pronoun would signify the known,the famous.43It is certain that, for example, in Photii

Myriobiblion, siue Bibliotheca librorum quos legit et cen-suit Photius Patriarcha Constantinopolitanus,who livedbetween c. 810 and c. 893 AD, Menippus is not men-tioned in the context of the Cynicorum secta, but Bionis excluded from it as well, and both names figure in thegroup of thepoetae.

Despite the abundance of Bions celebrated sayings(4.47-53), the fact of having taught philosophy in Rhodes(4.49), the description of the philosophical path of the

character himself (4.51-52), Laertius does not transcribe,41R (1993) 40 e 42.42R (1993) 43 e 231 n. 23.43Lucian, with an Elglish translation by A. M. H, vol.

V, Cambridge (Massachusetts) London, 1936, repr. 1955, 67 inloc.


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in theMenippi uita(6.99-101), a single famous sentenceby the philosopher of Gadara, nor does he suggest anyactivity or educative and edifying intention. We should,however, emphasize that, after having, in Rhodes,persuaded the sailors to adopt a students demeanorand follow him, Bion frustrated the expectations ofthose who were prepared to listen to him and went intothe gymnasium (4.53). Besides this, Relihan notes that

Laertius quotes the testimony of the Diogenous Prasis,byMenippus, because of the paradox of the slave who feelshe can rule men, and that he also quotes the homonymouswork of Eubulus to give more detailed information aboutthe educational program to which Diogenes submittedthe sons of Xeniades (6.29-30). In spite of this, the truth

is that, without the textual context of Diogenes words inMenippus work, we should not exclude the possibilitythat the author may want to say that a man, independentof his social condition, can be the master of himself andan example to others. In any case, it seems legitimate tosuppose that they both shared a contempt for formal andtraditional education.

After having considered Menippus a Cynic andhaving said that the rich usurer had fallen into penury,victim of a trap and an assault, Laertius observes that,without understanding what it is to be a Cynic, the phi-

losopher from Gadara had committed suicide by hang-ing himself (6.99-100). From this passage Relihan de-duces that, for Laertius, Menippus is not in any way a


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Cynic,44but what Laertius may want to underline is theinconsistency between words and actions that, after all,would be shared by Diogenes and Bion.

One of the proofs that the Cynical inconsistency,connected to the ambition of wealth, had become pro-verbial and one of the topics dear to satire may be foundin Petr. 14.2.3-4., when Ascyltos, reflecting upon howhe might recover the tunic with the gold and justify-

ing the necessity of buying it, declaims: Ipsi qui Cynicatraducunt tempora pera/ non numquam nummis uendereuerba solent.

Still under the sign of inconsistency between wor-ds and actions and reactions, we may find other pointsof confluence between the historical figures considered

above and the scholasticiof the Satyricon. In spite of ha-ving denied the existence of the gods, of not even havinglooked at the temples, and making fun of those who madesacrifices to the gods, Bion, when victim of a prolongedillness, not only burned incense and fats to the gods andacknowledged his mistakes, but also submitted himself tothe spells of an old woman and, at the hour of his death,saluted Pluto. Likewise, despite the intellectuals skepti-cism about the freedmens superstition, at the end of theMilesia of Niceros and that of Trimalchio the formerwhich is about a werewolf and the latter about witches

, the scholasticicede to the general amazement that hadinvaded the room (attonitis admiratione uniuersis 63.1;miramur nos et pariter credimus64.1).

44R (1993) 43.


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e episode of Circe, Encolpius-Polyaenus, Pros-elenus and Oenothea inverts the sequence of the Bionepisode but has the same meaning. Desperate with thecadaveric state of his member, Encolpius seeks helpfrom Oenothea, but, in a clear mythological parody ofthe figure of Hercules, who had subdued Stymphalussfowls and the Harpies, he ends up killing Priapus sa-cred ganders and, with two gold coins and a banquet,

buys the support of the representatives of god, Pros-elenus and Oenothea, and, in the end, divine pardon(136.6ss.).45 As to the state of religio, precisely, it isGanymedes, a laudator temporis acti, who calls atten-tion to the present realities, by contrasting ancient andtrue devotion, which was rewarded by the gods, with

the contemporary indifference to the divinities, due tothe lack of devotion in the people of his time (religiosison sumus. Agri iacent 44.18).

Bion, criticized for his indifference to a youngman, observed that a buttery cheese cannot be held bya hook (Laertius 4.47). Regardless of this, he continuesto insist that if Socrates felt desire for Alcibiades and ifhe refrained, he was crazy, but, if he felt nothing, thenhe did not do anything extraordinary (4.49). Of Alci-biades himself, it is said that, during his childhood, hetook husbands away from their wives, and, in his youth,

wives away from their husbands (4.49). Besides this, La-ertius informs us in 4.53 that Bion used to adopt youngmen in order to satisfy his sexual necessities and as a way

45Cf. F (2000) 120-1.


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of feeling protected by his own benevolence (4.53); andthat one of his intimates, Betion, had even confessedthat he had not felt the worse for spending the nightwith the sage of Borysthenes (4.54).

In telling Encolpius the story of the boy from Per-gamum, a clear sign that a new rival in the dispute overGiton was preparing to enter the scene, Eumolpos refersto the fact that whenever sexual relations with boys were

talked about at the table, he became so pale with rageand refused to hear obscene conversation that the boysmother saw him as unum ex philosophis (Petr. 85.2). If,as Dimundo says, Eumolpos would like to suggest thatthe mother considers him a Socrates, then it would bein the Puer that Alcibiades would find his parallel; and

many are the similarities that, to justify this interpreta-tion, can be established between Platos SymposiumandtheMilesiaof the Satyricon.46It is important, however,after Sommariva, not to forget the fact that having, inthe course of the action related, traded roles and trans-formed the harassed puer into the harasser, Petroniusnot only emphasized the hypocrisy of the youth but alsoparodically inverted the situation described in Platoswork.47

Besides also referring to the Platonic hypertext,the sequence of the uita Bionis (staying with the mo-

tif under consideration) has obvious affinities with the

46D (1983) 257.47S (1984) 25-6. On the parallel between the arrival

of Habinas at Trimalchios banquet and that of Alcibiades at thePlatos Symposium, see F (2000) 83s.


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PetronianMilesia: Laertius begins in the same way byreferring to Alcibiades as an occasional target of Socra-tes sexual desire, and to the boys harassed by Bion, inorder, once again, to describe Alcibiades, the boy, as aconqueror of men, and of Alcibiades the young man, ofwomen; and to speak of the individual that so habitu-ally slept with Bion that he hardly felt, for this, a worseperson. If we are to think that Laertius is posterior to Pe-

tronius, this would not be to preliminarily exclude theinfluence of the latter on the former, but, as happens inthe relationship between the Satyriconand the survivingsentimental Greek novels, the most natural thing is thatLaertius reproduced stories and sayings that a traditionprevious to Petronius bequeathed him. ough, there

are those who consider Eumolpos to be an EpicureanSocrates, who opposed the Stoic model, the truth isthat we should not exclude the hypothesis that, in theeyes of a sophistes poikilos(4.47), his depraved behavioris not that distant as, at first it might appear, from thePlatonically immaculate Socrates.

As complement to a relatively late reception, like theone we have been considering until now, that joined bio-graphical stories of dubious veracity and of anecdotal cha-racter with sparse information on the works of Menippusand Bion, we should be able, at least partially, to unders-

tand the celebrated affirmation of Quintilian, Inst. 10.1.93:Satura quidem tota nostra est.48Following the quoted affir-mation, the Rhetorician weaves certain considerations

48Cit. of Quintilien, Institution oratoire, t. VI, l. X et XI, textetabli et traduit par Jean C, Paris, 1979, 95.


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upon Lucilius and Horace, and speaks about another typeof satire (10.1.95):Alterum illud etiam prius saturae genus,sed non sola carminum uarietate mixtum condidit erentiusVarro, uir Romanorum eruditissimus. e problem is thatfrom the point of view of Quintilian, conditioned by a cer-tain nationalist pride, he does not take an older receptioninto account, like that of Varro himself and of Horace, and,consequently, closer in time to Menippus and Bion.

In Ep. 2.2.60, in the context of a reflection uponthe preferences of the public concerning the genres thathe, himself, cultivated, Horace alludes to the reader whodelights Bioneis sermonibus et sale nigro. Bion was theauthor of diatribes, that were informal homilies delive-red in public on ethical aspects, and could also contain

literary portraits, literary parody, animal similes anddialogues with imaginary interlocutors. From Horaceswords we grasp that, contrary to what occurred in latercriticism, the poet took into account only Bions work.

InAP 7.417.3-4 and 7.418.5-6, Meleager, com-patriot of Menippus, admits his debt to MenippeanCharites, and Athenaeus 157A says that the former hadwritten Cynical works entitled Charites. In recording sla-ves that become celebrated philosophers, Aulus Gelliuswrites (2.18.7): Ex quibus ille Menippus fuit cuius libros

M. Varro in satiris aemulatus est, quas alii Cynicas, ipse

appellat Menippeas.49

Relihan considers the expressionMenippean Graces and the title of the Varros collec-tion oxymoronic, on the basis of a concept of satire that

49Aulu-Gelle. Les nuits Attiques, Livres I-IV, texte tabli et tra-duit par Ren M. Paris, 1967, 108.


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presupposes the moral authority of the one who criti-cizes. But, the word satura originally characterized alanxgarnished with every kind of fruit and vegetable.It also defined a literary form cultivated by Ennius andLucilius, considered the true father of satire. Since thisliterary form mixed different kinds of verse, echoes ofHellenistic culture, moral censure, ethical dialogue,authorial presence and parody of literary genres, Var-

ro may be thinking of a kind of conciliation betweenthese aspects and more specific ones from the Meni-ppean satire of Greek tradition, such as the presence,in the same composition, of prose and verse.50Finally,Relihan may not have paid attention to the possibilitythat Varro had ignored occasional self-parody in Me-

nippus work and focused his attention on the diatribeand invective. It is worth noting, however, that thetitle of Petronius novel, Satyricon, is the genitive ofthe neuter plural adjective satyrica, related to the satyrsthat participated in the Greek Satyric drama, whichcould parody the three previous tragedies. e Satyri-conadopts this same tradition of parody and applies itto many different genres.

50As to prosimetrics, A (1970), 23, concludes that thisfeature is the only similarity between Varro and Petronius, but, at-tentive to other points of convergence between the Latin novel and

the ancient form of the Greek novel, the most probable conclusionis that Petronian prosimetrics are inspired by the homonymousGreek genre. However, R (1993), 199-201, convincinglydemonstrated that Petronius returned the prosimetric romance toits Menippean origins and it cannot be maintained that Greekprosimetra require that we separate the Satyriconfrom Menippeansatire (201).


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In Lucian, Bis acc. 33, the Dialogue complains ofMenippus, a prehistoric dog, with high-pitched yelpsand sharpened canines, being really frightening, becau-se while smiling he unexpectedly bites. Based on thispassage, Relihan is convinced that Menippus attitude sur-passes the spoudogeloion. e critic also invokes the fr. 518Bcheler (=518 Cbe) of Varros aphe Menippou, whichhe translates as e funeral of Menippus, to say that

sed ut canis sine codacharacterizes Menippus as a dog thatconstantly bites, because he doesnt wag his tail as a sign ofaffection.51Cbe rightly observes that the title should betranslated as la tombe de Mnippe52; that, for the greaterpart of the Cynics, it is a point of honor to exhibit sociallya provocative irascibility against friends and enemies; and

that Varro is Menippean because, in the cited words ofAstbury, il montre le mme esprit de derision envers sescontemporains que Mnippe, parce quil est as Strabo(1st cent. B.C. / 1st cent. A.D.) 16.2.29 and Stephanusof Byzantium acknowledge spoudogeloios.53

As the criticism is divided about the relationshipbetween Menippus and the School of the Cynics,54 itis, therefore, not possible to find much consensus re-garding the way in which Varro would have dealt with

51R (1993) 44.52C (1972-1999) 12. 1980.53C (1972-1999) 12. 1988, cf. 1987, and 3. 314.54K takes the contrary point of view (1975), 56, stating

that Menippus himself was looked upon by the ancients not asa Cynic quite the opposite, his way of life was completely con-trary to the Cynic manner of living, as the biography in DiogenesLaertius, for example, shows but rather as an especially successfulliterary propagandist for Cynicism.


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traditional Roman satire and the influences that the dia-tribe had on it.

Based on the contrast between Menippus life, hissocial level and his attitude toward reality, on the onehand, and, on the other, these same features in the life ofVarro, and in light of the values and moral intentions whi-ch are grasped from the other works of the latter, Knocheand Cbe defend that Cynicism and Menippus, in their

humble origins and in their cosmopolitanism, intend,through perspicacious and humoristic phrases thrown tothe crowd, to challenge it to live in accordance with na-ture, to control its desires and to be liberated from all theties in which it can become entangled (religion, the state,society, family, convention and, in the end, civilization).

In contrast, Varro, coming from a distinctive family, tar-get of a careful education, committed to the traditionalvalues of his background and pondering a powerful elite,criticized contemporary corruption and suggested, as analternative, the recovering of virtues underlying the mosmaiorum. He also exhibited an indistinguishable pride inleaning, teaching and philosophy.55

In Cicero,Ac. 1.8-9, Varro affirms that he had ad-ded hilaritas andphilosophiato his imitation of Menippus,and Cicero himself recognizes that Varro brought greatbrilliance to the Latin poets, to Latin literature and lan-

guage. He had composed poetry in various meters and,in many places, he had treated philosophical topics that,though interesting enough to stimulate his readers, reveal

55C (1972-1999) I 4, and K (1975) 56-7.


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themselves inadequate to the task of instructing them (adedocendum parum). It was precisely the final part of this in-tervention that inspired Relihan to conclude that, withoutany moralizing intention, Varros Menippeae parody theencyclopedic knowledge of the uir Romanorum eruditissi-mus, the diatribe and Cynicism. eyalso have recourse tometa-language in order to criticize themselves and makeridiculous the ignored reformer of Roman society.

ese discrepant interpretations of Varro requiresome attention. Let us consider the way in which theydeal with the same topic: for example, the figure of thenarrator or of the poetic subject. In analyzing VarrosBimarcuse author divided in two,Marcipor, Mar-cus slave andMarcopolis Marcus city, Relihan shows

himself to be aware of the difficulties originating in thelarge lacunae and the impossibility of determining pre-cisely who addresses Marco and who is the speaker andthe public. However, the critic mentions the importan-ce of the firstMenippeafor the representation of Varro,and admits the hypothesis that in the second and thirdones the author appears as the chief actor in fantastictales that result in the narrators embarrassment.56It iscertain that, for example, in fr. 60 Bcheler (=46 Cbe)of the Bimarcus, someone reprehends Marcus for ha-ving promised Seius that he would write a work peri

tropon, and, instead of this, ruminatur he dwells on theOdyssey of Homer. In theMenippean where, accordingto Cbe, Varro detaches himself from the liberal arts

56R (1993) 50.


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and rhetoric, to dedicate himself to morality, the Frenchcritic begins by affirming that the second Greek termcould have the following meanings: transformation,habit, figure of style, and trope, and ends up, quiteplausibly, to suggest the hypothesis that Marcus criticis one of theneoteroiorpoetae doctiwho has not evenunderstood thatpolytropos57is an epithet for Ulysses. Inthe end is it not Varro whose discernment was clouded

over by drink the sentence referred to begins with theexpression ebrius es but rather his antagonist.e criticism of the philological pretensions of

certain intellectuals was a subject dear to certain philo-sophical currents (cf. Seneca, Ep. 108.24 and 30s., andDial. 10.13.1.ss.), and to satire in general, and, in par-

ticular, to Menippean. It is not, indeed, by chance that,in coming upon what Hercules fears to be his thirteen-th work, Senecas character, inApoc. 5.4, resorts to thewords that Telemachus had addressed to Athena disgui-sed as Mentor, in Homer, Od. 1.170, to ask ClaudiusGraeculowho he is, where he comes from, and who arehis parents. e author registers these questions in orderto caricature the taste of the dead man in questions ofphilology (cf. Suetonius, Cl. 42.1). It is not indeed bychance that the narrator notes the pleasure with whichthe Claudius welcomes the words of Hercules: Claudius

gaudet esse illic philologos homines, following which Clau-dius responds in Homeric citations. If, in the words ofintellectuals, it was not in good taste to use Greek words

57C (1972-1999) 2. 211 and 220.


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and citations in public, in the mouth of the freedmenwith aspirations to culture and the supposed good tasteof the scholastici, other citations, even Latin ones, soun-ded even more ridiculous.

e Petronian Trimalchio is a good illustration ofthis case: with the first plate finished and the wine beingserved, the host insists that his guests drink and, afterasking them if they thought that he would be happy

with what they had seen on the tray, cites the wordswith which Laocon used to alert his fellow citizensto the dangers that horse could bring (sic notus Vlixes?39.3), and concludes (39.3-4): Quid ergo est? Oportetetiam inter cenandum philologiam nosse. As far as this isa kind of bad imitation of the normal practice of the

intellectuals, the Virgilian citation does not only cari-cature the pretensions of theparvenu, it creates ironicdistance from the attitudes of the intellectuals in termsof the subject under discussion.

Let us return to the characterization of the nar-rator of the Menippean satire and to the reflection onthe relationship he maintains with the textual authorand the empirical author. e traditional, historiogra-phical prefaces were composed with a progressive spe-cificity in terms of the theme under discussion, withan affirmation of impartiality and of reliability, and by

the indication of sources. In parodying this structure aswell as aretology, Seneca is looking, in the beginning ofApocolocyntosis, to discredit the source and, finally, the


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heterodiegetic narrator.58Relihan mainly bases himselfhere, and in the subsequent process of discrediting thegreater part of the divinities that are now to be foundin heaven or in the underworld and/or that judge Clau-dius, to demonstrate that the dead man is no more thana naf and a fool who stresses the ridiculousness of thosewho promoted him to the condition of divinity and ofeverything that in the heavens and in the underworld

reflects Roman corruption. After all, the most morallysuperior character is a human elevated to the conditionof a god, and the conventions Concilium deorumare thesame as those of the Roman senate.59

On the contrary, those who try to connect theMenippeanwith traditional Roman satire never forget

58In spite of proposing to describe only what occurred in heav-en on the 13thof October of 54 BC., the narrator shows great satis-faction with the hope in a new era of prosperity (anno nouo, initiosaeculi felicissimi1.1); and though he affirms that he will tell thetruth (haec ita uera1.1), he does not abstain from illustrating, withthe possibility of choosing between the contempt for desire for one

who questions him and the indication of the source, the freedomthat he had enjoyed since the one, whose life demonstrated theproverb that each of us should be born a king or mad, had died(Si quis quaesiuerit unde sciam, primum, si noluero, non respondebo.Quis coacturus est? Ego scio me liberum factum, ex quo suum diemobiit ille, qui uerum prouerbium fecerat, aut regem aut fatuum na-sci oportere. 1.1). e obligation verified and the reticence vis--vis the identification of the informer overcome, the narrator says

that it is LiviusGeminius (or Geminus), the superintendent of theVia Appia who had not only sworn before the senate that he hadseen Drusilla, sister and lover of Caligula, rise to the heavens, buthas also been present at the transfer of Augustus and Tiberius tothe side of the gods. We should, however, remember that Tiberiusnever received divine honors.

59R (1993) 75-90.


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Senecas criticism of the indiscriminate and exaggerateddistribution, on Claudius part, of citizens visas, or thecaricature of the dead man, the criticism of the philolo-gical pretensions of the emperor, of his arbitrary exerciseof justice and the consequent deaths of family members.ese scholars also do not forget the fact that in life andafter death Claudius was not more than a puppet inthe hands of the freedmen; nor do they forget the hope

in the possibility that Nero, in contrast with Claudius,established on earth a more just order; lastly, they donot forget the fictionally immaculate character of themain judge: Augustus, nor Claudius punishment. Evenif the textual author can identify with the narrator, andin this way, also be made to seem ridiculous, the truth is

that the opinion of the empirical author, the historicalSeneca, even if it is peppered with irony throughout theentire manifesto, is surely much closer to Augustus thanto that of his narrator.

In the referred to process of belittling the gods,whose vices are hardly inferior to those of certain mor-tals, and of belittling the institutions, whose functioningand whose terrible bureaucrats are a copy of Roman re-ality of the period, there is a moment in which Father

Janus intervenes and, based on the opposition olim /iam, accounts for the contrast between the great honor

that in the past the recognition of a person of divinestatus represented and the contemporary trivializationof this recognition (Apoc. 9.3): Olim [.] magna reserat deum fieri: iam Fabam mimum fecisti.In the samemanner, after affirming that no one had contemplated


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with impunity what was forbidden him, Quartillas sla-ve adds, in Petr. 17.5: Vtique nostra regio tam praesen-tibus plena est numinibus ut facilius possis deum quamhominem inuenire. According to how we understandthese words and, for example, the story of the boy fromPergamum, where Eumolpos, aware of the insomnia ofthe student and of his ability to hear him, makes hisvows known to Venus, and it is thepuerwho is charged

with fulfilling them the Satyricondoes not even needto allude to the imperial institution of the apotheosis todeify, not emperors, but much more common people.

After having alluded to the ingenuity that Clau-dius of theApocolocyntosis and Encolpius of the Satyriconhave in common,60and referred to the distance betwe-

en the Encolpius-character and the Encolpius-narrator,Relihan maintains that, following the invective direc-ted by Encolpius against his member, whose flaccidityprevents him from responding to Circes advances, itis Petronius himself who, via the mouth of the afore-mentioned character, addresses the reader in the follo-wing terms (132.15): Quid me constricta spectatis fronteCatones /damnatisque nouae simplicitatis opus?/ Sermo-nis puri non tristis gratia ridet, / quoque facit populus,candida lingua refert./ Nam quis concubitus, Veneris quis

gaudia nescit?/ Quis uetat in tepido membra calere toro?/

Ipse pater ueri doctos Epicurus amare/ iussit et hoc uitamdixit habere tevlo.61

60R (1993) 83.61Cited from Konrad M, Petronius. Satyricon reliquiae.

Stutgardiae et Lipsiae. 1995, 160.


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position of Epicurus concerning the inhibiting powerof shame and on the substitution, in Roman reality,of Epicuruss vision for that of Cato the Censor, Sci-pio and Laelius Connors glimpses, in the Petronianopposition between Catonesand Epicurus, a parodyof the Senecan passages.65

Connors position is relatively dubious, given thatshe does not clearly state that Petronius is an Epicurean

and, consequently, identifies himself with his characterthat, in this moment, could be used up in the parodicinversion of the Senecan adaptation. e same thingcannot be said, however, with the positions of Conte,Slater and Panayotakis, who see a certain distance be-tween Encolpius and Petronius.

ough he admits that the poem of 132.15 isa programmatic manifesto of realism, Conte stresses,following the others, among them Slater,66that, in themouth of one who had just revealed his impotenceand frustrated Circes expectations, vv. 5-8 strike oneas incongruent. e recollection of Epicurus doctrineon the argument for life is, for Conte, one more mani-festation of the rhetorical culture of this mythomaniaccharacter, under which, and with ironical distance, theauthor is hidden, a realist in his way of representing hisanti-realist character.67 ough the manifesto on rea-

lism anticipates poetical principles that we will find inauthors such as Juvenal 1.85s. and Martial 10.4.7-10,

65C (1998) 73-4.66S (1990) 129.67C (1996)187ss. Cf. 25 n. 27.


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the truth is that, in order to speak of his unfortunateexperience and, finally, of his life, Encolpius still hadrecourse to such an abundant source of literature that,perfectly cut off from reality, he would be able to speakwith his mentula, as though it were a person or, givinghim the benefit of the doubt, like Ulysses repriman-ding his heart. e use of the term opus, is justified, inContes words, because the whole affair takes place in a

city created and composed out of literature. For Crotonis a hyper-realistic city, in the sense that it is not just acorrupt city, but rather the corruption of a city. Better:Croton is the rhetorical topos of the corrupt city, as itwas codified in moral and satirical writing a rhetoricaltopos that has gone and turned itself into narrative rea-

lity. at is why Croton is a hyper-realistic city, becauseit is produced by the literary illusion of reality; it arisesnot directly from reality, but from an ideaof realism. Arealism of this sort, a realism of the second degree, likethe kind that arises from the realistic literature of satire how can this still be realism?68

Contes conclusions are given their full due forthe obvious implications they hold for our more generalreflection on the relationship between the SatyriconandMenippean satire, but to return to the Petronian passageunder scrutiny, it would be well to keep in mind that,

for Slater, it is not about the theory of literature, butrather a rhetorical and elegant theatrical exit from theridiculous situation in which Encolpius finds himself,

68C (1996) 192.


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and a strategy to once again gain, even if temporarily,the sympathy of the reader.69

By comparing the passage cited with theapostrophes that Eumolpos addresses, either to the

fallax natura deorum, that robs us of our hair (109.9), orto Jupiter himself (126.18), or by comparing it with thesecond verbal person with which Encolpius addressesthe reader (quod uis, nummis praesentibus opta/ etueniet,

137.9; uultum seruatis, amici, 80.9), Slater concludesthat, in the passages where the narrative frame is lacking,Encolpius devotes himself to the creation of a reader forthe poem and for his story, who, in turn, faced with thediversified nature of the voice that is addressing him,will feel free to vary his response. Slater also adds that,

due to the necessities of characterization, Petroniusplays with the elegy in the context of the tendencytoward privatization that presides over the mixture ofgenres in the Satyricon.In fact, simplicity, flexibility andintimacy make this genre propitious to the embodimentof Encolpius poetic voice, while the epic and the drama,in their public character, better organize and interpretexperience.70

Panayotakis puts the words in 132.15 on the samelevel as those which Encolpius employs for his invectiveagainst Agamemnon in the initial chapters of the

teaching of the art of declamation.71

is suggests thatthe theatrical interpretation that he proposes for both

69S (1990) 165ss.70S (1990) 165ss.71P (1995) 2.


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passages will make it difficult to achieve identificationbetween author and character. ough the comparisonwith the characters of tragedy and comedy, who speakdirectly to the spectators (for example, Mercuriusin the Prologue of Plautus, Amph. 486-95) does notconvince, since they could be simply mouth-piecesfor the dramatist in his dialogue with the public (cf.,for example, Mercurius in the Prologue of Plautus

Amphitryo, or Tiresias, or some of the words of thechorus in Senecas Oedipus). e same, however, doesnot hold for the hypothesis that the passage reflects theinfluence of mummery. If the possible staging of femalenudity, of sexual relations on stage, of the lasciviousgestures and vulgar, sexualized discourse characteristic

of mummary are appropriate to Encolpius, they arenot, on the contrary suitable to the refined Petronius,in whose novel the explicit character of the scene isinversely proportional to its level of pornography.72

e fragmented and lacunal state of the Satyricondoesnt allow us to have a clear and objective notion of

72P (1995) 175s. On 176, we read: A plethora ofsexual euphemisms, metaphors, irrelevant images, and a highlyrhetorical tone create an impression of bookishness around theobscene act itself and present it in a grotesque mode which ap-proaches the comically bizarre manner in which the mimic theatre

must have presented sexual situations. A proper evaluation of thenovels dense literary texture renders it anything else but pornog-raphy, but, on the other hand, it does not offer firm grounds forarguing that Epicurean theories are put forward as a design forliving. e risible context of this apologia undermines any seriousintentions one may have wished to apply to either the narrator orthe author.


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the circumstances in which Encolpius remembers and re-lates what at sometime in the past happened to him. einterfering author is a relatively common practice in Gre-ek and Latin literature (cf., for example, Virgil,A. 3.56-7or 10.501-2). In spite of this, it seems to us that it isEncolpius who speaks vv. 132.15. Otherwise, we wouldbe obliged to consider the verses corresponding to 80.9and 137.9 as authorial interferences as well, or to consi-

der Petronius as an adept of the popular version of theEpicurean philosophy. e authorial intrusions like thoseabove, scarce and insignificant as they are, in the remai-ning part of the work, are not enough to characterize theauthor in a plausible fashion, or to lower him to the levelof his character, that is, to identify him with Encolpius.

Besides, this would destroy the irony that the reader pre-sumes to be underlying the authors creation.

A common denominator in the methodologyto reconstruct the beginnings of Menippean satire hasbeen the reliance upon the reception and consequentvaluation of certain interpretations and specific bits ofevidence, to the detriment of other readings and othertestimonies. is would seem to be the correct proce-dure, because, as Koenraad Kuiper demonstrated, sati-re has nothing to do with form and function in itself,but depends solely upon the readers perception of form

and function.73

is means that in an Horatius sermo,satire is neither defined by verse form, nor by capacityor incapacity to change the life of the one who reads

73K (1984) 459.


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it, but rather by the way the last reader has perceivedit. Keeping in mind that for Kuiper, C designates thecreator, or the empirical author; C, the inferred creatoror textual author; S, the state of things; a, the culturalact or artifact and, in the end, the object of the satire; a,other acts or artifacts with which ahas similarities and,finally, the antecedents of a; and P, the perceiver foran act ato be apprehended by P as satire, the following

conditions need to come together:1) that Pthinks that, by means of a, Cintendsthat the perceiver adopt a negative vision of S;

2) that P thinks that, by means of a, C intendsthat the perceiver find formal similarities with a;

3) that P thinks that Cintended that the similari-

ties referred to above were humorous.74If the existence of Cdoesnt even depend on the

perception by Pthat acan change his perspective on S;if the intention of Cdoesnt result from the perceptionof similarity of form or from the perception of humor,then the intentionality underlying this perspective isvery weak and matters little for the definition of satire.But if, concerning the three conditions considered abo-ve and for us to be sure that the acts and artifacts takeninto account are nothing other than satires, we considerthe problem of intentionality, not from the point of view

of Pin relation toC, but of Crelative to P, we will havestrong intentionality, that, after all, considers satire tobe only the cases in which Cand Pcoincide respectively

74K (1984) 463.


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in terms of intentions and in their interpretation ofthem. e limits of this point of view are obvious be-cause it does not admit the possibility of existing satiresof anonymous authors, and where it is not possible todemonstrate restrictedly the formal parallels, and whereit is enough for the perceiver to imagine that Cintendshim to find humor in the composition. Kuiper adds afourth condition to the three distinguished above, and

presumed in the refutation conducted below: e ac-tual creation of aantedates the actual creation of a.75But, in the case that ais posterior to a, we cant demandthat Pconsider the similarities between aand a, whenneither Cnor Cwere able to take them into account.

Besides considering the parody as a particular

kind of satire, where S is a, and admitting the possi-bility of uncertainty to be inherent in the various con-ditions, Kuiper defends the importance of the contextin the determination of what constitutes the satiricalcharacter of an object or act. However valuing thesespecific cultural elements depends on pragmatic factors.is means that the conditions of perception vary qua-litatively from situation to situation and from perceiverto perceiver. e optimizing of the perception of so-mething as satire depends on the following types of lo-cal conditions: contextual, which imply the knowledge

by Pof certain examples of a; related to the historicaland literary context, namely with the Ps conscience ofthe practice, in a given moment, of satirising a; and

75K (1984) 466.


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sociocultural, concerned with the knowledge that Pmust have of the existence and of some characteristicsof the targets. e critic concludes: us strong inten-tionalism can be seen as part of the theory of pragmaticswhich follows from the central theory of the perceptionof satire but which is not part of that theory. So it mightbe unusual for Pto suppose that ais a satire in the mis-taken belief that aantedates a. But it is not impossible

that he should do so and the theory predicts that it isin the nature of satire that it should be possible (butunlikely).76

We reflected long on Kuipers theory because of thefact that it adds a new urgency to the possibility that, inthe title Saturae Menippeae, more than a simple reference

is implied on the part of the perceiver Varro to theoccasional mixing of prose and verse in Menippus work.Besides, it still allows us to take account the modernityand timelessness of the satirical side of Petronius novel.It is the cultivated reader who must detect the refinedirony that presides over the incoherence between wordsand actions of the scholastici. is, in turn, reveals thefact that the intellectuals are simply not well adjustedto the world around them, impelling them to invokethe values celebrated by the literature of the past, sothat, via parody, the decadence of the present becomes

even bitterer. Ultimately it is the vices of the past whichare invoked in order to show their continuity with thecontemporaneity,77 or even to adapt the Menippean

76K (1984) 472.77 Deceit, disguise, luxury, futile relationships and sacrilege,


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conventions to the novel.78In the end, it is the reader-perceiver who is charged with finding the fictions ofdeath in the Satyricon, like the one that originates in theparallels between, for example, the unfinished characterof the Bellum ciuileand Lucinans homonymous epic: aclear allusion to the relation between the death of thepoet and the forced ending of the poem.79

that, according to the roiae halosis, were at the base of the destruc-tion of Troy, are, as Zeitlin demonstrates (1971) 56-82, esp. 66, thesubjects of the Satyricon.

78 ough our text infers many of the characteristics thatC (1962), 100, deduced from the many parodies in theSatyricon namely the synthesis, in a sentence or in an epigram-

matic summary, of the morality underlying a given situation, orthe contrast between the serious tone and the sordid context itseems to us that C (1962), 100, is right to conclude that,most of the time, the parody does not go beyond a mere epideicticpleasure in his literary versatility.

79is subject is developed by C (1998) 101, 139 and141.


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BIBLIOGRAPHY

A S, Vtor Manuel de (1994). eoria da lite-ratura, 8 ed. Coimbra.

A, Raymond (1977). Petronius, P. Oxy.3010,and Menippean Satire, CPh72: 22-31.

B, M. M. (1981). Te Dialogic Imagination: Four

Essays, ed. By Michael H, trans. by CarylE and Michael H. Austin, TX.

B, Mikhal (1970). La potique de Dostoevski(trad. de Isabelle K a partir de Proble-my poetiki Dostoevskovo, Moscou, crivains sovi-

tiques,2

1963). Paris.B, R. Bracht (2005). e Poetics of Genre:

Bakhtin, Menippus, Petronius, in R. Bracht B- ed. Ancient Narrative. Te Bakhtin Circleand Ancient Narrative. 3-31. Groningen: BarkhuisPublishing & Groningen University Library.

C, Jean-Pierre (1972-1999). Varron, Satires Mni-ppes, d., trad. et commentaire, 13 vol. PalaisFarnse, Rome.

C, A. (1892). tude sur Ptrone. La critique litt-

raire, limitation et la parodie dans leSatiricon. Paris.C, Catherine (1998). Petronius the Poet: Verse and

Literary radition in theSatyricon. Cambridge.


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C, Gian Biagio (1996). Te Hidden Author: an In-terpretation of PetroniusSatyricon. Berkeley Los

Angeles London.

C, Edward (1962). Parody and literary allusionin Menippean satire, Philologus106: 86-100.

(2001).A companion to Petronius. Oxford.

D, Rosalba (1983). Da Socrate a Eumolpo. Degra-

dazione dei personaggi e delle funzioni nella novelladel fanciullo di Pergamo.MD10-11: 255-265.

D, John (1900). A Discourse Concerning theOriginal and Progress of Satire (1693), in W. P.K, ed. Essays of John Dryden, vol. II, 15-114. 2nd

impr.: 1926. Oxford.F, P. S. M. (2000). Os elementos pardicos noSa-

tyricon de Petrnio e o seu significado. Lisboa.

F, Northrop (1957).Anatomy of Criticism. Four es-says. Princeton, New Jersey.

H, Gilbert (1962). Te Anatomy of Satire.Princeton, New Jersey.

K, Ulrich (1975). Roman Satire. Transl. by E. S.R. Bloomington & London.

K, Koenraad (1984). e nature of satire. Poetics13: 459-73.

L, Delfim Ferreira (1998).As ironias da Fortuna: sti-ra e moralidade no Satyriconde Petrnio. Lisboa.


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P, Costas (1995). Teatrum Arbitri. Teatri-cal Elements in the Satyrica of Petronius. Leiden New York Kln.

P, Carlo (1975). Petronii Arbitri Satyricon. In-troduzione, edizione critica e commento. Roma.

P, Maria (2005). e limits of polyphony: Dos-toevsky to Petronius, in R. Bracht B ed.

Ancient Narrative. Te Bakhtin Circle and AncientNarrative. 193-223. Groningen: Barkhuis Pub-lishing & Groningen University Library.

R, Sophie (2002). Lintertextualit. S. l.

R, Joel C. (1993). Ancient Menippean Satire.

Baltimore and London.S, Niall W. (1990). Reading Petronius. Baltimore

and London.

S, Grazia (1984). Eumolpo, un Socrate epi-cureo nel Satyricon.ASNP14: 25-53.

W, Howard D. (2005). Menippean Satire Re-considered: from Antiquity to the Eighteenth Cen-tury. Baltimore.

W, Ulrich (1989). Picaresque Narrative, Picaresque

Fictions. A Teory and Research Guide. New York Westport (Connecticut) London.

Z, Froma I. (1971). Romanus Petronius: astudy of the roiae halosisand the Bellum ciuile.Latomus30: 56-82.


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TWOCLOSEDUNIVERSESINTHESOFPETRONIUS

TWOCLOSEDUNIVERSESINTHESATYRICONOF

PETRONIUS: THECENATRIMALCHIONISANDTHECITY

OFCROTON1

C TU

1. THECENATRIMALCHIONIS

Petronius novel is traversed structurally by thetheme of the journey. e relationship between the he-roes and the world that surrounds them develops via asystem of wandering, marked by constant searches andendless escapes. However, this movement, that gives

the journey of Encolpius and his companions an erraticand aleatory character, does not impede the anti-heroesfrom coming into contact with systems that are cohe-sive, intrinsically coherent and structured; systems that,in spite of being configured like a stage on which thecharacters can act, will not change the erratic configura-

tion of the anti-heroes journey, nor will they be modi-fied by the actions of Encolpius, Giton, Ascyltos andEumolpos. is is because these universes are configuredas closed universes.

e creation of closed universes is not, by anymeans, a Petronian novelty. e literature of adventure

is prolific in the creation of universes of this kind, orrather, of locations with an intrinsic and autonomous

1A part of the study which is presented here uses conclusionsarrived at in earlier works: T (2005) and (2007).


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structure, or rather structures which are separable fromthe central world of the narrative and that, whetherby the fascination that they exert upon the traveler, orthrough the power that they have to subjugate him,normally end up being systems of imprisonment.

is independent structure does not imply, how-ever, the lack of a natural interaction with anterior andposterior episodes. In truth, and because these universes

occur predominantly within a system of the journey, itis enough to recognize the existence of a syntagmaticaxis, which is constituted by a group of successive epi-sodes, to accept that these episodes are, if not interde-pendent, at least related. In the case of the Satyricon ofPetronius, the first example of a closed universe, which

the fragmentary nature of the text leaves open to con-sideration, is constituted by the Cena rimalchionis.is type of categorization is based, essentially, on twofactors: firstly, it constitutes a social, physical and psy-chological macrospace with self-determining values ofsignification within the context of the novel; secondly,it takes shape as a system capable of interrupting theuniverse of the novel, a universe that is dominated bythe constant shifting of the anti-heroes from one placeto another.

e emergence of this universe becomes evident

with the relationships suggested by the parodic foun-dation underlying the novel. A variety of studies havepointed to the relation of the Cenato a system of death,a fact that immediately links this episode to a catabasis.en there is the fact that the episode of the cortege,


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which brings the characters to Trimalchios house, issimilar to a funeral procession,2 and that the ekphra-sis represented in the atrium of the freedmans house isdecorated with the typical icons of a () mausoleum,a house of the dead.3All of this reinforces the idea thatTrimalchios banquet represents un parcours initiatiquequi conduit dabord dans le royaume des morts ().4

Affinities with the universe of the catabasis be-

come evident when compared to the episode of thedescent into the underworld in the Aeneid.5 In effect,if the catabasis, conceived by Virgil, combines ele-ments of a religious nature (that express theories rela-tive to post-mortemlife and to the organization of theunderworld), of a philosophical nature (above all from

Orphism and Pythagoreanism) and of an historical na-ture (present in the prophecies of Anchises), we can seethe same conceptual matrix in the Petronian episode.First there is the philosophical level based, though only

2G (1994) 286, observes that Perch questo stranocorteo (.) adombra (.) la faciesdun piccolo corteo funebre,nel quale Trimalchione sembre aver laria del defunto accompag-nato allestrema dimora. Il testo offre appigli sufficienti in tal senso.Non solo per larchitettura del brano, disposta in movenze ido-nee a raggiungere questeffetto complessivo; ma ancora per taluniparticolari che danno la sensazione di riflettere momenti tipici delrito funebre (quali il cospargere di profumi il corpo del morto o

lavvolgerlo in un manto) (....)3B (1994) 243.4M (1988) 244.5 C (1987), 409, adopts the position that the Cena

was not inspired by Virgil, but in (.) Plato, whose Symposiumcontributed so much to the structure of the cena (..). is time,however not from the Symposium, but from the Protagoras.


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materially, on the conception of the symposium; thenan historical level (in which the prophetic dimensionis substituted by the realism of the daily life of a groupof individuals, concretely situated in one of the stratumof Roman society); and, finally, there is a religious level(which expresses a existentialist vision, not on the levelof solemnity and profundity demanded in the contextof an epic catabasis, but on the level of the apprehen-

sion and practical experience of the concepts of life andof death, as expressed in the daily life of this particulargroup of individuals).

Nevertheless, the true conceptual affinities thatexist between parody and the text parodied lead to thefact that the relationship between epic catabasis and the

episodes of the novel are to be felt, above all, in thepassages which describe the entering and the leaving ofTrimalchios house. If, in the epic, the hero, during theprocess of descent, discerns either the knowledge thatis directly related with the mission and it allows hima sense of unity between the past, present and future,or a more universal knowledge, and, for that, he hasto carry out a long, continuous, non-linear journey,crisscrossed by difficulties, encounters and dangers,then, contrastingly, in the Satyricon, we see that theanti-heroes utilize the trip to Trimalchios house for

merely immanent goals, finding refuge and obtainingdinner.In this wayin the process of the journey, theyare only truly active during the journey there and duringthe escape, while the intervening space that, in the epic,is constituted by a long walk through the space of the


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Inferna, is substituted, in the Petronian novel, by thestasis of the banquet, dominated by Trimalchio and, inhis absence, by the freedmen.

However, if we leave out precisely those episodesof the arrival and leave-taking, the Trimalchio episodepresents the configuration of a closed universe; a con-figuration which will result from the fact that the Cenastresses how tightly the freedman controls and domi-

nates those aspects which define any system: space, timeand movement.is control is revealed right away at the entrance

to the house: notations like that of the warning expressedin 28.7 (quisquis seruus sine dominico iussu foras exierit,accipiet plagas centum), or like that which is expressed by

the contradiction between the greeting at the arrival ofthe visitors by a (28.9)pica uariaand the image of thedog, above which can be read the famous warning, Cauecanem, and then there is the obligation that they enterthe house with their right foot. All of this shows us thatthe space created by the freedman is like a microsystemthat, though it is an integral part of the novel, will func-tion with its own rules and reasons.

e domination exercised by Trimalchio over thisspace is not confined to the house. If the descriptionof events occurring on his properties is subject to ex-

tremely rigorous rules of control, as is proved in 53.5,6

6 Incendium factum est in hortis Pompeianis, ortum ex aedibus

Nastae uilici Quid? inquit rimalchio quando mihi Pompeianihorti empti sunt? Anno priore, inquit actuarius et ideo in rationemnondum uenerunt. Excanduit rimalchio et quicunque inquit mihifundi empti fuerint, nisi intra sextum mensem sciero, in rationes meas


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the reference the freedman makes to the extension ofhis material dominions lends this attempt to controla generalizing character (48.3): Nunc coniungere agel-lis Siciliam uolo, ut cum Africam lubuerit ire, per meos

fines nauigem. e pretension, more than constructinga form to demonstrate the economic power of the freed-man, seems to reveal, as Slater observes, () Trimal-chios desire to build a self-sufficient kingdom which

neither he nor any member of hisfamiliawill ever needto leave.7

In this way, Trimalchios use of physical spacethus becomes one mans creation of a universe, with de-limited and watertight boundaries that aim for a totalseparation between internal and external worlds. e

meaning of property functions, similarly to that whichhappens with the space of the house, as the expedientthat allows for the creation of a system of spatial au-tonomy, regulated by its own rules, which give its cre-ator the ability to move about without the restrictionsand the constraints characteristic of movement in theexterior world.

More explicit, by virtue of the innumerable situ-ations that occur during the banquet, is the attemptto control the social space. e freedmans omnipres-ence, dictated a prioriby the fact of being the partys

host, increases by virtue of his dictatorial managementof the banquets discursive stratum. In effect, with the

inferri uetuo.7S (1990) 56.


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exception of Niceros8and Habinnas, all of the dialogicassertions attempted by the guests are interrupted orimpeded by Trimalchio. One example of these attitudesis the interruption of the parallel conversation betweenHermeros and Encolpius (39.1 Interpellauit tam dulces

fabulas rimalchio.); another example is in the impedi-ment to Ascyltoss response to the invective that he suf-fers from a freedman (59.1 Coeperat Ascyltos respondere

(....) sed rimalchio delectatus colliberti eloquentia agiteinquit scordalias de medio.)9; and the way he system-atically interrupts Agamemnon, when the latter tries torespond to the questions asked by Trimalchio himself(48.4-6: Sed narra tu mihi, Agamemnon, quam con-trouersiam hodie declamasti?(...)Cum dixisse Agamem-

non: Pauper et diues inimici erant, ait rimalchio Quidest pauper?;48.6: Si factum est, controuersia non est; si

factum non est, nihil est. ).10

8e tight control of the discursive stratum contains only oneexception that consists in the appeal to have Niceros tell a story.

However, contrary to what happens with the interrogations of Ag-amemnon, Trimalchios request (61.3 Oro te (.), narra illud quodtibi usu uenit), does not take daily life as a reference. e expressionusu uenit, in pointing to a spaciotemporal coordinate similar tothose that introduce stories and fairy tales, conditions the tone andthe image of adventurous, fantastic and unreal nature that, indeed,Niceros story will develop. However, if it is true that Trimalchiodoes not interrupt Niceros story, then it is also certain that he is

worried about telling his own story of sorcerers right after (63.3-10), preventing, in this way, the appropriation by another guest ofthe discursive space as it relates to the supernatural.

9In 54.4, Trimalchio asks Agamemnon about the qualities ofCicero and Publilius and responds to his own question, citing agroup of verses, probably imitations of Publilio.

10Vide also Sat. 54.4.


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In this way, Encolpius commentary whileleaving Trimalchios house, in 41.9, well expresses thefeeling of verbal oppression generated by the freedman,in the ambience of the Cena(41.9): sine tyranno (.),coepimus inuitare conuiuarum sermones. Also the sensein which the conversation of the freedmen unfoldsafter Trimalchios momentary exit is revealing notonly of the lack of freedom which we are made to

feel during the Cena, as it is of the difficulties thatTrimalchio raises to the expression of his guests whogo along with the attempt to silence all informationrelating to the world outside his universe. As such, itis only in the absence of the host that the meaningof the conversation will unfold in an axis of meaning

sufficiently distinct form that which, until then, haddominated the banquet,11 since the dialogue bringsto the surface the aspec

The Satyricon of Petronius

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