Quiz 3

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Petronius, The Satyricon, translated by William Arrowsmith (Meridian, Penguin Books: London and New York, 1990).

We'll split up the reading thus:

Petronius 1

read pp. 21-84.

Petronius 2

read pp. 84-165

Note that our edition contains copious explanatory notes at the end of it. Please use them.

Journal Entries

Petronius 1 readings (pp. 21-84)

What would Petronius (or more accurately, perspectives dramatized Petronius' novel) say about either Finnis or Nussbaum? I'm not interested in whether he would speak satirically of them (perhaps he would), but whether the value systems or idea systems animating Petronius would "resonate" (agree) in any way with Finnis/Nussbaum? Why or why not?

Petronius 2 Readings (pp. 84-165)

If you were to read the following two stories as fables with a moral at the end (but no moral in the actual text), what would the moral be for each?

• For the "Widow of Ephesus" story?
  • For a Roman audience
  • For you
• For the "Pergamene Boy" story?
  • For a Roman audience
  • For you

Study Guide Proper

Background

Author

Petronius died in 66, forced to commit suicide by the emperor Nero, who believed him guilty of plotting his overthrow:

"Yet he did not fling away life with precipitate haste, but having made an incision in his veins and then, according to his humor, bound them up, he again opened them, while he conversed with his friends, not in a serious strain or on topics that might win for him the glory of courage. And he listened to them as they repeated, not thoughts on the immortality of the soul or on the theories of philosophers, but light poetry and playful verses. To some of his slaves he gave liberal presents, a flogging to others. He dined, indulged himself in sleep, that death, though forced on him, might have a natural appearance. Even in his will he did not, as did many in their last moments, flatter Nero or Tigellinus or any other of the men in power. On the contrary, he described fully the prince's shameful excesses, with the names of his male and female companions and their novelties in debauchery, and sent the account under seal to Nero." (Tacitus Annals 16.19)

Petronius was an aristocrat notorious for his laziness and hedonism, yet known to be a capable administrator. Before his death, he had been Nero's arbiter elegantiae, his "Minister of Taste" — organizer, in other words, of the emperor's lavish entertainments and such.

Work

The work seems to have been entitled Libri Satyricon, or "Books of Satyr-like Escapades" (satyrs were the randy horse-man creatures of Greek mythology). It's a work of prose narrative (with some verse) — a kind of road novel organized loosely around certain disreputable characters, themes, etc. What survives seems to be but a fraction of the original; the longest surviving bit is the Cena Trimalchionis ("Trimalchio's Dinner") episode (pp. 38 ff.). The setting is southern Italy, probably starting out (in the surviving bits) in Puteoli (modern Pozzuoli, near Naples), and ending in Croton, an old Greek city on the Adriatic (i.e., eastern) coast of southern Italy.

The larger shape of the plot as a whole seems to have been as follows: At some point point before the start of the surviving fragments, Encolpius stumbles upon secret rituals sacred to the phallic god Priapus; for this he is punished with impotence, which seems to afflict him only fitfully in the novel. Another likely episode in the lost "prequel" is Encolpius' having seduced the wife of Lichas, the ship captain.

Note that surviving fragments begin mid-story, with young Encolpius having just listened to a fancy display speech delivered by Agamemnon, a professional teacher of rhetoric. The story can be hard to follow because of the extremely piecemeal and disjunctive character of what survives.

Themes

• decay in art, literature, morals
• gender and Roman morals
• sex
• death
• over-consumption
• other themes???

Characters

It will be useful to list some characters' names with loose translations. Almost all these names are in Greek — not to protect the identity of real persons, but sort as a literary effect. Thus the names, as in Dickens, mostly convey something about the characters bearing them:

• The three fratres, or "pals" (literally, "brothers")
  • Encolpius ("Crotch"), protagonist and narrator. His pseudonym at Croton is Polyaenos, which assimilates him to Odysseus from Homer's Iliad and Odyssey
  • Ascyltus ("Unperturbed"), pal to Encolpius, and rival for the affections of ...
  • Giton ("Cuddles"), the puer (= eromenos) of both the aforementioned at various points
• Agamemnon, teacher of rhetoric. His assistant is Menelaus. (In mythology, Agamemnon and Menelaus were brothers commanding the Greek forces at Troy)
• Quartilla ("Little Fourth"), priestess of Priapus
• Trimalchio (Greek tris, "three-times" or "very" + Semitic melekh, "king"), an unbelievably rich ex-slave (libertus, "freedman"). He is, evidently, an astute businessman, but his education and overall level of culture is extremely poor, as is his command of Latin
• Trimalchio's fellow ex-slaves, mostly similar to Trimalchio in skill sets, level of culture, speech, and attitudes
  • Fortunata ("Lucky Lady"), his wife, a dancer and, evidently, an ex-prostitute
  • Habinnas, a stone mason and the carver of Trimalchio's funeral monument (his name may be Semitic, from habni, "stone carver")
  • Scintilla ("Sparky"), Habinnas' wife
  • -eros (Greek erōs, "lust," "desire") friends:
    • Hermeros ("Lusty Hermes" or "Lust for Hermes")
    • Phileros ("fond of lust")
    • Niceros ("fond of victory")
• Eumolpus ("Beautiful Singer"), a very bad, and very opportunistic, poet
• Bargates. Another freedman with a name of Semitic derivation, he is the caretaker (procurator) of the apartment block (insula) where Encolpius and Giton stay before moving on to other shores. . .

The inn (deversorium) Encolpius & Co. are staying in seems to occupy either the whole or a part of an insula, the Latin word for an apartment building. Even today, you'll find that pensioni, Italian bed-and-breakfasts, often occupy a floor or part of a floor of an apartment building.

• Lichas ("Tongue-man"? "Greedy-guts"?), ship captain, cuckolded once upon a time by Encolpius. (In mythology, Lichas, the servant of Hercules, participated in killing his master with a poisoned shirt. He was turned into a rock at sea)
• Pannychis. Child attendant of Quartilla, her name means "all night festival."
• Tryphaena ("Fancy Lady"), passenger on Lichas' ship, she is heading into exile — she has seemingly fallen afoul of Augustus' anti-adultery legislation. Note that Giton is some sort of former sexual partner of hers
• Circe, woman of Croton. Circe is named after the beautiful witch who turns men into pigs in Homer's Odyssey
• Chrysis ("Golden Girl"), Circe's maid, as is Proselenos ("she who precedes the Silen [semi-deity of drink and lust]")
• Oenothea ("goddess of the wine"), witch hired to cure Encolpius of impotence
• Philomela (mythological character, Procne's sister, and victim of a rape and silencing punished with child-killing) commits lenocinium (procuring) with respect to her children. Petronius calls her a matrona inter primas honesta, "a lady nearly unrivaled as to respectability" — ahem . . . .

Questions

1. Do you find anything Priapic about this work: its action, etc.? (Remember that the plot of the novel seems to have been propelled by some impiety on the part of Encolpius and Ascyltus against the god. But does Priapus play a symbolic role?)
2. How do sexuality and gender figure in? Taken with other evidence, what is your sense now of the ideological vulgate — the shared assumptions and values — through which Roman authors connect with audiences?
3. How would you characterize the relationship of the three fratres ("pals")?
4. What is the moral to the Pergamene Boy story? (pp. 90 ff.)
5. What is the moral to the "Widow of Ephesus" story" (pp. 117 ff.)? How does the audience seem variously to interpret the tale?
6. What does a work like this suggest vis-à-vis the Nussbaum-v.-Finnis — that is, if we can take the mos maiorum as an example of what, for a Finnis, would justify government's policing citizen's sex lives (i.e., government as watchdog protecting received traditions), then does the Satyricon suggest to you a document supporting Finnis or opposing him?
• Does the the Satyricon sound the alarm in behalf of the mos maiorum?
• Or do you see it as something else, maybe a document validating Nussbaum?

Notes

p. 22. Note that Encolpius, railing against the decadence of "modern" rhetoric, uses a term, pudicitia, borrowed from sexual morality (it means "chastity" and sexual virtue generally) to describe good rhetoric.

p. 24. "Family man" translates pater familias, meaning the male head of a household, an important figure in traditional Roman social structure. (He will have had important powers over, and duties relating to, all his children, grandchildren, etc.). This pater familias tries to commit stuprum upon Ascyltus.

p. 26. Ascyltus is described as having tried to rape Giton. By calling Giton his "Lucretia" (matron famously raped in Roman legend), Ascyltus makes clear his intention and compares Giton to a woman. Encolpius' angry insults compare Ascyltus to a female prostitute and imply that he stoops to oral sex. (muliebris patientiae scortum, cuius ne spiritus <quidem> purus est. "You whore of female passivity. Not even your breath is pure.")

pp. 31 ff. Quartilla, priestess of Priapus, is angry with the young men for having crashed the secret rites of the god she serves. Her illness ("malaria" in the translation) is clearly sexual lust.

p. 33. The "war" Encolpius worries about is sex with Quartilla and company.

pp. 34 ff. When the text reads "eunuch," that translates cinaedus, a male given to passive sexuality.

p. 36. The poem refers to the wanton lusts of sexually passive males (cinaedi, molles "softies").

pp. 38 ff. It was typical to bathe before a dinner party.

p. 39. Encolpius and Ascyltus see Trimalchio at the baths. Here the "eunuchs" really are eunuchs, i.e., castrated male slaves. The child described as "the old man's [i.e., Trimalchio's] favorite" can be understood as his young male sexual partner and apprentice accountant. Note other details of the scene. While he and his "curly-headed slave boys" play ball, Trimalchio would rather get a new ball than reuse one that's fallen to the ground. When Trimalchio relieves himself into the chamber pot, he wipes his hands on the hair of one of the boys. The simultaneity of it all seems significant. Trimalchio ostentatiously "pisses" away his wealth (with an accountant slave standing by to record balls used) and humiliates his slave boys by using them as towels.

pp. 40 ff. Encolpius displays symptoms of curiosity (curiositas) combined with fascination (fascinatio), disorientation, and revulsion throughout this episode. The fresco group depicts Trimalchio's career from young slave and apprentice accountant to freedman and success story par excellance.

p. 41. The fasces are emblematic of high office way beyond anything Trimalchio has a right to pretend to. The inscription identifies Trimalchio as a freed slave (Gaius Pompeius [Roman names] Trimalchio [Trimalchio's retained slave name]) and an official of the Imperial cult (a sevir augustalis, an office to which freedmen had access under the Empire).

p. 42. The steward's "dependent" is a cliens, a social inferior with obligations to his patronus. But the steward is himself either a slave or a freedman. There is a well defined hierarchy even at the lowest social rungs here.

p. 43. Trimalchio, carried in on a litter, sports the appurtenances of Romans (the broad stripe of senators, the ring of equestrians) of considerably higher social and political rank.

p. 44. The "mead" is mulsum, wine sweetened with honey. Here also begin the frequent references to Trimalchio's favorite topic: the brevity of human life and the need to enjoy it while you can.

p. 48. The English "bravo" translates a Greek word, sophōs, "cleverly," "skillfully," "well done."

p. 50. A "fuller" is a person who runs a laundry. Washing clothes was sort of brutal to the clothes.

p. 57. The Sibyls of Cumae were priestesses of Apollo with the power to predict the future. They were reputed to live to great age; this one is so old and reduced by age she's kept in a bottle.

pp. 59 ff. Trimalchio takes every opportunity he can to show off, including where literature, mythology, and rhetoric are concerned. Yet however astute a businessman he is, his level of education is extremely low — his myths are all messed up.

p. 67. Priapus again, here evidently as patron of prosperity, and as a decorative accessory for serving cakes. The treats spray the guests with yellow ("saffron"), smelly liquid, whereupon the guests hail the emperor by saying Augusto patri patriae, feliciter, in our translation, "Long live the Emperor, Father of our Country." Arguably, emperor worship as phallic humiliation: Priapus urinates on them while they (thinking it a religious ritual) hail Nero. Compare urination on p. 39.

pp. 67 ff. Note that Niceros' werewolf story is connected to the story of his love affair with another's wife. The reference to "winged words" translates a Latin phrase (haec ubi dicta dedit, 61.4) that ironically treats Niceros' story as an epic, heroic tale.

p. 74. After Habinnas praises the Vergil recitation of his slave boy, Scintilla in her bad Latin jealously tries to cut the slave down to size.

• The translation has, " 'You haven't mentioned all the little bugger's tricks,' broke in Scintilla angrily. 'He's a little pimp and a fairy, that's what he is, and someday I'll see he's branded for it.' "
• The Latin reads: interpellavit loquentem Scintilla et 'plane' inquit 'non omnia artificia servi nequam narras. agaga est; at curabo, stigmam habeat' (69.1). Literally, "Scintilla interrupted him as he spoke, and she said, 'Clearly, you aren't describing all the tricks of the nasty slave. He's a catamite (agaga, probably meaning a boy used for sex by a man — but the semi-Greek word looks like it could also have meant "pimp"), and I'll make sure he's branded.' "
• Trimalchio then tells Scintilla not to be "jealous" (noli zelotypa esse), mixing Greek into his Latin. Trimalchio then confesses he serviced both his master and his master's wife

p. 76. It's likely that Petronius, in having Trimalchio tell us to sympathize with slaves, is parodying the Roman philosopher and imperial minister Seneca.

p. 87. Note that Encolpius, bewailing the loss of Giton to Ascyltus, insults the masculinity of both and alleges each feels "lust" (libido) for the other.

p. 88. Note that the paintings Encolpius admires (again, the contrast of corrupt "modern" art with these works of "old masters") all show rapes (or to be more precise, abductions for purposes of sex) or attempted rapes of boys by male and female divinities.

pp. 90 ff. "The Pergamene Boy." Note how Eumolpus, acting how the part of a Pergamene boy's personal tutor (Pergamum, modern day Bakırçay, a city in western Turkey), becomes a sort of anti-Socrates, while the boy is willing to do anything for a gift. The anecdote is a clear evocation and travesty of classical Greek pederasty.

p. 93. Eumolpus on the decadence of "modern" art: " 'As for our own times, why, we are so besotted with drink, so steeped in debauchery, that we lack the strength to study the great achievements of the past.' "Debauchery" here translates scortis, literally, "whores."

p. 93. Eumolpus' reference to the decadence of "today's" senators in comparison with those of old ("teachers of morality and religion," recti bonique praeceptor, 88.9), clearly links his diatribe to a mos-maiorum mindset.

pp. 93 ff. Eumolpus' poem on the fall of Troy exemplifies almost every stylistic excess the poet has just attacked.

p. 97. "... I like your Ganymede" — Eumolpus, referring to the mythological boy ravished by the god Jupiter, shows he both admires and lusts for Giton's beauty.

p. 98. Eumolpus, without knowing it, just witnessed Ascyltus (and his anatomy) in the bath. "Some Roman knight — notorious, I'm told, for his strange tastes — threw a cloak over him as he prowled about and then led him off, doubtless anxious to savor his find in privacy" — the Latin (nescio quis enim, eques Romanus ut aiebant infamis, sua veste errantem circumdedit ac domum abduxit, credo, ut tam magna fortuna solus uteretur) makes clear that this is someone of high political status (an eques, "knight") yet of low reputation (infamis, "notorious"), apparently because he has a taste for passive sex (Ascyltus with his anatomy evidently will take the active part).

p. 99. Eumolpus, having just complained in a poem that modern husbands prefer extra marital girlfriends to their wives, is now courting Giton like a classical Athenian erastes.

p. 99. "You are a lecher"— tu libidinosus ("you are full of libido").

pp. 105 ff. Note that after the business with Ascyltus looking for his "runaway slave" (Giton) etc., Ascyltus departs from preserved sections of the story. Encolpius, Giton, and Eumolpus are aboard the ship of Lichas, headed from the Naples region to Tarentum, modern Taranto, but will end up in Croton. (Map)

pp. 111-112. Lichas, recognizing Encolpius, feels him up to confirm Encolpius' identity. It emerges that Encolpius had had something to do with the seduction of Lichas' wife.

p. 119. When the translation says that the soldier "now laid determined siege to her virtue," the word "virtue" translates pudicitia.

p. 120. Note the sailors, Tryphaena, and Lichas all react differently to the story of the "Widow of Ephesus."

p. 125. Encolpius, Giton, and Eumolpus, after being washed ashore, come upon Croton, a Greek city once famous for the philosopher Pythagoras. Now, however, the city has forgotten its philosophical past and is awash in "legacy hunters," people who make it their business to get named in the will of someone rich. The stranger who introduces the place compares the process of legacy hunting to a kind of cannibalism. Eumolpus will pose as a rich person. The people of the area will then shower him with gifts in an effort to get mentioned in his will.

pp. 142 ff. More evocation of the Odyssey. In Croton, Encolpius takes the name Polyaenos, an epithet of Odysseus. Circe evokes the famous witch in the Odyssey.

pp. 142 ff. Circe takes Encolpius ("Polyaenos") basically for an effeminate slave gigolo, and wants to have sex with him. Chrysis, her servant, is negotiating terms. But Encolpius will not be able to satisfy her.

p. 145. Note Giton's allusion to Plato's Symposium: Socrates and Alcibiades. Encolpius has lost his touch with Giton, too.

p. 162. Philomela is described as "an extremely respectable matron" (matrona inter primas honesta, 140.1). That underscores as much her status as it does the expectations of moral behavior to which her status holds her. Note, however, that Philomela, desirous of being mentioned in the "will" of Eumolpus, in effect prostitutes her children to him.

• In mythology, Philomela together with her sister Procne kill the child of Procne and the man who raped Philomela.

Quiz 3 Study Guide

QUIZ of material covered in class assignments 29-Oct (Intro to Rome) through and including 12-Nov (Satyricon 2).

It will be very short, plain, non-interpretive, and straightforward — a "fact-check" quiz more than anything else to encourage attentive reading and in-class listening.

Specifically, expect:

• Multiple choice questions targeting. . .
• Class-assigned readings, for which know. . .
  • authors
  • titles (where appropriate)
  • characters, key actors/speakers (where appropriate)
  • basic and crucial content info
• key terms and concepts listed below, for which consult
  • your notes
  • our target texts
  • my PowerPoints
  • Terms page

Terms list: