The Date and Author of the Satyricon: With an Introduction by J.P. Sullivan

121 Pages·1971·2.17 MB·English

by  K F C Rose, J P Sullivan

THE DATE AND AUTHOR
OF THE
SATYRICON
MNEMOSYNE
BIBLIOTHECA CLASSICA BATAVA
COLLEGERUNT
W. DEN BOER • W. J. VERDENIUS • R. E. H. WESTENDORP BOERMA
BIBLIOTHECAE FASCICULOS EDENDOS CURAV IT
W. J. VERDENIUS, HOMERUSLAAN 53, ZEIST
SUPPLEMENTUM SEXTUM DECIMUM
K. F. C. ROSE
THE DATE AND AUTHOR
OF THE
SATYRICON
LUGDUNI BATAVORUM E. J. BRILL 197!'.
THE DATE
AND AUTHOR OF THE
SATYRICON
BY
K. F. C. ROSE t
With an Introduction by
J. P. SULLIVAN
LUGDUNI BATAVORUM E. J. BRILL 1971
Copyright 1971 by B. /. Brill, Leiden, Nethnlands
All rights ,ese,v,J, No part of this book may b, reprodu(ed or
translat,J in any form, by print, photop,int, mkrofilm, mfrrofkh,
or ""Y othn means without written pnmission from th, publishn
P&INTl!D IN THE NBTHBllLANDS
COLLEGII EXONIENSIS
RECTOR!
SOCIISQUE
ALUMNUS
HAUD INGRATUS

CONTENTS
Introduction . 1x
Abbreviations . xiii
I. The Petronian Question and the Neronian Date . 1
I. Preliminary Considerations. . . . . . 1
2. Some Modem Suggestions . . . . . . . 8
3. Objections to the First Century Dating . 9
4. Internal Evidence for the N eronian Date 20
5. Names in the Satyricon . . . . 21
6. Imperial Events and Personages 24
7. Daily Life and Antiquities . . . 27
8. Society in the Satyricon . . . . 30
9. The Legal Background of the Satyricon 33
II. The Identity of Petronius . . . . . . 38
r. Is Petronius Arbiter Nero's Arbiter? 38
2. Objections to the Identification. . . 43
3. Petronius' praenomen and cognomen . 47
4. Petronius' Career . . . . . . . . . 55
III. Petronius and his Literary Contemporaries 61
I. Petronius and Lucan 61
2. Petronius and Seneca . . . . 69
IV. Petronius and Neronian Society 75
I. Allusions to Events of 60-65 A.D. 75
2. Allusions to the Emperor . . . . 77
3. Other Imperial and Contemporary References 79
Appendix A: Alleged Allusions to Nero in the Satyricon 82
Appendix B: Petronius' Adaptations of Lucan 87
Bibliography 95
Indexes . . 102

INTRODUCTION
Progress in Petronian studies has been continually hampered
by a curious and sometimes ill-informed reluctance on the part
of many scholars to accept the traditional date of the Satyricon
and the identification of its author with the N eronian courtier
Petronius, whose career and death are so vividly described by
Tacitus (Annals 16.17-9). Since the date has been given (and
variously accepted) as any time from the reign of Augustus to
the middle of the third century A.D., what critic or scholar who
had not thoroughly examined the complicated and muddied
controversy for himself could venture to pronounce with confidence
on the other important aspects of the work? As a consequence
Petronian research has tended until recently to limit itself to
piecemeal assaults on the historical problems, or to textual emen-
dation and exegesis.
The Satyricon is of course an original and, for us, untypical
work; furthermore, because of the fragmentary state of the text,
it presents more problems than the other literature of the "Silver
Age". Nevertheless, the correct dating of the work was suggested
as early as 1571 by Scaliger and was strongly argued in 18n by
Cataldo Iannelli. Since then a number of minor but significant
pieces of historical and archaeological evidence in support of
this date has been adduced. Unfortunately, these accumulations
to the solid evidence of Iannelli were swamped by the far greater
number of mistaken arguments offered by those who disagreed
with the Neronian date, even though they were by no means
unanimous about the date that was to be preferred. The doubt
and confusion over the matter came to a head with the publication
in 1948 of E.V. Marmorale's La questione petroniana, an ill-advised
palinode to that author's earlier book on the subject in 1937,
in which he had hewed to more traditional lines. This in itself
would be no indication of general confusion were it not that out
of eighteen scholarly reviewers of Marmorale's book, three were
convinced by its thesis, ten had little significant comment to
make, and only five offered convincing objections.
The present work by the late Professor Rose is therefore both
opportune and necessary for a number of reasons. He has examined,
X INTRODUCTION
with relentless patience and thoroughness, both the traditional
and more recent arguments for and against the Neronian dating,
and, in so doing, he has applied to the problem recent historical
and archaeological research unavailable to Iannelli. In particular,
the literary evidence Rose brings to bear not only helps to prove
the traditional dating with far greater precision than hitherto,
but serves also to place the Satyricon in its social and literary
context; this adds a great deal to our understanding and apprecia-
tion of the aims and methods of the work. Petronius may now
be seen, not as some undateable freak of genius, but as the consular
Titus Petronius Niger, a talented member of Nero's literary circle,
which had included the younger Seneca and Lucan, a coterie
which was often involved in a conflict of literary and philosophical
principles.
In sum, Professor Rose, by re-establishing, once and (I trnst)
for all, the correct dating and attribution of the Satyricon, has
not only cleared the ground for the more important literary eval-
uation of an accepted, if sometimes clandestine, classic, but he
has provided also substantial foundations upon which future
research may build.
The death of Kenneth Rose on October 28th 1967 at the early
age of 29 was a grievous loss to me personally and to all his friends
and colleagues in Europe and America. He was a scholar of early
promise, a popular teacher, and a devoted friend. After taking
his undergraduate and graduate degrees at Exeter College, Oxford,
where he had been a Senior Scholar and Senior Student, he taught
for some years at Kent School, Connecticut, and the University
of Rochester, before joining the department of Classics at the
University of Texas. There he gave generously of his time and
abundant energy to his students, to the work of the department,
and to its classical journal Arion. Partly because of this, the
revision of the manuscript of the present work, originally an
Oxford thesis, had scarcely begun. In completing the editing of
it, however, I have been greatly aided by his extensive notes
and annotations. He clearly intended to shorten the work by
omitting or summarising material which he had published else-
where, and also to add references to the relevant literature that
had appeared since 1962. I have tried to carry out these intentions
as far as possible. Various appendixes as well as later annotations
have been absorbed into the text, and some interesting but irrele-