Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/753

PETRONIUS 721 Juvenal, and Martial, who might have been expected to have taken some notice of him if he had flourished imme diately before their own day, seem adverse to the generally received opinion that the tiatiraz was a work of the age of Nero. Yet the silence of Quintilian may be explained by the fact that Petronius is not one of those writers who were capable of being turned to use in the education of an orator. The silence of Martial and Juvenal may be accidental. Even if it is to be explained on the ground of want of ap preciation, this would prove nothing more than that a work so abnormal in form and substance was more highly prized by later generations than by the author s contemporaries. But, if we pass from these faint traces of external evi dence to that afforded by the style of the book and the state of manners described in it, we are led to the inference that there is no other age to which it can be assigned on better grounds than the age of Nero. If, again, we compare the impression we form of the character, genius, and habits of the writer with the elaborate picture which Tacitus paints of a man who, so far as he plays any part in history, is merely one of the victims of an abortive conspiracy, we find grounds of probability for identifying them with one another. Tacitus does not tell us that he was the author of any important work, and this has been urged as con clusive on the question. But Tacitus does not think it necessary in what he tells us of Germanicus or Claudius to mention their poetical and historical works. In intro ducing Silius Italicus as the witness of a particular occur rence he does not add that he was the author of the poem on the Punic War. He mentions that the poetical gifts and reputation of Lucan and Seneca were among the causes that excited Nero s jealousy, but he does not mention the Pharscdict of the one or the Tragedies of the other. The prominence which Tacitus gives to the portrait of Petronius points to his enjoyment of greater notoriety than was due to the part he played in history. He paints him with the keen and severe eye with which he fastens on the traits of character and the manner of life illustrative of the moral corruption of the time, but at the same time with that appreciation of intellectual power which forces him to do justice to men who in other respects were detestable. Such a work as the /Satiree he could, from a moral point of view, have regarded with no other feelings than those of detestation ; yet he could not have refused his admiration to the unmistakable proof it affords of easy careless power, and of a spirit, if not courageous in any good sense, yet indifferent to death, and capable of meeting calamity with Epicurean irony. The account he gives of C. Petronius is " that he spent his days in sleep, his nights in attending to his official duties or in amusement, that by his dissolute life he had become as famous as other men by a life of energy, and that he was regarded as no ordinary profligate, but as an accomplished voluptuary. His reckless freedom of speech, being regarded as frankness, procured him popularity. Yet during his provincial government, and later when he held the office of consul, he had shown vigour and capacity for affairs. Afterwards returning to his life of vicious indulgence, he became one of the chosen circle of Nero s intimates, and was looked upon as an absolute authority on questions of taste ( arbiter elegantue ) in connexion with the science of luxurious living." This ex cited the jealousy of Tigellinus, and led to his condemnation. Petronius s death is then described, which was in keeping with his mode of life and character. He selected the slow process of opening his veins and having them bound up again, while in conversing with his friends he avoided the serious subjects natural at such a time, and listened to their recitation of light odes and trifling verses. He then dined luxuriously, slept for some time, and, so far from imitating the practice of others by flattering Nero or Tigellinus in his will, he wrote, sealed, and sent to the emperor a document which professed to give, with the names of the partners of his vices, a detailed account of the scandalous life of the court. That this portrait, drawn with such characteristic lines, and painted in such sombre colouring, is sketched from the life in Tacitus s most graphic manner is unquestionable. A fact confirmatory of its general truth is added by the elder Pliny (who calls him T. Petronius), who mentions that just before his death he destroyed a murrhine vase of great value to prevent its falling into the hands of Nero. The question arises whether there is ground for identifying the author of the fragment which we possess under the name of Satirx with the person so minutely and faithfully described by Tacitus. Do the traits of this picture agree with that impression of himself which every writer of marked individuality unconsciously leaves on his Avork? Further, is there any reason for supposing, as some have maintained, that in this fragment we possess the actual document sent to Nero 1 The last question may be at once dismissed. The only fragments connected by any kind of continuity which we possess profess to be extracts of the fifteenth and sixteenth books of a work that must have extended to a great length. It would have been impossible to have composed one-tenth part even of this fragment in the time in which Petronius is said to have composed his memorial to Nero. Those who find in the representation of the vulgar, ostentatious, illiterate, but tolerably good- natured Trimalchio a satire on Nero or Tigellinus are capable of finding any meaning they desire in any literary work of a past age. 1 But at the same time it is legitimate to note that the author of the banquet of Trimalchio and of the lives of Encolpius and Giton had both the experience and the literary gifts Avhich would enable him to describe with scathing mockery the "Luxuriant imperil veterem noctesque Neronis," and that he was not one to be restrained by any prudery from describing them in their most revolting details. On the other hand, the arguments against identifying the writer of the fragment with the original of the portrait of Tacitus, based on the silence of the historian as to his authorship, may be explained by reference to the historian s practice in regard to the authors of other literary works. Unless these works had any bearing on the part which their authors played in history, he did not feel himself called upon to mention them ; and such a work as the Satiree he would have regarded as especially beneath the dignity of history, of which he had so proud a consciousness. The impression of his personality produced by the author corresponds closely with that of the Petronius of the Annals, not only in the evidence it affords of intimate familiarity with the vices of the age, but in the union of an immoral sensualism with a rich vein of cynical humour and an admirable taste, which we should expect to find in one who rose to favour by his social and convivial qualities, and who received the title of "elegantise arbiter." The Epicurean maxims, such as " Yivamus dum licet esse bene, " quoted by his actors, and the frequent introduction of short poems into their conversations, are in conformity with the opinions and tastes of one who in his last hours "audiebat referentes nihil de immortalitate animse et sapientium placitis, sed levia carmina et faciles versus." Further, the name " Arbiter," by which he is mentioned in later writers, is not an ordinary Latin cognomen, but may have been bestowed on him by his contemporaries from the fact that his judgment was regarded as the criterion 1 The supposition of M. Gaston Boissier that the individual satirized is Pallas, the freedman of Claudius, is much more probable. xvm. 91