ii 8 The Hidden Author

satire ícself and the risky normative implications which the

genre carries. A lready the second book of H orace’s Satires had
stripped che authoriry from the satiric m ask: Ofellus, Damasip-
pus, Catius, Davus, were doctores inepti, unworthy spokesmen
of the moral message which they claimed to interpret.11 The
Satyricon (and this is the difference in its new realism) gives full
weight to this contradiction, and turns it into narrative: in a
paradoxical maneuver, the satiric mask is worn by unreliable
characters who have no hesitation in behaving iike censors al-
though they have no right to do so .12
Thus Agamemnon, the professor of rhetoric, can inveigh in a
moralistic tirade against parasites (characters from theatrical
000^*% farce, ficti cididatores [3.3]) who are alw ays looking for rich
n men to pi-ovjJe a dinner. He finds an excuse to launch an im-
provisation in the style of Lucilius (schedium Lucilianae humi-
litatis: the theme itself is a satirical topos) in which he claims to
explain the rules which must be obeyed by anyone with literary
ambitions. Such a man must not be servile, aiíd above all he
must avoid pursuing free dinners from powerful men: nec curet
alto regiam trucem vultu / cliensque certas im potentium captet

r i . See W. S. Anderson, “ The Román Sócrates: Horace and his Satires,”

now included in W. S. Anderson, Essays on Rom án Satire (Princeton, 19 8 2 ) ,
4 1 - 4 9 (previously in J. P. Sullivan, ed., Critical Essays on Rom án Literature:
Satire [London, 1 9 6 3 ] , 1 9 - 3 7 ) ; N . Rudd, T he Satires o f Horace (Cam bridge,
19 6 6 ), 1 9 5 - 2 0 1 ; see also (from a different perspective) M . Labate, “ La Satira
di Orazio: M orfología di un genere irrequieto,” introducing O razio: Satire
(M ilán, 1 9 8 1 ) , 2 5 - 3 3 .
12. Good observarions in B eck , “ The Satyricon: Satire, N arrato r and A n-
tecedents,” even if his critical perspective differs from mine in important as-
pects (cf. chapter 1 , n. 28). There is already an intuition of this kind in F. F.
A bbott, “ The Origin of the Realistic Rom ance among the R o m an s,” C P 6
( 1 9 1 1 ) 2 5 7 - 7 0 , esp. 2 5 9 - 6 0 . One might say that the Satyricon, in its own
highly individual manner, shows a characteristic of the literary system of the
early empire in which “ satiric (or, more generally, moralistic) voices” were ¡n
fact very numerous and multiplied conspicuously. Satire and moralism were
much practiced. The sublime and “ enthusiastic” satire o f Juvenal w ill be an
unexpected reply to this situation, an attempt to renew the genre.
 V
Sex, Food, attd Money

(5, vv. 4 - 5 ) . And yet shortly afterwards Agamemnon w iil be

among the most enthusiastic guests at Trim alchio’s banquet. In
fact, as Encolpius notes ironically during dinner, Agamemnon
knows perfectly well how to earn the next invitation (52.7:
Agam em non q u i sciebat quibus meritis revocaretur a d ce-
nam ).u The moralistic claims of the scbolasticus turn out to be
nothing but satiric conventions;14 the character w ho appropri-
ates them is quite unworthy of the task he has undertaken.
Satiric discourse against flattery is reduced (in the parodie in-
tentions of the Satyricon) to the same level of adulatory dis­
course that it seems to attack. Even satire, once diverted from its
true nature, itself becomes (like other literary genres) a rhetoric
composed of empty words. Alim entary needs easily get the bet-
ter of false attitudes borrowed from m oral greatness.
If Agamemnon shows himself indifferent to the contradic-
tions that arise between his speech and actíons, and, as a prac-
ticing immoralist, does not hesitate to put on the costume of the
satiric moralist, he is certainly not the only one of Petronius’
characters to behave with such absurd inconsistency. In this
same episode o f the Cena the most extraordinary character of
them all, Trim alchio, both displays unbridled gastronomic lux-
ury and pronounces a poetic tirade against the luxuries of the
table and other forms of debauchery (55.5). (According to him,
this is supposed to be a quotation from Publilius Syrus, but
it is probably a virtuoso imitation of the great mime-writer’s
style.)15 This is a real locus de divitiis, just like the passage
which opens the Bellum Civile ( 1 1 9 , vv. 1 - 6 0 ) . The theme is

1 3 . Agam em non’s flagrant self-contradiction did not escape Walsh,

8 5 11.3 .
1 4 . See above, chapter 1 , n. 2. O n Agam em non see also G. Kennedy,
“ Encolpius and Agam em non in Petronius,” A J P 9 9 ( 1 9 7 8 ) 1 7 1 - 7 8 .
1 5 . The restoration Publilium, due to Bücheier (Publium codd.), heals the
text. N aturally it is very unlikely that this is a true citatioji from the w orks of
Publilius Syrus: see, more recently, H . Petersmann, “ Petrons ‘Satyrica,’ ” in
 1 10 The Hidden Author

also one of the most com mon in satiric poetry, so conventional

that Trimalchio cannot resist appropriating it, indifierent to the
Fact that these verses sound like a violent indictment of him-
self.16 The rich ignoram us has even bought himself the right ro
improvise like a satiric censor. N ot only the guest Agamemnon
but also the host endures the author’s ironic attack. Both, whíle
the triumph of food is celebrated, or is supposed to be cele-
brated, exploit literature to discredit with the power of words
the opposíng power of tood. So the two authors evoked by
Agamemnon and Trimalchio (Lucilius and Publilius, both cru­
cial figures in the moralizing tradition) become mere empty
ñames, made inert by the author’s strategy.
gA ¡ We know that the Cena is in m any respects designed as an in-
Vpsyn^ue^,ers¡on 0f piaro’s Sym posium ; 17 there are numerous pointers,
even if— in my view — it is not helpfui to see the Petronian text
as a faithful and continuous rew riting of the Platonic model. In-
stead, I believe that the model (and this is the general pattern in
the Satyricon) shows through like a barely perceptible tracing:
at some points the pattern becomes more explicit, but then the
two texts diverge to leave roora for the autonom y of the new
text. In the high tradition of sympotic literature food was left
offstage, as if censored. The sym posium began just when the

J. Adamietz, ed., D ie rom ische Satire (Darm stadt, 1 9 8 6 ) , 4 0 9 - 1 0 ; and N . W .

Slater, Reading Petronius (Baltimore and London, 19 9 0 ), 1 8 5 - 8 6 .
16 . Trimalchio’s inconsistency is noticed by G . N . Sandy, “ Publilius Syrus
and Satyricon 5 5 . 5 - 6 , ” R h M 1 1 9 ( 1 9 7 6 ) 2 8 6 - 8 7 , but in fact it had not
escaped E. Hauler, “ Die in Ciceros Galiiana erwáhnten convivía poetarum
ac philosophorum und ihr Verfasser,” W St 2 7 ( 1 9 0 5 ) 9 5 - 1 0 5 , esp. 10 3 n. 3,
or F. Giancotti, M im o e gnotne. Studio su D écim o Laberio e Publilio Siró
(Messina and Firenze, 19 6 7 ) , 2 4 4 .
1 7 . Cf. A . Cam eron, “ Petronius and Plato,” C Q 19 (19 6 9 ) 3 6 7 - 7 0 ;
F. Dupont, L e plaisir et la loi: D u Banquet de Platón au Satyricon (Paris,
l 9 7 7 )1 esP- rhe third chapter, 6 1 - 8 9 (there are also various useful obser-
vations in the second part o f the book, chapters 4 and 5); some interest-
ing details in F. Bessone, “ Discorsi dei liberti e parodia del ‘Sim posio’ pla­
tónico nella ‘ Cena Trim alchionis,’ ” M D 3 0 ( 1 9 9 3 ) 6 3 - 8 6 (with extensive
bibliography).
 (j q rv-),ck ^

■Se*, Food, and Money 12.1

banquet ended: speech triumphed over food .18 Here the exact
opposite happens.
However, the great Platonic text that had represented the tri-
umph of philosophical speech and the new Petronian text which
represents the triumph of food do intersect. The intersection be-
comes obvious when Habinnas’ entry (chapter 6 5) repeats in
many details the entrance of Alcibiades. But Habinnas is the
anti-model of Alcibiades. Alcibiades intervened to recharge the
dialogue, to enliven and lift the running themes of the conversa-
tion; the only ingredient of H abinnas’ speech is food, and he of-
fers a review of all he has just eaten at a previous feast. He talks
about pork and bear-meat, about sausages and black puddings,
honey cakes, chickpeas and lupin beans, cheese and chicken liv-
ers, eggs and turnips.19 It is not just ingestión that dominares
H abinnas’ speech. He is no íess preoccupied with the end of the
digestive process, and he reassures his friends that he has eaten
whole meal bread as a precaution. This is the triumph of the
physícal. In a sense, Habinnas’ report duplicares— as a minia-
ture narration— the whole narrative of the Cena, since it sets
out in condensed form the whole gastronom ic array with which
Trimalchio assaiís his guests.
ne/D If food celebrares itself throughout the Cena and reigns un-
challenged by making itself the material of spectacle and
speech, only money competes with it for pride of place in this
representation of the world. The exuberance of Trim alchio’s
wealth assails the guests with the flash of gold and silver; many
o f the diners possess (or once possessed) dazzling inheritances.
When the conversation is not concerned with meáis past and

1 8 . See M . Jeanneret, Les Mefs et les M ots (París, 1 9 8 7 ) , 1 4 6 - 5 1 .

1 9 . C f. Dupont, 7 7 - 7 9 , but her attempts, here and elsewhere, to find in
the contrast between the two texts a basis for a sociological interpretation
(from the freedom of speech of the polis to the denial of speech in R om án so-
ciety) seem misplaced. This process of reduction of “ convivial discourse” was
already set in motion, of course, by the Nasidienus Satire (2.8) of Horace.