﻿30 THE AGE OF PETRONIUS ARBITER. 



After referring to a variety of circumstances calculated to excite suspicion against the 

 genuineness of the fragment, such as the fact, that, while Statilius sent a copy only of 

 the frao-ment to the Venetian ambassador at Rome, the scholars of that city pretended 

 to form an opinion of the age of the manuscript, — that those portions which were 

 already extant in j)rinted editions exhibited the corrected text, whUe the new additions 

 abounded in errors and defects of all kmds, — he proceeds to say that neither the lan- 

 guage nor the matter is worthy of Petronius. It is apparent that Wagenseil, in fonn- 

 ing his opinion of the language of the fragment, did not make sufficient allowance for 

 the inrperfections of the manuscript itself, nor for the ignorance and unskilfulness of 

 the publisher of the first Paduan edition. The instances which he adduces as unwor- 

 thy of the elegance and purity of language for which Petronius is distinguished are, 

 without exception, taken from the remarks and conversations of the guests and attend- 

 ants of Trimalchio, who were for the most part persons of little or no education, slaves, 

 freedmen, and mechanics. 



Wagenseil's charge that the fragment is a modern fabrication is chiefly based on the 

 ground that the writer of it understood Italian, and was acquainted with the Scriptures, 

 because some of the expressions occurring in the fragment resemble the Italian, and 

 one or two are not unlike some which are met in the Bible. 



With regard to the subject-matter of the fragment, Wagenseil adopts the theory, of 

 which I shall have to speak more fuUy hereafter, that Petronius Arbiter is the same 

 person with the Petronius mentioned Tacit. Ann. 16. 19, and that the book is a satire 

 on the Emperor Nero. Finding in the fragment no confirmation of his hypothesis, but, 

 on the contrary, many things which are at variance with it, he rejects, on that ground, 

 the fragment as a fabrication. Trimalchio gives some most ludicrous instances of his 

 gross ignorance and entire want of education, whUe Nero, with all his cruelty and 

 tyrannical disposition, had received a most careful and thorough education. Wagen- 

 seil, taking it for granted that Trimalchio is a satire on Nero, concludes that the frag- 

 ment, representmg Trimalchio so different from Nero, is not genuine. A somewhat 

 bold petitio princqni, and a very convenient mode of reasoning. 



The arguments on which Wagenseil depends to prove the spuriousness of the Tra- 

 gurian fii-agment are of a wider application than he gives to them ; they have reference 

 quite as much to the question in which age Petronius lived, as to that of the genuine- 

 ness or spuriousness of the fragment. As I shall have to discuss the points made by 

 Wagenseil, together with others, when I come to the main subject of this paper, I shall 

 leave them for the present, and rest satisfied with having briefly stated them. 



In order to judge fairly of Wagenseil's attack on the fragment, we should not overlook 



