﻿46 THE AGE OF PETRONIUS ARBITER. 



" Concinnatulos pueros et calaraistratos et peregrini miiris olentes pelliculas, de quibus 

 illud Arbitri est : non bene olet, qui bene semper olet, quasi quasdam pestes ac venena 

 pudicitiae \irgo devitet." The expression, "non bene olet, qui bene semper olet," 

 occurrino- in Martial (Epigr. 2. 12} as well as in Petronius, Dousa argues that Hierony- 

 mus would have quoted Martial instead of Petronius, unless the latter lived before 

 Martial. Another confirmation of his opinion that Petronius was a contemporary of 

 Nero, he finds in the fact that Fulgentius (MythoL, Lib. I.) quotes Petronius as the 

 author of the line, "Primus in orbe deos fecit timer" (Petron. Fragm. 22. 1), wlaich 

 occurs also in Statius (Tlieb. 3. 661), which he would not have done, if he had not 

 considered him as earlier than Statius.* 



Pithoeus (P. Pithou), who was boni at Troyes, 1539, and died at Nogent-sur-Seine, 

 1596, one of the earlier editors of Petronius, is of the same opinion, — that Petronius 

 belongs to the age of Nero. 



Jos. Anton. Gonzales de Salas, a Spanish scholar, who lived in the middle of the 

 seventeenth century, wrote, when quite a youth, a commentary on Petronius. He 

 takes it for granted that the consular Petronius of Tacitus is the same person with 

 our author, and, consequently, considers Statius to have borrowed the expression, 

 " Primus in orbe deos fecit timer," from Petronius. f Taking the ground that Teren- 

 tianus Maurus, who mentions Petronius several times, Avas a contemporary of ]\Iartial 

 (who was born 40 A. D., and lived as late as 100),:!: he finds in him a witness in favor 

 of his opinion that Petronius preceded Statius. He not only endeavors to show the 

 complete agreement of the description of the character of the consular Petronius given 

 by Tacitus, with the character of our author as far as it appears in his work ; but he 

 goes so far as to justify the term " codicilli " as used by Tacitus, although, according 

 to his opinion, it must in this instance mean a voluminous work. 



Although a man of sense and learning, De Salas, blinded by his hypothesis as re- 



* The commentator of Statius, Coelius Firmianus Lactantlus (or Lutatius) Placidus, remarks on this line : 

 " Negat Deos ulla alia re celebrari nisi timore mortalium, ut Lucanus : Quae finxere timent ; et Petronius 

 Arbiter istum secutus : Primus in orbe deos fecit timor." From this language some infer that Placidus 

 intended to assert that Petronius lived after Statius ; while others, for instance, Barth, understand him to say 

 that Petronius lived after Lucan, " istum" referring to Lucan, not to Statius. Servius (ad Virg. Aen. 2. 715) 

 quotes that verse as of Statius. 



t De Salas interprets the expression of the scholiast Lactantlus, " et Petronius Arbiter istum secutus," as 

 Barth does, referring " istum" to Lucan, and not to Statius. 



I Baehr, in his History of Eoman Literature, favors the opinion which assigns Terentius IMaurus to the 

 end of the first or beginning of the second century, and considers him the same person with the governor of 

 Syene mentioned by Martial, Epigr. I. 87. 6 and 7. 



