﻿52 THE AGE OF PETRONIUS ARBITER. 



" At Arbiter disertus 

 Libris suis frequentat." 



The contents of the communication of the consular were true, both as to facts and 

 names ; the Satyricon, an imitation of the Menippean satu-e of M. Yarro, in which 

 prose alternates with poetic passages, contains, under fictitious characters, a descrip- 

 tion of the manners of the age. Valesius rejects the opinion of Janus Dousa, that 

 Martial borrowed " Non bene olet, qui bene semper olet," and " ingeniosa gula est," 

 and Statins, " Primus in orbe deos fecit timer," from Petronius. He agrees with his 

 brother, Henricus Valesius, in placing Petronius much later than the times of Xero ; 

 but while Henri Valois places him in the time of Gallienus (2JI:0 A. D.) and Boui-delot 

 a little before the times of the Emperor Constantinus, he puts him in the time of the 

 Antonini (138-180 A. D.). He finds a confiimation of this view in Macrobius (in 

 Scip. Somn. 1. 2): " Auditum mulcent argumcnta fictis casibus amatorum referta; 

 quibus vel multum se Arbiter exercuit vel Apuleium nonnunquam lusisse miramiu" " ; 

 from which he infers that Macrobius either considers Petronius a contemporary of 

 Apuleius (who likewise belongs in the times of the Antonini), or places him a little 

 earlier, because he mentions him first. 



Marinus Statilius, as I have already mentioned, changed, in the course of his de- 

 fence of the genuineness of the Tragurian fragment, his -siew with regard to the 

 age of Petronius. In his first paper, the "Eesponsio" to Wagenseil and Valesius, 

 he acquiesced in the belief that Petronius belonged in the times of Nero : " Nam nos 

 Petronium ipsum tunc (Neronis pi-incipatu) extitisse contendimus." Duiing the few 

 years intervening between the "Eesponsio" and " Aj)ologia," his opinion on this sub- 

 ject iinderwent an entii'e change, which he himself announces with praiseworthy 

 fiankness : " Qua de re antequam dicere incixiio, aliam quandam, quae mihi tecum 

 [he addresses Wagenseil] est, controversiam panels aperiam ; nee sane erit, quod moleste 

 id feras, quandoquidem hac eadem in re a me ipso dissentio ; adductus scilicet vi veii- 

 tatis, cujus mihi studiiun omnibus meis studiis et rationibus antiquius est. Nam cum 

 hactenus Aidgatam de Petronii aetate opinionem, quae ilium Neroni aequalem statuit, 

 probare sohtus essem, nuper accurata eruditi honiinis* disputatione coactus sum, ut 

 multo recentiorem hunc scriptorem existimem, et paullo ante Constantini August! 

 tempora, certe longe inii-a Severum collocem." His first argument is the silence of 

 Qumtilian, Suetonius, and Pliny concerning Petronius, while he was known and appre- 

 ciated by the scholars of a later period, such as Priscianus, Diomedes, Victorinus, and 



* Statilius does not mention the name. P. Burmann says that it was the opinion of the Valesii which 

 influenced him : " Valesiorum auctoritate motus quoque StatiUus fuit." 



