﻿THE AGE OF PETROXIUS ARBITER. 53 



Hieronj-mus. He next refers to Lutatius Placidus, the scholiast of Statins, whom 

 he imderstands to say that Petronius lived after Statins, and borrowed from him the 

 line " Primus in orbe dcos fecit timor." He in-oceeds to call Petronius liimself as a 

 "fitness, referring to what Petronius says of the decline of art, particularly of painting. 

 Statilius knows of no complaints of this kind in the age of Nero ; on the contrary, he 

 has been told that, as late as the reign of Commodus, statues of great artistic value 

 were produced ; and, considering the intunate connection of these two sister arts, he 

 cannot believe that the condition of painting was less favorable ; nay, he finds a posi- 

 tive testimony in the frescos of the baths of Titus, of whose discovery and beauty 

 he has been told. He thinks that the censure uttered by Petronius can only apply to 

 the times of Constantinus, and he finds a confirmation of its justice in the defects of 

 the sculptures on the arch of Constantino. 



Thomas Eeinesius, in his dissertation on the genuineness of the Tragurian fragment, 

 published in January, 1666, ^dthout entering upon the question of the age of Petro- 

 nius, takes it for granted that he belonged to the time of Nero, for he calls him 

 "T. Petronius Arbiter, scriptor aevo Neronis doctissimus, nitidissimus, lepidissimusque." 



As we advance in the re^sdew of the opinions of leading scholars on the question of 

 the age of Petronius, we come to Peter Burmann, whose opinion deserves special 

 notice, not only on account of his reputation for thorough scholarship, but also on 

 account of the intrinsic value of his arguments. Peter Burmann, who was boiTi at 

 Utrecht in 1668, and who Avas Professor, first in his native to^vn, afterwards in Leyden, 

 where he died in 1741, produced one of the best editions of Petronius in 1709, which 

 appeared in a second edition in 1743. In the preface to the first edition, after statmg 

 that the majority of scholars believed our author to be the Petronius of Tacitus, he 

 expresses his dissent, and declares his conviction that nothing can be found in the 

 whole Avork which is, exclusiA^ely or piincipally, aimed against Nero. Trimalchio is a 

 freedman, old, foolishly boastmg of his elegance and learning ; Nero is young, of noble 

 descent, of great ability, although of bad moral character. "^Miat he considers the 

 principal cAidence is, that Tacitus, in distinct terms, states that the consular Petronius 

 did not write a book, but a note, " codicUli," in which he commemorated the lust and 

 debaucheries of dissolute men and women. He defines what the Romans meant bv 

 the term " codicilli," to show that they were small tablets used for memoranda, letters, 

 and other brief communications. It was impossible for the consular Petronius to write, 

 in " codicilli," which were not large enough for a long letter, our work, of which we 

 have a part only. The elaborate style of the work is inconsistent with the idea that it 

 should have been written during the few hours preceding Petronius's death. Tacitus 



VOL. VI. XEW SERIES. 8 



