﻿56 THE AGE OF PETRONIUS ARBITER. 



found in Muratoii's collection (page 1321), from the papers of a Koman scholar, but 

 incompletely and incorrectly copied. This inscription (see Xiebuhr, page 338) is on 

 a slab of bluish and poor marble. 



Niebuhr lays much stress on the fact that the inscription contains three names which 

 occur in the banquet of Trimalchio, namely, Fortunata, Encolpus, and Apelles. The 

 circumstance that Encolpus is mentioned as the husband of Fortunata does not discon- 

 cert Niebulir, who says : " Who would expect to find the persons of that drama pre- 

 cisely in their historical relations ? " If the husband's name, Encolpus, has in the 

 story been changed into Trimalchio, what guaranty have we that Fortunata is not 

 changed also 1 And if changed, like the name of the husband, the Fortunata of the 

 story is, of course, not the Fortunata of the inscription. It "will at once be apparent 

 how slight is the basis on which Xiebuhr builds his hypothesis. 



The object of Niebuhr is to prove that this inscription belongs to the age of Severus, 

 not later than 250 A. D., and he declares the opinion that Petronius belongs to the age of 

 Nero to be " one of the prejudices of the puerile [unmiindige] age of philology which are 

 now exploded." He considers the arguments of the Valesii irrefragable and exhaust- 

 ing, and that to them is due the honor of ha^Tiig settled the pomt which they were 

 first to bring into notice, and to Monsignor Gradi, that of lla^dug acknowledged as 

 correct an opinion which he had at first \iolently opposed.* He refers to Lydus de 

 Mag. 1. 14, as a confirmation of this ^iew, who, enumerating the Roman satuists chron- 

 ologically, as Niebuhr thinks, names them in this order: Horace, Persius, Turnus, 

 Juvenal, Petronius. 



From a remark of Trimalchio's (c. 69. 3), " ipsam Mammeam," Niebuhr conjectures 

 that Trimalchio had illicit intercourse with Mammsea, the mother of Alexander Severus ; 

 and as this could not, without danger or impropriety, be alluded to in the lifetime of 

 Alexander Severus, he places the i^oet later, — in the middle of the third century, — 

 and in this respect goes even further than Hadrian Valesius.f It will again be readUy 

 perceived how slender is the foundation for this hj^othesis. 



Niebuhr goes on to say : " And thus we see, it may be with astonishment, that one 



* From this it is apparent that Niebuhr adopts the opinion that Stephanus Gradius, the librarian of the 

 Vatican library, was the author of the " Responsio " and " Apologia," published under the name of Marinus 

 Statilius. 



t Niebuhr commits the same error as Burmann in representing the Valesii as assigning Petronius to the 

 same age. It has been stated above, that Hadrian Valesius places Petronius in the times of the Antonini 

 (138-180 A. D.), while his brother Henry places him in the time of Gallienus (253-268 A. D.), so that 

 Niebuhr agrees with Henry, but not with Hadrianus. 



