﻿THE AGE OF TETRONirS ARBITER. 57 



of the cleverest and richest poets wrote about the middle of the third century ; which 

 time, following an obscure feeling, we are accustomed to despise, as an epoch of con- 

 firmed barbarism. In respect to the arts (bildende Kihiste), this opinion is correct ; . 

 is it not generally known that Petronius says that painting had in his time perished ? 

 How they then painted, we see with horror in the paintings found in the splendid -\illa 

 Tor Marancia, which undoubtedlj- belong to this age. For Egyptian art, in which he 

 sees the cause of the ruin of painting, I am inclined to believe to be the glass-mosaic. 

 I mention in passing, that he who suffers himself to be instructed by the Valesii can, 

 influenced by the most conclusive reasons, no longer place Terentius Maurus imder 

 Domitian, since he mentions Petronius." 



It will be seen, in this mstance, how one rashness leads to another. In order not 

 to conflict with Niebuhr's hypothesis, Terentianus IMaurus, who is generally placed at 

 the end of the first or the commencement of the second century, must, without any 

 external or internal evidence, gi-\e up his place, and descend more than a hundred years. 



I have quoted before (page 2-5) the true and excellent remarks of Xiebuhr on the 

 moral and literary character of Petronius, and I cannot divest myself of the belief that, 

 if Niebidir had dwelt and reflected longer on the excellences of Petronius as a writer, 

 which he seems to appreciate so fully, he could not have entertained for one moment 

 the opinion that he belonged to the third century. Orelli, in a note appended to this 

 inscription in his Collection of Latin Inscriptions, rejects the interpretation of Xiebuhr 

 in very plain terms : " Quae omnia tametsi satis ingeniose sunt excogitata, tamen baud 

 multos fore puto, quibus suam di-\iaationem probatiirus sit vii- doctissimus." * 



Xiebuhr has found a zealous supporter in K. Eckermann, who, ui his article on 

 Petronius, in Ersch and Gruber's AUgemeine Enci/dopildie der Wissenschaften und 

 Kunste (Vol, XIX. j)p. 323-339), vigorously assails the arguments, both historical 

 and lingiustic, of Studer, and adopts and defends, to its fuU extent, the hj-pothesis of 

 Niebuhr. Eckermann is quite certain that the name Arbiter did not originally belong 

 to Petronius, but was given to him tkrough misapprehension of the passage in Tacitus's 

 Annals. 



Teufel, after the excellent criticism of the literary character of Petronius which I 

 have quoted aboAe (page 26), goes on to express the opinion that the work belongs to 

 the first century of our era, and assigns as his reasons the complaint of the decline of 

 ]Dainting (Staffelmalerei), in consequence of the prevailing taste for fresco-paintmg 



* Inscriptionum Latinarum Selectarum Amplissima Collectio. Jos. Casp. Orellius. 1828. Vol. I. 

 p. 257. 



