﻿THE AGE OF PETRONIUS ARBITER. 79 



The mention of " aqua nivata " does not, as sve have seen, prove that the book was 

 wiitten in, or after, the time of Xero. It is no positive evidence of any particular time, 

 inasmuch as the use of water cooled by snow had been known and practised, to judge 

 by the passage in the Memorabilia of Xenophon, at least three centuries before the 

 Christian era. But while it is no positive evidence, I am inclined to find in it some of 

 a negative kind. The vrntev seems to exert his ingenuity to the highest degree to 

 mention and describe all kinds of luxury and extravagance knoAvn in his time. Would 

 he have omitted to mention the " aqua decocta," the invention of Xero, if he had lived 

 and written after Xero 1 I think not. Without laying too much weight on this argu- 

 ment, it shoidd not, I think, be overlooked. WhUe the mention of "aqua nivata" 

 thi'ows little or no light on the question when Petronius wrote, the omission of men- 

 tioning "aqua decocta" goes far to prove that the book was written before the reign- 

 of Xero. 



10. C. 34. 6: " Statim allatae sunt amphorae vitreae diligenter g)-psatae, quarum in 

 ceiTicibus pittacia erant adfixa cum hoc titulo : Falermmi Opunianum annorum cen- 

 tum." However promising at first sight this passage looks, as furnishing the most 

 distinct and conclusive evidence -nith regard to the time when Petronius wrote, this 

 evidence is to be received with great caution, partly because so much depends upon the 

 figure of the numeral " centum," it being well known that in nothing are manuscripts 

 to be regarded with more distrust than in niunerical signs, and partly because the 

 passage is susceptible of an interpretation which wholly destroys the value of its chi-on- 

 ological evidence. If the readiug " annorum centum " be genuine, (and, notwithstand- 

 ing the many imperfections of the text of Petronius, there seems to be no reason for 

 doubting the correctness of these words, since neither manuscripts nor editions exhibit 

 any trace of a difierencc of reading.) we meet with no serious chronological difiiculty.* 

 The "vinum Opimianum" was the product of the year 121 B. C. (633 U. C), when 

 L. Opimius was consul with Q. Fabius Maximus Allobrogicus. It has above been 

 seen that, so far as the mention of the Seviri Augustales afi"ects the decision of the 

 question, the book could not have been written before the year 28 B. C. (726 U. C), 

 in which year, probably, Augustus reorganized the worship of the Lares. This would 

 be seven years before the Opimian vintage completed its one hundredth year ; a period 

 of time sufficiently long for the spread throughout Italy of the reorganized institution, 

 considering the popular attachment to the ancient foiTas of worship in general and 

 this of the Lares in particular, and the servile propensity of all classes to adopt and 



* Harduin, to Plin. 14. 4. 6. 55, infers from this passage that Petronius lived in the age of Augustus. 



