﻿THE AGE OF PETRONITJS ARBITER. 89 



tions, the Eclogues and Georgics. The extent of his popularity on account of these 

 poems is strikingly shown by a passage in Dial, de Causis corr. Eloq. (c. 13): "Malo 

 securum et quietum Virgilii secessum, in quo tamen nequc apud Divum Augustum 

 gratia caruit neque apud populum Eomanum notitia. Testes Augusti epistolae, testis 

 ipse populus, qui auditis in theatro Virgilii versibus surrexit universus et forte prae- 

 sentem spectantemque Virgilium veneratus est sic quasi Augustum." 



From these facts it is evident that the popularity of Virgil, already great before his 

 death, was still more increased by the publication of the ^neid immediately after it, 

 so that his works were familiar not only to those already educated, but also to the 

 young Avhose education was jet incomplete. Considering, in the next place, that be- 

 tween the death of Virgil (19 B. C, 735 U. C.) and that of Augustus (14 A. D., 767 

 U. C.) thirty-two years elapsed, we cannot escape the conclusion that, so far as the 

 mention of Virgil's ^Eneid affects the settlement of the question of the age of Petro- 

 nius, there is nothing to forbid the adoption of the last thirty years of the reign of 

 Augustus as the period to Avhich our author belongs. 



16. C. 68. 8: " Ilium emi trecentis denariis." The circumstance that, according to 

 Habinna's own statement, his slave had two defects which impaired his value (" re- 

 cutitus est et stertit"), to say nothing of his being squint-eyed, of which his master 

 makes no account, renders it difficult for us, on accomit of our inability of estimating 

 more accurately the depreciating circumstances, to judge whether three hundred dena- 

 rii — equal to three thousand sestertii, or about one hundred and twenty dollars — was 

 a high or low price, and to draw thence any inference as to the age of our writer. 

 Horace, m Epist. 2. 2. 2-14, describes a slave-dealer offering a slave of fair appearance 

 and various accomplishments, but of dubious fidelity, as cheap at eight thousand ses- 

 terces, or about three hundred and twenty dollars. At a somewhat later period, the 

 prices paid for literary slaves reached a point of extravagance scarcely credible. Seneca 

 relates (Epist. 27) an anecdote of a rich upstart of his own time, Calvisius Sabinus, who, 

 afflicted with an uncommonly bad memory, had slaves each of whom knew by heart 

 and was able to recite some one Greek poet, Homer, Hesiod, etc., and acknowledged 

 that each of them cost him one hundi-ed thousand sesterces, — about five thousand 

 dollars. Were it not for the difficulty stated above, the price paid, according to this 

 passage of Petronius, for a literary slave, Avould indicate a time nearer to that of Horace 

 than that of Seneca. As it is, little weight can be attached to the passage, although I 

 should not feel justified in passing it by in silence. 



17. C. 70. 10: "Permitto, in quit, Pliilargyre et Carrio, etsi prasianus es famosus, 

 die et Minophilae, contubernali tuae, discumbat." Those Avho find in the character of 



