﻿122 THE AGE OF PETRONIUS ARBITER. 



that wliile the banquet of Trimalchio may actually have happened in the year 21 B. C, 

 the work of Petronius gmng an account of it may have been written twenty-nine years 

 or more afterwards ; for this length of time, at least, must have intervened between a 

 banquet given 21 B. C. and the composition of a work which mentions the Vigiles. 

 Either of these explanations will solve the difficulty presented by the passage c. 34:. 6, 

 and it is unnecessary to have recourse to other expedients, such as questioning the 

 correctness of the text " annorum centum." It will also be readily perceived, that, if 

 this circumstance is an impediment to our adopting so early a period as 6 A. D. for the 

 composition of the book, it is a still greater impediment to the hypotheses — and they 

 are the more numerous — which adopt a later time. 



Having pretty satisfactorily ascertained the year 6 A. D. as the limit beyond which 

 we cannot ascend in determining the time of the composition of the Satyricon, it re- 

 mains to inquire whether we can ascertain with equal accuracy the limit beyond which 

 we cannot descend. It will at once be seen that the evidence on this point is not quite 

 so conclusive as on the other ; for it is to a great extent of a negative kind. While the 

 mention of a person, event, or institution is conclusive evidence that the work in which 

 the mention occurs is posterior to the person, event, or institution mentioned, the fact 

 that a certain person, event, or institution is not mentioned is not conclusive evidence 

 that the work in question is anterior to that person, event, or institution. But not- 

 withstanding this great and inherent difficulty, the evidence which can be adduced is of 

 such a nature that we may arrive at a considerable degree of probability. 



Of the passages which have above been examined, the following more especially 

 bear on this part of the question. In the discussion on ^the imperfect education of 

 young orators with which the work in its present state commences, the term " forum," 

 as the stage on which the orator is to act, occurs several times, c. 1. 2 and c. 4. 4, 

 no mention being made of the halls ("basdicae") ; and yet these were in pretty general 

 use before the reign of Domitian, who was emperor from 81 to 96 A. D. Considering 

 how natural it Avould have been to mention halls in that connection, if they had been in 

 common, if not exclusive use, we may fairly infer that the Satyricon must have been 

 written before 81 A. D. 



If what Petronius says (c. 83) concerning the condition of painting be compared 

 with the statements of the elder Pliny in his great work, the conclusion suggests itself 

 that Petronius wrote before Pliny had comi)leted his work ; and inasmuch as Pliny 

 finished his production in 77 A. D., we may infer that the Satyricon was written 

 before that year. 



From the circumstance that (c. 31. 3) "aqua nivata" is evidently spoken of as a 



