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LUDUM ARTAVERAT: On Petronius, Satyrica 85.4
This study presents linguistic and content-based evidence indicating that the transmitted reading quia dies sollemnis ludum artaverat in Petronius, Satyrica 85.4 should not be considered a corruption and that no emendation is required. It is proposed that this passage should be interpreted as \"since the festival had shortened the time at the gymnasium\" or \"the time of the tuition\".
Journal Article
Petronius and the Anatomy of Fiction
Petronius' Satyricon, long regarded as the first 'novel' of the Western tradition, has always sparked controversy. It has been puzzled over as a strikingly modernist riddle, elevated as a work of exemplary comic realism, condemned as obscene and repackaged as a morality tale. This reading of the surviving portions of the work shows how the Satyricon fuses the anarchic and the classic, the comic and the disturbing, and presents readers with a labyrinth of narratorial viewpoints. Dr Rimell argues that the surviving fragments are connected by an imagery of disintegration, focused on the pervasive Neronian metaphor of the literary text as a human or animal body. Throughout, she discusses the limits of dominant twentieth-century views of the Satyricon as bawdy pantomime, and challenges prevailing restrictions of Petronian corporeality to material or non-metaphorical realms. This 'novel' emerges as both very Roman and very satirical in its 'intestinal' view of reality.
eBook
Reading and Variant in Petronius
Critical editions of most classical authors are based on readings transmitted by medieval scholars that can be examined and collated. Modern editions of Petronius, on the other hand, are principally based on printed editions, most of them published in France during the sixteenth century. In this volume T. Wade Richardson considers the use made of the Petronius manuscripts then extant by seven French humanist editors for their various editions, commentaries, and notes.
Some of the manuscripts they used may be equated with extant exemplars, which therefore serve as a good check on the quality of their readings. But as much as half of the text rests on the sixteenth-century witness alone. Through a broad and integrated study of the problems of the Petronius text the author attempts to unravel the tangled skein of humanist work on Petronius, to settle some of the old textual puzzles, and to solidify the text and recast the apparatus.
Richardson also provides information on the codicology and palaeography of the texts and on the talents and habits of the scholars who created them.
eBook
ARCHITECTURAL MEMORY AND TRIMALCHIO'S PORTICVS
This paper seeks to respond to two questions posed by previous commentators concerning the arrangement of Trimalchio's porticus as described in Petronius’ Satyrica (Sat. 29): first, whether the freedman's house lacked an atrium; second, whether the cursores (runners) who are described as unconventionally exercising in the portico were pictorial representations or real-life athletes who would symbolize the social incompetence of the dominus. This paper argues that nothing in the text supports the interpretation of Trimalchio's house as having an unconventional architectural layout. Instead, as the narrative requires that Encolpius move quickly towards the triclinium, in his description the loca communia appear conflated, while he only sparsely notices a few relevant elements of the decor. The presentation of Trimalchio's porticus appears to have a functional rather than a simply descriptive purpose: it symbolizes both Roman contemporary practices (the loca communia as a distinctive unit within the domus) and the influence of Greek cultural habits (the characteristic association of colonnaded courtyards and athletics). The excerpt that describes the guests’ arrival at Trimalchio's house, therefore, serves an important narrative function, providing essential information about the character's origins, self-image and social life.
Journal Article
Flexible Glass: Myth and Photonic Technology
The recent fast advances in consumer electronics, especially in cell phones and displays, have led to the development of ultra-thin, hence flexible, glasses. Once available, such flexible glasses have proven to be of great interest and usefulness in other fields, too. Flexible photonics, for instance, has quickly taken advantage of this new material. At first sight, “flexible glass” appears to be an oxymoron. Glass is, by definition, fragile and highly breakable; its structure has puzzled scientists for decades, but it is evident that in most conditions it is a rigid material, so how can it bend? This possibility, however, has aroused the interest of artists and craftsmen since ancient times; thus, in Roman times the myth of flexible glass was born. Furthermore, the myth appeared again in the Middle Age, connected to a religious miracle. Today, however, flexible glass is no more a myth but a reality due to the fact that current technology permits us to produce micron-thick glass sheets, and any ultra-thin material can be bent. Flexibility is coming from the present capability to manufacture glass sheets at a tens of microns thickness coupled with the development of strengthening methods; it is also worth highlighting that, on the micrometric and nanometric scales, silicate glass presents plastic behavior. The most significant application area of flexible glass is consumer electronics, for the displays of smartphones and tablets, and for wearables, where flexibility and durability are crucial. Automotive and medical sectors are also gaining importance. A very relevant field, both for the market and the technological progress, is solar photovoltaics; mechanical flexibility and lightweight have allowed solar cells to evolve toward devices that possess the advantages of conformability, bendability, wearability, and moldability. The mature roll-to-roll manufacturing technology also allows for high-performance devices at a low cost. Here, a brief overview of the history of flexible glass and some examples of its application in solar photovoltaics are presented.
Journal Article
QUEER SOCIALITY AND PETRONIAN FRATERNITY
‘How tough it is for outlaws’ (quam male est extra legem uiuentibus, Sat. 125.4), laments Encolpius, the petty-criminal narrator of Petronius’ Satyrica, as he frets about whether he and his buddies will be found out as they engage in a scheme to fleece the legacy hunters of Croton. But Encolpius and his crew are outlaws in more senses than one. Having forgotten, or simply disregarded, marital-reproductive household arrangements, they engage in novel forms of relationality that their cultural lexicon can barely cover as they quest after sex, feasts, money, or simply subsistence. Much Petronian scholarship, promoting a reading that looks down on the characters, views these forms of relationality as parodic and ‘purely comic’, ludicrously failed attempts by low, satirized characters to appropriate sublime Roman social institutions like fraternal pietas. In this article, taking as my primary example the reformulation of brotherhood and the use of the kin term frater by Encolpius, Ascyltos, and Giton, I read these forms of sociality as queer: that is to say, potentially challenging to normativity rather than simply inadequate to meet its demands. Petronian brotherhood, read in this light, appears richly shaded and contested, not merely a one-dimensional misappropriation composed for the benefit of a ‘superior’ elite audience. What exactly it means to be a ‘brother’ in this postlapsarian world is always an active question in the scenes involving the trio. I offer in this article a more detailed close reading of Petronian brotherhood than has been possible in other, briefer scholarly accounts, focusing in particular on the competing conceptualizations of ‘brotherhood’ by different characters, from Encolpius’ exclusive use of the term as something like ‘boyfriend’ to Ascyltos’ more capacious use of the word.
Journal Article
Imperial Nuptials at Pompeii: CIL IV.1261, an Obscene Take on the Marriage of Nero and Pythagoras
Among Pompeian wall inscriptions CIL IV.1261 is well known for its brisk obscenities and problems of text and interpretation. According to the text as it is currently printed, the graffito is generally understood to make a political statement of some kind about the mistreatment of the Roman citizen body; in what circumstances and by whom the collective of ciues Romani has been mistreated cannot be determined from the evidence of the graffito. In this paper, I present a revised text of the graffito, and I argue that the phrase ciuium Romanorum cunnus refers not to the Roman citizen body but to the emperor Nero and that the scene described in the text is the earliest extant testimony to an event that took place in 64 CE and was witnessed by persons unknown, Nero's marriage as bride to his freedman Pythagoras.
Journal Article