PETRONIUS: SATYRICON; SENECA: APOCOLOCYNTOSIS

Petronius & Seneca; E. H. Warmington & W. H. D. Rouse & Michael Heseltine

ISBN 10: 0674990161 / ISBN 13: 9780674990166

Published by Harvard University Press, 2005

About this Item

Minor shelfwear to book. Edgewear to DJ. DJ has a couple of small tears. ; Loeb Classical Library No. 15; 544 pages; Petronius (C. Or T. Petronius Arbiter) , who is reasonably identified with the author of this famous satyric and satiric novel, was a man of pleasure and of good literary taste who flourished in the times of Claudius (41 54 CE) and Nero (54 68). As Tacitus describes him, he used to sleep by day, and attend to official duties or to his amusements by night. At one time he was governor of the province of Bithynia in Asia Minor and was also a consul, showing himself a man of vigour when this was required. Later he lapsed into indulgence (or assumed the mask of vice) and became a close friend of Nero. Accused by jealous Tigellinus of disloyalty and condemned, with self-opened veins he conversed lightly with friends, dined, drowsed, sent to Nero a survey of Nero's sexual deeds, and so died, 66 CE. The surviving parts of Petronius's romance Satyricon mix philosophy and real life, prose and verse, in a tale of the disreputable adventures of Encolpius and two companions, Ascyltus and Giton. In the course of their wanderings they attend a showy and wildly extravagant dinner given by a rich freedman, Trimalchio, whose guests talk about themselves and life in general. Other incidents are a shipwreck and somewhat lurid proceedings in South Italy. The work is written partly in pure Latin, but sometimes purposely in a more vulgar style. It parodies and otherwise attacks bad taste in literature, pedantry and hollow society. Apocolocyntosis, "Pumpkinification" (instead of deification) , is probably by Seneca the wealthy philosopher and courtier (ca. 4 BCE 65 CE). It is a medley of prose and verse and a political satire on the Emperor Claudius written soon after he died in 54 CE and was deified.

Seller Inventory # 32825

Bibliographic Details

• Title: PETRONIUS: SATYRICON; SENECA: APOCOLOCYNTOSIS
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication Date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0674990161
• ISBN 13: 9780674990166
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Near Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good-
• Weight: 0.84 pounds
• Seller catalogs:
  • Loeb Classical Library

About this title

Synopsis

Petronius (C. or T. Petronius Arbiter), who is reasonably identified with the author of this famous satyric and satiric novel, was a man of pleasure and of good literary taste who flourished in the times of Claudius (41–54 CE) and Nero (54–68). As Tacitus describes him, he used to sleep by day, and attend to official duties or to his amusements by night. At one time he was governor of the province of Bithynia in Asia Minor and was also a consul, showing himself a man of vigour when this was required. Later he lapsed into indulgence (or assumed the mask of vice) and became a close friend of Nero. Accused by jealous Tigellinus of disloyalty and condemned, with self-opened veins he conversed lightly with friends, dined, drowsed, sent to Nero a survey of Nero's sexual deeds, and so died, 66 CE.

The surviving parts of Petronius's romance Satyricon mix philosophy and real life, prose and verse, in a tale of the disreputable adventures of Encolpius and two companions, Ascyltus and Giton. In the course of their wanderings they attend a showy and wildly extravagant dinner given by a rich freedman, Trimalchio, whose guests talk about themselves and life in general. Other incidents are a shipwreck and somewhat lurid proceedings in South Italy. The work is written partly in pure Latin, but sometimes purposely in a more vulgar style. It parodies and otherwise attacks bad taste in literature, pedantry and hollow society.

Apocolocyntosis, "Pumpkinification" (instead of deification), is probably by Seneca the wealthy philosopher and courtier (ca. 4 BCE–65 CE). It is a medley of prose and verse and a political satire on the Emperor Claudius written soon after he died in 54 CE and was deified.

About the Authors

William Henry Denham Rouse (1863–1950) was Headmaster of the Perse School and a founding editor of the Loeb Classical Library.

E. H. Warmington was Professor of Classics at Birkbeck College, London, and General Editor of the Loeb Classical Library (1937–1974).