This is how Tacitus sums up the life of Petronius: "Petronius spent his days sleeping, his nights working and enjoying himself. Others achieve fame by energy, Petronius by laziness. Yet he was not, like others who waste their resources, regarded as dissipated or extravagant, but as a refined voluptuary. People liked the apparent freshness of his unconventional and unselfconscious sayings and doings. Nevertheless, as governor of Bithynia and later as consul, he had displayed a capacity for business.
Then, reverting to a vicious or ostensibly vicious way of life, he had been admitted into the small circle of Nero's intimates, as Arbiter of Taste: to the blase emperor nothing was smart and elegant unless Petronius had given it his approval. So Tigellinus, loathing him as a rival and a more expert hedonist, denounced him on the grounds of his friendship with Flavius Scaevinus. This appealed to the emperor's outstanding passion -- his cruelty. A slave was bribed to incriminate Petronius. No defence was heard. Indeed, most of his household were under arrest.
The emperor happened to be in Campania. Petronius too had reached Cumae; and there he was arrested. Delay, with its hopes and fears, he refused to endure. He severed his own veins. Then, having them bound up again when the fancy took him, he talked with his friends -- but not seriously, or so as to gain a name for fortitude. And he listened to them reciting, not discourses about the immortality of the soul or philosophy, but light lyrics and frivolous poems. Some slaves received presents -- others beatings. He appeared at dinner, and dozed, so that his death, even if compulsory, might look natural." (Annals 16.17-18)
In this passage our heroes, a couple of slightly pretentious beat poets, luck into an invitation to the wealthy Roman Trimalchio's dinner party.
We followed on, choking with amazement by now, and arrived at the door with Agamemnon at our side. On the door-post a notice was fastened which read:
ANY SLAVE LEAVING THE HOUSE WITHOUT HIS MASTER'S
PERMISSION WILL RECEIVE ONE HUNDRED LASHES
Just at the entrance stood the hall-porter, dressed in a green uniform with a belt of cherry red. He was shelling peas into a silver basin. Over the doorway hung - of all things - a golden cage from which a spotted magpie greeted visitors.
29. As I was gaping at all this, I almost fell over backwards and broke a leg. There, on the left as one entered, not far from the porter's cubbyhole, was a huge dog with a chain round its neck. It was painted on the wall2 and over it, in big capitals, was written:
BEWARE OF THE DOG
My colleagues laughed at me, but when I got my breath back I went on to examine the whole wall. There was a mural of a slave market, price-tags and all. Then Trimalchio himself, holding a wand of Mercury and being led into Rome by Minerva. After this a picture of how he learned accounting and, finally, how he became a steward. The painstaking artist had drawn it all in great detail with descriptions underneath. Just where the colonnade ended Mercury hauled him up
by the chin and rushed him to a high platform. Fortune with hcr horn of plenty and the three Fates spinning their golden threads were there in attendance.
I also noticed in the colonnade a company of runners practising with their trainer. In one corner was a large cabinet, which served as a shrine for some silver statues of the household deities with a marble figure of Venus and an impressive gold casket in which, they told me, the master's first beard was preserved.
I began asking the porter what were the pictures they had in the
'The Iliad,the Odyssey,' he said, 'and the gladiatorial show given by Laenas.
30. Time did not allow us to look at marrier things there ... by now we had reached the dining-room, at the entrance to which sat a treasurer going over the accounts. There was one feature I particularly admired:
on the door-posts were fixed rods and axes tapering off at their lowest point into something like the bronze beak of a ship. On it was the inscription:
PRESENTED TO C. POMPEIUS TRIMALCHIO
PRIEST OF THE AUGUSTAN COLLEGE6
BY HIS STEWARD CINNAMUS
Beneath this same inscription a fixture with twin lamps dangled from the ceiling and two notices, one on each door-post. One of them, if my memory is correct, had written on it:
30 AND 31 DECEMBER
OUR GAIUS
IS OUT TO DINNER
The other displayed representations of the moon's phases and the seven heavenly bodies. Lucky and unlucky days were marked with different coloured studs.8
Having had enough of these interesting things, we attempted to go in, but one of the slaves shouted: 'Right foot first!' Naturally we hesitated a moment in case one of us should cross the threshold the wrong way. But just as we were all stepping forward, a slave with his back bare flung himself at our feet and began pleading with us to get -him off a flogging. He was in trouble for nothing very serious, he told -us - the steward's clothes, hardly worth ten sesterces, had been stolen
from him at the baths. Back went our feet, and we appealed to the steward, who was counting out gold pieces in the office, to let the man off.
He lifted his head haughtily: 'It is not so much the actual loss that annoys me, he said, 'it's the wretch's carelessness. They were my dinner clothes he lost. A client had presented them to me on my birthday - genuine Tyrian purple, of course; however they had been laundered odce. So what does it matter? He's all yours.'
31. We were very much obliged to him for this favour; and when we did enter the dining-room, that same slave whose cause we had pleaded ran up to us and, to our utter confusion, covered us with kisses and thanked us for our kindness.
'And what's more,' he said, 'you'll know right away who it is you have been so kind to. "The master'swine is the waiter's gift."'
Finally we took our places. Boys from Alexandria poured iced water over our hands. Others followed them and attended to our feet, removing any hangnails with great skill. But they were not quiet even during this troublesome operation: they sang away at their work. I wanted to find out if the whole staff were singers, so I asked for a drink. In a flash a boy was there, singing in a shrill voice while he attended to me - and anyone else who was asked for something did the same. It was more like a musical comedy than a respectable dinner party.
Some extremely elegant hors d'oeuvres were served at this point -by now everyone had taken his place with the exception of Trimalchio, for whom, strangely enough, the place at the top was reserved. The
dishes for the first course included an ass of Corinthian bronze with two panniers, white olives on one side and black on the other. Over the ass were two pieces of plate, with Trimalchio's name and the weight of the silver inscribed on the rims. There were some small iron frames shaped like bridges supporting dormice sprinkled with honey and poppy seed. There were steaming hot sausages too, on a silver gridiron with damsons and pomegranate seeds underneath.
32. We were in the middle of these elegant dishes when Trimalchio himself was carried in to the sound of music and set down on a pile of tightly stuffed cushions. The sight of him drew an astonished laugh from the guests." His cropped head stuck out from a scarlet coat; his neck was well muffled up and he had put round it a napkin with a broad purple stripe and tassels dangling here and there. On the little finger of his left hand he wore a heavy gilt ring and a smaller one on the last joint of the next finger. This I thought was solid gold, but actually it was studded with little iron stars. And to show offeven more ofhis jewellery, he had his right arm bare and set off by a gold armlet and an ivory circlet fastened with a gleaming metal plate.
33. After picking his teeth with a silver toothpick, he began: 'My friends, I wasn't keen to come into the dining-room yet. But if I stayed away any more, I would have kept you back, so I've deprived myself of all my little pleasures for you. However, you'll allow me to finish my game.' A boy was at his heels with a board of terebinth wood with glass squares, and I noticed the very last word in luxury - instead of white and black pieces he had gold and silver coins.'2 While he was swearing away like a trooper over his game and we were still on the hors d'oeuvres, a tray was brought in with a basket on it. There sat a wooden hen, its wings spread round it the way hens are when they are broody. Two slaves hurried up and as the orchestra played a tune they began searching through the straw and dug out peahens' eggs, which they distributed to the guests.
Trimalchio turned to look at this little scene and said: 'My friends, I gave orders for that bird to sit on some peahens' eggs. I hope to goodness they are not starting to hatch. However, let's try them and see if they are still soft.'
We took up our spoons (weighing at least half a pound each) and cracked the eggs, which were made of rich pastry. To tell the truth, I nearly threw away my share, as the chicken seemed already formed. But I heard a guest who was an old hand say: 'There should be something good here.' So I searched the shell with my fingers and found the plumpest little figpecker, all covered with yolk and seasoned with pepper.
34. At this point Trimalchio became tired of his game and demanded that all the previous dishes be brought to him. He gave permission in a loud voice for any of us to have another glass of mead if we wanted it. Suddenly there was a crash from the orchestra and a troop of waiters -still singing - snatched away the hors d'oeuvres. However in the confusion one of the side-dishes happened to fall and a slave picked it up from the floor. Trimalchio noticed this, had the boy's ears boxed and told him to throw it down again. A cleaner came in with a broom and began to sweep up the silver plate along with the rest of the rubbish. Two long-haired Ethiopians followed him, carrying small skin bags like Water-Carrier, a goose; over Pisces the Fishes, two mullets. In the centre was a piece of grassy turfbearing a honeycomb. A young Egyptian slave carried around bread in a silver oven ... and in a sickening voice he mangled a song from the show The Asafoetida Man.
36. As we started rather reluctantly on this inferior fare, Trimalchio said:
'Let's eat, if you don't mind. This is the sauce of all order.' As he spoke, four dancers hurtled forward in time to the music and removed the upper part of the great dish, revealing underneath plump fowls, sows' udders, and a hare with wings fixed to his middle to look like Pegasus.16 We also noticed four figures of Marsyas with little skin bottles, which let a peppery fish-sauce go running over some fish, which seemed to be swimming in a little channel. We all joined in the servants' applause and amid some laughter we helped ourselves to these quite exquisite things. Trimalchio was every bit as happy as we were with this sort of trick. 'Carve 'er!' he cried. Up came the man with the carving knife and, with his hands moving in time to the orchestra, he sliced up the victuals like a charioteer battling to the sound of organ music. And still Tn.malchio went on saying insistently: 'Carve 'er, Carver!'
I suspected this repetition was connected with some witticism, and I went so far as to ask the man on my left what it meant. He had watched this sort of game quite often and said:
'You see the fellow doing the carving - he's called Carver. So whenever he says "Carver!" he's calling out his name and his orders.'
37. I couldn't face any more food. Instead I turned to this man to find out as much as I could. I began pestering him for gossip and information - who was the woman running round the place?
'Trimalchio's wife,' he told me, 'Fortunata is her name and she counts her money by the sackful. And before, before, what was she? You'll pardon me saying so, but you wouldn't of touched a bit of bread from her hand. Nowadays - and who knows how or why - she's in heaven, and she's absolutely everything to Trimalchio. In fact, if she tells him at high noon it's dark, he'll believe her. He doesn't know himself how much he's got, he's so loaded - but this bitch looks after everything; she's even in places you wouldn't think of. She's dry, sober and full of ideas - you see all that gold! - but she's got a rough tongue and she's a real magpie when she gets her feet up. If she likes you, she likes you - if she doesn't like you, she doesn't like you.
those used by the men who scatter the sand in the amphitheatre, and they poured wine over bur hands - no one ever offered us water.
Our host was complimented on these elegant arrangemen~ 'Mars loves a fair fight,' he replied. 'That is why I gave orders for each guest to have his own table. At the same time these smelly slaves won't crowd so.'
Carefully sealed wine bottles were immediately brought, their necks labelled:
FALERNIAN
CONSUL OPIMIUS
ONE HUNDRED YEARS 0LD
While we were examining the labels, Trimalchio clapped his hands
and said with a sigh:
'Wine has a longer life than us poor folks. So let's wet our whistles. Wine is life. I'm giving you real Opimian. I didn't put out such good stuff yesterday,
though the company was much better class.'
Naturally we drank and missed no Opportunity of admiring his elegant hospitality. In the middle of this a Slave brought in a silver skeleton,'4 put together in such a way that its joints and backbone could be pulled out and twisted in all directions. After he had flung it about on the table once or twice, its flexible joints falling into various postures, Trimalchio recited:
'0 woe, Woe, man is only a dot
Hell drags us off and that is the lot; So let us live a little space, At least while we can feed our face.'
38. After our applause the next course was brought in. Actually it was not as grand as we expected, but it was so novel that everyone stared. It was a deep circular tray with the twelve signs of the Zodiac arranged round the edge. Over each of them the chef had placed some appropriate dainty Suggested by the subject.'5 Over Aries the Ram, chickpeas; over Taurus the Bull, a beefsteak; over the Heavenly Twins, testicles and kidneys; over Cancer the Crab, a garland; over Leo the Lion, an African fig; over Virgo the Virgin, a young Sow's udder; over
Libra the Scales, a balance with a cheesecake in one pan and a pastry in the other; over Scorpio, a sea scorpion; over Sagittarius the Archer, a sea bream with eyespots; over Capricorn, a lobster; over Aquarius the
'The old boy himself now, he's got estates it'd take a kite to fly over -he's worth millions of millions.' There's more silver plate lying in his porter's cubbyhole than any other man owns altogether. As for his servants - boy, oh boy! I honestly don't think there's one in ten knows his own master. In fact he could knock any of these smart boys into a cocked hat.
38. 'And don't you think he buys anything, either. Everything is home-grown: wool, citrus, pepper. If you ask for hen's milk, you'll get
it. In fact, there was a time when the wool he'd got wasn't good enough for him, so he brought some rams from Tarentum and banged them into his sheep. To get home-grown Attic honey, he ordered some bees from Athens - the Greek strain improved his own bees a bit at the same time.
'And here's something more - this last few days he wrote off for mushroom spores from India. Why, he hasn't a single mule that wasn't
sired by a wild ass. You see all these cushions - every one of them has
either purple or scarlet stuffing. There's happiness for you!
'But mind you, don't look down on the other freedmen here. They're dripping with the stuff. You see that man on the very bottom couch. At present he's got eight hundred thousand of his own. He started out with nothing. It's not long since he was humping wood on his own back. They say - I don't know myself, I've heard it - they say he stole a hobgoblin's cap and found its treasure. I don't begrudge anyone what God has given him. Besides, he can still feel his master's slap and wants to give himself a good time. For instance, the other day he put up a notice which said:
GAIUS POMPEIUS DIOGENES IS MOVING TO HIS HOUSE AND
WILL LET THE ROOM OVER
HIS SHOP FROM 1 JULY
'Now that fellow in the freedman's place - look how well off he was once! I'm not blaming him - he had a million in his hands, but he
slipped badly. I don't think he can 'call his hair his own. Yet I'd swear
it wasn't his fault: there's not a better man alive. Some freedmen and
crooks pocketed everything he had. One thing you can be sure of-you
have partners and your pot never boils, and once things take a turn for
the worse, friends get out from underneath. What a respectable business
he had and look at him now! He was an undertaker. He used to eat like
a king - boars roasted in their skins, elaborate pastry, braised game birds, as well as fish and hares. More wine was spilt under the table than another man keeps in his cellar. He wasn't a man, he was an absolute dream! When things were looking black, he didn't want his creditors to think he was bankrupt, so he put up notice of an auction like this:
'GAIUS JULIUS PROCULUS
AUCTION OF SURPLUS STOCK'
Trimalchio interrupted these pleasant reminiscences. The dish had already been removed and the convivial guests had begun to concentrate on the drink and general conversation. Leaning on his elbow, Trimalchio said:
39. 'Now you're supposed to be enjoying the wine. Fishes have to swim. I ask you, do you think I'm just content with that course you saw in the bottom of the dish? "Is this like the Ulysses you know?"'9 Well then, we've got to display some culture at our dinner. My patron - God rest his bones! - wanted me to hold up my head in any company. There's nothing new to me, as that there dish proves. Look now, these here heavens, as there are twelve gods living in 'em, changes into that many shapes. First it becomes the Ram. So whoever is born under that sign has a lot of herds, a lot of wool, a hard head as well, a brassy front and a sharp horn. Most scholars are born under this sign, and most muttonheads as well.'
We applauded the wit of our astrologer and he went on:
'Then the whole heavens turns into the little old Bull. So bullheaded folk are born then, and cow-herds and those who find their own feed. Under the Heavenly Twins on the other hand - pairs-in-hand, yokes of oxen, people with big ballocks and people who do it both ways. I was born under the Crab, so I have a lot of legs to stand on and a lot of property on land and sea, because the Crab takes both in his stride. And that's why I put nothing over him earlier, so as not to upset my horoscope. Under Leo are born greedy and bossy people. Under the Virgin, effeminates, runaways and candidates for the chain-gang. Under the Scales, butchers, perfume-sellers and anyone who weighs things up. Under Scorpio poisoners and murderers. Under Sagittarius are born cross-eyed people who look at the vegetables and take the bacon. Under Capricorn, people in trouble who sprout horns through their worries. Under the Water-Carrier, bartenders and jugheads. Under the Fishes, fish-fryers and people who spout in public.
'So the starry sky turns round like a millstone, always bringing some trouble, and men being born or dying.
'Now as for what you see in the middle, the piece of grass and on the grass the honeycomb, I don't do anything without a reason it's Mother Earth in the middle, round like an egg, with all good things inside her like a honeycomb.'
40. 'Oh, clever!' we all cried, raising our hands to the ceiling and swearing that Hipparchus and Aratus couldn't compete with him.
Then the servants came up and laid across the couches embroidered coverlets showing nets, hunters carrying broad spears, and all the paraphernalia of hunting. We were still wondering which way to look when a tremendous clamour arose outside the dining-room, and - surprise! - Spartan hounds began dashing everywhere, even round the table. Behind them came a great dish and on it lay a wild boar of the largest possible size, and, what is more, wearing a freedman's cap on its head. From its tusks dangled two baskets woven from palm leaves, one full of fresh Syrian dates, the other of dried Theban dates. Little piglets made of cake were all round as though at its dugs, suggesting it was a brood sow now being served. These were actually gifts to take home. Surprisingly the man who took his place to cut up the boar was not our old friend Carver but a huge bearded fellow, wearing leggings and a damask hunting coat. He pulled out a hunting knife and made a great stab at the boar's side and, as he struck, out flew a flock of thrushes...