BMCR 2009.07.36: Fratantuono on Prag, Petronius: A Handbook

J. R. W. Prag, Ian Repath (ed.), Petronius: A Handbook.
Chichester/Malden, MA:  Wiley-Blackwell, 2009.  Pp. xii, 256.  ISBN
9781405156875.  $100.00.

Reviewed by Lee Fratantuono, Ohio Wesleyan University ([email protected])
Word count:  1645 words
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Clearly, the market for "handbooks," "companions," "readings in," and
other such anthologies of scholarship on all manner of classical topics
has not proven so saturated as to preclude a continuing, indeed steady
stream of additional titles.  To its credit, the present volume is, to
the best of my knowledge, the first such collection of articles or
chapters exclusively devoted to Petronius's Satyricon (or
Satyrica).[[1]]  The present volume also contains entirely original
work, with nothing reprinted (revised or otherwise) from some other
source.  Honesty compels the observation that the price of this
"handbook," and others like it from the same publisher, is woefully
inflated, though the production values are impeccable, from
proofreading to binding.

The stated goal of this collection is to provide a series of articles
on a "range of topics" that reflected in part a desire to being
together work from a variety of "different approaches" on an admittedly
challenging text.  By and large the editors' goals have been
accomplished, and creditably so, by this volume.  All students and
teachers of Petronius will want to have access to this "handbook," even
if, as is perhaps inevitable with collections of this sort, the end
result is something less than the sum of its constituent parts.

It is difficult to discern the audience(s) for this handbook; we are
sent to "Homer's Iliad" (sic) to learn about more the name "Agamemnon,"
while elsewhere a more sophisticated readership seems to lurk.  It is
regrettable that Petronius's Latin is not often used for quotes from
the novel, which was the end result this reviewer feared when classics
titles started printing translations of all Latin and Greek along with
the originals.[[2]]  There are no footnotes or endnotes, but rather
internal citations that are a bit distracting; there is an uneasy union
here, as in other books of this type, of a desire to document and
accessibility to a neophyte readership that is unlikely to pursue many
of the cited references.  More seriously, broad brush strokes sometimes
obscure points of serious scholarly debate.  There is a tendency to
internal cross-referencing between the chapters that seems rather
self-serving, even if the attempt at unity between the contributions is
commendable (however limiting if not impossible).  One gathers that the
intention is for the reader to proceed sequentially through the
chapters, though I would suspect most users of this book will sample
according to taste.  Besides the individual chapters there is a
comprehensive bibliography that (refreshingly) does not limit itself to
anglophone scholarship, as well as an Index Locorum and ample general
index.

The editors begin with a useful introduction that includes a helpful
glossary of characters from the novel and an abbreviated guide to
texts, translations, and some secondary work, though strangely much of
this is duplicated in the bibliography section appended to the first
article, Slater's piece on "Reading the Satyrica".  A conspicuous
omission from the introduction is a summary of the manuscript tradition
of the novel.

N. Slater's chapter is an application of reader-response criticism to
Petronius's fragmentary novel that comes as no surprise to readers of
the author's previous monograph.[[3]]  What is most valuable here are
the reminders about the reality of book production and the practical
logistics of "reading" and "listening" in Roman antiquity that students
of the ancient novel need to keep in mind as they begin work on
Petronius, even if "reader-response" criticism sometimes seems an
exercise in dressing up the obvious.

J.R. Morgan's chapter is on the influence of Greek literature on
Petronius, with the expected study of Homer, Plato, and the Greek
novel.  Morgan's essay also touches a bit on Petronius's relationship
to Virgil, especially in considering the Cena Trimalchionis as
Virgilian and Homeric underworld (though the interesting connection
between Virgil and Petronius's labyrinth imagery is not made clear).

C. Panayotakis' chapter is a companion to Morgan's that focuses on
Latin literature.  Panayotakis observes that if it were not for the
Greek novel and other related texts, he might think the Satyricon were
an "impertinent Aeneid," though the necessary major correspondences are
lacking, and it is more than stretching to support a connection between
Encolpius' penis and Dido because both names are grammatically
feminine.  It is regrettable that the connections drawn with Latin
literature only begin with Horace and virtually ignore everything
before.  The influence of the Roman elegists on Petronius is also
missing here.  And where is Lucan?  The scant coverage is explained by
material found in other essays in the volume, though most readers
interested in the topic will want to find more on this vast subject in
the present chapter, even if only cursory coverage.  It is good to see
a reference to Collignon's magisterial study, too often neglected by
modern Petronians.[[4]]

Victoria Rimell's chapter is on language and sound, and one of the
better offerings in this collection.  Petronius's Latin is finally
allowed to see the light of day, and Rimell does it more than justice;
this chapter (and Caroline Vout's below) should be required reading for
seminars on the Satyricon.  Because of the appearance of the extensive
Latin, there is almost a sense of shock when one studies this chapter
after a sequential reading of the preceding ones.  The crucial
intertext between Lucan, Petronius, and the omnipresent place of civil
war in the Roman psyche is here masterfully studied.

A. Richlin's chapter is on sex in Petronius.  I am not sure there was a
"common Roman stereotype of women as sex-crazed."  The opening of this
chapter is best, where an overview of Roman sexual customs is presented
lucidly and succinctly; less effective is where Bakhtin, Freud, and
first-person shooter computer games make unnecessary appearances.  I am
not convinced "that jokes establish norms much as laws do" and that
jokes do not tell us anything direct about their targets; good humor is
funny precisely because of its truth.  "Histories of Latin literature.
. .identified the main characters as Greeks and/or freed slaves"
because that is what they are, not because of any agenda to keep Roman
citizens out of the picture.  Nor am I sure that "freeborn" connoted
"chaste" to a Roman audience, or that novels offer "video" where "other
kinds of texts offer snapshots" to the historian of Roman sexuality.
Richlin concludes her essay with a valuable summary of the Satyricon's
history as a banned text, even if I cannot share the author's concern
about the possible future banning of the book (worthier of fear is the
already serious decline in the number of those who can read it in
Latin, as many of the conventions of this collection bear witness).
Craig Williams's work should have been included in the chapter
bibliography.  So also Ellen Oliensis's.

Caroline Vout's chapter on the Satyrica and Roman culture is an
outstanding essay, and the volume's finest contribution.  Vout begins
where we must, with Nero and his courtiers and the important work of
the late Kenneth Rose.  Not surprisingly, as with Victoria Rimell's
chapter, Vout's work is excellent in part because of its close study of
the Latin text, which again makes a welcome appearance.  If we must
imagine Petronius's original audience if we are to gain a better
understanding of his work, Vout's essay provides the right material for
study.  Refreshingly, the prose is attractive and the ideological axes
are left for others to grind.  Her discussion of the Cyclops as
metaphor for the emperor (after Philostratus) is splendid.

J. Andreu's chapter on freedmen is translated by Paul Dilley (if we
cannot expect Latin competence these days, still less French!).  One of
the finer contributions, Andreu's work provides the necessary
prolegomenon to understanding a crucial social dynamic at play in
Petronius's novel.  Good here is Andreu's reflection on John Bodel's
work on the non-future of Roman freedmen.

K. Verboven's work on the economics in the Satyricon is a companion to
Andreu's in offering essential material on a still relatively
understudied aspect of this novel.  Especially good here is the section
on the agricultural underpinning of Trimalchio's economy.

V. Hope's chapter concerns itself with Roman funeral traditions and the
tomb of Trimalchio, and provides a fine pairing with S. Hales'
contribution on "vulgar villas."  Hales offers a particularly good
section on the absence of hunting narrative from the art in
Trimalchio's domus.

One imagines that many people know something of Petronius from the film
Quo Vadis, itself an adaptation of a novel originally written in
Polish,  published complete in 1896 and later translated into English.
Historical fiction such as this, the most famous work of the Nobel
laureate Henryk Sienkiewicz, is the subject of a fine essay by S.J.
Harrison on (mostly) English novels relevant to Nero's Rome.  These are
the novels that (in some cases at least) many classicists have seen on
dusty shelves and may even have read as part of a childhood sparking of
interest in antiquity; Harrison provides a useful overview of a
neglected area of inquiry.

The last essay is J. Paul's work on the Fellini-Satyricon.  Paul is
working on a monograph devoted to depictions of ancient Rome in film,
and one gets the sense that word count worked against her in this
essay; she clearly has much more to say, and to say well, on a vast
subject (the same is true of Harrison's essay).  One wishes in
particular for more commentary on the haunting frescoed ending of
Fellini's film.

The success of this volume as a whole depends of course on one's
definition of "handbook."  The baker's dozen of articles provided here
(including the introduction) certainly cover a broad range of relevant
topics, and some of the contributions offer treatments of a given topic
that are both sophisticated and accessible to a wide range of
audiences.  The editors are to be commended for what must be one of the
most lasting and praiseworthy products born over a "couple of pints of
beer in a pub in Nottingham."


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Notes:


1.   Harrison, S.J. Oxford Readings in the Roman Novel, Oxford, 1999
covers both Petronius and Apuleius.

2.   The editors note (p. 4) that all Latin is translated (true); less
accurate is the statement that "the Latin is often quoted or referred
to," since only Rimell and Vout do so to a significant degree.  In
referencing the handbook's chapters I have in general resisted the
temptation to follow Nicholas Horsfall's admirable and useful
convention of citing individual contributions by surname, initial, or
Christian name based on the relative merit of the essay.

3.   Reading Petronius.  Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press,
1990.

4.   E/tude sur Petrone: La critique litteraire, l'imitation et la
parodie dans le Satiricon. Paris, 1892.