Note 542 — Chapter II · PETRONIUS: NOVELIST AND POET

This was Mommsen’s view, Herm., XIII. 114 (cf. “Trimalchios Heimat u. Grabschrift” in his Ges. Schr., 7, 1909, Berl.), which some think incompatible with Trimalchio’s reference to seeing the Sibyl in a cage at Cumae (Satyr., 48). For other views see Schanz, Gesch. d. röm. Lit., 1913, p. 126. After the sea-voyage, from § 116 to the end, the scene is definitely at Crotona. Some missing incidents may have occurred at Massilia; for Servius (ad Verg., Aen., III. 57) ascribes to Petronius the story of a human scapegoat there in time of plague (cf. Sid. Apoll., XXIII. 155-156: “te Massiliensium per hortos sacri stipitis Arbiter colonum....” But it is too impetuous to infer therefrom, as some have done, a Gallic origin for Petronius, or to regard his Satyricon as the beginning of the French novel!)