Note 20 — LECTURE I SURVEY OF RECENT LITERATURE

An incidental passage in Dr. Dill’s Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius (p. 120 f.) deserves to be set by the side of Dr. Drummond’s. He is speaking of the Satiricon of Petronius. ‘Those who have attributed it to the friend and victim of Nero have been confronted with the silence of Quintilian, Juvenal, and Martial, with the silence of Tacitus as to any literary work by Petronius, whose character and end he has described with a curious sympathy and care. It is only late critics of the lower empire, such as Macrobius, and a dilettante aristocrat like Sidonius Apollinaris, who pay any attention to this remarkable work of genius. And Sidonius seems to make its author a citizen of Marseilles. Yet silence in such cases may be very deceptive. Martial and Statius never mention one another, and both might seem unknown to Tacitus. And Tacitus, after the fashion of the Roman aristocrat, in painting the character of Petronius, may not have thought it relevant or important to notice a light work such as the Satiricon, even if he had ever seen it. He does not think it worth while to mention the histories of the Emperor Claudius, the tragedies of Seneca, or the Punica of Silius Italicus.’