Trimalchio as Narrator and Stage Director in the Cena: An Unobserved Parallelism in

Petronius’ Satyricon 78
Author(s): Stavros Frangoulidis
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Classical Philology, Vol. 103, No. 1 (January 2008), pp. 81-87
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/590096 .
Accessed: 01/03/2012 16:08

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
Classical Philology.

http://www.jstor.org
 Notes and Discussions 81

TRIMALCHIO AS NARRATOR AND STAGE DIRECTOR IN THE CENA:

AN UNOBSERVED PARALLELISM IN PETRONIUS’ SATYRICON 78

Scholars of Petronius’ Cena Trimalchionis have interpreted the theatrical aspects of

Trimalchio’s lavish banquet as indicative of his ridiculously ostentatious behavior.1
Yet none have considered how this theatricality illustrates the protagonist’s attempt to
control death and posterity via material wealth. This is most eloquently shown in the
enactment of the funeral towards the end of the banquet. 2 Furthermore, Trimalchio’s
funeral spectacle exhibits several intratextual links with the ghost story he has earlier
recounted to his dinner guests, so as to intimate that there are unexpected and
uncontrollable forces in the world (63). Both funeral ritual and ghost story are stage-
managed “performances” by Trimalchio, and both end in disaster because external
forces wreak havoc when they intrude. These links between the ghost story and the
mock funeral could be viewed as rendering the former a narrative anticipation of the
latter, thus allowing the novel’s readers to foresee the development of events. As
narrator, however, Trimalchio fails to observe these links, and stages his funeral
as a visual, apotropaic act, as if by doing so he will somehow exert control over his
actual death. Thus he goes directly against the moral he offers to his listeners at the
conclusion of his ghost story. This technique seems to be a narrative strategy devised
by Petronius to expose one more aspect of Trimalchio’s naïveté in the Cena.
To my knowledge, Trimalchio’s ghost story and his funeral spectacle have thus far
been unanimously treated as quite independent narrative units. 3 The extent to which
the ghost story and funeral spectacle resemble each other has never been elucidated.
In what follows, I shall argue that Trimalchio’s ghost story (63)—a prime example
of the host’s attempts to astound his guests—foreshadows the disastrous end of the
banquet (78). Thus Trimalchio unwittingly gives readers a taste of what is to come
when uncontrollable external forces are provoked.

This paper is dedicated to S. N. Philippides, on the occasion of his becoming an emeritus professor.
A version of the paper was presented at the conference on “Viewing and Listening” organized by my
colleagues, Anastasia-Erasmia Peponi and Lucia Athanassaki, and held at the University of Crete, May
23–25, 2004. I wish to express my thanks to the conference audience for helpful discussion; to Niall W.
Slater, Victoria Rimell, David George, S. J. Harrison, June W. Allison, and Yannis Tzifopoulos for com-
ments on earlier drafts; to David Konstan for his much-appreciated help in the last stage of publication;
to CP’s anonymous reader for thought-provoking observations; and to CP’s editor, David Wray, and the
managing editor, Elizabeth Adkins, for their help. The text of the Satyricon is from the 1995 Teubner edition
prepared by Müller. The English translation is that of Branham and Kinney (1996), with slight modifications.
1. Sandy 1974, 329–46; Saylor 1987, 593–602; Slater 1990, passim; Panayotakis 1995, 52–109; Jones
1991, 185–98; Rosati 1999, 85–104; Courtney 2001, 72–126; Rimell 2002. For an excellent discussion of
the intertextual links between Trimalchio’s dinner and both Plato’s Symposium and Horace’s Satire 2.8,
see Conte 1996, 122–39. On the relationship between Trimalchio’s dinner and Plato’s Symposium, see also
Bodel 1999, 40–41. On the narrative architecture of the Satyricon, see Hubbard 1986, 190–212, and on
discussion of polarities found in the Satyricon and also the Cena, see Laird 1999, 209–58.
2. Rimell (2002, 185) hints at this idea when she observes, “Indeed Trimalchio is so petrified of death
that he wants to be able to exert full control over it: he has a clock and trumpeter to inform him how much
life is gone (26.9), calendars on each doorpost marked with lucky and unlucky days (30.4); he relishes
quoting dates (34.6): Falernum Opimianum annorum centum (‘One-hundred-year-old of Opimius’ vintage’),
and has a clerk recite statistics of happenings on his estate as if he is reading a daily newspaper (53); when
he gives orders for the design of his own tomb, he specifies that a clock take pride of place: horologium in
medio (71.11), and goes on to stage his own funeral, complete with death bed and shroud (78).”
3. See Lefèvre 2003, 147–57, especially for connections between the tales told by Niceros and Trimalchio;
Anderson 1999, 58–59; Slater 1990, 78–81; Courtney 2001, 121–23.
82 Notes and Discussions

Following Niceros’ werewolf story, Trimalchio recounts his own ghost tale in
order to entertain his dinner guests (63.2–10). In this tale, mourners at a wake try to
console a dead young man’s wailing mother. The mother’s loud lament attracts a
group of witches, who then gather at the house. When a brave but foolhardy Cappa-
docian slave goes out to confront them, in all probability the witches gain entry to
the house, steal the corpse, put a straw changeling in its place, and drive the slave
raving mad. The night hags can thus be seen as unpredictable and uncontrollable
forces, which are constantly searching for a way to ruin people’s lives. Indeed, this
is the moral Trimalchio offers his listeners at the end of the tale; his personal con-
viction that such forces exist helps to account for his paranoid reaction whenever
unexpected events occur.
Trimalchio’s reference to the occult produces the desired reaction among his
audience—a sense of wonder and a plea to the supernatural not to intervene in the
guests’ lives (64.1): miramur nos et pariter credimus, osculatique mensam rogamus
Nocturnas, ut suis se teneant, dum redimus a cena (“we were as amazed as we were
persuaded. We kissed the table and prayed that these night riders stay at home—till
we could get back from dinner”). 4 Once the guests are held spellbound by fear of the
supernatural, Trimalchio is ready to lift the curtain on the performance proper.
The host’s culinary extravaganza may call to mind the witches’ artifice in the
ghost tale, thus making him appear as a witchlike figure. All the dishes served at his
instigation are designed to reinforce the notion that appearances deceive. Moreover,
they are served and cut so as to create narratives in their own right, with suspense
and a grand finale. 5 At 49, for example, a stuffed pig is served and the guests watch,
aghast, when it is cut and roasted sausages and giblets spill from its belly (49.10): nec
mora, ex plagis ponderis inclinatione crescentibus tomacula cum botulis effusa sunt
(“[t]he slits immediately gave way to the pressure from inside and roasted sausages
and giblets gushed out of the wound!”). The dish at 69.8 is described by Trimalchio
as corpus (“body”): “quidquid videtis hic positum, de uno corpore est factum”
(“ ‘[Friends], all you see here is made of the same thing’ ”), whereas in actual fact the
plate contains a fat goose surrounded by fish and birds. 6 Both of these scenes bring
to mind the horror of the grieving mother in the ghost story, who grasps the body of
her son only to discover that it has been emptied of heart and entrails. Thus, Trimalchio
tries to step into the role of sorcerer, with the ability to deceive his guests at every
turn. Nevertheless, the identification of Trimalchio with witches also reveals his
flawed powers, for he is manipulated by his wife Fortunata, who stands as a figure for
random Fortuna and can make him believe that it is dark at midday (37.5). At least
for his dinner guests, then, the host seems to embody the frightening, unpredictable,
and cruel forces represented by the witches, yet he is not as immune to erratic turns
of events as he might think.

4. Anderson (1999, 59) observes that the narrator Encolpius does not believe in such tales, yet he appears
to agree with Trimalchio’s ghost story, perhaps in order to show good manners.
5. For the visual and theatrical aspects of Trimalchio’s dishes, see the discussion in Jones 1991, 185–98.
6. In addition, the victims in the ghost story are slaves. In fact, Trimalchio characterizes the dead slave
as (63.3) margaritum (“gem”), which is also the name of Trimalchio’s tortured dog in the dogfight at 64.9
(Margaritam). Thus Trimalchio seems to assert himself as a witchlike master over his slaves.

Two Lines Short

 Notes and Discussions 83

This is most eloquently shown in the sequence of the narrative. At 77.2 Trimalchio,
having had recourse to an astrologer, goes so far as to claim that he knows the exact
day when he will die—thirty years, four months, and two days from the time the Cena
takes place. 7 Safe in this knowledge, he feels free to stage his mock funeral in front
of the assembled company. He orders his slave Stichus to bring the robe in which he
is to be buried, along with the unguent and the special wine reserved for the washing
of his bones. When the slave brings them, the host orders him to take care of his
robe, because he wants to be buried in glory with the eulogies of the crowd, and then
anoints his guests with perfumes. Beyond impressing the audience with the high
quality of these props (wine, funeral costume, and nard), the implicit message is that
Trimalchio has catered for absolutely everything. The host then becomes a composer
of fictions, as he asks his guests to imagine that they are at his funeral (78.4): “putate
vos” ait “ad perentalia mea invitatos esse” (“ ‘now pretend you were invited here
for my funeral banquet!’ ”). 8 He stretches out on the couch, plays the dead man, and
orders the trumpet players whom he has summoned into the room to play something
mournful (78.6): “fingite me” inquit “mortuum esse. dicite aliquid belli” (“ ‘pretend
I’m dead; play something beautiful’ ”). 9
Trimalchio’s orders to various individuals are reminiscent of stage directions,10
just like his earlier instructions to the tombstone maker Habinnas to construct his
funeral monument (71.5–12). In relation to the ensuing ritual, the “façade” of the
imaginary tomb may be read as a skene where the mock funeral will take place.
Trimalchio not only gives a detailed account of how his tomb is to be constructed,
but safeguards posthumous respect for himself by ordering that a fellow freedman be
placed outside the tomb as a guard (71.8). Here again, the host is implicitly acknowl-
edging that things may not be as he would wish—there may be people who wish to
deface his tomb—but once more, he is convinced that wealth can be used to protect
his reputation. The iconography of the monument tells the story of Trimalchio’s
ascent from an ex-slave to a wealthy and powerful freedman, as represented in the
narrative of the Cena, thus transforming the entire monument into an artistic repre-
sentation of the banquet. 11 Trimalchio even feels free to remove scenes if they
displease him in any way—hence the instructions that his wife Fortunata be ex-
cluded from the tomb sculptures and not be permitted to kiss him when he is laid out
(74.17). The underlying thought is that even after his death, Trimalchio can ensure
he will be remembered precisely as he wishes, whether or not this memory is a true
record of his life. By the same token, the funeral rehearsal can be regarded as an
attempt to control death.

7. This astrologer even knows Trimalchio’s intestines (76.11): intestinas meas noverat. Trimalchio, how-
ever, is going to be caught gutless, like the slave-boy in the story (63.8): non cor habebat, non intestina,
non quicquam.
8. Rimell 2002, 187.
9. Earlier, in 53.12, the host has made clear his keenness for acrobats and trumpet players, whose
activities he regards as two of his greatest pleasures in life.
10. Plaza 2000, 161.
11. For the representations in Trimalchio’s funeral monument and their relationship with art, see Whitehead
1993, 299–325; also Courtney 2001, 113–14.
84 Notes and Discussions

In the performance of the funeral proper, Trimalchio’s love of trumpeting proves

to be his undoing. An undertaker’s slave blows his horn as loudly as if it were an
actual funeral 12—an entirely understandable mistake, given that the trumpeter is not
a member of the host’s own household. As such, he cannot be expected to be accus-
tomed to the playacting of which Trimalchio is so fond. Firemen patrolling the
neighborhood mistake the sound of the horn for a fire alarm. Thus they break down
the doors with their axes and burst noisily into the house so as to put out the alleged
fire and rescue people, transforming the funeral ritual within the dinner spectacle
into a farce.
Though Trimalchio exercises complete control within his own domain, it is equally
clear that he cannot manipulate events occurring outside the confines of the house.
Thus in 72.7–9, the sophisticated narrator and his friends, dismayed by the dinner at
almost every turn, try to leave the house, but are prevented by a chained dog and
a guard, who reminds them of their status as guests and therefore members of the
“captive” audience attending the banquet “spectacle”: “erras” inquit “si putas te
exire hac posse qua venisti. nemo umquam convivarum per eadem ianuam emissus
est; alia intrant, alia exeunt” (“ ‘you are mistaken if you think that you can leave the
same way you came in; no guest has ever left the way he came in: they come in one
way and go out another’ ”). The inability of the guests to leave through the same
doors they used to enter the house reveals the host’s superstitious nature and there-
fore his attempt to exert control over his guests. It may also serve as another aspect
of the fictionalization of the Cena, as the idea that characters cannot leave by the
same door they entered is reminiscent of the underworld in Aeneid 6.898: portaque
emittit eburna (“sends them away through the ivory gate”). In contrast, Trimalchio’s
anxiety at being unable to control events beyond his immediate vicinity is apparent
in 53.8: the host becomes angry on hearing that the estate he owns in Pompeii has
been damaged in a fire. Although this outburst may be taken as a device to show off
in public that the rich man owns more estates than he is aware of, such power does not
necessarily imply true control over events. Rather, Trimalchio’s lack of knowledge
regarding the estate may be interpreted as revealing his lack of power and control
over it.
Such an interpretation is reinforced by Trimalchio’s reaction to the crowing of the
cock in 74.3: here again, the host reveals his anxiety and insecurity over matters he
cannot control. On hearing the crowing, the host reads it in ominous terms as fore-
telling death or fire in the neighborhood (an ironic twist with the benefit of hindsight,
given that the dinner ends precisely because the firemen nearby mistake a horn for
an alarm). The subsequent staging of the funeral spectacle seems designed to avert
death, but fire intervenes, giving a completely unpredictable surprise ending to the
fake funeral and, by extension, the ongoing dinner spectacle.
We are now in a position to examine the intratextual links between the funeral
rehearsal and the ghost story. The staging of the ritual by Trimalchio and his imper-

12. In blowing his horn louder than he should, the slave (78.6) calls to mind the crowing of the cock,
which sounds outside the confines of the house heralding the arrival of a new day. The connection is re-
inforced by Trimalchio’s own words earlier on: in 74.2 he characterizes the crowing cock as bucinus
(“trumpeter”), just like the trumpeter slave.
 Notes and Discussions 85

sonation of the dead (78) find their analogue in the wake of the young corpse at the
center of the ghost story (63). 13 In both narratives, events take place late at night.
In this context, the guests urged by Trimalchio to assume the role of mourners at a
funeral can be seen as equivalent to the attendants at the wake, who try to console
the wailing mother of the young dead (63.4). Furthermore, as the undertaker’s slave
blows his horn loudly (78.6), so there is the wailing of the young man’s mother.
Though the two sounds are clearly different in themselves, they both come from
within the house and act as catalysts for the intervention of external, uncontrollable
forces from outside: in the mock funeral the firemen patrolling the neighborhood
misread the sound of the horn as fire alarm, whereas in the ghost story the mother’s
wailing attracts a group of witches outside.
As stage director, Trimalchio may also be regarded as similar to the Cappadocian
slave. While the former is mistakenly convinced that he can cater for every eventuality
by using his wealth and power, the latter rushes out of the house in the naïve belief
that he can fight off any enemy by recourse to his bodily strength. It could be further
argued that the connection is reinforced by Trimalchio’s status as an ex-slave. If the
two characters are indeed playing out similar roles, there is more than a hint of irony
in the host’s unflattering reference to the valiant slave at 63.7 as baro (“simpleton”).
Going further, as intervening powers that lead to the breakdown of order, the
firemen occupy a position similar to that of the witches. While the former burst into
Trimalchio’s house with their axes and water to put out the alleged fire (78.7),
the latter break into the dead man’s home, steal the corpse and leave a straw change-
ling in its place (63.8). Clearly, there is a difference in the underlying motive of the
two groups: the firemen enter the house to rescue people, while the witches gain entry
to pursue their own evil ends. 14 Nevertheless, like the witches, the firemen create an
unpredictable surprise ending to the events, in place of the anticipated closure in the
form of a march; this becomes clear from the hint at 77.5 that there is going to be
a tour of the house, presumably after the mock funeral: et multa alia sunt, quae statim
vobis ostendam (“[t]here are lots of other things, which I’ll show you in a minute”).
These links between the ghost story and the funeral rehearsal render the former
a narrative anticipation, and mirror, of the latter. Trimalchio, however, fails to observe
these links and stages his funeral as a visual performance in order to control his
actual death. He thus provokes a farcical end to the entire spectacle his banquet
represents.
It could be argued that this finale is not entirely dissimilar to the spirit of the pre-
ceding incidents in the Cena: although the firemen charging in do curtail Trimalchio’s
show, they simultaneously provide him with a masterful and entirely unpredictable
surprise ending to what has been a novel performance. Nonetheless, it seems that
there is no indication the host planned for such a development, since at 77.5, as we
have seen, he hints that there is going to be a tour; nor is there any indication that
Trimalchio can turn the ensuing chaos to his advantage. If this were the case, the
“captive” audience—whom he is desperate to convince of his omnipotence—would
surely remain within his grasp.

13. For the theme of luxuria in the ghost tale, see Arrowsmith 1966, 311. Also Frangoulidis 2001, 42–49.
14. This difference can be explained: Trimalchio’s funeral is a staged event, whereas in the ghost story
the wake must be taken at face value.
86 Notes and Discussions

On the narrative level, it is at precisely this point that Encolpius and his sophis-
ticated friends, who have been disgusted with the funeral spectacle and the entire
dinner, take advantage of the breakdown of order to make a swift exit (78.8). Their
final escape serves as an indication of the host’s complete loss of control when
powerful forces intrude from outside, revealing just how much has changed since
the earlier failed attempt to flee (72.7–9). The narrator’s reaction and that of his
sophisticated friends to the banquet differs considerably from that of the uncultured
freedmen, who clearly revel in Trimalchio’s performances; so much so that in 57.2,
the freedman Hermerus abuses Ascyltos for laughing at the master’s lautitiae
(“entertainments”). 15
By focusing on the intratextual links between Trimalchio’s funeral spectacle and
his ghost story, I hope to have elucidated how the ghost tale foreshadows the disastrous
end of the funeral ritual within the banquet, thus revealing how neatly it is integrated
into the narrative of the Cena as a whole. It is interesting to observe here that in his
funeral show, Trimalchio does not limit himself to giving instructions for his death.
Instead, he reenacts it as a staged event, in an attempt to exercise control over his
actual death, which the astrologer has already foretold. In doing so, however, the
protagonist unwittingly provokes the intervention of uncontrollable forces. As we have
seen, this is precisely because Trimalchio fails to bear in mind the moral of his tale:
that there are powers that cannot be held in check. The narrative technique we have
examined seems to function as a device designed to expose Trimalchio’s foolishness
in believing that he can control events even beyond death by recourse to his material
wealth.
Stavros Frangoulidis
Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki

15. At 58.2 the same figure—Hermerus—changes his focus of attention and starts abusing Giton, who
bursts into loud laughter at one of his statements.

LITERATURE CITED

Anderson, G. 1999. The Novella in Petronius. In Latin Fiction: The Latin Novel in Context,
ed. H. Hofmann, 52–63. London.
Arrowsmith, W. 1966. Luxury and Death in the Satyricon. Arion 5: 304–31.
Bodel, J. 1999. The Cena Trimalchionis. In Latin Fiction: The Latin Novel in Context, ed.
H. Hofmann, 38–51. London.
Branham, R. B., and D. Kinney, trans. 1996. Petronius, “Satyrica”: A New Translation. Berkeley
and Los Angeles.
Conte, G. B. 1996. The Hidden Author: An Interpretation of Petronius’ “Satyricon.” Berkeley
and Los Angeles.
Courtney, E. 2001. A Companion to Petronius. Oxford.
Frangoulidis, S. A. 2001. PlouvtoÍ kai Katavptwsh: To Saturikovn tou PetrwnÇou. Istorikav
12.114: 42–49.
Hubbard, T. K. 1986. The Narrative Architecture of Petronius’ Satyricon. AntCl 55: 190–212.
Jones, C. P. 1991. Dinner Theater. In Dining in a Classical Context, ed. W. J. Slater, 185–98.
Ann Arbor, Mich.
Laird, A. 1999. Powers of Expression, Expressions of Power. Oxford.
 Notes and Discussions 87

Lefèvre, E. 2003. Petrons Spuknovellen 61.8–64.1. In Petroniana: Gedenkschrift für Hubert

Petersmann, ed. J. Herman and H. Rosen, 147–57. Heidelberg.
Müller, K., ed. 1995. Petronii Arbitri “Satyricon” Reliquiae. Stuttgart.
Panayotakis, C. 1995. Theatrical Elements in the “Satyrica” of Petronius. Leiden.
Plaza, M. 2000. Laughter and Derision in Petronius’ “Satyrica”: A Literary Study. Stockholm.
Rimell, V. 2002. Petronius and the Anatomy of Fiction. Cambridge.
Rosati, G. 1999. Trimalchio on Stage. In Oxford Readings in the Roman Novel, ed. S. J.
Harrison, 85–104. Oxford.
Sandy, G. 1974. Scaenica Petroniana. TAPA 104: 329–46.
Saylor, C. 1987. Funeral Games: The Significance of Games in the Cena Trimalchionis.
Latomus 46: 593–602.
Slater, N. W. 1990. Reading Petronius. Baltimore.
Whitehead, J. 1993. The “Cena Trimalchionis” and the Biographical Narration in Roman
Middle-Class Art. In Narrative and Event in Ancient Art, ed P. J. Holiday, 299–325.
Cambridge.