The Sibyl in the "Satyricon"

Author(s): H. D. Cameron
Source: The Classical Journal , May, 1970, Vol. 65, No. 8 (May, 1970), pp. 337-339
Published by: The Classical Association of the Middle West and South, Inc. (CAMWS)

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3295627

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THE SIBYL IN THE SATYRICON

another excellent one that followed it in

F EW BITS OF LATIN are as familiar to the
general reader as the remark of1966
theby William Arrowsmith,2 classicists
rich
but vulgar freedman Trimalchio at his
have ban-to treat the passage as evidence
tended
for the history
quet in the 48th chapter of the Satyricon of of religions or folklore and
Petronius that he had seen themythology
Sibyl atrather than as an element in the
Cumae hanging in a bottle. Thestructure
passageof the Satyricon. Comparisons
reads: are made with other geniis in bottles, with
some discussion of how the Sibyl and other
Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis
meis vidi in ampulla pendere, et cum illi pueri such gentry get small enough to get into
their bottles, or parallels are drawn to long-
dicerent: _it`vXXa 7r OEXEt~ respondebat illa
cirwoaveZv O Xw. lived ladies in Schwinemuende or London.
"Why, I myself saw with my own eyes the These discussions can be very informative
Sibyl at Cumae in a bottle, and when the boys for some purposes, especially if they tell us
said to her, 'Sibyl, what do you want?,' she something about magic and divination in
answered, 'I want to die.'"
antiquity,3 but they really do not touch
It is generally familiar primarily because upon the first basic question, a literary one:
T. S. Eliot chose it for an epigraph to The what prompts Trimalchio to make this
waste land, but the reader of this poem seemingly unconnected reference to the
who turns to Petronius and the context of Sibyl at all?
the lines for illumination of Eliot's choice The answer is twofold. First I shall dis-
will be disappointed, for Trimalchio makescuss the general reasons why the story of
the statement quite out of the blue with no
the Sibyl is appropriate to the themes of the
apparent connection with the surroundingCena Trimalchionis, and here I shall rely a
discourse. There seems, in fact, to be nogood deal on the discussions of Bacon and
context. The question I will try to answer
Arrowsmith. Secondly, I shall discuss the
in this paper is why the remark about Sibyl
logical, or illogical, connections by which
is in the Satyricon in the first place.
Trimalchio brings the reference into the
The larger thematic relationships between
particular conversation in which it occurs.
The waste land and the Satyricon are in-
telligently discussed in a 1958 article by2 William Arrowsmith, "Luxury and death in the
Helen Bacon,' and I do not intend to pursueSatyricon," Arion 5 (1966) 304 f.
that question here, except insofar as her ' M. R. James, "The Sibyl in Petronius," CR 6
(1892) 74; Campbell Bonner, "The Sibyl and bot-
arguments help to answer the questiontle I imps," Quantulacumque: studies presented to
have posed. Kirsopp Lake (London 1937), p. 1 f.; R. A. Pack,
Apart from Miss Bacon's article and "The Sibyl in a lamp," TAPhA 87 (1956) 190 f.;
Paul Veyne, "La Sibylle dans la bouteille," Hom-
1Helen H. Bacon, "The Sibyl in the bottle,"
mages &i J. Bayet Coll. Latomus LXX (1964)
Virginia quarterly review 34 (1958) 262 f. 718 f.

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 338 H. D. CAMERON

The story of
sneak out unobservedthe
midway through Siby
the
length infestivities,
the 14th
another barking watchdog chal-bo
phoses (132
lenges them,f.) and
Ascyltus falls in
into a Styx-like
on fish pond,
Vergil Aen. and Gito has the6.321
presence of
closely. The
mind to pacifybeautiful
the hound with fragments of
Apollo, who
food like the invited
traditional sop that subdues h
thing she thedesired
guardian of Hades (72). and
sought immortality.
Death is Trimalchio's preoccupation as it
of earth is the Sibyl's. asked
she She, having the blessedto gift
as she held grains
of long life, has only one wish: to be able to of
she neglected to
die; and Trimalchio, though ask
the world is
and so his honeycomb (39, 43, away
wasted 76), and he has
the achieved
years every desire, and gained every
longing fo
smaller prize of wealth
and and good luck, longs to die.
smaller, f
In the Beyond the general thematic
larger thema justifica-
who wants tion for to
the passage,die,
we can still ask what
is l
at the banquet prompts Trimalchio to (34) say it. How does a it r
to come to the revellers. In this case death fit into the conversation? It seems to be
seems for them a welcome release from their totally unconnected with what goes before,
earnest and contrived merriment. Death and yet Trimalchio seems to regard what he
says
preoccupies Trimalchio, and he seems to as a logical consequence of what has
look forward to it with an impatient long-gone before. Where is that logical link?
Trimalchio, the parvenu, has literary pre-
ing, which for all its vulgarity and tasteless-
tensions.
ness, awakens our sympathetic pity for him. He respects learning as a neces-
The first thing we learn about him, when sary ornament for the gentleman, and salts
his conversation with literary allusions. The
we see him frolicking in the baths, is that
trouble is that he usually gets them wrong,
he has a clock and a trumpeter in his dining
room to tell him how much longer heand hasbetrays himself by producing a mish-
to live (26). He anticipates his death bymash of mythological conflations. As he
begins to explain the astrological meaning
reading his will (71), by dwelling lovingly
upon the cluttered sculptural details of of
theone of the monstrous culinary confec-
tions he has put before his guests, with a
baroque tomb he is having made for himself
(71), and finally at the end of the Cena misplaced
(78) comparison between himself and
he stretches out on the cushions and criesUlysses,
to he says, "You've got to know your
his guests, "Pretend I'm dead and say philology
nice even at the dinner table": oportet
etiam inter cenandum philologiam nosse
things about me." Petronius further under-
(39). With a modest and deprecatory air
lines this nostalgia for death when he invites
a comparison between Trimalchio's house he claims to know enough about literature
to get him through the day: in domusionem
and the underworld by providing the usual
tamen litteras didici (48).4 Some examples
poetic trappings of a descensus ad Avernum.
of his learning include Hannibal's capture
When our heroes-Ascyltus, Encolpius, and
of Troy (50) and Cassandra's killing her
Gito-enter the lavish homestead of their
children (52). This latter is depicted on a
host, they are momentarily startled by a
wine jug, and since it is customary to praise
huge dog which turns out to be painted on
sculpture or painting by calling it life-like,
the wall with the legend Cave canem. Not
Trimalchio finds himself saying that the
only does the painted dog at the entrance
(29) call to mind Cerberus, but also, when
' H reads divisione here. I have accepted Wehle's
Gito, Ascyltus and Encolpius attemptplausible
to invention domusionem.

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 THE SIBYL IN THE SATYRICON 339

dead children used to read very

look about these things in Homer.
life-like.
flations of stories become even more elabo- Why, I even saw the Sibyl at Cumae with
rate when Daedalus shuts Niobe in the Tro-
my own eyes," says he.
jan Horse. Trimalchio then summarizes the What has the Sibyl to do with Homer?
story of the Iliad by explaining that Dio-Trimalchio has confused the names again
medes and Ganymedes were two brothers. and the stories that go with them. He has
Their sister was Helen. Agamemnon kid- confused the name /lflvAAa with the similar
napped her and substituted a deer for Diana
name YKv'Aha, and foisted upon Odysseus
(59). an adventure wherein he meets, not the
These confusions of Cassandra with Me- squid-like lady of the straits, but the proph-
dea, Niobe and the Trojan Horse withetess of Cumae.7
Pasipha6 and the bull, Helen with Iphige- The passage is there, disconnected as it is,
neia, Agamemnon with Paris, and Diomedesthrough one of Trimalchio's characteristic
and Ganymedes with the Atreidae (perhapsmythological mistakes, but it is a mistake
also with the Dioscuri) supply much of thewith a wry kind of logic to it. Trimalchio's
recurrent humor of the banquet. A certainunhappiness with his hard won luxury,
amount of Trimalchio's confusion arises out
causes him to dwell upon the comforts of
of rhyming or similar names: Niobe-Pasi- death. The dreary opulence about him is
pha6, Diomedes-Ganymedes-Atreides. the fulfillment of his lifelong dream. When
References to the Odyssey, either veiled the conversation turns to Homer, the simi-
or explicit, are so frequent in the Satyricon larity of names, Scylla and Sibylla, prompts
as to give rise to a very plausible theory Trimalchio to bring to his luxurious ban-
that Petronius meant his book to be a sort quet this sad symbol of his discontent.8
of mock Odyssey.5 Trimalchio in his way is
H. D. CAMERON
proud of his knowledge of Odysseus' wan-
derings, and he quizzes the professor, Aga- Lawrence University and the
memnon, about how the Cyclops twisted University of Michigan
out Odysseus' thumb when he was a pig:
Quemadmodum illi Cyclops pollicem por- Buecheler (3rd and 4th eds.) reads porcino but
thinks it is some kind of wedge-shaped instrument.
cino extorsit (48).6 "When I was a boy I He compares the porcinum caput of Vegetius De
re mil. 3.19, but there it is a wedge-shaped forma-
5 See J. P. Sullivan, The Satyricon of Petroniustion of men, not an instrument.
(Bloomington 1968), p. 42 and n. 1 for discussion 7 It may be objected that with the confusion
and bibliography, also the introduction to William between the Trojan Horse and the bronze bull
Arrowsmith's translation of the Satyricon (Ann there is a tradition of Daedalus' enclosing someone
Arbor 1959), p. xv. in something, and that there ought to be another
6 H reads poricino here, a vox nihili. I have reason for identification, namely a tradition of a
adopted the reading of Antonius (Petronii Arbitri Scylla in a bottle. But that is no more necessary
Satyricon ex rec. Petri Burmanni . . . notas criticas
than having a story of Cassandra with children or
... addidit Conr. Gottlob Antonius, Lipsiae 1781of Niobe enclosed in an animal.
ad loc.). It was first suggested to me by Marilyn 8 This paper was written while I enjoyed the
Kuperman Scott. Of all the suggestions made to hospitality of Lawrence University as a visiting
remedy this word Antonius' is the only one whichprofessor, and a version of it was read at the meet-
is simple and convincing. Those who insist upon ings of the Classical Association of the Middle
finding the ablative of instrument in the word go
West and South at Boulder, Colorado in April
to unnecessary lengths. Friedliinder thinks there 1969.
is I profited from remarks at that time of sev-
some combination such as forcipe ligneo hidden eral people, especially Emeline Hill Richardson
here. Reinesius reads penicillo meaning "fir tree."
and John W. Zarker.

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