11/20/2018 CLA77, Andrew Scholtz

Agenda Recap and Update Immoral Morality? What If?... Context, Story and Theme, Satire Immoral Morality? “The Widow of Ephesus” (pp. 118 ff.) What If?... Finnis and Nussbaum on Petronius 11/20/2018

Context, Story and Theme, Satire Recap and Update Context, Story and Theme, Satire 11/20/2018

The World of the Satyricon… 11/20/2018 The World of the Satyricon… CLA77, Andrew Scholtz

Naples Puteoli Croton Pompeii 11/20/2018 CLA77, Andrew Scholtz Nero (Nero Claudius Caesar) r. 54-68 Philhellene artiste Petronius arbiter elegantiae (overseer of entertainments) suicide, 65 CE Satyricon (episodic novel) Pompeii CLA77, Andrew Scholtz

Satyricon: Plot Outline 11/20/2018 Satyricon: Plot Outline Lost text Encolpius & … Lycurgus (?) Encolpius gladiator kills Lycurgus lanista Lichas (Enc’s affair w/ wife) Tryphaena (theft of Giton) “Brothers” & Quartilla offense vs. Priapus Preserved text “Bros’” Escapades about town Reunion w/ Quartilla Priapic offense atoned for? Preserved text (cont.) Dinner w/ Trimalchio Eumolpus & “bros.” Pergamene boy Shipboard reunion w/ Lichas, Tryphaena widow of Ephesus theft of Isis’ gear shipwreck Con in Croton Encolpius’ impotence w/ Circe w/ Oenothea Philomela lena Eumolpus’ will Themes 11/20/2018 CLA77, Andrew Scholtz

“Priapic” themes… 11/20/2018 CLA77, Andrew Scholtz satyricon: “priapic themes” – mostly that around priapus revolve a number of related themes – these connections suggest what f could have termed a social-sexual isomorphism theme - general considerations power pleasure fertility fortune scopophilic fascination what arrowsmith calls romanitas – whose imperilment arrowsmith argues the novel dramatize details… plot points “... Quartilla, whose secret rites in the grotto of Priapus you disturbed” (§ 17) (Trimalchio’s Priapic tray of treats, § 60) Priapus appears to Lichas in dream (chance at revenge: § 104) Encolpius’s sexual disfunction (§§ 126 ff.) Encolpius (“crotch”) impotent “anti-Priapus” allegory: anti-Priapic impotence = . . . “objective correlative” for mos maiorum in decline hyper-phallic ascyltus – friend/rival to encolpius Oenothea, priestess-witch of Priapus killing of her sacred goose sexual-social-political dimension “sexualization of power” Vasily Rudich Dissidence and Literature under Nero: The Price of Rhetoricization (London and New York 1997), 208–9 subversion of mos maiorum “ways of the ancestors” (traditional morality) scandalously sexualized court abuse of power and subversion of res publica (legitimate government) decline of traditional aristocracy rise of freedman class (Trimalchio!) decline in artistic-literary standards CLA77, Andrew Scholtz

11/20/2018 Satyricon, its “A B C”s… CLA77, Andrew Scholtz

Or, the Satyricon as Satire 11/20/2018 Or, the Satyricon as Satire In Petronius’ Satyricon, “A” is for… Petronius – Encolpius Giton active/passive “B” is for (target).. Encolpius self-satirizing Roman society Eumpolpus (pederasty, anti-pederasty) “C” is for… talks to self! encourages self! petronian satire as evidence?? bewilderment, revulsion, maybe even a prurient voyeurism, all that seems to connect the reader to the actors, to implicate the reader in the simultaneously bemused and disgusted gaze internal to the novel in way, petronius’ novel resembles a fascinum, a magic object that “fascinates,” that draws the desiring gaze yet simultaneously exhausts it with our eyes; we seek to possess and dominate, yet the object dominates us but why? why have his speakers moralize as much as they do if the point is to titillate? why disgust readers if his novel is supposed to supply pleasure? why baffle us if the point of communication is to convey an idea clearly? PETRONIUS, even more than j, poses the problem of the satiric frame, the question of editorial distance between, on the one hand, authorial voice and audience, on the other hand, target if “they,” a well defined external other, is target, then the satire demarcates an “us” defined through shared ideas of group definition – both as to what “we” are and how “we” should behave but to the extent that author and/or audience is targeted – is “c” – then the work in question dramatizes the self’s struggle with its moral environment, and forces readers to reflect critically on those very ideologies 11/20/2018 CLA77, Andrew Scholtz

“The Widow of Ephesus” (pp. 118 ff.) Immoral Morality? “The Widow of Ephesus” (pp. 118 ff.) 11/20/2018

The Moral? even chaste woman falls for man (cynical) Juvenal-like – misogynistic cynicism or maybe commentary on human nature women as stupid b/c sex-driven men as dogs – no reverence guy in control at first, but woman now takes leading univira – one-woman man 11/20/2018

Finnis and Nussbaum on Petronius What If?... Finnis and Nussbaum on Petronius 11/20/2018

“Your response to Petronius?”… 11/20/2018 “Your response to Petronius?”… Finnis, “Law, Morality, and ‘Sexual Orientation’ ” Notre Dame Law Review 69.5 (1994) 1049–76 Nussbaum, “Platonic Love and Colorado Law: The Relevance of Ancient Greek Norms to Modern Sexual Controversies” Virginia Law Review 80.7 (1994) 1515–1652 11/20/2018 CLA77, Andrew Scholtz

Finnis/Nussbaum on Petronius… Satyricon a critique of roman tradition anti-universalist 11/20/2018