Sailing from Massalia, or Mapping Out the Significance of Encolpius’ Travels in the Satyrica

Trends in Classics – Supplementary Volumes Edited by Franco Montanari and Antonios Rengakos Scientific Committee Alberto Bernabé · Margarethe Billerbeck Claude Calame · Jonas Grethlein · Philip R. Hardie Stephen J. Harrison · Stephen Hinds · Richard Hunter Christina Kraus · Giuseppe Mastromarco · Gregory Nagy Theodore D. Papanghelis · Giusto Picone · Kurt Raaflaub Tim Whitmarsh · Bernhard Zimmermann Volume 40 Cultural Crossroads in the Ancient Novel Edited by Marília P. Futre Pinheiro, David Konstan and Bruce Duncan MacQueen ISBN 978-1-5015-1195-0 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-1-5015-0398-6 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-1-5015-0402-0 ISSN 1868-4785 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at https://dnb.dnb.de. © 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Logo: Christopher Schneider, Laufen Printing: CPI books GmbH, Leck ♾ Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com Table of Contents David Konstan Introduction 1 Mapping the World in the Ancient Novel Gottskálk Jensson Sailing from Massalia, or Mapping Out the Significance of Encolpius’ Travels 7 in the Satyrica Andrea Capra Xenophon’s ‘Round Trip’ Geography as narrative consistency in the Ephesiaka 17 Dimitri Kasprzyk Permeable worlds in Iamblichus’s Babyloniaka 29 Catherine Connors Babylonian stories and the ancient novel: Magi and the limits of empire in 39 Iamblichus’ Babyloniaka Ashli Jane Elizabeth Baker Theama Kainon: Reading Natural History in Achilles Tatius’ Leucippe and Clitophon 51 The Dialogic Imagination Shannon N. Byrne Fortunata and Terentia: A Model for Trimalchio’s Wife Christoph Kugelmeier Elements of Ancient Novel and Novella in Tacitus 65 79 VI Table of Contents Sophie Lalanne ‘A mirror carried along a high road’? Reflections on (and of) society in the Greek novel 93 Francesca Mestre and Pilar Gómez The Heroikos of Philostratus: A Novel of Heroes, and more Janelle Peters Springs as a Civilizing Mechanism in Daphnis and Chloe 107 123 Martina Meyer Arcadia Revisited: Material Gardens and Virtual Spaces in Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe and in Roman Landscape Painting 143 H. Christian Blood Narrating Voyages to Heaven and Hell: Seneca, Apuleius, and Bakhtin’s 163 Menippea Turning Points in Scholarship on the Ancient Novel Manuel Sanz Morales Copyists’ Versions and the Readership of the Greek Novel Marina F. A. Martelli Clues from the Papyri: Structure and Style of Chariton’s Novel 183 195 Nicola Pace New Evidence For Dating The Discovery At Traù Of The Petronian Cena 209 Trimalchionis Robert H. F. Carver Bologna as Hypata: Annotation, Transformation, and Transl(oc)ation in the 221 Circles of Filippo Beroaldo and Francesco Colonna Saiichiro Nakatani The First Japanese Translation of Daphnis & Chloe 239 VII Table of Contents Boundaries: Geographical and Metaphorical Ellen Finkelpearl Refiguring the Animal/Human Divide in Apuleius and Heliodorus 251 Mary Jaeger Eros the Cheese Maker: A Food Studies Approach to Daphnis and 263 Chloe Jason König Rethinking Landscape in Ancient Fiction: Mountains in Apuleius and Jerome 277 John Bodel Kangaroo Courts: Displaced Justice in the Roman Novel 291 Character and Emotion in the Ancient Novel David Konstan Pity vs. Forgiveness in Pagan and Judaeo-Christian Narratives Michael Cummings The Interaction of Emotions in the Greek Novels 305 315 Cristiana Sogno A Critique of Curiosity: Magic and Fiction in Apuleius’ 327 Metamorphoses Vered Lev Kenaan Spectacles of a Dormant Soul: A Reading of Plato’s Gyges and Apuleius’ 341 Lucius Edmund P. Cueva Why doesn’t Habrocomes run away from Aegialeus and his Mummified Wife?: Horror and the Ancient Novel 361 Mapping the World in the Ancient Novel Gottskálk Jensson Sailing from Massalia, or Mapping Out the Significance of Encolpius’ Travels in the Satyrica Abstract: The aim of this paper is to suggest a way of reading the severely fragmented text of the Satyrica by investigating the literary and cultural significance of the Massaliotic identity of Encolpius, the narrator and fictional author of this ancient Graeco-Roman traveler’s tale by Petronius. I argue that, even if we are missing many details of the plot, we are still able to draw important conclusions about the basic purpose and artistic aim of the original full-text Satyrica, which was most likely designed as an entertaining satire on the sorry state of Greek cities under Roman rule. Accordingly, the underlying story can hardly have been conceived by a member of the Roman senatorial aristocracy; rather, the Satyrica appears to be a Roman adaptation, however freely made, from an otherwise lost Milesian novel in Greek. This paper argues that, despite the fragmentary condition of its text, it remains possible to reconstruct usefully the plot of the Satyrica and map out Encolpius’ travels based on the evidence of the preserved text and some fragments, particularly fragments I and IV (Bücheler). As I shall attempt to show, we do not need to have every single plot detail in place to be able to draw important conclusions about the basic purpose and artistic aim of the original full-text Satyrica. The geographical signposts for reconstructing the travels of Encolpius are simple enough. In chapter 99 of the extant text, when Eumolpus leads Encolpius and Giton on board the ship of Lichas in the urbs Graeca (Sat. 81,3), a city much like the quintessential Greek colony of Neapolis (‘New City’), it soon becomes clear that the boys have been on that very ship before, and fled from it in another port in the Bay of Naples. The flight is related to their complicated erotic relationships with a luxury-loving passenger, Tryphaena, who is being transported to Tarentum ‘as an exile’ (Sat. 100), and with the captain, Lichas, and not least with his wife (Sat. 113,3, libidinosa migratio). The ship is carrying goods to be sold in Tarentum (Sat. 101). Although the ship is a large merchantman built for long-distance voyaging, ships in those days sailed along the coast and rarely ventured out into the open sea. The passenger Tryphaena claims she has been in Gottskálk Jensson, University of Copenhagen https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501503986-002 8 Gottskálk Jensson Baiae (Sat. 104,2), according to our slightly emended text, just north of Puteoli and Neapolis. Besides Baiae, the ship has likely already been in Ostia further north, since Encolpius has seen things in Rome during the Saturnalia (Sat. 69.9, vidi Romae). Encolpius and Giton left the ship in the Bay of Naples, but not in the urbs Graeca itself, since they are newcomers there, and very surprised at their accidental reencounter with the ship in this city. This part of the route of Lichas’ ship, both actual and intended, can therefore be established with probability as Ostia-Baiae-Neapolis-Tarentum, although, as it happens, the ship is wrecked before it reaches Tarentum.¹ As for reconstructing further the route of the ship, a legal signpost for this is hidden in the information provided about the passenger Tryphaena; namely, that she is going into ‘exile’ in Tarentum. This home port of Lychas and his ship was, like Neapolis, originally a Greek city, although by this time it had been Romanized to a far greater extent. Founded as a Spartan colony in the 8th century BCE, it led Magna Graecia militarily for an extended period until, after several defeats by the Romans, its population was granted ius Latii and citizenship in 89 BCE, when Tarentum was made a Roman municipium. The fact that Tryphaena is going into exile in Tarentum tells us that she is not a Roman citizen. As it turns out, Tryphaena shares her legal status as an exile with Giton (Sat. 100,4), and Encolpius (Sat. 81,3), who have therefore arrived in Roman territory with the ship from beyond the borders of Rome. It is not surprising that Encolpius and Giton share this fate, since they evidently have a long-standing relationship (vetustissima consuetudo, Sat. 80,6). The urbs Graeca is to Encolpius a locus peregrinus (Sat. 80,8), a foreign city. Although Greek, it is not his Greek city. Ethnicity and citizenship are not identical. By virtue of being exiles in Italy, these three characters, Tryphaena, Giton and Encolpius, are clearly characterized as the former-citizens of a foreign state (from the Roman perspective), which in the first century CE, the apparent dramatic date of the story, had a reciprocal ius exulandi with Rome. As I have shown elsewhere, this is the only  Some scholars prefer to identify ancient Puteoli as the Graeca urbs, and some doubt that the ship was ever in Baiae, but even if the protagonists are meant to have boarded the ship in Puteoli for the last time, it seems clear that at least one other Campanian city was involved, and it is not unlikely that two were (e. g. Baiae or Neapolis). If one prefers to see historical Puteoli as the model for the ‘Greek’ city of the Satyrica, one should also accept the implications of this Greek ethnicity for the overall design of the Satyrica. For a detailed discussion of the textual passages used in reconstructing the plot of the missing early books of the Satyrica, see Jensson 1997, 97– 160 (revised in Jensson 2004, 96 – 173) and Courtney 2001, 43 – 49, who accepts the main points of the reconstruction. Sailing from Massalia 9 sense exul can have in this context.² Taken together with their legal status as exules, the Greek names of these characters most obviously betray a Greek origin and prior Greek citizenship. We may use this information to extend the route of Lichas’ ship beyond Rome and beyond the main body of the preserved text. There is reliable evidence in fragments I and IV (Bücheler) of the Satyrica to locate the beginning of the Satyrica in the Greek city of Massalia, ancient Marseille. Encolpius, the narrator and main character, is a young man and needs to leave his hometown in order for his adventures to commence. Such is the invariable beginning of ancient fictions involving the adventure stories and travelers’ tales of young people: Ninos, Metiochus, Callirhoë, Dinias from the Wonders beyond Thule, Sinonis and Rhodanes from the Babyloniaca, Habrocomes and Anthia, Clitophon, Theagenes and Charikleia, the narrating ‘I’ of Lucian’s A True Story, the kings Alexander and Apollonius, all start by leaving home – even the Greek Ass-Story begins with Loukios having just left his hometown Patrai for Thessaly on business for his father. Only Daphnis and Chloë never journey from Lesbos, although they are exposed by their parents from Mytilene, and their adventures involve his being kidnapped by pirates and her being kidnapped by a Methymnian fleet. In fragment I of the Satyrica, derived from Servius’ commentary of on the Aeneid (3,57), an attempt is being made to explain Virgil’s use of the adjective sacer, meaning execrabilis, in the phrase auri sacra fames, ‘accursed hunger for gold’. The phrase is uttered by Aeneas in outrage upon recalling how King Lycurgus of Thrace had slain a young Trojan, Polydorus, whom King Priam of Troy had given into his care with a great quantity of gold: ‘This sense of the word’, reads the commentary of Servius, ‘derives from a custom of the Gauls, for whenever the Massaliots suffered from a pestilence, one of the poor citizens [unus… ex pauperibus] offered himself to be fed for a whole year on public and pure food. This individual was then equipped with branches and dressed in sacred attire [vestibus sacris] and led around the whole city with curses [execrationibus], so that on him would descend the evils of the whole city, and thus he was banished. This is, moreover, found/read in Petronius [hoc autem in Petronio lectum est]’ (Serv. ad Aen. 3,57).³  Jensson 2004, 110 – 112.  Anton Bitel (Bitel 2006), in his review of my book, The Recollections of Encolpius (Groningen 2004), doubts that Servius is referring to a lost episode in the Satyrica, because the language of the note is cast in imperfects and has other frequentative markers like ‘more Gallorum’ and ‘quotiens’. However, an annual ritual providing the background for a novelistic episode is necessarily both a recurrent event (in historical fact) and a singular episode (in the novelistic account), 10 Gottskálk Jensson In offering this explanation, Servius assumes that, since Virgil was a Mantuan and thus from Cisalpine Gaul, he was employing the Latin adjective sacer in a sense derived from a Gallic custom, where an individual is accursed during a sacred ritual of cleansing. It is possible that the name and disposition of King Lycurgus of the Virgilian passage has triggered Servius’ association with the Satyrica of Petronius, where an equally barbaric Lycurgus played an important role in a lost episode (cf. Sat. 83,6; 117,3). In any case, Servius attempts to support his reading of Virgil’s Gallic-Latin usage of sacer by borrowing material from Petronius, another author presumed to be of northern Italian or semi-Gallic origins. The late ancient commentator is interested in the regional differences of Latin, and while he knows that Petronius wrote in Latin, he does not care, or know, that Massalia was a Greek-speaking city in the first century. What seems evident is that Servius believed that Massalia was as much Petronius’ birthplace as Mantua was Virgil’s, and he was not the only author of late antiquity to hold this opinion. A ritual or a religious festival is used in three of the five fully extant erotic fictions (Chariton, Xenophon and Heliodorus) to get the plot going. Much in the spirit of the Satyrica, Servius elaborates on the immoral mixture of the sacred with greed in the phrase ‘the sacred/accursed hunger for gold’, and to explain it he relates an outlandish story read in Petronius, involving a greedy participant in a sacred ritual, a poor citizen who accepts this ultimate one-year civil service to satisfy his hunger/greed, and after the final ceremony is cast out, exiled from his city. The religious context of this ‘Gallic’ custom is almost entirely eclipsed by the scandalous ethical paradox. To supply such a context from elsewhere, an ancient account of a Greek scapegoating ritual is found in the poems of Hipponax (Frs. 5 – 11 [West]). In threatening his enemies with destruction, Hipponax provides a description of how the φαρμακός should be dealt with: A deformed and repulsive male is selected and force-fed with figs, barley broth, and cheese, before being whipped with fig branches and sea onions, and then struck seven times on his membrum virile. According to Walter Burkert: ‘This is not active killing, but simply a matter of offscourings which must be thrown across the boundaries or over the cliffs, never to return.’⁴ In the extant Satyrica, religious cults and rituals are represented as little more than pretexts for exploitation – sexual, financial or otherwise. Encolpius, who is poor and needy (in Sat. 125,4, he is happy about his tandem expugnata while at the end of his note Servius states directly: ‘This is, moreover, found/read in Petronius’ (hoc autem in Petronio lectum est).  Burkert 1985, 83. Sailing from Massalia 11 paupertas), fits the profile of the Massaliot scapegoat in another way. We know that, of the characters in the extant Satyrica, he is most susceptible to sexual humiliation. The possibility that the branches mentioned in the account of Servius have to do with the beating of the scapegoat on his penis, and, in any case, the general prominence of Encolpius’ male member in the extant story make him well suited to play the φαρμακός in such a ritual. Like Lichas in Satyrica 105,9, we too may recognize Encolpius by his mentula. Encolpius’ humiliating procession through the streets of Massalia would have a partial but striking resemblance to the Risus-festival in Apuleius (Met. 3,1– 12), where Lucius is made the butt of the citizenry of Hypata. More information can be gleaned from the fragments of the Satyrica. Fragment IV, a few lines from a poetic eulogy by Sidonius Apollinaris (Carm. 28,145 – 7), also places Petronius and the Satyrica in Massalia. The late fifth-century Christian bishop here apostrophizes three Roman worthies (Cicero, Livy and Virgil) by noting only their birthplaces (Arpinum, Patavium, Mantua). He goes on to address others and amongst them ‘Arbiter’, who is presented as a Massaliot: ‘and you, Arbiter, worshipper of the holy trunk, throughout the gardens of Massalia, on a par with Priapus of the Hellespont?’ (et te Massiliensium per hortos / sacri stipitis, Arbiter, colonum / Hellespontiaco parem Priapo?, Carm. 28,155 – 7). Sidonius was from Lugudunum (Lyons) in Gaul, a city associated with Massalia through traffic on the Rhône, and he clearly read the Satyrica as the story of Petronius the Massaliot. Sidonius has modeled his lines on the words of Encolpius in Satyrica 139,2,14– 15: ‘me, too, through lands, over hoary Nereus’ surface, / haunts the heavy wrath of Hellespontiac Priapus’ (me quoque per terras, per cani Nereos aequor / Hellespontiaci sequitur gravis ira Priapi).⁵ On Sidonius’ reading of the Satyrica, it is ‘Arbiter’ who is the speaker of the imitated lines in Satyrica 139,2,14– 15, and ‘Arbiter’ is a Massaliot. Thus the bishop deflates Encolpius’ fabulous hyperbole, per terras, per cani Nereos aequor, by redefining the speaker’s relationship with the grotesque pagan deity and putting it in its proper ambiance in Massalia. What Sidonius says about Petronius recalls in form and content what Encolpius says about himself, but more obviously the detail about Petronius’ supposed phallic looks betrays the identity of Encolpius, or Mr. Incrotch, the narrator of the Satyrica. It was Bücheler, the first modern editor of the Satyrica, who explained the biographical fallacy in Sidonius’ reading of Petronius by noting that the poet ‘thought, evidently, that Petronius was the same as Encolpius’ (ratus uidelicet eu-  The last line is in turn a reworking of Virgil G. 4,111, Hellespontiaci servet tutela Priapi. 12 Gottskálk Jensson ndem esse Petronium atque Encolpium).⁶ St. Augustine, another learned interpreter of the same critical school as Sidonius, shows some doubt as to whether one should believe Apuleius’ statement ‘about himself’ (August. C.D. 18,18, inscribit sibi ipsi accidisse) in the Metamorphoses, to the effect that he changed into an ass, but he does not hesitate to apply Lucius’ statement to the author, Apuleius. Fulgentius, likewise, is convinced that it was Petronius himself and not Encolpius who drank the aphrodisiac (Fragment 7). Late antiquity consistently confused Petronius with the fictional narrator of the Satyrica. Autobiography was a rare form of literature, and even more so fictional autobiography, an artistic concept apparently incomprehensible to these learned men. On this reading, any autodiegetic statement had to be reliable information about the author. So the fact that Servius and Sidonius both knew Petronius to have been a native of Massalia simply informs us that this was the identity of the narrator of the Satyrica, Encolpius. Fragments I and IV together thus support the narrator Encolpius’ citizenship in Massalia, his poverty, his voluntary assumption of the degrading role of phallic scapegoat for financial gain, and his final expulsion from the city. This information is confirmed by the extant text of the Satyrica, where Encolpius refers to himself as exul (Sat. 81,3), as I mentioned previously, and not least where Lichas, the captain of the ship, refers to Encolpius directly with the Greek word for scapegoat (pharmace): ‘What do you have to say for yourself, you thief? … Answer me, you scapegoat!’ (quid dicis tu latro? […] pharmace, responde!, 107,15,). Lichas, on whose ship Encolpius had traveled from Massalia, knew how he had earned his exile. Significantly, the narrator Encolpius immediately acknowledges the truth of Lichas’ accusations, adding ‘and I couldn’t invent anything to say against such manifestly accurate statements’ (nec quid in re manifestissima dicerem inveniebam, 108,1). In Roman literature, the name of Massalia (or Massilia as the Romans spelled it) was loaded with political and cultural significance. The Massaliots were praised for having preserved the old Greek civilization in barbarian territory (e. g. Cic. Flacc 63; Liv. 37,54; Sil. 15,168 – 72), and the city’s destiny was perceived as intimately connected with that of Rome from its very foundation. Legend had it that in the times of king Tarquinius the youthful settlers from Phocaea, which is sometimes portrayed as another sacked Troy (Luc. 3,340), had sailed up the Tiber and made friends with the Romans before continuing on their journey to found Massalia in the midst of barbaric nations. Massalia, moreover, was believed to have provided financial aid after the sack of Rome by Gauls, and like  Bücheler 1862, ad Fr. IV. Sailing from Massalia 13 Rome it fought against the Carthaginians. It had the reputation of a faithful friend and ally to Rome in war and peace (Just. 43,5,3). Accordingly, the siege and subsequent capitulation of Massalia to Caesar during the civil war was viewed as symbolic of the irreparable harm and madness of that conflict. Massalia, like Troy in the poem of Eumolpus (Sat. 89), might be presented as a projection of Rome herself with respect to her fate in the civil war, the subject of another of Eumolpus’ poems. Greek writers, on the other hand, had a very different story to tell about the Massaliots, one that, indeed, resonates better with the tenor of the Satyrica. They describe the Massaliots as wearing richly embroidered tragic robes with floorlength tunics, being effeminate, soft of character and passive like women, which gave rise to the Greek saying ‘you might sail to Massalia’ (Ath. 12,25; Ps.-Plutarch Proverb. Alex. 60). This saying is explained in the late tenth-century Byzantine lexicon, the Suda, in the following way: ‘Used of those living an effeminate and soft life, since the people of Massalia used to live rather effeminately, wearing fancy long robes and perfumes’ (Suda, epsilon 3161). In the same fashion, the phrase ‘you are coming from Massalia’ gets the gloss: ‘Used of effeminate and luxury-loving people, inasmuch as the men of Massalia are said to wear effeminate clothing and perfume, and tie their hair up, and are a disgrace because of this softness’ (Suda, epsilon 499). One wonders what the source of this information might be. The Younger Seneca wrote to Nero about a father who had shown his clemency to a son who had made an attempt on his life: ‘satisfying himself with exile—and a luxurious exile—he detained the parricide at Massalia and gave him the same liberal allowance that he had before’ (Cl. 1,15,2). Although a Greek Satyrica could possibly be the source of late testimonies, such as the Suda, Massalia’s bad reputation dates to much earlier times, e. g. Plautus lets a character refer to effeminacy as ‘practicing the morals of the Massaliots’ (Cas. 963), in a play he adapted from a work by Diphilus of Sinope, a contemporary of Menander. Massalia prided itself on having a port of major commercial importance in the western Mediterranean, and the city was famous for its Atlantic explorers, Pytheas and Euthymenes, whose travelogues were nevertheless considered untrustworthy and fictitious by most ancient authorities. Antonius Diogenes parodied Pytheas of Massalia in his The Wonders beyond Thule, and Euthymenes of Massalia is called a braggart by the sophist Aelius Aristides and his Periplous nothing but an ‘account for Alkinous’ (Aristid. Aeg. p.354 [Jebb], ἀπόλογος ᾿Αλκίνου), i. e. of the same type as the lying fables told by Odysseus to the gullible king of the Phaeacians. Because of such incredible travelers’ tales connected with the city of Massalia, Aelius Aristides uses the term ‘Massaliotic fables’ (Aeg. p.353 [Jebb], μῦθοι Μασσαλιωτικοί) to cover this type of travelogue. Wheth- 14 Gottskálk Jensson er the Massaliots Pytheas and Euthymenes were mere liars or misunderstood explorers far ahead of their time is difficult to ascertain, but it is certain that they were known to later authors as Odyssean spinners of yarns, which makes their city especially appropriate as the home of Encolpius, the narrator of the travelogue we know as the Satyrica. Encolpius is, in several ways, the archetypal Massaliot. His education fits the image of this Greek university town in imperial times, his sexual preferences are stereotypical for Massaliots in Greek literature, and his travelogue may be read as a parody of the Odyssean yarns of his fellow citizens. In the Satyrica, allusions to the Odyssey evoke a Homeric frame of reference, making Encolpius into a sort of Odyssean traveler, moving from city to city, becoming acquainted with the minds of many men. As such Encolpius is also an ideal vehicle for an entertaining satire on the state of literature and morals in Greek communities under Roman rule. The image or reputation of cities is of major importance in the Satyrica, just as the association of Hypata and Thessaly with magic is of major importance in the Metamorphoses of Apuleius. The plan of Encolpius and Ascyltos to earn a living from their knowledge of letters (Sat. 10,4– 6), a plan which they undoubtedly formed prior to arriving to Naples, thus seems to spring from the reputation of docta Neapolis, in the same manner that the conception of Eumolpus’ profitable mimus arises from information about the reputation of the ghosttown of Croton, the adoptive city of Pythagoras, now become obsessed with legacy hunting. Encolpius’ visit to Rome, which apparently fell during the Saturnalia, presumably defined the character given to that city in a lost episode. Rather than voyaging to the fabulous edges of the world, the overeducated but unheroic Encolpius heads to the heart of civilization, to face moral and aesthetic monstrosities of no less fabulous proportions. This movement inwards to the ordinary (and prosaic) and away from the mythical (and poetic) is probably related to the moral therapy of Greek Cynic satire, which ridiculed scholars for studying in detail the errors of Odysseus while being ignorant of their own. For Petronius the effeminate Massaliot provided, additionally, a platform from which to deflate Roman delusions about the empire under the Julio-Claudian dynasty. However, when one keeps in mind the manifest Greekness of the Satyrica, especially the bitter ideological worries concerning the humiliating state of Greek communities under Roman rule – in comparison with the grandeur that was Greece – it seems impossible that Petronius, who is most often thought to have been a member of the Roman senatorial aristocracy, conceived the idea of this entertaining text without having recourse to a Greek original, perhaps by the same Greek title, Σατυρικά. There is certainly no lack of parallels in Roman literature for this method of writing, while the genre of Milesian fiction was certainly of Greek origins, and considerably older than the Satyrica. Sailing from Massalia 15 Bibliography Bitel, A. 2006. ‘Gottskálk Jensson, The Recollections of Encolpius’ [a book review]. Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2006.01.33. Available online at: https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2006/ 2006 – 01 – 33.html Bücheler, F. 1862. Petronii Arbitri Satirarum reliquiae. Adjectus est liber priapeorum, Berlin: Weidmanni. Courtney, E. 2001. A Companion to Petronius, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hodge, A. T. 1998. Ancient Greek France, London: Duckworth. Jensson, G. 2004. The Recollections of Encolpius: The Satyrica of Petronius as Milesian Fiction, ANS 2, Groningen: Barkhuis Publishing & Groningen University Library. Romm, S. J. 1992. The Edges of the Earth in Ancient Thought: Geography, Exploration, and Fiction, Princeton: Princeton University Press.