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EPIGRAMS
group of verses, on Claudius' British triumph {Anth. Lat. 419—26), seems to
be fixed at Seneca's time by its subject matter, but other pieces look like
variations on standard themes, such as Xerxes' expedition {Anth. Lat. 442,
461) and the fate of Pompey {Anth. Lat. 400—4), or school exercises {Anth.
Lat. 462—3). Competence, and nothing higher, is the level attained. If a single
writer is involved, he was one who did not always know when to stop. The
treatment of the conquest of Britain is tediously repetitive and the indictment
of the deceptions of hope {Anth. Lat. 415) labours under an excess of examples
(contrast Tib. 2.6.19-28). These faults are perhaps not alien from Seneca.
But where are his habitual merits? Pungency, for instance, is often lacking
where it is most required, as at the conclusion of Anth. Lat. 412. Here, as
elsewhere, one might have expected from a Seneca more novelty and ingenuity,
as well as livelier expression.
Of the poems ascribed to Petronius several accord well with themes and
attitudes to be found in the Satyrica, and may be fragments of that work, such
as Anth. Lat. 466 (scepticism about the gods), Anth. Lat. 690 (oddities of
nature), Anth. Lat. 469 (encouragement to a hero or mock-hero, who could be
Encolpius), and Anth. Lat. 475 (an amusing parody of epic simile). The last
two pieces, amongst others, are clearly taken from a narrative context, and
not in fact epigrams at all. This favours attribution to the Satyrica, and incidentally
makes the verses hard to judge in their own right. A few of the selfcontained
poems are of high quality, such as Anth. Lat. 706 (a pretty conceit
about a snowball, but rather tender in tone for the Petronius we otherwise
know) and Anth. Lat. 698 (a fine poem on a restless slave of love, after the
manner of Tibullus and Ovid, but again hardly reminiscent of Petronius).
We cannot, of course, tell how various were the moods which Petronius'
fertile genius could compass. He might have written Anth. Lat. 698, 706 and
several others which no internal evidence suggests that we should impute
to him. To doubt it is not so much to question his versatility as simply to
insist that attributions, if they are to be considered seriously, require some
positive support.
7. ' PRIAPEA'
The book of epigrams concerned with Priapus {Priapea) is uninhibitedly
obscene. Clearly the poet 1 revelled in the jokes which sexual activities so
readily encourage, and would probably have been surprised to find that he had
shocked, rather than diverted his readers. But the diversion which mere
impropriety affords is ephemeral. Such stuff may catch a reader's attention, but
will not long retain it unless presented with considerable artistic skill. Happily
1
That these epigrams belong to one poet has been established beyond reasonable doubt by V.
Buchheit (see Appendix).
631
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