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SCHOLARS
works as Varro's Res rusticae — is evident. It may be that Athenaeus'
account of an imaginary conversation of scholars at a banquet — the Deipnosophists
— also contributed to Macrobius' inspiration. The participants in
the discussion include, besides the three hosts, the senators Caecina Albinus,
Furius Albinus, the grammarian Servius, a young man called Avienus,
a Greek rhetorician named Eusebius, a philosopher Eustathius, a doctor
Disarms, and an 'uninvited guest' Evangelus. The conversation ranges over
a variety of topics, from the terms for various times of day to the history
of the toga praetexta, from Saturn and Janus to the care shown by the gods for
slaves, from jokes to pontifical law. But the central theme, which occupies
most of Books 3 to 6, is the poet Virgil. His command of rhetoric, his knowledge
of philosophy and astrology, his dependence on Greek sources, his knowledge
of Roman religious law and augural practice, his language and metre are all
discussed discursively, and interpretations are offered — by Servius — of a
number of obscure passages. It is clear that for Macrobius as for Dante Virgil
is 'quel Savio gentil, che tutto seppe' (Inf. 7.3). The existence of Christianity
is completely ignored. The learning displayed by Macrobius is stupendous,
if often trifling, and it is backed up by the names of an impressive list of
authorities. But Macrobius takes care not to quote the immediate sources
from which he gained his information, the principal of which are Aulus
Gellius, various commentators on Virgil, and Plutarch's Quaestiones convivales
in a fuller form than that which we now possess. He did, however, consult
other sources from time to time, many of which cannot readily be
identified. As in his Commentary, so too in his Saturnalia he tends to quote
his material nearly verbatim. Only the narrative and dramatic framework is
really his own.
Macrobius observes that several of the participants were too young to have
been present at such a gathering on the dramatic date of December 384 (1.1.5).
Recent research has identified the anachronistic participants as Servius and
Avienus — who is probably to be identified with the fabulist Avianus or Avienus
(p. 718). These and other considerations — such as the posthumous rehabilitation
of Nicomachus Flavianus in 430 from the disgrace of espousing the cause
of the usurper Eugenius — have led recently to the suggestion of a new date
for the composition of the Saturnalia, which used to be dated at the beginning
of the fifth century. It now seems likely to have been written shortly after 430.
This means that it is not a picture of cultivated pagan senatorial society by a
man who knew it from personal observation. It is rather a sentimental reevocation
of a lost world which was rapidly becoming idealized. In the harsh
environment of 430, when Rome had been sacked by Alaric, when barbarian
invasions were tearing whole provinces out of the fabric of the empire, there
were still men who liked to look back on the civilized elegance of life in la
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