Petronius

Petronius (c. 27 – 66 AD) was a Roman writer of the Neronian age; he was a noted satirist. He is identified with C. Petronius Arbiter, but the manuscript text of the Satyricon calls him Titus Petronius. Satyricon is his sole surviving work.

Quotes

Satyricon

A man who is always ready to believe what is told him will never do well.

• Et ideo ego adulescentulos existimo in scholis stultissimos fieri, quia nihil ex his, quae in usu habemus.
  • This is the reason, in my opinion, why young men grow up such blockheads in the schools, because they neither see nor hear one single thing connected with the usual circumstances of everyday life.
  • Sec. 1, translated by "Sebastian Melmoth", The Satyricon of Petronius (Paris: Charles Carrington, 1902)

• Primi omnium eloquentiam perdidistis. Levibus enim atque inanibus sonis ludibria quaedam excitando, effecistis ut corpus orationis enervaretur et caderet.
  • You rhetoricians are chiefly to blame for the ruin of Oratory, for with your silly, idle phrases, meant only to tickle the ears of an audience, you have enervated and deboshed the very substance of true eloquence.
  • Sec. 2, translated by "Sebastian Melmoth" (1902)

• Nondum umbraticus doctor ingenia deleverat.
  • No cloistered professor had as yet darkened men’s intellects.
  • Sec. 2, translated by "Sebastian Melmoth" (1902)

• Grandis et, ut ita dicam, pudica oratio non est maculosa nec turgida, sed naturali pulchritudine exsurgit.
  • A noble, and so to say chaste, style is not overloaded with ornament, not turgid; its own natural beauty gives it elevation.
    • Sec. 2, translated by "Sebastian Melmoth" (1902)

• Nuper ventosa istaec et enormis loquacitas Athenas ex Asia commigravit animosque iuvenum ad magna surgentes veluti pestilenti quodam sidere adflavit, semelque corrupta regula eloquentia stetit et obmutuit.
  • This windy, extravagant deluge of words invaded Athens from Asia, and like a malignant star, blasting the minds of young men aiming at lofty ideals, instantly broke up all rules of art and struck eloquence dumb.
  • Sec. 2, translated by "Sebastian Melmoth" (1902)

• Nihil nimirum in his exercitationibus doctores peccant qui necesse habent cum insanientibus furere. Nam nisi dixerint quae adulescentuli probent, ut ait Cicero, ‘soli in scolis relinquentur’. Sicut ficti adulatores cum cenas divitum captant, nihil prius meditantur quam id quod putant gratissimum auditoribus fore—nec enim aliter impetrabunt quod petunt, nisi quasdam insidias auribus fecerint—sic eloquentiae magister, nisi tanquam piscator eam imposuerit hamis escam, quam scierit appetituros esse pisciculos, sine spe praedae morabitur in scopulo.
  • In the choice of these exercises it is not the masters that are to blame. They are forced to be just as mad as all the rest; for if they refuse to teach what pleases their scholars, they will be left, as Cicero says, to lecture to empty benches. Just as false-hearted sycophants, scheming for a seat at a rich man’s table, make it their chief business to discover what will be most agreeable hearing to their host, for indeed their only way to gain their end is by cajolement and flattery; so a professor of Rhetoric, unless like a fisherman he arm his hook with the bait he knows the fish will take, may stand long enough on his rock without a chance of success.
  • Sec. 3, translated by "Sebastian Melmoth" (1902)

Cave canem.   Beware of the dog.

• Canis ingens, catena vinctus, in pariete erat pictus superque quadrata littera scriptum 'Cave canem.'
  • A huge dog, tied by a chain, was painted on the wall and over it was written in capital letters 'Beware of the dog.'
  • Sec. 29, translated by J. J. Pollitt, The Art of Rome, c. 753 BC–337 AD: Sources and Documents (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1966) p. 147

• Eheu nos miseros, quam totus homuncio nil est!
  Sic erimus cuncti, postquam nos auferet Orcus.
  Ergo vivamus, dum licet esse bene.
  • Alas! how less than naught are we;
    Fragile life’s thread, and brief our day!
    What this is now, we all shall be;
    Drink and make merry while you may.
  • Sec. 34, translated by "Sebastian Melmoth" (1902)

• Abiit ad plures.
  • He has joined the great majority.
  • Sec. 42 (i.e. he has died), reported in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, 2nd ed. (1953) p. 378
  • Variant translations:
    • He’s gone to join the majority.
      • Jack Lindsay, The Complete Works of Gaius Petronius (London: Fanfrolico Press, 1927)
    • He has gone to the majority.
      • William S. Walsh, Handy-book of Literary Curiosities (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co, 1892) p. 217

• Nunquam autem recte faciet, qui cito credit, utique homo negotians.
  • A man who is always ready to believe what is told him will never do well.
  • Sec. 43, translated by Michael Heseltine (1913)

• Manus manum lavat.
  • One good turn deserves another.
  • Sec. 45, translated by Harry Thurston Peck, Trimalchio's Dinner (New York: Dodd, Mead and Co, 1913)

• Litterae thesaurum est.
  • Education is a treasure.
  • Sec. 46, translated by Michael Heseltine, Petronius · Seneca, 'Apocolocyntosis', Loeb (1913)

• Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis vidi in ampulla pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent: Σίβυλλα τί θέλεις; respondebat illa: ἀποθανεῖν θέλω.
  • For with my own eyes at Cumae I saw the Sibyl hanging in a bottle, and when the boys said to her: 'What do you want, Sibyl?' she replied: 'I want to die'.
  • Sec. 48, translated by Richard Aldington, Ezra Pound & T. S. Eliot (New York: Oriole Editions, 1970) p. 28. Original Latin and Greek quoted by T. S. Eliot as epigraph to The Waste Land (1922). The reference is to the mythic Cumaean Sibyl who bargained with Apollo, offering her virginity for years of life totaling as many grains of sand as she could hold in her hand. However, after she spurned his love, he allowed her to wither away over the span of her near-immortality, as she forgot to ask for eternal youth.

• Qui non valet lotium suum.
  • Not worth his salt.
  • Sec. 57, translated by Michael Heseltine (1913)

• Qualis dominus talis est servus.
  • Like master, like man.
  • Sec. 58, translated by Michael Heseltine (1913)

• Raram fecit mixturam cum sapientia forma.
  • Beauty and wisdom are rarely conjoined.
  • Sec. 94, reported in C. T. Ramage, Great Thoughts from Latin Authors, 3rd ed. (New York: John B. Alden, 1884) p. 409

• Horatii curiosa felicitas.
  • The studied spontaneity of Horace.
  • Sec. 118, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 14th ed. (1968) p. 134
  • Variant translation:
    • Horace's careful felicity.
      • J. P. Sullivan, Petronius: The Satyricon and the Fragments (Penguin Books, 1965)

Attributed

• Foeda est in coitu et brevis voluptas
  et taedet Veneris statim peractae.
  Non ergo ut pecudes libidinosae
  caeci protinus irruamus illuc
  (nam languescit amor peritque flamma);
  sed sic sic sine fine feriati
  et tecum iaceamus osculantes.
  Hic nullus labor est ruborque nullus:
  hoc iuvit, iuvat et diu iuvabit;
  hoc non deficit incipitque semper.
  • The pleasure of the act of love is gross and brief, and love once consummated brings loathing after it. Let us then not rush blindly thither straightway like lustful beasts, for love sickens and the flame dies down; but even so, even so, let us keep eternal holiday, and lie with thy lips to mine. No toil is here and no shame: in this, delight has been, and is, and long shall be; in this there is no diminution, but a beginning everlastingly
  • Frgament in the Poetae Latini Minores. Translated by Michael Heseltine (1913). Compare Ben Jonson's version in rhyming couplets, in Underwood (1640)

Misattributed

• We trained hard ... but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization.
  • A paraphrased quotation from Charlton Ogburn (1911–1998) in "Merrill's Marauders: The truth about an incredible adventure" in the January 1957 issue of Harper's Magazine
  • Actual Charlton Ogburn quote:^{[citation needed]} "We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganized. Presumably, the plans for our employment were being changed. I was to learn later in life that, perhaps because we are so good at organizing, we tend as a nation to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization."
  • Cf. Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, ISBN 9780199567072, p. 259.
  • An example misquotation is by Senator Byrd in Department of the Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations for Fiscal Year 1974, 1973, p. 1132; an earlier one in 1969 by Ridge, Value analysis for better management, §7, p. 98.

About Petronius

• Nam illi dies per somnum, nox officiis et oblectamentis vitae transigebatur; utque alios industria, ita hunc ignavia ad famam protulerat, habebaturque non ganeo et profligator, ut plerique sua haurientium, sed erudito luxu. ac dicta factaque eius quanto solutiora et quandam sui neglegentiam praeferentia, tanto gratius in speciem simplicitatis accipiebantur. proconsul tamen Bithyniae et mox consul vigentem se ac parem negotiis ostendit. dein revolutus ad vitia seu vitiorum imitatione inter paucos familiarium Neroni adsumptus est, elegantiae arbiter, dum nihil amoenum et molle adfluentia putat, nisi quod ei Petronius adprobavisset. unde invidia Tigellini quasi adversus aemulum et scientia voluptatum potiorem.
  • He spent his days in sleep, his nights in attending to his official duties or in amusement, that by his dissolute life he had become as famous as other men by a life of energy, and that he was regarded as no ordinary profligate, but as an accomplished voluptuary. His reckless freedom of speech, being regarded as frankness, procured him popularity. Yet during his provincial government, and later when he held the office of consul, he had shown vigour and capacity for affairs. Afterwards returning to his life of vicious indulgence, he became one of the chosen circle of Nero's intimates, and was looked upon as an absolute authority on questions of taste in connection with the science of luxurious living.
  • Tacitus, Annals, bk. 16, sec. 18. Translated by William Young Sellar and Walter Coventry Summers, "Petronius", Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed. (Cambridge University Press, 1911) vol. 21, p. 334