Satyricon Petronius

¶ … Satyricon and Slavery

When reading Petronius' "Satyricon" it is important not to apply contemporary standards as to what it means to be a slave and what it means to be free, to the events of the text and the personages that populate the social fabric of its narrative. True, like the American antebellum South, ancient Rome was a mixed society of free and enslaved people. However, the Roman class structure of slave, freeman, and citizen was considerably more complex than one might think, and the notion of what constituted a slave quite different from a society based upon purely racial rather than social categories of slavery.

First of all, in ancient Rome, slaves did not form a permanent and unchanging class. One could be enslaved if captured during a battle or if one fell into debt, and one could also be freed by one's master, although if one was enslaved all of one's future progeny belonged to one's owner. But the fact that slaves could be prisoners of war from respected countries and did not form a permanent racial 'caste' meant that one was not necessarily thoroughly outcast if one was a salve. The individual throwing the party where the narrator first unfolds his satirical portrait of Roman society is a freedman, that is an individual freed from bondage by his owner. He is showing off his new status to his fellow Romans.

However, as a freedman, in the eyes of the author, there is a certain status of being 'nouveau riche.' The finer social honing of being a long-standing part of Roman society and social discourse has yet to become an ingrained part of the psychological fabric of recently freed men and women. Hence, the overly lavish ostentation and show of the party. It is in the manner of an aspiring merchant amidst the titled aristocracy, as hosted by the freedman wishing to impress the long-free partygoers and revelers.