¹ Bodel, J., ‘Trimalchio's underworld’, in Tatum, J. (ed.), The Search for the Ancient Novel (Baltimore and London, 1994), 237–59, at 253Google Scholar; Zeitlin, F.I., ‘Petronius as paradox: anarchy and artistic integrity’, TAPhA 102 (1971), 631–84, at 638Google Scholar. The underlying notion that Trimalchio represents a ‘type’ and that the Cena offers a colourful depiction of a group of parvenus is already fully developed in Ribbeck's, O. Geschichte der Römischen Dichtung (Stuttgart, 1892), 3.150–69, esp. 152–61Google Scholar, and followed by Thomas, É. in his Pétrone (Paris, 1912 ³), 140 Google Scholar.

² Perkins, J., Roman Imperial Identities in the Early Christian Era (London and New York, 2009), 127–43Google Scholar, originally published as ‘Trimalchio: naming power’, in Harrison, S., Paschalis, M., Frangoulidis, S. (edd.), Metaphor and the Ancient Novel (Groningen, 2005), 139–62Google Scholar.

³ Plaza, M., Laughter and Derision in Petronius’ Satyrica. A Literary Study (Stockholm, 2000), 84–164 Google Scholar, arguing for a reversal of traditional social hierarchies in opposition to Döpp's, S. identification of the inversion as ‘carnivalesque’: ‘Saturnalien und lateinische Literatur’, in id. (ed.), Karnevaleske Phänomene in antiken und nachantiken Kulturen und Literaturen (Trier, 1993), 145–77Google Scholar.

⁴ Andreau, J., ‘Freedmen in the Satyrica ’, in Prag, J. and Repath, I. (edd.), Petronius. A Handbook (Oxford, 2009), 114–24, esp. 121CrossRefGoogle Scholar, following largely L. Canali, Vita, sesso, morte nella letteratura latina (Milan, 1987), 47–67 Google Scholar. The idea of an air of liberality goes hand in hand with the notion of a sense of loss of control: see, for example, Slater, N.W., Reading Petronius (Baltimore and London, 1990), 62–4, 67 and 83Google Scholar.

⁵ Perkins (n. 2), 137.

⁶ J. Prag and I. Repath, ‘Introduction’, in Prag and Repath (n. 4), 1–15, at 3. Prag and Repath do not offer a definition of their concept of class.

⁷ The definitions are those of the 1968 and 1983 editions of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary.

⁸ For attempts at differentiation between Trimalchio and his freedmen guests, see esp. Bodel, J., Freedmen in the Satyricon of Petronius (Diss., University of Michigan, 1984)Google Scholar; Boyce, B., The Language of the Freedmen in Petronius’ Cena Trimalchionis (Leiden, 1991)Google Scholar; and Kleijwegt, M., ‘The social dimensions of gladiatorial combat in Petronius’ Cena Trimalchionis’, in Hofmann, H. and Zimmerman, M. (edd.), Groningen Colloquia on the Novel IX (Groningen, 1998), 75–96 Google Scholar.

⁹ Fitzgerald, W., Slavery and the Roman Literary Imagination (Cambridge, 2000), 88 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁰ To bring together literary and historical approaches to the Cena is the stated aim of Prag and Repath (n. 4), xiii; but the potential benefits are not systematically explored in the volume.

¹¹ Arguments and evidence are discussed in Rose, K.F.C., The Date and Author of the Satyricon (Leiden, 1971)Google Scholar. See also Bagnani, G., Arbiter of Elegance. A Study of the Life and Works of C. Petronius (Toronto, 1954)Google Scholar.

¹² Prag and Repath (n. 6), 9. Similarly C. Vout, ‘The Satyrica and Neronian culture’, in the same volume (n. 4), 101–13, at 101: ‘(w)hen betting on the date of the Satyrica, the smart money is on late in the reign of Nero’.

¹³ Laird, A., ‘The true nature of the Satyricon?’, in Paschalis, M. et al. . (edd.), The Greek and the Roman Novel. Parallel Readings (Groningen, 2007), 151–67, at 164Google Scholar. See also Henderson, J., ‘The Satyrica and the Greek novel: revisions and some open questions’, International Journal of the Classical Tradition 17 (2010), 483–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar, with earlier bibliography. Problems with date and authorship have also been raised on the basis of epigraphic analysis: Völker, T. and Rohmann, D., ‘ Praenomen Petronii: the date and authorship of the Satyricon reconsidered’, CQ 61 (2011), 660–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁴ For detailed analysis of manumission under the Empire, see Buckland, W.W., The Roman Law of Slavery (Cambridge, 1908), 449–551 Google Scholar. I exclude from the list of main manumission modes manumission in Ecclesiis, for which the evidence is late antique: Buckland (this note), 449–51, and Barschdorf, J., Freigelassene in der Spätantike (Munich, 2012), 32–4Google Scholar; and manumission censu (‘at the census’), because it was for all practical purposes obsolete under the Empire: Buckland (this note), 441 and 449.

¹⁵ For discussion, see Courtney, E., A Companion to Petronius (Oxford, 2001), 91 Google Scholar; Rimell, V., Petronius and the Anatomy of Fiction (Cambridge, 2002), 183 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Schmeling, G., A Commentary on the Satyrica of Petronius (Oxford, 2011), 157 (§ 3)Google Scholar; Smith, M.S., Petronii Arbitri Cena Trimalchionis (Oxford, 1975), 97 Google Scholar; Sullivan, J.P., The Satyricon of Petronius. A Literary Study (London, 1968), 226 Google Scholar; Walsh, P.G., Petronius Satyricon (Oxford, 1996), 169 Google Scholar.

¹⁶ Saylor, C., ‘Funeral games: the significance of games in the Cena Trimalchionis ’, Latomus 46 (1987), 593–602, at 594 (with earlier bibliography)Google Scholar.

¹⁷ Gai. Inst. 1.118.

¹⁸ Gai. Inst. 4.193. Elsewhere, Gaius employs uindicare with the simple meaning of ‘claiming’: e.g. Inst. 3.94 and 3.217. The legal allusion is also evident in the use of mittere in the Cena (just like the allusion to the games): Saylor (n. 16), 594–5.

¹⁹ Buckland (n. 14), 457–8 discusses the possibility of representation in the manumission process.

²⁰ RRC 508.3 and Dio Cass. 47.25.3; Suet. Ner. 57.1. But note that the pilleus can have multiple meanings: e.g. Gell. NA 6.4.1–3 (about a slave sold wearing a pilleus to indicate that the seller gave no guarantee).

²¹ See Schmeling (n. 15), 161 (§§ 7–8) for a brief summary of current understanding of the liber-pun.

²² Gai. Inst. 2.267; see also Inst. 2.185.

²³ Plaut. Men. 1148–9.

²⁴ For previous discussions, see Courtney (n. 15), 99; Pellegrino, C., Petronii Arbitri Satyricon. Introduzione, edizione critica e commento (Rome, 1975), 315; Rimell (n. 15), 191–2Google Scholar.

²⁵ Festus 226 L; see Schmeling (n. 15), 220 (§ 11).

²⁶ Hor. Sat. 2.8.71; Révay, J., ‘Horaz und Petron’, CPh 17 (1922), 202 Google Scholar; Sullivan (n. 15), 126; further discussion in Schmeling (n. 15), 222 (§ 1).

²⁷ Smith (n. 15), 146–7, referring to Suet. Ner. 12.

²⁸ Baldwin, B., ‘Catch a falling star: Petronius, Sat., 54.1’, PSN 20.1/2 (1990), 8 Google Scholar. Evidently, I do not follow Baldwin's view that the slave who fell was not one of the acrobats, which he expressed at somewhat greater length in ‘Careless boys in the Satyricon ’, Latomus 44 (1985), 847–8Google Scholar.

²⁹ Suet. Ner. 31.2.

³⁰ Cic. Att. 2.21.4: nam quia deciderat ex astris, lapsus potius quam progressus uidebatur.

³¹ If Encolpius’ memory is to be trusted, Trimalchio's wording followed once more the technically correct phraseology as recorded by Gaius (Inst. 2.267) when advising the testator: uel hoc: STICHVM SERVVM MEVM LIBERVM ESSE IVBEO, is ipsius testatoris fit libertus […]. Plautus, too, makes Menaechmus utter surprise in almost identical terms upon the idea that he should have freed Messenio—liberum ego te iussi abire?: Men. 1058. See also notes 22 and 23 above.

³² Courtney (n. 15), 99 wrote that ‘Trimalchio can do this, since 53.12–13 imply that he owns the acrobats […]’—either suggesting (wrongly) that slave masters could free by decree like the emperor, or not saying much at all.

³³ Esp. with regard to manumissio iusta: e.g. Quiroga, P. López Barja de, ‘Junian Latins: status and number’, Athenaeum 86 (1998), 133–63Google Scholar, at 159 (and elaborated in his Historia de la manumisíon en Roma. De los orígenes a los Severos [Madrid, 2007], 58–64)Google Scholar.

³⁴ Stewart, R., Plautus and Roman Slavery (Chichester, 2012), 155 CrossRefGoogle Scholar (and generally 132–55 for discussion of manumission in Plautine comedy).

³⁵ On the theatrical aspects of the Satyricon, and the Cena as a ‘stage’, see Panayotakis, C., Theatrum Arbitri. Theatrical Elements in the Satyrica of Petronius (Leiden, New York and Köln, 1995), esp. 52–109Google Scholar.

³⁶ This holds true even for discussions of Trimalchio's reference to the ius cenae (Sat. 35.7): e.g. Avery, W.T., ‘ Cena Trimalchionis 35.7: hoc est ius cenae ’, CPh 55 (1960), 115–18Google Scholar; Mazzoli, G., ‘ Ius cenae (Petron. 35.7)’, in Castagna, L. and Lefèvre, E. (edd.), Studien zu Petron und seiner Rezeption/Studi su Petronio e sulla sua fortuna (Berlin and New York, 2007)Google Scholar; Perotti, P.A., ‘ Ius cenae (Pétrone 35, 7)’, LEC 65 (1997), 345–9Google Scholar.

³⁷ Gai. Inst. 1.3.9.

³⁸ Even when a slave was given both freedom and Roman citizenship upon manumission, he or she did not gain the status of a freeborn Roman. The general rule, and deviations from it, are discussed in Buckland (n. 14), 437–8.

³⁹ Gai. Inst. 1.3.12: rursus libertinorum tria sunt genera: nam aut ciues Romani aut Latini aut dediticiorum numero sunt. The group of ingenui, too, requires differentiated assessment: Gardner, J.F., Being a Roman Citizen (London and New York, 1993), 16–19 Google Scholar.

⁴⁰ A good example is Trimalchio's legal capacity to inherit and to make wills: Sat. 71 and 76.2.

⁴¹ Gai. Inst. 1.17: nam in cuius personam tria haec concurrunt, ut maior sit annorum triginta et ex iure Quiritium domini et iusta ac legitima manumissione liberetur, id est uindicta aut censu aut testamento, is ciuis Romanus fit; sin uero aliquid eorum deerit, Latinus erit. See also the comments on other manumission modes made in note 14 above.

⁴² The informal nature of Dionysus’ manumission was correctly recognized by Maiuri, A., La Cena di Trimalchione di Petronio Arbitro (Naples, 1945), 63 Google Scholar, without, however, providing any comment on it; similarly Pellegrino (n. 24), 283, who opts without discussion for manumission per mensam.

⁴³ Scholars are divided on the date of this statute, with 17 b.c. or a.d. 19 being the most popular options; the discussion is outlined in Duff, A.M., Freedmen in the Early Roman Empire (Oxford, 1928), 210–14Google Scholar.

⁴⁴ The exception to this rule is constituted by the slave who was freed by his dying master without provision to transfer the right of patronage to another, and the freedman whose patron did not transfer the right of patronage to another upon death. For general discussion of the ties of patronage between freedmen and their former masters in Roman Imperial society, see Duff (n. 43), 36–49; and Mouritsen, H., The Freedman in the Roman World (Cambridge, 2012), 36–65 Google Scholar. For a brief discussion of patronal powers and libertine dependence as regards Trimalchio's freedmen, see Mouritsen, H., ‘Roman freedmen and the urban economy: Pompeii in the first century a.d. ’, in Senatore, F. (ed.), Pompei tra Sorrento e Sarno (Rome, 2001), 1–28, at 7Google Scholar; and D'Arms, J.H., Commerce and Social Standing in Ancient Rome (Cambridge, MA, and London, 1981), 104 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. And for discussion of the role of patronage in Roman society at large, see Wallace-Hadrill, A., ‘Patronage in Roman society: from Republic to Empire’, in id. (ed.), Patronage in Ancient Society (London and New York, 1989), 63–87 Google Scholar.

⁴⁵ In the case of Trimalchio and his Junian Latins there existed however a basic distinction because, by the time of the Cena, Trimalchio had become independent of patronal power. This freedom from patronal powers entailed also the freedom from potential punishment that may be applied to the ex-slave subject to such powers should he or she not comply with the patron's (reasonable) demands. For discussion of Trimalchio's ‘independent’ status, see Veyne, P.: ‘Vie de Trimalcion’, in Veyne, P., La société romaine (Paris, 1991), 13–56 Google Scholar (originally published as ‘La vie de Trimalcion’, Annales ESC 16 [1961], 213–47)Google Scholar; but note that Veyne just assumes that Trimalchio gained his patronal independence early on in life.

⁴⁶ The central text is Gai. Inst. 3.56. For a detailed display of the patronal claim under different statutes dependent on the different statuses involved, see Sirks, A.J.B., ‘Informal manumission and the Lex Junia’, RIDA 28 (1981), 247–76Google Scholar, esp. Table I: ‘Outline of the succession to the bona libertorum et libertarum by patrons and their successors, based on Gai. 3.39/53’, and ‘The lex Junia and the effects of informal manumission and iteration’, RIDA 30 (1983), 211–92Google Scholar.

⁴⁷ Sherwin-White, A.N., The Roman Citizenship (Oxford, 1973 ²), 329 Google Scholar. Such informally freed slaves had no legal protection of their actual enjoyment of liberty during the Republic: Buckland (n. 14), 444–5. But note that Sherwin-White (this note), 329 contends that ‘(a)t the time of its creation Junian Latinity must have been a clear gain to its holders’.

⁴⁸ Gai. Inst. 3.56: ut ea fictione res Latinorum defunctorum ad patronos pertinere desinerent, ‘the result of this fiction would be that the property of deceased Latins would cease to go to their patrons’. (The translation is adapted from the Gordon/Robinson edition.)

⁴⁹ The concept of the slave's social death is analysed in Patterson, O., Slavery and Social Death. A Comparative Study (Cambridge, MA, 1982)Google Scholar, including its application to freed slaves.

⁵⁰ For further different meanings of the birds’ flight from the boar's gut, see Zeitlin, F.I., ‘ Romanus Petronius: a study of the Troiae halosis and the Bellum civile ’, Latomus 30 (1971), 56–82, at 63 n. 1Google Scholar.

⁵¹ See Weaver, P.C.R., ‘Where have all the Junian Latins gone? Nomenclature and status in the early Empire’, Chiron 20 (1990), 275–305 Google Scholar; and ‘Children of Junian Latins’, in Rawson, B. and Weaver, P. (edd.), The Roman Family in Italy (Oxford, 1997), 55–72 Google Scholar. I entertain the idea that much of the evidence for freedmen (and freedwomen) documents Junian Latins (rather than ex-slaves endowed with Roman citizenship) in ‘ Peculium, freedom, citizenship: golden triangle or vicious circle? An act in two parts’, in Roth, U. (ed.), By the Sweat of Your Brow. Roman Slavery in its Socio-Economic Setting (London, 2010), 91–120 Google Scholar, at 119. The idea that all Latins under the Empire were really Junian Latins is briefly explored in Millar, F., The Emperor in the Roman World (31 b.c.-a.d. 337) (London, 1977), 630–5Google Scholar; it is elaborated for the lex Irnitana in Gardner, J.F., ‘Making citizens: the operation of the lex Irnitana’, in Blois, L. de (ed.), Administration, Prosopography and Appointment Policies in the Roman Empire (Amsterdam, 2001), 215–29Google Scholar.

⁵² MChrest. 362 (Helena); P.Oxy. 1205 (Paramone); P.Lips. 151 (Techosis). All three are discussed in Scholl, R., ‘“Freilassung unter Freunden” im römischen Ägypten’, in Bellen, H. and Heinen, H. (edd.), Fünfzig Jahre Forschungen zur Antiken Sklaverei an der Mainzer Akademie 1950–2000 (Stuttgart, 2001), 159–69Google Scholar.

⁵³ Camodeca, G., ‘Cittadinanza romana. Latini Iuniani e lex Aelia Sentia. Alcuni nuovi dati dalla riedizione delle Tabulae Herculanenses’, in Labruna, L. (ed.), Tradizione romanistica e costituzione I (Naples, 2006), 887–904, esp. 902–4Google Scholar; and ‘Per una riedizione dell'archivio ercolanese di L. Venidius Ennychus’, Cronache Ercolanesi 32 (2002), 257–80, esp. 260–6Google Scholar.

⁵⁴ I assume, for ease of argument, that the patron was the former quiritary owner of the slave.

⁵⁵ For discussion of the different ways open to Junian Latins to acquire Roman citizenship, see Sirks (n. 46 [1981] and [1983]). And for a brief summary of modern views on the acquisition of Roman ciuitas by Junian Latins, see López Barja de Quiroga (n. 33 [1998]), 155–9.

⁵⁶ The structural consequences of the acquisition of citizenship through iteratio are discussed in Roth (n. 51), esp. 106–16.

⁵⁷ Plin. Ep. 7.16.3–4.

⁵⁸ Plin. Ep. 7.32; see also Ep. 7.29.

⁵⁹ Such awards can be made without the patron's assistance, knowledge or approval; but Trajan rules that, if a patron was ignorant or opposed to such a grant of citizenship, the freedman would die a Junian Latin: Gai. Inst. 3.72 (see also Inst. 3.73–6).

⁶⁰ Plin. Ep. 10.104.

⁶¹ Plin. Ep. 10.105. Note also that Pliny consistently emphasized the patronal approval (or its irrelevance) whenever requesting an Imperial grant of citizenship from Trajan: Ep. 10.5.2; 10.11.2; 10.104.

⁶² See the contributions listed in notes 33, 46 and 51 above.

⁶³ Sherwin-White (n. 47), 329–30.

⁶⁴ Weaver, P.R.C., ‘Reconstructing lower-class Roman families’, in Dixon, S. (ed.), Childhood, Class and Kin in the Roman World (London and New York, 2001), 101–14, at 103Google Scholar.

⁶⁵ Tac. Ann. 13.27.

⁶⁶ I borrow the term from Hoffer, S.E., The Anxieties of Pliny the Younger (Atlanta, 1999), 7 (and passim)Google Scholar.

⁶⁷ Hoffer (n. 66), 7. The artful composition of Book 10, and of ‘good senator’ and ‘best of emperors’, is increasingly recognized by modern scholarship: Woolf, G., ‘Pliny's province’, in Bekker-Nielsen, T. (ed.), Rome and the Black Sea Region: Domination, Romanisation, Resistance (Aarhus, 2006), 93–108 Google Scholar.

⁶⁸ Woolf, G., ‘Pliny/Trajan and the poetics of empire’, CPh 110 (2015), 132–51, at 149Google Scholar.

⁶⁹ Plin. Ep. 10.2; 10.5; 10.6; 10.7; 10.10; 10.11; 10.27; 10.28; 10.63; 10.67; 10.84; 10.85; and Ep. 5.19; 6.31; 7.4; 7.11; 7.29; 8.6. I do not wish to engage, here, with the question of the completeness of Book 10. A full overview of the names that appear in Pliny's correspondence is available in Birley, A.R., Onomasticon to the Younger Pliny. Letters and Panegyric (Leipzig, 2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁷⁰ The seven Junian Latins appear in Plin. Ep. 10.2; Ep. 10.5 (two); Ep. 10.11; and Ep. 10.104 (three).

⁷¹ Plin. Ep. 4.10 (Modestus); Ep. 8.1 (Encolpius); and Ep. 10.74 (Callidromus).

⁷² Gonzalès, A., Pline le Jeune. Esclaves et affranchis à Rome (Paris, 2002), 123 Google Scholar, and generally 123–38 for a full discussion of the freedmen in Pliny's letters; see also Weaver (n. 51 [1990]), 279–81.

⁷³ Gonzalès (n. 72), 123.

⁷⁴ Hoffer (n. 66), 54 (and generally 45–54).

⁷⁵ The case is made persuasively for Book 8 by Whitton, C.L.: ‘Pliny, Epistles 8.14: senate, slavery and the Agricola ’, JRS 100 (2010), 118–39Google Scholar. I see no fundamental contrast between Whitton's stress on slavery as the uniting theme and the argument for Pliny's self-fashioning as a symbolic father and role model to the young elaborated in Gibson, R.K. and Morello, R., Reading the Letters of Pliny the Younger: An Introduction (Cambridge, 2012), 126–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar: both themes thrive on a paternalistic conception of hierarchy. (The analogy between sons and slaves is fully developed in Roman law.) The centrality of the concept of humanitas in the Plinian discourse on slavery, elaborated in Lefèvre, E., Vom Römertum zum Ästhetizismus (Berlin, 2009), 181–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar, is compatible with the focus on slavery. Key examples from Pliny's so-called private correspondence that discuss slavery, slaves or ex-slaves are Ep. 1.4, 1.21, 3.14, 4.10, 5.19, 6.28, 7.16, 7.23, 7.29, 7.32, 8.1, 8.6, 8.14, 8.16, 8.19, 9.21 and 9.24. The case for the centrality of the concepts (and realities) of freedom and slavery can also be made for Pliny's Panegyricus: Morford, M.P.O., ‘ Iubes esse liberos: Pliny's Panegyricus and liberty’, AJPh 113 (1992), 575–93Google Scholar.

⁷⁶ That Book 10 was intended to make its contribution to a ‘planned and balanced collection’ is increasingly accepted: Gibson and Morello (n. 75), 263 (and generally 251–64); see also the studies listed in note 86 below.

⁷⁷ For general discussion of many relevant texts (in a political context), see Wirszubski, C., Libertas as a Political Idea at Rome during the Late Republic and Early Principate (Cambridge, 1950)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Arena, V., Libertas and the Practice of Politics in the Late Roman Republic (Cambridge, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁷⁸ Plin. Ep. 10.104. The direct use of a Greek god's name for a slave was largely avoided in both Greece and Rome; instead, onomastic variations were used, such as theophoric names and adjectival renderings (as in the case of ‘Διονύσιος’/‘Dionysios’): Fragiadakis, C., Die attischen Sklavennamen von der spätarchaischen Epoche bis in die römische Kaiserzeit. Eine historische und soziologische Untersuchung (Athens, 1988), 26–32 Google Scholar. As Fragiadakis, 27–8 contends: ‘(a)uch den Namensträger der adjektivischen Form dieser Namen auf -ιος muß man als der betreffenden Gottheit zugehörig ansehen’. Apart from the second named Junian Latin in Pliny's letter, ‘Dionysius’ is well documented as a slave name at Rome: Solin, H., Die stadtrömischen Sklavennamen. Ein Namenbuch, 3 vols. (Stuttgart, 1996), 3.276–9Google Scholar. Note also that Lucian refers to ‘Διονύσιος’ when speaking about the imitation of the god's names: Pro imaginibus 27. On the structure and evolution of personal names in Greek, and on the formation and function, as well as distribution of divine names in a Greek religious context, see the contributions by Davies, A. Morpurgo and Parker, R. in Hornblower, S. and Matthews, E. (edd.), Greek Personal Names. Their Value as Evidence (Oxford, 2000), 15–39 and 53–79Google Scholar. Note also that Trimalchio does not spell out the slave's name in the nominative, but only in the vocative, thus further (con)fusing the two names (Sat. 41.7). The 1502 edition by Avantius (A) gives ‘Axer’ in place of ‘Aper’, but the reading of ‘Aper’ as the cognomen of the third named freedmen is given in the Aldine edition of 1508 (a). Merrill suggests ‘Asper?’. Neither ‘Axer’ nor ‘Asper’ is otherwise documented in the corpus of slave names from Rome; in contrast, Solin lists six individuals who carried the name Aper in Rome alone: see Solin (this note), 1.156.

⁷⁹ cf. Solin, H., ‘Petron und die römische Namengebung’, in Herman, J. and Rosen, H. (edd.), Petroniana. Gedenkschrift für Hubert Petersmann (Heidelberg, 2003), 193–9Google Scholar, who suggests that Petronius invented the name ‘Encolpius’ (as well as ‘Ascyltus’), and that Pliny may have deliberately named his lector Encolpius after the Encolpius of the Cena.

⁸⁰ The learned Roman reader's capacity to expect (an) Astraeus to appear somehow, sometime and somewhere in the course of the dinner proceedings challenges the notion of a ‘first reading’ as applied by Slater (n. 4) to the Satyricon, i.e. that on a first reading the reader cannot foresee (any) ensuing scenes.

⁸¹ Varro, Rust. 3.2.2 (and passim).

⁸² Marchesi, I., The Art of Pliny's Letters. A Poetics of Allusion in the Private Correspondence (Cambridge, 2008), 249 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Plin. Ep. 1.1 and 9.40.

⁸³ Hor. Ep. 1.4 and 1.10.

⁸⁴ The literary qualities and artful creations of Pliny's first nine books, and in particular their relationship to the Tacitean œuvre, are elaborated in Marchesi (n. 82); see also Whitton, C., ‘“Let us tread our path together”: Tacitus and the Younger Pliny’, in Pagán, V.E. (ed.), A Companion to Tacitus (Chichester, 2012), 345–68Google Scholar.

⁸⁵ The dates for Pliny's governorship in Pontus-Bithynia are disputed and range from a.d. 109 to a.d. 111 as the start date for his governorship, and from a.d. 111 to a.d. 113 as the end date. The main discussion is still Sherwin-White, A.N., The Letters of Pliny. A Historical and Social Commentary (Oxford, 1966), 80–2Google Scholar; for a succinct summary, see Birley (n. 69), 16–17. Pliny is assumed to have approached Trajan on behalf of the three Junian Latins in his final year in the province, i.e. at the latest in a.d. 111. On the dating of Book 10 and Ep. 10.104, see Sherwin-White (this note), 529–33 and 714–15. The focus on publication is not aimed at denying the possibility of prior oral or manuscript circulation for the Plinian correspondence with Trajan. The difficulties involved in assessing the publication dates of Pliny's correspondence are now analysed in great detail for Books 1–9 by Bodel, J.: ‘The publication of Pliny's Letters’, in Marchesi, I. (ed.), Pliny the Book-Maker. Betting on Posterity in the Epistles (Oxford, 2015), 13–109 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁸⁶ On Pliny as editor of the collection, and the required time investment, see Stadter, P.A., ‘Pliny and the ideology of Empire: the correspondence with Trajan’, Prometheus 32 (2006), 61–76, at 64–70Google Scholar. On the question of the date of ‘publication’ of Book 10, see Noreña, C.F., ‘The social economy of Pliny's correspondence with Trajan’, AJPh 128 (2007), 239–77, at 261–71Google Scholar. There are then also implications for our understanding of Pliny's readership, traditionally identified especially among late-antique writers. The new orthodoxy, supported implicitly by the argument presented here, suggests however that ‘rather than experiencing a dramatic moment of “rediscovery” in central Gaul in the second half of the fifth century, Pliny's Letters were available to readers of different interests across a considerable geographical range and chronological sweep’: Gibson, B. and Rees, R., ‘Introduction’, in id. (edd.), Pliny the Younger in Late Antiquity (Arethusa 46.2) (Baltimore, 2013), 141–65, at 146Google Scholar. Seminal for the shift is Cameron, A., ‘The fate of Pliny's letters in the late Empire’, CQ 15 (1965), 289–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and ‘Pliny's Letters in the later Empire: an addendum’, CQ 17 (1967), 421–2CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁸⁷ Yeh, W.-j., Structures métriques des poésies de Pétrone (Leuven, 2007)Google Scholar; Martin, R., ‘Qui a (peut-être) écrit le Satyricon?’, REL 78 (2000), 139–63Google Scholar, and ‘Le Satyricon est-il un livre à plusieurs mains?’, REL 88 (2010), 206–17Google Scholar. See also Flobert, P., Grammaire comparée et variétés du latin (Geneva, 2014), 234–48Google Scholar. My own use of the word ‘author’ does not exclude collective authorship.

⁸⁸ Plin. Ep. 1.15.

⁸⁹ RG 1.1. The Augustan rhetoric is contextualised by M.B. Roller in his study of the use of slavery and freedom in Imperial literature: Constructing Autocracy. Aristocrats and Emperors in Julio-Claudian Rome (Princeton and Oxford, 2001), 214–33Google Scholar.

⁹⁰ Henderson (n. 13), 492–4.

⁹¹ Mart. 3.82 (Zoilus) and 1.101 (Demetrius).

⁹² Juv. 6.378 (Bromium).

⁹³ Whitton (n. 75), 135. I do not mean to suggest with this that Roman aristocratic discourse on slavery and freedom can be understood in isolation from the social reality of the society that produced it.

⁹⁴ The Satyricon is typically ignored in modern discussions of the Roman elite's written vision of this ‘Imperial’ project; see, for example, Lavan, M., Slaves to Rome. Paradigms of Empire in Roman Culture (Cambridge, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, which notably excludes the Cena from its analysis.

⁹⁵ I develop the argument for a ‘senatorial reading’ of the Cena in a forthcoming monograph: Changing Trimalchio's Life. If the Cena came to be understood as a critique of the type of intellectual construction of Imperial government and senatorial libertas offered in Pliny, as suggested here, our view on the realistic backdrop for Pliny's assumed siding with the senatorial opposition to Domitian, as argued for instance in Beutel, F., Vergangenheit als Politik. Neue Aspekte im Werk des jüngeren Plinius (Frankfurt, 2000), 116–23 and 220–34Google Scholar, may be in need of revision.

⁹⁶ Much literary evidence for Roman slavery is better evidence for the public transcript of the master class, i.e. the masters’ embedded justification of their dominant role, than for the realities of slavery as such. A good example (from an earlier period) is Plautine comedy: McCarthy, K., Slaves, Masters, and the Art of Authority in Plautine Comedy (Princeton and Oxford, 2000)Google Scholar.

⁹⁷ Rimell, V., ‘Petronius’ lessons in learning – the hard way’, in König, J. and Whitmarsh, T. (edd.), Ordering Knowledge in the Roman Empire (Cambridge, 2007), 108–32, at 110CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁹⁸ The relationship between legal and social status was complex, not least with regard to legal privilege: Garnsey, P.D.A., Social Status and Legal Privilege in the Roman Empire (Oxford, 1970)Google Scholar.

⁹⁹ The conuiuium is well known as a space for the maintenance of protocols of rank: Konstan, D., Friendship in the Classical World (Cambridge, 1997), 137–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and D'Arms, J.H., ‘The Roman conuiuium and equality’, in Murray, O. (ed.), Sympotica. A Symposium on the Symposium (Oxford, 1990), 308–20Google Scholar.

¹⁰⁰ Rimell (n. 15), 182.

¹⁰¹ Rimell (n. 15), 182.

¹⁰² The incomplete release from servility was recognized by Marchesi, Ilaria, but without further status differentiation and interpretation: ‘Traces of a freed language: Horace, Petronius, and the rhetoric of fable’, ClAnt 24 (2005), 307–30, at 325–6Google Scholar. On the unchanged nature of the boar that wore the freedom cap, see also Bodel (n. 8), 185, and the contributions listed in note 42 above.

¹⁰³ Rimell (n. 15), 201, with further discussion of the Satyricon’s labyrinthine nature.

¹⁰⁴ Bodel (n. 1), 238.

¹⁰⁵ For modern discussion of the pun on the ius cenae, see the contributions listed in note 36 above.

¹⁰⁶ ‘Il vero trionfatore della Cena’: Conte, G.B., L'autore nascosto. Un'interpretazione del Satyricon (Pisa, 2007 ²), 115 Google Scholar (translated into English by Fantham, Elaine as The Hidden Author. An Interpretation of Petronius’ Satyricon [Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, 1996]; and 124 for the quotation)Google Scholar.