they have studied the things which surround us and our relations to them,
and thus have they been able to make their creations conform to human
experience. The ancients gave little attention to this; the man, with
them, was the important thing; the environment the unimportant. There
are, of course, exceptions; the interview between Ulysses and Nausiskaa
is probably the most striking. From the standpoint of environment,
Petronius, in the greater portion of his work, is an ancient; but one
exception there is, and it is as brilliant as it is important. The
entire episode, in which Trimalchio figures, offers an incredible
abundance of details. The descriptions are exhaustive and minute, but
the author's prime purpose was not description, it was to bring out the
characters, it was to pillory the Roman aristocracy, it was to amuse!
Cicero, in his prosecution of Verres, had shown up this aristocracy in
all its brutality and greed, it remained for the author of the Cena to
hold its absurdity up to the light of day, to lash an extravagance which,
though utterly unbridled, was yet unable to exhaust the looted
accumulations of years of political double dealing and malfeasance in
office. Trimalchio's introduction is a masterstroke, the porter at the
door is another, the effect of the wine upon the women, their jealousy
lest either's husband should seem more liberal, their appraisal of each
other's jewelry, Scintilla's remark anent the finesse of Habinnas'
servant in the mere matter of pandering, the blear-eyed and black-toothed
slave, teasing a little bitch disgustingly fat, offering her pieces of
bread and when, from sheer inability, she refuses to eat, cramming it
down her throat, the effect of the alcohol upon Trimalchio, the little
old lady girded round with a filthy apron, wearing clogs which were not
mates, dragging in a huge dog on a chain, the incomparable humor in the
passage in which Hesus, desperately seasick, sees that which makes him
believe that even worse misfortunes are in store for him: these details
are masterpieces of realism. The description of the night-prowling