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.p
The narrative-mechanism which gives Eumolpus free reign
in his choice of subject matter is interesting in itself.
Perhaps it can be explained in terms of
the general principles which guided Petronius' composition.
Perhaps, in a word, it is the \f8genre\f6 of the \f7Satyricon\f6
that can account for the appearance of such a poem as the \f7Bellum Ciuile\f6.
Petronius' chiefest guiding principle cannot be anything else but humour,
that much is sure.
But humorous intent is common to many types of literature:
it is the location of the \f7Satyricon\f6
within a specific generic framework that has proved notoriously difficult.
It is commonly held that it belongs not to any one genre
but to a combination of them.
Admitting the possibility of such a \f7mélange\f6
seems to weaken the point of attributing a genre in the first place,
but the theory is that Petronius is a kind of literary opportunist,
drawing on or parodying many different types of literature according
to his taste, his humour, and the demands of the narrative at any given point.
Abbot gives six possible lines of descent for a work like the \f7Satyricon\f6:
the mime, the prologues of comedy, the Milesian tales, epic, the romance,
and Menippean satire.\c
.f "Abbot (1911)."
In the course of his study he evaluates the contribution of each of these types
to the overall structure of the work: here they are only considered
in as much as they might explain the inclusion of the \f7Bellum Ciuile\f6.
.p
The genres of mime and comedy may be excluded at the start.
It is true that both exert an important influence on the \f7Satyricon\f6:
for instance the confidence trick at Croton,
the planning and execution of which flank the \f7Bellum Ciuile\f6,
owes much to mime.
But it is difficult to see how either of these types of literature
can account for the occurance of a poem on the Civil War.
.p
The \f7Satyricon\f6's debt to epic may prove a more fruitful point of comparison,
considering that is the genre of the poem itself.
It is true that there are many references to Homer and many Homeric themes
in Petronius, including such episodes as Giton's hiding underneath the bed
in the manner of Odysseus escaping the Cyclops (97.4, cf. \f7Od.\f6 9.431 ff.),
such details as Encolpius' taking the Odyssean epithet Polyaenus
for a pseudonym during the episodes at Croton,
and such themes as that of an angered deity pursuing the main character.
But Petronius makes these allusions for comic effect:
where Odysseus was ruthlessly pursued by a wrathful Neptune,
Encolpius is comically beset by an offended Priapus;
where the journey of Odysseus is a noble return home after war,
the wanderings of Encolpius are dictated by the rumblings of his stomach.
Moreover, it has already been seen that the genre of the \f7Bellum Ciuile\f6
is different from that of Homer's \f7Odyssesy\f6 on an important point:
it is of the historical rather than the mythical variety of epic.
There may be a link between reciting a poem to while away a journey
and the conventional telling of stories in the banquet scenes of epic,
but Eumolpus' poem on the Civil War is certainly not the ecphrasis
that his earlier \f7Troiae Halosis\f6 is.
It is difficult to see how a piece of literature modeled on Homeric epic
would yield such an inset as the \f7Bellum Ciuile\f6.
.p
Related to the genre of epic is that of the romance.
The episodic and character-focused plots
of both Petronius' work and the Greek romance novels
have a common source in the tales of the wandering Odysseus.
But just as Petronius subverts the serious tone of Homer,
so too he undercuts many of the stock elements of the romance:

.bl
We could speak of a parody of the romance,
with a substitution of homosexual for heterosexual love,
a triangle for a couple, realism for idealism, a character like Eumolpus
for the wise old man such as Heliodorus' Calasiris,
a hero running away from rather than trying to discover his destiny,
and so on.\c
.f "Relihan (1993) 94."
.ck

Several other features remain in common, such as shipwreck and attempted\p
suicide.
Relatively recent discoveries of papyri suggest that the Greek novelistic\p
tradition may in fact pre-date the \f7Satyricon\f6,
thus making a Petronian parody/development of that genre possible.
As for whether an adventure-narrative frame can account for the \f7Bellum Ciuile\f6,
the same discoveries also admit a precedent for the prosimetric romance,
but there is no evidence of any extended poetic extract in any of the novels.
Moreover, the environment of the romance is a sealed-off, idealised world:
the \f7Bellum Ciuile\f6 both alludes to contemporary poetic practice
and covers an important event of recent history.
These aspects of Eumolpus'poem cannot be explained by the Greek romance novel.
.p
The usual connection made with the \f7Satyricon\f6 on point of prosimetry
is to the genre known as Menippean satire.
Whether such a literary division existed in the minds of the ancients is not clear:
the generic term itself did not come into use until the 16th century.\c
.f "Relihan (1993) 12."
The only complete extant work usually called a Menippean satire
is the \f7Apocolocyntosis\f6 of Seneca,
but the similarities of the \f7Satyricon\f6 to that work are only superficial.
Petronius does not have the same single parodic focus
as Seneca does in the apotheosis of Claudius.
That both works are \f7prosimetra\f6 is of little significance
if that form can be sourced elsewhere.
It has already been mentioned that prosimetric romances have been posited;
when to this are added the possibilities of prosimetric mime and Milesian fiction,
the relevance of the \f7prosimetrum\f6 of Menippean satire all but vanishes.\c
.f "Astbury (1998) 84."
.p
As for the possibility of a connection between the themes of the \f7Satyricon\f6
and whatever was the satirical aspect of Menippean satire,
Petronius' choice of title is perhaps deceptive.
The manuscript tradition is in favour of the proper title for the work
consisting in the greek genitive \f7satyricon\f6,
with \f7libri\f6 supplied or understood.
The word, σατυρικοσ in the Greek, means ``pertaining to satyrs'':
considering the mischievous and sexual themes
of much of the \f7Satyricon\f6's content,
this would make it quite an appropriate title.
It is often suspected, though, that there is a pun intended,
an additional overtone of the word \f7satira\f6 or \f7satura\f6.
The spelling variations which proliferate in the manuscripts
strengthen the case that such an overtone was perceived,
but they are all late and so probably etymological misunderstandings.\c
.f "Perry (1925) 33."
It is true that many satirical situations arise in the \f7Satyricon\f6,
but it is not clear that they are accompanied by that morally corrective component
which was the mark of Roman verse satire.
The tired debate over whether Petronius was a moralist
asks whether there is an implied disapproval
in his many descriptions of moral degeneracy.
The case against such disapproval relies on
Encolpius' dispassionate style of narrating
and on the conviction that Petronius' ultimate aim
was not to correct but to entertain:
.bl

Since the story part of the \f7Satyricon\f6 has every appearance
of being written primarily to amuse, we may conclude that it is not a satire,
expanded and incidentally taking on the form of a romance,
but rather romance which has been somewhat influenced by satire.\c
.f "Perry (1925) 36."

.ck
.ne 12
A more nuanced approach sees Petronius' moral statement
as the reflection not of the descriptions of vice in the  \f7Satyricon\f6
but of the anarchic manner in which they are presented.\c
.f "Pioneered by Zeitlin (1971b)."
But, ``this approach is based on the unproven conviction
that every work must have a message,
however diffusely or perversely expressed'':\c
.f "Anderson (1982) 95."
is it not more likely that Petronius is presenting
the adventures of a band of rogues in a morally degenerate society
simply for the purposes of humour?
Satirical situations are encountered by the characters of the \f7Satyricon\f6,
but no comment is offered about right or wrong actions.
If there is any satirical dimension to the work
it is the deflation of satire: the story is delivered but the moral withheld.
For Walsh the possible pun in the title of the work refers to just this fact,
that satire is not what the \f7Satyricon\f6 is (``satyr-like'' is the primary meaning);
rather it is what the \f7Satyricon\f6 makes fun of.
He offers a diagram demonstrating that each enocunter
which the triangle of Encolpius, Giton, and Ascyltos/Eumolpus
faces involves a type from verse satire.
He lists them:
.bl

.nf
• Agamemnon: hypocritical \f7rhetor\f6
• Quartilla: \f7mulier libidinosa\f6
• Trimalchio: boorish host
• Eumolpus: manic poet
• Lichas/Tryphaena: \f7superstitiosi\f6
• Croton: \f7captatores\f6 (Circe)\c
.f "Walsh (1974) 189."
.fi

.ck
Each of these characters/situations is given moral censure
by the likes of Lucilius, Horace, and Juvenal;
but in the Petronian treatment they are accorded neither approval nor disapproval.
The adventures simply flow one into the other,
and Encolpius offers no further insight.
This can be seen in the case of the \f7Bellum Ciuile\f6,
which is an instance of an encounter with the ``manic poet'' character:
Eumolpus offers a specimen of his verse
which fails to capture the interest of its audience.
Moreover, the poet deviates sharply
from traditional accounts of the cause of the Civil War,
substituting a cause which is usually the topic of satire:
the decline in morals at Rome.
But even this striking adaptation does not provoke
comment from the poem's audience.
Encolpius has nothing to say about whether Eumolpus is right about the Civil War
and its cause: he notes only that the poem went on far too long.
If there is satire in the \f7Satyricon\f6, it has a character
very different to that of either Menippean or Roman verse satire.
.p
Finally, perhaps the \f7Satyricon\f6 and the \f7Bellum Ciuile\f6
can be explained by a Milesian model.
The Milesian tales of Aristides were salacious short stories,
probably with a fondness for the twist-ending.
Obvious parallels in the \f7Satyricon\f6 are the two amusing prose tales
delivered by Eumolpus: that of the Pergamene Boy (85–7)
and that of the Widow of Ephesus (111–12).
.\"(to the examples of the Pergamene Boy and Widow of Ephesus, told by Eumolpus,
.\"add the werewolf story told by Niceros at the \f7Cena\f6, 61–62).
Both of these involve a degree of titillation, and both have unexpected endings.
Furthermore, both are especially associated with a geographical location,
just as the Milesian tales were associated with the debauched lifestyle at Miletus.\c
.f "Harrison (1998) 67–68."
It is possible that the \f7Satyricon\f6 was conceived
as a stringing-together of such tales:
this at least seems to be the model for the only other extant sample
of Roman first-person novelistic fiction, the \f7Metamorphoses\f6 of Apuleius:
.bl

\f7at\ ego\ tibi\ sermone\ isto\ Milesio\ varias\ fabulas\ conseram.\f6
(\f7Met.\f6\ 1.1)\p

.ck
In fact, from this and other evidence,
it seems that the original form of the \f7Milesiaca\f6 of Aristides
may itself have involved a narrative which strung the stories together.
After all, \f7Milesio\f6 agrees with \f7sermone\f6, not \f7varias fabulas\f6:
the implication is that Apuleius is stringing different stories together
in that ``Milesian manner'', not stringing various Milesian tales together
to form his own unique narrative.
The prevailing view has been that the genre of the Milesian tales
may provide material for certain episodes within the \f7Satyricon\f6
but not its overall organizing principle.
This view depends on the assumption that the Milesian tales
were conventionally presented as a collection of short, unrelated stories,
united only by the persistent narrator;\c
.f "So Perry (1967) 94–95."
but Jensson makes the case that the original \f7Milesiaca\f6:
.bl

was not a collection of short stories, but a first-person novel,
more specifically a travelogue told from memory
by a narrator who every now and then
would relate how he encountered other characters
who told him stories which he could then incorporate into the main tale
through narrative impersonation.
The result is a complicated narrative fabric carried by the main narrator
with numerous subordinate tales carried by subordinate narrative voices.\c
.f " Jensson (2004) 262."

.ck
Jensson's case is persuasive, and his formulation of the nature of the Milesian tales
obviously provides a precedent for the novels of both Apuleius and Petronius.\c
.f "In seeking such a precedent, both Jensson and Harrison (1998) \
(independently, at first) revitalize \
the theory of the German scholar K. Bürger; cf. Perry (1925), his earlier opinion."
The \f7Metamorphoses\f6, like the \f7Milesiaca\f6,
consists in the recollections of a narrator who travelled to a foreign place,
in this case Thessaly, where he heard or otherwise witnessed
a series of intriguing tales.
Likewise, the \f7Satyricon\f6 can be seen as ``The Recollections of Encolpius'':\c
.f "The title of Jensson (2004)."
an account of the stories the narrator heard and witnessed during his travels.
.p
Of course, to find a Greek source for Petronius is not to rob him of his inventiveness
altogether: while the Milesian tales are concerned with only one \f7locus\f6
of lasciviousness, namely Miletus; Encolpius in his wanderings
visits several such places, including Naples and Croton in the surviving text,
with reference also to previous episodes in Massilia, Ostia, and Puteoli,
and possible further adventures in northern Africa.\c
.f "Jensson (2004) 171."
This may be the point of the title of the work.
The word \f7satyricon\f6 is in the genitive case;
the appropriate nominative would be \f7Satyrica\f6:\c
.f "A form of the title considered more correct by modern commentators; \
so in the title of, eg. Schmeling (2011)."
compare the titles of the Greek novels, \f7Ephesiaca\f6, \f7Babyloniaca\f6,
\f7Phoinicica\f6, and \f7Aethiopica\f6—indeed that of the \f7Milesiaca\f6 itself.
Petronius could not give his work a title in exactly the same way,
since the setting of the \f7Satyricon\f6 changes;
instead he gave it a title which reflects the common nature
of the places visited by Encolpius and the events he experienced in each,
their lascivious, ``satyr-like'' nature.
.p
The organizing principle of the sensational travelogue is elastic,
allowing the inclusion of a wide range of reported stories
as well as the narrator's recollections of his own adventures.
The Milesian tales may even provide a source
for the \f7Satyricon\f6's prosimetry.\c
.f "Jensson (2004) 297."
But the nature of the \f7Bellum Ciuile\f6 is still anomolous.
The poem does not contribute to one of the many self-contained episodes
which make up the \f7Satyricon\f6; rather it \f7is\f6 one such episode.
And yet nothing about the \f7Bellum Ciuile\f6 has any of that Milesian character
which colours the other episodes in the work.
While the Milesian tales,
at least when understood as including a cohesive framing narrative,
may provide perhaps the best model for the \f7Satyricon\f6 as a whole,
it is still no closer to explaining the appearance of the \f7Bellum Ciuile\f6.