Arbitr Petroniy

Gaius Petronius Arbiter was a Roman writer and poet. According to the majority of researchers, he was the author of the Satyricon.

He was presumably born in 14 in Massalia (now Marseille) and died in 66 in Cumae (Campania, Southern Italy).

Only a few facts are known about Petronius’s biography, thanks to Publius Cornelius Tacitus. As a rule, the writer and poet Petronius is identified with the senator Titus Petronius (Titus Petronius Niger), adviser to Emperor Nero, about whom the historian wrote in the Annals. The nickname Arbiter was also first used by Tacitus, who called the senator the arbiter of elegance (Lat. elegantiae arbiter).

Having fallen victim to court intrigues, Gaius Petronius Arbiter took his own life at the whim of Emperor Nero. Tacitus reports his death together with that of other representatives of the senatorial opposition: “Within a few days one after another perished Annaeus Mela, Anicius Cerialis, Rufrius Crispinus, and Gaius Petronius.”

The most complete literary portrait of Petronius is presented in Tacitus’s Annals (Book XVI, sections 17 to 20).

It is appropriate to speak in somewhat greater detail about Gaius Petronius. He devoted his days to sleep, and his nights to the duties of society and the pleasures of life. And if diligence brought others fame, idleness brought him his. And yet he was not regarded as a debauchee and spendthrift, as are most who live off inherited wealth, but was seen as an connoisseur of luxury. His words and actions were taken as evidence of his innate simplicity, and the more effortless they were and the more clearly a certain kind of negligence showed through them, the more favorably they were received. However, as proconsul of Bithynia and later, when he was consul, he proved himself sufficiently active and capable of carrying out the tasks entrusted to him. Having returned to a vicious life, or perhaps only feigning