A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

is described by Tacitus (Tac. Ann. 16.18, 19) as the most accomplished voluptuary at the court of Nero. His days were passed in slumber, his nights in visiting and revelry. But he was no vulgar spendthrift, no dull besotted debauchee. An air of refinement pervaded all his extravagancies; with him luxury was a serious study, and he became a proficient in the science. The careless, graceful ease, assuming almost the guise of simplicity, which distinguished all his words and actions, was the delight of the fashionable world; he gained, by polished and ingenious folly, an amount of fame which others often fail to achieve by a long career of laborious virtue. At one time he proved himself capable of better things. Having been appointed governor (proconsul) of Bithynia, and subsequently elevated to the consulship, his official duties were discharged with energy and discretion. Relapsing however, into his ancient habits, he was admitted among the few chosen companions of the prince, and was regarded as director-in-chief of the imperial pleasures, the judge whose decision upon the merits of any proposed scheme of enjoyment was held as final (Neroni assntlus est ELEGANTIAE ARBI'TER, dum nibil amoenum et nmolle affluceetia putat, nisi quod ei Petronius lpprobavisset). The influence thus acquired excited the jealous suspicions of Tigellinus : Petronius was accused of having been privy to the treason of Scaevinus a slave was suborned to lodge an information, and

the whole of his household was arrested. Believing that destruction was inevitable, and impatient or delay or suspense, he resolved to die as he had lived, and to excite admiration by the frivolous eccentricity of his end. Having caused his veins to be opened, he from time to time arrested the tlow of blood by the application of bandages. During the intervals he conversed with his friends, not upon the solemn themes which the occasion might have suggested, but upon the news and light gossip of the day; he bestowed rewards upon some of his slaves, and ordered others to be scourged : he lay down to sleep, and even showed himself in the public streets of Curnae, where these events took place; so that at last, when he sunk from exhaustion, his death (A. D. 66) although compulsory, appeared to be the result of natural and gradual decay. He is said to have despatched in his last moments a sealed document to the prince, taunting him with his brutal excesses (flagitia Principis * * * * * * perscripsit utque obsignata misit Neroni,) and to have broken in pieces a murrhine vessel of vast price, in order that it might not fall into the hands of the tyrant. This last anecdote has been recorded by Pliny (H. N.37.2), who, as well as Plutarch (De Adulat. et Amicit. Discrim. p. 60), give to the person in question the name of Titus Petroniius. We filnd it generally assumed that he belonged to the equestrian order, but the words of Tacitus (Tac. Ann. 16.17) would lead to an opposite inference, "Paucos quippe intra dies eodem agmine Alnnaeus Mella, Cerealis Anicius, Rufitus Crispinus ac C. Petronius cecidere. Mella et Crispinus Equites Romani dignitate senatoria." Now, since Petronius, in virtue of having been consul, must have enjoyed the diynitas senatoria, the above sentence seems to imply that Mella and Crispinus alone of the individuals mentioned were Equites Romnisni

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