SOURCE: "Some Comments on Petronius's Portrayal of Character," in Petronius the Artist: Essays on the Satyricon and its Author, Martinus Nijhoff, 1971, pp. 11-31.

In the following essay, Rankin studies some of the major characters in the Satyricon as well as the dis.contented society in which they lived.

Within the broken economy of the Satyricon's remains, Petronius' characters move convincingly. There are few characters in the work that are not drawn with their own special life. The Roman satiric tradition,¹ and the works of the Greek characterologists who were possibly in some rapport with the Athenian New Comedy,² provided a copious history and abundant material and models for his character-drawing. Nor must we omit to mention the influence upon him of older classical authors.³ Part of the standard rhetorical education was concerned with the bundles of qualities that represented recurrent personality types.⁴ Petronius took this material, which...