(Publication of the Newsletter is made possible by the generous support of Martha B. McDonald who dedicates this volume in memoriam to her beloved parents, Sgt. Carl E. and Toyo M. Byrd)

  BIBLIOGRAPHY  

       Bagordo, A., "Manum de tabula (Petron. 76,9)," Glotta 134-136 (1995-96). B. re-punctuates from manum de tabula: sustuli to tabula, sustuli and translates "... habe ich die Hand von der Tafel und mich aus den Handelsgeschäft genommen..."
       Balot, R., "Foucault, Chariton, and the Masculine Self," Helios 25 (1998) 139-162.
       Beck, R., review of R. Merkelbach, Isis regina -- Zeus Sarapis. Die griechisch-ägyptische Religion nach den Quellen dargestellt (Stuttgart/Leipzig: Teubner, 1995) in Klio 80 (1998) 525-527.
       Billault, A., "Romanciers grecs et tragédies," Actes du Colloque, Le Théâtre grec antique: La Tragédie . Cahiers de la Villa "Kerylos," N^o 8, Beaulieu-sur-Mer (Alpes-Maritimes). (Paris 1998) 179-194.
       Billault, A., "Le comique d'Achilles Tatius et les réalités de l'époque impériale," in Le Rire des Anciens , eds., M. Trede, P. Hoffmann (Paris: Presses de l'Ecole Normale Supérieure, 1998) 143-158.
       Biville, F., "Et tu cum esses capa , cocococo (Petr. 59.2). Metaphores et onomatopées animalières dans Sat . 57-59," Latomus 55 (1996) 855-862.
       Biville, F., "'Sophos !' universi clamamus (Pétrone 40,1). Acclamations grecques et latins dans les loisirs des Romains," in Les Loisirs et l'héritage de la culture classique , ed. J.-M. André (Bruxelles: Latomus , 1996) 310-318.
       Bloomer, W. Martin, Latinity and Literary Society at Rome (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997) 327 pp. Chapter 6, "The Rival in the Text," pp. 196-241, is an essay on the Satyrica .
       Bonfanti, M., "Due note a Petronio," AVM 56 (1988) 57-72.
       Brioso, M., "Aspectos formales del relato en la novela griega antigua," in Actitudes Literarias en la Grecia Romana , eds. M. Brioso, F.J. González Ponce (Sevilla: Libros Pórtico, 1998) 123-207.
       Brioso, M., "Modelos narrativos de la novela griega antigua," in Homenaje a Esperanza Albarrán Gómez (Sevilla: Instituto San Isidoro, 1998) 39-53.
       Brioso, M., "Aspectos del estilo directo en la novela griega antigua," Habis 30 (1999) 153-173.
       Callebat, Louis, Langages du roman latin . Spudasmata Bd. 71 (Hildesheim: Olms, 1998) 301 pp., DM 98. "The mostly linguistic studies brought together here have the goal of registering the originality of the genre and the form of the Satyrica by Petronius and the Metamorphoses by Apuleius by asking the question as to today's classification of these texts as 'novels'." From the advertizing blurb.
       Castelli, Anna, "A Proposito di Petronio 62, 5 mihi anima in naso esse , e 62, 10 paene animam ebullivi ," GIF 49 (1997) 229-236.
       Chiarini, G., "Il viaggo nella letteratura greco-latina: da Ulisse ad Apollonio Re di Tiro (con una nuova proposita di lettura del viaggio di Enea)," in Pothos: il Viaggio , la nostalgi (Trento: Università degli Studi di Trento, 1995) 61-76.
       Coccia, M., "Per una rilettura della Satire V di Giovenale," in Storia letteratura e arte a Roma nel secondo secolo dopo Cristo . Atti del Convegno: Mantova 8-9-10 ottobre 1992 (Firenze: Olschki, 1995) 3-25. cenae of Virro, Nasidienus and Trimalchio.
       Connors, C., Petronius the Poet. Verse and Literary Tradition in the Satyricon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). A book-length study of the thirty-two poems in Petronius' Roman novel and the ways in which they help to form the new genre.
       Courtney, E., "Two Notes on Petronius," MD 40 (1998) 205-207. On 136.4 and 141.
       Cueva, E., "The Analogue of the Hero of Heliodorus' Aethiopica ," Syllecta Classica 9 (1998) 103-113.
       Cueva, E., "The Art and Myth of Cupid and Psyche ," in Veritatis Amicitiaeque Causa , eds., S. Byrne, E. Cueva (Wauconda: Bolchazy-Carducci, 1999) 53-69.
       Dell'Era, A., "Petronio, Sat . 62.9," BollClass 16 (1995) 118.
       Döpp, S., "Roman/romanhafte Literatur," in Lexikon der antiken Christlichen Literatur , ed. Siegmar Döpp und Wilhelm Geerlings (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1998) 533-535. magnum in parvo , a concise overview of the very real connection between the ancient novel and early Christian writers .

Edsall, Margaret, The Role and Characterization of the Priest in the Ancient Novel (Columbia University, Dissertation, New York, 1996). Dissertation Abstracts 1996-1997, 57 (5) 2023A.
        Fernández-Savater Martín, María Victoria, "Técnica narrativa en la Historia Apollonii Regis Tyri : Las retrospecciones," Epos (Madrid) 13 (1997) 31-53. (M. Brioso)
       Fick, N., "Divination etrusque, divination italique dans le Satyricon ," in Les Écrivains et l' etrusca disciplina de Claude à Trajan (Tours; Institut d'Études Latines de la Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines, 1995) 153-158.
       Finkelpearl, E., Metamorphosis of Language in Apuleius. A Study of Allusion in the Novel (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998).
       Francis, J., "Truthful Fiction: New Questions to Old Answers on Philostratus' Life of Apollonius ," AJP 119 (1998) 419-441.
       Gagliardi, D., "Petronio e Orazio (Elementi di affinità tra due esperienze letterarie diverse)," AAP 43 (1994) 329-338.
       Galli, Lucia, "Petronio e il romanze greco di Richard Heinze," Kleos 2 (1997) 77-98. Galli provides an Italian translation of Heinze, "Petron und der griechische Roman," Hermes 34 (1899) 494-519, to mark the article's centenary.
       Gamba, G.G., Petronio Arbitro e i Cristiani. Ipotesi per una lettura contestuale del Satyricon (Roma: LAS-Libreria Ateneo Salesiano, 1998). Biblioteca di Scienze Religiose 141. 411 pp. (Thanks to Michele Coccia)
       Genoni, L., "Petronio, Sat . 116: un Prologo da commedia?," BSL 27 (1997) 454-459.
       Gerschner, R., "Encolpius Etymologus. Die etymologische Verwendung griechischer Wörter als Stilmerkmal von Petrons urbaner Prosa," WS 110 (1997) 145-150. "Demnach könnte es sich um mehr als ein allgemeines Stilmerkmal Petrons handeln: nämlich um die Abbildung eines Merkmales des realen Sprachgebrauchs seiner gebildeten Zeitgenossen" (p. 150).
       Giardina, G. "Petroniana," Museum Criticum 30-31 (1995-96) 267-272.
       Goga, S., "Encolpe dans la Cena . Une aventure de l'ego ," Latomus 57 (1998) 375-379.
       Gonoji, M., "Encolpius, the Unreliable Narrator of the Satyricon ," JCS 46 (1998) 88-97 (in Japanese).
       Grewing, F., "Etymologie und etymologische Wortspiele in den Epigrammen Martials," in Toto Notus in Orbe: Perspectiven der Martial-Interpretation , ed. Farouk Grewing. Palingenesia Bd. 65 (Stuttgart: Steiner, (1998) 315-356.
       Grewing, F., review of E. Lefèvre, Studien zur Struktur der "Milesischen" Novelle bei Petron und Apuleius (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1997) in Anzeiger für die Altertumswissenschaft 51 (1998) 47-51. "Eckard Lefèvres auch äußerlich ansprechend gestaltete Abhandlung, deren Ende ein umfangreiches Literaturverzeichnis auf neuem Stand (88-93) sowie ein nach Namen und Sachen gegliedertes Register (94-100) bilden, wird sich zügig einen festen Platz in der Roman- und Novellistik-Philologie erobern" (50-51).
       Guida, Augusto, "Un apographo sconosciuto di Caritone, un' ambigua nota del Pasquali e una fallita impresa editoriale del '700," in Vetustatis Indagator : Scritti offerti a Filippo Di Benedetto, eds., V. Fera and A. Guida (Messina 1999) 277-308.
       Guillaume-Coirier, G., "Une farce de banquet: la couronne d'or 'alabastrée' (Pétrone, Sat . LX, 1-4)," Latomus 57 (1998) 380-392.
       Hadas, M., trans., Heliodorus. An Ethiopian Romance (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999). Reprint of the 1957 edition.
       Harrison, S., "The Milesian Tales and the Roman Novel," GCN 9 (1998) 61-73.
       Harrison, S.J. "Dividing the Dinner: Book Divisions in Petronius' Cena Trimalchionis ," CQ 48 (1998) 580-585. H. would divide the Cena into 3 books: Book A (original Book 15?) 26.7-46.8; Book B (Book 16?) 47.1-65.2; Book C (Book 17?) 65.3-78.8.
       Harrison, S.J., Oxford Readings in the Roman Novel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). S.J. Harrison, "Introduction: Twentieth-Century Scholarship on the Roman Novel," xi-xxxix; F. Zeitlin, "Petronius as Paradox: Anarchy and Artistic Integrity," 1-49 [TAPA 102 (1971) 631-684]; R. Beck, "Some Observations on the Narrative Technique of Petronius," 50-73 [Phoenix 27 (1973) 42-61]; R. Astbury, "Petronius, P. Oxy . 3010 and Menippean Satire," 74-84 [CP 72 (1977) 22-31]; G. Rosati, "Trimalchio on Stage," 85-104 [Maia 35 (1985) 213-227]; H. Petersmann, "Environment, Linguistic Situation and Levels of Style in Petronius' Satyrica ," 105-123 [ANRW II. 32.3 (1985) 1687-1705]; A. Barchiesi, "Traces of Greek Narrative and the Roman Novel: a Survey," 124-141 [MCSN 4 (Rome 1986) 219-236]; A. Wlosok, "On the Unity of Apuleius' Metamorphoses ," 142-156 [Philologus 113 (1969) 68-84]; J. Tatum, "The Tale in Apuleius' Metamorphoses ," 157-194 [TAPA 100 (1969) 487-527]; W. Smith, "The Narrative Voice in Apuleius' Metamorphoses ," 195-216 [TAPA 103 (1972) 513-534]; H.J. Mason, "Fabula graecanica : Apuleius and his Greek Sources," 217-236 [B. Hijmans, T. van der Paardt, eds., Aspects of Apuleius' Golden Ass (Groningen 1978) 1-15]; R. T. van der Paardt, "The Unmasked 'I': Apuleius, Met . 11.27," 237-246 [Mnemosyne 34 (1981) 96-106]; F. Millar, "The World of the Golden Ass ," 247-268 [JRS 71 (1981) 63-75]; J. DeFilippo, "Curiositas and the Platonism of Apuleius' Golden Ass ," 269-289 [AJP 111 (1990) 471-492]; E. Finkelpearl, "Psyche, Aeneas, and an Ass: Apuleius, Metamorphoses 6.10-6.21," 290-306 [TAPA 120 (1990) 333-348]. Bibliography 309-337.
       Hock, Ronald F., Chance, J. Bradley, Perkins, Judith, eds., Ancient Fiction and Early Christian Narrative . Society of Biblical Literature, Symposium Series Number 6 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998) ix + 317 pp. $49.95. D. Konstan, "The Invention of Fiction," 3-17; G. Schmeling, "The Spectrum of Narrative: Authority of the Author," 19-29; D. Edwards, "Pleasurable Reading or Symbols of Power? Religious Themes and Social Context in Chariton," 31-46; K. Chew, "Focalization in Xenophon of Ephesos' Ephesiaka ," 47-59; C. Shea, "Setting the Stage for Romances: Xenophon of Ephesus and the Ecphrasis," 61-76; R. Pervo, "A Nihilist Fabula: Introducing The Life of Aesop ," 77-120; R. Hock, "Why New Testament Scholars Should Read Ancient Novels," 121-138; D. MacDonald, "Secrecy and Recognitions in the Odyssey and Mark: Where Wrede Went Wrong," 139-153; W. Shiner, "Creating Plot in Episodic Narratives: The Life of Aesop and the Gospel of Mark," 155-176; C. Hedrick, "Conceiving the Narrative: Colors in Achilles Tatius and the Gospel of Mark," 177-199; Brant, J., "Divine Birth and Apparent Parents: the Plot of the Fourth Gospel," 199-217; J. Chance, "Divine Prognostications and the Movement of Story: an Intertextual Exploration of Xenophon's Ephesian Tale and the Acts of the Apostles," 219-234; L. Alexander, "'Better to Marry than to Burn': St. Paul and the Greek Novel," 235-256; M. Aubin, "Reversing Romance? The Acts of Thecla and the Ancient Novel," 257-272; C. Thomas, "Stories Without Texts and Without Authors: the Problems of Fluidity in Ancient Novelistic Texts and Early Christian Literature," 273-291; Bibliography 293-309; Index 311-317.
       Hofmann, H., ed., Latin Fiction. The Latin Novel in Context (London: Routledge, 1999) 288 pp. 45. Sixteen essays examine the subject: "Petronius. The Satyrica ," G. Schmeling; "Petronius. The Cena Trimalchionis ," J. Bodel; "Petronius. The Novellas," G. Anderson; "Petronius. The Poems," C. Connors; "Apuleius. The Metamorphoses ," G. Sandy; "The Metamorphoses and its Greek Sources," H. Mason; "The Inserted Tales," N. Shumate; "Amor and Psyche," G.Sandy; "The History of Apollonius King of Tyre ," G. Schmeling; "Dares Phrygius and Dictys Cretensis," S. Merkle; "The Latin Alexander: Curtius Rufus and the Late Latin Texts," R. Stoneman; "Hagiographic Fiction as Entertainment," G. Huber-Rebenich; "Medieval Interpretations of Amor and Psyche," C. Moreschini; "Apollonius of Tyre in the Middle Ages," E. Archibald; "Alexander the Great in the Middle Ages," R. Stoneman; "The Rediscovery of the Latin Novels between the Middle Ages and the Eighteenth Century," R. Carver.
       Holzberg, N., De roman in de oudheid (Amsterdam: Polak & Van Gennep, 1998). Translation into Dutch of Der antike Roman (Munich: Artemis Verlag, 1986). Up-dated bibliography.
       Hunter, R., ed., Studies in Heliodorus . Cambridge Philological Society, Supp. Vol. 21 (Cambridge: Cambridge Philological Society, 1998): E. Bowie, "Phoenician Games in Heliodorus' Aithiopika ," 1-18; P. Hardie, "A Reading of Heliodorus, Aithiopika 3.4.1-5.2," 19-39; R. Hunter, "The Aithiopika of Heliodorus: beyond Interpretation," 40-59; J.R. Morgan, "Narrative Doublets in Heliodorus' Aithiopika ," 60-78; J. Hilton, "An Ethiopian Paradox: Heliodorus, Aithiopika 4.8," 78-92; T. Whitmarsh, "The Birth of a Prodigy: Heliodorus and the Genealogy of Hellenism," 93-124; P. Agapitos, "Narrative, Rhetoric, and 'Drama' Rediscovered: Scholars and Poets in Byzantium Interpret Heliodorus," 125-156; C. Bertoni and M. Fusillo, "Heliodorus Parthenopaeus: the Aithiopika in Baroque Naples," 157-181; D.Selden, "Aithiopika and Ethiopianism," 182-217; Bibliography, 219-232.
       Ilushechkin, V., "Legal and Illegal Marriage in Apuleius," in Power, Men, Society in the Ancient World . Papers of the Conference of the Ancient Association (Moscow 1997) 392-396.
       Ilushechkin, V., "The Peculiarities of Controversy between Paganism and Christianity in the 2nd Century A.D. (Apuleius's Story about the Lewd Wife of a Miller -- Met . IX.14)," Journal of Historical, Philological and Cultural Studies 5 (1998) 111-116 (Moscow-Magnitogorsk). In Russian.
       Jedrkiewicz, S., Il convitato sullo sgabello: Plutarco, Esopo ed in Sette Savi (Pisa 1997).
       Jouanno, Corinne, "Un èpisode embarrassant de l'histoire d'Alexandre: la prise de Thèbes," Ktema 18 (1993) 245-258.
       Jouanno, Corinne, "Alexandre et Olympia: de l'histoire au mythe," BAGB (1995) 211-230.
       Jouanno, Corinne, "Recits d'enfances dans la litterature byzantine d'imagination," Pris-Ma 12 (1996) 39-56.
       Jouanno, Corinne, "L'homme aux trois pères ou les ambiguités du Roman d'Alexandre," in Généalogies Mythiques , eds. D. Auger, S. Said (Paris: Université de Paris, 1998) 447-463.
       Jouanno, Corinne, trans., Digénis Akritas, le heros des frontières. Une épopée byzantine. Version de Grottaferrata . Introduction, pp. 7-186, par Corinne Jouanno (Turnhout: Brepols, 1998). Maps 187-188; Translation 193-309; Bibliography 311-319.
       Kleijwegt, M., "The Social Dimensions of the Gladiatorial Combat in Petronius' Cena Trimalchionis ," GCN 9 (1998) 75-96.
       Knobloch, I., "Matavitatau . Der Schlachtruf antiker Legionäre," RhM 139 (1996) 368-369.
       Kortekaas, G., "Historia Apollonii Regis Tyri: eine Kurznotiz," ZPE 122 (1998) 60. Is the poem at c.11 (storm at sea) inspired by Virgil A . 1.81-141 or Achilles Tatius 3.1-3.5? [read for ]. Note on Notus clipeo /picea or Notus clypeum .
       Laes, C., "Forging Petronius: François Nodot and Fake Petronian Fragments," Humanistica Lovaniensia 47 (1998) 358-402.
       Lateiner, D., "Blushes and Pallor in Ancient Fictions," Helios 25 (1998) 163-189.
       Los, A., "La Condition sociale des affranchis privés au 1^er siècle après J.C.," Annales (ESC) 50 (1995) 1011-1043.
       Marblestone, H., "Matavitatau in Petronius, Satyricon 62.9: crux interpretum ," in Boundaries of the Ancient Near Eastern World: a Tribute to Cyrus H. Gordon , eds., M. Lubetski et al . (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998) 493-510.
       Mariotti, M., "Sul contrasto di modelli nella retorica dell' aegritudo : consolatio per exempla e fletus immodicus in AL 692 R e Petron. 115, 6-20," MD 38 (1997) 87-123.
       Martin, René, Le Satyricon. Pétrone . Textes fondateurs (Paris: Ellipses, 1999) 174 pp.
       McGinn, Thomas, Prostitution, Sexuality, and the Law in Ancient Rome (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998) xvi + 416 pp.
       McGlathery, D., "Petronius' Tale of the Widow of Ephesus and Bakhtin's Material Bodily Lower Stratum," Arethusa 31 (1998) 313-336.
       Mey, Dario, Curiosità: Petronio Arbitro, La Matrona di Efeso . Testo latino a fronte, traduzione e commento di Dario Mey. [Also Latin and Italian, il Fanciullo di Pergamo]. In Appendice, La Vedova nella poesia popolare e negli aforismi (Valentano: Scipioni, 1996). Thanks to Michele Coccia and Aldo Setaioli.
       Müller, K. review of I.C. Giardina, Rita Cuccioli Melloni, eds., Petronii Arbitri Satyricon (Torino: Paravia, 1995) in Gnomon 70 (1998) 494-497.
       Öberg, J., ed., Petronius. Cena Trimalchionis . Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis, Studia Latina Stockholmiensia XLII (Stockholm: Almquist & Wiksell, 1999) xx + 58 pp. Abstract: "The Petronian Satyrica and especially its Trimalchio episode abound with interpretative and textual difficulties, the transmitted text being almost as faulty as it is funny. From the editio princeps of 1664 up to the authoritative Teubner edition by Konrad Müller 1995, numerous brilliant scholars have scrutinized the text of Petronius, presenting ingenious solutions to its many problems. The aim of the present new edition is to question a number of traditionally accepted readings, which implies either returning to the manuscript version or to an early solution of a specific problem, or may even mean proposing quite new conjectures. The Latin text, preceded by introductory notes on the manuscript sources and on the present edition, is accompanied by a combined critical and explanatory apparatus . Indices of proper names and remarkable words conclude the booklet."
       Papademetriou, J. -Th., Aesop as an Archetypal Hero (Athens 1997).
       Perotti, P., "Ius cenae (Pétrone 35,7)," LEC 65 (1997) 345-349.
       Plazenet, L., "L' ébahissement et la delectation . Reception comparée et poetiques du roman grec en France et en Angleterre aux XVI^e et XVII^e siècles (Paris: Honoré Champion, 1997) 899pp.
       Ramelli, Ilaria, "Petronio e i Cristiani: Allusioni al Vangelo di Marco nel Satyricon ," Aevum 70 (1996) 75-80. This article caught the eye of the popular press in Italy and was discussed in the mass-media: M. Cecchetti, "Petronio contro Marco," Avvenire (29 May 1996) 19; C. Medial, "Petronio, una parodia del Vangelo di Marco," Corriere della Sera (5 June 1996) 29; S. Paci, "Petronio, c' è un Vangelo tra le righe," 30 Giorni (16 June 1996) 48-50; R. Fiol, "Marco e Petronio. Quando Nerone leggeva il Vangelo," Litterae Communionis Tracce 23/10 (November 1996) 62-63. In Gamba, Petronio Arbitro e i Cristiani .
       Reardon, B.P., "Apographs and Atticists: Adventures of a Text," Celebratio: Thirtieth Anniversary Essays at Trent University , eds., J. Bews et al . (Peterborough: Trent University, 1998) 67-75. A history of the text of Chariton's Callirhoe .
       Ruiz-Montero, C., "La novela de Nino y los comienzos del género," in Las Letars griegas bajo el imperio , eds. M. Brioso, F.J. González Ponce (Sevilla: Libros Pórtico, 1996) 135-150.
       Ruiz-Montero, C., "La Concepción de la mujer en los textos griegos de comienzo del imperio," in Mujer e Investigación , eds., Lola Frutas Balibrea, Remedios Maurandi Guirado (Murcia: University of Murcia, 1998) Chapter 8.
       Salanitro, M., "L'uccello pio. Petronio, 55, 6 v.4," RFIC 124 (1996) 300-305. For the words ciconia ... / pietaticultrix S. stresses the importance of, and connection to, ciconia and pietas .
       Setaioli, A., "Il novae simplicitatis opus (Sat . 132.15.2) e la poetica petroniana," Prometheus 23 (1997) 145-164.
       Setaioli, A., "Cinque poesie petroniane (Sat . 82.5, 83.10, 108.14, 126.18, 132.15)," Prometheus 24 (1998) 217-242.
       Sham, M., Characterization in Petronius' Satyricon (Dissertation, State University of New York at Buffalo, NY, 1994). Summary in Dissertation Abstracts 1994-1995 55 (11) 3500A-3501A.
       Siewert, W., Petronius. Satyricon Libri . Auswahl mit vollständigen Text der Cena Trimalchionis . Eingeleitet, kommentiert und mit Zusatztexten versehen von Walter Siewert. Vol. 1 Text, Vol. 2 Kommentar (Münster: Verlag Aschendorff, 1994). Very good and useful school edition of the Satyrica . Thanks to Farouk Grewing, Koln.
       Sommariva, G., "Il Barbiere di Mida (Petr. Satyr . fr. 28 Ernout)," Filologia Antica e Moderna 1 (1991) 107-117. Allusion to Ovid M . 11.172ff.; Frag . belongs in Satyrica 116-117.
       Soverini, P., Note a Petronio, Sat . 132, 15," BSL 27 (1997) 460-469. On quid me constricta ... Are these the sentiments of the author?
       Stramaglia, A. Res inauditae, incredulae: Storie di fantasmi nel mondo greco-latino (Bari: Levante Editore, 1999). "Le Rane," Collana di Studi e Testi: Studi 24. 552 pp. After a most informative introduction which lays out the material to be covered, S. divides his book into 5 chapters: 1) "Case infestate" 2) "Terrori balneari" 3) "La morte amoureuse" 4) "Sepolcri senza requie" 5) "Fantasmi di guerra." Each chapter has an excellent introduction to the subject, everything nicely documented, the Greek or Latin texts with Italian translation, detailed notes to the texts, and a few fitting photographs. S. has packed a wealth of information into this handsome book. The ancient Greek and Latin novels play a major role in S.'s book, and scholars of the novel will want to go through this work thoroughly.
       Swain, S., ed., Oxford Readings in the Greek Novel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). S. Swain, "A Century and More of the Greek Novel," 3-35; E. Bowie, "The Greek Novel," 39-59 [P. Easterling, B. Knox, eds., The Cambridge History of Classical Literature , I, Greek Literature (Cambridge 1985) 683-699]; M. Fusillo, "The Conflict of Emotions: a Topos in the Greek Erotic Novel," 60-82 [MH 47 (1990) 201-221]; S. Said, "Rural Society in the Greek Novel, or the Country Seen from the Town," 83-107 [E. Frézouls, ed., Sociétés urbaines, sociétés rurales dans l'Asie Mineure et la Syrie hellénistiques et romaines (Strasbourg 1987) 149-171]; B. Egger, "The Role of Women in the Greek Novel: Woman as Heroine and Reader," 108-136 [CGN 1 (1988) 33-66]; T. Hägg, "Callirhoe and Parthenope : the Beginnings of the Historical Novel," 137-160 [Classical Antiquity 6 (1987) 184-204]; B.P. Reardon, "Theme, Structure and Narrative in Chariton," 163-188 [YCS 27 (1982) 1-27]; B. Effe, "Longus: Towards a History of Bucolic and its Function in the Roman Empire," 189-209 [Hermes 110 (1982) 65-84]; L. Cresci, "The Novel of Longus the Sophist and the Pastoral Tradition," 210-242 [A&R 26 (1981) 1-25]; B.P. Reardon, "Achilles Tatius and Ego-Narrative," 243-258 [J.R. Morgan, ed., Greek Fiction: the Greek Novel in Context (London 1994) 80-96]; J.R. Morgan, "The Story of Knemon in Heliodorus' Aithiopika ," 259-285 [JHS 109 (1989) 99-113]; J. Winkler, "The Mendacity of Kalasiris and the Narrative Strategy of Heliodorus' Aithiopika ," 286-350 [YCS 27 (1982) 93-158]; M. Fusillo, "The Mirror of the Moon: Lucian's A True Story -- from Satire to Utopia," 351-381 [Poétique 19/73 (1988) 109-135]; Bibliography 382-412.
       Tandoi, V., "Come entrare a Crotone (Petr. Satyr . 117)," in Scritti di Filologia e di Storia della cultura classica , vol. 2 (Pisa 1992) 624-632.
       Várhelyi, Zsuzsanna, "Representations of the 'Other': the Religion of the Egyptians in the Greek Novel," in Heorte: Studia in Honorem Johannis Sarkady Septuagenarii , eds., Zoltán Nemes, György Németh (Debrecen: KLTE, 1997) 89-113 [Történeti Tanulmányok VI: Hungarian Polis Studies 2]. Thanks to William Hansen.
       Vielberg, M., "Der Dichter und Erzähler Eumolp -- ein unzeitgemäßer Held Petron?" in Der unzeitgemäße Held in der Weltliteratur , ed., G. Kaiser. Jenaer Germanistische Forschungen, Bd. 1 (Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1998) 29-45. Thanks to Farouk Grewing, Köln.
       Wolff,É., trans., Histoire du roi Apollonius de Tyr , présenté, traduit du latin et annoté (Paris: Anatolia, 1996).
       Wolff, É., Le roman grec et latin . Thèmes & études (Paris: Ellipses, 1997) 120 pp. "Ce livre étudie l'origine du genre romanesque dans l'Antiquité, analyse chacun des romans antiques, dégage leurs constantes et leurs différences -- le roman grec est un roman d'amour, ce n'est pas vrai du roman latin --, et montre aussi l'influence déterminante qu'ils ont exercée sur les littératures de l'Europe moderne, au XV^e siécle notamment" (from the back cover).
       Zimmerman, M. et al ., eds., Aspects of Apuleius' Golden Ass : vol. 2, Cupid and Psyche (Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 1998) XII + 236 pp. K. Dowden, "Cupid and Psyche: a Question of the Vision of Apuleius," 1-22; Maeve C. O'Brien, "'For every tatter in its mortal dress': Love, the Soul and her Sisters," 23-34; P. James, "The Unbearable Lightness of Being: Levis Amor in the Metamorphoses of Apuleius," 35-49; S.J. Harrison, "Some Epic Structures in Cupid and Psyche ," 51-68; W. Smith, "Cupid and Psyche Tale: Mirror of the Novel," 69-82; Danielle van Mal-Maeder, Maaike Zimmerman, "The Many Voices in Cupid and Psyche ," 83-102; H. Pinkster, "The Use of Narrative Tenses in "Apuleius' Amor and Psyche ," 103-111; S. Brodersen, "Cupid's Palace -- a Roman Villa (Apul. Met . 5,1)," 113-125; S. Mattiacci, "Neoteric and Elegiac Echoes in the Tale of Cupid and Psyche by Apuleius," 127-149; Stelios Panayotakis, "Slander and Warfare in Apuleius' Tale of Cupid and Psyche," 151-164; Wytse H. Keulen, "A Bird's Chatter: Form and Meaning in Apuleius' Metamorphoses 5, 28," 165-188; Jan L. de Jong, "Il pittore a le volte è puro poeta: Cupid and Psyche in Italian Renaissance Painting," 189-215 (13 plates); Bibliography 217-228; General Index 229-236. This volume is a worthy successor to Aspects of Apuleius' Golden Ass (1978).

 NACHLEBEN

       Turner, Paul, The Life of Thomas Hardy (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998). The readers of the PSN will be pleasantly surprised to note Hardy's use of material from Longus' Daphnis and Chloe in various of his novels. In a earlier age when the word literate always implied a knowledge of the classics Hardy read fairly widely in Greek and Latin literature. Turner's biography should add much fuel to the revival of interest in Hardy.
       Maderna, B., Satyricon, opéra en un act d'après Pétrone . CD: Éditions Salabert, Paris, 1998.
       Thackwray, Robert, Effective Evaluation of Training and Development in Higher Education (Sheffield, UK: Universities' and Colleges' Staff Development Agency, 1997) 25, quotes the (in)famous lines from Petronius: "We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up in teams we would be reorganized ..."
       Evans, Patricia, "Can I quote you (whoever you are)?," The Globe and Mail (1 May 1998) A24. On the (in)famous lines from Petronius: "We trained hard..." These lines have taken on a life of their own and a Web Site of their own! www.research.att.com/~ reads/petronius.html. Thanks to Barry Baldwin, emeritus non defessus .
       Maderna, Bruno, "Satyricon , un'opera buffa in piena regola." This Satyricon was written in 1973 and the performance in Venice, Italy in October 1998 was reviewed by Paolo Gallarati in La Stampa , 10 October 1998; by Michelangelo Zurletti in La Repubblica , 18 October 1998. Thanks to Michele Coccia.

NOTICES

MADRID CONFERENCE

 Primer Simposio Internacional de Filología Griega, Madrid, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Departamento de Filología Clásica, 18-21 February 1998: “El Amor en la Literatura Griega.” M. Brioso, “El amor, de la elegía helenística a la novela”; E. Paglialunga, “El amor en la novela griega.”

UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY NOVEL CONFERENCE

James Francis announces a “Colloquium on the Pre-Modern Novel,” 23-24 March 1999, University of Kentucky, Lexington. The speakers on 23 March are: Simon Goldhill, “The Erotic Eye: Cultural Conflict and Empire Society in the 2nd Century”; Steve Nimis, “In medias res: Beginning Again in the Middle in the Ancient Novel”; William Hansen, “Pseudo-Documentarism: Musings on Novels Found in Temples and Tombs.” On 24 March: Simon Goldhill, “Cultivating a Look: Self-Presentation and the Expertise of Observation”; Jennifer Tunberg, “Neo-Latin Novels as a Genre and Samuel Gott’s Nova Solyma (London: 1648).”

LECTURES AT THE PETRONIAN SOCIETY — MUNICH SECTION
Niklas Holzberg, Praeses

(lecture schedule shortened because N. Holzberg heeded the Siren voices of Italy and taught at the Venice International University in Winter 1998-99).
 

BOSTON AREA ROMAN STUDIES CONFERENCE

Ann Vasaly announces a conference on 23 April 1999 at Boston University. The speakers are: Vasily Rudich, “Paideia in Persius and Petronius”; Nancy Shumate, “The Satyricon and the Question of Authenticity”; John Bodel, “Liber esto: Free(d) Speech at the Banquet of Trimalchio (Pet. 41-46).”

APULEIUS COLLOQUIUM

York University held a conference, “Pinning the Tale: Apuleius’ Golden Ass in its Cultural Context,” on 24 April 1999. The speakers were Ewen Bowie, Elaine Fantham, Ellen Finkelpearl, James River, Gerald Sandy. The conference is intended to coincide with the Canadian Opera Company’s new production of The Golden Ass, an opera with libretto by Robertson Davis and music by Randolph Peters.
 

APA MEETING, 27-30 DECEMBER 1998
WASHINGTON, DC

S. McGill, “The Literary Lives of a Scheintod: Clitophon and Leucippe 5.7 and Greek Epigram”; L. Kim, “The ‘Trouble’ with Kalasiris: Authority, Duplicity & Self-Presentation in Heliodorus”; J. Alvares, “Eros and the Reformation of Love and Society in Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe”; D. Larmour, “Lucian’s True History: Allegories of Reading”; S. Trzaskoma, “Longus, Thucydides and their Mytilenian Debates”; K. Olson, “Slave Narrative in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses”; E. Cueva, “Art and Myth and Cupid and Psyche”; G. Jensson, “The Milesian Tale: Short Story on Novel?”

TAUTON"S COLLEGE, SOUTHAMPTON

Hopwood, K., "Trimalchio's Life and Society." Lecture, 25 November 1998

PSN AND THE WEB

If anyone wishes to add items to Jean Alvares' bibliography for the ancient novel, first go to http://www.uky.edu/ArtsSciences/ Classics/novelform.html and check the bibliography. If the items are not listed there, then go to  http://130.68.50.82:591/bibsearch.html and add to the bibliography.  The password is Petron.

WORKS IN PROGRESS

       Panayotakis, Costas is working on a revised version of P. Dinnage's translation of the Satyricon with Introduction and Notes. To be published by Wordsworth's Classics in summer/fall.
       Keulen, Wytse, is preparing a commentary in English on Apuleius Met . 1 as a doctoral dissertation at the University of Groningen.
 
 

REVIEWS 

William Hansen, ed, Anthology of Ancient Greek Popular Literature . Bloomington: Indiana, 1998. xxix + 349, $18.95 (paper) $39.95 (cloth)

Review by Richard I. Pervo
University of Minnesota

       Hansen, Professor of Classical Studies and Folklore at Indiana, has produced what one hopes for in an anthology, for this volume can be used as a textbook yet is of benefit for the scholar, has clear, well-written, and well-formed introductions that avoid eccentricity while noting different viewpoints, and provides a representative selection of mostly complete works. These are: An Ephesian Tale, The Acts of Paul and Thecla, Secundus the Silent Philosopher , the Onos, The Aesop Romance, The Alexander Romance , selections from Phlegon's Marvels (on which see Hansen's translation with commentary: Phlegon of Tralles' Book of Marvels [Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1996]), excerpts from the Collectio Augustana of fables, about one-fifth of the jokes in the Philogelos , The Oracles of Astrampsychus , and c. forty epitaphs. A number of the non-fiction items appear in translation for the first time, whereas the novels come from extant versions, only one of which (M. Hadas's rendition of Xenophon of Ephesus) will elicit scholarly frowns. (Hansen uses Daly's Aesop . Readers of the PSN may be interested to know that a more accurate translation based upon a superior text may be found in L. Wills, The Quest of the Historical Gospel [London: Routledge, 1997], 181-215.)
       This anthology contains two general types of material: fictional and "practical." In the general introduction Hansen takes up the issue of definition. Rejecting qualitative, quantitative (H. observes that S. Stephens's counting of papyri implies, if valid, its opposite: the most popular ancient writings were Homer and the Jewish and Christian scriptures), and sociological approaches, he opts for aesthetic criteria. Chief among these is the primacy of content over form. In sum: "The popular aesthetic, as expressed in literature, manifests itself typically as easy to read, continually engaging and replete with action and sensation." (xvii). Other characteristic features are unknown authorship, textual fluidity, and "nonorganic" composition. This last is probably the most debatable, as scholars keep discovering structure in many popular works long believed to lack it.
       The benefits of this volume for the specialist interested in non-sophistic novels are three-fold. One is the valuable discussion of that elusive adjective "popular." Another is Hansen's apt deployment of comparative material and methods. Finally, the juxtaposition of fictional and practical helps to illuminate the cultural environment of those who read popular fiction. The questions posed in The Oracles of Astrampsychus , for example, provide enough motifs for the construction of a typical action-packed novel.

Louis Callebat, Languages du roman latin . Spudasmata Bd. 71 (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1998) 301 pp., DM 98.

    The first part of this book (17-218) is a collection of nine previously published articles: "Les Satyrica de Pétrone et l'Âne d'or d'Apulée sont-ils des Romans?," Euphrosyne 20 (1992) 149-164 (17-33); "Structures narratives et modes de représentation dans les Satyrica de Pétrone," REL 52 (1974) 281-303 (35-55); "Langages des Satyrica de Pétrone," Biblos 68 (1992 [not 1998]) 1-11 (57-67); "Fabula de nobis narratur : Esthétique et éthique dans les Satyrica de Pétrone," in Studia Philologica Varia in Honorem O. García de la Fuente (Madrid: Universidad Europea de Madrid, 1994) 179-185 (69-76); "Nihil impossible arbitror : Diversité et cohérence de l'oeuvre d'Apulée," in Filologia et Forme Letterarie , Studi Offerte à Francesco della Corte (Urbino: Acti Grafiche Editoriali, 1983) Vol. 4, 105-122 [not 187] (77-93); "La prose des Métamorposes: Génèse et spécificitè," in Aspects of Apuleius' Golden Ass , eds. B.L. Hijmans, R. van der Paardt (Groningen: Bouma's Boekhuis, 1978) 167-187 (95-122); "Formes et modes d'expression dans le Métamorphoses d'Apuleé," ANRW II 34.2 (1994) 1616-1664 (123-179); "L' archaisme dans les Metamorphoses d'Apulée," REL 42 (1964) 346-361 (181-194); "La prosa d'Apulée dans le De Magia ," WS 18 (1984) 143-167 (195-218) The second part of this book is a collection of seven critical readings (one of the Satyrica , six of the Metamorphoses ) each with text, translation and critical reading: "Neutralisation d'un recit: Satyrica 22" (223-232); "Lectures d'un prologue: Metamorphoses 1,1" (233-244); "Langage narratif et langage scénique: Métamorphoses 4,3" (245-253); "Ironie et fantastique: Métamorphoses 3,24" (255-260); "Préciosité et maniérisme: Métamorphoses 5,22" (261-265); "Langage du Baroque: Métamorphoses 2,4" (267-272); "La style 'sublime': Métamorphoses 11,1" (273-283); Index (287-301).
       A welcome collection of essays gathered from diverse sources, by a senior scholar of the Roman novel.

NOTES 

ACHILLES TATIUS AND HELIODORUS: SOME 1998 PARALLELS
by Martin M. Winkler

This note describes a recent literary parallel to Achilles Tatius' Leucippe and Clitophon and two factual parallels to Heliodorus' Ethiopian Story .

1.

Achilles Tatius' adventure and mystery novel is noteworthy for the brazenness with which he sets up and describes the gruesome death of his heroine (3.15), in full view of eyewitnesses and followed by the dismemberment of her body, at a point when little more than a quarter of the whole story has been told -- only to bring her back to life immediately afterwards. Achilles kills off Leucippe for a second time (5.7), again before witnesses and with another resurrection following in due course; for good measure, she is later reported murdered for a third time (7.3). But as any reader, ancient or modern, will have suspected at this point in the story, this is a false report. Leucippe remains unharmed throughout and, by story's end, can enjoy a well-deserved happy ending with Clitophon, the novel's hero and narrator.
       A comparable fate, if without a romantic happy ending, awaits Sarah Blundy, the heroine of Iain Pears's historical mystery An Instance of the Fingerpost (1998; the title is a quotation from Francis Bacon). The novel, set at Oxford in the 1660s, is primarily indebted to Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose (1980; English translation, 1983) and, for its narrative structure, to Akira Kurosawa's film Rashomon (1950). Pears gives us four narrators who relate the same events from their different perspectives and reveal to the reader different and mutually exclusive pieces of information. All four describe the heroine's execution by public hanging; the report by the first narrator includes a detailed description of the corpse's dismemberment for the sake of anatomical research. At this stage we are a little more than a quarter into the narrative, which comprises almost 700 pages. It is only toward the end of the last narrator's story, after we have ourselves witnessed, as it were, Sarah's hanging three times in previous accounts, that we find out what, presumably, really happened. She has survived her execution, and the dismemberment turns out to have been an elaborate piece of deception. In good narrative fashion as instanced by Achilles Tatius' and other ancient novels, some of this borders on the incredible or far-fetched. Pears even outdoes Achilles Tatius when he eventually associates his heroine with the supernatural and, indeed, the divine.
       Pears presents an absorbing piece of literate entertainment with an intricate plot, recreating a historical time and place apparently as accurately as readers would expect from a mystery novel today. Unfortunately, the reader's illusion of being transported back to the past is broken by a number of verbal anachronisms -- characters using words or phrases which sound distinctly familiar to our ears today -- and by mistakes and numerous typographical errors in the book's Latin quotations. The most embarrassing of the latter appears prominently in the citations to quotations from Bacon's Novum Organum , which serve as epigraphs to the individual narrators' stories.

2.

The plot of Heliodorus' novel starts when Persinna, queen of Ethiopia and wife of King Hydaspes, gives birth to her daughter Chariclea, the story's eventual heroine. Chariclea is the white child of black parents. This unusual circumstance may have been acceptably explained to ancient readers by the process of mental imprinting which is given as its reason in the text (4.8): Persinna had been looking at an image of Andromeda, a white woman, at the moment of conception. But modern readers might baulk at the physiological improbability of this (even if they are familiar with the exhaustive and fascinating history of the "Andromeda Effect" from antiquity to the present as provided by M.D. Reeve, "Conception," PCPhS 215 (1989) 81-112) and might, as a result, refuse the suspension of disbelief usually necessary for the enjoyment of adventure or mystery fiction.
       They need, however, not doubt the biological possibility of black parents producing a white child and doing so even more than once. This very phenomenon occurred in 1996 and 1998 in England and was duly reported in The Times of London (10 April 1998; p. 8) under the punning headline "Lightening strikes twice for black pair."
       Carlton and Cynthia Golding (or Goulding; not even the venerable Times is safe from typographical errors these days) first had a black son, then a white son "born with blond curly hair," and, eighteen months later, a white daughter. Despite her earlier experience, the mother seems to have felt the same way her fictional precursor Persinna must have felt: "I just couldn't believe my eyes when she was born."
       But not to worry. The father is quoted as stating that "he had had a white great-grandmother" among his Jamaican ancestors. No less an authority than Richard Dawkins, Oxford University's Professor of the Public Understanding of Science, has the explanation: "Each individual gets half their genes from their parents, a quarter from their grandparents, an eighth from the great-grandparents, and so on," making this "a possible, but extremely unlikely, occurrence."
       Actually, it is not all that unlikely an occurrence, at least not in England. An independent newspaper recently reported in a syndicated column another case in which a black couple had not two but three white children (Washington City Paper , 18 September 1998; p. 19). The parents, Dickson and Cynthia Unoarumhi of South London, believe they hold the world record in this, and apparently the people from the Guinness Book of World Records think so, too: they will inaugurate such a category with the Unoarumhis in 1999. Possible biological reasons advanced in their case are genetic regression and a parent's carrying a pigment-changing or an albino gene.
       If only Heliodorus could have known.......
 

SAUNDRA SCHWARTZ, COURTROOM SCENES IN ANCIENT GREEK NOVELS . PH.D. DISSERTATION, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, 1998. ADVISOR SUZANNE SAID.
summary by Saundra Schwartz
 

        The trial scene was a favorite topos of the ancient Greek novels. Chariton, Xenophon of Ephesus, Longus, Achilles Tatius, and Heliodorus each include at least one scene which features a verbal dispute between two parties, occasioned by an alleged or actual misdeed, judged by a official, witnessed by an audience, and entailing punishment or reward. Classical polis , imperial city, barbarian court, and philosophical utopia provide backdrops for trials.
        This study is concerned with the correspondence of legal realia in the novels to the world of the novels' authors and readers. As my starting point, I examine how trials function within the narrative framework of individual novels and consider the influences and parallels from other literary genres. Legal scenarios and juridical procedures in the novels are then compared with nonliterary evidence for ancient law, primarily from classical Athens and imperial Rome. Despite their realistic settings the novels reflect a pastiche of legal details drawn from a (sometimes) nostalgic vision of the independent polis , as well as from contemporary legal practices of the Roman empire. The trial scenes in the novels do not shed much light on the way in which the Greek cities reconciled their laws with the law of their Roman masters: rather, they reflect an interest in trials as displays of the sufferings and triumphs of the rich and beautiful. These scenes are artifacts of a world imagined by a cultured elite which lived during a time when law provided the pretext for dramatic and savage spectacles.
Chapter 1 surveys modern scholarship on legal realia in the novels and defines the trial scene. In Chariton, the Syracusan trials of Chaereas and Theron are a study in moral contrast (chapter 2); the Babylonian trials (chapter 3) fully develop the trial as an extended drama in the court of a foreign king. Xenophon's trial of Habrocomes by the prefect of Egypt is contrasted with scenes of punishment in the household (chapter 4). Consistent with his pastoral vision, Longus features a trial for a pedestrian case of property damage (chapter 5). The pair of trials in Achilles Tatius is a sophisticated play on the issue of adultery and murder, two typically novelistic crimes (chapter 6). The trials of Cnemon and his father in Heliodorus provide ample material for comparison to the law of Athens (chapter 7). Trials in the courts of the Persian satrap and of the Ethiopian king form and ideological and moral contrast of ideal rulers (chapter 8). Chapter 9 presents an overview of crime, procedure, magistrates, and punishment. A conclusion (chapter 10) follows, and an appendix summarizes modern debate on the chronology of the Greek novels.
 

AINEIAS TAKTIKOS AND ACHILLES TATIUS
by Wolfgang Hübner

 The article “Apopudobalia ()” in Der neue Pauly I (1996), 895, written by M. Meier is a pleasant joke, which provoked another example for the statement that “The History of Petronian scholarship is many times more [...] hilarious, than the Satyricon itself” (K.F.C. Rose, The Petronian Inquisition: an Auto-da-fe, Arion 5, 1966, 275). B.P. Reardon and G. Schmeling take Meier’s article picking up “six serious mistakes” seriously in a short note in: The Petronian Society Newsletter, vol. 28 nos. 1 & 2 (May 1998), 14. The title “Misdating in Der Neue Pauly” already manifests the main mistake and refers to the novelist Achilles Tatius. Meier had invented the “Gymnastika des Achilleus Taktikos”. The authors criticise that Achilles Tatius (“name simply misspelled”) has been misdated to the 4th century B.C. instead of 2nd century A.D. They do not recognize that the German scholar combined deliberately¹ the Greek writer of strategical matter, Aineias Taktikos (4th century B.C.: see ultimately A. Schürmann, Metzler Lexikon antiker Autoren, Stuttgart-Weimar 1997, 9f.) and the better known novelist Achilles Tatius (2nd century A.D.) substituting Achilleus, the of the Greeks in the homeric Iliad, to whose namesake was praised by Virgil as the legendary founder of Rome. By this joke he combined physical power with strategical tactics translating the realm of war into that of .

_____________________________

PETRONIUS
by Richard I. Pervo

         Compton MacKenzie (1883-1972) wrote more than ninety books, only one of which, Sinister Street, created a bit of a sensation.  This Bildungsroman is remembered, if at all, in the U.S. as a major influence upon Scott Fitzgerald’s This Side of Paradise.  Published in 1913, Sinister Street tells the story of Michael Fane, the illegitimate son of an upper-class Englishman. It is a fascinating portrait of the Edwardian age produced before it crashed in utter ruin. Ruins there are, however, for Fane falls in love with Lily, a beautiful girl of lower-class origins. After the usual vicissitudes he determines to do the right thing by her, as a kind of alternative to a religious vocation.  Lily  eventually flees his rehabilitation and attention. A quest through the dregs of society leads, in due course, to her discovery — as the partner of another woman, Sylvia, with whom he has a desperate conversation.
         ‘Have you ever read Petronius?’ she asked suddenly.
          ‘Yes, but what an extraordinary girl you are — have you ever read Petronius?’
          ‘It’s the only book in which anyone in my position with my brains could behold herself.  Oh, it is such a nightmare. And life is a nightmare too. After all, what is life for me? Strange doors in strange houses. Strange men and strange intimacies. Scenes incredibly grotesque and incredibly beastly. The secret vileness of human nature flung at me. Man revealing himself through individual after individual as utterly contemptible. What can I worship? Not my own body soiled by my traffic in it. Not any religion I’ve ever heard of .... it is beyond my conception ever ever ever to regard a man as higher than a frog, as less repulsive ... So I worship woman, and in this nightmare city, in this nightmare life, Lily was always beautiful ... I don’t want to worship anything but beauty. I don’t care about purity or uprightness, but I must have beauty. And you came blundering along and kidnapped my lovely girl ... and all the time I can only see a clumsy frog’ [cf. Sat. 77.6].
          ‘But what has all this to do with Petronius? There’s nothing in that romance particularly complimentary to women,’ Michael argued.
          ‘It’s the nightmare effect of it that I adore,’ Sylvia exclaimed. ‘It’s the sensation of being hopelessly plunged into a maze of streets from which there’s no escape. I was plunged just like that into London. It is gloriously and sometimes horribly mad, and that’s all I want in my reading now. I want to be given the sensation of other people having been mad before me ... years ago in a nightmare. Besides, think of the truth, the truth of a work of art that seems ignorant of goodness. Not one moderately decent person all through.’
          (Pp. 800-801 of the Penguin Modern Classics reprint, Hammondsworth, 1983.  This chapter, by the way, is entitled “The Gate of Horn.”  Emphasis added.)
          Sylvia’s critical perspective is not without enduring interest. There is a hint of J.P. Sullivan here, as well as the existentialist “nightmare” view.

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