Satyricon is
a Latin work of fiction in a mixture of prose and poetry. It is written about, primarily, Trimalchio, an extremely wealthy freedman who puts on "feast" for himself and his fellow freemen and other various guests. During the chapters of 26-78, Encolpius, the narrator of this story, tells us of Trimalchio's feast and the kinds of grotesque acts that go on during it. For the most part, I found Satyricon very hard to follow and understand due to a lot of foreign words and phrase that I am not that familiar with. What I did gather, however, was that this feast was nothing to feel envious about. Yes, they were waited on hand and foot (literally), but Trimalchio and his other wealthy freedmen treated the slaves and other guests like worthless dogs. Their acts made me feel as if it kind of relates to how society can be in this day and age. No, we don't have slaves (at least in the U.S) and we don't engage in these sort of feasts. More so, I'm referring to the act of gluttony. Taking for granted what we have and wasting what we don't want. This whole story ties into what we've been reading and watching these last few weeks as in our country will throw away pound after pound of food just because we don't want it anymore or because we can easily attain more. This behavior is sickening makes a lot of us no better than Trimalchio. At least in that aspect.
I had a hard time following it also. Especially with the dialogue, I thought it was interesting though. For the parts I understood.
ReplyDeleteIt took me a while to read it just because of the language, too. I was also pretty disgusted by how much they tried to eat in one setting. As much as I love food, I would probably end up hating it if I even attempted to eat that much in one day.
ReplyDeleteIf only Trimalchio and his other wealthy freedmen, treated the slaves and others guests kindly, he could share his wealth (/food) with others. In class we have talked a lot about waisting food etc... This situation is kinda similar.
ReplyDeleteI like what you said at the end, comparing modern behavior to Trimalchio; I also discussed this in my post.
ReplyDeleteLots of the posts compare "the feast" with modern decadence. I don't think were quite as bad. I remember being told that Roman decadence lead to it's fall I am not sure if that's true but we do know the Romans would sell off unwanted kids into slavery and kill unwanted babies, (infanticide)
ReplyDeleteThe comparison you made between us and Trimalchio is a good point. Even though we may not show our gluttony outright by having overly-extravagant dinner parties like this, our behavior in day to day life is not much different. We waste food all the time and overindulge in alcohol frequently. I think it's easy to hate Trimalchio for it because he shows it off with pride, where we try to act as if we're such innocent beings. I like your thoughts!
ReplyDeleteA lot of posts have compared Trimalchio to us, including mine. I think that's a good thing to recognize, I'm just surprised so many people felt that way. You'd think everyone would want zero association with that guy!
ReplyDeleteI agree that our country engages in so many acts of gluttony! The fact that you connected it to class was really good, but it shows that back when this was written these acts of gluttony were evident and sadly it has only gotten worse.
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