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Updated: May 27, 2025
"A poor man and a rich man were enemies," Agamemmon began, when: "What's a poor man?" Trimalchio broke in. "Well put," Agamemnon conceded and went into details upon some problem or other, what it was I do not know. Trimalchio instantly rendered the following verdict, "If that's the case, there's nothing to dispute about; if it's not the case, it don't amount to anything anyhow."
This said, Trimalchio wept plentifully, Fortunata wept, Habinas wept, and the whole family set up a cry as it had been his funeral; nay, I also whin'd for company: when, quoth Trimalchio, "Since you know we must die, why don't we live while we may? so let me live my self to see you happy; as, if we plunge our selves in the bath we shall not repent it: At my peril be it; I'll lead the way, for this room is grown as hot as an oven."
He also read a tract attributed to Plutarch, called the Instruction of Trajan; it was probably not by Plutarch, but it was an ancient work, and is now lost. Petronius Arbiter was known to him, even that longest and most interesting piece of Petronius called the Supper of Trimalchio, for which our only authority is the late paper MS. at Paris that was found in Dalmatia in the seventeenth century.
From this up rose Trimalchio, and went to the close-stool; we also being at liberty, without a tyrant over us fell to some table-talk. When presently one calling for a bumper, "The day," said he, "is nothing, 'tis night e're the scene turn, and therefore nothing is better than to go straight from bed to board.
Twaddle of this sort was being bandied about when Trimalchio came in; mopping his forehead and washing his hands in perfume, he said, after a short pause, "Pardon me, gentlemen, but my stomach's been on strike for the past few days and the doctors disagreed about the cause.
Fortunata then removed the bracelets from her pudgy arms and held them out to the admiring Scintilla, and by and by she took off her anklets and even her yellow hair-net, which was twenty-four carats fine, she would have us know! Trimalchio, who was on the watch, ordered every trinket to be brought to him. "You see these things, don't you?" he demanded; "they're what women fetter us with.
I had not done speaking, when Trimalchio chimed in, "As I hope to grow fatter in fortune but not in figure, my cook has made all this out of a hog!
Nor was my suspicion unjustified, for in place of punishment, Trimalchio ordered that the boy be freed, so that no one could say that so exalted a personage had been injured by a slave. We applauded his action and engaged in a discussion upon the instability of human affairs, which many took sides. "A good reason," declared Trimalchio, "why such an occasion shouldn't slip by without an epigram."
Trimalchio turned to him and said, "Dionisus, be thou Liber," whereupon the boy immediately snatched the cap from the boar's head, and put it upon his own. At that Trimalchio added, "You can't deny that my father's middle name was Liber!" We applauded Trimalchio's conceit heartily, and kissed the boy as he went around.
We had now come to the dining-room, at the entrance to which sat a factor, receiving accounts, and, what gave me cause for astonishment, rods and axes were fixed to the door-posts, superimposed, as it were, upon the bronze beak of a ship, whereon was inscribed: TO GAIUS POMPEIUS TRIMALCHIO AUGUSTAL, SEVIR FROM CINNAMUS HIS STEWARD.
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