Capitolo 74
under the sheep and seizing himself/herself/itself to his/her wool to escape the eye of the
Cyclops, while the woman to which charms hock the attention of Encolpius
Croton bears the name of Circe. It seems to be clear from these
reminiscences that Petronius had the epic poem in mind when he wrote his/her history,
and its novel can be well a forehand or an indirect parody of an epic poem
narrative. Rohde in his/her analysis of the Greek and serious novel of the
centuries subsequent to Petronius the following development has postulated
for that form of history: Travellers that return aside remote of the
world told extraordinary histories of their experiences. Some of these histories
taken a literary form in the _Odyssey_s and the Histories of the Argonauts. Them
it also appeared in prose in accounts as the history of Sinbad the Sailor,,
of a very later the date. A plot more defined and a greater dramatic
intensity was given to these histories of adventure by the sum of a
erotic element that often takings the form of two separate persons in love. Some use
of this element is made, for example in the relationships of Odysseus and
Penelope, perhaps in the episode of AEneas and Dido and in the history of
Jason and Medea. The intrusion of the motive for love in the said histories of
demigods and heroes, so that the narrative and whole turns on him, are
illustrated by such histories in the Transformations of Ovid as those of Pyramus
and Thisbe, Pluto and Proserpina or Meleager and Atalanta. The love
element of which is been able to be developed so in out his/her disdains use
in the epic poem and the element of form of adventure the base of the serious one
You romance Greek of Antonius Diogenes, Achilles Tatius and the other
writers of the centuries that follow Petronius.
Before trying to connect the _Satirae_ with a serious novel of the type
you/he/she has just mentioned, I/you/he/she allow us to follow another line of descent to which it conducts us
the same objective point, viz., the aspect of the serious history in