Sublime

Petronius was some thirty years younger than Seneca: he was born around 27 CE, so would have been in his thirties in the sixties. Petronius was dubbed the “arbiter of taste” (arbiter elegantium), known for his risky, witty speech and his love of parties. Unlike Seneca, Petronius rose to the senatorial class.

d'autrefois, Victor Voconius, était mort ; je me chargeai de fabriquer son oraison funèbre ; on sourit de me voir mentionner parmi les vertus du défunt une chasteté que réfutaient ses propres poèmes, et la présence aux funérailles de Thestylis aux boucles de miel, que Victor appelait jadis son beau tourment.

Thrasea Paetus. Thrasea was not a philosopher or writer but a politician and an aristocrat, a member of the Senate, who is presented, in both Tacitus and Dio, as a man of absolute integrity. He was the only one who expressed disapproval of the speech Seneca delivered to the Senate in defense of Nero’s killing of his mother: when it was delivered,

The two writers must have known one another, and indeed, they were to die accused of conspiracy in the same plot against Nero; but there is no record of a friendship, and the chances are that there was no love lost between the senatorial arbiter elegantarium (“judge of tasteful things”), with his mocking, distanced attitude to the absurdities of