Editing Trimalchio

{{Short description|Fictional character in the Satyricon}}
[[File:Trimalchio's dinner (IA cu31924001786981).pdf|thumb|Translated by [[Harry Thurston Peck]]]]
'''Trimalchio''' is a character in the 1st-century AD [[Ancient Rome|Roman]] work of fiction ''[[Satyricon]]'' by [[Petronius]]. He features as the ostentatious, nouveau-riche host in the section titled the "Cēna Trīmalchiōnis" (The Banquet of Trimalchio, often translated as "Dinner with Trimalchio"). Trimalchio is an arrogant [[Freedman|former slave]] who has become quite wealthy as a wine merchant.<ref name="Bagnani54" /> The name "Trimalchio" is formed from the Greek prefix τρις and the [[Semitic languages|Semitic]] מלך ([[King of Kings#Judaism|melech]]) in its occidental form Malchio or Malchus.<ref name="Bagnani54">{{cite journal |last=Bagnani |first=Gilbert |year=1954 |title=Trimalchio |journal=[[Phoenix (classics journal)|Phoenix]] |volume=8 |issue=3 |pages=88–89 |doi=10.2307/1086404 |jstor=1086404}}</ref> The fundamental meaning of the root is "King", and the name "Trimalchio" would thus mean "Thrice King" or "greatest King".<ref name=Bagnani54/>

==Character description==
His full name is "Gaius Pompeius Trimalchio Maecenatianus";<ref>{{Cite book |last=Branham |first=R. Bracht |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IhS9DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA116 |title=Inventing the Novel: Bakhtin and Petronius Face to Face |date=2019-11-07 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-257822-8 |pages=116 |language=en}}</ref> the references to [[Pompey]] and [[Maecenas]] in his name serve to enhance his ostentatious character. His wife's name is Fortunata, a former slave and chorus girl. Trimalchio is known for throwing lavish [[Party#Dinner party|dinner parties]], where his numerous slaves bring course after course of exotic [[delicacy|delicacies]], such as live [[bird]]s sewn up inside a [[pig]], live birds inside fake eggs which the guests have to "collect" themselves, and a dish to represent every sign of the [[zodiac]].

The ''Satyricon'' has a lengthy description of Trimalchio's proposed [[tomb]] (71–72), which is ostentatious and lavish.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Arrowsmith |first=William |author-link=William Arrowsmith |title=Luxury and Death in the Satyricon |journal=Arion |year=1966 |volume=5 |issue=3 |pages=304–331 |issn=0095-5809 |jstor=20163030}}</ref> By the end of the banquet, Trimalchio's drunken showiness leads to the entire household acting out his funeral, all for his own amusement and egotism.

==Cultural references==
The term "Trimalchio" has become shorthand for the worst excesses of the [[nouveau riche]].

* Trimalchio and Trimalchio's dinner is referenced in many English novels, from ''[[The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle]]'' (1758) to ''[[Pompeii (novel)|Pompeii]]'' (2003).<ref>{{Citation |last=Harrison |first=Stephen |title=Petronius's ''Satyrica'' and the Novel in English |date=2009-01-30 |work=Petronius |pages=181–197 |editor-last=Prag |editor-first=Jonathan |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781444306064.ch11 |access-date=2024-10-15 |edition=1 |publisher=Wiley |language=en |doi=10.1002/9781444306064.ch11 |isbn=978-1-4051-5687-5 |editor2-last=Repath |editor2-first=Ian |url-access=subscription }}</ref>
* There is a single mention of Trimalchio in [[F. Scott Fitzgerald]]'s ''[[The Great Gatsby]]'' as his showy parties and background parallel those of Gatsby: Chapter&nbsp;7 begins, "It was when curiosity about Gatsby was at its highest that the lights in his house failed to go on one Saturday night &ndash; and, as obscurely as it began, his career as Trimalchio was over." ''Trimalchio'' and ''[[The Great Gatsby#Alternative_titles|Trimalchio in West Egg]]'' were among Fitzgerald's working titles for the novel.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Vanderbilt |first=Arthur T. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=54qLAaxz19wC&pg=PA96 |title=The Making of a Bestseller: From Author to Reader |date=1999-01-01 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=978-0-7864-0663-0 |language=en |page=96}}</ref> In [[The Great Gatsby (2013 film)|the 2013 movie adaptation]], a minor character is named Trimalchio.
* Trimalchio's feast is alluded to in the short story "Toga Party" by [[John Barth]], which was included in ''[[The Best American Short Stories 2007]]'', in reference to Tom and Patsy Hardison's lavish toga party.
* [[Thomas Love Peacock]] mentions Trimalchio and Niceros in his preface to ''Rhododaphne'' (1818).
* [[Albert Pike]] in the "Entered Apprentice" chapter of his Scottish Rite Freemasonry text ''[[Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry|Morals & Dogma]]'' (1871) references Trimalchio as an example of a legislator who spends the public purse lavishly or extravagantly &ndash; operating from their own vices and egotism. He counsels [[Scottish Rite|Scottish Rite Freemasons]] to stand against such lawmakers.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Pike|first=Albert|url=https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19447|title=Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry|publisher=|year=1871|isbn=|location=|pages=|language=en}}</ref>
* In ''The Triumph of Love'' by [[Geoffrey Hill]] (1998), Trimalchio appears throughout the poem as one of its many personae.
* [[C. P. Snow]] references Trimalchio in Chapter 28 of ''In Their Wisdom'' (1974).  The self-made magnate Swaffield hosts a party in order to restore favour with influential figures within the Conservative party, “…he acted as though giving a Cabinet Minister a good dinner was likely to make him a friend for life.  Would it have been better, sceptics could have pondered, to avoid the ghost of Trimalchio and give that Cabinet Minister a cheese sandwich at the local pub?”.  The party was held on Thursday 20 July 1972 at 27 Hill Street, W1, “There were, though, considerable departures from Trimalchio about the July party.  It had to be stately, Swaffield decided before he got down to planning…”.
*[[DBC Pierre]]'s novel ''Lights Out in Wonderland'' climaxes with a dinner party closely modeled on that of Trimalchio.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Gatti |first=Tom |date=2024-08-21 |title=Lights Out in Wonderland by DBC Pierre |url=https://www.thetimes.com/article/lights-out-in-wonderland-by-dbc-pierre-5gbzcdwbd92 |access-date=2024-08-21 |website=[[The Times]] |language=en}}</ref>
*[[Robin Brooks]] refers to Trimalchio in ''The Portland Vase'',<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Portland Vase : the extraordinary odyssey of a mysterious Roman treasure|last=Brooks, Robin (Robin Jeremy)|date=2004|publisher=HarperCollins|isbn=0-06-051099-4|edition=1st|location=New York, NY|oclc=54960357|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/portlandvaseextr0000broo_w1m0|page=22}}</ref> recounting the tale of a glass maker who claimed to have made unbreakable glass. On demonstrating this and confirming he had not shared the production method, the craftsman was beheaded to protect Roman Industry.
* [[Cormac McCarthy]]’s novel ''[[The Passenger (McCarthy novel)|The Passenger]]'' has the [[John Falstaff|Falstaffian]] character John Sheddan state to the protagonist Bobby Western, “Trimalchio  is wiser than [[Prince Hamlet|Hamlet]]” to summarise his discourse on the condition of modern man.
*[[H.P. Lovecraft's]] short story "[[The Rats in the Walls]]" includes a nightmare of a "Roman feast like that of Trimalchio, with a horror in a covered platter."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Pitcher |first=Luke |chapter='Horror in a Covered Platter': Lovecraft and the Transformation of Petronius |title=Transformative Change in Western Thought |editor-last=Gildenhard |editor-first=Ingo |editor2-last=Zissos |editor2-first=Andrew |publisher=Routledge |date=2013 |pages=418 |chapter-url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315084640-14/horror-covered-platter-lovecraft-transformation-petronius-luke-pitcher |doi=10.4324/9781315084640-14 |isbn=9781315084640 |quote=Lovecraft’s image neatly inverts Petronius’s. Encolpius mistakes pork for other foodstuffs; Delapore initially believes humans to be pigs. The appropriation of Petronius, then, is more subtle than a simple one-to-one correspondence. Lovecraft has identified an element in the presentation of cuisine in the ''Cena Trimalchionis'': the disguise of foodstuffs so that they lose or conceal their original characteristics.}}</ref>

==References==
{{reflist|25em}}

==Further reading==
* Bagnani, G. "Trimalchio." ''Phoenix'' 8, no. 3 (1954): 77–91. 
* Baldwin, B. "Trimalchios's Domestic Staff." ''Acta Classica'' 21 (1978): 87–97.
* Bodel, J. "The Cena Trimalchionis." Latin Fiction. Ed. Heinz Hofmann. London: Taylor and Francis, 1999, 38–51.
* Frangoulidis, S. "Trimalchio as Narrator and Stage Director in the Cena: An Unobserved Parallelism in Petronius’ Satyricon 78." ''Classical Philology'' 103, no. 1 (2008): 81–87. 
* MacKendrick, P. L. "The Great Gatsby and Trimalchio." ''The Classical Journal'' 45, no. 7 (1950): 307–14. 
* Newton, R. M. "Trimalchio's Hellish Bath". ''The Classical Journal'' 77, no. 4 (1982): 315–19.
* Petersen, L. H. ''The Freedman in Roman Art and Art History''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
* Ramsby, T. "'Reading' the Freed Slave in the Cena Trimalchionis". Free At Last!: The Impact of Freed Slaves on the Roman Empire. Ed. Sinclair Bell and Teresa Ramsby. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2012. 66–87. 
* Schmeling, G. "Trimalchio's Menu and Wine List." ''Classical Philology'' 65, no. 4 (1970): 248–51. 
* Slater, W. J. (ed.), Dining in a Classical Context. (Ann Arbor, 1991).
* Ypsilanti, M. "Trimalchio and Fortunata as Zeus and Hera: Quarrel in the''Cena'' and ''Iliad''. ''Harvard Studies in Classical Philology'' 105 (2010): 221–37.

==External links==
{{Library resources box |by=no |onlinebooks=yes |others=yes |about=yes |label= Trimalchio
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* [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2007.01.0001%3Atext%3DSatyricon%3Asection%3D26 Trimalchio's Dinner, Satyricon, Sections 26-78 at Perseus Digital Library]

[[Category:Fictional ancient Romans]]
[[Category:Fictional Greek and Roman slaves]]
[[Category:Fictional businesspeople]]
[[Category:Satyricon]]
[[Category:Characters in novels]]
[[Category:Male characters in literature]]