The Dinner Of Trimalchio Essay

In The Dinner of Trimalchio as part of Gaius Petronius Arbiter’s Satyricon, the now wealthy freedman Trimalchio has invited the hero Encolpius for a meal in his home, complete with a seemingly endless parade of food, wine and insanity. While the story may appear to be nothing but a farcical rendition of an unconventional dinner, greater meaning emerges from the story when viewed as a mixing of three distinct, but intertwined cultures, that of the slave, freed slave and freeborn roman. From this angle, much can be elucidated on the lives of roman slaves, the relatively understated freedman culture, and the fluidity with which each interacted within the roman hierarchy.
While Trimalchio is likely an unreliable witness when providing evidence …show more content…
In Trimalchio's household there freeing a slave seems to be a relaxed and relatively informal ritual. The ritual of freedom seems only to include the giving of a cap, described as “perched rakishly on the sow’s head [...] the cap of freedom which newly freed slaves wear in token of their liberty.” This cap is later used to free a boy, Liber, just for the sake of a joke (49). The cap most likely is a real artifact used in the freeing of slaves since no one questions its use. The ease could be questioned as fiction; however, according to Duff one of the most common forms of freeing slaves was to declare them free “among a few friends acting as witnesses” (Duff 1928). According to another freedman at the table, freedom can also be bought as he states, “I bought my wife’s freedom so no man could put his dirty paws on her. I paid a good two hundred for my own freedom” (64). Not only does this suggest the common price of freedom for a slave (likely less than 200 sesterces), but it also reveals much about the dynamics of slave culture. A fortunate slave would be able to purchase the freedom of their spouse so that both of them could live as free citizens