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Petronius (c. 27- 66 AD) was a Roman writer of the Neronian age; he was a noted satirist. He is identified with C. Petronius Arbiter (see below), but the manuscript text of the Satyricon calls him Titus Petronius.

His own sole surviving work, the Satyricon, a wildly exaggerated, sordid, and often obscene tale, tells us nothing directly of his fortunes, position, or even century. Some lines of Sidonius Apollinaris refer to him and are often taken to imply that he lived and wrote at Marseilles. If, however, we accept the identification of this author with the Petronius of Tacitus, Nero's courtier, we must suppose either that Marseilles was his birthplace or, as is more likely, that Sidonius refers to the novel itself and that its scene was partly laid at Marseilles. The chief personages of the story are evidently strangers in the towns of southern Italy where we find them. Their Greek-sounding names (Encolpius, Ascyltos, Giton, etc.) and literary training accord with the characteristics of the old Greek colony in the 1st century AD. The high position among Latin writers ascribed by Sidonius to Petronius, and the mention of him by Macrobius beside MenanderFor the Indo-Greek king (160-135 BC) see Menander the Just Menander ( 342 291 BC), Greek dramatist, the chief representative of the New Comedy, was born in Athens. He was the son of well-to-do parents; his father Diopeithes is identified by some with the among the humorists, when compared with the absolute silence of QuintilianQuintilian c. AD 35- 95), Roman rhetorician, was born at Calagurris (now Calahorra) in Spain. Concerning his family and his life but few facts remain. His father taught rhetoric, with no great success, at Rome, and Quintilian must have come there at an ea, JuvenalJuvenal Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis was a Roman satiric poet of the 1st century AD. Very little is known about his life, the ancient biographies being generally fictitious. He is best known for coining the phrase "panem et circenses" ("bread and circuses") t and MartialMartial (Marcus Valerius Martialis Latin epigrammatist, was born in one of the years AD 38 41, for, in book x. of which the poems were composed in the years 95 98, he is found celebrating his fifty-seventh birthday (x. Our knowledge of his career is deriv, seem adverse to the opinion that the Satyricon was a work of the age of Nero. But Quintilian was concerned with writers who could be turned to use in the education of an orator, nor does it seem to have lain in Quintilian's personality to appreciate the rollicking, scurrilous humor of the Satyricon. The silence of Juvenal and Martial may be accidental or it is possible that a work so abnormal in form and substance was more highly prized by later generations than by the author's contemporaries.

A comparison of the impression the book gives us of the character and genius of its author with the elaborate picture of the courtier in Tacitus certainly suggests the identity of the two. Tacitus, it is true, mentions no important work as the composition of his C. Petronius; such a work as the Satyricon he may have regarded as beneath that dignity of history which he so proudly realized. The care he gives to Petronius's portrait perhaps shows that the man enjoyed greater notoriety than was due merely to the part he played in history.

"He spent his days in sleep, his nights in attending to his official duties or in amusement, by his dissolute life he had become as famous as other men by a life of energy, and he was regarded as no ordinary profligate, but as an accomplished voluptuary. His reckless freedom of speech, being regarded as frankness, procured him popularity. Yet during his provincial governorship, and later when he held the office of consul, he had shown vigour and capacity for affairs. Afterwards returning to his life of vicious indulgence, he became one of the chosen circle of Nero's intimates, and was looked upon as an absolute authority on questions of taste (arbiter elegantiae) in connection with the science of luxurious living"

Tacitus goes on to say that this excited the jealousy of TigellinusGaius Ophonius Tigellinus also known as Sophonius Tigellinus was a minister and favourite of the emperor Nero. He was a native of Agrigentum, of humble origin and possibly of Greek descent. During the reign of Caligula he was banished (AD 39) for adultery, an accusation followed, and Petronius committed suicideSuicide (from Latin sui caedere to kill oneself) is the act of ending one's own life. It is considered a sin in many religions, and a crime in some jurisdictions. On the other hand, some cultures have viewed it as an honorable way to exit certain shameful in a way that was in keeping with his life and character. He selected the slow process of opening veins and having them bound up again, whilst he conversed on light and trifling topics with his friends. He then dined luxuriously, slept for some time, and, so far from adopting the common practice of flattering Nero or Tigellinus in his will, wrote and sent under seal to Nero a document which professed to give, with the names of his partners, a detailed account of the abominations which that emperor had practised.

A fact confirmatory of the general truth of this graphic portrait is added by the elder PlinyGaius Plinius Secundus ( 23 79) better known as Pliny the Elder was an ancient author and scientist of some importance who wrote Naturalis Historia''. He was the son of a Roman eques by the daughter of the senator Gaius Caecilius of Novum Comum. He was bo, who mentions that just before his death he destroyed a valuable murrhine vase to prevent its falling into the imperial hands.