ペトロニウス『サテュリコン』における修辞学教育批判

Abstract

Encolpius (hereafter Enc), the protagonist and narrator of Satyricon, and Agamemnon (hereafter Agm), a teacher of rhetoric, argue about the degeneration of rhetorical education in the first scene of the remaining fragments of Satyricon (Ch. 1-6). In this paper, it is suggested that their argument reflects the author's own view about rhetorical education rather than being ironical. Enc is a so-called 'unreliable narrator, ' who has some defect in his character and sometimes twists the facts in telling us his past experience. Most scholars notice this and regard various parts of his narrative as the target of the author's irony. The speeches in the first scene have also been supposed to be foolish talk composed with an ironical purpose. I venture to oppose this interpretation. First I examined those scholars' grounds and pointed out that they are insufficient. Next I offered my own grounds as follows. (1) Enc is not a person who always gives moralistic criticisms. His attitude in the first scene is exceptional. Therefore, it is not likely that the author made this scene only to show his foolish character, for what he says there is too sincere. (2) For the plot that Enc is invited to Trimalchio's dinner party, it is not necessary to introduce the scene of a rhetoric school and teachers. There must be a particular reason for that. (3) It has been pointed out that Enc and Agm's speech style itself is of 'declamatio.' Their oratorical style can be one basis of the irony-view, for it means that they criticize declamatio in the very style they criticize. In my view, the use of the oratorical style is not a sufficient basis for the irony view. In those days there was no convention of molding characters' speeches in the style of daily conversation. It is probable that the oratorical style was not so unnatural, when a character gives a speech of cultural and literary criticism. Besides, there is a difference between Enc's style and Agm's. Enc's style is rather clear, while Agm's sentences are very winding and his metaphors are hard to analyze. It is evident that the author made the two styles different intentionally. If the author made Enc's speech as the target of irony, it is inconsistent that he did not made Enc's style as bombastic as Agm's. It is reasonable to suppose that Enc's style is the one the author approves. On the other hand, Agm's style is apparently bombastic. In spite of that, it should be supposed that his opinion about the corruption of education is the author's. First, it is not silly enough to be judged as the target of irony. Second, in Ch. 10, 1 Ascyltos says that he couldn't stand Agm's idle 'sententia, ' and he calls Agm 'poeta.' This 'sententia' means epigrammatic phrase in the oration, and probably refers to Agm's poem attached to his speech, as the word 'poeta' indicates. This implies Petronius' intention to exclude the prose part of Agm's speech from his irony. (4) Most scholars agree that Enc always changes his character according to the situation he is placed in. They claim that in the first scene he is playing a role different from what he really is, and it is only a hypocritical pose. In my view, Enc himself is not conscious of his character changing. It is the author who makes Enc play different personalities according to particular purposes. The sincere attitude of Enc reveals the author's intention to show his own view against rhetorical education through the mouth of Enc.