Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, 1900.

In Roman society, freed slaves were elevated to a citizen-like status, yet they never had the full rights of their free-born counterparts. Despite the inequality of the system, many freedmen appear to have found great success in the realm of business. This report endeavors to reveal why it was that this group prospered within the Roman economy using a pseudo-Darwinian perspective. Scholarship has, for the most part, tended to avoid Darwinian lines of thought in sociological studies but this report shows the power of this type of thinking. The first chapter clarifies the nature of slavery in the Roman world and the wide variety of experiences that slaves could have. Chapter two considers the different ways that slaves could be manumitted and how a freedman’s status could differ depending on the formality of his release from servitude. The third chapter examines the literary representations of freedmen in the genre of comedy and Petronius’ Satyricon. Chapter four turns to the archaeological evidence and provides a sense of how freedmen represented themselves to the wider community. Lastly, the fifth chapter, using a pseudo-Darwinian model, will show that the image of the successful freedman is not an anomaly of the archaeological record or a trope of Latin literature but an inevitable outcome of the intense selection that slaves underwent. / text

Orientador: Cláudio Aquati / Resumo: Este trabalho teve como objeto de pesquisa uma obra da literatura latina, o Satíricon, de Petrônio. Dela, sob o viés da amizade, foi analisada, a dupla formada pelo protagonista Encólpio e seu inseparável (ou quase) amigo Gitão. O conceito de amizade foi estudado, por um lado, com base em Ética a Nicômaco, de Aristóteles, que faz uma valoração do conceito de philia, e De amicitia, obra na qual Cícero propõe parâmetros morais e éticos que deveriam estar presentes em uma relação entre amigos e, por outro, em obras nossas contemporâneas, como Genealogias da amizade, de Ortega (2002), e A amizade no mundo clássico, de Konstan (2005). Com base nessas, foi possível identificar e analisar, no Satíricon, o traço da amizade que se desenvolve na dupla composta por Encólpio e Gitão, sobretudo no sentido de tecer uma discussão a respeito do que leva as duas personagens a se relacionarem e atuarem juntas e os efeitos desse mesmo relacionamento para a construção desse romance antigo romano. / Abstract: This study focused on a Latin literary work, the led Satyricon, by Petronius. The friendship relation between Encolpius and Giton. The friendship concept was studied recurring to on the Nichomachean Ethics, by Aristotle, which considers the value of the philia concept, and on De Amicitia, work in which Cicero purposes ethics and moral parameters that should be present in a friendship. Contemporary studies, such as Genealogias da amizade, by Ortega Guerrero (2002), and Friendship in the Classical World, by Konstan (2005), were also used. It was possible to identify and analyze the friendship trace developed between Encolpius and Giton, mainly in the sense of approaching a discussion about what leads both characters to be and act together and the effects of this same relation for the construction of this ancient Roman novel. / Mestre

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of Classical Languages and Literatures, December 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Petronius' Satyrica is uniquely situated as the Roman literary work most concerned with performance, theatricality, and the disconnect between perception and reality. Throughout the Satyrica, Petronius conjures the specter of the first princeps, Augustus. Augustan resonances are a constant occurrence in the Satyrica as Petronius' characters continuously reenact Augustan moments significant to the foundation of the principate. Such reenactments destabilize and alter any meaning essential to Augustan foundational moments leading to their subversion and thus a subversion of the principate in general. Thus, by emphasizing performances of ideological, moral, and social contradictions inherent in the princeps, Petronius presents a critique of the figure that created that role and the continuation of his legacy: that the position of princeps is a farce, that Nero was a byproduct of Augustus' creation, and that the principate had been theater from the very beginning.

By combining literary criticism, philology, and contemporary psychoanalysis, this dissertation offers an innovative interpretation of Neronian court literature (Seneca, Lucan, and Petronius). I argue that the works of these three authors thematize and embody a problematic relation between the human subject and language. Language is not conceived or represented as an inert tool that can be easily appropriated by the speaking subject, but rather as a powerful entity that may, and often does, take control of the human subject, directing it from without. Besides analyzing how Seneca, Lucan, and Petronius portray the relation between the human subject and language in the internal plots and characters of their works, I also explore the relation between these three authors themselves and language. My conclusion is that this relation is defined by unresolved ambiguities and neurotic tensions, and I suggest that this might be a consequence of the traumatizing circumstances that the three examined authors endured at Nero’s court.