Publius Petronius Niger

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Publius Petronius Niger was a politician in the early Roman Empire . He was probably born before 20, his father may have been Gaius Petronius Pontius Nigrinus , who held the consulate in 37 . Publius Petronius himself was a suffect consul . Nothing else is known about his life.

Surname

On two tablets from Herculaneum one read his name as “T. Petronius Niger ”. Since first names were always abbreviated in Latin , it was not uncommon for transcription errors or misreadings to occur. In addition, the letters T. and P. in Roman italics are easy to confuse.

The reading “Titus” had to be corrected by an archaeological find in 1989: On the customs law of the province of Asia from Ephesus , dated July 8, 62 and written in Greek , he was given the name Ποπλίωι Πετρωνίωι Νίγρωι ( Publio Petronio Nigro , dative singular ) called. The prenomen Publius can thus be regarded as clarified.

Miswriting of the Satyricon

Petronius Niger is sometimes identified in research with the author of the Satyricon , Titus Petronius . This was primarily due to the very rare occurrence of "Titus" in the Petronius family .

When it became apparent that the praenomen of Petronius Niger on the tablets of Herculaneum no longer had to be read as Titus but as Publius, one of the most important Petronius experts warned against maintaining the identification.

After the Titus of Petronius Niger finally turned out to be a misreading, the due withdrawal of the identification did not take place. Rather, conversely, the first name Publius has now also been ascribed "Petronius Arbiter" to the author of Satyricon.

Besides this highly questionable approach, identification with the author of the Satyricon appears unlikely for several reasons:

  • Contradiction to the ancient sources:
    The attribution of the first name Publius can not be justified in view of the clear ancient tradition (Pliny, Plutarch, see Titus Petronius ). The inscription of Publius Petronius Niger does nothing to clarify the name of the Satyricon poet.
  • Chronological contradiction:
    According to Tacitus, Petronius did not become arbiter elegantiae until after his consulate . But from 62 he was replaced in the position of arbiter by Tigellinus , who however never achieved the elegantia of Petronius.
  • Genealogical contradiction:
    Publius Petronius Niger should be a son of Gaius Petronius Pontius Nigrinus. Titus Petronius was believed to be the son of another Publius Petronius.

Identification with the pharmacologist Petronius

Petronius Niger was identified with Petronius, the pharmacologist of the 1st century AD, through a position with Dioscurides , who worked as a military doctor under Claudius and Nero (41-68) and is considered the most famous pharmacologist of antiquity:

καί Νικήρατος καί Ρετρώνιος Νίγερ (τε) καί Διόδοτος. (Diosk. De mater. Med . I praef.)
"Nikeratos, Petronius (,) Niger and Diodotos."

The best manuscripts contain the τε (followed by “and”) that separates Niger from Petronius. Petronius Niger appears as a coherent name only in two more recent manuscripts. In all likelihood, the words Petronius and Niger have to be read separately (indicated in the translation by the comma in brackets), so that further components of the names of the persons named Petronius and Niger are completely unknown and, due to the frequency of both names, an attempt to identify them is not makes sense. Although it cannot be completely ruled out that both Niger and Diodotos refer to Petronius as cognomina , the question arises, why Dioscurides would not have made this reference clear by forming the plural of Petronius.

The pharmacologist Petronius seems to have already lived at the beginning of the 1st century. Pliny the Elder calls it Petronius Diodotus , perhaps just to suggest that Diodotus used it. Galen calls him Petronios Musas . Max Wellmann suspected that the pharmacological books of Petronius were used by Sextius Niger .

literature

  • RE XIX (1938) Sp. 1193f. (to the pharmacologist Petronius)
  • Peter Habermehl: P. Niger (Arbiter) . In: The New Pauly . Vol. 9, 2001, Col. 672ff. (identified there with T. Petronius Arbiter).

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ The year 62 is mostly accepted today. Paul A. Gallivan believes that Petronius Niger could not have been consul in 61 or 62 "Some Comments on the Fasti for the reign of Nero" in: The Classical Quarterly , New Series Vol. 24, No. 2 (1974) p 303 and 310
  2. ↑ On the very difficult reading of the tablets from Herculaneum and the attribution see G. Pugliese Caratelli in: La Parola del Passato 1, 1946, pp. 379–385; 3, 1948, 165-184; 8, 1953, 458-460.
  3. ^ Helmut Engelmann , Dieter Knibbe : The customs law of the province of Asia. A new inscription from Ephesus . Habelt, Bonn, 1989 (Epigraphica Anatolica, 14), line 1 (= Supplementum epigraphicum Graecum 39, No. 1180; L'Année épigraphique 1989, No. 681).
  4. ^ "Note that there is good evidence that the praenomen of Petronius Niger was in fact P." Edward Courtney, A Companion to Petronius , New York (2001), p. 7 note 1
  5. ↑ a b Tacitus, Annalen 16, 16.
  6. ↑ Tacitus, Annals 15, 37 and 57
  7. ^ William Smith Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology Boston 1867, III 218 f. For information on the transmission of the text, see the commentary in the critical edition by M. Wellmann, 2nd ed. 1958, ad locum.
  8. ↑ Plin. nat. hist. 20.32
  9. ^ Karl Deichgräber : Petronius , in: RE XIX Sp. 1193.
  10. ↑ Galen XII 989, XIII 462, 502.
  11. ^ Max Wellmann: Sextius Niger. A source study on Dioscurides. In: Hermes 24, 1889, pp. 530-569, here: 568.
personal data
SURNAME Petronius Niger, Publius
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Niger, Publius Petronius
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Roman politician, suffect consul 62 AD
DATE OF BIRTH before 20
DATE OF DEATH after 62