Testamentum porcelli

The Testamentum porcelli is a Latin script probably from the middle of the 4th century, which jokingly claims to be the testament of the piglet Marcus Grunnius Corocotta .

Names

The tripartite nature of the name (albeit with the omission of filiation and tribe ) corresponds to the custom for Roman personal names . Marcus is a common prenomen . With nomen gentile the pig is called Grunnius ; this word, which does not occur otherwise, is formed from the verb grunnire / grunzen ( i.e. grunt ). The noun corocotta , which serves as a cognomen, is a loan word from the Greek and describes a wild animal from Africa or India, probably a hyena .

content

The text of the actual Testament preceded by a brief description of the circumstances of death of the piglet: On 17 December ( the XVI kal Lucerninas. , The Saturnalientag under the consulate of Clibanatus ( "in the pan fried") and the piperatus ( "the Peppered) «) The piglet Marcus Grunnius Corocotta is confronted by the cook Magirus (Greek μάγειρος = cook, butcher) with the fact that he will kill it that day. Corocotta begs for his life, but the cook orders the kitchen boy to get the knife. The piglet is grabbed and taken away by the kitchen assistants. Since death is inevitable, Corocotta asks for an hour to be delayed in order to be able to dictate his will, since he himself is not able to write. He also calls his parents to give them his food ration.

The will lists the following legacies and legacies in detail: 30 buckets of acorns were left for the father Verrinus Lardinus, the mother Veturina, the breeding sow, 40 buckets of laconic wheat, the sister Quirina 30 buckets of barley. From the parts of his body, Corocotta bequeathed the bristles to the cobblers, the tusks to the brawlers, the ears to the pigeons, the tongues to the lawyers and gossips, the intestines to the sausage cooks, the ham to the pastry makers, the loins to the women, the bladders to the boys, and to the girls Tail, flesh for pederasts, ankles for runners and hunters, and claws for robbers. He leaves the cook his food bowl and the pounder, which he carried with him from Theveste (in Numidia ) to Tergeste (in Istria ); she should hang it on a rope around her neck.

For his tomb he determined the following inscription in gold letters: »M. Grunnius Corocotta, the piglet, lived 999 ½ years; and if he had lived another six months he would have filled the thousand ”.

He says goodbye to his friends and companions with the request to take good care of his body and to season it with good spices and honey, so that his name will be glorified forever.

The will is signed by the prescribed seven witnesses: Lardio, Ofellicus, Cyminatus, Lucanicus, Tergillus, Celsinus and Nuptialicus.

Classification in literary history

Already the date of December 17th shows the writing as a Saturnial joke . A reading before cutting the roast pork at the feast is conceivable. The church father Jerome mentions the testament in the preface to the 12th book of his Jesaia commentary as an example of the lowest level of entertainment literature, the opposite of which he names the Timaeus Plato . He mentions school youth as a typical audience. It was in these circles that the writing was probably created. With his allusion, Jerome assumes that at least a large part of his readers are acquainted with the script, which speaks for a certain topicality, which suggests dating to the second half of the fourth century, and a wide distribution. The distribution is confirmed by the relatively large number of surviving manuscripts.

Text output

Moriz Haupt , Opuscula Bd. II, Berlin 1866, pp. 175-183 (first course catalog Berlin SS 1860).
Franz Bücheler , Petronii Saturae, 6th edition, ed. by Wilhelm Heraeus, Berlin 1922, pp. 346–347.

literature

L. Hermann, in: Studi in onore di Ugo Enrico Paoli , Firenze 1956, pp. 385–391
Peter Lebrecht Schmidt : Testamentum porcelli. In: Reinhart Herzog (ed.): Restoration and renewal. The Latin literature from 284 to 374 AD (= Handbook of the Latin Literature of Antiquity , Volume 5). CH Beck, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-406-31863-0 , p. 257