STONES IN THE FOREST 21
ualde te rogo, ut secundum pedes statuae meae catellam pingas et coro-
nas et unguenta et Petraitis omnes pugnas, ut mihi contingat tuo benefi-
cio post mortem uiuere; praeterea ut sint in fronte pedes centum, in
agrum pedes ducenti. omne genus enim poma uolo sint circa cineres
meos, et uinearum largiter. ualde enim falsum est uiuo quidem domos
cultas esse, non curari eas, ubi diutius nobis habitandum est. et ideo
ante omnia adici uolo: HOC MONVMENTVM HEREDEM NON
SEQVATUR ... inscriptio quoque uide diligenter si haec satis idonea
tibi uidetur: C. POMPEIVS TRIMALCHIO MAECENATIANVS HIC
REQVIESCIT. HVIC SEVIRATVS ABSENTI DECRETVS EST.
CVM POSSET IN OMNIBVS DECVRIIS ROMAE ESSE, TAMEN
NOLVIT. PIVS, FORTIS, FIDELIS EX PARVO CREVIT,
SESTERTIVM RELIQVIT TRECENTIES, NEC VNQVAM
PHILOSOPHVM AVDIVIT. VALE ET TV.
(Petr. Sat. 71.6–7, 12)
“I really want you to paint my puppy at the foot of my statue, and
wreaths and perfume-flasks and all the gladiatorial contests that
Petraites fought, so that thanks to you I’ll be able to enjoy life after
death. I also want you to see that my tomb fronts onto the road for 100
feet, and goes back a distance of 200. I want all sorts of fruit trees
around my ashes, and lashings of vines. It’s all wrong to have smart
houses when you’re alive but not to bother about the ones where we’ve
got to live much longer. And so before anything else I want this put:
‘THIS MONUMENT DOES NOT PASS TO THE HEIR.’ ... As for the
inscriptions, look carefully to see whether this seems okay to you:
‘HERE RESTS C. POMPEIUS TRIMALCHIO MAECENATIANUS.
IN HIS ABSENCE HE WAS ELECTED TO THE COLLEGE OF SIX.
ALTHOUGH HE COULD HAVE BEEN ON EVERY BOARD IN
ROME, HE DIDN’T WANT TO. HE WAS GOOD, BRAVE, AND
RELIABLE. HE BUILT HIMSELF UP FROM NOTHING. HE LEFT
30 MILLION, AND HE NEVER LISTENED TO A PHILOSOPHER.
FAREWELL TO YOU TOO.’ ”Amid all the micro-management, the specification of the size of the
tomb is a feature imported straight from a tombstone, the monstrous
dimensions betraying the overkill typical of the nouveaux riches. Tri-
malchio knows the formula forbidding the heir to appropriate the
tomb, though the syntax is a little askew.^6 And the inscription itself
bristles with social faux pas: among other things, Trimalchio has
added an agnomen (“Maecenatianus”) to his proper nomenclature,
aping the polyonomy of the aristocracy, and he uses the term associ-
6 On the substitution of the subjunctive for the future indicative, see Tremoli
19 60, 19–20.