20 KATHLEEN M. COLEMAN
cerned: if literary texts quote and reflect other works of literature, we
should expect them to quote and reflect inscribed texts as well.
The quotation of inscriptions in literary texts is not restricted to the
“factual” genres of historiography, oratory, and technical writing,
where they are naturally incorporated as the stuff of daily life. They
are liberally “quoted” in imaginative literature as well, where their
presence contributes verisimilitude, whether it is to be taken at face-
value or deconstructed as a commentary on social behaviour.^3 In
imaginative texts, the “quotation” of inscriptions (themselves imagi-
nary, hence the quotation marks) clothes the fiction in recognizable
dress. In occasional poetry such as the Silvae, which commemorate
the triumphs and sorrows of daily life, it would be natural to expect
inscriptions to feature prominently; but they do not, perhaps precisely
because they are too quotidian for a body of work that seeks to raise
the everyday to a new plane of enhanced reality. In order to highlight
this remarkable lacuna, I shall first look briefly at some of the ways in
which inscriptions are quoted in literary texts (mostly imaginative),
and then consider how it is that the Silvae dispense with them.
- “Quotation” of inscriptions in literary texts
A number of Latin texts are very self-conscious about the role of in-
scriptions. The most obvious example is Petronius’ Satyrica, although
this is difficult to pigeon-hole, since almost nothing in that fiendishly
clever work can safely be taken at face-value.^4 But, at the very least,
ev en if the inscriptions littering Trimalchio’s mansion are evidently in
bad taste, the fact that they are there in the first place cannot be com-
pletely implausible. In the Cena the cleverness of the parody depends
upon Trimalchio misreading the social code in his efforts at social
climbing, as is illustrated by his prospective epitaph (which has been
called “the ultimate example of epigraphic self-representation^ ”^5 ) and
the preceding instructions for the construction of his tomb:
3 On the general topic of inscriptions in literature, the study by Stein 1931 is
fundamental.
4 For comprehensive studies of the use of inscriptions by Petronius, see (for in-
scriptions in the entire Satyrica) Nelis-Clément and Nelis 2005, and (for the Cena
alone) Tremoli 1960. Modern studies of Trimalchio’s funerary inscription start from
Mommsen 1878.
5 Nelis-Clément and Nelis 2005, 14.