The archaeology of Petronius : engaging a social science with literature

Abstract

The title of this paper, as it appears here, is loaded, purposely so. It therefore requires some definitions and clarifications. I do not think I need to define literature. It extends to any type of published - to a certain extent also unpublished - writing intended to entertain, to teach, to explain, to express one's feelings, and so on. The object of our scrutiny is the single surviving piece of entertaining literature by Petronius, a first-century AD Latin writer.