.p
\f8The target of Eumolpus' criticicism\f6
is the man who would see poetry as a refuge (\f7portum feliciorem\f6)
from more serious affairs (\f7forensibus ministeriis\f6, 118.2):
that is, lawyers, officials, and other men of public life, who see the construction
of a poem as simpler than that of a piece of rhetoric
(\f7credentes facilius poema extrui posse quam controuersiam\f6, 118.2).\c
.f "cf. Quint. \f7Inst.\f6 10.1.27, where the relaxation of poetry \
is recommended as the antidote to a day of speeches in the forum."
``Any one of them,'' complains Eumolpus, ``as soon as he has arranged his line
into feet and woven a subtler thought into the meaning of his words,
fancies himself at once a poet!'' (\f7nam ut quisque
versum pedibus instruxit sensumque teneriorem verborum ambitu
intexuit, putavit se continuo in Heliconem venisse\f6, 118.1).
This criticism and complaint is lent extra resentment
if Eumolpus' first sentence is read: \f7multos iuuenes carmen decepit\f6,\c
.f "So both Sullivan (1968) 166, and Rose (1971) 68."
in which case the youthful ignorance of these offenders is to blame.
On the other hand, there is a sense that poetry here
is the refuge of the older man who is retiring from public life.
In any case the offender's inexperience is emphasized in the following sentence,
where Eumolpus insists on the poet's being first saturated with
the literature of others before attempting to produce his own:
\f7neque concipere aut edere partum mens potest
nisi ingenti flumine litterarum inundata\f6 (118.3).
.p
This attitude recalls the first episode in the text,
where Encolpius and Agamemnon discuss the failings of education.
The advice in Agamemnon's poem to a young would-be orator (5)
is particularly like Eumolpus' advice to a would-be poet.
There Agamemnon recommends a similarly comprehensive curriculum,
which includes poetry (5.11–12)
and is also described in terms of water imagery
(\f7Maeoniumque bibat … fontem\f6, 5.12;
\f7suffusa\f6, 5.16; \f7flumine largo / plenus\f6, 5.21–2).
Indeed, even in the education of an orator,
emancipation from the cares of the forum is also recommended:
\f7subducta foro det pagina cursum\f6 (5.17).
The criticism of the state of the arts and sciences
with which Eumolpus precedes the \f7Troiae Halosis\f6
is more concerned with greed, but water imagery crops up again when he asks:
\f7quis si philosophiae fontem attigisset?\f6 (88.7).
Eumolpus' point here is that artistic decline is due to an inundation of vice
(\f7nos uino scortisque demersi\f6, 88.6),
as opposed to the proper inundation of learning—a point also made by
Agamemnon (\f7nec perditis addictus obruat uino / mentis calorem\f6, 5.6–7).
The target of Eumolpus' criticism in section 118, then, is the would-be poet;
but also, strengthened by reference to other critical espousals in the \f7Satyricon\f6,
it is the society which breeds the would-be poet.
.p
Towards the end of 118 the target of the criticism shifts slightly,
or rather it focuses.
Having chosen for his example the genre of historical epic,
Eumolpus takes to task the poet who would emphasize
the historical aspect over the epic:
.bl

\f7non enim res gestae versibus comprehendendae sunt,
quod longe melius historici faciunt,
sed per ambages deorumque ministeria et fabulosum sententiarum tormentum
praecipitandus est liber spiritus,
ut potius furentis animi vaticinatio appareat
quam religiosae orationis\ sub\ testibus\ fides.\f6 (118.6)\p

.ck
For many commentators this sharpens the focus of the criticism to a point:
Eumolpus seems to be talking about Lucan.
Lucan's \f7Pharsalia\f6 is the only other extant hexameter poem on the Civil War,
so, at least for the modern reader, it is difficult not to see parallels.
But the reference to the importance of a divine machinery
(\f7deorumque ministeria\f6) makes the connection all the stronger,
since perhaps the most distinguishing feature of Lucan's poem
is its radical rejection of the gods
in favour of a more naturalistic explanation of the conflict.
Proponents of the theory that Eumolpus is specifically criticizing Lucan
see a subtle zooming-in effect which runs throughout section 118:
Eumolpus begins by criticizing the young,\c
.f "Sullivan (1968) 168–9."
then anyone who merely makes words fit a metre,
then lawyers-turned-poets,\c
.f "cf.\f7[Lucanus] magis oratoribus quam poetis imitandus\f6, \
Quint. \f7Inst.\f6 10.1.90."
then those who would turn away from traditional epic and innovate in the genre,
and finally those who would treat bare historical facts in verse.\c
.f "\f7sunt quidam, qui [Lucanum] dicant non esse poetam\f6, Martial 14.194; \
\f7in numero poetarum [Lucanum] esse non meruit \
quia uidetur historiam composuisse non poema\f6, Serv. \f7A.\f6. 1.382."
Each of these describes Lucan with an increasing level of detail,
until, with a pointed \f7ecce\f6\c
.f "``Which marks a transition and suggests something which is before the eyes, \
i.e. contemporary'', Courtney (2001) 182."
and the words \f7belli ciuilis\f6 (118.6),
the target of the critique comes fully into focus.
That target is still unnamed, but such was the practice among contemporaries,\c
.f "Rose (1971) 68."
and at the mention of the Civil War it seems there can be no other poet in mind.
.p
It is reasonable enough to accept that the author of the \f7Satyricon\f6
was that contemporary of Nero's, the Petronius described by Tacitus.\c
.f "\f7Annals\f6 16.18–19; the identification is now widely accepted; \
see Rose (1971) 38 ff."
It is therefore also reasonable to suppose
that Petronius had at least some knowledge of Lucan and his famous poem.
Rose presents the most comprehensive study on the subject, concluding:
.bl

However much doubt may be cast on several of the supposed parallels,
it remains clear that Petronius had read Lucan's first three books
and expected his audience to have done the same. …
It is not possible to prove that Petronius had not, or had,
read all the books of the \f7Pharsalia\f6.
Very possibly he had; but if so,
because of his greater familiarity with the published books,
he used them far more than the others.\c
.f "Rose (1971) 93–4."

.ck
But in an article aimed at defusing the immense scholarly debate
around the relationship of the \f7Bellum Ciuile\f6 to the \f7Pharsalia\f6
(one critic even argues that Petronius influenced Lucan and not vice versa),\c
.f "Grimal (1977)."
George debunks many of the supposed correspondences
between the type of poet that Eumolpus criticizes in section 118 and Lucan.
Firstly, the weight of the manuscript tradition seems to come down on the side of
\f7iuuenes\f6 (118.1) being vocative and not accusative,
so that it refers not to young poets such as Lucan
but to Eumolpus' young companions.\c
.f "George (1974) 121; \f7o iuuenes\f6 appears in both O and L manuscripts, \
cf. Sullivan (1968) 166 and Rose (1971) 68."
Moreover, \f7belli ciuilis\f6 (118.6), does not necessarily single out Lucan:
there was a general enthusiasm for historical epic during this period—the
\f7Pharsalia\f6 could well not have been the only one on the Civil War.\c
.f "George (1974) 121–2."
Similarly the reference to innovations in the genre:
that the only poet to have eschewed Vergilian gods
and survived to the present day is Lucan does not mean there were not others.
There is both a history of questioning Vergil's techniques of divine machination,
as well as a discussion dating as far back as Aristotle
of the correctness of the formulation whereby poetry=fiction and history=fact.\c
.f "George (1974) 122."
.p
George goes on to address correspondences between the poems themselves,
but here he has shown that the preface to the \f7Bellum Ciuile\f6
does not necessarily criticize Lucan specifically.
The target of Eumolpus' criticism is the mere versifier of facts
(\f7non enim res gestae versibus comprehendendae sunt\f6, 118.6),
and the modern re-appreciation of Lucan has gone a long way
towards proving that the \f7Pharsalia\f6 is much more than such a versification.
The reference to strict and dry testimony
(\f7religiosae orationis sub testibus fides\f6, 118.6)
is not so much a reference to Lucan's style,
nor to his background in declamation; rather it is
an echo of the \f7controuersiam\f6 and \f7forensibus ministeriis\f6
of the hack lawyer-poet already described (118.2).
Again, compare the criticisms in the Agamemnon episode and in section 88:
it is the state of society which Eumolpus is lamenting,
a society which cultivates literary ignorance.
In fact, this may be just Petronius' point: Eumolpus is not saying anything new;
here he is again, denouncing the decline of the arts,
just like he did when Encolpius first encountered him,
just like Agamemnon did at the beginning of the extant \f7Satyricon\f6, and indeed,
probably just like many of Petronius' contemporaries were in the habit of doing.
It may not be that Petronius is parodying Lucan in his poem on the Civil War
so much as he parodies the likes of Lucan's detractors
in the preceding effusion of clichéd crtiticism.
Ultimately, the real ``target'' of Eumolpus' criticism ends up being Eumolpus himself.