The Satyricon | Page 6

Although they are still retained in the text by some editors,
this is done to give some measure of continuity to an otherwise
interrupted narrative, but they can only serve to distort the author and
obscure whatever view of him the reader might otherwise have reached.
They are generally printed between brackets or in different type.
In 1768 another and far abler forger saw the light of day. Jose
Marchena, a Spaniard of Jewish extraction, was destined for an
ecclesiastical career. He received an excellent education which served
to fortify a natural bent toward languages and historical criticism. In his

early youth he showed a marked preference for uncanonical pursuits
and heretical doctrines and before he had reached his thirtieth year
prudence counseled him to prevent the consequences of his heresy and
avoid the too pressing Inquisition by a timely flight into France. He
arrived there in time to throw himself into the fight for liberty, and in
1800 we find him at Basle attached to the staff of General Moreau.
While there he is said to have amused himself and some of his cronies
by writing notes on what Davenport would have called "Forbidden
Subjects," and, as a means of publishing his erotic lucubrations, he
constructed this fragment, which brings in those topics on which he had
enlarged. He translated the fragment into French, attached his notes,
and issued the book. There is another story to the effect that he had
been reprimanded by Moreau for having written a loose song and that
he exculpated himself by assuring the general that it was but a new
fragment of Petronius which he had translated. Two days later he had
the fragment ready to prove his contention.
This is the account given by his Spanish biographer. In his preface,
dedicated to the Army of the Rhine, he states that he found the
fragment in a manuscript of the work of St. Gennadius on the Duties of
Priests, probably of the XI Century. A close examination revealed the
fact that it was a palimpsest which, after treatment, permitted the
restoration of this fragment. It is supposed to supply the gap in Chapter
26 after the word "verberabant."
Its obscenity outrivals that of the preceding text, and the grammar, style,
and curiosa felicitas Petroniana make it an almost perfect imitation.
There is no internal evidence of forgery. If the text is closely
scrutinized it will be seen that it is composed of words and expressions
taken from various parts of the Satyricon, "and that in every line it has
exactly the Petronian turn of phrase."
"Not only is the original edition unprocurable," to quote again from Mr.
Gaselee's invaluable bibliography, "but the reprint at Soleure (Brussels),
1865, consisted of only 120 copies, and is hard to find. The most
accessible place for English readers is in Bohn's translation, in which,
however, only the Latin text is given; and the notes were a most

important part of the original work."
These notes, humorously and perhaps sarcastically ascribed to
Lallemand, Sanctae Theologiae Doctor, "are six in number (all on
various forms of vice); and show great knowledge, classical and
sociological, of unsavory subjects. Now that the book is too rare to do
us any harm, we may admit that the pastiche was not only highly
amusing, but showed a perverse cleverness amounting almost to
genius."
Marchena died at Madrid in great poverty in 1821. A contemporary has
described him as being rather short and heavy set in figure, of great
frontal development, and vain beyond belief. He considered himself
invincible where women were concerned. He had a peculiar
predilection in the choice of animal pets and was an object of fear and
curiosity to the towns people. His forgery might have been completely
successful had he not acknowledged it himself within two or three
years after the publication of his brochure. The fragment will remain a
permanent tribute to the excellence of his scholarship, but it is his Ode
to Christ Crucified which has made him more generally known, and it
is one of the ironies of fate that caused this deformed giant of sarcasm
to compose a poem of such tender and touching piety.
Very little is known about Don Joe Antonio Gonzalez de Salas, whose
connecting passages, with the exception of one which is irrelevant, are
here included.
The learned editors of the Spanish encyclopedia naively preface their
brief sketch with the following assertion: "no tenemos noticias de su
vida." De Salas was born in 1588 and died in 1654. His edition of
Petronius was first issued in 1629 and re-issued in 1643 with a copper
plate of the Editor. The Paris edition, from which he says he supplied
certain deficiencies in the text, is unknown to bibliographers and is
supposed to be fictitious.
To