briefly of the different genres of literature of the earlier period with
which the story of Petronius may stand in some direct relation, or from
which the suggestion may have come to Petronius for his work. Several of
these lines of possible descent have been skilfully traced by others. In
their views here and there I have made some modifications, and I have
called attention to one or two types of literature, belonging to the
earlier period and heretofore unnoticed in this connection, which may help
us to understand the appearance of the realistic novel.

It seems a far cry from this story of sordid motives and vulgar action to
the heroic episodes of epic poetry, and yet the _Satirae_ contain not a
few more or less direct suggestions of epic situations and characters. The
conventional motif of the story of Petronius is the wrath of an offended
deity. The narrative in the _Odyssey_ and the _Æneid_ rests on the same
basis. The ship of their enemy Lichas on which Encolpius and his
companions are cooped up reminds them of the cave of the Cyclops; Giton
hiding from the town-crier under a mattress is compared to Ulysses
underneath the sheep and clinging to its wool to escape the eye of the
Cyclops, while the woman whose charms engage the attention of Encolpius at
Croton bears the name of Circe. It seems to be clear from these
reminiscences that Petronius had the epic in mind when he wrote his story,
and his novel may well be a direct or an indirect parody of an epic
narrative. Rohde in his analysis of the serious Greek romance of the
centuries subsequent to Petronius has postulated the following development
for that form of story: Travellers returning from remote parts of the
world told remarkable stories of their experiences. Some of these stories
took a literary form in the _Odyssey_ and the Tales of the Argonauts. They
appeared in prose, too, in narratives like the story of Sinbad the Sailor,
of a much later date. A more definite plot and a greater dramatic
intensity were given to these tales of adventure by the addition of an