Sometime in the mid-first century\u00a0a.d., an otherwise little known consular official, Gaius Petronius, wrote a brilliant satirical novel about the gross and pretentious new Roman- For the buffoonish libertine guests of the host Trimalchio, food and sex are in such surfeit that they have to be repackaged in bizarre and repulsive ways. Think of someone like the feminist mayor of San Diego, Bob Filner, who once railed about the need to enforce sexual-harassment laws, now only to discover ever creepier\u00a0ways to grope, pat, grab, squeeze, pinch, and slobber on 18 co-workers and veritable strangers, whether in their 20s or over 60. Unfortunately, the sexual luridness does not necessarily end with Filner\u2019s resignation; one of his would-be replacements is already under attack by his opponents on allegations that as a city councilman he was caught masturbating in the city-hall restroom between public meetings.<\/p>\n In good Petronian fashion, the narcissist Anthony Weiner sent pictures of his own genitalia to near-strangers, under the Latinate pseudonym \u201cCarlos Danger.\u201d Was Eliot Spitzer any better? As the governor of New York, he preferred anonymous numbers \u2014 \u201cClient #9\u201d \u2014 to false names, real to virtual sex, very young to mature women, and buying rather than romancing his partners. Is there some Petronian prerequisite in our age that our ascendant politicians must be perverts?<\/p>\n Transvestitism and sexual ambiguity are likewise Petronian themes; in our day, the controversy rages over whether convicted felon Bradley Manning is now a woman because he says he is. The politically correct term \u201ctransgendered\u201d trumps biology; and if you doubt that, you are a homophobe or worse. As in the Roman\u00a0Satyricon<\/em>, our popular culture also displays a sick fascination with images of teen sex. So how does one trump the now-boring sexual shamelessness of Lady Gaga \u2014 still squirming about in a skimpy thong \u2014 at an MTV awards ceremony? Bring out former Disney teenage star Miley Cyrus in a vinyl bikini, wearing some sort of huge foam finger on her hand to simulate lewd sex acts.<\/p>\n The orgies at Trimalchio\u2019s cool Pompeii estate (think Malibu) suggest that in imperial-Roman society Kardashian-style displays of wealth and Clintonian influence-peddling were matter-of-fact rather than shocking. Note that in our real version of the novel\u2019s theme, Mayor Filner was not bothered by his exposure, and finally had to be nearly dragged out of office. Carlos Danger would have been mayor of New York, but the liberal press finally\u00a0became worried over its embarrassment: Apparently two or three sexting episodes were tolerable, but another four or five, replete with more lies, risked parody.<\/p>\n Spitzer is again running for office \u2014 comptroller of New York City \u2014 and may well win. After all, Bill Clinton, feminist champion, protector of female subordinate employees from workplace harassers, survived Monicagate. John Edwards might have saved his political career had the tabloidNational Enquirer<\/em>\u00a0not caught him red-handed with his mistress during the 2008 campaign, while his wife was dying of cancer. To an unimpressed masseuse, Al Gore appeared as a \u201ccrazed sex poodle.\u201d That sobriquet did no more damage to Gore\u2019s green empire than Trimalchio\u2019s randy escapades imperiled his latifundia.<\/p>\n Another farce in the\u00a0Satyricon\u00a0<\/em>involves the nonchalant ignorance of Trimalchio and his guests. The wannabes equate influence and money with status and learning and so pontificate about current events, with made-up mythologies and half-educated references to history. When Trimalchio and his banqueters begin to sermonize on literature, almost everything that follows turns out to be wrong \u2014 as Petronius reminds us how high learning has become as inane a commodity as food or sex, and only sort of half consumed, rather like the 2008 campaign of faux Greek columns and\u00a0Vero possumus<\/em>, which were supposed to convey gravitas.<\/p>\n Likewise, in our version, what does a $200,000 Ivy League education or a graduate degree really get you any more? In the sophisticated world of our political and highly credentialed elites, there are 57 states. Atlantic Coast cities are said to lie along the Gulf of Mexico; after all, they are down there somewhere in the South. The Malvinas become the Maldives \u2014 Ma- with an s at the end seems close enough. Corps-men serve in the military (as zombies?). Medgar Evans was a civil-rights icon, but you know whom we mean. President Roosevelt addressed the nation on television after the stock-market crash in 1929 \u2014 well, he would have, had he been president then and if only Americans had had televisions in their homes. And how are we to know that what we read from celebrity authors is not just made up or plagiarized, whether a Maureen Dowd column or a Doris Kearns Goodwin book?<\/p>\n The famously nouveau-riche Trimalchio\u2019s guests drop the names of the rich and powerful, mostly to remind one another that they are now among the plutocracy that is replacing the old bankrupt aristocracy. We too are seeing something like that metamorphosis. It is hard to guess on any given summer weekend which populist progressive family \u2014 the Obamas, the Clintons, the Kerrys, the Gores \u2014 will be ensconced on what particular Hamptons, Nantucket, or Martha\u2019s Vineyard beach, rubbing shoulders with just the sort of Silicon Valley or Wall Street new zillionaires who during work hours are supposed to be the evil \u201c1 percent\u201d and \u201cfat cats\u201d who need to be forced to pay their \u201cfair share.\u201d<\/p>\n Al Gore, like Trimalchio, does not mutter a word without revealing his ignorance \u2014 or hypocrisy. Over the last 15 years, the planet has\u00a0not\u00a0<\/em>heated up, and the science of global warming is not established, which is why the nomenclature had to change from global warming to climate change to climate chaos in order to account for too much bothersome wet, snowy, and cold weather. The reconciler, who became a near-billionaire both hyping global warming and selling medieval-style indulgences as antidotes, now claims those who disagree with him are comparable to fascists and racists. All this comes from a wheeler-dealer who made big money damning fossil fuels only to sell a failing cable station to an anti-Semitic, anti-American fascistic enterprise, fueled by the millions garnered from the vast export of oil and gas from the Arabian peninsula. And to complete Gore\u2019s Trimalchian man-of-the-people profile, he rushed the sale in hopes of beating the new, higher capital-gains taxes that he had been urging for lesser folk \u2014 sort of like progressive John Kerry buying and berthing his grand new yacht in Rhode Island to avoid the high excise and sales taxes in his home state of Massachusetts.<\/p>\n Farce and psychodrama pass for entertainment in the\u00a0Satyricon<\/em>. A country that once lost 600 legionnaires a minute at Cannae is reduced to gossiping about precious jewelry, exotic food, and sick gladiatorial games in the arena. Our elites go through some of the same bored melodrama. Withdrawal dates, red lines, deadlines, and leading from behind form our new rhetorical military. While Trimalchio parties in Pompeii on stuffed boar and sparrows (sort of like wagyu beef on a bed of arugula), somewhere to the unmentioned north legionnaires keep back the \u201cbarbarians\u201d on the Rhine and the Danube. But they are as out of sight and mind as those who are camped out tonight in the Afghan highlands, or the \u201cat this point, what difference does it make?\u201d Americans killed in Benghazi, or the SEAL teams who dropped in on bin Laden while the president was playing card games with staffers.<\/p>\n Civil rights once meant an existential struggle between the oppressed and villains like Bull Connor with his dogs and fire hoses. Now Oprah is miffed over being treating rudely while eyeing a $38,000 purse in Switzerland; the NAACP wants sensitivity training for a rodeo clown with an Obama mask;\u00a0American Idol<\/em>\u2019s failed contestants sue for \u201ccruel and inhuman treatment\u201d; near-billionaire rapper Jay-Z warns that the have-nots may riot; and a depressed former congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. was reduced to spending $750,000 of other people\u2019s money on essentials like stuffed elk heads and Michael Jackson\u2019s old fedora.<\/p>\n Just as Petronius\u2019s world went on for another 400 years, ours may too.<\/p>\n NRO\u00a0contributor<\/em>\u00a0Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the\u00a0Hoover Institution<\/a>. His latest book is\u00a0<\/em>The Savior Generals<\/a><\/span>, published this spring by Bloomsbury Books.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Our elites would be right at home in Petronius’s world of debauchery and bored melodrama. by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0National Review Online Sometime in the mid-first century\u00a0a.d., an otherwise little known consular official, Gaius Petronius, wrote a brilliant satirical novel about the gross and pretentious new Roman-imperial elite. The\u00a0Satyricon\u00a0is an often-cruel parody about how the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[86],"tags":[72,717,12,57,215,106,94,108,594,242],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-1EL","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11827,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/our-modern-satyricon\/","url_meta":{"origin":6371,"position":0},"title":"Our Modern \u2018Satyricon\u2019","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 16, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness Sometime around A.D. 60, in the age of Emperor Nero, a Roman court insider named Gaius Petronius wrote a satirical Latin novel, \u201cThe Satyricon,\u201d about moral corruption in Imperial Rome. The novel\u2019s general landscape was Rome\u2019s transition from an agrarian republic to a globalized\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13417,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/eeyores-cabinet-a-too-decadent-culture\/","url_meta":{"origin":6371,"position":1},"title":"Eeyore’s Cabinet: The Decadent Culture","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 20, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"The Swing by Jean-Honor\u00e9 Fragonard, 1767: Detail Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ Private Papers I've been reading the\u00a0Satyricon\u00a0again, which I taught for a number of years in early imperial Latin literature classes for advanced Latin students. The Latin, outside of the slang and neologisms, and the fragmented text, is pretty easy.\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/fragonard-the-swing.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/fragonard-the-swing.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/fragonard-the-swing.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/fragonard-the-swing.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":690,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/a-summer-with-virgil\/","url_meta":{"origin":6371,"position":2},"title":"A Summer With Virgil","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 24, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton Defining Ideas \u201cTo read the Latin & Greek authors in their original,\u201d Thomas Jefferson once wrote, \u201cis a sublime luxury.\u201d Fortunately, for those who don\u2019t read Greek and Latin, the great works of Classical literature are available in first-rate translations. The following five classics are some\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10967,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/02-09-18-angry-reader\/","url_meta":{"origin":6371,"position":3},"title":"02\/09\/18 Angry Reader","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 14, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"From An Angry(?) Reader: Greetings Professor Hanson! For many years now, I have followed you on talk radio, TV interviews, YouTube videos, books and published articles. I greatly appreciate your commitment to truth, accurate history and the application of those two principles to current events. Your reasoning and observations are\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6935,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/duty-and-the-taint-of-the-tell-all\/","url_meta":{"origin":6371,"position":4},"title":"‘Duty,’ and the Taint of the Tell-All","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 23, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Robert Gates's insider memoir is the latest in a dishonorable genre. by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0National Review Online\u00a0 For all the hysteria over former defense secretary Robert Gates\u2019s new insider memoir of his tenure during the Bush and Obama administrations, the disclosures are more breaches of trust than earth-shattering revelations.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Literature"","block_context":{"text":"Literature","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/literature\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6414,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/miley-cyrus-and-ugly-sex\/","url_meta":{"origin":6371,"position":5},"title":"Miley Cyrus and Ugly Sex","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 3, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Was the MTV performance meant to be repellent rather than enticing? by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0National Review Online An older generation used to call the boredom of bad habits \u201creaching rock bottom\u201d; the present variant perhaps is \u201cjumping the shark\u201d \u2014 that moment when the tiresome gimmicks no longer work,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Popular Culture"","block_context":{"text":"Popular Culture","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/american-culture\/popular-culture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6371"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6371"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6410,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6371\/revisions\/6410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/9274129830_82033fb5a7.jpg?resize=225%2C300&ssl=1\" "\\"Anthony")
imperial elite. The\u00a0Satyricon<\/em>\u00a0is an often-cruel parody about how the Roman agrarian republic of old had degenerated into a wealth-obsessed, empty society of wannabe new elites, flush with money, and both obsessed with and bored with sex. Most of the\u00a0Satyricon<\/em>\u00a0is lost. But in its longest surviving chapter \u2014 \u201cDinner with Trimalchio\u201d \u2014 Petronius might as well have been describing our own 21st-century nomenklatura.<\/p>\n