Rivers and Rivalry in Petronius, Horace, Callimachus, and Aristophanes

The poem delivered by Agamemnon in the opening fragment of Petronius’ Satyrica contains an allusion to Horace’s Satires that connects the novel with a nexus of passages where authors deploy river imagery in statements of literary polemic. Agamemnon’s poem is united with the poet Eumolpus’ stylistic manifesto by a recurrence of river imagery; once more, allusions to Horace in Eumolpus’ speech open on to histories of rivalry and poetics. These passages encourage us to follow Petronius’ signals in reading these connected window allusions, enabling Petronius to position himself as a self-conscious heir to literary traditions in multiple genres.