{"id":22780,"date":"2026-07-13T19:33:31","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T23:33:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.philipharland.com\/Blog\/?p=22780"},"modified":"2026-07-13T20:21:32","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T00:21:32","slug":"iberians-petronius-on-eumolpus-will-and-ethnographic-examples-of-eating-of-human-flesh-first-century-ce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.philipharland.com\/Blog\/2026\/07\/iberians-petronius-on-eumolpus-will-and-ethnographic-examples-of-eating-of-human-flesh-first-century-ce\/","title":{"rendered":"Iberians: Petronius on Eumolpus’ will and ethnographic examples of eating of human flesh (first century CE)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ancient author: <\/strong><\/em>Petronius (first century CE), Satyrica\u00a0<\/em>141 (link).<\/p>\n

Comments:\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>The fragments of Petronius’ novel about the adventures of Encolpius and Giton end with a reading of (most likely) Eumolpus the poet’s will. This will contains a humorous yet gross stipulation that any recipients of his legacy (beyond his own freedpersons) would be required to cut up and eat his own body. Sauces are suggested to make this palatable.<\/p>\n

In the process, Petronius has his character cite a variety of ethnographic precedents involving the eating of human flesh (in these cases under siege and in famine), including the case of the Saguntines and Numantians of Iberia and the Petelians in southeastern Italy. Juvenal likewise refers to the legend about the Saguntines in one of his satires, as does Augustine later on (link<\/a>).<\/p>\n

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[Will requiring consumption of the deceased’s body compared with ethnographic cases of eating human flesh]<\/strong><\/p>\n

(141) [Georgias (?):] \u201cThe ship from Africa with your money and slaves that you promised does not arrive. The fortune-hunters are tired out, and their generosity is shrinking. So that unless I am mistaken, our usual luck is on its way back to punish you. . . [missing text<\/i>].\u201d<\/p>\n

[Eumolpus (?):] \u201cAll those who come into money under my will, except my own freedpersons, will get what I have left them on one condition, namely that they cut my body in pieces and eat it up in view of the crowd. . . [missing text<\/i>].\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that in some countries a custom (lex<\/i>) is still observed that dead people should be eaten by their relatives, and the result is that sick people are often blamed for spoiling their own flesh. So I warn my friends not to disobey my orders, but to eat my body as enthusiastically as they cursed my soul. . . [missing text<\/i>]\u201d<\/p>\n

. . . His great reputation for wealth dulled the eyes and brains of the fools. Gorgias was ready to manage the funeral. . .<\/p>\n

[Eumolpus (?):] \u201cI am not at all afraid of turning your stomach. You will get it under control if you promise to repay it for one unpleasant hour with heaps of good things. Just shut your eyes and dream you are eating up a solid ten million sesterces instead of human flesh. Besides, we will find some kind of sauce which will take the taste away. No flesh at all is pleasant in itself. It has to be artificially disguised and reconciled to the unwilling digestion.”<\/p>\n

“But if you want the plan to be supported by precedents, the Saguntines [in Iberia] ate human flesh without any prospective inheritance in the time when Hannibal [the Punic general] besieged them [ca. 218 BCE]. The Petelians [in southeastern Italy] did likewise in the extreme conditions of famine, and gained nothing by the diet, except of course that they were no longer hungry. And when Numantia [in Iberia] was stormed by Scipio [ca. 133 BCE], some women= were found with the half-eaten bodies of their children hidden under their clothing [see Appian, Roman Matters: Iberian Book<\/em> 96] . . . [missing text<\/em>]”<\/p>\n

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Source of the translation: <\/i><\/b>Michael Heseltine, Petronius, Satyricon \/ Seneca, Apocolocyntosis <\/em>(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1913), public domain, adapted by Harland.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ancient author: Petronius (first century CE), Satyrica\u00a0141 (link). Comments:\u00a0The fragments of Petronius’ novel about the adventures of Encolpius and Giton end with a reading of (most likely) Eumolpus the poet’s will. This will contains a humorous yet gross stipulation that any recipients of his legacy (beyond his own freedpersons) would be required to cut up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71,587,709,162,712,711,710],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-02-greek-and-roman-ethnography-on-barbarians","category-08-criminalization-of-populations","category-eating-human-flesh","category-iberians-in-spain","category-numantians-in-iberia","category-petelians-in-italy","category-saguntines-in-iberia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philipharland.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philipharland.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philipharland.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philipharland.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philipharland.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22780"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.philipharland.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22780\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22810,"href":"https:\/\/www.philipharland.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22780\/revisions\/22810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philipharland.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philipharland.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philipharland.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}