In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:American Journal of Philology 123.2 (2002) 275-286 [Access article in PDF] Cum Vicensimariis Magnam Mantissam Habet (Petronius Satyricon 65.10) Marc Kleijwegt AT PETRONIUS Satyricon 65.10 1 THE STONEMASON HABINNAS provides an explanation for his late arrival at Trimalchio's party. 2 He has been attending a ninth-day memorial feast in honor of one of Scissa's slaves, whom she 3 had manumitted on his deathbed: "Scissa lautum novendiale servo suo misello (...) faciebat, quem mor tu um manu miserat." 4 And he adds: "et puto, cum vicensimariis magnam mantissam habet; quinquaginta enim millibus aestimant mortuum." 5 Although we do not know what type of skills the dead man possessed, there is no need to assume that the amount set by the tax officials was incredibly high. Such amounts, and indeed much higher ones, were regularly paid for [End Page 275] exceptionally talented or attractive slaves. 6 By way of comparison, fifty thousand sesterces is the amount claimed to have been paid by a doctor from Assisi in return for his freedom (CIL 11.5400). Above all, there is nothing peculiar about Scissa having to pay the tax on manumission. She manumitted the slave before he died and is now liable to pay 5 percent of his estimated value in tax. And yet Habinnas seems to find the situation extremely funny.The key word is mantissa, the meaning of which is controversial and subject to much misunderstanding. While the majority of Petronians translate magnam mantissam as "enormous sum" or "pretty penny," 7 others prefer to read it as "huge conflict." 8 However, the former raises serious grammatical objections—it would take cum in a strained sense (cf. Smith 1975, 184), and the latter presupposes that some sort of conflict will arise from the officials' assessment, but what would be the issue of dispute? Both views seem to assume that Scissa will have to pay a huge amount in tax. 9 This is in fact not the case. Scissa will only have to pay 5 percent of the estimated value of the slave, which is twenty-five hundred sesterces. 10 If Scissa was wealthy enough to pay fifty thousand sesterces for a single slave, it is unlikely that she will have a problem with [End Page 276] paying a much smaller amount in tax. Habinnas, I believe, is not making a joke about Scissa having to pay a bigger amount than she originally expected, but he is making fun of the fact that she has to pay an amount at all. The following study sets out to demonstrate how this view can be recovered from the meaning that mantissa has elsewhere in Roman literature and subsequently attempts to show how the Petronian passage may shed some light on the representation of slavery in the Cena Trimalchionis.The key passage that forms the point of departure for the readings discussed above is an entry in the etymological dictionary of Festus (Paul ex Fest. 103, 1L): "Mantisa 11 additamentum dicitur lingua Tusca, quod ponderi adicitur, sed deterius et quod sine ullo usu est." 12 Without the benefit of a specific context in which the word was originally used (commerce? taxation?), Festus' explanation can easily lead to further confusion. 13 If, for example, the original sense of mantisa is taken to be that of a make-weight, it is evident that it cannot have the exact same meaning in Petronius. 14 Because the original Etruscan context of mantisa cannot be recovered, it will no longer concern me here. Instead I will focus more closely on the text that accompanies Festus' remark, a fragment from one of Lucilius' satires: "mantisa obsonia vincit" (1208 M = 1231 K = 1225 W). The brevity of the fragment makes it difficult to establish which sense Lucilius gave to mantisa (Festus obviously believed that it was in line with his explanation), and this has produced a cascading effect of misinterpretations affecting the passage in Petronius as well.Obsonia suggests that the context in Lucilius should be a culinary one. 15 The conclusion drawn by Marx... (shrink)