Henry Imler November 5th, 2007

This summer I took an intensive Latin course. We basically worked
through all of Whelocks in three months. To keep up on our Latin, some
of us have been meeting with one of the professors every other week and
been translating a chapter of The Millionaire’s Dinner Party, an adaption of the Cena Trimalchionis by Petronius.

Basically, the work is a satire of Roman society and the emperor Claudius.
We are currently working through chapter six, where Trimalchio, the
crazy rich former slave that has no idea what is going on, is
explaining where Corinthian Bronze comes from:

cum Ilium captum esset, Hannibal, homo vafer et magnus
stelio, omnes statuas aeneas et aureas et argenteas in unum rogum
congessit et eas incendit.

In modern English it reads as follows:

When Troy was captured, Hannibal, a cunning fellow and a
slippery rouge, heaped all the statues of copper, gold, and silver into
a pyre and burned them.

Good ole Trimalchio goes on to tell his dinner guests that he knows
a man named Corinth that knew where this pile of burned statues was
hidden and was selling it as Corinthian Bronze.

Nevermind that Hannibal invaded Rome, not Greece and not to mention that Corinth is a town instead of a person.

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