ABSTRACT
In the last chapter I argued that Christians, through their public performances and narratives, opened representational space for voices from non-elite social locations to enter the cultural record. The paucity of other non-elite voices in the tradition makes it difficult to determine if Christians were articulating general attitudes, positions and perspectives shared by other members of the under stratum in this period. One non-Christian source, however, suggests that the Christian emphasis on change, open boundaries, and material being would resonate with members of the under stratum. In his mid-first century prose fiction, the Satyrica, Petronius provides a vivid portrayal of a wealthy freedman Trimalchio and his freedmen friends. These characters exhibit some of the same openness to transformation and to the material body as Christians do, while displaying a more overt antagonism toward the status quo and the pretensions of the educated class. These freedmen appear in an episode, often referred to as the Cena Trimalchionis, featuring an elaborate dinner party where Trimalchio entertains a group of rhetorically trained declaimers (scholastici 60.4).
