ABSTRACT
Trimalchio continues in the same line with his confession that he prefers glass, but he does not collect it because it is very cheap. The assertion is complemented by a cautionary tale of the danger of too much knowledge - a man who knows how to make malleable glass dies because of this knowledge. Various versions of this anecdote were current in antiquity.4 In this case, the tale along with Trimalchio's confession serve to emphasize the interdependency of Trimalchio's setting of values with intrinsic merit. Material which is cheap in financial terms is not appreciated, the only value is gold. Petronius' personal point about the existence of other values besides the ones Trimalchio can discern seems present at once.
