Trimalchio
|
|
Trimalchio is a character in the Roman "novel" The Satyricon by Petronius. He was a gaudy, fat man, formerly a slave, who had recently acquired great wealth and taken to extreme excess. He is, however, lovable, in a sort of Falstavian way. He is known for throwing lavish dinner parties, where his numerous servants bring course after course of exotic delicacies, such as live birds sewn up inside a pig and a dish to represent every sign of the zodiac. The Satyricon has a lengthy description of Trimalchio's proposed tomb, which is incredibly ostentatious and lavish.
The original title of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby was Trimalchio in West Egg.
Fitzgerald makes a reference to Trimalchio in the introduction to Chapter 7 of The Great Gatsby:
It was when curiosity about Gatsby was at its highest that the lights in his house
failed to go on one Saturday night--and, as obscurely as it had begun, his career as Trimalchio was over.