Practicing Death in Petronius' Cena Trimalchionis and Plato's Phaedo

While scholars have long recognized Petronius' ironic use and inversions of Plato's "Symposium" in his "Cena Trimalchionis," this paper argues that Petronius has a further Platonic intertext, the "Phaedo." There are two chief parallels: an ironic correspondence in the use of mythical imagery, namely Theseus' journey through the labyrinth, and the Cena's final scenes, which consciously echo the final scenes of Socrates' life as depicted in the "Phaedo."