The ''Lex convivalis'', also known as the ''Decretum parasiticum'', is a humorous

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

text from

late antiquity Late antiquity is the time of transition from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages, generally spanning the 3rd–7th century in Europe and adjacent areas bordering the Mediterranean Basin. The popularization of this periodization in English ha ...

. Only a fragment of this work survives, transmitted at the end of the ''

Querolus ''Querolus'' (''The Complainer'') or ''Aulularia'' (''The Pot'') is an anonymous Latin comedy from late antiquity, the only Latin drama to survive from this period and the only ancient Latin comedy outside the works of Plautus and Terence. Title ...

''. Some editors include it in the text of that work, either at the end, as transmitted, or transposed to an earlier point in the last scene. The difference between the metrical character of the two works is against this: the ''Lex convivalis'' has metrical clausulae typical of late Latin prose rhythm, while the ''Querolus'' has endings that resemble Plautine verse.R. Jakobi, ''Gnomon'' 73, 2001, 407. The text sets out the rights of a parasite (a hanger-on) for injuries sustained at a feast, humorously phrased in the formal language of Roman laws.

References

*Peiper, R. ''Aulularia sive Querolus'' (Leipzig: Teubner) 1875, p. 59, 12–60, 24. *Buecheler, F. ''Petronii Saturae et Liber Priapeorum'' (Berlin) ed. 6, rev. Heraeus, 1922, p. 267.

Notes

Latin prose texts {{Latin-stub