Satirization by Petronius and Achilles Tatius

In Leucippe and Clitophon and The Satyricon, Achilles Tatius and Petronius’ (respectively) successfully satirize the pompous-acting people (specifically, rhetoricians)
of ancient novels by satirizing the ridiculously hilarious speeches of rhetoricians, as well as the hypocrisy of these rhetoricians’ lifestyles. Petronius ridicules these people throughout his novel, stabbing at their often melodramatic rhetoric and the extravagant, overly-exuberant, and hypocritical lives they lead. In fact, Petronius’ entire novel is a satire – of not only pompous people, but of many other aspects of ancient society. Tatius’ novel, on the other hand, has similar instances of cheesy rhetoric and hypocritical attitudes, but we cannot say for certain whether these instances were meant to be funny, being that Leucippe and Clitophon itself is not (necessarily) a satire. Nonetheless, it is necessary to explore the novels in question in order to ascertain how this satire is accomplished, and ...