Testāmentum Porcellī (The Piglet's Will): A Bite-Sized Ancient Latin Treasure

The Testāmentum Porcellī, whose authorship is unknown, likely dates from about the mid-300s A.D. A favorite among Roman schoolchildren for its farcical, ribald tone and somewhat singsong grammatical patterns, the text, comically following and punning on legalese conventions, tells the woefully fatal tale of one Marcus Grunnius Corocotta, the will’s eponymous porcellus. Apparently fated for the Saturnalia table, the piglet with impish defiance allots his possessions, including those of a corporeal nature, to friend and foe alike. Jerome provides a terminus ante quem for its composition, complaining in a letter of the text’s distracting students from their studies. The Testāmentum remained popular thereafter, surviving for us in manuscripts by delighting through the Middle Ages and beyond.
This complete text, handsomely presented, has been generously annotated, with macrons added and helpful notes to assist students with vocabulary and a grammatical or cultural explanation where needed. The Testāmentum Porcellī in its entirety will likely take a few days for upper-level Latin students to move through and will provide a delicious break from routine, with students invested, admiring of the concise inventiveness of the Latin itself, and feeling an eerily familiar resonance with the satirical humor of an authentic Latin text nearly two thousand years old.