"Sarebbe il minimo"

Starting from the examples in Suet. Tib. 50.1 and Petron. 113.8, as well as 114.11, the paper examines a set of parenthetical clauses structured as quod + superlative + est (a particularly significant precedent is already found in Catullus) and draws some preliminary conclusions on the linguistic level. By analyzing the network of lexical and syntactic correspondences among those three passages, along with the use of humanitas and the adjective tralaticius in both Petronius and Suetonius, the paper tentatively proposes —purely as a suggestion and working hypothesis —that in the latter a memory of the shipwreck episode from the Satyricon may have been imprinted, which could have left echoes in other passages as well (e.g., tralaticio funere in Nero 33.3).