Petronius was the master of fine enjoyments for the Emperor Nero. Most scholars believe that this Petronius, whose suicide was described by Tacitus, is the same Petronius who authored the Satyricon (or perhaps better the Satyrica), probably written in installments for the enjoyment of Nero’s court. We are not sure how long the work originally was - it may have been ten times longer than the remaining fragments, or not. It appears a rambling comic/realistic novel of the adventures and misadventures of a bisexual trio Encolpius, his friend Ascyltos and the slave boy Giton. This trio has been through of as in part of the romantic couple of romance, who, with steadfast loyalty, endure many adventures and trials; here the quarreling, unfaithful trio (both Encolpius and Ascyltos fight over Giton) are not only adventurers, but amoral con-men, traveling through Hellenized southern Italy. The reason the many critics prefer the title Satyrica is that it means "collection’ or ‘medley’ and this is what the novel provides, mixing different styles of stories as well as both prose and verse. The novel also plays off the Odyssey, in which Odysseus was tormented because he has gained the wrath of Poseidon, god of the sea. Here Enclopius has gained the wrath of Priapus, and thus is punished with embarrassing impotence. The novel also mocks various aspects of Roman life; for example the practice of rhetoric ridiculed in the person of Agamemenon, who will orate at the drop of a hat; the newly and tastelessly rich, epitomized by Trimalchio; practices such a seeking to be put into the wills of rich but childless aristocrats, as seen in Croton.
	In your readings, you first see the werewolf story, and you can observe the greater taste for such supernatural horror stories among the Romans, which you also saw in Seneca’s Medea.
	Perhaps one of the most famous short stories inserted in the Satyrica is the story of the Widow of Ephesus. This story may be a typical "Milesian tale" a semi (or fully) pornographic story which involved the degenerate tastes of human beings. The point of the story is simple. The Widow is, at the beginning, an example of the Roman ideal of the univira, the one-woman man (as Dido) should have been) who is trying to starve herself to death at the tomb of her husband out of loyalty to him. Nearby a centurion is guarding the bodies of crucified criminals to make sure their relatives do not give them proper burial. To make a long story short, the centurion first convinces the widow’s maid to eat and live, and they together convince the widow to eat, and that leads him to convince her to have sex with him. Meanwhile the body of one of the thieves is stolen, and the centurion is about to kill himself rather than facing crucifixion. The widow instead puts the body of her once beloved husband on the cross so that nobody will know. The point is that all human virtue is extremely weak and the lusts of the flesh are far more powerful than the sense of decency. This, of course, points to another interpretation of the name of the novel, as Satyricon, that is, a story of people acting like Satyrs, wild creatures known for sexual excess.
	To fully appreciate the selection set in Croton, you need to understand that Croton was once the home of the philosopher Pythagoras, who created a type of religion/sect who dedicated themselves to practices that would purify the soul and body so that they could escape further reincarnations and enter the divine realm. Instead, Croton seems the home of people now dedicated to hunting old men without children and to playing up to them in order to get entered in their wills. Of course, the problem of the childlessness of the upper classes was a real one, and certainly there were legacy hunters, but obviously this is a gross satire, once that also shows the illegal behavior of our characters, as they create a scam to get money out of the people Croton by pretending that Eumolpus (another friend and con-man) is a very wealthy man who has just lost his son and been shipwrecked. The people of Croton will give him money and help in hope of getting in his will. Apparently, in that will Eumolpus stipulated that anybody who wanted to inherit had to eat his body. Again, the degeneracy of modern customs is stressed.
	The Dinner of Trimalchio is another satire on epic bad taste. Trimalchio is a former Greek slave that made it good by his service to his master and mistress, who left him money. He went on and succeeded in business, and now is extremely wealthy -- although not as wealthy as some real Roman aristocrats were. Trimachalio shows off his wealth by garishly tasteless and conspicuous consumption, for example, throwing away silverware that has been dropped on the floor. Such figures were often satirized in Roman literature. Dinner parties, of course, were a very important part of the Roman elite social life, and some people are on record as paying incredible prices for slaves skilled at cooking. (For a site with Roman recipes, CLICK HERE,.)  One of these skills was making one food look like another, or playing tricks with food. This episode is based on the real excesses of the Roman elite, but Trimalchio is shown taking this practice to fantastic extremes. In addition, he adds such tasteless touches as having all the servants sing, making guests wash their hands in wine, not water, and having slaves that do what their names suggest, as for example the one who carves the meat being named ‘Carver’.
	There are also darker currents here. Trimalchio knows that, despite his wealth, that he remains of second level status as a freedman, and so in some way this lavish display of wealth is a form of compensation for this. Note how he brags that he was even appointed a Priest of Augustus (see section 70). But Trimalchio undercuts himself, not only by his poor taste in festivities, but in showing off his ignorance; for example, when he tries to show off his knowledge by recounting legends, he gets them hopelessly confused (see section 48 when he says Odysseus twisted Heracles’ thumb with tongs, and more clearly in section 59 where he, for example, makes Diomede and Ganymede the brothers of Helen (the real ones were Castor and Pollux, as anybody with even a smattering of learning would have known); notice how he has a artwork that shows the deeds of the Iliad and the Odyssey and some relatively minor local games (see section 30) as if they were of equal importance. At the same time he seems to reject the standard views of culture, for example, in section 42, when, after Agamemnon sums up a court speech, Trimalchio says "If it (the case) happed, it’s not important; if it didn’t happen, it’s nonsense." This point to one of the major targets of Petronius’ satire, the unreal rhetoric students of the time had to learn, which often involved creating speeches for hypothetical court cases concerning unrealistic and even fantastic situations invented to give subject matter for rhetorical display, not for giving practical experience. Note how Trimalchio brags on his tomb inscription that he never went to college.
	In the Odyssey, one of the most important episodes was the visit to the underworld; we saw such a visit in the Aeneid as well. Some critics have pointed out the Trimalchio is in some sense a lord of the underworld too; in the traditional Greek underworld a huge, three-headed dog Ceberus guarded the gateway to the underworld; here the mosaic of the dog guards the entrance to Trimalchio’s house (see section 28). Notice too how Trimalchio seemed obsessed with death, bringing on a silver skeleton at one point (see section 34), describing a visit to the Sibyl whose only request was to die, and even conducting his own funeral in advance (see section 70).

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