selections translated by R. Bracht Branham and Daniel Kinney

(from Petronius: Satyrica, Berkeley: U of California P, 1996)

Gaius Petronius Arbiter was the party master and general manager of decadence for the emperor Nero, until he was requested by Nero to commit suicide in 66 CE. Only sections of Petronius’ profoundly bizarre novel, the Satyricon, survive today. The plot, such as there is, revolves around the picaresque adventures of a man named Encolpius as hemakes his way around southern Italy. Encolpius narrates the novel himself.

A. Chapter 29.

Encolpius, currently living on the streets of the city, has happened onto a dinner invitation from Trimalchio, a former slave and one of the wealthiest and most eccentric men in the Roman world. He has just passed by the initial entryway to Trimalchio’s home.

While I stared in stupefaction at all this, I almost fell over backwards and broke a leg. For just to the left of the entrance (not far from the porter’s lodge), was the most enormous dog tethered by a chain -- painted on the wall under some large block letters that said:

My companions laughed at my fright, but I pulled myself together to look at the rest of the wall. It depicted a slave market complete with price tags. Trimalchio himself was in the picture; his hair is long and in his hand he grips the wand of Mercury. Minerva leads the way as our hero enters Rome. A painstaking artist had carefully portrayed the whole course of his career, complete with captions: how he first learned to keep the books and then was put in charge of the cash. In the last scene of the fresco Mercury lifts him by the chin up to a lofty dais. Mrs. Luck is at his side carrying her burgeoning cornucopia, as the three Fates spin the golden threads.

I also noticed a team of runners in the nearby colonnade exercising with their trainer. In the corner stood an imposing cabinet: inside I saw a little shrine containing the household gods sculpted in silver, a marble statuette of Venus, and a none-too-small golden casket, which, they said, preserved the master's first beard...

I started to ask the steward what they had painted in the atrium. "The Iliad and the Odyssey," he said, "and the gladiator show put on by Laenas." It was too much to contemplate [the surviving text is incomplete here].

Chapters 50-52

Encolpius and his companions, including a school teacher named Agamemnon, are now in the midst of Trimalchio's surreal banquet. He has just watched the cook for the dinner present a whole, ungutted pig to the dinner party. Trimalchio is just about to flog the cook for his incompetence when the pig's belly is slit open to reveal prepared sausages and meatcakes pouring out.

50. The slaves broke into applause for the trick and cheered in unison, "Bravo, Gaius!" The cook was honored with a drink and silver crown, and also received a drinking bowl served on a plate of Corinthian bronze. As Agamemnon eyed the plate rather closely, Trimalchio observed: "I alone own genuine Corinthian." I was waiting for him to boast as usual that his vases were imported directly from Corinth, but he did better than that: "Perhaps you're wondering why I am unique in owning Corinthian plates? Because, of course, the dealer I buy it from is named Corinthus. How could it be Corinthian unless you get it from Corinthus? I'm no ignoramus, ya know; I know very well how Corinthian bronze originated. When Troy was sacked, Hannibal --a clever fellow and a real snake in the grass-- piled all the bronze, gold and silver statues into a single heap and set them on fire; They melted into a single bronze alloy. From this amalgam craftsmen made little bowls, side dishes, and statuettes. Thus was Corinthian bronze born --neither this nor that, but one from all. If you don't mind my saying so, I actually prefer glass --it doesn't smell. If it didn't break, I'd prefer it to gold; as it is, the price is right...

52. Of course, silver is my favorite. I have some enormous wine cups...showing how Cassandra killed her sons. The way the dead boys lie there --you'd think they were alive! I have a sacrificial bowl, which King Minos left my patron, that shows Daedalus shutting Niobe up in the Trojan horse. I even have the fights of the gladiators Hermeros and Petraites on my drinking cups --and, boy, are they heavy. You just can't put a price on that kind of thing."...

Chapter 83

The dinner party eventually devolves into chaos, and the partiers run off into the night. Encolpius' young lover then leaves him for another man. After sulking for three days, Encolpius decides to go kill the couple in their bed, but is stripped of his sword along the way. He calms down a little and continues wandering...

83. I happened into an art gallery with an amazing collection of paintings. I actually saw some originals by Zeuxis, unscathed by all the years, and sketches by Protogenes that so rivalled the truth of nature herself that I trembled to touch them. But when I got to Apelles --the piece the Greeks call "The Goddess on One Knee"-- my admiration began to verge on worship. So precisely did the look of his creations conform to nature, you would have thought they were animated! Here a soaring eagle bears Ganymede to heaven; there fair Hylas fights off a wicked Naiad; Apollo damns his own murderous hands and adorns his unstrung lyre with the first hyacinth. Surrounded by these painted lovers I exclaimed as if alone: "Look, even the gods are touched by love! When Jupiter cannot find what he desires in heaven, he harms no one by erring on earth. The nymph who ravished Hylas would have mastered her desires, had she thought that Hercules would intervene. Apollo invokes his lover's shade in a flower. In all these stories the embraces of love are unimpeded by a rival! But I befriended someone crueler than Lycurgus!"