THE SATYRICON BY PETRONIUS

Petronii Satyrica (The Satyricon of Petronius) is a satyrical novel very probably written by the Roman courtier Gaius Petronius Arbiter, who killed himself in ca. AD 66 after being charged with treason. It was very probably written in AD 65.^[1]

Unfortunately, only disjointed fragments survive, together believed to be a mere fraction of the original in length, but these suffice to give unrivalled insight into the life of ordinary Romans in the 1^st century AD (though it should be born in mind that the setting for the entire novel is actually Greek southern Italy). A line of five ***** represents a gap of any length in the surviving text and what is likely to have been recounted in it must be deduced or guessed.

Presented here are all the references to Greek love, an important theme, not least because the narrator, a young man, is throughout the story in a love relationship with a boy.

The translation is by Paul Dinnage for The Satyricon of Petronius published by Spearman & Calder of London in 1953, with a few amendments all fully explained in footnotes. For convenience, on this website the Satyricon is divided into seven sections with improvised titles, as follows:

I. Rivalry for Giton, 7-25

Encolpius, the narrator, is in Campania. Searching for his friend and fellow-lodger Ascyltos, he encounters him by chance in a brothel, whither Ascyltos had been tricked into going by a man with sexual designs on him. Encolpius next meets on a street-corner his sixteen-year-old boyfriend Giton, who tells him that Ascyltos had raped him. In their room, the two friends have a slanging-match. Ascyltos goes out, saying he will find other lodgings. Encolpius and Giton are interrupted in their subsequent love-making by a mocking Ascyltos, unexpectedly returned. Later, their lodgings are invaded by Quartilla, a follower of the cult of Priapus, whose companions assault Encolpius and Ascyltos. Noticing Giton, she decides he should be the one to deflower Pannychis, a girl of seven, forthwith, and she secretly watches him do so.

II. Trimalchio’s Banquet, 27-76

A day or two later, the three youths attend a free-for-all feast given by Trimalchio, a freedman of enormous wealth, who entertains his guests with ostentatious and grotesque extravagance. They are attended during the feast by slave-boys of a special kind. Trimalchio plays intermittently with his catamites, including vulgar horse-play. His giving a long kiss to a particularly beautiful boy-waiter provokes a rowdy quarrel with his wife. He is outraged by her ingratitude, but is appeased by a friend’s intervention. Calm restored, Trimalchio recounts how he won his original fortune through inheritance from his master, whom he was not ashamed to have served in bed when he was fourteen.

III. The Disillusionment of Encolpius, 79-83

Back in their lodgings the night after the feast, Ascyltos in the dark removes Giton from Encolpius’s bed to his own. The boy pretends to sleep while Acyltos ravishes him. Encolpius wakes up. A bitter altercation ensues, leading to Ascyltos agreeing to leave for other lodgings with his things, but saying that he will literally split Giton rather than let Encolpius keep him. Encolpius eventually agrees to Ascyltos’s suggestion that the boy choose who to stay with, confident that he himself will be chosen, given their long intimacy. He is thunderstruck when Giton chooses Ascyltos and leaves with him. Shutting himself up for three days with his misery, he reflects bitterly on the other two, reminding himself that Acyltos as well as Giton had shamelessly let men use them as girls. Going out at last, a soldier dissuades him from his urge for violent revenge and he wanders into a gallery of pederastic art, where an old man called Eumolpus introduces himself.

IV. The Pergamene Boy, 85-87

Eumolpus recounts for Encolpius an amusing story from his younger days. Gone to Pergamon in the suite of an official, he had been delighted to discover his host had a handsome son and plotted carefully how to seduce the boy. Fooling the parents with pretended shock whenever the subject of pederasty arises, he secures charge of him as his tutor. He then wins the boy’s connivance in three stages, vowing to Venus at night (but when he knows the boy is listening), to give him successively greater gifts in return for kissing, fondling and finally pedicating him without his waking up. His failure to honour his last promise, the gift of a racehorse, leads to the boy angrily threatening to tell his father. However, the boy is of that age that really enjoys being pedicated. Not only does he let Eumolpus have him again with only a little pretended reluctance, but he so exasperates the exhausted man by waking him up for a third go the same night that Eumoplus turns the tables on him by threatening to tell his father.

V. More Rivalry for Giton, 91-92

Encolpius chances upon Giton working in a bath-house, takes him back to his lodgings, believes his implausible explanation for his faithlessness and forgives him. Eumolpus barges in and makes Encolpius steadily angrier through his flirtation with Giton (who is too friendly in response) until the latter leaves the room. Ordered to leave too, Eumolpus locks Encolpius in. The ensuing farce in which Encolpius plans suicide and Giton, returning with Eumolpus, pretends to attempt it, is interrupted by the landlord. Eumoplus has a fight with the latter and his other lodgers, interrupted by Ascyltos turning up with the town crier in search of Giton. The latter hides, but a vengeful Eumolpus exposes him. Giton intercedes with him for Encolpius and the three of them leave together to board a ship.

VI. The Sea Voyage, 100-114

Encolpius and Giton are horrified to discover the captain of their ship and his friend Tryphaena are people they have bitterly offended in the past. To disguise themselves, they shave their heads, but are reported to the captain. He and Tryphaena realise who they are and a fight ensues until they relent. Tryphaena and Giton become too affectionate for Encolpius’s liking. A storm arises, the captain is blown overboard and drowns, and Encolpius and Giton tie their bodies together, ready to die, but are rescued from the wreck by fishermen.

VII. In Croton, 119-140

Encolpius, Giton and Emolpius come to land near Croton in Calabria). Circe, an exceptionally beautiful woman, falls for Encolpius and sends her maid to invite him to make love. He is keen, but is suddenly let down by impotence and leaves, deeply humiliated. Circe is confident enough of her own charm to forgive the offence to herself and sends Encolpius a letter inviting him to have another go after abstaining from Giton for three nights. Encolpius tries, but, even with the help of an old woman’s spell, fails again, infuriating Circe into having her slaves drive him out with blows. The principal livelihood of the inhabitants of Croton is legacy-hunting, so Eumolpus has presented himself as likely prey. A woman leaves her daughter and son in his care for their “education.” He loses no time to avail himself of the implicit invitation and pedicates the girl twice. Encolpius is thwarted at first by his impotence from enjoying the evidently-willing boy, but apparently succeeds in the end.

Continue to I. Rivalry for Giton

^[1] K. F. C. Rose in his article “The Date of the Satyricon” in The Classical Quarterly, Vol. 12, No. 1 (May, 1962), pp. 166-168 gives many reasons for accepting AD 65 as its date of composition.