The Satyricon

by Petronius, P. G. Walsh

Overview

The Satyricon is a classic of comedy, a superbly funny picture of Nero's Rome as seen through the eyes of Petronius, its most amorous and elegant courtier.

William Arrowsmith's translation - a lovely, modern, unexpurgated text - recatpures all the ribald humor of Petronius's picaresque satire. It tells the hilarious story of the pleasure-seeking adventures of an educated rogue, Encolpius, his handsome serving boy, Giton, and Ascyltus, who lusts after Giton - three impure pilgrims who live by their wits and other men's purses. The Satyricon unfailingly turns ever weakness of the flesh, every foible of the mind, to laughter.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199539215
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	05/15/2009
Series:	Oxford World's Classics Series
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.60(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Gaius Petronius Arbiter was a Roman courtier. He was the author of the Satyricon, a satirical novel written during the Neronian era.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca, statesman, philosopher, advocate and man of letters, was born at Cordoba in Spain around 4 BC. He rose to prominence in Rome, pursuing a career in the courts and political life, for which he had been trained, while also acquiring celebrity as an author of tragedies and essays. Falling foul of successive emperors (Caligula in AD 39 and Claudius in AD 41), he spent eight years in exile, allegedly for an affair with Caligula’s sister. Recalled in AD 49, he was made praetor and was appointed tutor to the boy who was to become, in AD 54, the emperor Nero. On Nero’s succession, Seneca acted for some eight years as an unofficial chief minister. The early part of this reign was remembered as a period of sound government, for which the main credit seems due to Seneca. His control over Nero declined as enemies turned the emperor against him with representations that his popularity made him a danger, or with accusations of immorality or excessive wealth. Retiring from public life he devoted his last three years to philosophy and writing, particularly the Letters to Lucilius. In AD 65 following the discovery of a plot against the emperor, in which he was thought to be implicated, he and many others were compelled by Nero to commit suicide. His fame as an essayist and dramatist lasted until two or three centuries ago, when he passed into literary oblivion, from which the twentieth century has seen a considerable recovery.

William Arrowsmith was an American classicist, academic, and translator. His translations include works by Euripides, Aristophanes, and Petronius. He died in 1992.

Table of Contents

Introduction v

Satyricon 1

Poems 143

From the Fragments 155

Appendices 159

Appendix 1 Before our Text Begins 161

Appendix 2 The Main Characters in the Satyricon 163

Appendix 3 Tacitus on Petronius 167

Appendix 4 Some Later Mentions of Petronius's work 169

Appendix 5 Two Earlier English Versions of the Satyricon 175

Appendix 6 Fellini-Satyricon 179

Notes 184

Editorial Reviews

"This version by a translator who understands the high art of low humor is conspicuously funny."
—Time

"William Arrowsmith's translation of The Satyricon meets the two fundamental requirements of the translator's art: perfect fidelity to the original and a vitality of style that tempts the reader to believe that the English version is not a translation.… A classic of literature."
—Allen Tate

"Arrowsmith's brilliant translation … at one stroke renders every other version obsolete."
—London Times Literary Supplement

From the Publisher

Sounding downright jovial at times, Jonathan Keeble uses a classic aristocratic English delivery to portray Encolpius, the ex-gladiator and polished raconteur who narrates this satirical proto-novel. He leads the listener on a historically insightful, hilarious, thoroughly exotic, and erotically charged romp through a series of gay bordellos, opulent estates, detailed deviant sexual practices, and vulgar feasts in the time of Emperor Nero’s Rome. Author Gaius Petronius’s character sketches and comic dialogues can sound amazingly modern—think John Waters in a toga. SATYRICON will certainly be heard as a stinging comedy of manners, but there is also room to hear it as a 1,900-year-old “coming-out” declaration for ancient LGBTQ rights and recognition. Fascinating and anciently X-rated. B.P. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

OCTOBER 2019 - AudioFile

Sounding downright jovial at times, Jonathan Keeble uses a classic aristocratic English delivery to portray Encolpius, the ex-gladiator and polished raconteur who narrates this satirical proto-novel. He leads the listener on a historically insightful, hilarious, thoroughly exotic, and erotically charged romp through a series of gay bordellos, opulent estates, detailed deviant sexual practices, and vulgar feasts in the time of Emperor Nero’s Rome. Author Gaius Petronius’s character sketches and comic dialogues can sound amazingly modern—think John Waters in a toga. SATYRICON will certainly be heard as a stinging comedy of manners, but there is also room to hear it as a 1,900-year-old “coming-out” declaration for ancient LGBTQ rights and recognition. Fascinating and anciently X-rated. B.P. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

OCTOBER 2019 - AudioFile