Literature and history

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Hello and welcome to literature and history.

Episode 69, Rome's comic novel.

This program is about the Satiricon, a comedic work of mixed prose and poetry, produced by the Roman poet Petronius in the early 60s, C.E.

The Satyricon is an episodic narrative about the misadventures of a former gladiator, as this former

gladiator treks through mansions and brothels in the resort country southeast of Rome and beyond.

The Citiricon, as it survives today, was once part of a much longer work, a vast first-person

narrative that traced its protagonist's excursion throughout the late Giulio

Claudian world.

Believed to have been produced sometime around 63 to 65 CE, the Satyricon is filled with gaps and puzzles, and its author is just as

mysterious as the text he left behind. The Satyricon's author, Gaius Petronius, often called Petronius Arbiter, was a noble of some distinction who served in Nero's court, but who perished in the same purge that killed Seneca. His title, Arbiter Eleganti, or Style Expert, suggests that Petronius was

consulted on matters of taste.

But the contents of the satirical

suggest a writer who understood far more than court finery.

A broad array of characters and idioms

populate Petronius's book.

Rich tycoons and common prostitutes, professors and priestesses, and slaves and pimpes and

performers of all stamps.

What makes the Satyricon an entrancing read, century after century, is that unlike nearly

the entire prehistory of literature that predated it.

Petronius's book is not about gods or heroes or even aristocrats,

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