11 h 2 minAudiobook7 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What happens to love, art and honesty when everyone is hungry for money, pleasure or applause?
In The Satyricon, Encolpius has some education and no steady income. He drifts through southern Italy with Giton, his lover, and Ascyltos, his companion and rival. Affection sparks quarrels, and the search for easy gain leads to bizarre scrapes. This fragmentary Latin comic novel, usually linked to Petronius, offers no tidy path through its world of appetite and schemes.
At the center stands Trimalchio’s lavish dinner, where a former slave wants every guest to admire his wealth and taste. Around him, guests talk in rough, lively slang. Elsewhere, hungry students, cheats and bad poets crowd the scene. Prose mingles with verse, ghost stories and street talk, while the jokes expose a world where almost everyone wants something.
What you’ll discover
- A feast of vanity Join Trimalchio’s guests as lavish hospitality becomes a display of wealth and wounded pride.
- Love tangled with rivalry Follow Encolpius, Giton and Ascyltos through jealous quarrels, shifting affection and clever escapes.
- Roman life from below Meet freedmen, drifters and hungry students whose rough talk gives the satire its bite.
- Poetry meets street talk Discover a restless mix of verse, sermons, ghost stories and quarrels within the surviving fragments.
- Appetite under the jokes Look beneath the rude humor at what the pursuit of pleasure does to honesty.
Who will love it
For readers who love sharp comedy, rude humor and a close look at ordinary ancient life, or who enjoy tales of feasts and excess.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A drifter in a decaying town
- Rites, quarrels and a stolen cloak
- Trimalchio's dinner begins
- Freedmen talk and Trimalchio stages his own funeral
- Eumolpus, the poet who travels with trouble
- What the satire is about and how it is told
Who’s who
- EncolpiusThe young narrator, educated but idle and vain, who drifts from scheme to scheme and is haunted by the anger of the god Priapus.
- GitonA beautiful young boy and the lover of Encolpius, whose affection is the cause of many quarrels and clever escapes.
- AscyltosCompanion and rival of Encolpius, bold and reckless, who competes with him for Giton.
- TrimalchioA former slave turned very rich, who hosts a lavish dinner and wants every guest to admire his wealth and his taste.
- FortunataWife of Trimalchio, a former dancer now proud of her property, who argues with her husband in front of the guests.
- EumolpusAn old and shabby poet, full of speeches about art and morals, who joins the young men and loves a good scheme.
- AgamemnonA teacher of rhetoric whom Encolpius meets in the town, and who brings the friends to Trimalchio's dinner.
- QuartillaA priestess linked to the rites of Priapus, who draws the young men into a strange and humiliating ceremony.
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- Large-print eBook
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- Audiobook
- 11 h 2 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 7 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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El Satiricón — completo
by Petronio Árbitro · 65
Encolpius drifts through southern Italy, where money and pleasure put art, love and honesty at stake.
Challenging10–20 hours to read25 languages
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In short
The Satyricon is a Latin comic novel from the first century, usually linked to Petronius, a courtier of the emperor Nero. Tacitus describes a man of that name as Nero's judge of elegance, who died in 66 after Nero turned against him.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A drifter in a decaying town
The story is told by Encolpius, a young man with some education and no steady income. He wanders through a Greek town in Campania, in southern Italy, with his friends and rivals. Early on, he stops at a school of speech and listens to a rhetorician named Agamemnon. Encolpius complains that teaching has gone bad, that pupils learn flashy tricks and empty words, and that schools feed on rich parents.
This opening sets the tone. Encolpius is clever, but he is also lazy, vain and quick to blame others. He talks about taste and learning, yet he lives by theft and trickery. The reader soon learns to enjoy what he says and to doubt it at the same moment.
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What is The Satyricon about?
It follows Encolpius, a young drifter, and his companions through southern Italy as they get into scrapes over love, money and food. Its most famous section is the huge dinner given by the rich former slave Trimalchio.
Who was Trimalchio in The Satyricon?
Trimalchio is a freedman, a former slave who has become immensely rich. He hosts a lavish dinner full of tricks and boasts, and he is the best-known figure in the book.
Is The Satyricon complete?
The text has gaps, and scenes sometimes begin or end abruptly, though the dinner of Trimalchio is preserved at fair length.
The author
Petronius Arbiter
27–66 · Roman satirical novelist
1st century AD Roman courtier and author of the Satyricon.
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