Summary
Summary of The Satyricon — Complete
Key ideas
Key idea 1
Roman life seen from below
The Satyricon follows a band of drifters through the Greek-speaking towns of southern Italy. Its world belongs to cheats, hungry students, rich former slaves and bad poets, rather than people safely above the scramble for a living. Prose, verse, quarrels and ghost stories all find a place in it.
Beneath the comedy sits a question: what happens to art, love and honesty when money and pleasure become everyone's goal? The surviving pieces bring that question into noisy, ordinary life.
Key idea 2
Encolpius deserves a doubtful hearing
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Key idea 3
Every scheme invites another scrape
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Key idea 4
Trimalchio turns dinner into display
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Key idea 5
Death enters the wealthy household
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Key idea 6
The poet joins the schemers
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Key idea 7
Appetite shapes the satire
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Key idea 8
Desire reaches across every class
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The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
Read the rest freeWho it’s for
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 this book is
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. The book we have is only a broken piece of a much longer work. It follows a band of drifters through the Greek-speaking towns of southern Italy, and it mixes prose with verse, sermons, quarrels, ghost stories and street talk.
What do you get from it? You get a loud, funny and often shocking picture of Roman life seen from below. There are cheats, hungry students, rich former slaves and bad poets. The most vivid scene is a dinner party given by a freedman called Trimalchio, the best picture we have of Roman new money. Beneath the jokes runs a plain question about what happens to art, love and honesty when everyone is chasing money and pleasure. Let us begin with the narrator and the town where he drifts.
In this summary
- 1A drifter in a decaying townFree
- 2Rites, quarrels and a stolen cloak
- 3Trimalchio's dinner begins
- 4Freedmen talk and Trimalchio stages his own funeral
- 5Eumolpus, the poet who travels with trouble
- 6What the satire is about and how it is told
Key point 1 of 6
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.
His closest tie is to a beautiful slave boy named Giton. Another young man, Ascyltos, travels with them, and he is both a friend and a rival for Giton's affection. The three keep falling out, making up, and falling out again. Their jealousies drive many of the early scenes.
A hint of a larger story hangs over the group. Encolpius has offended Priapus, a god of lust and gardens, and the god's anger follows him like a curse. That device borrows from the Odyssey, where a god pursues a hero, but here it is turned into a joke. The grand old pattern is used for a hero who is mostly in trouble because of his own appetites.
That’s 1 of 6 key points.
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Check yourself
Why should readers doubt Encolpius's judgments?
Right. “He talks about taste and learning, yet he lives by theft and trickery.”Not quite. “He talks about taste and learning, yet he lives by theft and trickery.”
What does Trimalchio chiefly want his dinner to achieve?
Right. “Trimalchio does not want to feed his guests so much as to astonish them, and the servants perform songs and stunts while he talks about his wealth.”Not quite. “Trimalchio does not want to feed his guests so much as to astonish them, and the servants perform songs and stunts while he talks about his wealth.”
What connects the wealthy hosts, students and poets in the satire?
Right. “Almost everyone in it wants something, whether food, sex, status or a sum of money.”Not quite. “Almost everyone in it wants something, whether food, sex, status or a sum of money.”
Who’s who
- Encolpius
- Encolpius is the educated but idle young narrator, Giton's lover and Ascyltos's companion and rival.
- Giton
- Giton is a beautiful young slave whose relationship with Encolpius provokes rivalry with Ascyltos.
- Ascyltos
- Ascyltos is Encolpius's reckless travelling companion, competing with him for Giton's affection and easy gains.
- Trimalchio
- Trimalchio is a wealthy former slave who entertains Encolpius and his companions at an extravagant dinner.
- Fortunata
- Fortunata is Trimalchio's wife, a former dancer who takes pride in property and quarrels with her husband.
- Eumolpus
- Eumolpus is a shabby elderly poet who joins Encolpius and Giton, combining artistic complaints with scheming.
- Agamemnon
- Agamemnon is a teacher of rhetoric who meets Encolpius and brings his companions to Trimalchio's dinner.
- Quartilla
- Quartilla is a priestess associated with Priapus who draws Encolpius and his companions into humiliating rites.
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 99,000 words
- Reading timeAbout 6 h 35 min
- Listening time11 h
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary
- LanguagesEnglish and 14 other languages
Questions about The Satyricon — Complete
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?
No. Only fragments survive, probably from a much longer work. The text has gaps, and scenes sometimes begin or end abruptly, though the dinner of Trimalchio is preserved at fair length.
When was The Satyricon written and by whom?
It was written in Latin in the first century, in the time of Nero, and is traditionally linked to Petronius. It is fiction, but it draws on real features of Roman life.
Is The Satyricon hard to read?
The story is easy to follow in scenes, and much of it is comic.
