The Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter (Complete)

The text, as we possess it, may be divided into three divisions: the first and last relate the adventures of Encolpius and his companions, the second, which is a digression, describes the Dinner of Trimalchio. That the work was originally divided into books, we had long known from ancient glossaries, and we learn, from the title of the Traguriensian manuscript, that the fragments therein contained are excerpts from the fifteenth and sixteenth books. An interpolation of Fulgentius (Paris 7975) attributes to Book Fourteen the scene related in Chapter 20 of the work as we have it, and the glossary of St. Benedict Floriacensis cites the passage ‘sed video te totum in illa haerere, quae Troiae halosin ostendit (Chapter 89), as from Book Fifteen. As there is no reason to suppose that the chapters intervening between the end of the Cena (Chapter 79) and Chapter 89 are out of place, it follows that this passage may have belonged to Book Sixteen, or even Seventeen, but that it could not have belonged to Book Fifteen. From the interpolation of Fulgentius we may hazard the opinion that the beginning of the fragments, as we possess them (Chapters 1 to 26), form part of Book Fourteen. The Dinner of Trimalchio probably formed a complete book, fifteen, and the continuation of the adventures of Encolpius down to his meeting with Eumolpus (end of Chapter 140) Book Sixteen. The discomfiture of Eumolpus should have closed this book but not the entire work, as the exit of the two principal characters is not fixed at the time our fragments come to an end. The original work, then, would probably have exceeded Tom Jones in length.