The Satyrica is a thrilling piece of literature credited to Petronius and written under the Roman emperor Nero. Schmeling's commentary offers readers an insightful analysis of this historically important text through philological, linguistic, historical, and narratological discussions, while highlighting issues surrounding its authorship.

In The Satyrica of Petronius, Beth Severy-Hoven makes the masterpiece, with its flights of language and vision of Roman culture around the time of Nero, accessible to a new generation of students of Latin.

This is the first modern commentary on Petronius' Satyrica. It begins with basic background information, then surveys each episode in order that leading themes emerge. Finally, it gives an overview of Petronius' use of literary allusion and symbolism, and of his treatment of sex. All Latin and Greek quotations have been translated so that this volume may benefit both students of classical and comparative literature.

Theatrum Arbitri is a literary study dealing with the possible influence of Roman comic drama (comedies of Plautus and Terence, theatre of the Greek and Roman mimes, and fabula Atellana) on the surviving fragments of Petronius' Satyrica. The theatrical assessment of this novel is carried out at the levels of plot-construction, characterization, language, and reading of the text as if it were the narrative equivalent of a farcical staged piece with the theatrical structure of a play produced before an audience. The analysis follows the order of each of the scenes in the novel. The reader will also find a brief general commentary on the less discussed scenes of the Satyrica, and a comprehensive account of the theatre of the mimes and its main features.

Few surviving works of classical literature have cast the haunting, hilarious, insightful, and eerie spell conjured by the Satyricon of the Neronian courtier and eventual victim Petronius. Fragmentary, opaque, and enigmatic, at times it seems that deception and obfuscation are the favorite tricks of its author. A Reading of Petronius’ Satyricon offers a fresh look at this genre-defying masterpiece, proceeding episode by episode and scene by scene through a vision of the hell that humanity has fashioned for itself. Petronius mercilessly and exactingly appraises Rome’s embrace of the Golden Age dreams of the Augustan principate, judging his fellow citizens and himself by the yardstick of the Neronian reign that broods over them like an avenging specter. Petronius' Satyricon offers medicine for ambulatory corpses, a prescription that consists of notifying the dead of the diagnosis, and of pointing out the inevitable and eminently logical antidote for those consumed by insatiable hunger and unfulfillable longing. Bitterly sardonic and preternaturally serene, Lee Fratantuono’s reading reveals Petronius to be nothing less than the ultimate literary voice of a dying dynasty, a prose and poetic verbal magician of serious intention, a virtuoso in the art of unmasking the ghoulish horror and inconsolable sadness that lurk often just below the surface of the comic.

This book investigates the thirty short poems and two long ones that form part of Petronius' Satyricon, the oldest surviving work of prose fiction in the Western tradition. Unlike general studies of Petronius that do not consider the verse in much detail, and a recent commentary on the short poems that treats them in isolation, this book presents detailed close readings of these poems in their fictional and literary historical contexts. All Latin and Greek is translated.

The Greek and Roman novels of Petronius, Apuleius, Longus, Heliodorus and others have been cherished for millennia, but never more so than now. The Cambridge Companion to the Greek and Roman Novel contains nineteen original essays by an international cast of experts in the field. The emphasis is upon the critical interpretation of the texts within historical settings, both in antiquity and in the later generations that have been and continue to be inspired by them. All the central issues of current scholarship are addressed: sexuality, cultural identity, class, religion, politics, narrative, style, readership and much more. Four sections cover cultural context of the novels, their contents, literary form, and their reception in classical antiquity and beyond. Each chapter includes guidance on further reading. This collection will be essential for scholars and students, as well as for others who want an up-to-date, accessible introduction into this exhilarating material.