The Satyricon

‘Too late, I realized I had been taken to a brothel’

The Satyricon is one of the most outrageous and strikingly modern works to have survived from the ancient world. Most likely written by an advisor of Nero, it recounts the adventures of Encolpius and his companions as they travel around Italy, encountering courtesans, priestesses, con men, brothel-keepers, pompous professors and, above all, Trimalchio, the nouveau riche millionaire whose debauched feasting and pretentious vulgarity make him one of the great comic characters in literature. Estimated to date from 63 to 65 AD, and only surviving in fragments, The Satyricon nevertheless offers an unmatched satirical portrait of the age of Nero, in all its excesses and chaos.

J. P. Sullivan’s acclaimed, landmark translation of The Satyricon was instrumental in bringing this subversive work into the modern canon of classical literature. In this new edition Helen Morales’s introduction and notes discuss the novel’s literary, cultural, and philosophical and political aspects, as well as Fellini’s magisterial film version, Fellini Satyricon. It also contains further reading and a list of charact