Petronius wrote The Satyricon in Latin during the first century A.D., and it is one of only two surviving examples of what literary scholars call the roman novel. This “roman novel” form is not exactly the same thing as a modern novel, as it combined both poetic and prose writing to tell a story. Continuity was not as important, but reading The Satyricon in a good translation ( I used J.P. Sulivan’s 1965 translation in Penguin) can be eye-opening; something written so long ago in ancient Rome feels quite up to date in content.
Aside from everything else, this is largely due to its matter of fact treatment of homosexual themes and characters. This comes off as both refreshing and bawdy, I even found myself thinking it was “dirty.” It could be a contemporary story for all of the kinds of relationships that go on: three ways, gay hookups, bisexual characters, hustlers, and prostitutes. For readers who think gay culture began in the 1960s, this is a great read to see how many elements of gay life existed in ancient Roman times.
The section “Dinner with Trimalchio” is especially masterful, written so that a set of details carries the story forward. Loads of details about life and culture then, filled with showing up ex lovers, showmanship, pretensions, and many examples of human nature contemporary readers cannot help but identify with. The story is built on a large number of specific smaller stories strung together, one after another , in some cases literally one climax of action following in a sentence directly after another.
The whole thing tends to read as one extended , convoluted plot that is interesting, but becomes tedious in the way it unfolds with large passages of all dramatic action with no breaks. And yet, unlike so much of the accumulated literary conventions that have developed since this work was written, this book has an honesty and integrity that is hard to find.