The surviving portions of the work are fragments from the I5th and 16th books. The speaker is one Encolpius, who narrates the adventures of himself and his companions among the towns of southern Italy. The longest and, in many respects, the most important episode is that which is generally known as the cena Trimalchionis or Dinner of Trimalchio. The scene of the dinner is most probably Cumae (cf. § 53 in praedio Cumano quod est Trimalchionis). The giver of the feast, Trimalchio, is a fab ulously wealthy freedman (§ 37 "Trimalchio's estates range as far as a kite can fly . . . and as for his slaves, I don't believe a tenth of them know their own master"), and his wife, Fortunata, is a strong-minded lady of the humblest origin. The sketch is a humorous presentation of the vulgarity and ostentation of the wealthy provincial. Next in importance is the episode of the Matron of Ephesus, in which, for the first time, so far as we know, that legend is introduced into the literature of the West.
In form and, to some extent at least, in manner, Petronius continues the tradition of the Saturae Menippeae of Varro. Thus, passages in verse are freely interspersed in the midst of the prose, the longest (295 hexameters), on the Civil Wars, being probably intended as a parody of Lucan's Pharsalia; another (65 iambic trimeters) describing the taking of Troy, then, and until the day of Tryphiodorus, a favourite theme of the minor poet. From the standpoint of literary history the work may be regarded as the forerunner of the novel of adventure—such as flourished in Eng land in the 18th century—the type, that is, which Aristotle would have called "epeisodic," in which the episodes succeed one another without probable or necessary sequence (Arist., Poet. c. ix), and the interest depends, not on the evolution of a skilfully con structed plot, but on the convincing presentation of individual episodes.
The main purpose of the cena is the delineation of the rich and vulgar upstart, the nouveau riche, repente The type was, of course, well known both in real life and on the stage: Cic., Phil. ii. 65, exultabat gaudio persona de mimo "modo egens repente dives." Aristotle describes the state of the nouveau riche as "a sort of indiscipline in wealth" (Rhet. ii., 16 6.7ratoEvala 7rXoirrov : contrast the erudito luxu of Petronius, Tac., Ann.
xvi. 18). Ostentatious display of wealth in entertaining was a characteristic feature: Plut., Lucull. 4o, "The daily dinners of Lucullus were the dinners of a nouveau riche: not only were there purple-dyed coverlets, cups set with precious stones, choirs and individual artists introduced as interludes, but also he roused the envy of the vulgar with the elaboration of all sorts of meats and curiously prepared sweetmeats." The extreme type of the
nouveau riche was the newly-wealthy freedman, the "newly wealthy Phrygian" or Aristoph., Vesp., 1309, the velnrXovros alrEXEWEpos, who does not know either how to dress properly or how to behave at table (Lucian, Hist. Conscr., 2o), who, dining with philosophers, apes their subtleties by propounding the question : "Why do white and black beans alike make pale soup?": only to be silenced by a reminder of his antecedents: "Why do white and black straps alike make purple weals?" (Plut. , Quaest. Cony., ii. 12), whose vulgarity reveals itself in an over-anxiety to please his guests : Plut., Quaest. Cony., vii. 3. "To ask what meats and sweetmeats the guest likes best, or to question him about different wines and perfumes," is very vulgar and a mark of the nouveau riche, cf. Petron. 48. "If you don't like the wine I'll change it." Trimalchio is a most felicitous pres entation of the wealthy parvenu in his parade of his wealth— so frankly vulgar as to become almost an engaging simplicity (§ 48 "I don't have to buy . . . everything is grown on my suburban estate, which I haven't seen yet. I'm told it joins my lands in Terracina and Tarentum. What I wish now is to annex Sicily to my little crofts so that, if I want to go to Africa, I may be able to make the whole journey on my own estates"), his cheap sentimentality (§ 35 Eheu nos miseros, quam totus homuncio nil est, cf. § 7 his pretence to learning (§ 48, "I've two libraries, one Greek, the other Latin"), which is only pre tence (§ 71 "Gaius Pompeius Trimalchio Maecenatius lies here . . . Pious, brave, faithful, starting from a humble beginning he left a quarter of a million and never listened to a philosopher").
For the student of social manners, as for the student of colloquial language and colloquial idiom, the extant remains are of inestimable value, and, if only on that ground, the loss of the rest of the Satirae is one which, in spite of the indecency which mars the work, every scholar must most deeply regret.