It seems to be generally accepted that the Petronius who wrote this unique novel is the same Petronius who was the Emperor Nero's Arbiter elegan- tiarum and companion in his revels, until Nero's displeasure drove him to commit suicide. What we have are only fragments but the long central piece, the so-called Cena Trimalchionis, is a masterpiece of Proust-like social satire with moments of knockabout farce. The Satyricon is not like any other book, it is a strange medley of wit and obscenity, scabrous humour and sharp observation of contemporary life, interspersed with brilliant literary parodies (e.g. of Seneca and Lucan) and some hauntingly beautiful lyrics. It was probably written as a burlesque epic woven thematically around the "wrath of Priapus", but historically it is the ancestor of the picaresque novel. P.G. Walsh's translation reads well.