The Satyricon and The Apocolocyntosis of the Divine Claudius (Penguin Classics) [Paperback]

Petronius (Author), Seneca (Author), J. P. Sullivan (Translator, Introduction)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0140444890 | ISBN-13: 978-0140444896 | Publication Date: December 2, 1986 | Edition: Revised 5th

Perhaps the strangest and most strikingly modern work to survive from the ancient world, The Satyricon relates the hilarious mock epic adventures of the impotent Encolpius, and his struggle to regain virility. Here Petronius brilliantly brings to life the courtesans, legacy-hunters, pompous professors and dissolute priestesses of the age and, above all, Trimalchio, the archetypal self-made millionaire whose pretentious vulgarity on an insanely grand scale makes him one of the great comic characters in literature. Seneca's The Apocolocyntosis, a malicious skit on the deification of Claudius the Clod', was designed by the author to ingratiate himself with Nero, who was Claudius' successor. Together, the two provide a powerful insight into a darkly fascinating period of Roman history.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, Latin (translation)

About the Author

J.P. Sullivan has held appointments in Classics or Arts and Letters at the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Texas, Buffalo, Minnesota, ad Hawaii. He is the author of The Satyricon of Petronius: A Literary Study, Propertius: A Critical Introduction, Literature and Plitics in the Age of Nero and Martial: The Unexpected Classic.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Books; Revised 5th edition (December 2, 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140444890
• ISBN-13: 978-0140444896
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.6 x 7.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #157,543 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Darkly Fascinating, July 16, 2002

By 

James Paris "Tarnmoor" (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Satyricon and The Apocolocyntosis of the Divine Claudius (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)

It was not easy being a poet and scholar in Nero's day. Since the Emperor regarded himself as the poet par excellence, everyone else was ultimately disposable. Both Petronius and Seneca were ultimately requested to commit suicide and did so, lest the Praetorian Guard were called in to "assist" them.

In the earlier days of Nero's rule, when there was some possibility that his would be one of the rare enlightened reigns, Petronius and Seneca joined Nero in a regular after-dinner literary society where the humor was frequently raunchy and the sex more often than not perverted.

The SATYRICON was originally a fairly long episodic spoof of the ODYSSEY: its hero offends the God Priapus by ransacking his temple and is stricken with impotence. He and his friends and bedmates wander through Italy recounting their adventures. The only fairly intact sequence tells of a dinner by a nouveau-riche merchant named Trimalchio who holds an elegant banquet but whose base-born origins are always showing. All the rest of the episodes are fragmentary, though not without interest.

Seneca takes the recently poisoned Emperor Claudius down a peg by spoofing his deification. Starting with Julius Caesar, the Romans turned many of their leaders into gods upon their demise. Claudius -- who was by no means the nice guy portrayed in the Robert Graves books -- gets short shrift in the underworld. A clue: The title is usually translated as "The Pumpkinification of Claudius." Seneca was treading carefully here, as Nero's mother was Claudius' wife and is generally considered to have been the one who poisoned him.

These are not works that you can sit down and read as if they were novels. The introductions are not only helpful, but mandatory to understanding what follows. Both works, along with the works of Lucan, are essential to understanding this darkly fascinating period of Roman history.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful bawdy, July 28, 2005

By 

wiredweird "wiredweird" (Earth, or somewhere nearby) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Satyricon and The Apocolocyntosis of the Divine Claudius (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)

Petronius, according to the translator's notes, was a person of unidentified occupation and member of Emperor Nero's court. Chances are that Petronius got by ingratiating himself with the rich and famous, perhaps by amusing them with his stories. It's also fair to guess that he joined some of their debuaches - perhaps some of this is drawn from experience - and that the tales grew in the telling.

The story starts with the narrator Encolpius, with his friend Asclytus, and with the toyboy they share, Giton. What follows is a wandering series of encounters. They split and reunite a number of times, usually around some improbable scheme. Later on, the aging poet Eumolpus takes Asclytus' place in the story, in Giton's intimacy, and in the petty schemes with Encolpius.

At one point, Encolpius is found spying on the ecstasies offered up to one of the gods. The punishment for that lewd interlude is in kind, to have ecstasy thrust upon (and into) him beyond bearing. That's an early passage, and sets the tone for all the other adventures and escapes in this book.

Towards the end, his dissolute ways make him the Cialis poster boy. He seeks an aged witch for aphrodisiac treatment, and she gives it to him all different ways. To his dismay, many ways involve her own aged body in the treatment. A reader with a vivid imagination will see lots more humor than this 1965 translation would have dared put on paper.

But I wonder, is this really the best translation? Yes, it has some integrity - Sullivan has been careful to note breaks in the manuscript. He even adds a chapter of "fragments," too broken and disjoint to guess at. The reader doesn't get a false sense of continuity caused by the translator's patches. On the other hand, the reader doesn't get a full sense of continuity, either. On the scale from academic rendering to storytelling, I wish this were a bit more in the storytelling direction. No matter, it's a great story anyway.

//wiredweird

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ancient fun, June 22, 2010

By 

krebsman (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Satyricon and The Apocolocyntosis of the Divine Claudius (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)

How much you appreciate THE SATYRICON depends on why you're reading it. If you're reading for a good story, look elsewhere. This is a fragment. The missing parts are gone forever. We can only imagine what the missing parts contained. But if you're reading for a glimpse into Roman life in first century AD, this is a treat. It's a very readable translation that is also very funny. I laughed out loud a couple of times. The introduction explains that it is a spoof of THE ODYSSEY. Odysseus gets blown around the Mediterranean as a result of having offended Poseidon. In THE SATYRICON the protagonist has offended Priapus and must suffer his wrath as the bounces around the Bay of Naples.

This work is famous for its depiction of the uber-freedman, Trimalchio, and his excessively vulgar banquet, and it lived up to my expectations. Oh how I wish that someone would miraculously discover the missing parts. What there is of this is great.

The APOCOLOCYNTOSIS is an amusing brief work (once again fragmentary) by Seneca that gives some insight into the sensibilities of the time. Also included are several chunks of text that were perhaps part of the SATYRICON at one time. There are detailed notes and introductions for everything. I can't imagine anything better, other than complete texts. Five stars.