What happened to the text? Petronius Satyricon What happened to the text?
The Satyricon Believed to have been written by Gaius Petronius Example of Menippean satire Contains a mixture of prose and verse Provides some insight on how lower classes lived during the early Roman Empire
What is missing? 141 sections of consecutive narrative preserved Original is believed to have at least 16 books with several thousand pages The preserved sections seem to be very involved at that point References to the past of Encolpius and other characters
Continuity issues Many very short fragments Missing beginnings, endings, or whole Scenes The cause of much “scholarly frustration” The only uninterrupted portion is known as...
Dinner Party Of Trimalchio The only largely unbroken section Detailed and structured event sequences Supports the idea that the other sections are cut up.
But Why? Speculated that: Likely had difficulty during the renaissance Only one incomplete manuscript was used for the subsequent copies Even the title was debated
References https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5225/5225-h/5225-h.htm http://jclarkmedia.com/gaybooks/satyriconinfo.html https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/p/petronius/satyricon/complete.html