1. What happened to the text?
Petronius Satyricon
What happened to the text?

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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...

5. Dinner Party Of Trimalchio
The only largely unbroken section
Detailed and structured event sequences
Supports the idea that the other sections are cut up.

6. 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

7. References https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5225/5225-h/5225-h.htm