Petronius: Getting Started

Texts:

• Courtney, Edward. The Poems of Petronius. Atlanta 1991. Text of poems from Satyricon and other poems attributed to Petronius.
• Müller, K. (ed.). Petronius Satyrica. 3rd ed., with German translation by W. Ehlers. Standard text of the Satyricon.

Commentaries:

• Petronius: The Satiricon, ed. by Evan T. Sage, revised by Brady B. Gilleland. New York 1969. (introduction, text, and commentary on entire work)
• Petronii Arbitri Cena Trimalchionis, ed. by Martin S. Smith. Oxford 1975. (a better text of the Cena Trimalchionis with more thorough commentary and useful appendices).

Bibliographies:

• Harrison, S.J., in Journal of Roman Studies 83 (1993).
• Schmeling, G. and J.H. Stuckey. A Bibliography of Petronius. Leiden 1977.
• Smith, Martin S. "A Bibliography of Petronius (1954-1982)," Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt 32.3 (1985) 1624-1665.

Introductory Essays:

• Bodel, John, "The Cena Trimalchionis," in Latin Fiction: the Latin Novel in Context, ed. H. Hofmann (London:Routledge, 1999) 38-51.
• Schmeling, G., " Petronius and the Satyrica, " in Latin Fiction: the Latin Novel in Context, ed., H. Hofmann . (London: Routledge, 1999) 23-37.

General Books on the Satyricon

• Conte, Gian Biagio, The Hidden Author : An Interpretation of Petronius' Satyricon. Berkeley 1996.
• Slater. Niall W. Reading Petronius. Baltimore 1990. An interpretation of the Satyricon using reader-response criticism.
• Sullivan, J.P. The Satyricon of Petronius: A Literary Study. Bloomington, IN 1968. Thorough introduction to Petronius.
• Walsh, P.G. The Roman Novel: The "Satyricon" of Petronius and the "Metamorphoses" of Apuleius. Cambridge, Eng. 1970.

More Specialized Works:

• Arrowsmith, William. "Luxury and Death in the Satyricon." Arion 5 (1966) 304-331. A classic interpretation.
• Auerbach, Erich. Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature. Princeton 1953. Also a classic. Pp. 24-33 on Petronius' realism.
• Boyce, Bret. The Language of the Freedmen in Petronius' Cena Trimalchionis. Leiden 1991. Examines the freedmen's colloquialisms, and the way Petronius characterizes them through their language.
• D'Arms, John H. "The "Typicality " of Trimalchio," in Commerce and Social Standing in Ancient Rome (Cambridge, MA, 1981), 97-120. Relates Trimalchio to evidence of businessmen in early imperial Rome.
• Panayotakis, Costas. Theatrical Elements in the Satyrica of Petronius. Leiden 1995.
• Rankin, H.D. Petronius the Artist: Essays on the Satyricon and its Author. The Hague 1971. Various essays on Tacitus' description of Petronius, Petronius' methods of characterization, and other items.
• Rose, K.F.C. The Date and Author of the Satyricon. Leiden 1971. Most complete argument for the identification of the author of the Satyricon as the Petronius described by Tacitus.
• Tatum, James (ed.). The Search for the Ancient Novel. Baltimore 1994. Includes an excellent essay by John Bodel on the Cena Trimalchionis.
• Whitehead, Jane. "The 'Cena Trimalchionis' and Biographical Narration in Roman Middle-Class Art," in Narrative and Event in Ancient Art, ed. Peter J. Holliday. Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 1993, pp. 299-325. Compares descriptions of art in the Cena with art on freedmen's tombs.

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