The Satyricon is one of the most celebrated work of fiction to have survived from the ancient world. It can be described as the first realistic novel, the father of the picaresque genre, and recounts the sleazy progress of a pair of literature scholars as they wander through the cities of the southern Mediterranean.
En route they encounter type-figures the author wickedly satirizes – a teacher in higher education, a libidinous priest, a vulgar freedman turned millionaire, a manic poet, a superstitious sea-captain and a femme fatale.
This lively translation by P. G. Walsh captures the gaiety of the original, and the edition is supplemented by his introduction giving an account of the plot, the various scholarly interpretations and the later history of its literary influence.