The Satyricon Chapter 6 Summary & Analysis | SuperSummary (2024)

FAQs

What is the Satyricon analysis? ›

The Satyricon is an effective satire, even if some of its details and much of its plot have been lost to time. The text makes fun of Roman notions of sexuality through Encolpius' escapades. It also satirizes Roman social classes, particularly through its descriptions of Trimalchio's feast.

The Satyricon is an episodic narrative about the misadventures of a former gladiator as this gladiator treks through mansions and brothels in the resort country southeast of Rome.

The text ends with a fragmentary description of a plan in which Eumolpus stipulates in his will that his beneficiaries need to eat his dead body before they can inherit anything. The narrative breaks off with no resolution.

Chapter 1 Summary: “At the School of Rhetoric”

Encolpius is at a school and is complaining about how teachers use melodramatic and stylized examples to teach rhetoric (the art of speaking and writing persuasively) to Roman youths.

One of the work's most famous sections describes the mishaps of a gaudy and crude party thrown by a former slave named Trimalchio, a man who embodies the “new money” archetype in every way. Trimalchio is boorish and rude, brightly gilded but lacking manners, substance or even polity.

The Satyricon is a racy Roman novel likely written two millennia ago, sometime in the 60s A.D. during the notorious era of Caligula, Claudius, and Nero. Most English translations were banned or bowdlerized in the United States until the early 1960s.

Chapter 6 Summary: “Dinner at Trimalchio's”

In preparation for the dinner, Encolpius and Ascyltus go to the baths, and they encounter Trimalchio there. Trimalchio is very wealthy, flamboyantly dressed, and has slaves to wait on his every need.

For Trimalchio, death is necessary as a part of life so that when he dies, the inverse will hold true – life is a part of death. In this way, Trimalchio will be able to continue to live on. The Cena is not strictly about death, but also Trimalchio's response to mortality by living.

Satyricon in American English

(sæˈtɪrɪˌkɑn) noun. a satirical novel, interspersed with verse, written in the 1st century a.d. by Petronius, extant in fragments.

Trimalchio was the protagonist in Satyricon, by Petronius. He was a freedman who gained prestige and power through sheer tenacity and hard work. Once he attained his wealth, he enjoyed throwing lavish parties that were meant to impress his variety of guests. The comparison of Gatsby and Trimalchio is obvious.

Is the Satyricon a play? ›

Paul Foster wrote a play (called Satyricon) based on the book, directed by John Vaccaro at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in 1972. British director Martin Foreman wrote a play (titled The Satyricon) based on the novel.

Trimalchio is a character in the 1st-century AD Roman work of fiction Satyricon by Petronius. He features as the ostentatious, nouveau-riche host in the section titled the "Cēna Trīmalchiōnis" (The Banquet of Trimalchio, often translated as "Dinner with Trimalchio").

Fellini Satyricon, or simply Satyricon, is a 1969 Italian film written and directed by Federico Fellini and loosely based on Petronius's work Satyricon, written during the reign of Emperor Nero and set in Imperial Rome.

The Satyricon is the sole surviving work of an author referred to as Petronius Arbiter. The title (in Latin, Satyrica or Libri Satyricon) may be referring to satura, a culinary term for “mixed dish” that gave rise to satire, the name of a literary form devoted to exposing hypocrites and the socially pretentious.

Roman Emperor Nero was reported to have oppressed writers whom he felt threatened his own talent or position. For this reason, it has been suggested by some that Petronius wrote the Satyricon only to provide a protective pretext for his later writing, convincing Emperor Nero that he was simply writing trivial comedy.

The Satyricon is an example of Menippean satire, which is different from the formal verse satire of Juvenal or Horace. The work contains a mixture of prose and verse (commonly known as prosimetrum); serious and comic elements; and erotic and decadent passages.