Petronius - Satyricon - 1980

Petronius – Satyricon – Franklin Library – 1980 - 100 Greatest Books of All Time Series

Petronius is known almost entirely through the work that bears his name and through a brief account in Tacitus's Annals. The man described there — likely Gaius Petronius, who died around 66 AD — was a figure of considerable administrative ability who became part of Nero's inner circle, serving as an arbiter of taste at court before falling from favour and taking his own life. Whether he is the author of the Satyricon cannot be established with certainty, but the identification has been accepted by most scholars and the text bears every mark of the period and milieu Tacitus describes.

The Satyricon survives only in fragments, the most substantial of which — the Cena Trimalchionis, or Feast of Trimalchio — forms the core of any edition. It follows the narrator Encolpius and his companions through a series of picaresque misadventures across the Roman world, with the feast at the house of the freedman Trimalchio providing an extended and vividly detailed portrait of vulgar wealth, social performance, and the instability of Roman social hierarchies. The translation presented in this edition is the work of William Arrowsmith, whose rendering is noted for its directness and its fidelity to the tonal range of the original.

The illustrations are by Fabrizio Clerici, the Italian painter and draughtsman known for his surrealist-influenced figurative work. His drawings appear on tipped-in plates with a warm ochre ground, depicting figures from the text in a manner that complements both the period setting and the text's atmosphere of performance and excess.

Full genuine leather binding in dark navy
Front cover with gold-stamped classical border featuring repeating laurel bands and fan motifs at the corners
Spine with raised bands, gold-stamped decorative panels, and gold lettering
Gilt page edges
Silk ribbon marker in navy
Published exclusively for subscribers to the Franklin Library collection The 100 Greatest Books of All Time
Printed in the United States of America

Condition is As New.

Ships from Germany. Carefully packed in cardboard book mailer with protective wrapping.