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ISBN: PB: 9781857547832

Carcanet

January 2009

320 pp.

21.6x13.5 cm

PB:
£12,95
QTY:

Categories:

Satyrica

Petronius lived during the reign of the notorious emperor Nero, a writer in a decadent empire, and in Frederic Raphael he finds a translator who brings his words vividly alive. Petronius' Rome is not the noble civilisation of classical ideals; his Romans are lascivious, amoral and stylish, inhabiting a louche world of ostentatious, nouveau riche extravagance and flirtation with the seductive menace of the Roman underclass. In Raphael's hands, the "Satyrica" becomes a modern novel, Petronius a contemporary. Freed of the weight of classical decorum, the "Satyrica" is racily subversive, scandalously entertaining. This work, writes Raphael, has always been excluded from the curriculum: it offers no improving pieties. Petronius' – and Raphael's – ancient Rome is recognisably the city of Pasolini and Fellini as much as of Virgil.

About the Author

Petronius (ca. 27-66) was a Roman writer and noted satirist of the Neronian age. He has been identified with Gaius Petronius Arbiter, consul and enlightened governor of Bythnia, in Asia Minor, although the manuscript text of the Satyricon calls him Titus Petronius. He became an intimate of Nero, by whom he was appointed as master of hedonistic ceremonies. Implicated (probably incorrectly) in a plot to kill Nero, he was ordered by the Emperor to take his own life.