The Satyricon

Throughout the narrative, Petronius depicts female characters who are unabashed in their pursuit of sexual gratification; however, the earlier examples of Quartilla and Tryphaena are primarily comical and even grotesque. In this late section of the novel, Petronius explores Encolpius’s experience of feeling genuine attraction and desire to a woman. The seamless transition of Encolpius moving from feeling desire for a young man to feeling desire for a woman reflects a relatively fluid understanding of sexuality and desire in the Roman world (at least for elite men). However, class and social standing continues to be a major context for these sexual relationships. In this section, to maintain the ruse for the fortune hunters, Encolpius is disguised as a slave, and therefore his apparent social position is much lower than it is in the first part of the novel.

As a slave, Encolpius now occupies a lower social position than Circe, which gives her the ability to freely reveal her desire and proposition him (via Chrysis). A married woman like Circe would almost certainly not initiate an affair with a freedman, but the low social status of slaves makes them sexually available. This pattern has already been revealed with Trimalchio revealing that he had sex with both his master and mistress during his time as a slave, and Giton having sex with Tryphaena. This trend gets its most explicit discussion when Chrysis lays out her observations to Encolpius: “As for your admission that you’re a slave with no pretensions, that’s precisely why you fire my lady’s passion, and she’s on heat. The fact is that scum rouses some women” (125). Chrysis uses direct and even vulgar terminology, bluntly referring to slaves and working-class men as “scum.” The reference to “heat” might also subtly allude to Quartilla’s joke about her fever earlier in the novel.

Chrysis herself only wants to sleep with men who occupy a higher social status, and Encolpius is struck by how “the maid showed the hauteur of the matron, and the matron the base inclination of the maid” (126). Encolpius’s position as a disguised slave offers another example of him as almost an anthropological observer receiving insights into subculture and behavior he would otherwise be excluded from. He seems naively unable to connect this observation to cultural decay and decadence; much like how Trimalchio had to try to titillate himself with ever more outrageous displays of luxury, wealthy women who have everything they could want have to seek out thrills through the illicit.

Slaves and working-class individuals, however, such as Chrysis (and by extension Giton), calculate how they can best leverage their sexuality to advance their social position. When Chrysis remarks that “the only ones I climb on to are knights” (125), she describes herself as acting with freedom, agency, and assertiveness; the language of “climb on to” also seems to imply that Chrysis plays an active role in the sex she does choose to have. Interestingly, when Chrysis eventually understands that Encolpius is not actually a slave, she freely expresses her desire for him, and continues the imagery of comparing sexual desire to heat and fever, exclaiming that “the only way in which you will put out this fire of mine is if you quench it with my blood” (144).

Petronius establishes a juxtaposition between the elegant imagery of the encounter between Circe and Encolpius, and the comical melodrama of Encolpius finding himself to achieve an erection. Encolpius’s description of Circe’s beauty makes use of familiar poetic imagery and similes such as “eyes brighter than the stars” (126) and a “smile so enticing that it was like the moon revealing her full face from behind a cloud” (126). They meet in a romantic, idealized natural setting but the encounter quickly deteriorates. Encolpius is left “like a person horror-struck at the sight of a ghost” (128), and he will later comment on his penis having been “laid to rest” (129). The death imagery highlights just how disturbing this incident is for Encolpius and how much emphasis he places on his sexual prowess and sexual gratification. There is no clear explanation of why this impotence occurs or why it is eventually resolved; it might be an example of a divine or fated punishment, which explains why Encolpius tries to submit to rituals and treatments from Oenothea. It might also reflect the overall theme of excess and decadence; Encolpius eventually addresses his penis directly, complaining that it “betray[s] my green years in the flower of their early vigor, and harness me with the enervation of extreme senility” (133). Encolpius references his youth using the imagery of flourishing and flowering (perhaps alluding to the garden where he and Circe had their encounter), and contrasts it with an older, worn-out, and exhausted fate, which he is frustrated to encounter so soon.

The plotline around Encolpius’s impotence allows Petronius an important opportunity to reflect on the frank, bawdy, and explicit nature of his text. While scolding his penis, Encolpius experiences “feelings of shame flood[ing] my heart for having forgotten my natural modesty, for having exchanged words with that part of the body which men of more austere stamp do not even acknowledge” (133-34), but then quickly rationalizes his action, noting that “men who suffer from gout curse their feet, and people with arthritis grumble at their hands” (134). In this analogy, Encolpius shows his pragmatism and frankness, and acknowledges that sexual pleasure is important to most people and that there is no reason not to discuss these realities.

In the short poem that follows, the narrative shifts from Encolpius’s point of view to direct address by Petronius, who argues “You Catos, why do you wear that frosty look? / Why slate my new and unpretentious book?” (134). The reference to “Catos” (plural form of Cato) alludes to Cato (95 BCE- 46 BCE), a famous Roman moralist who objected to writings he deemed obscene and advocated for censorship. Petronius thus correctly anticipates that readers and critics would go on to deem his writing to be lewd and immoral, and preemptively defends it, by arguing that he simply writes frankly and honestly about how life actually is.

The fragmented nature of the text means that there is no clear resolution to the plot, and in fact, the text seems to break off just as a new plotline is getting started. After initial success gaining hospitality from the fortune hunters (who think they will eventually inherit great wealth from Eumolpus), Encolpius points out that “the usual parlous state that we share has begun to make its regrettable appearance” (147). He uses somewhat pretentious diction (in contrast to his usual plain speech), perhaps to stress the urgency of the situation to Eumolpus. Although what happens next is not quite clear, some sort of plan is hatched in which Eumolpus adds a bizarre and grotesque stipulation to his will, requiring any of his inheritors to consume part of his dead body before they can receive their inheritance. Throughout the text, Petronius has depicted a society in which individuals have been symbolically feeding off one another, whether through sex, trickery, or exploitation. The discussion of cannibalism brings the theme of greed and consumption to its climax.

Eumolpus makes this connection clear when he invites his inheritors to “devour my flesh with the same enthusiasm with which they have prayed for my life’s end” (147), drawing a parallel between the greediness of the fortune hunters and the requirement that they now literally consume him. Eumolpus builds on this connection between cannibalism and material consumption by encouraging anyone who feels disgust to “imagine that what you swallowed is not human entrails but ten million sesterces [Roman unit of currency]” (147). By comparing human flesh to units of money, Eumolpus makes one of the most explicit critiques of the corruption and decay of Roman society. Individuals are so motivated by greed and self-interest that even one of the most taboo acts become possible if it is connected to personal gain. The comparison of the human body to something that can be eaten like any other foodstuff also has additional resonance in a slave society, where human bodies could be bought and sold.