Editing Satyricon (section)

==Reconstruction of lost sections==
:In the text below ''books'' refers to what modern readers would call ''chapters''.

Although interrupted by frequent gaps, 141&nbsp;sections of consecutive narrative have been preserved. These can be compiled into the length of a longer novella. The extant portions were supposedly "from the 15th and 16th&nbsp;books" from a notation on a manuscript found in [[Trogir|Trau]] in [[Dalmatia]] in 1663 by Petit. However, according to translator and classicist [[William Arrowsmith]],
: "this evidence is late and unreliable and needs to be treated with reserve, all the more since – even on the assumption that the ''Satyricon'' contained 16 rather than, say, 20 or 24&nbsp;books – the result would have been a work of unprecedented length."<ref>{{cite book|last=Arrowsmith|first=William|title=Petronius: The Satyricon|year=1959|publisher=Mentor|page=vii|isbn=9780451003850 |url=https://archive.org/details/satyricon0000unse_r8c6/page/n7/mode/2up?view=theater}}</ref>
Still, speculation as to the size of the original puts it somewhere on the order of a work of thousands of pages, and comparisons for length range from ''[[The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling|Tom Jones]]'' to ''[[In Search of Lost Time]]''. The extant text runs to 140&nbsp;pages in the Arrowsmith edition. The complete novel must have been considerably longer, but its true length cannot be known.

Statements in the extant narrative allow the reconstruction of some events that must have taken place earlier in the work. Encolpius and Giton have had contact with Lichas and Tryphaena. Both seem to have been lovers of Tryphaena (113) at a cost to her reputation (106). Lichas' identification of Encolpius by examining his groin (105) implies that they have also had sexual relations. Lichas' wife has been seduced (106) and his ship robbed (113).

Encolpius states at one point,
: "I escaped the law, cheated the arena, killed a host" (81).
To many scholars, that suggests Encolpius had been condemned for a crime of murder, or more likely he simply feared being sentenced, to fight to his death in the arena. The statement probably is linked to an earlier insult by Ascyltos (9), who called Encolpius a "gladiator". One scholar speculates that Encolpius had been an actual [[gladiator]] rather than a criminal, but there is no clear evidence in the surviving text for that interpretation.<ref name=Courtney-2001>{{cite book |author=Courtney, Edward |year=2001 |title=A Companion to Petronius |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford, UK |isbn=0-19-924594-0}}</ref>{{rp|style=ama|pp= 47–48}}

A number of fragments of Petronius's work are preserved in other authors. [[Maurus Servius Honoratius|Servius]] cites Petronius as his source for a custom at [[Marseille|Massilia]] of allowing a poor man, during times of plague, to volunteer to serve as a [[scapegoat]], receiving support for a year at public expense and then being expelled.<ref>Petronius fragment&nbsp;1 =
: {{cite book |author=[[Servius (grammarian)|Servius]] |url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text.jsp?doc=Serv.+A.+3.57&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0053 |title=on ''Aeneid'' |at=3.57}}</ref> [[Sidonius Apollinaris]] refers to "Arbiter", by which he apparently means Petronius's narrator Encolpius, as a worshipper of the "sacred stake" of [[Priapus]] in the gardens of Massilia.<ref>Petronius fragment&nbsp;4 =
: {{cite book |author=[[Sidonius Apollinaris]] |title=Carmen |at=23.155–157}}</ref> It has been proposed that Encolpius's wanderings began after he offered himself as the scapegoat and was ritually expelled.<ref name=Courtney-2001/>{{rp|style=ama|pp= 44–45}} Other fragments may relate to a trial scene.<ref>Petronius fragment&nbsp;8 =
: {{cite book |author=[[Fabius Planciades Fulgentius]] |title=Expositio Vergilianae continentiae |page=98}}</ref><ref>Petronius fragment&nbsp;14 =
: {{cite book |author=[[Isidore of Seville]] |url=https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/L/Roman/Texts/Isidore/5*.html#26.7 |title=Origines |at=5.26.7}}</ref>

Among the poems ascribed to Petronius is an [[oracle]] predicting travels to the [[Danube]] and to [[Aegyptus (Roman province)|Egypt]]. Courtney<ref name=Courtney-2001/> notes that the prominence of Egypt in the ancient Greek novels might make it plausible for Petronius to have set an episode there, but expresses some doubt about the oracle's relevance to Encolpius's travels,
: "since we have no reason to suppose that Encolpius reached the Danube or the far north, and we cannot suggest any reason why he should have."<ref name=Courtney-2001/>{{rp|style=ama|pp= 45–46}}