This new Satyricon features not only a lively, new, annotated translation of the text, but fresh and accessible commentaries that discuss Petronius'' masterpiece in terms of such topics as the identity of the author, the transmission of his manuscript, literary influences on the Satyricon, and the distinctive literary form of this work—as well as such features of Roman life as oratory, sexual practices, households, dinner parties, religion, and philosophy.

It offers, in short, a remarkably informative and engaging account of major aspects of Imperial Roman culture as seen through the prism of our first extant novel.