This critical edition and commentary of the sea voyage episode of Petronius' Satyricon makes an important contribution towards a reassessment of the Satyricon as a whole, providing a useful tool for anyone who wishes to pursue further research on this novel - one of the most influential texts in Western literature.
The introduction includes three chapters: a general overview of the principal aspects, where important issues such as the literary genre, the number of books, or the role of Priapus are reconsidered; a study of the famous tale of the widow of Ephesus and its connections with other versions of the same story, namely those by Phaedrus and 'Romulus'; and a new outline of the intricacies of the textual tradition, with new findings and perspectives.
The critical edition and a reliable apparatus criticus make use of recent discoveries and contain new textual conjectures alongside new evidence in support of the transmitted text. The commentary pays particular attention to textual problems (which abound in the Satyricon as a consequence of its highly fragmentary transmission), to the study of language and style, and examines a wide range of literary models.
The work is equipped with extensive indices (locorum, nominorum, and rerum).
