Encolpius and his disreputable companions drift through the towns of Nero’s Italy, quarrelling over lovers, dodging trouble and sponging meals. The centrepiece is the banquet of Trimalchio, a vulgar freedman millionaire whose dinner runs from absurd courses to a brawl with his wife Fortunata. William Burnaby’s lively Restoration translation is introduced here by C. K. Scott Moncrieff.
The great surviving comic novel of ancient Rome, frank and funny, and a direct ancestor of the picaresque. Download the free EPUB.