Page:The Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter (1922), vol. 1.djvu/24

xvi belonged to Book Fifteen. From the interpolation of Fulgentius we may hazard the opinion that the beginning of the fragments, as we possess them (Chapters 1 to 26), form part of Book Fourteen. The Dinner of Trimalchio probably formed a complete book, fifteen, and the continuation of the adventures of Encolpius down to his meeting with Eumolpus (end of Chapter 140) Book Sixteen. The discomfiture of Eumolpus should have closed this book but not the entire work, as the exit of the two principal characters is not fixed at the time our fragments come to an end. The original work, then, would probably have exceeded Tom Jones in length.

. a—“Not often,” says Studer (Rheinisches Museum, 1843), ‘‘has there been so much dispute about the author, the times, the character and the purpose of a writing of antiquity as about the fragments of the Satyricon of Petronius.” The discovery and publication of the Trau manuscript brought about a literary controversy which has had few parallels, and which has not entirely died out to this day, although the best authorities ascribe the work to Caius Petronius, the Arbiter Elegantiarum at the court of Nero. “The question as to the date of the narrative of the