How The Satyricon drew on The Symposium
A documented line of influence: Petronius demonstrably engaged Plato’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
The source
The Symposium
Plato · c. 385 BCE
Ancient GreeceThe influenced
The Satyricon
Petronius · c. 65
Ancient RomeRelevance
7/10
On The Satyricon’s page
- Trimalchio's feast is a parody, and the Symposium is the thing it's parodying
- Petronius models Habinnas's late, drunken intrusion on Alcibiades crashing Plato's banquet — knowing the original makes the joke land
- Read Plato's elegant drinking party first and the Satyricon's squalid one reads as deliberate desecration, not just chaos
On The Symposium’s page
- Petronius read the Symposium closely enough to turn it inside out
- Trimalchio's dinner is the sympotic dialogue gone to seed — the philosophy of eros traded for new-money vulgarity, refined Athenian wit for freedman excess
- Watch for Habinnas crashing the party drunk: that's Plato's Alcibiades, ivy-crowned and uninvited, reborn as a stonemason on the make