The Greek and the Roman Novel: Parallel Readings, 151–167 The True Nature of the Satyricon ? A NDREW L AIRD University of Warwick εἰȣ οὐχ ὅIJțșν ijȢυµαȝțռν ijὸ ȜջνijȢον ὠȚεῖȣ Sotades fr. 1 [Collactanea Alexandrina] I love deadlines. I love that whooshing noise they make as they go past. Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy The title of the Satyricon Libri (or ‘Books of Satyrica’) is similar enough to the titles of some Greek romances such as the Ephesiaka or the Aethiopika to suggest to some the possibility that an original Greek Satyrica was a model for the Latin work. 1 The narrator of the Satyricon, Encolpius, has a Greek name and he interacts with characters who also have Greek names. And the story of the Satyricon takes place in locations which seem Greek, at least in part – regions of southern Italy, and the suggestions of other places redolent with influences that are not Italian at all. 2 But the Satyricon does not call attention to its Greek literary origins in the way that Apuleius forces his readers to confront the Metamorphoses directly as a kind of reception litera- ture. In Apuleius, we see a Greek literary legacy because the narrator regu- larly and explicitly advertises it. Through Apuleius’ narrator we learn that Greek genres, Greek ideas, and the language of a Greek model, are being ————— 1 Jensson 2002 and 2004 makes a case for the Satyricon following a Greek original; there are sharp counter-arguments in Bitel 2006 questioning the presupposition of Encolpius’ Greek or Massaliot identity – though even if one regards Encolpius as a Roman, much hangs on how ‘Roman’ is defined. 2 The influential work of John D’Arms and others has demonstrated the distinctive nature of the cultural, social, and economic milieu of Campania, especially around the Bay of Naples: D’Arms 1970; see too Frederiksen 1984 and Leiwo 1994.