SOURCE: "Life a Dream: The Poetry of Petronius," in Symbol and Myth in Ancient Poetry, Fordham University Press, 1961, pp. 159-64.

In the following essay, Musurillo examines Petronius's use of dream symbolism in his poetry and describes how it works on more than one level.

Petronius Arbiter is chiefly known as the author of that curious and sometimes scatological novel, the Satyricon. That he is to be identified with the Master of the Revels of Nero's court who enjoyed a rather theatrical suicide in A.D. 66 is most likely, there being very little serious evidence to challenge the traditional point of view.¹ But he has also left us a very striking collection of lyrics and short elegies which will repay serious study, since they are quite modern in their poetic technique.

We get a brief glimpse of Petronius' talent for symbolic composition in the brief and unfortunately corrupt fragment...