Although they acknowledged the primacy of the Greeks in literature, the Romans always prided themselves on the fact that satire belongs to them, and Petronius’s Satyricon is undoubtedly one of the most important works of the genre. There are, however, shared opinions about the quality of humor practiced by Petronius, for example some of them highlighting the multitude of allusions to people or events contemporary with the author, key elements of a juicy and coarse humor meant to entertain a narrow audience composed of people who were able to immediately recognize the cultural references used, and others mainly focusing on the banquet scene in order to discover inside that primitive and universal humor of making fun of the other, which resonates so well with both the ancient reader and the contemporary one. But for us today, the humor of Satyricon can be also found in recognition of certain patterns of thought or behavior that have been perpetuated since ancient times until today.
