In this first installment of a series on the greatest meals ever (or never) served, Jonathan Bennett reconstructs a feast so vulgar that it achieved immortality.
Written in the first century by Petronius, courtier to Nero and self-styled arbiter elegantiae, the Satyricon follows the misadventures of Encolpius and his companions through the decadent underbelly of imperial Rome. Its most complete surviving episode—the Dinner of Trimalchio—turns a wealthy freedman’s banquet into a masterpiece of social satire: half feast, half autopsy of taste. It is the classic scene of theatrical gluttony, carnivalesque excess, and one of literature’s earliest indictments of the extravagance of the new money class.
Before we ever see the table, Petronius gives us a glimpse of the host. Trimalchio is found in the baths, playing ball and relieving himself mid-game while a eunuch holds the chamber pot. By the time our narrators reach his townhouse, even the doorman is shelling peas into a silver bowl, a mosaic dog warns Cave canem, and the walls illustrate his entire career—slave, merchant, magistrate, demigod of his own household. The message is clear: this is Rome’s new man, rich, free, and determined that everyone should know it.
What kind of an Ironist are You?
When the guests recline, the amuse-bouche arrives—a bronze donkey with panniers of black and green olives, “day and night.” Music blares, doors burst open, and Trimalchio is carried in on cushions, perfumed and jewelled, washing his hands in a silver basin and drying them in a boy slave’s hair. The tone is set: this will be more than an orgy of food; it is performance—a crude imitation of aristocratic refinement by someone who has mastered only its props.
The opening course toys with illusion. “Peahen’s eggs” turn out to be pastry shells concealing tiny fig-peckers in pepper sauce. A bottle of Falernian wine—proudly labelled Opimian, one hundred years old—is as false as its pedigree. Then a silver skeleton is flung upon the table, its joints jangling while Trimalchio recites a cheerful epigram: “Look here, how nothing we are—so let us live while we may!” It’s Epicurus rewritten for the nouveau riche.
Soon the centrepiece arrives, a zodiac platter mapping the heavens in canapes: chickpeas for Aries, beef for Taurus, kidneys for Gemini, a crab for Cancer. In the middle, a honeycomb for Mother Earth. “The stars govern us,” Trimalchio announces, “and so they must feed us.” Astronomy has seldom been less appetising.
Between courses come acts of theatre. A carver performs to the rhythm of a water-organ—the first known instance of dinner accompanied by hydraulics. A wild boar wearing a liberty cap is presented; a “hunter” stabs it, releasing live thrushes that flutter through the room. Trimalchio explains that this is the very boar “dismissed yesterday and returned today a freedman.” Everyone laughs, though no one knows why.
The entertainment grows ever more unhinged. A juggler drops a tray and is whipped on the spot; the guests cheer the punishment. Freedmen boast of their fortunes, astrologers predict their deaths, and a rope-dancer performs above the table, shedding glitter into the sauces. Trimalchio himself pauses mid-meal to expound on his horoscope—born under Cancer, therefore restless: “Look at the crabs, always going sideways!” He seems unaware that the joke is on him.
Later, a sow appears “undercooked.” Trimalchio rages theatrically, threatens to flog the cook, then relents and orders him to cut it open. Out tumble sausages and blood puddings, the latest miracle of stuffed symbolism. The applause is genuine; the taste, probably not. Somewhere a flute plays what must have been the Roman equivalent of background jazz.
By dessert, reality is dissolving in perfume. The floor is strewn with saffron, vermilion, and powdered mica—Rome’s version of glitter bombing. Niceros tells his famous werewolf tale, Habinnas the stonemason staggers in drunk, and the host, overcome by reflection, stages his own funeral to the sound of trumpets. When he accidentally triggers a fire alarm, the guests bolt “as though from a real conflagration.” Thus ends the most famous dinner in literature—with smoke, panic, and indigestion.
Petronius leaves us amid the wreckage of good taste. Trimalchio’s feast is more than a parody of high society; it is a mirror of the vulgarity of extreme wealth in the form of one of literature’s most infamous banquets. Unsurprisingly, the author himself, when charged with treason against Nero, chose to open his veins amidst a lavish dinner party of his own. Centuries on, Fellini’s Satyricon would film that same decadence as a surreal erotic hallucination of power without meaning. But, before we judge too harshly, let’s first sample the menu…
Menu à la Trimalchio
(Reconstructed by Jonathan Bennett—abridged, out of consideration for your kitchen slaves)
Hors d’oeuvres
Bronze donkey bearing assorted olives; roasted dormice with honey and poppy-seed; sausages over fruit.
Main Spectacles
“Pea-hen’s eggs” pastry shells with fig-pecker in peppered yolk; wild boar with liberty cap releasing thrushes; underdone sow disgorging blood sausages.
The Zodiac Platter—twelve morsels for twelve signs of the heavens:
Aries: Chickpea purée Taurus: Roast beef Gemini: Twin kidneys Cancer: Crab Leo: Fig and honey-cake Virgo: Maiden-shaped wheat cake Libra: Tart and cheese on a pair of scales Scorpio: Sea-fish with pastry claws Sagittarius: Roast quail Capricorn: Fish head Aquarius: Jug of Wine Pisces: Two mullets in aspic.
Dessert & Diversions
Candied quinces, silver skeleton memento mori, saffron-scented floor, rope-dancers, horoscope readings, and impromptu funeral rehearsal.
Pair with vintage Falernian (substituted with cheap swill for added authenticity), and a generous touch of self-delusion.
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Contributed by
Jonathan Bennett
