The most curious and in some respects the most remarkable work that the Silver Age has bequeathed to us is a fragment of a novel, the Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter. Its author is generally identified with Titus Petronius, the friend and victim of Nero. Tacitus has described him in a passage, remarkable even among Tacitean portraits for its extraordinary brilliance. 'His days he passed in sleep, his nights in the business and pleasures of life. Indolence had raised him to fame, as energy raises others, and he was reckoned not a debauchee and spendthrift, like most of those who squander their substance, but a man of refined luxury.'
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