Almost everything we know about Titus (sometimes Gaius) Petronius Niger (born c. 27 A.D.) comes from two paragraphs of Book XVI of Tacitus’s Annals of Imperial Rome. The events described in this novel are largely consonant with that account. In his Natural History, Pliny the Elder recounts the story of Petronius’s destruction of the myrrhine ladle to prevent Nero from inheriting it. In addition to a small body of poetry, Petronius is widely believed to have been the author of the Satyricon. Although it may originally have been a work of 20 volumes and some 400,000 words, the Satyricon was not published in his lifetime, and only fragments of it survive. Petronius committed suicide at Cumae in the year 66. Marcus Valerius Martialis (40–102 A.D.) was born in Bilbilis (now Calatayud), Spain, and moved to Rome in the year 64. Known in English as Martial, he published twelve volumes of bawdy, satirical epigrams between the year 86 and his death. He enjoyed the patronage of the emperors Titus and Domitian, but fell out of favor and retired to Spain in the year 98.
What do You think about The Uncertain Hour (2011)?
