The Satyricon of Petronius simultaneously fascinates and mystifies, and the difficulties of interpreting it are intensified by the fragmentary nature of its text and the uncertainties of its authorship. The identification of its author with the Petronius Arbiter described by Tacitus is an unverifiable probability. The significance and even the spelling of the title have been subject to debate. The text survives in imperfect manuscripts, most of which do not contain the Cena, others little else. There is little evidence, beyond the numbering of books in several manuscripts, the existence of a handful of quotations in later writers, and several references in the text to lost episodes, that the original work was completed in the very long form traditionally supposed.