Petronius (Loeb)

...Gaius Petronius, as portrayed by Tacitus, possessed the imagination and experience needed to depict the adventures of Encolpius.

There is a bit of evidence, still based on this primary assumption, that is more precise. The Satyricon contains a detailed criticism of, and a poem directed against, the style of a writer who must be Lucan. Gaius Petronius was not the man to overlook the poet, epigrammatist, and courtier in whose era and social circle he himself shone. He may have deplored Lucan’s poetic influence, but he could not neglect it, for Lucan was essentially the singer of his own day. No age was more favorable than that of Nero for the introduction of a reasoned and appreciative review of the Pharsalia—the most outstanding poem of the time—into a supremely scandalous tale.

The criticism of the schools of rhetoric regarding their effect on education and language, and the general style of the book in its reflective and descriptive passages, point more vaguely to a similar date of composition.

Gaius Petronius found in his work a form that allowed for the complete expression of the many sides of his active and uncontrolled intellect. Its loose construction is matched by its indifference to everything but stylistic reforms; it draws no moral; it is occupied solely and properly with presenting an aspect of things as seen by a loiterer at one particular corner of the world. What we possess of it is a fragment, or rather a series of excerpts from the fifteenth and sixteenth books; we do not know how representative it is of the original whole.