After the chaotic flood of civil war poetry, which enacted the violent consequences of over-consumption (of luxury food and literature), the gang enter Croton – that infamous and problematic city of metamorphosis. From this point until the end of the text (as we have it), the focus is almost entirely on Encolpius, as he tells of his painful encounters with Circe, Chrysis, Proselenos and Oenothea in his role as polyaenus Odysseus. From chapter 124 onwards, the Satyricon is more difficult to read than ever. Not only is the text conspicuously fragmented, but so too is our perspective, as epic narratives are undone or reshuffled, and our narrator's credibility, as well as physical integrity, are undermined yet further. Recognisable names and epithets mean that these troublesome passages cannot fail to look ‘Homeric’, yet we are constantly challenged to decipher the relationship between the Satyricon and other works, and to question straightforward interactions between text and ‘model’. In this chapter I will examine possible approaches to this dilemma, starting with the proposal, first formulated by Klebs, that the Satyricon parodies the epic theme of a hero hounded by an avenging god: most famously, Poseidon's pursuit of Odysseus in the Odyssey. In the episodes at Croton, it is suggested, Encolpius comes face to face not with Poseidon but with Priapus, the god he first offends when he interrupts his rites at Quartilla's secret chapel at Sat. 16 (vos sacrum ante cryptam turbastis), and is then forced to worship (etiam dormire vobis in mente est, cum sciatis Priapi genio pervigilium deberi? / ‘How can you even think about sleeping when you know full well that it is your duty to devote a wakeful night to Priapus' genius?’ 21.7).