Like the more famous version made by Federico Fellini, the film is loosely based on Petronius's work, Satyricon, a series of bawdy and satirical episodes written during the reign of the emperor Nero and set in imperial Rome.

After inheriting a rich mansion by chance by a senator named Pomponius, Encolpius, Eumolpus and Gitone go in a city where their troubles do not end because of the magic spells of a witch, soothsayer of the god Priapus.

When Federico Fellini and Alberto Grimaldi started work on their film, Bini contracted Gian Luigi Polidoro to direct his own version.

[3] However, lobby cards and posters for Italian, Belgian, Spanish, and English language screenings are known to exist, and are occasionally sold on the internet, although most of the non-Italian versions avoid the name of Satyricon and use The Degenerates (or translations of that word) instead.

It has also been released on VHS by domovideo, and a cut and cropped version has been known to air on the Italian channels Iris and Mediaset Italia 1 at some time after the year 2000.