Chapter 2. Banquet, Symposium, Library Every reader of Athenaeus, from the very first lines of his work, experiences a perverted Ariadne’s thread: by following it, one does not come out of the labyrinth; rather, one progressively penetrates it, one gets lost in its details, losing sight of the overall plan, the architect’s project, the structure and purpose of the work. Besides, such is the temptation of every… Read more
Chapter 3. “Athenaeus is the Father of this Book” What was Athenaeus’ project? Why did he not stop at the stage of compilation, which would have allowed him to possess a collection of excerpts from a wide range of books, or to write a monograph on the pleasures of the table, perhaps even a glossary of the rare words of culinary art? To what end… Read more
Chapter 4. Banquet and Sumposion The symposium (sumposion) was an essential moment in the social life of ancient Greece. A circle of friends gathered to enjoy the pleasures of wine, generally after having shared those of the table (deipnon), the two being distinct moments. [1] The time of the symposium is when the guests experience wine, a beverage linked… Read more
Chapter 5. Simile Space and Narrative Space In the Iliad, place is most often delineated within the context of the Homeric similes, rather than in narrative. [1] Previous scholarship has emphasized two distinct but equally important aspects of Iliadic Gleichnisorte (“simile spaces”): their use as a way of making intratextual references, and their function within the wider framework of the epic’s plot. Read more
Chapter 6. Larensius’ Circle The setting of the conversations is defined from the very first lines of the Deipnosophists: the banquets offered by Larensius, a rich Roman, to individuals endowed with the greatest experience in all fields of culture (1.1a). If Plutarch’s banquets brought together Greeks and Romans united by bonds of friendship or kinship, and therefore defining a relatively homogeneous social environment of professors… Read more
Chapter 7. Writing the Symposium In the literary tradition of the sumposion, writing fixes the ephemeral character of the conversation, and bestows upon live interaction the monumentality of a text that offers itself to reading, to repeated readings, to the intellectual participation at a distance of readers who, even though they did not participate in the symposium, and were not able to take part in the conversation,… Read more
Chapter 8. Forms of Collection There are words that allow one to obtain a view from above the labyrinth, to seize one of its principles of structural coherence. For example sunagōgē, which means “collection”. It is one of those keywords that invite one to unravel Ariadne’s thread in Athenaeus’ labyrinth. Indeed, not only does the activity of collection appear, it is one of its constitutive elements. … Read more
Chapter 9. Accumulation and Structure Athenaeus’ work, with everything it includes (objects, quotations, information, words), is indeed a collection that seems destined to perpetual growth. That collection, however, and the text within which it finds its space, are nevertheless organized on the basis of ordering principles. The work’s prologue, in so far as it is only preserved by the epitome, announces its content (1.1a–c): [Athenaeus]… Read more
Chapter 10. Serving the Dishes, Quoting the Texts: The Unfolding of the Banquet One of the threads of Ariadne that allow a reader to circulate within that labyrinth is constituted by the very development of the banquet and the parade of dishes. Athenaeus took care to underline the most important points of reference, in the form of a comprehensive account that delineates the general framework of the… Read more
Chapter 11. How to Speak at Table? All that is said in Homer is not always said by Homer” (5.178d). This critical insight, which explains the polyphony of the voices and the instances of enunciation in the epic, could be applied to Athenaeus himself: all that is said in Athenaeus is not always said by Athenaeus. First of all because he has chosen the formal and dramatic… Read more
