Introduction: Imperial Geographies in Byzantine and Ottoman Space Dimiter Angelov, Yota Batsaki, Sahar Bazzaz [In this on-line version, the page-numbers of the printed version are indicated within braces (“{” and “}”). For example, “{69|70}” indicates where p. 69 of the printed version ends and p. 70 begins. These indications will be useful to readers who need to look up references made elsewhere to the printed version… Read more
Works Cited Anderson, G. 1974. “Athenaeus: The Sophistic Environment.” In Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, Teil II: Principat, Band 34.3, 2173–2185. Berlin. ———. 1993. The Second Sophistic: A Cultural Phenomenon in the Roman Empire. London. ———. 2000. “The Banquet of Belles-Lettres: Athenaeus and the Comic Symposium.” In Braund and Wilkins 2000:116–126. Arnott, W.G. Read more
Chapter 18. When a Culture Reflects on Itself The work of Athenaeus would thus be a periodos tēs bibliothēkēs, a “tour of the library”, perhaps the library of Larensius, but certainly also that of memory, and also the ideal library whose reconstruction is enabled by textual tradition, direct and indirect. That trip does not link the books between them but creates a multiplicity of links between the… Read more
Chapter 17. The Epitome of the World The Deipnosophists crystallizes a fluid chain of texts, fragments, and words, connected by the memory threads of a circle of literati and, ultimately, by the memory of Athenaeus himself. A double logic can be recognized in this, namely a centrifugal and a centripetal logic. By bringing together a vast complex of reading notes, the Deipnosophists condenses the library until it… Read more
Chapter 16. The Web of Athenaeus: The Art of Weaving Links “Every time we meet, my friend Timocrates, you repeatedly ask me what was said at the meetings of the deipnosophists, thinking that we discover new things…” That is the opening to Book 6 (222a). In Book 14, Athenaeus once again mentions the ever new speeches that took place within Larensius’ circles (613c–d), and at the beginning… Read more
Chapter 15. The Deipnosophists as a Text: Genesis, Uses In this strange path that associates banquets, a library, lexica, and insatiable scholars, we now need to ask what was the aim of the game. Is Athenaeus perhaps the victim of the most severe Alexandrine syndrome, that of a compilation mechanism destined to go indefinitely round in circles? Are the dialogue and its setup then nothing more than… Read more
Chapter 14. Words and Things The mental gymnastics of the deipnosophists are not only a mechanism that produces and combines quotations indefinitely. Despite its playful character, it is not an end in itself. It plays an instrumental role in the constitution and the enrichment of a field of knowledge and, more generally, in a project that is at the same time social, ethical, and intellectual: through the… Read more
Chapter 13. Scholars’ Practices The bibliographical knowledge of Athenaeus and his characters is of a cartographical nature; it organizes a space, subdivides it, and proposes different points of view, which lead from the literary genre to the text and to the quotation, or vice versa. This shift in the hierarchy between container and contained corresponds to a change of scale and to specific forms of articulation: the… Read more
Chapter 12. Libraries and Bibliophiles The mention of Larensius’ rich library at the beginning of Book I does not fill out the portrait of the host of the banquets, a rich Roman bibliophile and philhellene. The library also plays an essential role in Athenaeus’ work. The link that unites text, banquets, and library is a link of analogy, of condensation, of mirroring, and of structural homology. 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
