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Deipnosophistae

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Frontispiece to the 1657 edition of theDeipnosophists,edited byIsaac Casaubon,in Greek andJacques Daléchamps' Latin translation

TheDeipnosophistaeis an early 3rd-century ADGreekwork (Ancient Greek:Δειπνοσοφισταί,Deipnosophistaí,lit."The Dinner Sophists/Philosophers/Experts" ) by theGreek[1]authorAthenaeus of Naucratis.It is a long work ofliterary,historical,andantiquarianreferences set inRomeat a series of banquets held by the protagonistPublius Livius Larensis[de]for an assembly ofgrammarians,lexicographers,jurists,musicians, and hangers-on.

Title[edit]

TheGreektitleDeipnosophistaí(Δειπνοσοφισταί) derives from the combination ofdeipno-(δειπνο-,"dinner" ) andsophistḗs(σοφιστής,"expert, one knowledgeable in the arts of ~" ). It and itsEnglishderivativedeipnosophists[2]thus describe people who are skilled at dining, particularly the refined conversation expected to accompany Greeksymposia.However, the term is shaded by the harsh treatment accorded toprofessional teachersinPlato'sSocratic dialogues,which made the English termsophistinto apejorative.

In English, Athenaeus's work usually known by itsLatinformDeipnosophistaebut is also variously translated asThe Deipnosophists,[3]Sophists at Dinner,[4]The Learned Banqueters,[5]The Banquet of the Learned,[3]Philosophers at Dinner,orThe Gastronomers.

Contents[edit]

TheDeipnosophistaeprofesses to be an account, given by Athenaeus to his friend Timocrates, of a series of banquets held at the house of Larensius, ascholarand wealthypatronof the arts. It is thus a dialogue within a dialogue, after the manner ofPlato,[6]although each conversation is so long that, realistically, it would occupy several days. Among the numerous guests,[7]Masurius,Zoilus,Democritus,Galen,UlpianandPlutarchare named, but most are probably to be taken as fictitious personages,[8]and the majority take little or no part in the conversation. If Ulpian is identical with the famous jurist, theDeipnosophistaemust have been written after his death in 223; but the jurist was murdered by thePraetorian Guard,whereas Ulpian in Athenaeus dies a natural death. Prosopographicalinvestigation, however, has shown the possibility of identifying several guests with real persons from other sources;[9] the Ulpian in the dialog has also been linked to the renowned jurist's father.[10]

The work is invaluable for providing fictionalized information about the Hellenistic literary world of the leisured class during theRoman Empire.[citation needed]To the majority of modern readers, even more useful is the wealth of information provided in theDeipnosophistaeabout earlier Greek literature.[11]In the course of discussing classic authors, the participants make quotations, long and short, from the works of about 700 earlier Greek authors and 2,500 separate writings, many of them otherwise unrecorded (such as theswallow song of Rhodes). Food and wine, luxury, music, sexual mores, literary gossip andphilologyare among the major topics of discussion, and the stories behind many artworks such as theVenus Kallipygosare also transmitted in its pages.

Food and cookery[edit]

A 1535 edition

TheDeipnosophistaeis an important source ofrecipesin classical Greek. It quotes the original text of one recipe from the lost cookbook byMithaecus,the oldest in Greek and the oldest recipe by a named author in any language. Other authors quoted for their recipes includeGlaucus of Locri,Dionysius,Epaenetus,Hegesippus of Tarentum,Erasistratus,Diocles of Carystus,Timachidas of Rhodes,Philistion of Locri,Euthydemus of Athens,Chrysippus of Tyana,PaxamusandHarpocration of Mende.It also describes in detail the meal and festivities at the wedding feast ofCaranos.[12]

Drink[edit]

In expounding on earlier works, Athenaeus wrote thatAeschylus"very improperly" introduces the Greeks to be "so drunk as to break their vessels about one another's heads":[13]

This is the man who threw so well
The vessel with an evil smell
And miss'd me not, but dash'd to shivers
The pot too full of steaming rivers
Against my head, which now, alas! sir,
Gives other smells besidesmacassar.

Homosexuality[edit]

In addition to its main focuses, the text offers an unusually clear portrait ofhomosexualityin late Hellenism. Books XII-XIII holds a wealth of information for studies of homosexuality inRoman Greece.It is subject to a broader discussion that includesAlcibiades,Charmides,Autolycus,PausaniasandSophocles.Furthermore, numerous books and now lost plays on the subject are mentioned, including the dramatistsDiphilus,Cratinus,Aeschylus,andSophoclesand the philosopherHeraclides of Pontus.[citation needed]

First patents[edit]

Athenaeus described what may be considered the firstpatents(i.e. exclusive right granted by a government to an inventor to practice his/her invention in exchange for disclosure of the invention). He mentions that several centuries BC, in the Greek city ofSybaris(located in what is now southern Italy), there were annual culinary competitions. The victor was given the exclusive right to prepare his dish for one year. Such a thing would have been unusual at the time because Greek society at large did not recognize exclusivity in inventions or ideas.[14]

Survival and reception[edit]

TheDeipnosophistaewas originally in fifteen books.[15]The work survives in one manuscript from which the whole of books 1 and 2, and some other pages too, disappeared long ago. AnEpitomeor abridgment (to about 60%) was made in medieval times, and survives complete: from this it is possible to read the missing sections, though in a disjointed form.

The English polymathSir Thomas Brownenoted in his encyclopaediaPseudodoxia Epidemica:

Athenæus, a delectable Author, very various, and justly stiled by Casaubon,Græcorum Plinius.[16]There is extant of his, a famous Piece, under the name ofDeipnosophista,orCoena Sapientum,containing the Discourse of many learned men, at a Feast provided by Laurentius. It is a laborious Collection out of many Authors, and some whereof are mentioned no where else. It containeth strange and singular relations, not without some spice or sprinkling of all Learning. The Author was probably a better Grammarian then Philosopher, dealing but hardly with Aristotle and Plato, and betrayeth himself much in his ChapterDe Curiositate Aristotelis.In brief, he is an Author of excellent use, and may with discretion be read unto great advantage: and hath therefore well deserved the Comments of Casaubon andDalecampius.[17]

Browne's interest in Athenaeus reflects a revived interest in theBanquet of the Learnedamongst scholars following the publication of theDeipnosophistaein 1612 by the Classical scholarIsaac Casaubon.Browne was also the author ofa Latin essay on Athenaeus.By the nineteenth century however, the poetJames Russell Lowellin 1867 characterized theDeipnosophistaeand its author thus:

the somewhat greasy heap of a literary rag-and-bone-picker like Athenaeus is turned to gold by time.

Modern readers[who?]question whether theDeipnosophistaegenuinely evokes a literary symposium of learned disquisitions on a range of subjects suitable for such an occasion, or whether it has a satirical edge, rehashing the cultural clichés of the urbane literati of its day.

Modern edition(s)[edit]

The firstcritical editionin accordance to the principles ofclassical philologywas published by German scholarGeorg Kaibelin 1887–1890 in theBibliotheca Teubneriana;[18]this three-volume set remained the authoritative text for about 120 years and the only complete critical text.[19]Charles Burton Gulicktranslated the entire text into English for theLoeb Classical Library.[20][21]

In 2001, a team of Italian classical scholars led byLuciano Canfora(then Professor of Classical Philology, now Emeritus,University of Bari) published the first complete Italian translation of theDeipnosophistae,in a luxury edition with extensive introduction and commentary.[22]A digital edition of Kaibel's text, with search tools and cross-references between Kaibel's and Casaubon's texts and digitalized indexes andDialogi Personae,was put online by Italian philologist Monica Berti and her team, currently working at theAlexander von Humboldt University.[23]In 2001, Eleonora Cavallini (Professor of Greek,University of Bologna) published a translation and commentary on Book 13.[24]In 2010, Gabriele Burzacchini (Professor of Greek,University of Parma) published a translation and commentary of Book 1 found among the unpublished studies of the late Enzo Degani (formerly Professor of Greek in the University of Bologna);[25]Burzacchini himself translated and commented Book 5 in more recent years.[26]

In 2006, American classical philologist S. D. Olson renewed Loeb text thanks to a new collation of the manuscripts and the progression of critical studies on Athenaeus and newly translated and commented the whole work;[27]in 2019, the same started a new critical edition for theBibliotheca Teubneriana[28]inclusive of theEpitome,also edited in parallel volumes.[29]

References[edit]

  1. ^Smith, William,"Adrantus",A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities,Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 20,doi:10.1017/cbo9781139794602.002,ISBN978-1-139-79460-2,retrieved2021-06-27
  2. ^Oxford English Dictionary,1st ed."deipnosophist,n."Oxford University Press (Oxford), 1894.
  3. ^abἈθήναιος[Athenaeus]. Trans. C.D. Yonge asThe Deipnosophists or Banquet of the Learned.Henry Bohn (London), 1854. Accessed 13 Aug 2014.
  4. ^Ἀθήναιος[Athenaeus].Δειπνοσοφισταί[Deipnosophistaí,Sophists at Dinner],c. 3rdcentury(in Ancient Greek)Trans. Charles Burton Gulick asAthenaeus,Vol. I,p. viii.Harvard University Press (Cambridge), 1927. Accessed 13 Aug 2014.
  5. ^Ἀθήναιος[Athenaeus]. Trans. S. Douglas Olson asThe Learned Banqueters.Harvard University Press (Cambridge), 2007.
  6. ^Viz. hisSymposium.The first words (1.1f-2a) mimic the beginning ofPhaedo.See (e.g.) Wentzel(1896). "Athenaios (22)".Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft.Band II, Halbband 4. col. 2028.15ff.
  7. ^Kaibel (1890, vol. 3) pp. 561-564 lists twenty-four by name, plus severalanonymi.
  8. ^Kaibel (1887, vol. 1) p. VI.
  9. ^Baldwin, Barry (1977). "The Minor Characters in Athenaeus".Acta Classica.20:37–48.
  10. ^Baldwin, Barry (1976). "Athenaeus and his Work".Acta Classica.19:21–42.
  11. ^"…for us, one of the most important books from Antiquity". Wentzel(1896) col. 2028.34ff
  12. ^Η ΔΙΑΤΡΟΦΗ ΤΩΝ ΑΡΧΑΙΩΝ ΕΛΛΗΝΩΝ[Diet of the Ancient Greeks].ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΗ ΕΣΤΙΑ ΕΠΙΣΤΗΜΟΝΙΚΩΝ ΕΡΕΥΝΩΝ [UNIVERSAL HELLENIC INTELLECTUAL NATION](in Greek).Athens, Greece.2003.Archivedfrom the original on 2004-12-11.Retrieved2018-03-30.[Caranos] offered each guest a silver glass and a gold crown. Then arrived silver and bronze platters: Chickens, ducks and roasted geese, goats, hares, pigeons, turtles and partridges. There followed a break for the musicians and the trumpeters to play. The second course began with roast pork atop a silver plate. His belly was filled with roasted thrushes andortolan,oysters and scallops covered with egg yolks....
  13. ^The Deopnosophists,a literal translation by C.D. Yonge
  14. ^M. Frumkin,"The Origin of Patents",Journal of the Patent Office Society, March 1945, Vol. XXVII, No. 3, pp 143 et Seq.
  15. ^Marginal indications in the manuscript may, but need not, reflect an earlier edition in 30 books. SeeDer neue PaulyAthenaios[3]. col. 198; Kaibel (1887, vol. 1) p. XXII.
  16. ^ThePlinyof the Greeks.
  17. ^P.E. Bk.1 chapter 8; Daléchamps provided the Latin translation when the Greek text of the recently-rediscovered work established by Casaubon was first published.
  18. ^Athenaei Naucratitae Dipnosophistarum libri XV,recensuit Gerogius Kaibel, III voll., Lipsiae in aedibus B. G. Teubneri, MDCCCVVII-MDCCCXC.
  19. ^Collection Budéstarted a new edition in 1956, but only the first volume was published: Athénée,Les Deipnosophistes. Livres I-II,texte établi et traduit par Alexandre-Marie Desrousseaux avec la contribution de Charles Astruc, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 1956 (Collection des universités de France – Collection Budé. Série grecque,126).
  20. ^Athenaeus,The deipnosophists. Inseven volumes,with an English translation by Charles Burton Gulick, London: Heinemann – Cambridge (MA.): Harvard UP, 1969–1971 (Loeb Classical Library,204, 208, 224, 235, 274, 327, 345).
  21. ^Gulick's edition was, in fact, admittedly based on Kaibel's text, diverging only in selected passages. See Athenaeus,The deipnosophists,transl. Gulick, vol. I, p. xviii. On its hand, Desousseaux in hisBudéedition provided a new critical text and a richer apparatus than Kaibel's, but he only published the first two books of theDeipnosophistae(which actually aren't Athenaeus', but the abridged text).
  22. ^Ateneo di Naucrati,I Deipnosofisti - I dotti a banchetto,prima traduzione italiana su progetto di Luciano Canfora, introduzione di Christian Jacob, IV voll., Roma: Salerno Editrice, 2001.
  23. ^Berti, Monica."Digital Athenaeus".www.digitalathenaeus.org.Retrieved2021-04-08.
  24. ^Ateneo di Naucrati,Il banchetto dei sapienti. Libro XIII – Sulle donne,a cura di Eleonora Cavallini, Bologna: Dupress, 2001 («Nemo. Confrontarsi con l'antico», 1).
  25. ^Ateneo di Naucrati,Deipnosofisti (I dotti a banchetto). Epitome dal libro I,introduzione, traduzione e note di Enzo Degani, premessa di Gabriele Burzacchini, Bologna: Pàtron, 2010 («Eikasmos. Quaderni bolognesi di filologia classica – Studi», 17).
  26. ^Ateneo di Naucrati,Deipnosofisti (Dotti a banchetto). Libro 5,premessa, traduzione e note di Gabriele Burzacchini, Bologna: Pàtron, 2017 («Eikasmos. Quaderni bolognesi di filologia classica – Studi», 27).
  27. ^Athenaeus,The Learned Banqueters,I–VIII, edited and translated by S. Douglas Olson, Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2006-12 (the series numbers of voll. I–VII are the same as Gulick's edition which is therefore replaced; Olson adds vol. VIII which isLCLno. 519).
  28. ^Athenaeus,Deipnosophistae,ed. S. D. Olson, vol. IV A:Libri XII-XIV –B:Epitome,Berlin – Boston: Walter de Gruyter GmbH, 2019; vol. III A:Libri VIII-XI– B:Epitome,Berlin – Boston: Walter de Gruyter GmbH, 2020; vol. II A:III-VII– B:Epitome,Berlin – Boston: Walter de Gruyter GmbH, 2021 (Bibliotheca scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana).
  29. ^Apart from Kaibel's text for bks. I and II, theincipitof bk. III and parts of bk. XI, theEpitomewas previously published only by Simon P. Peppink:Athenaei Dipnosophistae,ex recensione S. P. Peppinki, II voll., Lugduni Batavorum apud casam C. T. E. J. Brill, 1936-39, vol. II:Epitome,I-II,ibid.1937-39. This edition was indeed useful (mainly because it was the first edition of the text), but also had some issues: it lacks the sections already edited by Kaibel (see above) and contains many errors and critically questionable choices due to the fact that Peppink, fallen ill, did not have the time to re-read his own work. See Annalisa Lavoro,Per una nuova edizione critica dell'Epitome di Ateneo,Ph.D. diss., Messina 2016, p. IV. Peppinkdidplan to publish a new edition of the entire work, but death came first. See Lavoro,Per una nuova edizione critica,cit.,p. 109.

Bibliography[edit]

Athenaeus restorations and translations[edit]

Further reading[edit]

See also[edit]

External links[edit]

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