Deipnosophistae
The Deipnosophistae is an early 3rd-century AD
Title
The Greek title Deipnosophistaí (Δειπνοσοφισταί) derives from the combination of deipno- (δειπνο-, "dinner") and sophistḗs (σοφιστής, "expert, one knowledgeable in the arts of ~"). It and its English derivative deipnosophists[2] thus describe people who are skilled at dining, particularly the refined conversation expected to accompany Greek symposia. However, the term is shaded by the harsh treatment accorded to professional teachers in Plato's Socratic dialogues, which made the English term sophist into a pejorative.
In English, Athenaeus's work usually known by its Latin form Deipnosophistae but is also variously translated as The Deipnosophists,[3] Sophists at Dinner,[4] The Learned Banqueters,[5] The Banquet of the Learned,[3] Philosophers at Dinner, or The Gastronomers.
Contents
The Deipnosophistae professes to be an account, given by Athenaeus to his friend Timocrates, of a series of banquets held at the house of Larensius, a
The work is invaluable for providing fictionalized information about the Hellenistic literary world of the leisured class during the
Food and cookery
The Deipnosophistae is an important source of recipes in classical Greek. It quotes the original text of one recipe from the lost cookbook by Mithaecus, the oldest in Greek and the oldest recipe by a named author in any language. Other authors quoted for their recipes include Glaucus of Locri, Dionysius, Epaenetus, Hegesippus of Tarentum, Erasistratus, Diocles of Carystus, Timachidas of Rhodes, Philistion of Locri, Euthydemus of Athens, Chrysippus of Tyana, Paxamus and Harpocration of Mende. It also describes in detail the meal and festivities at the wedding feast of Caranos.[12]
Drink
In expounding on earlier works, Athenaeus wrote that Aeschylus "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 besides macassar.
Homosexuality
In addition to its main focuses, the text offers an unusually clear portrait of
First patents
Athenaeus described what may be considered the first patents (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 of Sybaris (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
The Deipnosophistae was 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. An Epitome or 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 polymath
- 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 of Deipnosophista, or Coena 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 Chapter De 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 and Dalecampius.[17]
Browne's interest in Athenaeus reflects a revived interest in the Banquet of the Learned amongst scholars following the publication of the Deipnosophistae in 1612 by the Classical scholar Isaac Casaubon. Browne was also the author of a Latin essay on Athenaeus. By the nineteenth century however, the poet James Russell Lowell in 1867 characterized the Deipnosophistae and 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 the Deipnosophistae genuinely 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)
The first
In 2001, a team of Italian classical scholars led by
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 the Bibliotheca Teubneriana[28] inclusive of the Epitome, also edited in parallel volumes.[29]
References
- ISBN 978-1-139-79460-2, retrieved 2021-06-27
- ^ Oxford English Dictionary, 1st ed. "deipnosophist, n." Oxford University Press (Oxford), 1894.
- ^ Athenaeus]. Trans. C.D. Yonge as The Deipnosophists or Banquet of the Learned. Henry Bohn (London), 1854. Accessed 13 Aug 2014.
- Sophists at Dinner], c. 3rd century (in Ancient Greek) Trans. Charles Burton Gulick as Athenaeus, Vol. I, p. viii. Harvard University Press (Cambridge), 1927. Accessed 13 Aug 2014.
- Athenaeus]. Trans. S. Douglas Olson as The Learned Banqueters. Harvard University Press (Cambridge), 2007.
- ^ Viz. his Symposium. The first words (1.1f-2a) mimic the beginning of Phaedo. See (e.g.) Wentzel(1896). "Athenaios (22)". Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft. Band II, Halbband 4. col. 2028.15ff.
- ^ Kaibel (1890, vol. 3) pp. 561-564 lists twenty-four by name, plus several anonymi.
- ^ Kaibel (1887, vol. 1) p. VI.
- ^ Baldwin, Barry (1977). "The Minor Characters in Athenaeus". Acta Classica. 20: 37–48.
- ^ Baldwin, Barry (1976). "Athenaeus and his Work". Acta Classica. 19: 21–42.
- ^ "…for us, one of the most important books from Antiquity". Wentzel(1896) col. 2028.34ff
- Athens, Greece. 2003. Archived from the original on 2004-12-11. Retrieved 2018-03-30., oysters and scallops covered with egg yolks ....
[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 and ortolan
- ^ The Deopnosophists, a literal translation by C.D. Yonge
- ^ M. Frumkin, "The Origin of Patents", Journal of the Patent Office Society, March 1945, Vol. XXVII, No. 3, pp 143 et Seq.
- ^ Marginal indications in the manuscript may, but need not, reflect an earlier edition in 30 books. See Der neue Pauly Athenaios[3]. col. 198; Kaibel (1887, vol. 1) p. XXII.
- Plinyof the Greeks.
- ^ 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.
- ^ Athenaei Naucratitae Dipnosophistarum libri XV, recensuit Gerogius Kaibel, III voll., Lipsiae in aedibus B. G. Teubneri, MDCCCVVII-MDCCCXC.
- ^ Collection Budé started 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).
- ^ Athenaeus, The deipnosophists. In seven 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).
- ^ 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 his Budé edition provided a new critical text and a richer apparatus than Kaibel's, but he only published the first two books of the Deipnosophistae (which actually aren't Athenaeus', but the abridged text).
- ^ 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.
- ^ Berti, Monica. "Digital Athenaeus". www.digitalathenaeus.org. Retrieved 2021-04-08.
- ^ 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).
- ^ 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).
- ^ 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).
- ^ 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 is LCL no. 519).
- ^ 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).
- ^ Apart from Kaibel's text for bks. I and II, the incipit of bk. III and parts of bk. XI, the Epitome was 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. Peppink did plan to publish a new edition of the entire work, but death came first. See Lavoro, Per una nuova edizione critica, cit., p. 109.
Bibliography
Athenaeus restorations and translations
- Athenaeus (1927–1941). OCLC 688821.
- Athenaeus (1887–1892). OCLC 3288753.
- Athenaeus (1936–1939). : "Peppink regards EC as representing a better manuscript than A, on which the full texts of Kaibel and Gulick are based...."
- Athenaeus (1854). The Deipnosophists. OCLC 49415755.
- Athenaeus (2007–2012). ISBN 978-0-674-99620-5.
Further reading
- Braund, David; Wilkins, John (2000). Athenaeus and his World: Reading Greek Culture in the Roman Empire. ISBN 978-0-859-89661-0.
- Wilkins, John; Harvey, David; Dobson, Mike (1995). Food in antiquity. ISBN 978-0-859-89418-0.
- Dalby, Andrew (1996). Siren feasts: a history of food and gastronomy in Greece. London: ISBN 0-415-11620-1.
- Hubbard, Thomas K (2003). Homosexuality in Greece and Rome: a sourcebook of basic documents. JSTOR 10.1525/j.ctt1pp7g1. (Translation of a passage from book 13.)
- Johansson, Warren (1990). "Athenaeus". In Dynes, Wayne R (ed.). Encyclopedia of Homosexuality. Vol. 1. New York: ISBN 978-0-824-06544-7.
- Stoll, Peter (2010-06-01), Dishing up Pictures from the Pantry: An Eighteenth-Century French Recipe for Illustrating Athenaeus's Deipnosophistae, University of Augsburg Library, retrieved 2018-03-31
See also
External links
- The Digital Athenaeus
- Casaubon-Kaibel Reference Converter
- The original Ancient Greek text
- Translation by C. D. Yonge presented online by the University of Wisconsin Digital Collections Center
- Translation up to Book 9 with links to complete Greek original, at LacusCurtius
- Translation of Books 11-15 with links to Greek original, at attalus.org
- various out of copyright translations of the work downloadable on archive.org
- From a reading of Athenaeus, British Museum Sloane MS no. 1827
- Extracts from book 13 of the Deipnosophists concerning homosexuality Archived 2012-07-28 at the Wayback Machine
- Extracts from book 13 of the Deipnosophists
- on-line version of the Encyclopedia of Homosexuality article referenced above
- full Greek text and French translation at L'antiquité grecque et latine du moyen âge de Philippe Remacle, Philippe Renault, François-Dominique Fournier, J. P. Murcia, Thierry Vebr, Caroline Carrat