Athenaeus of
Naucratis
Naucratis or Naukratis (Ancient Greek: , "Naval Command"; Egyptian: , , , Coptic: ) was a city and trading-post in ancient Egypt, located on the Canopic (western-most) branch of the Nile river, south-east of the Mediterranean sea and the city ...
(; grc, Ἀθήναιος ὁ Nαυκρατίτης or Nαυκράτιος, ''Athēnaios Naukratitēs'' or ''Naukratios''; la, Athenaeus Naucratita) was a
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
rhetorician and grammarian, flourishing about the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 3rd century AD. The ''
Suda
The ''Suda'' or ''Souda'' (; grc-x-medieval, Σοῦδα, Soûda; la, Suidae Lexicon) is a large 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia of the ancient Mediterranean world, formerly attributed to an author called Soudas (Σούδας) or Souida ...
'' says only that he lived in the times of
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (Latin: áːɾkus̠ auɾέːli.us̠ antɔ́ːni.us̠ English: ; 26 April 121 – 17 March 180) was Roman emperor from 161 to 180 AD and a Stoic philosopher. He was the last of the rulers known as the Five Good E ...
, but the contempt with which he speaks of
Commodus
Commodus (; 31 August 161 – 31 December 192) was a Roman emperor who ruled from 177 to 192. He served jointly with his father Marcus Aurelius from 176 until the latter's death in 180, and thereafter he reigned alone until his assassination. ...
, who died in 192, shows that he survived that emperor. He was a contemporary of
Adrantus
Adrantus ( grc, Ἄδραντος), or Ardrantus or Adrastus, was a contemporary of Athenaeus
Athenaeus of Naucratis (; grc, Ἀθήναιος ὁ Nαυκρατίτης or Nαυκράτιος, ''Athēnaios Naukratitēs'' or ''Naukratios''; l ...
.
Several of his publications are lost, but the fifteen-volume ''
Deipnosophistae
The ''Deipnosophistae'' is an early 3rd-century AD Greek work ( grc, Δειπνοσοφισταί, ''Deipnosophistaí'', lit. "The Dinner Sophists/Philosophers/Experts") by the Greek author Athenaeus of Naucratis. It is a long work of lit ...
'' mostly survives.
Publications
Athenaeus himself states that he was the author of a treatise on the ''thratta'', a kind of fish mentioned by
Archippus
Archippus (; Ancient Greek: Ἄρχιππος, "master of the horse") was an early Christian believer mentioned briefly in the New Testament epistles of Philemon and Colossians.
Role in the New Testament
In Paul's letter to Philemon (), Archip ...
and other comic poets, and of a history of the Syrian kings. Both works are lost.
The ''Deipnosophistae''
The ''
Deipnosophistae
The ''Deipnosophistae'' is an early 3rd-century AD Greek work ( grc, Δειπνοσοφισταί, ''Deipnosophistaí'', lit. "The Dinner Sophists/Philosophers/Experts") by the Greek author Athenaeus of Naucratis. It is a long work of lit ...
'', which means "dinner-table philosophers", survives in fifteen books. The first two books, and parts of the third, eleventh and fifteenth, are extant only in
epitome
An epitome (; gr, ἐπιτομή, from ἐπιτέμνειν ''epitemnein'' meaning "to cut short") is a summary or miniature form, or an instance that represents a larger reality, also used as a synonym for embodiment. Epitomacy represents " ...
, but otherwise the work seems to be complete. It is an immense store-house of information, chiefly on matters connected with dining, but also containing remarks on music, songs, dances, games,
courtesans
Courtesan, in modern usage, is a euphemism for a "kept" mistress or prostitute, particularly one with wealthy, powerful, or influential clients. The term historically referred to a courtier, a person who attended the court of a monarch or othe ...
, and luxury. Nearly 800 writers and 2500 separate works are referred to by Athenaeus; one of his characters (not necessarily to be identified with the historical author himself) boasts of having read 800 plays of
Athenian Middle Comedy alone. Were it not for Athenaeus, much valuable information about the ancient world would be missing, and many ancient Greek authors such as
Archestratus
Archestratus ( grc-gre, Ἀρχέστρατος ''Archestratos'') was an ancient Greek poet of Gela or Syracuse, in Sicily, who wrote some time in the mid 4th century BCE, and was known as "the Daedalus of tasty dishes". His humorous didactic poe ...
would be almost entirely unknown. Book XIII, for example, is an important source for the study of sexuality in
classical and
Hellenistic Greece
Hellenistic Greece is the historical period of the country following Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the annexation of the classical Greek Achaean League heartlands by the Roman Republic. This culminated ...
, and a rare fragment of
Theognetus
Theognetus (Greek: Θεόγνητος) was an Ancient Greek comic poet of the 3rd century BC.
Works
The titles of three of his works survive.
* Κένταυρος (''The Centaur'')
* Φάσμα ἢ Φιλάργυρος (''The Ghost'' or ''The ...
' work survives in 3.63.
The ''Deipnosophistae'' professes to be an account given by an individual named Athenaeus to his friend Timocrates of a banquet held at the house of Larensius (Λαρήνσιος; in Latin:
Larensis), a wealthy book-collector and patron of the arts. It is thus a dialogue within a dialogue, after the manner of
Plato
Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
, but the conversation extends to enormous length. The topics for discussion generally arise from the course of the dinner itself, but extend to literary and historical matters of every description, including abstruse points of grammar. The guests supposedly quote from memory. The actual sources of the material preserved in the ''Deipnosophistae'' remain obscure, but much of it probably comes at second hand from early scholars.
The twenty-four named guests include individuals called Galen and Ulpian, but they are all probably fictitious personages, and the majority take no part in the conversation. If the character Ulpian is identical with
the famous jurist, the ''Deipnosophistae'' may have been written after his death in 223; but the jurist was murdered by the
Praetorian Guard
The Praetorian Guard (Latin: ''cohortēs praetōriae'') was a unit of the Imperial Roman army that served as personal bodyguards and intelligence agents for the Roman emperors. During the Roman Republic, the Praetorian Guard were an escort fo ...
, whereas Ulpian in Athenaeus dies a natural death.
The complete version of the text, with the gaps noted above, is preserved in only one
manuscript
A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced i ...
, conventionally referred to as A. The epitomized version of the text is preserved in two manuscripts, conventionally known as C and E. The standard edition of the text is
Kaibel's
Teubner. The standard numbering is drawn largely from
Casaubon Casaubon is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Isaac Casaubon (1559–1614), French classical scholar
*Méric Casaubon
Meric Casaubon (14 August 1599 in Geneva – 14 July 1671 in Canterbury), son of Isaac Casaubon, was a Fr ...
.
The encyclopaedist and author
Sir Thomas Browne
Sir Thomas Browne (; 19 October 1605 – 19 October 1682) was an English polymath and author of varied works which reveal his wide learning in diverse fields including science and medicine, religion and the esoteric. His writings display a ...
wrote a short essay upon Athenaeus which reflects a revived interest in the ''Banquet of the Learned'' amongst scholars during the 17th century following its publication in 1612 by the Classical scholar
Isaac Casaubon
Isaac Casaubon (; ; 18 February 1559 – 1 July 1614) was a classical scholar and philologist, first in France and then later in England.
His son Méric Casaubon was also a classical scholar.
Life Early life
He was born in Geneva to two Fr ...
.
Death
One of Athenaeus' friends, Timocrates, wrote about the untimely death of Athenaeus in the
Athenaeum
Athenaeum may refer to:
Books and periodicals
* ''Athenaeum'' (German magazine), a journal of German Romanticism, established 1798
* ''Athenaeum'' (British magazine), a weekly London literary magazine 1828–1921
* ''The Athenaeum'' (Acadia U ...
. It describes the tale of angry peasants who believed that Athenaeus' writings directly contradicted their personal beliefs of the
Mithras
Mithraism, also known as the Mithraic mysteries or the Cult of Mithras, was a Roman mystery religion centered on the god Mithras. Although inspired by Iranian worship of the Zoroastrian divinity (''yazata'') Mithra, the Roman Mithras is link ...
cult. One night in 191 A.D., they kidnapped him and threatened to kill him if he did not stop writing. When they discovered that he continued writing the ''Deipnosophistae'', twenty-three men stormed into his home and strangled him to death. It is unclear whether Athenaeus finished his work on his own or Timocrates finished it for him, as most of the Athenaeum is lost.
[
"Athenaeus." LacusCurtius •. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Oct. 2016.
]
First patents
Athenaeus described what may be considered the first
patent
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...
s (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
Sybaris ( grc, Σύβαρις; it, Sibari) was an important city of Magna Graecia. It was situated in modern Calabria, in southern Italy, between two rivers, the Crathis (Crati) and the Sybaris (Coscile).
The city was founded in 720 BC ...
(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.
[M. Frumkin]
"The Origin of Patents"
Journal of the Patent Office Society, March 1945, Vol. XXVII, No. 3, pp 143 et Seq.
See also
*
Swallow song of Rhodes
References
Further reading
* David Braund and John Wilkins (eds.), ''Athenaeus and his world: reading Greek culture in the Roman Empire'', Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2000. .
* Christian Jacob, ''The Web of Athenaeus'', (Hellenic studies, 61), Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies at Harvard University, 2013.
External links
Digital Athenaeus Project- University of Leipzig
Digital Athenaeus - Casaubon-Kaibel reference converter*
*
*
*
The Deipnosophists', translated by C. D. Yonge, a
The Literature Collection*
', translation of books 11–15 with links to Greek original, a
attalus.org*
', translated up to Book 9 with links to complete Greek original, a
*
The Deipnosophists', open source XML version by the University of Leipzig, at Open Greek & Latin Project
{{DEFAULTSORT:Athenaeus
Ancient Greek writers
Ancient Greek food writers
Ancient Greek essayists
Ancient Roman antiquarians
2nd-century Egyptian people
Naucratians
Ancient Egyptian writers
2nd-century births
3rd-century deaths
Quotation collectors
Ancient Greek grammarians
Ancient Greek rhetoricians
3rd-century writers