We know little about the historical Athenaeus except that he was born in the Egyptian city of Naucratis. The Suda reports that he lived (less likely « was » born) in the time of the emperor Marcus Aurelius (reigned 161 — 180 CE; cf. 1.2c), although The Learned Banqueters itself refers more often — and in a consistently faborable fashion — to Hadrian (reigned 117 — 138 CE). The latest reference to external events in the text (12.537f) is to Commodus (reigned 180 — 192 CE), who appears no longer to be alive, and the general consensus today is that the work was composed (or at least completed) early in the reign of Septimus Severus (reigned 193 — 211 CE). At 7.211a, one of the dinner guests refers to a history of the kings of Syria written by « our companion Athenaeus » (FGrH 166 F1), and the author in question may well be the historical Athenaeus, not just the fictional character who shares his name. The work is otherwise lost.
Larensius, who hosts the party (or series of parties) described in The Learned Banqueters, is said at 1.2c to have been given substantial responsibility for religious matters by Marcus Aurelius, and claims at 9.398e to have been appointed procurator (governor) of Moesia by « the lord emperor » (i.e. Commodus?). Larensius speaks on only a few occasions in the Learned Banqueters, but Athenaeus lavishes praise on him at the beginning of the text not just for his learning but for his hospitality and the size of his library (1.2b-3f). That Larensius represents a real person is made likely by the presence of the cognomen Larensis in CIL 6.212, an epitaph for L. Livius Larensis, who is said only to have been a pontifex minor, with no mention of the more important and prestigious procuratorship, strongly suggesting that he is a different member of the family. The most likely conclusion whould seem to be that the historical Larensis was the historical Athenaeus’ friend and patron; that the elaborate praise at 1.3c-d of the character Larensius’ hospitality, and in particular his ability to make men from other cities feel that Rome was their home, represents a heartfelt expression of thanks for the historical Athenaeus’ own experiences in Larensis’ house; and that much of the research for the The learned Banqueters was carried out in Larensis’ personal library. If Athenaeus’ history of the kings of Syria was not produced there as well, it may have been the work that attracted Larensis’ attention to him and introduced him into a sophisticated Roman cultural and literary circle dominated by Greek expatriates.
The learned Banqueters is a sprawling and oddly structured work, whose sheer mass regularly threatens to overwhelm its modest literary pretensions. But as C. B. Gulick, the original Loeb editor, noted long ago, it is also « in some respects… the most important work of later antiquity. » Athenaeus quotes over 1000 authors and over 1000 lines of verse, many of them known from no other source. We are particularly indebted to him for 100s of fragments of the tragic and comic poets; for numerous, frequently substantial excerpts from lost historians; for what appear to be extended citations from several Hellenistic scholarly treatises on Homer; and for everything we know of authors as diverse as Archestratus of Gela, Lyceus of Samos, and Agallis of Corcyra. Had The learned Banqueters not survived, our knowledge of classical Greek literature and its reception in the Hellenistic and Roman periods would have been immensely poorer; and whatever the work’s other virtues or failings, it represents an extraordinary trove of texts and authors that would otherwise have perished entirely.
Like the Platonic dialogues it imitates (1.2a with n.), The learned Banqueters features action on two basic narrative levels. The first (which frames the second) is a conversation between Timocrates, who has heard rumors of a brilliant dinner party and would like to learn more, and a character named Athenaeus, who was present at the events in question. The second level is an account of the banquet itself, and although the character Athenaeus mostly quotes the other guests directly, he also describes in his own words what was served, how the company reacted to their companions’ speeches, and the like. The most outspoken guest is the grammarian Ulpian of Tyre, who is the symposiarch and plays the provocateur, posing questions for the other guests, evaluating their answers, responding to their claims and queries, and generally dominating the conversation. His constant interlocutor and intellectual rival is the sharp-tongued Cynic philosopher Theodorus, reffered to throughout as Cynulcus and only identified by his proper name at 15.669e (cf. 15.692b). After they are introduced at 1.1d-e, both men are characterized primarily via the brief remarks that begin and end their speeches; otherwise, they serve as little more than vehivles for long strings of quotations, anecdotes, and catalogues.
19 other quests are reffered to by name at one point or another in The Learned Banqueters. These men generally make fewer and shorter speeches, many appropriate to their individual interests; musicians commonly discuss music, for example, while physicians quote medical texts. Among the physicians is Galen of Pergamum, who is identified as a prolific author and must stand in somehow for the historical individual of the same name and city, who was born in 129 CE and survived into the reign of Septimius Severus. If Athenaeus and Larensius also represent real people (above). it becomes tempting to try to discover other historical individuals mentioned or at least alluded to within the company. At 15.686c, the narrator reports that Ulpian died peacefully shortly after the party descrived in The Learned Banqueters was over. Kaibel arqued that this ought to be understood as a reference to the death of the famous jurist Ulpian of Tyre in 228 CE, and went on to suggest that a number of other dinner guests stand in for famous men from a variety of periods: the grammarian Plutarch of Alexandria is really the philosopher Pultarch of Chaeroneia (c. 50 — 120 CE); the philosopher Philadelphus of Ptolemais is really the Egyptian king Ptolemy Philadelphus (reigned 282 — 246 BCE); the physicians Daphnus of Ephesus and Rufinus of Nicaea combine to suggest the physician Rufus of Ephesus (late 1st century CE); the jurist, poet, and musician Masurius is really the jurist Masurius Sabinus (early 1st century CE); the philosopher Democritus of Nicomedia represents the atomist philosopher Democritus of Abdera (5th century BCE); and so forth. These identifications are far more tenuous than the ones discussed above, and require that the dinner party be made up of guests from different historical periods, depriving it of much of its nominally realistic character. Nor is Kaibel’s identification of Athenaeus’ Ulpian with the historical Ulpian of Tyre — the idea that serves as the linchpin of his argument — compelling, for the Ulpian of The learned Banqueters is a grammarian rather than a jurist; the historical Ulpian did not die happily, but was executed, and not at the end of the 2nd century but a generation later; and if Athenaeus’ Ulpian represents a real person, it is most likely another, older member of the family. Nor does Kaibel’s theory add much to our appreciation of the text; and while it is possible that the meners of Larensis’ intellectual and social circle would have recognized allusion to their friends, contemporaries, and predecessors in Athenaeus’ patently over-the-top recollection of the many (doubtless often brilliant and fascinating) dinner parties they attended together, we can no longer do the same with any degree of assurance.
The Learned Banqueters is, among other things, the tale of an extraordinarily extravagant dinner and drinking party, and a rough framework for the second level of the narrative is provided by the normal order of events on such occasions: dishes and accessories come and go in something approximating the normal order; washing-water is poured over the guests’ hands, and wine distributed at the proper times; and the cook interrupts occasionally with announcements and banter. But Athenaeus’ narrative pays less attention to the dinner itself than to the discussion that springs from and accompanies it. Plato’s Socrates (Prt. 347c — 8a) insistes that educated men have no need of pipegirls or the like at their symposia, since they can entertain themselves with conversation; and the guests at Larensius’ dinner party are indeed relentless talkers. Better than that, they are capable of stringing together long series of poetic fragments that touch on obscure topics, quoting extensive passages of prose, and knowing where rare words can be found — all seemingly off the top of their heads. By Athenaeus’ time, the type of literary symposia in which the author’s attention focussed more on the conversation than the food was a well-established genre. Plato and Xenophon each produced one; Athenaeus, quoting Herodicus, makes numerous reference to a Symposium by Epicurus, in which philosophical topics were descussed; and his rough contemporary Lucian wrote a Symposium or Lapiths that tells the story of a learned — if quarrelsome — wedding feast, at which the guests quote a considerable quantity of literature. But perhaps the most striking parallel to Athenaeus’ description of Larensius’ dinner party is the fragment of the letter of Parmeniscus (1st century BCE or later) preserved at 4.156b — 7d, 157f — 8a. Parmeniscus addresses a certain Molpis and describes a dinner he attended but Molpis did not. The other guests are half-dozen Cynic philosophers, including a Cynic Master (Kunoulkos), who are joined by a pair of courtesans. The meal is simple, but Parmeniscus is in any case more concerned to report the conversation, which was sparked by arrival (or failure to arrive) of various menu items. Most of the discussion consists of quotations or parodies thereof from tragic and lyric poetry or from various philosopers and historians. The Cynics are learned and witty, if unintentionally comic, while the courtesans are raucously abusive, but no less well-versed in literature than their hosts. Although Athenaeus was certainly working within the broad literary tradition defined by Plato and Xenophon, therefore, he also had more specific models, now mostly lost; and his great innovation was perhaps simply to extend the form to enormous length.
The Learned Banqueters consists of 15 books, which cover an immense range of topics, often in a seemingly unorganized way. The narrator initially appears to be describing a single great meal (1.2a) and, as noted above, this provides a fundamental structuring device for the text as a whole; but it gradually becomes clear that conversations at a whole series of banquets are being reported. In addition, notices at a number of points in the manuscripts tell us that « this is the end of (e.g.) number five and the beginning of (e.g.) number six of the division into 30. » Kaibel took all these peculiarities to mean that The Learned Banqueters was originally much longer than it is now, and that what has been passed down to us is a crudely truncated version of the text. As Rodríguez-Noriega Guillén has shown, however, this is unlikely to be true. The text preserved for us is carefully divided into 15 units, which routinely begin and end with a framing dialogue between the narrator Athenaeus and Timocratesl the oddictes and obscurities to which Kaibel pointed are better explained as a consequenceof the author’s haphazard narrative style; and the « division into 30 » must represent an early stage in the history of the text, when it occupied 30 scrolls, each containing about half a book.
The Learned Banqueters we have is thus most likely the text Athenaeus produced, and the fact that it consists of an extraordinary jumble of material raises the vexed problem of the author’s sources. Athenaeus quotes thousands of different works, but it is unclear whether he knew them all at first hand or has simply taken over his citations from other, earlier scholarly treatises. Larensis’ library was apparently substantial — although certainly not as substantial as Athenaeus claims (1.3a) — but it is difficult to believe that complete copies of e.g. the plays of the early Athenian comic poets or the mimes of Sophron were available in Rome at the end of the 2nd century CE. In addition, Athenaeus certainly quotes at length and without attribution from Hellenistic scholarship at several points (e.g. 1.8e — 11b; 5.215c — 18e), while at others he appears to be moving back and forth between two or more unacknowledged sources (e.g. 5.185f — 6d). Most likely, therefore, The Learned Banqueters is heavily dependent on the work of earlier scholars, even if it has been enriched by Athnaeus’ own reading. Close attention to individual passages shoud allow more progress to be made on this question.
The Characters
- Athenaeus the narrator; also a guest at the dinner party
- Timocrates Athenaeus’ interlocutor
- Aemilianus Maurus grammarian
- Alceides of Alexandria musician
- Amoebeus citharode
- Arrian grammarian
- Cynulcus Cynic philosopher whose given name is Theodorus
- Daphnus of Ephesus physician
- Democritus of Nicomedia philosopher
- Dionysocles physician
- Galen of Pergamum physician
- Larensius Roman official and also host of the party
- Leonidas of Elis grammarian
- Magnus
- Masurius juriste, poet, musician
- Myrtilus of Thessaly grammarian
- Palamedes the Eleatic lexicographer
- Philadelphus of Ptolemais philosopher
- Plutarch of Alexandria grammarian
- Pntianus of Nicomedia philosopher
- Rufinus of Nicaea physician
- Ulpian of Tyre grammarian and also symposiarch
- Varus grammarian
- Zolus grammarian
