Athenaeus of Naucratis

Athenaeus was born in Naucratis, the old Greek trading colony in the Nile Delta, probably in the late second century AD. He lived in Rome and was part of the circle of the wealthy patron Larensius, whose dinner parties provided the literary frame for his great work.

The Deipnosophistae (Dinner-Table Philosophers or Scholars at Dinner) is a vast work — originally thirty books, of which fifteen survive substantially — structured as a series of conversations at a banquet. The guests, all learned men, discuss everything connected with dining: food, wine, music, games, courtesans, tableware, garlands, riddles, and the literary and historical associations of each. The result is the most extraordinary miscellany to survive from antiquity.

Athenaeus quotes from approximately 1,500 authors, of whom about 700 are known only through his citations. He preserves fragments of lost comedies, drinking songs, cookbooks, historical works, and philosophical treatises that would otherwise have vanished entirely. The Deipnosophistae is not easy reading — it is digressive, repetitive, and sometimes chaotic — but for the study of ancient daily life and lost literature, it is irreplaceable.