Deipnosophistae

It is a long work of literary, historical, and antiquarian references set in Rome at a series of banquets held by the protagonist Publius Livius Larensis [de] for an assembly of grammarians, lexicographers, jurists, musicians, and hangers-on.

It and its English derivative deipnosophists[1] thus describe people who are skilled at dining, particularly the refined conversation expected to accompany Greek symposia.

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 scholar and wealthy patron of the arts.

Among the numerous guests,[6] Masurius, Zoilus, Democritus, Galen, Ulpian and Plutarch are named, but most are probably to be taken as fictitious personages,[7] and the majority take little or no part in the conversation.

Prosopographical investigation, however, has shown the possibility of identifying several guests with real persons from other sources;[8] the Ulpian in the dialog has also been linked to the renowned jurist's father.

Food and wine, luxury, music, sexual mores, literary gossip and philology are among the major topics of discussion, and the stories behind many artworks such as the Venus Kallipygos are also transmitted in its pages.

This includes Aemilian of Mauretania, Alcides of Alexandria, Amoebeus, Arrian, Cynulcus, Daphnus of Ephesus, Democritus of Nicomedia, Dionysocles, Galen of Pergamum, Larensius, Leonides of Elis, Magnus, Masurius, Myrtilus of Thessaly, Palamedes the Eleatic, Philadelphus of Ptolemais, Plutarch of Alexandria, Pontian of Nicomedia, Rufinus of Nicaea, Ulpian of Tyre, Varus, and Zoilus.

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.