Most classical scholars are familiar with the Deipnosophists (or Learned Banqueters) of Athenaeus of Naucratis because it represents an invaluable treasure trove of lost Greek prose and poetry. But this tantalising work is much more than a simple repertoire of fragments. In the foreword to The Web of Athenaeus (2013) C. Jacob recalls the vastity of the material included in Athenaeus’ work: ‘The 15 books of the Deipnosophists are indeed a textual, a scholarly, an antiquarian ocean, and the reader feels disorientated, lost, and puzzled by such a vast and unknown space whose mapping and survey seem out of reach’. The publication of Athenaeus and his World, edited by D. Braund and J. Wilkins (2000), has changed scholarly approaches to the Deipnosophists, and interest has shifted from the quotations to the work as a whole. The two-volume book under review is not simply an edition with French translation of Athenaeus’ Book 14, but it also represents a big leap forward in the attempt to grasp the author's elusiveness, to understand his project and to contextualise the cultural milieu where the book was composed.
Book 14 was chosen among the fifteen books of Athenaeus for two main reasons: there was no modern annotated French translation of this book, and the miscellaneous nature of Book 14 was particularly apt for a multidisciplinary effort that brought together historians, classicists and archaeologists. The two volumes that make up this work are at first sight heterogeneous, but their editorial history neatly explains the nature of the enterprise. Vol. 1 includes a preface, a ‘Notice’ that offers an overview on the project's history and an introduction to the work, the Greek text with apparatus criticus, a facing French translation with brief bottom-of-page footnotes, followed by an extensive commentary (170 pages in small print). The footnotes that feature below the translation and those included in the commentary have a continuous numeration in the style of the Budé series. A list of ancient authors and a dossier of images close the first volume. Vol. 2 is a collection of essays on a variety of topics, ranging from the author's biography to ancient dance and food. An extensive bibliography rounds off the two volumes. Let us begin with some remarks on vol. 1.
The project represents a collective effort that began in 2006 at the University of Toulouse–Jean Jaurès. The translation was initially based on G. Kaibel's Greek text and represents a truly collective work. The Greek text, prepared in the first place by M. Papathomopoulos, closely follows the main manuscript of the Deipnosophists, namely the Marcianus graecus 447, familiar to Classicists as Athenaeus’ A, written between 895 and 917 by John the Calligrapher. At the time of Papathomopoulos's death in April 2011, the work on the edition was almost complete. Both the Greek text and the apparatus were revised first by J.-C. Carrière and then by É. Foulon in 2014. The commentary was written between 2012 and 2014 by Carrière, using the notes that the whole team drafted while reading and translating Book 14. The studies that appear in vol. 2 were written between 2014 and 2017. In 2017, when the work was ready to be submitted, a change of publisher compelled the general editor Rougier-Blanc to rethink the whole project, and the two volumes eventually appeared in 2018 in the Scripta Antiqua series of Ausonius Éditions.
It is an odd coincidence that in 2019 De Gruyter started to publish S.D. Olson's new Teubner edition of Athenaeus: the first volume to be published was 4 (Books 12–15), followed in 2020 by volume 3 (Books 8–11), and volume 2 (Books 3.74–7) is planned for 2022. This is not the place to compare these two editions (a useful review was published by T. Dorandi in RFIC 148 [2020], 506–14). The French edition under review was not taken into account by Olson for obvious chronological reasons.
The ‘Notice’ includes information on the Greek text of Book 14. The editors have chosen to present a text as close as possible to MS A, thus avoiding the difficult and perhaps fruitless task of reconstructing not only the text of Athenaeus, but also the text of the authors quoted by Athenaeus. This is similar to Olson's stated purpose, even though he went a step further and attempted ‘to reconstruct what the common ancestor of A and the Epitome manuscripts may have read’ (see his praefatio to vol. 4, pp. vii–viii, as well as Dorandi's reservations on this point). Moreover, the editors have included fifteen conjectures from two apographs of A (listed in nn. 9 and 10) and have retained the ‘bonnes leçons’ of the Epitome (pp. 14–15).
The apparatus is comprehensive and offers much information on MS readings and modern conjectures, especially on those not accepted in the text. The editors have not succumbed to the temptation of correcting too many particles or adding too many definite articles: their approach is generally conservative and in line with their initial declaration on the dependence on MS A. This does not mean that they have not relied at times on the conjectures of previous scholars, and the names of Casaubon, Schweighäuser, Meineke, Kaibel, Wilamowitz and others often feature in the apparatus. However, an example that happens to be familiar to this reviewer shows that relying on modern corrections of A is sometimes not the best way forward. At 620b–d Athenaeus discusses ancient rhapsodes and poetic performances. These quotations of poetic performances in theatres and other stage settings end with a reference to performances of Hesiodic and Homeric poetry by comic actors in the theatre in Alexandria. The text printed on p. 58 is: Ἰάσων δ᾽ ἐν τρίτῳ Περὶ τῶν Ἀλεξάνδρου ἱερῶν ἐν Ἀλεξανδρείᾳ φησίν, ἐν τῷ μεγάλῳ θεάτρῳ, ὑποκρίνασθαι Ἡγησίαν τὸν κωμῳδὸν τὰ Ἡσιόδου, Ἑρμόφαντον δὲ τὰ Ὁμήρου. However, τὰ Ἡσιόδου is a modern correction, while MS A and the MSS of the Epitome all have τὰ Ἡροδότου, as promptly signalled in the apparatus: I have ventured elsewhere to demonstrate that this reading should be retained (JHS 139 [2019], 83–93). My position was independently confirmed by Olson who, despite printing τὰ Ἡσιόδου in his Loeb edition (2011), retained τὰ Ἡροδότου in his 2019 Teubner. Had the French editors preserved the reading of the MSS, they would have had the chance to discuss an outstanding testimony on the reception of Homeric poetry and Herodotus’ Histories in the Hellenistic age. Instead, the commentary makes no reference to Hesiodic, Homeric or Herodotean performances in Alexandria. Moreover, in the same passage, the author who reported the story on Herodotean and Homeric theatrical performances is a certain Jason. Footnote 187 informs us that this is Jason of Nysa, no. 632 in Jacoby's FGrHist. However, other hypotheses have been put forward since Jacoby's edition, especially because there is another homonymous Jason from Argos, included in the Suda ι 53 (cf. P. Zaccaria, RSA 49 [2019], 7–23).
It would be unfair to criticise an extremely rich and extensive commentary on Athenaeus’ Book 14 by focusing on a single passage. In general, the level of detail of the commentary is outstanding and covers many different fields. It will provide students and scholars with the tools for a better understanding of the text and the necessary references for further research. The collaborative nature of the project is here at its best: a single commentator would never have been able to produce a work of this size and accuracy.
I am not a native French speaker, but I found the translation smooth and readable, and it also seems to adhere well to the Greek text. It will offer Classicists further guidance in interpreting the text; for those unfamiliar with Greek, this French translation will be a reliable one. The typesetting and layout should also be highlighted. The editors have followed the example of A.M. Desrousseaux's Budé edition of Books 1–2 and used bold for Athenaeus’ own words (narrative sections), italics for ad litteram quotations and normal font for paraphrases, summaries, allusions and other forms of indirect quotations. The names of the banqueters are underlined, while ancient authorities are marked with small caps. Poetic quotations are separated from the main text and follow verse division. A table on page 25 offers a guide to the typographical disposition of the translation. Such useful expedients will be of great aid to readers. Moreover, both translation and commentary include headings with titles for different sections of the book (for example ‘Rhapsodes et artistes de banquet ou de scène’, ‘La musique et son rôle’ etc.): a list of these sections at the end of the ‘Notice’ would have been helpful to navigate the text with more ease.
Vol. 2 consists of different sections by various authors. Carrière dedicates a long study – almost a monograph in itself – to Athenaeus and his work. He starts by considering the historicity of the characters mentioned in the Deipnosophists and their role in the fictional setting of the banquet (pp. 452–91). He discusses the possible connections between the banqueters Oulpianos, Galenos, Larensios and Ploutarchos, and the historical homonymous characters: the jurist Ulpian, the physician Galen of Pergamon, the wealthy bilingual Roman Larensius and the learned Plutarch of Chaeronea. A very useful part is the detailed analysis of Athenaeus’ life or at least of what we can speculate about his life. He convincingly supposes that Athenaeus was a grammarian in the ancient understanding of the word γραμματικός, i.e. a scholar whose tasks included the correction, evaluation and elucidation of ancient prose and poetry works, especially Homer. His skills were not limited to those of the grammarian: he was evidently a connoisseur of rhetoric and literary criticism. His outstanding learning is displayed throughout his work, and he certainly had access to many books: even the fictional participants in the banquet recall at various stages stacks of books at their disposal (1.4b, 7.277b–c, 8.331b–c, quoted on p. 453). Carrière thoroughly studies every hint in the Deipnosophists that may offer a clue on the relative chronology of Athenaeus’ life. After a careful analysis he concludes that Athenaeus was born around 155–160 ce, completed his most important work between around 218 and 225, and died at some point during the reign of Severus Alexander between 222 and 235 (pp. 492–5). A subsection on the negative picture of Alexander the Great in Book 12 offers a starting point to consider the images of the emperors in the Deipnosophists, which introduces an instructive chapter on cultural politics and restoration of moral values under the Severan dynasty (pp. 517–36). The painstaking examination of Athenaeus’ contemporaries, both those mentioned and those not mentioned in the Deipnosophists, is extremely valuable to anyone interested in the author's cultural milieu and his literary choices (pp. 536–61). Finally, Carrière considers the cities where Athenaeus lived and operated (Naucratis, Alexandria, Athens, Rome) and their cultural significance in the Severan age (pp. 561–86). From Athenaeus’ perspective the culture of the Roman empire has a double, contradictory nature: on the one hand, the praise of the Graeco-Roman empire, its political order, the peace within its borders and the prosperity of its cities; on the other hand, a fierce critique of luxury (τρυφή, sometimes wrongly spelled τρύφη), which culminates in Book 6 and is inspired by the Stoic philosopher Posidonius.
This contradiction is considered from both the individual and the collective points of view in a tension between the ancient literary and philosophical traditions and the new religious trends. Even though Christianity is absent from Athenaeus’ Deipnosophists, Carrière convincingly shows that we need to consider its implications in a wider cultural, educational and historical discourse. Two appendices (one including a list of the Seleucid kings mentioned by Athenaeus, another on the length and book division of the Deipnosophists) complete this thorough study of Athenaeus, his work and his time. Carrière's piece will certainly become a reference work not only for those interested in Athenaeus as an author, but also for those using his work as a source for lost literary works.
The rest of the volume focuses on Book 14 and represents almost a continuation of the commentary. Rougier-Blanc deals with Athenaeus’ use of Homer and other archaic poetry in a well-structured piece; B. Louyest discusses Athenaeus’ lists of words and his relationship to ancient lexicography; V. Visa-Ondarçuhu considers the pyrrhic dance as well as other war dances; A. Ballabriga discusses the phallophoroi and other comic elements; L. Romeri focuses on culinary art as a prominent feature of culture and civilisation; and J.-M. Luce deals extensively with cakes.
Typesetting is generally careful, but there are some oddities and a few misspellings, which are understandable in an 800-page work, for example on p. 38 in the apparatus there is a reference to a P. Berol., but I have struggled to find more information on this papyrus; elisions such as δ᾽ and ἐφ᾽ often look like acute accents, thus making the particle δέ look like a numeral (δ´); Progymnasta for Progymnasmata appears repeatedly in Carrière's chapter; ἀρθμουμένας for ἀριθμουμένας on p. 514; footnotes 29 and 30 have been misplaced on p. 602; on p. 663 only Bonelli's edition of Timaeus’ Platonic lexicon is quoted, while another recent edition should have been cited as well: S. Valente, I lessici a Platone di Timeo Sofista e Pseudo-Didimo (2012). The lack of indexes is regrettable, but these would probably have taken up too many pages.
This is a truly outstanding book on an author that has usually been exploited only for the citations of older Greek poetry and prose, and whose role in the Second Sophistic movement has often been neglected. Now we have a detailed study of Book 14: the extensive commentary and the chapters that form vol. 2 will be of great service to many scholars dealing with this complex and elusive author. As Carrière remarks, the work represents a geographical periegesis of dishes and words related to food, but at the same time it is a historical document on culinary and literary traditions (p. 522). Anyone interested in the broader field of cultural history of antiquity will now have a useful tool to approach Athenaeus’ Deipnosophists and to navigate the waters of this ‘antiquarian ocean’.
