ATHENAEUS  , of

Naucratis in Egypt, Greek rhetorician and grammarian, flourished about the end of the 2nd and the beginningof the 3rd century A.D . Suidas only tells us that he lived " in the times of Marcus "; but the contempt with which he speaks of Commodus (died 192) shows that he survived that emperor . Athenaeus himself states that he was the author of a treatise on the thratta—a kind of fish mentioned by Archippus and other comic poets—and of a history of the Syrian kings, both of which works are lost . We still possess the Deipnosophistae, which may mean dinner-table philosophers or authorities on banquets, in fifteen books . The first two books, and parts of the third, eleventh and fifteenth, are only extant in epitome, but otherwise we seem to possess the work entire . It is an immenSe store-house of miscellaneous information, chiefly on matters connected with the table, but also containing remarks on music, songs, dances, games, courtesans . It is full of quotations from writers whose works have not come down to us; nearly 800 writers and 2500 separate writings are referred to by Athenaeus; and he boasts of having read 800 plays of the Middle Comedy alone . The plan of the Deipnosophistae is exceedingly cumbrous, and is badly carried out . It professes to be an account given by the author to his friend Timocrates of a banquet held at the house of Laurentius (or Larentius), a scholar and wealthy patron of art . It is thus a dialogue within a dialogue, after the manner of Plato, but a conversation of sufficient length to occupy several days (though represented as taking place in one) could not be conveyed in a style similar to the short conversations of Socrates . Among the twenty-nine guests are Galen and Ulpian, but they are all probably fictitious personages, and the majority take no part in the conversation . If Ulpian is identical with the famous, jurist, the Deipnosophistae must have been written after his death (228); but the jurist was murdered by the praetorian guards, whereas Ulpian in Athenaeus dies a natural death .

The conversation ranges from the dishes before the guests to

literary matters of every description, including points of grammar and criticism; and they are expected to bring with them extracts from the poets, which are read aloud and discussed at table . The whole is but a clumsy apparatus for displaying the varied and extensive reading of the author . As a work of art it can take but a low rank, but as a repertory of fragments and morsels, of information it is invaluable . Editio princeps, Aldine, 1524; Casaubon, 1597–1600; Schweighauser, 1801–1807; Dindorf, 1827; Meineke, 1859–1867; Kaibel, 1887-189o; English translation by Yonge in Bohn's Classical Library .