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Athenaeus of Naucratis (/ˌæθəˈnəs/; Ancient Greek: Ἀθήναιος Nαυκρατίτης or Nαυκράτιος, Athēnaios Naukratitēs or Naukratios; Latin: Athenaeus Naucratita) was a Greek rhetorician and grammarian, flourishing about the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 3rd century AD. The Suda says only that he lived in the times of Marcus Aurelius, but the contempt with which he speaks of Commodus, who died in 192, shows that he survived that emperor.

Several of his publications are lost, but the fifteen volume Deipnosophistae mostly survives.


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 works are lost.

The Deipnosophistes belongs to the literary tradition inspired by the use of the Greek banquet. Banqueters playing Kottabos while a musician plays the Aulos, decorated by the artist 'Nicias'/'Nikias'

The Deipnosophistae[edit]

The Deipnosophistae, which mean "dinner-table philosophers" or perhaps "authorities on banquets", survives in fifteen books. The first two books, and parts of the third, eleventh and fifteenth, are extant only in epitome, but otherwise the work seems to be entire. It is an immense store-house of information, chiefly on matters connected with dining, but also containing remarks on music, songs, dances, games, courtesans, and luxury. Nearly 800 writers and 2500 separate works are referred to by Athenaeus; one of his characters (not necessarily to be identified with the historical author himself) boasts of having read 800 plays of Athenian Middle Comedy alone. Were it not for Athenaeus, much valuable information about the ancient world would be missing, and many ancient Greek authors such as Archestratus would be almost entirely unknown. Book XIII, for example, is an important source for the study of sexuality in classical and Hellenistic Greece.


The twenty-four named guests[1] include individuals called Galen and Ulpian, but they are all probably fictitious personages, and the majority take no part in the conversation. If the character Ulpian is identical with the famous jurist, the Deipnosophistae may have been written after his death in 223; but the jurist was murdered by the Praetorian Guard, whereas Ulpian in Athenaeus dies a natural death.

The complete version of the text, with the gaps noted above, is preserved in only one manuscript, conventionally referred to as A. The epitomized version of the text is preserved in two manuscripts, conventionally known as C and E. The standard edition of the text is Kaibel's Teubner. The standard numbering is drawn largely from Casaubon.

The encyclopaedist and author Sir Thomas Browne wrote a short essay upon Athenaeus[2] which reflects a revived interest in the Banquet of the Learned amongst scholars during the 17th century following its publication in 1612 by the Classical scholar Isaac Casaubon.

First patents[edit]

Athenaeus described what may be considered the first patents (i.e. exclusive right granted by a government to an inventor to practice his/her invention in exchange for disclosure of the invention). He mentions that in 500 BC, in the Greek city of Sybaris (located in what is now southern Italy), there were annual culinary competitions. The victor was given the exclusive right to prepare his dish for one year.[3]


  1. ^ Kaibel, Georg (1890). Athenaei Naucratitae Dipnosophistarum Libri XV, Vol. 3. Leipzig: Teubner. pp. 561–564. 
  2. ^ Sir Thomas Browne, From a Reading of Athenaeus

Further reading[edit]

  • Athenaeus and his world: reading Greek culture in the Roman Empire ed. David Braund and John Wilkins. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2000. ISBN 0-85989-661-7.

External links[edit]