This is the html version of the file http://130.102.44.245/journals/american_journal_of_philology/v133/133.3.paulas.pdf.Google automatically generates html versions of documents as we crawl the web.
Abstract. scholarly interest in the literary aspects of Athenaeus’ Deipnosophistshas increased greatly over the last decade, but little analysis proceeds from theperspective of the reader. This article seeks to redress that situation by showinghow “readerly” engagement involving inter- and intratext renders Athenaeus’ textboth meaningful and pleasurable to read. I analyze the text as a dramatization ofacts of reading inter- and intratextually. such reading broadly employs symbol-ism and symbolic language. Understanding this way of reading and its rhetoricenables modern readers to see the Deipnosophists as a literary work rather thanmerely a repository of knowledge.IT COMES AS LITTLE SURPRISE that dismissive criticism of Athenaeus’literary effort is to be found in a collection that resembles his sprawlingwork but lacks its literary aspirations. At the turn of the twentieth century,Charles dudley warner, Mark Twain’s co-author of the Gilded Age, editeda forty-six volume collection of excerpts from hundreds of authors entitledthe Library of the World’s Best Literature. Between selections from thenow obscure master of english prose Roger Ascham and the swedishlyric poet and intellectual Per daniel Amadeus Atterbom, warner et al.thought it appropriate to include some selections from Athenaeus with anunsigned critical introduction. one might suspect that Paul shorey wroteit, given his involvement in the project, his inimitable style and an oddreference in the entry to similarities between Athenaeus’ text and Hor-ace’s œuvre. But the fact that it is impossible to tell who wrote the entryis meaningful in itself. shorey’s authorship of the entries on Aristophanes,Lucretius, and Plato is boldly proclaimed at their beginnings. His entryon Aristophanes is even autographed. For Athenaeus, the anonymousauthor can offer only lukewarm praise (warner 1896, vol. 2, 926):But if [Athenaeus] heaps up vast piles of scholastic rubbish, he is alsothe Golden dustman who shows us the treasure preserved by his savingpedantry. scholars find the “Feast of the Learned” a quarry of quotationsfrom classical writers whose works have perished. nearly eight hundredwriters and twenty-four hundred separate writings are referred to and cited
Page 2404JoHn PAULAs1The nineteenth century featured sporadic Quellenforschung battles over Athenaeus’sources, Rudolph’s 1891 polemical writings being the most important. The first half of thetwentieth century was peppered with interest in Athenaeus. Most important are the analysesof Mengis 1920 and düring 1936. The analysis of Athenaeus’ text began again in earnestwith Zecchini’s 1989 monograph, which focused primarily on Athenaeus’ relationship toHellenistic cultural historiography but also reconstructed a scholarly context for the work.Anderson’s 1997 contextualization of Athenaeus in the “second sophistic” provides anexcellent backdrop for the work. The work of Lukinovich 1983, 1985, and 1990 broke groundin sympotic, philosophical, and literary theoretical approaches to Athenaeus. In 2000 theresults of a conference on Athenaeus were published by Braund and wilkins. In 2001, Jacoboffered lengthy introductory comments to an Italian translation of the Deipnosophists inwhich he set forth a complex, postmodern view of Athenaeus’ text.More recently, another volume, the result of a 2005 conference, was edited by Len-fant 2007. In this volume, we see detailed analyses with a special emphasis on Athenaeus’use of the work of historians, though non-historical authors such as Plato and Homer arealso considered. This collection reflects the interest of european ancient historians in Ath-enaeus’ work for its preservation of large sections of Hellenistic histories. In the Unitedstates, Gorman and Gorman 2007 have offered insightful analyses of the Athenaeus’ viewson truphe\ (luxury) from a historical perspective. Along these lines, scholars interested inancient foodways, such as dalby, esp. 1996, have excellent observations on Athenaeus’ text.scholars of ancient comedy, of course, take Athenaeus very seriously. of that group,
olson 2006–12 has recently completed a new Loeb translation of Athenaeus. His intro-duction in the first volume of the set provides an accessible english-language overview ofAthenaeus’ text.wilkins, e.g., 2000a, 2000b, 2007, 2008, approaches the Deipnosophists from manydifferent angles comic, sympotic, and cultural-historical, and always with great care notsimply to mine Athenaeus’ text. The same care is found in McClure’s 2003 unique andimportant study of gender and literary culture in Book 13 of the Deipnosophists. Romeri’s2002, 2003, 2004, and 2007 comparative studies of Athenaeus’ engagement with Plato andhis ideas have maintained an interest in developing Athenaeus’ broader intellectual out-look. Athenaean studies now demand more detailed work such as Louyest’s 2009 Frenchtranslation of and commentary on Books 6 and 7, which also offers a fine introduction toscholarship on Athenaeus’ work.in this disorderly encyclopædia, most of them now lost and forgotten. Thisliterary thrift will always give rank to the work of Athenaeus, poor as it is.This assessment rehearses in usual form a topos that has developedconcerning Athenaeus’ monstrous tour de force of literary exuberance:Athenaeus’ Deipnosophists has been mined for its quotations fromArchaic, Classical, and Hellenistic literature for centuries, but no one cantake it seriously as a piece of literature. The first half of the topos willalways remain the case; the texts Athenaeus quotes are too enticing notto mine. But a number of scholars have waged a campaign to undermineits second part. In the last decade, the scholarly effort spent on revital-izing or, rather, simply vitalizing Athenaeus as an author has increasedsignificantly. Tremendous strides have been made, but a strong case forreading rather than just mining Athenaeus’ text is still lacking.1
Page 3405How To ReAd ATHenAeUs’ Deipnosophists2 essential to this article is the idea that intertext and intratext are fundamentallyin the hands of the reader, though the author/text provides cues of varying degrees ofstrength. see below, n. 8.3 In Barthesian terms, Athenaeus’ text is highly scriptible.4 Iser’s ideas about textual “play” are important to my thinking. In an Iserian vein, Iwould suggest that Athenaeus’ text often demands too much of a reader’s imagination. InIser’s 1980, 51, words: “In this process of creativity, the text may either not go far enough,or may go too far, so we may say that boredom and overstrain form the boundaries beyondwhich the reader will leave the field of play.” The result: a reader quickly puts down theDeipnosophists, frustrated. For a reader-centered approach to Greek literature of theRoman period, see esp. König’s 2007, 44–45, general comments about the “active reader”of miscellanies in his work on Plutarch.
while many scholarly readings of Athenaeus’ text take into con-sideration cultural trends of the Roman empire, as well as offeringinteresting interpretations of various aspects of the composition of theDeipnosophists, these readings rarely consider seriously the sine qua nonof reading, namely, readers, both ancient and modern. on a conceptuallevel, Athenaeus’ text is still being approached by scholarship as encod-ing cultural and literary “facts.” My reading, in contrast, approaches theDeipnosophists by seeking its textuality, how it dramatizes and representsacts of reading, not how it serves to encode specific knowledge. such aconceptual shift will help us readers to view the Deipnosophists no longeras an encyclopedia or “library” with a touch of literariness and will positionus to read it as a literary text. For Athenaeus’ text to be considered worthreading for something other than its “gold dust,” there must be a wayfor readers to see what they can do with it as readers rather than miners.This article, therefore, considers how readers could and can exercisetheir imagination on Athenaeus’ text. In the following pages, I will offertechniques of reading the Deipnosophists that reflect strategies commonlyemployed by readers when they apply their imaginations to literary textsand make them meaningful for themselves. These strategies involve areader’s engagement with intertexts and intratexts.2 Indeed, as we shallsee, a strength of Athenaeus’ text is that it is as much in the hands ofits readers as any text one will encounter.3 That is to say, the text oftenbaffles readers’ attempts to make immediate sense of it and, as a result,encourages much more active participation on the part of the reader inthe processes of making meaning.4
To highlight the importance of the idea of the reader to the text, Iwill demonstrate how the Deipnosophists is a dramatization of the act ofreading, specifically, of readers performing types of intra- and intertext. Itscharacters’ rhetoric in these dramatizations of reading will be consideredsymbolic, rather than literal, and related to the acts of reading I outline.Ultimately, I will view two moments in the text as representing the types
Page 4406JoHn PAULAs5 An enigmatic passage seems to tell us that Timocrates and Athenaeus are not alone:“At these words, most (of those with Athenaeus and me?) went away and broke up themeeting without notice” (5.222b). Rodríguez-noriega Guillén 2000, 250, believes Athen-aeus is the speaker. Timocrates also seems a possible speaker because he could be givingus the account of his meetings with Athenaeus. There are three meetings of Athenaeus,Timocrates, and the others. The external narration announces that their meetings end inthe last lines of Book 5 and Book 10. The end of the last book, Book 15, marks the endof the third meeting, with Athenaeus addressing Timocrates. There is an opposing schoolof thought, originated by Mengis 1920 and revived by Hansen 2005, that sees the breaksin the text as different meetings of the deipnosophists, not of Athenaeus and Timocrates.But this position is harder to maintain convincingly.6 Jacob 2004, 165, is right to see the group as a “reading circle” because the deipno-sophists bring to the party “knapsacks,” as olson translates, full of scrolls (1.4b). TheDeipnosophists, however, are not dramatized as reading from scrolls but reciting frommemory the literature they quote.
of textual relations important to making sense of the Deipnosophists.In analyzing these passages, I will employ the terms “intratext,” “strictintertext,” and “creative intertext” to discuss different ways of relatingtexts to one another, ways that I will use in conjunction with one anotherto show how readers can understand the Deipnosophists as literature.oBsTACLes To ReAdInG THe DeipnosophistsMost likely written at the end of the second century C.E., the Deipnosoph ists dramatizes Athenaeus’ account to his friend Timocrates of thedinner party conversations of a large group of intellectuals being hostedin Rome by an illustrious Roman official named Larensius.5 The group,accordingly, has become known around town as the Deipnosophistai,the “dinner-sophists” (1.2a). The deipnosophists are intellectuals fromdiverse places in the empire and represent various fields of study, suchas medicine, music, literature, and philosophy. These intellectuals gathertogether to recite and talk about literary and scholarly representationsof dinner parties.6
The text of the Deipnosophists presents serious problems to readers.There is one obvious difficulty: the first two books of the fifteen-booklong Deipnosophists, as well as a couple of pieces of other books, surviveonly in an extensive medieval epitome. Consequently, the beginningsof the work cannot be fully known. Although the epitome is a very fullsummary, often directly quoting Athenaeus, it lacks the continuity of theoriginal text.The parts of Athenaeus’ original text that we do have present their
Page 5407How To ReAd ATHenAeUs’ Deipnosophists7 determining the source of these quotations is an element of what one might callthe “Athenaean question,” whose formulation began with the Quellenforschung impulsesof the nineteenth century: did Athenaeus read primary texts or use intermediate sourcesto get his quotations? The question is open as to what texts Athenaeus had in full and whattexts he was quoting from other sources. This article avoids that fraught question becausefor my argument it matters little how and from what sources Athenaeus composed hiswork. I am working from the perspective of the reader. Large portions of some works, e.g.,Homeric epic and certain Platonic dialogues, will likely have been available to Athenaeus’ancient readers. That fact will make a difference in the way the text can be read, as we shallsee. In other cases, we may suspect that Athenaeus’ readers would not have been able tocontextualize within their original text fragments, for example, of a particular play of thefourth-century comic poet ephippus. The strategies of reading I discuss below will alsotake into account this consideration.
own problems. Although Athenaeus’ project sounds fairly straightforward,
its execution is hardly so. The framing dialogue between Athenaeus andTimocrates is extremely spare; Timocrates hardly ever speaks. The conver-sations from Larensius’ dinner party that Athenaeus repeats to Timocratesare hardly dialogical conversations but rather long speeches punctuatedby a bit of bickering and recrimination, or even approbation. Then thereare more long speeches. on occasion, these speeches abruptly fade intoAthenaeus’ dialogue with Timocrates or vice versa, leaving readers withno clear sense of who is speaking.The content of these speeches also is bizarre to those uninitiatedinto Athenaeus’ mysteries. A speech might consist of, for example, anannotated, alphabetical catalogue of cups (Book 11) or fish (Book 7)that runs for scores of our modern pages. Furthermore, the charactersspeak mostly in fully cited quotations from the literature of the Archaic,Classical, and Hellenistic periods, literature which was to them as it is tous, ancient and very often strange.7 speeches that have a point to makedo not make an obvious, expected argument. The quotations speakers useto illustrate their points do not actually seem on the surface to illustratethem, and speakers often respond to each other by talking at cross pur-poses. All of these factors make Athenaeus’ text exceedingly difficult toread and understand. A reader, therefore, stands in need of help.InTeRTexTTo give readers a handle on the Deipnosophists, I suggest that one shouldlook to the text itself for clues as to how to read texts. To this end, I willread the Deipnosophists as a fictionalized version of the act of reading, ofmaking sense out of texts, of remembering their parts and relating them.
Page 6408JoHn PAULAs8 The literature on intertextuality is, of course, enormous, but my position is mostsympathetic to Hinds 1998. Pucci’s 1998, 28, statement about the concept “allusion” sumsup my understanding of intertext nicely: “the reader is crucial component in the best func-tion of allusion.”
That is, I take the action of the Deipnosophists as a dramatization of theact of reading, of the questions that readers ask of texts, of the compet-ing outlooks that readers face within themselves and from others, of therereading of texts, of the remembering of texts and of the choices madeby readers. In regard to these issues, it is important to define the terms Iuse to discuss the relationship between readers and texts.Intertextuality means to me simply the relationship, imagined by thereader, between Athenaeus’ and other texts.8 Two types of intertext that Iwill lineate are “strict intertext” and “creative intertext.” In the first, thecontext from which a quotation in Athenaeus’ text is taken, made quiteexplicit by Athenaeus’ frequent use of author/work citation of quotedtexts (e.g., “In the sixth book of the Laws, Plato says . . . ,” 6.264d), willserve as a source of other material that helps us make meaning in Ath-enaeus’ text. Critical to mention here is that I am not concerned withAthenaeus’ source for his text, whether it was a complete copy of Book 6of Plato’s Laws or a later collection of excerpts from Plato, but rather Iam concerned with possibility that an ancient or modern reader could andcan remember or find parts of Plato’s Laws other than the one quoted.In contrast to strict intertext, creative intertext is not bound by theprimary source text of a quotation or statement. Instead, creative intertextdescribes the reader connecting any other text by means of a commonelement that the reader imagines. Most important for Athenaeus’ text,words and their associated concepts will enable the connecting of texts.A simple form of this intertext, which I will discuss below, is dramatizedin the Deipnosophists when we find a character marshalling texts toelaborate on a phrase from comedy containing the word koro\ne\, a spe-cific type of crow. The deipnosophist will recall a variety of poems andstories related to the koro\ne\, different types of crows, and even other
birds. In doing so, the character will bring seemingly unrelated texts tobear on the reading of a source text. Creative intertext is the one mostoften dramatized in the Deipnosophists.scholars’ views of Athenaeus’ use of quotation and citation haveminimized the possibility of a fruitful use of strict intertext in readingAthenaeus’ text. McClure’s insightful paradox that Athenaeus’ text is soobsessive about stressing its relationship to ancient texts through quo-tation and citation, but at the same time decontextualizes these textual
Page 7409How To ReAd ATHenAeUs’ Deipnosophists9 In her words, “he renders [them] timeless and universal” (McClure 2003, 38).10 nesselrath 1990, 66–67, is rightly unconvinced that we can determine whether ornot Athenaeus had access to full versions of the many now-lost plays he quotes.11 Bréchet 2007, looking for unity in Book 5, questions the idea that Athenaeus’text is to be read as “fragmentary” with the idea that culturally relevant paideia formsan imaginary, ideal library. This thinking falls in line with Jacob’s 2001 and 2004 ideas oftextual relations in Athenaeus. Hansen 2005 offers a unified reading of Book 5 focusingon the importance of rhetorical structure within the book.12 By “play” here I mean simply a reader actively engaging with a text by relating itto other texts and the text itself.13 Jacob 2001, cix, understands this library as a complex cultural monument likethe Guggenheim in new York. The levels of this space, which are connected as the spiralstructure of the Guggenheim is, are very interesting theoretically, as is Jacob’s develop-ment of theoretical concepts such as “mirror,” “hypertext,” and “metaliterature.” But ona practical level, the metaphor does not describe the way in which an ancient reader or amodern reader might engage the text to generate meaning. Jacob is theorizing phenomenabeyond reading.
fragments9 and thus formulates a theoretical version of this scholarlythinking about textual relations in the Deipnosophists. such an outlookis completely sensible if we consider the fact that many of the worksAthenaeus quotes are lost. In light of this loss, we as readers cannotperform as much strict intertextual work as we would like. The sad factis that we cannot, nor could Athenaeus’ original audience of scholarlyreaders, access the original sources of many of the quotations.10 This leadsus to imagine that these texts have been decontextualized and that theintertextual work of a reader is hampered or not at all possible. As I willshow below, Athenaeus’ text does not understand textual relations in thisway. even more important, such a position does not take into account,for example, that Book 5 of the Deipnosophists engages quite thoroughlywith the iliad and odyssey, enabling readers, both ancient and modern,to exercise their intertextual imaginations.11
equally sophisticated as McClure’s, Jacob’s theoretical view ofAthenaeus’ text’s relationship to itself and other texts extends beyondpractical application by readers. Relevant to my argument here, Jacob(2004, 171) has argued that each fragment of ancient literature quotedby Athenaeus with its citation refers to a particular locus in the imaginedlibrary that Athenaeus is cataloguing and that their recontextualizationis a new “ludic” structure. This idea of ludic structure is very helpful as,interpreted from a reader’s perspective, it can be a place of play.12 Yetit is hard for a reader to go beyond the idea that Athenaeus is meditat-ing on an imagined library in the same way an author such as Borgesdid.13 Furthermore, if we take Jacob’s view to the extreme, much of the
Page 8410JoHn PAULAs
Deipnosophists is merely a playful Reader’s Digest of an imaginary librarythat the tantalized reader, ancient or modern, would never be able toenter in a meaningful way.so resistant to intertext is the scholarly approach to Athenaeusthat the relationship between Athenaeus’ text and outside texts has evenbeen seen as one referring to a literal library that a reader might try to
accumulate after reading the text. Hansen (2000, 234), for example, writesabout the reader of Athenaeus as both reader and user. He describes thetext, repeating the words of Berthold on Gellius, as “literature that wantsto be a guidebook to literature at the same time.” In a specific example,Hansen imagines that a serious reader of Athenaeus’ text will try to findArchestratus’ epic poem on fish, so often quoted by Athenaeus, on hisnext trip to a library or bookshop, if it was indeed available, Hansen wiselyreminds us (234). This statement shows how difficult it is for scholars toimagine Athenaeus being informed by intertextuality. Readers are dra-matized in this case as leaving Athenaeus’ text to go elsewhere, never toreturn to the text with their new textual experience in mind, never to bringoutside texts to bear on the Deipnosophists. In fact, danielewicz (2006)explicitly describes strategies for reading Athenaeus, which I will discussin the next section, and does not even consider intertext as a possibility.InTRATexT“Intratext” and “intratextuality” will here refer to the type of textualrelations described best by Hesk (2000, 227) in his work on Aristophanes:The term “intratextuality” essentially describes any literary-critical discoursewhich engages with the question of how different “parts” of a discrete work(in our case a single play) relate or do not relate to each other. By “part”of the text, I mean any “element” within the text which the critic takes tobe significant for the text’s meaning by virtue of a perceived relationshipbetween that “element” and another “element.” For example, when a criticsays that “flattery of the demos” is a “theme” of Aristophanes’ Knights,she is engaging with intratextual discourse. This is because she sees theplay’s dialogue as containing elements which constantly recur and have arelationship of identity or similarity between them.Hesk’s analysis of intratextuality rings especially true with my analysis ofAthenaeus’ work in the sense that there are recurring “themes” touchedupon in various parts of the text that can be marshaled to inform oneanother. Below I will use intratext to draw out various recurring themesof the text, such as “drunkenness” and “table scraps.” I will relate those
Page 9411How To ReAd ATHenAeUs’ Deipnosophists14 wilkins 2008 provides a good, recent example of tracking a theme, namely “naviga-tion,” throughout the Deipnosophists. such analysis, however, does not take the figurativetheme far enough away from the slight metaphor of textually “navigating” a world ofphysical and cultural realia. similarly, Romeri 2002 does something akin to intratextualwork but takes themes, such as “eating,” in too literal a vein. none of the symbolic themesthat I discuss should be understood in any literal sense or even slightly metaphorical sense.Lukinovich 1985 provides an early example of the kind of thematic thinking that leads tointratextual work in noticing the broad importance of poikilia, “variety,” in the text.15 danielewicz’s 2006, 131, conclusions show that even he, though trying to read thetext as literature, still views the Deipnosophists as a “repository of learning,” something thathas proven incompatible with reading the Deipnosophists as a literary work: “This article hasproceeded from the assumption that Athenaeus created a work meant to satisfy differentneeds of the readers, being both a repository of learning and a readable piece of literature.”
themes to the act of reading by appealing to various moments in thetext that can be brought to bear on one another. Although scholars havemade some attempts to use techniques akin to the concept I am callingintratext to read the Deipnosophists, these attempts have only scratchedthe surface in relating parts of the text in an informative way, and noneunderstand the symbolism behind the themes that they explore.14 specifi-cally, scholars have not connected in a broad and cohesive manner thefrequent symbolic use of thematic concepts found in the Deipnosophists,such as “drunkenness,” which I shall discuss below.danielewicz minimizes the most important type of intratextualityfor my purposes, which is the reader’s use of passages in the Deipnosophists found at great remove from one another to inform each other. Heattempts to make sense of Athenaeus’ use of quotations and his “discoursestrategies” but emphasizes only the way in which connected passages inthe text inform one another. danielewicz (2006, 122) is on the right trackwhen he says “the citations as demonstrations of arguments are not to
be taken every time at their face value; they must be reinterpreted inlight of what follows, occasionally even at some distance from the pas-sage in question.” The strength of his thinking about this matter lies inhis reemphasizing of Mengis’ (1920) discussion of the way in which Ath-enaeus’ text is often structured around “keywords” (stichwörter) droppedin conversation to be developed and discussed later on in the text. Yetdanielewicz overemphasizes localized discourse, as is clear in his phrase“occasionally even at some distance.” As I will show below, making theDeipnosophists meaningful as a reader involves constant reference toother parts of the text and texts outside of the text.Furthermore, danielewicz’s understanding of keywords and broadertopics of conversation in the text is too literal, as is the case with allthose who conceptualize Athenaeus’ text as a repository of knowledge.15
Page 10412JoHn PAULAs
This literalness inhibits reading the Deipnosophists in a more engagedand fruitful way, as we shall see. In the end, danielewicz’s treatment ofAthenaeus’ text as understandable in the way a conversation can beunderstood, more or less linearly, and as about the literal meaning ofwords or topics of conversation, produces a situation in which a reader isstill constantly buffeted by the quotations strung together in Athenaeus’text, struggling to make sense of one in light of its neighbor.Beyond completely discounting intertext and severely limitingthe use of intratext, current scholarship, as a whole, has not successfullyextricated Athenaeus’ literary effort from the realm of the encyclopediafor two broad and intertwined reasons. First, no study addresses the factthat the Deipnosophists, in contradiction of too literal interpretations ofits title, should not be viewed as offering vast encyclopedic knowledgeabout literature and past cultural practices related to dining, but ratheras dramatizing in recitations and dialogue a vast number of readings ofancient literature. In this sense, we can see that Athenaeus’ Deipno sophistshas taken the sophia from philosophy and rendered it as a readerlyinterpretive activity, something closer to its poetic roots in technical skill.second, and most important, no interpretation of Athenaeus’ textallows for symbolic speech. This lack derives from the fact that “ency-clopedic” interpretations of the Deipnosophists must view the text asreporting discreet dining, cultural, or literary knowledge. such read-ings cannot, therefore, allow for much symbolic discourse, the idea thatAthenaeus’ text really does not care all that much about, for example,the act of “drinking” or “drunkenness” per se, but rather, that “drunken-ness” stands symbolically for a literary activity critiqued by charactersin his work. one character’s version of “drunkenness,” as we shall see,is a kind of Atticism, the search for practicable knowledge about usageof ancient words. The text itself, therefore, shows that information is notwhat readers should be after. To read the text as a work of literature, theanswer to the question “what is a deipnosophist?” must no longer beanswered as it has been in the past: “an encyclopedic authority on dining”(Anderson 1997, 2174). Instead, a “deipnosophist” must be viewed as aliterary dramatization of the act of engaging with texts.A PIG’s UTeRUsTo demonstrate how readers can approach the Deipnosophists, I beginwith a section of Book 3 where an important disagreement betweentwo characters, Ulpian and Cynulcus, about intellectual activity will
Page 11413How To ReAd ATHenAeUs’ Deipnosophists16 Readers of the Deipnosophists will often find themselves asking the Barthesian,
texte scriptible question “who is speaking?” (Barthes 1974, 172–73).17 All translations are my own. I base my translations and page numbering on theGreek text of Kaibel’s 1887 Teubner. I have compared the passages I quote to the Greekof the Loeb editions of Gulick 1927 and olson 2006–12 and have found that there is nosignificant difference of opinion among the three editors about the Greek text of the par-ticular passages under discussion.
generate ideas about how to read the Deipnosophists. It is significant,I suggest, that this central discussion is to be found at the point of thedinner when a delicacy is brought in: a pig’s uterus (me\tra). Athenaeusas narrator reminds readers that the root me\tr can also be found in theword me\tropolis (3.96e–f):next in order pig’s uterus was brought in, a real (ho\s ale\tho\s ousa) metropo-lis and mother to the sons of Hippocrates who I [Athenaeus seems to bespeaking here as narrator]16 know are given comic treatment for theirpiggish nature.17
Here, as often, an interest in tracing the language of Attic comedy is seenin Athenaeus’ words, but this motivation aside, what could Athenaeusmean in saying that the me\tra is a “real me\tropolis”?The me\tra as me\tropolis is significant because the term me\tropolisin the Deipnosophists can symbolize “the intellectual foundation of away of thinking.” This definition becomes clear through intratextuality,where moments elsewhere within the text may be brought to bear oneach other. Later in the discussion of the me\tra, one of the charactersdeclares that: “it would be fair for a person to praise good old Chrysippusfor accurately revealing epicurus’ “nature” and saying that Archestratus’Gastrology was the mother-city (me\tropolis) of his philosophy” (3.104b).Fittingly, we find a character interpreting a text through the words ofanother text. In this case, the character reads Archestratus’ Gastrologyand epicurean philosophy through the work of Chrysippus. Chrysippus’me\tropolis figuratively represents the poetic spawning-ground of epicu-reanism. The me\tropolis, therefore, is accepted by the deipnosophist assymbolic of the principles that generate the intellectual outlook of a work.Athenaeus, in calling the me\tra a me\tropolis, then, can be understood tobe announcing a place where the principles of the intellectual outlook ofthe Deipnosophists will be worked out. In this case, as we shall see, theDeipnosophists will be concerned with how to read texts.other moments in the Deipnosophists suggest this intellectual
Page 12414JoHn PAULAs18 Indeed, whitmarsh 2007, 47, regards Athenaeus’ work as a repetition of a visionof the city as the imperial, intellectual, for better and for worse, center of the world. For afundamental treatment of the cultural dynamics of Rome as a literary center imagined byRoman authors, see woolf 2003.19 we lack Athenaeus’ original text of Books 1 and 2, along with parts of others.Fortunately, a Byzantine scribe made an epitome of the Deipnosophists before those partsof the text were lost.20 Galen attributes this phrase to the rhe\tor Polemon (De humero 347). For the phraseas topos, see swain 1996, 364, n. 19. For the cities and sophistic learning, see walden 1909,115–16, and Anderson 1993, 25. of Athenaeus’ deipnosophists, two each are from nicomedia(Pontianus, democritus) and Alexandria (Plutarch, Alceides). none are described as beingfrom Antioch. Athens as city plays a large role in the text, as expected. For the variety ofhometowns of the deipnosophists as part of the theme of “navigation,” see wilkins 2008.21 The characters in the Deipnosophists are dramatized as reading to make suchfragmentary collections. one of the deipnosophists named democritus claims to haveexcerpted hundreds of comic plays: “Alexis, in his play professor profligate, says sotionthe Alexandrian, in his commentary on Timon’s silloi,—[now I say sotion says] because I,at least, have not come across the play. even though I have read more than 800 so-called“Middle Comedy” plays and made excerpts (eklogas) of them, I have not chanced uponprofessor profligate. no, I am not conscious of anyone who thought it worth including intheir list of titles (anagraphe\s) because neither Callimachus nor Aristophanes put it intheir list, and no, not even those people who made lists of titles in Pergamon” (8.336d–e).
outlook relates to reading texts. The idea of “polis” is connected elsewherein the Deipnosophists to scholarly texts.18 In the epitome of Book 1,19
Rome as a city (polis) is called the “epitome of the world” because itcomprises other great cities: Alexandria, nicomedia, Antioch, and Athens
(1.20b).20 This is the idea of polis in the imagining of a scholarly reader.The city is metaphorically an epitome, collecting pieces of the world inthe way an abridgement gathers pieces of a literary work. similarly, theDeipnosophists collects fragments, a polis of literature, the literary expres-sion of the act of reading.21 Consequently, we can return to the part ofBook 3 in which Athenaeus describes the me\tra as me\tropolis and readthe section as being a central moment in the text about bringing togetherpieces of texts. From the perspective of a reader, this act is nothing morethan the act of reading for intertext and intratext, relating different textsand different parts of a text to one another.ULPIAn And CYnULCUsThe two characters who feature prominently in the discussion of the me\traare Ulpian and Cynulcus. Throughout the Deipnosophists, these two char-acters are diametrically opposed to one another. Ulpian, a hyperatticist
Page 13415How To ReAd ATHenAeUs’ Deipnosophists22 I use “hyperatticist” and “Atticist” in the broad sense, as a synonym for someonewho is obsessed with words in any Greek literature considered old and venerable. seePorter 2006, esp. 36, for a discussion of the inconsistencies of this term.23 Anderson 1997, 2174, suggests that the relationship between Ulpian and Cynulcus“corresponds to a social reality in early Imperial intellectual circles, in which advocates ofthe Kynikos tropos could somehow take on sophists. Philostratus himself offers a vignette ofPolemo of Laodicea cringing before his Cynic mentor Timocrates of Heraclea, while HerodesAtticus had to contend with the persistently unwelcome attentions of Peregrinus Proteus.”24 Taking too seriously the surface rhetoric of the Deipnosophists has led scholarsto accept the literalness of these metaphors. Romeri 2002, 282–84, views this passage asindicative of the antithesis “eating vs. speaking” that the Deipnosophists synthesizes. Thiscontrast, however, is merely on the surface; whether to eat or speak is not really a concernof the statements made by Ulpian and Cynulcus, as we shall see.
intellectual,22 roams the streets, through bookstores and bathhouses,chirping the question “keitai e\ ou keitai?” (“Is it found in literature ornot?”) so often that he is nicknamed Keitoukeitos (1.1d–e; “Found-or-naut” might be an apt english translation for this beastly nickname withits seeming pun on ke\tos, the Greek word for “sea monster”). Cynulcus(“dog-dragger”) is the nickname of the leading Cynic character in thetext. His given name is Theodore, but we only learn that fact in a late asideby the host of the dinner party (15.669e, “But you, Theodore, since that’syour right name”). on the surface, Ulpian and Cynulcus stridently andwithout ceasing favor the activities of talking and eating, respectively.23
Yet, as we shall see, the language of both talking and eating is part ofthe symbolic discourse of the Deipnosophists that, in fact, has little todo with either activity.24
The first exchange of the fight between Ulpian and Cynulcus inthe section on the me\tra in Book 3 cannot easily be made sense of with-out recourse to the techniques of reading that I have begun to outline.Intertext combined with intratext will be critical to understanding bothspeakers’ positions on reading. In the end, the two characters will servefor a moment to represent two types of reading. Ulpian will stand for anexhaustive kind of reading, typical of the way in which his character isfictionalized as a textual interrogator asking questions about every word(“Is that word found in literature?”). Cynulcus will stand for easy readingin which the reader must do little work to achieve meaning, where theaesthetics of passages is allowed to flow easily and readers need neitherstruggle with nor interrogate the text. In reading the passage, I will syn-thesize these positions, asking questions of the text as Ulpian does, butalso reading for its aesthetic value as Cynulcus does. I will argue that boththese positions will be subsumed and synthesized in a very common way
Page 14416JoHn PAULAs
25 see dalby 1996, 176–79, for a demonstration of the difficulty of distinguishing thewords of Athenaeus’ speakers from the words of the original sources of prose quotations.see also Pelling 2000, 189.26 This use of “foddered” is an anticipation of a discussion of the word later on inBook 3, an example of Mengis’ idea of stichwort.
of reading represented in the Deipnosophists, an example of which willfollow later on in the section entitled “Crows and Creative Intertext.”since it will help readers to have a context for Ulpian and Cynulcus’positions, I quote in full the long section of the Book 3 row between Ulpianand Cynulcus under discussion (quotations from other texts, where clear,are italicized).25 This section begins with the narrator Athenaeus quotingthe words of Ulpian (3.96f–97d):so Ulpian says: “Let’s go, friends, where is the word me\tra (sow’s uterus)found? we’ve sufficiently filled our bellies and now it’s time for us to talktoo. I recommend that, since they have been “foddered” unsparingly,26 theCynics keep their mouths’ shut, except if they want to gnaw on even thejawbones and skulls, which no one would begrudge them to enjoy as dogs.Because this they are and they boast being called so,it’s custom to toss the scraps (leipsana) to dogseuripides said in Cretans. They want to eat and drink everything, not takinginto account precisely what that divine Plato said in protagorasto talk about poetry is like the symposia of the common man, the petitebourgeoisie. Yes, these people, on account of their inability to engageone another over a drink on their own or through their own voice andwords because of their lack of education (apaideusia), make flute girlsexpensive, paying an alien voice, the flute’s, a lot. so they engage withone another through the voice of those flutes. But where gentlemanlyand educated (pepaideumenoi) drinking companions are, you wouldnot see flutegirls, dancing girls or harpgirls. no, they are sufficientfor themselves and engage with each other without this nonsense orthese games, with their own voices. they talk and listen to each otherin turn in an orderly way, even if they drink a lot of wine.But you guys do this, Cynulcus: when you drink, no, when you chug, youimpede the pleasure (he\done\) of our accounts just like the flute-girls anddancing girls. You live, like this same Plato says in the philebus, not the lifeof a human, but of a sea lung [jellyfish] or of one of the many living thingsin the sea that has a shell for a body.”And Cynulcus got mad and said, “You potbelly (gastro\n), whosestomach has a spirit in it (koiliodaimon anthro\pe), you know nothing else,
Page 15417How To ReAd ATHenAeUs’ Deipnosophistsnot how to give a detailed speech, not how to remember a historia, nothow to snatch a bit of grace in your speech ever. no, you spend all the timewearing yourself out inquiring about these things: Is it found in literatureor not? Is it said or not? You run your fingernail along everything thatoccurs to your interlocutors and gather the thornsAs through spiny broom and prickly restharrowsAlways wasting your time, since you don’t collect any of the most pleasant(he\disto\n) of flowers.”on the surface, Ulpian suggests that the Cynics are wrong for not wantingto talk about literature, but there are levels of meaning to be plumbedbelow the surface. some intertextual and intratextual work will help areader make sense of Ulpian’s rather oblique argument. specifically,Ulpian touches on themes developed elsewhere in the Deipnosophistssuch as “scraps,” paideia, “drunkenness,” “memory,” and “pleasure.” Read-ers will better understand what Ulpian means if they have access to thebroader context of these themes within the work. This use of intratextualitywill show the necessity of a symbolic understanding of terms having todo with eating and drinking that scholars have not seen before.Furthermore, readers will profit from reading outside the text, spe-cifically, having access to the context of Ulpian’s quotations from Plato’sprotagoras and philebus. Likewise, Cynulcus’ argument can be seen moreclearly if other parts of the Deipnosophists are brought to bear on hiswords, as well as his use of a poetic quotation. Most importantly for my
discussion, this passage can be read to suggest two theories of readingaimed at pleasure, albeit it pleasure viewed in two distinct ways.ULPIAn’s sIdeThe first point of interest in this passage is the word leipsana (“scraps”).seemingly innocuous, it will be a byword for the deipnosophists’ frag-mentary discourse. The mention of it here foreshadows its emergencein Book 6 in the mouth of Athenaeus, the narrator, where it typifies thedeipnosophists’ discourse as fragmentary (6.223d):we then are giving the scraps (leipsana) of the deipnosophists back (apodidomen) to you and not just giving (didomen) them to you.The scraps of the deipnosophists are the pieces of their discourse,which Athenaeus has been giving (back) to Timocrates, who has been
Page 16418JoHn PAULAs27 There is also, I would suggest, the sense that the leipsana (bodily remains) arethe figurative remains of the Deipnosophists, which are viewed as the rightful patrimonyof Timocrates.28 I have translated the amount of money he spends by an amount indicative of jurypay for a day in a major U.s. city in the twenty-first century. A trio\bolon was the daily jurypay in fourth-century Athens and not much when it comes to “big spending.”
demanding them. The term leipsana represents Athenaeus’ fragmentaryreport of the discourse of the deipnosophists, which itself consists ofliterary fragments.27 Thus, to those familiar with the language used laterin the Deipnosophists, Ulpian’s use of leipsana in his Book 3 fight withCynulcus signifies that Ulpian is talking about fragmentary discourse.In light of this symbolic discourse, Ulpian’s accusatory statement, “Theywant to eat and drink everything,” will have little to do with instructingCynics or readers on table manners, dietary practice, or ethical continence.Rather, Ulpian criticizes Cynulcus’ way of reading texts, one that is quiteantithetical to his own.In the fight between Ulpian and Cynulcus in Book 3, Ulpian’s useof a passage in Plato’s protagoras shows how the Deipnosophists’ dis-orienting, fragmentary speech compels readers to be active, to work tomake meaning. Ulpian quotes the protagoras to chide the Cynics for nottalking about poetry. This position seems absurd because Ulpian quotesa passage that rejects talk about poetry as having nothing to do with“real” paideia. But Ulpian stands for quite the opposite; fragmentary,poetic speech is Ulpian’s standard for paideia, as a passage later in thetext shows (3.108d–f):Indeed I know well that he [the deipnosophist Myrtilus] never bought anyof these things and ate them, because a certain one of his servants told meonce with the following iambic lines of eubulus’ pimp:An overbearing thessalian keeps me. he is rich, but a greedy bastard.A gourmand, but he spends forty bucks28 at most when he goes shopping for “delicacies”!since the boy had been educated (pepaideumenos e\n)—not of course atMyrtilus’ house, but someone else’s—when I asked him how he fell inwith Myrtilus, he responded to me these lines from Antiphanes’ Chicky:When i was a boy i came here to Athens with my sister, brought bya trader. i’m syrian originally. this guy here happened onto us and,being a smalltime loan shark, bought us at public auction. he can’tbe beat when it comes to wickedness. he’s the kind of guy who brings
Page 17419How To ReAd ATHenAeUs’ Deipnosophists29 dalby 2003, 328, describes thymon as a dry mixture with thyme as its main ingredi-ent into which bread may have been dipped, conceptually similar to the Middle easternseasoning “za’atar.” Thyme was abundant in the area around Athens, so it would havebeen a particularly common item to acquire, to the point of being equivalent to bringinghome nothing.30 Romeri 2003, 355, sees Athenaeus’ use of Plato’s protagoras here as subtly anti-Platonic because Athenaeus’ text’s inclusion of accounts of many types of banquets falls
in line with the Homeric model rather than the model announced by socrates in theprotagoras. such a reading takes a bit too literally the importance of talking or writingabout “dining” per se.nothing into the house, not even what thriceblasted pythagoras usedto eat, except thyme dip.29
while Ulpian was joking around like this, Cynulcus cried out.Ulpian’s playfulness creates a fiction with consequences for his under-standing of paideia. Myrtilus’ fictional slave boy is considered educatedbecause he has read his comedy and remembers it well enough to quoteplayfully several lines of eubulus and Antiphanes in lieu of an autobi-ography in his own words, as the socrates of the protagoras would haveit. In doing so, the slave brings his readings to bear on each other andhis situation. Consequently, the fictional slave is represented as makingsuch textual connections as the deipnosophists do. with this passage inmind, then, we can see that Ulpian’s standard for paideia is rememberingand relating poetic texts to one another.since Ulpian understands paideia as poetic education that results inreading and bringing poetic texts to bear on other texts, his repetition ofPlato’s protagoras seems fraught. If he were simply going to recontextual-ize the passage to change its meaning, he could have easily cut out the partabout poetry, but this is not the way of the Deipnosophists. why wouldhe feel compelled to quote the passage in full, even saying that poetry isa waste of time? Is Ulpian parodying himself? Is Athenaeus parodyingUlpian? neither, really. Ulpian’s message about the Cynics impeding thepleasure of the group seems quite clear, but it is also clear that Plato’spepaideumenoi and Ulpian’s pepaideumenoi are fundamentally different.Ulpian’s use of quotation encourages the reader to refocus themessage of socrates’ speech in the protagoras. we can even read Ulpianas challenging the authority of Plato’s ideas about paideia by usingPlato’s own text as a literary fragment to create between himself andPlato the kind of collision of opinion against which socrates inveighs.30
In the protagoras, socrates questions literary engagement with poetic
Page 18420JoHn PAULAs
fragments since each person reads them differently and, since we can-not put questions to poets, we cannot get answers (347e). For socratesdialectic generates meaning, not asking questions of texts. Ulpian, as weknow, stands for the exact opposite. Ulpian only asks questions abouttexts. Yet a reader familiar with the protagoras as well as the text of theDeipnosophists can read one against the other and arrive at a readingthat makes sense of Ulpian’s position. For Ulpian, paideia is literaryand poetic and Cynulcus is impeding the pleasure of the pepaideumenoideipnosophists engaging with such texts. simultaneously, Ulpian subtlyundermines socrates’ position by rendering Plato’s text as voiceless aspoetry in the protagoras. Yet Ulpian’s critique of the Cynics continueswith more problems for readers to solve, more questions to ask of the text.If Ulpian were merely quoting the protagoras at face value, wewould expect him to accuse Cynulcus of being like Plato’s “uneducated”common folk, but, of course, he cannot or at least will not do so. Instead,Ulpian identifies Cynulcus with the flute-girls and the dancing girls andaccuses the Cynics of thwarting the pleasure of the group by drinkingtoo much. This association is especially odd since Ulpian “misreads” thepassage, so to speak; the pepaideumenoi drink heavily, not the flute-girls.To understand the passage, we must first be aware that in theDeipnosophists “drunkenness” is a cipher for bad practices of reading.scholars have completely neglected the great proliferation of such sym-bolic and metaphorical language throughout the text, even when thetext of the Deipnosophists itself sanctions such symbolic interpretations,as we have seen with the me\tra as me\tropolis as spawning ground for
a particular mode of thinking. Intratext is critical to understanding thissymbolic discourse.seven books later in Book 10, for example, Ulpian himself is chidedfor his “drunkenness” by one of the philosopher deipnosophists namedPontianus (10.445b–d):when Ulpian heard this he said: “But as for the word paroinos (besotted),in what author is it attested, my dear Pontianus?” And he said:You’ll be the death of me with your questions (as noble Agathon says)You and your newfangled way of using words in the wrong ways.But since it has been adjudged that we render our accountings (euthunas)of everything to you, Antiphanes in his Lydian has said: that Colchiancreature is drunk out of her mind! But though you are drunk out of yourmind and intoxicated, you haven’t had your fill yet, nor do you keep inmind (oud’ epi noun lambaneis) that the Pergamene eumenes, nephew
Page 19421How To ReAd ATHenAeUs’ Deipnosophists31 we can see an aesthetic connection between the flute-girls in the protagoras andthe sea-lung, as both relate to breath. even the word for “animals” used (empsykha) hasto do with breathing as animation. But this type of reading is one that Cynulcus wouldencourage, not Ulpian, as we shall see.of Philetaerus the ruler of Pergamon died from intoxication, as Ctesiclesrecords in the third book of his Chronicles.Pontianus aligns the idea “drunkenness” with Ulpian’s hyperatticist,obsessive questioning about words. Agathon’s “new fangled way ofusing words in the wrong way” can be reinterpreted to be understood asUlpian’s unique and strange archaism, for which Cynulcus derides himin another part of their Book 3 clash that I do not quote (3.97e–f) andwhich Pontianus mocks here by using Attic legal vocabulary (euthuna: theaccounting an Athenian magistrate gave on exiting office). As Ulpian’snickname Keitoukeitos (“Found-or-naut”) attests, the text strongly associ-ates the idea of “questioning” with Ulpian.Pontianus also sees in Ulpian a misguided reading practice thatresults in forgetfulness of the very same ancient literature that Ulpianwants readers to bring to bear on questions they ask of a text. Ponti anus’language is quite pointed. His phrase epi noun lambanein (“keep inmind”), in fact, echoes Ulpian’s own language in the Ulpian v. Cynulcusdispute in Book 3 under consideration. Ulpian chides the Cynics for notkeeping in mind (epi noun lambanontes, 3.97a), for having forgotten,the words of Plato’s protagoras. Just as Pontianus’ comments are notreally concerned with preventing Ulpian from being a drunk, so Ulpian’swords to Cynulcus are not about actual drinking. Indeed, this usage goesbeyond simple metaphor, as it does not even stand for the intellectualconfusion of drunkenness. “drunkenness,” rather, is a symbolic label foran activity that is condemned by the text. Reading intratextually, we cansee “drunkenness” stands for bad intellectual practice with regard totexts. Ulpian is accused of reading for the sake of Atticism; Cynulcus, ofnot seeing the point of reading and engaging with texts in Ulpian’s way.In his Book 3 fight with Cynulcus, Ulpian’s ultimate problem withCynics is that they allegedly impede his particular kind of textual plea-sure. when Ulpian quotes Plato’s philebus, he reinforces his point aboutpleasure. Here, readers must rely on both intertext and intratext to makesense of the passage. To reprise, Ulpian’s words are (3.97c):You live, like this same Plato says in the philebus, not the life of a human,but of a sea lung [jellyfish] or of one of the many living things (empsykha)in the sea that has a shell for a body.31
Page 20422JoHn PAULAs32 we could easily read such questions as sympotic questions, but they are Ulpian’severyday, anytime, anywhere questions. Accordingly, it is overly reductive to limit them to
a sympotic context simply because the Deipnosophists takes place at a deipnonsymposion.33 For confirmation of the widespread use of memory terminology and its connectionto literary practice in the Deipnosophists, see Jacob 2000, 109.34 see Voula Tsouna-McKirahan 1998, 133, for further analysis on this passage inregard to Cyrenaic ideas about agency.
Yet, as readers we may ask, with a question in Ulpian’s mode: what doesPlato mean when he says the “life of a shellfish”?32
In this case, we must first have recourse to intertext to begin toanswer the question satisfactorily. Further on in the philebus, not quotedby Ulpian, a reader will discover that the life of the shellfish is a life thatdoes not have any past, present, or future pleasure (he\done\) because ofthe shellfish’s lack of memory (mne\me\), true opinion (ale\the\s doxa), andrationality (logismos) (phlb. 21c). Intratextual connections within theDeipnosophists help complete the picture. The Deipnosophists frequentlyemphasizes the importance of the memory of pleasure ultimately activatedthrough texts. Remembering, mentioning, and recording are essential tothe text of the Deipnosophists because they are textual activities per-formed by the deipnosophists and the authors they quote.33 Athenaeus,who is the speaker of Book 12, voices a strong position against Cyrenaichedonism on the grounds that it is about the moment and not aboutmemory (12.544a–b):For sure, entire philosophical sects focus on the pursuit of overindulgentliving (truphe\), especially the sect called the Cyrenaic, which took its startfrom Aristippus the socratic. He accepted that this experiencing of pleasure(hedypatheia) is the goal (telos) and said that happiness is founded uponit, and that it is momentary. Just like the morally abandoned (aso\toi), hebelieved that neither the memory (mne\me\) of completed enjoyments northe hope of those to come were anything to him, but he judged the goodonly to be in the present, and considered completed enjoyment or futureenjoyment nothing to him, since the one is no longer and the other is notyet and uncertain. Those also who live overindulgently also are in the sucha state of mind when they value present wellbeing.In our Book 3 passage, Ulpian is rehearsing a version of this Book 12critique of hedonistic philosophies that reject the importance of memory.34
The pleasure of the Deipnosophists is very much the pleasure of memoryof the past: the pleasure of texts, things treated by Athenaeus’ text asbeing part of the past insofar as they are recorded and remembered as
Page 21423How To ReAd ATHenAeUs’ Deipnosophists35 development of such literary perspectives could provide a welcome alternativeto modern scholarly views of the past in Imperial Greek literature as a locus of sociallyempowering cultural knowledge.36 It is certain that some egyptian readers of Athenaeus’ day would have had accessto parts of this text. p.oxy. LII 3678 is a fragment of philebus 18e–19a, from the late secondcentury C.E., a section of the discussion about he\done\ and phrone\sis not far from the locus(21c) important to my discussion above.37 Helpful here is Luck’s 2006, 466, understanding of this word as “evil spirit ofgluttony” in Clement of Alexandria’s pedagogus. This exceedingly uncommon word doesnot technically appear before Athenaeus. Although it is attributed in the Deipnosophiststo eupolis, the poet of old Comedy, the lack of the usual accompanying quotation fromthe play is odd.
memories.35 In rejecting the “life of a shellfish,” Ulpian is speaking about anaspect of the pleasure of scholarly reading developed the Deipnosophists.His “pleasure” is related, in turn, to intertextuality, to the connectionsreaders can make to specifically remembered texts, such as the philebus.Ulpian’s speech here provides an excellent example of how theDeipnosophists uses fragments in a manner that encourages readers toengage with parts of other texts and its own text. of course, for Ulpian’smessage to make sense, the reader must have memory of or access toother parts of the protagoras and philebus.36 Likewise, reading for thethemes and outlook of the Deipnosophists as a whole, intratext, is criti-cal to understanding this moment. If we have recourse to intertext andintratext, we can for the first time closely analyze Ulpian’s speech asmeaningful rather than be buffeted about by its contortions. similarly,
intratext has led us to read the symbolic meaning of words discussedby the deipnosophists. without understanding these symbolic themes,words are facts and the text is rendered a cultural lexicon or encyclopediaabout dining. In reading Ulpian’s speech as a dramatization of reading,as I have, its quirks become readily understandable as the product of areader making connections and, therefore, making meaning, somethingthat has not been seen clearly by Athenaean scholars.CYnULCUs’ sIdeCynulcus’ response to Ulpian does not connect to Ulpian’s argumenta-tive line in any clear way. Cynulcus accuses Ulpian of being a gastro\n,a “potbelly,” and koiliodaimon anthro\pe, a man with a gluttonous spiritin his belly (3.97c).37 A reader cannot make any sense of this abusivelanguage in context, beyond the possibility that Cynulcus is childishlymimicking Ulpian’s insulting language. But such momentary peevishness
Page 22424JoHn PAULAs38 For example, wilkins 2000a, 27–28, views these charges related to the stomach andgluttony as aimed at enlivening the dialogue and maintaining its focus on the themes of“eating” and “talking.” Indeed, wilkins’ 2008, 148, analyses must render devoid of semanticcontent such “accusations of gluttony,” given his correct idea that no one at the dinner par-ties is, in fact, a glutton. For him, learning protects against such overindulgence. But thissentiment takes all these concepts in the Deipnosophists too literally.39As it is announced in a speech of Cynulcus and then discussed later on, koiliodaimo\nwould fall under the category of stichwörter, “keywords,” which Mengis 1920 viewed ascritical to the composition of the Deipnosophists. The use of such “keywords,” in my read-ing, represents the dramatization of cues for intratextual analysis.40 For the influence and importance of comedy to Athenaeus’ work see, among others,Anderson 2000 and wilkins 2000a, 2000b.
alone does not satisfactorily explain the insults, as they are repeated andtraced to their literary sources later in the text, as we shall see below.of course, Cynulcus’ taunts seem especially hollow considering Ulpianis always pushing for talking and not eating. so why is Ulpian called apotbelly and a person who is so focused on his own stomach? scholarsoften find such strangeness hard to explain.38
The text attests to the fact that such words are not meant to betaken literally. Ulpian later asks Cynulcus where he found the wordkoiliodaimo\n (3.100b).39 Cynulcus is silent, and Ulpian responds that itrefers to parasites who are flatterers in the old Comedy poet eupolis(3.100b). A term that would, on the surface, seem to refer to the belly-aching of a constantly hungry individual is actually defined figurativelyin the text as an ethical slur: “flatterer.” But in this case, Cynulcus is noteven calling Ulpian a koiliodaimo\n, meaning parasitical “flatterer,” inthat figurative sense. In fact, only through further intratextual connec-tions can we understand why Cynulcus chooses to call Ulpian a gastro\nand koiliodaimo\n.First, an intertext will be a good start for understanding the Deipnosophists’ figurative use of “potbelly” and other disparaging words. As aninsult, gastro\n has a very short but telling history.40 In our extant corpusof Greek literature, it occurs only once as an address before Athenaeus’time, in Aristophanes Frogs 200. In that line, Charon derisively callsdionysus “potbelly” after dionysus sits on top the oar in Charon’s boat,having misunderstood Charon’s nautical command, “sit on the oar!” thatis to say, “sit in rowing position by the oar,” to mean “take a seat on topof the oar.” of course, in the Frogs, dionysus’ ignorance of sailor talkonly comically reinforces that he is not the seaman he has claimed to bein lines 48–50. Undoubtedly, the comic stage costume with its prominentpaunch would have reinforced the humor of this insult. But through this
Page 23425
How To ReAd ATHenAeUs’ Deipnosophists41 Besides the examples here in Book 3, others include a figurative use at 9.401b–c,where Ulpian declares everyone at the party to be gastro\nes because they are full of ques-tions whose answer they do not know. The name-calling is defensive there; someone hasasked for an account of who has given a report (histore\ke) that the Calydonian boar wasa white sow and Ulpian, in fact, does not know the answer. At 15.697b, Ulpian is called agastro\n by Cynulcus who teases him by saying that Ulpian prefers cackling commedia dell’arte songs (kapuro\terai . . . o\dai) to really choice ones (espoudasmenai). This more difficultexample builds on Cynulcus’ send-up of Ulpian in Book 3 where Ulpian is said to prefer“thorns” to “flowers.” spoudazo\ in Athenaeus’ period could be used to refer to the “studyof letters,” as wright 1922 translates the verb at Philostr. Vs 488.13. Accordingly, Cynulcus’use of espoudasmenai to describe the songs that Ulpian enjoys seems to have little to dowith Ulpian’s aesthetic preferences but rather to reference the debate over what texts toread and how to engage with them.42 For a similar view of historia in regard to Plutarch’s table talk, see Pelling 2011,214. This definition of historia rings true with practices found in the papyrological evi-dence of this period. van Rossum-steenbeek 1998, xvii, defines historiae, in regard to theMythographus homericus, as “mythical prose accounts about persons, places, institutionsor other issues mentioned in the lemmata (quotations of Homeric verses) that connect thestories with and follow the order of the Homeric text.” The practice of connecting otherstories to a target text is a defining practice of the Deipnosophists.
passage, gastro\n and lack of understanding can be connected in literaturevery early on.In the Deipnosophists, koiliodaimo\n, gastro\n and similar stomach-based metaphors for expansiveness relate to lack of variety in one’s read-ing.41 For example, later on in Book 3, one of the grammarian charactersnamed Myrtilus chides Ulpian for not caring about historia (3.125b–c):[Ulpian:] “I don’t know what this saying of simonides is that you speakof.” Myrtilus said: “That’s because you don’t care about historia, potbelly(gastro\n), because you are a fat-licker and, as that old samian poet Asiussays, ‘a flatterer for fat.’ Callistratus in Book 7 of his Miscellanies says thatwhen the poet simonides was dining at somebody’s house during a heatwave and the wine-pourers were mixing snow into everyone else’s drinkbut his, he freestyled the following epigram.”From this passage we must understand that when Myrtilus calls Ulpiangastro\n and “flatterer for fat,” he is referring to the shortcomings ofUlpian’s monolithic way of reading. specifically, Myrtilus emphasizesUlpian’s avoidance of Callistratus’ Miscellanies. I purposefully leavehistoria untranslated because it must be thought of as the combinationof looking at texts and the stories that proceed from that inquiry in theform of miscellanies.42 Later on we will see another deipnosophist usethis term to mean simply “background story,” and a translation of “stories
Page 24426JoHn PAULAs43 Translators have generally misunderstood Cynulcus’ statement as addressingUlpian’s forgetfulness of historical facts. Gulick 1927 renders historias mne\sthe\nai, “recallthe facts of history”; Friedrich and nothers 1998, “historische Begebenheit schildern”;Maria Fernanda salvagno (trans. of Book 3 in Canfora 2001), “richiamarti ai fatti dellastoria”; and olson 2006–12, “recall historical events.”44 Rudolph 1891 viewed Athenaeus’ text as a highly indebted to Favorinus’ pantodape\historia as a source of a many discussions and attitudes. wilkins 2007 views Athenaeus asworking in something along the lines of what could be called a genre of “sympotic history,”but he seems to mean history in a broad sense of cultural history.45 düring’s 1936 famous dictum about Athenaeus’ work: “Curiositas sola valet”(only intellectual curiosity/inquiry matters) is an apt generalization about the intellectualoutlook of all these works.46 By “varied,” I refer to the word poikilos. scholars have long noticed this aspect ofAthenaeus’ work but have viewed it as a compositional technique rather than a strategyof reading. see Lukinovich 1985 for a brief discussion of pokilia in Athenaeus’ work. see
read in miscellanies” would not be far off. Myrtilus is calling attention toa perceived lack of interest in works that record and offer varied readings.To return to the exchange between Ulpian and Cynulcus in Book 3,we find that Cynulcus mentions historia among the areas of Ulpian’sshortcomings (3.97c–d):You potbelly (gastro\n), whose stomach has a spirit in it (koiliodaimonanthro\pe), you know nothing else, not how to give a detailed speech, nothow to remember a historia, (oukh historias mne\sthe\nai), not how to snatcha bit of grace in your speech ever. no, you spend all the time wearingyourself out inquiring about these things: Is it found in literature or not?
Is it said or not? You run your fingernail along everything that occurs toyour interlocutors and gather the thornsAs through spiny broom and prickly restharrowsalways wasting your time, since you gather up none of the most pleasant(he\disto\n) flowers.I suggest that we understand Cynulcus’ phrase historias mne\sthe\nai in thesame vein in which Myrtilus spoke of historia. He is speaking of readingmiscellanies.43 historia is, not surprisingly, the historia of Aelian’s poikile\historia or Favorinus’ lost work pantodape\ historia.44 such works repre-sent the record or, in the case of only Athenaeus’ work, the dramatizationof varied readings.45 Cynulcus is calling attention in his speech to thepleasure of varied reading. He characterizes Ulpian’s reading (ze\te\seis,“searches for answers”) as monomaniacally focused on a single sourceof a word rather than taking into account a wide range of varied sourcesas one would read in an anthology.46
Page 25427How To ReAd ATHenAeUs’ Deipnosophistswhitmarsh 2007, 45–49, for poikilia and polyteleia, richness, as compositional goals inAthenaeus and severan literature. It is not certain that the word “anthology” was currentin Athenaeus’ time as a term to describe a collection of varied literary fragments, but theexistence of Meleager’s Garland would have made such botanical metaphors no great stretch.47 Plutarch employs this poetic fragment in three places in three rather different ways,all decorative and less integrated and poignant than Athenaeus’ use. In De recta rationeaudiendi (44f1), the poetic lines are related to how no speaker can deliver a thoroughlyawful speech; there are always bright spots. In De fraterno amore (485a10), the lines illus-trate how even weird creatures possess some redeeming qualities. Finally, in QuaestionesConvivales (621e2), they reinforce how laughter can be useful and seriousness pleasant.48 see Romeri 2002, 283–84, for an analysis of this passage as fundamentally to dowith a structural opposition synthesized in the Deipnosophists. For Romeri, the pleasureof discourse (Ulpian) and the pleasure of food (deipnon) (Cynulcus) are combined in thetext, an effect very different from other sympotic works. while I agree that Ulpian’s andCynulcus’ positions need to be synthesized, Romeri’s synthesis takes too seriously the ideathat the text is really making a case for the pleasure of eating and the pleasure of speaking.In contrast, see davidson 2000, 303, for pleasure in the Deipnosophists as solely that of“learned discussion” and for the lack of representation of bodily pleasure as Athenaeus’attempt to avoid suspicion of “immorality.”
In Cynulcus’ view, reading is an aesthetic pleasure, dramatized in theway that Cynulcus will smoothly incorporate a poetic quotation into hisspeech. Cynulcus poignantly tweaks Ulpian and proves the aesthetic pointhe is making by incorporating a literary fragment without connecting itto a source: “As through spiny broom and prickly rest-harrows.” Cynulcusfor a moment resists Ulpian’s game of citing the specific author and workof a fragment and chooses a quotation that fits smoothly into his speech.But Cynulcus does not strive to decontextualize this fragment. Cynulcusdoes know the pentameter of the elegiac couplet to which it belongs.Thanks to Plutarch of Chaeronea’s fondness for this poetic couplet,47
we know the next line, which reads: “the flowers of the soft snowdropsbloom” (phuontai malako\n anthea leukoïo\n). Although Cynulcus leavesthis line out, he echoes the language of the pentameter line by referringto the “most pleasant flowers” (antheo\n to\n he\disto\n) that Ulpian misses.Ulpian is tangled among the weeds, not the soft snowdrops of the poeticline. Cynulcus’ version of intertextuality requires little more effort thanremembering the end of a lovely poetic couplet. no need for laborioussearching through Plato’s philebus!Like Ulpian, Cynulcus returns to the theme of pleasure in the end.48
For Cynulcus, pleasurable inquiry and reading is anthology, the collect-ing of exceedingly pleasing (he\disto\n) flowers, reading that revels in theaesthetic. Cynulcus also reminds us that Ulpian, in contrast, stands foracantho-logy, the collection of thorns—rough, workman-like reading that
Page 26428JoHn PAULAs
49 danielewicz interestingly repeats an Ulpianean vision of reading in which an“intelligent” reader enjoys struggling with the difficulties of the text. For danielewicz 2006,121, Athenaeus’ “discourse” is “oriented . . . at offering [the reader] intellectual satisfactionderived from reading.”50 Ulpian is negatively characterized as a “word hunter” (onomatothe\ras, 3.98a) byCynulcus immediately following the passage under analysis here.
looks for answers to questions posed of a text.49 The joy of this type ofreading is that of the hunt.50 For Ulpian, meaning is viewed as the answerto an answerable question: “Is it found in literature or not?” Cynulcus, incontrast, prefers easy, continuous reading, logoi that have kharis, smoothand beautiful accounts that partake of the variety of historia. with thisunderstanding of Cynulcus’ side, we can move away from the currentformulation of the debate between Ulpian and Cynulcus as being oneof whether to eat or whether to talk. Their collision of opinion is funda-mentally about neither of those two issues. Rather, the coded languageof the Deipnosophists must be analyzed in light of intratextual connec-tions. These connections show that, once again, the question of how toread texts is at stake.Although here they are separated, the relationships between readerand text represented in my analysis by Ulpian and Cynulcus are oftensynthesized in the Deipnosophists. To make sense of a passage read,deipnosophists both ask questions of texts, a type of reading Ulpianrepresents, and answer them by connecting and marshalling a variety oftexts, a type of reading Cynulcus represents. In the next section, I discussthis synthesis.CRows And CReATIVe InTeRTexTAlthough readers can benefit immensely from employing intertext andintratext that leads to making meaning by considering a quotation’ssource text or other parts of the Deipnosophists, there are ways of moreloosely and creatively relating texts dramatized in the Deipnosophists.I call these activities “creative intertexts.” These intertexts are differentfrom those that we allow to lead us along a path directed by the text,such as Ulpian’s use of Plato’s philebus, which cued the reader go to thephilebus to begin to make sense of his words. Creative intertext occurswhen a reader reads for more complex levels of meaning but producesanswers that connect to whatever text that comes to mind, as opposedto a specific cited source-text. This way of reading the Deipnosophists isparticularly useful because many of the original texts quoted in it are
Page 27429How To ReAd ATHenAeUs’ Deipnosophists51 even if all the texts that Athenaeus excerpts were available to Athenaeus, it islikely that a great many of them would not be obtainable by members of other readingcommunities in the empire.
lost and were lost or inaccessible to readers even in Athenaeus’ time.51
Beyond being a particularly sensible way of reading the Deipnosophists,creative intertext is frequently dramatized in the text itself.To speak in terms of my discussion above, creative intertext combinesthe pleasure of varied reading and reading for smooth, aesthetic connec-tions among texts, represented by Cynulcus, with the pleasure of recallingor finding difficult connections between texts, which Ulpian represents.Much of the Deipnosophists dramatizes this kind of reading, where the actof reading involves constantly imagining specific intertexts: “that remindsme of a passage in Plato, in the Laws, where. . . .” The variety of charac-ters in the text, representing a variety of fields of study, reflects this typeof reading in which any ancient text, no matter what the genre, can bebrought to bear on another ancient text. Asking an Ulpian-like questionof a text will begin such reading, but this type of reading will result in thevariety and aesthetic smoothness that Cynulcus demanded. For example,a question about one word, for example, “crow,” in a particular piece ofliterature will lead to readers bringing other texts to bear on that word.
Texts that apply here not only concern that specific type of crow but alsoother crows and even other birds. Furthermore, these readings are noton the surface germane to the context of the work where the word wasfound but rather display a symbolic and interpretative connection, quitesimilar to the symbolism we have seen before, such as in the theme of“drunkenness.”A moment in Book 8 (359d–60b) will help illustrate the dramatiza-tion of this type of reading. daphnus, one of the deipnosophist doctorswho had been giving a catalogue of fish found in literature, quotes fromephippus’ Middle Comedy obeliaphoroi (DinnerRoll Bearers, 8.359a–b).In this passage, a master instructs a slave about what shopping he needsto do at the market for a dinner party. The master directs the slave to notspend extravagantly and declares that they already have veal because acertain “woman” just made a sacrifice of a calf. Consequently, they will be“dining on the Crow’s baby calf tomorrow” (to moskhion / to te\s Koro\ne\saurion deipne\somen, 8.359b).daphnus challenges Ulpian and the grammatikoi (“language andliterature specialists”) to interpret the line: “we shall dine on the Crow’sbaby calf tomorrow” (8.359d). daphnus thinks there is some historiahere (8.359d). In this case, historia means “story” or “background story,”
Page 28430JoHn PAULAs
but daphnus will receive a historia in the sense of varied intertexts, asI have discussed above. Plutarch of Alexandria, one of the main grammatikoi among the deipnosophists, not to be confused with Plutarch ofChaeronea, responds that there is “what they call a Rhodian story (historia)” about it, but it has been so long since he’s seen the book wherethe story is found that he cannot repeat it (8.359d–e). Instead he offersthe following (8.359e):I know, however, that Phoenix of Colophon, the iambic poet, mentions somemen putting together a collection “for the crow” (koro\ne\) and says this:Good men, give a handful of barley for the crow . . . [a lengthy iambicpoem follows]The instincts of the deipnosophists are often different from modern andother known ancient reading practices. The contextualizing instincts ofmodern philological investigation are often not the interest of deipno-sophistic creative intertextual readings. First, there is no interest herein determining what the joke is in the comedy, as the line seems to bea punch line. next, there is no interest in considering the history of thehetaera nicknamed “Crow.” As olson (2006–12) notes, Corone (“crow”)is mentioned as the nickname of a courtesan in Book 13 (13.583e).Indeed, the context of the “Crow” in Middle Comedy or classicalAthenian literature in general is not of interest here, even though similartypes of generic contextualization can be found in the Deipnosophistsas well as in the reading activities of egyptian groups represented inthe papyrological record. For example, Book 6 of the Deipnosophists is,by and large, a dramatization of readers bringing together quotationsfrom comedy and making generalizations about reading comic charactertypes, such as fish-sellers, parasites, and slaves. Furthermore, while thecontemporary readership of Athenaeus’ Deipnosophists cannot be fullyknown, the types of readers who contextualize texts in this way perhapswere similar to the reading groups that Johnson reconstructs from thepapyrological record.52
especially critical to this point is a famous book-loan correspon-dence (p.oxy. xVIII 2192). written in several hands, the letter and itspostscripts give a picture of the activities of a community of readerscorresponding about certain books of interest. In particular, the letterincludes postscripts that show attempts at locating books and having cop-52 see Johnson 2009 and 2010, 180–92, on such groups in egypt and their reading habits.
Page 29431How To ReAd ATHenAeUs’ Deipnosophists53 scodel 2010, 253, views this song as a Hellenistic, good-natured take on the “ritualbegging-song.” Indeed, ritual songs are on Plutarch of Alexandria’s mind as he mentionsanother song to a bird, this time a swallow (khelido\n). This song is from Rhodes, as if heis still struggling to remember that Rhodian story he had promised.
ies made. The books requested include Hypsicrates’ people in Comedies(Ko\mo\idoumenoi, line 28) and Thersagoras’ plots of tragedies (tragikoiMythoi, line 35). In this papyrus we can see evidence for a desire tocontextualize readings in a generic context, a form of reading related tointertextual play elsewhere in the Deipnosophists.The dialogue here, in contrast, dramatizes a reader bringing to bearon a target comic text a different genre of text, the iambic poem, when thedesired text of yet another genre, “the Rhodian story,” is inaccessible. Ifit were not for this intertextual freedom, Plutarch’s momentary forgetful-ness of his past reading might have endangered his ability to make somesense of “the crow’s calf.” The pleasure of remembering texts emphasizedin different ways by Ulpian and Cynulcus is not lost. Plutarch’s forgetful-ness of one text does not put to an end his ability to generate meaningthrough intertext. Another remembered text will suffice. so Plutarchturns to the iambic poetry of Phoenix of Colophon and to the interestingidea of “contributing food for the crow.” “The little calf of the Crow” isread as “the little calf that belongs to the crow having been contributedthereto.”53 Plutarch as a reader is making an intertextual connection, butthere is no single path of contextualization; any text that a reader has tohand that is imagined to engage in some way with the text he or she iscurrently reading will suffice. In this case, as we shall see, Plutarch appearsto place the passage about “crow” from Middle Comedy into a broad setof ritually symbolic contexts involving various birds.Having recited the iambic poem, Plutarch mentions passages fromscholarly works, a further nod to the idea of variety in reading, which wesaw supported by Cynulcus. Plutarch mentions that in a book entitledon names, Pamphilus of Alexandria speaks of koro\nistai, people whocollect for the crow (8.360b). Furthermore, we are told that Hagnoclesof Rhodes in his work, Collectors for the Crow, is said to tell (historei)of the songs that those “Crowists” sing (8.360b). In this second attemptat explaining “Crow’s little calf,” Plutarch begins to relate scholarly textsand their contents, which are both lexicographical and poetic, as theyaddress a group of “Crowists” that sing songs for the “crow.”Plutarch of Alexandria further elaborates and extends creativeintertextual connections from singing to the “crow” (koro\ne\) to singingto the “swallow” (khelido\n). As if still searching for Rhodian stories
Page 30432JoHn PAULAs
to replace the one that he has forgotten, he begins to discuss Rhodianswallow-song singing. To this end, he recites in full a famous song thatbegins “Come, come swallow / Bringing lovely seasons” (8.360c–d). Plu-tarch as a reader is no longer addressing the original question posed ofthe Middle Comedy text, “what are contributions of the koro\ne\?” butis creating new connections related to “birds” and “Rhodes.” Plutarch’swords might appear to be gratuitous, absurd digressions, but, in fact,Plutarch is doing the work of creative intertext, imagining connectionsbetween texts whose relationship might be distant on their surface.when Plutarch finally does relate a “Rhodian” story that has to dowith crows, it has nothing to do with koro\nai but rather with another typeof crows, korakes (we cannot tell if this is the same story he claimed he
could not remember at the beginning of his speech; 8.360d):since I mentioned “Rhodian stories,” I myself shall set out to give anaccount of fish for you from the fair isle of Rhodes, which most pleasurableLynceus says is full of fish.These stories he tells are from ergeias of Rhodes, whose treatise on MyFatherland gives an account of Iphiclus’ mythical siege of a citadel onRhodes. In the story, an oracle features prominently that tells the Phoe-nicians that they will hold the citadel until crows (korakes) turn whiteand fish show up in their mixing bowls (8.360e). In addition to finding ameans to introduce fish to the Phoenician leader’s mixing bowl, Iphiclusensures that the oracle will come true by coating some crows with gypsumand releasing them (8.360f–61a). The Rhodian story actually does haveto do with crows, not of the same sort, at least lexically, as the “crow” inephippus’ play. Most interesting of all, Plutarch introduces his story asbeing about fish. This move shows again the type of symbolic displace-ment that occurs in deipnosophistic reading. Plutarch reads “the Crow”through a Rhodian story in which crows do indeed play an importantrole, but which he labels a story about fish.As is the case with Plutarch’s answer to the question about the crow,the Deipnosophists often prefers imagination, elaboration, and extensionrather than argumentation. That is to say, scholarly literature like Athen-aeus’ Deipnosophists dramatizes readers exercising their imaginationsand textual instincts. A sacrifice mentioned in Middle Comedy involvingthe name Koro\ne\, one type of crow, reminded the grammatikos Plutarchof Alexandria of an iambic version of a ritual-begging poem, a politicalhistory that featured a legend with omens involving crows of anothertype (korakes), but also a poetic text addressed to a different type of bird
Page 31433How To ReAd ATHenAeUs’ Deipnosophists54 Hansen 2000, 235, interprets the koro\ne\ passage I have discussed as evidence of awistful regret for the loss of original contexts and the motivation for Athenaeus to preservewhat he knew for future generations. Hansen 2000, 236, even credits Athenaeus with avision of modern classical philology that neither he nor his contemporaries could achieve.Athenaeus’ reading, as we have seen, is doing something quite different.55 It is no coincidence that the bird omens in Athenaeus strike a reader as Homeric.Although there is not room to discuss this point here, Athenaeus’ readerly world can beshown, not surprisingly, to begin with Homeric texts.
altogether, the swallow (khelido\n). Consequently, we must understandthat the kind of reading being done in the Deipnosophists often differswidely from what modern classical scholars might expect or desire. Cre-ative intertext thus solves the problem of contextualization about whichwe modern classical philologists might care, but for which ancient read-ers, at times, had little concern.54 Fragments of literature do not alwaysrequire contextualization in their source works or within their genre tobe meaningful; they can be contextualized by readers in myriad ways.Plutarch’s readings focus on the “crow” as a symbol for the “sacred”or “ritual.” The readings he marshals place birds in ritual contexts, fromritual begging-songs to historical narratives about legendary oracleswith birds in their vehicle.55 As was the case with the beginning of theme\tra passage, the koro\ne\ generates a series of intertexts connected bysymbolic importance. That is to say, Plutarch’s intertextual work does nothelp us define koro\ne\ but rather transforms koro\ne\ into a symbol for aparticular line of reading that a reader might take, in this case, of sacred,ritual, and ominous birds.This reading of koro\ne\ as a bird connected to ritual and omen byPlutarch of Alexandria is broadened and continued later in the text.The deipnosophist philosopher Pontianus, during an anti-Platonic rant,relates a story told by Hegesander of delphi in which socrates, near hisend, has a dream in which Plato, transformed into a koro\ne\, pecks at hisbald spot and makes crowing noises (11.507c–d). socrates interprets this
dream as prophetic: “I think Plato will tell many lies about my head” (i.e.,me; 11.507d). Readers can read Pontianus’ quotation of Hegesander ofdelphi’s story with an eye back to the passages that Plutarch cited earlierabout the koro\ne\. After Plutarch’s symbolic reading, koro\ne\, now, is likelyto remind a reader of ritual and omen.The section on the crow demonstrates how far from providingknowledge about “crows” the text is. we learn precious little evenabout literary instantiations of the “crow.” words inspire readings, notdictionary or encyclopedia entries or library catalogues. Here again the
Page 32434JoHn PAULAs
Deipnosophists cannot be fruitfully viewed as the representation of anencyclopedic repository of learning. we are treated to a reader, Plutarchof Alexandria, making the kind imaginative connections readers makeusing other texts.Plutarch of Alexandria’s original “forgetfulness” about the crow ina Rhodian story is not so much, therefore, a failure of knowledge, but asymbol of a process of reading texts where a variety of intertexts cometo mind. Plutarch’s type of reading represents the ultimate synthesis ofUlpian’s and Cynulcus’ ways of reading, refining various elements ofUlpianean and Cynulcan reading. with his set of creative intertexts, Plu-tarch has shown the productivity of “not remembering,” a major part ofthe debate between Ulpian and Cynulcus. “not remembering,” ultimately,has produced in Plutarch’s speech the variety of textual connectionsthat Cynulcus had hoped for. Plutarch has also synthesized Ulpian’sstrict “word-hunting,” specifically cited intertexts with Cynulcus’ implicitcall for looser and smoother connections. In doing so, he produces onemodel for creative intertext. The question “what is the crow?” resultsin a variety of readings that a particular reader has to provide. Thus, the“crow” symbolically represents a particular strand of intertextual think-ing and imagining.ConCLUsIonThe Deipnosophists may fruitfully be read as the dramatization of acts ofreading. when understood as such, its intricacies, difficulties, and odditiesbecome much easier to understand. I have spoken of three kinds of textualrelations that can help readers make sense of the Deipnosophists. The firstis strict intertext. specific target texts provide contexts in or against whichto read the text of the Deipnosophists. The second relation is intratext. Bymeans of intratext, various parts of the Deipnosophists may be broughtinto contact with one another to generate meaning and to discover anddevelop themes, such as “drunkenness.” Finally, I suggested a third wayof reading, a loose intertext that I have labeled “creative intertext,” bywhich the reader’s memory of any text may be brought to bear on a pas-sage read. I hope to have shown that if a reader wants to make sense ofthe Deipnosophists, a combination of these ways of reading is necessary.Furthermore, I argued that it is important to understand how rifewith symbolic speech the Deipnosophists is, especially in its themes. Forinstance, I have shown how “drunkenness” stands neither for physicaldrunkenness, nor a vaguely metaphorical intellectual confusion, but rather
Page 33435How To ReAd ATHenAeUs’ Deipnosophists
labels with negative ethical vocabulary specific bad reading practices,such as what is perceived as Ulpian’s Atticist word hunting. I have alsoviewed the representation of words as symbols, such as the relationshipbetween the “crow” and “the sacred, ritual and ominous” as critical to
textuality in the Deipnosophists.Most important, I have viewed the Deipnosophists as a dramatiza-tion of the textuality described above. Characters such as Ulpian andCynulcus were seen to represent contrasting ideas about textuality, withUlpian preferring controlled and strict intertexts and Cynulcus emphasiz-ing variety and ease in making connections between texts. A synthesis ofthese two ways of reading was seen in Plutarch of Alexandria’s readingof the “crow,” a kind of creative intertextuality which appears throughoutAthenaeus’ text in myriad manifestations. Any possible element of a din-ner party mentioned in texts—a lyre fish, a citron, a type of perfume—canspawn “creative intertexts,” each of unique character, as was that of the“crow.” The goal is not encyclopedic knowledge or definition but ratherto dramatize the textual connections that highly engaged and imagina-tive readers create.Further readings of the symbolic language of Athenaeus’ text arewanted, as are analyses of the many manifestations of the dramatizationof textuality in the Deipnosophists. now we may see for the first time that“who is a deipnosophist?” does not demand a dictionary definition orencyclopedia entry. “deipnosophist” is instantiated by Ulpian and Cynul-cus reading the me\tra and by Plutarch of Alexandria reading the koro\ne\,that is, by readers making connections between texts that inspire otherreaders to make other connections. Following these characters’ leads willrender the Deipnosophists both readable and a pleasure to read, some-thing that few familiar with its difficulties might have easily imagined.56
LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO
e-mail: [email protected] My thanks to those who heard a version of this article at the 2009 APA AnnualMeeting in Philadelphia. I greatly benefitted from both the public discussion and our privateconversations. I would like also to express my gratitude to the editor david Larmour andthe anonymous referees for their insightful and helpful readings.
Page 34436JoHn PAULAs
BIBLIoGRAPHYAnderson, Graham. 1993. the second sophistic: A Cultural phenomenon in theRoman empire. London: Routledge.———. 1997. “Athenaeus: The sophistic Movement.” AnRW 34.3:2173–85.———. 2000. “The Banquet of Belles-Lettres: Athenaeus and the Comic sympo-sium.” In Athenaeus and his World, ed. david Braund and John wilkins,316–26. exeter: University of exeter Press.Barthes, Roland. 1974. s/Z: An essay. Trans. Richard Miller. new York: Farrar,straus and Giroux.Braund, david, and John wilkins, eds. 2000. Athenaeus and his World: ReadingGreek Culture in the Roman empire. exeter: University of exeter Press.Bréchet, Christian. 2007. “du ‘grand livre’ homérique aux deipnosophistes:exploration d’un continuum.” In Athénée et les fragments d’historiens, ed.dominique Lenfant, 321–40. Paris: de Boccard.Canfora, Luciano, ed. 2001. Ateneo: i Deipnosofisti. i dotti a banchetto. 3 vols.Rome: salerno.dalby, Andrew. 1996. siren Feasts: A history of Food and Gastronomy in Greece.London: Routledge.———. 2003. Food in the Ancient World from A to Z. London: Routledge.danielewicz, Jerzy. 2006. “Poetic Quotations and discourse strategies in Athen-aeus.” eos 93:116–30.davidson, James. 2000. “Pleasure and Pedantry in Athenaeus.” In Athenaeus andhis World, ed. david Braund and John wilkins, 292–303. exeter: Universityof exeter Press.düring, Ingemar. 1936. “de Athenaei dipnosophistarum indole atque disposi-tione.” In Apophoreta gotoburgensia Vilelmo Lundström oblata, 226–70.Gothenburg: elanders Boktryckeri Aktiebolag.edwards, Catharine, and Greg woolf, eds. 2003. Rome the Cosmopolis. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.Friedrich, Claus, and Thomas nothers. 1998. Das Gelehrtenmahl. stuttgart: Hierse -mann.Gorman, Robert, and Vanessa Gorman. 2007. “The tryphe\ of the sybarites: A
Historiographical Problem in Athenaeus.” Jhs 127:38–60.Gulick, Charles Burton, ed. and trans. 1927. Athenaeus: the Deipnosophists. newYork: Putnam.Hansen, dirk U. 2000. “Leser und Benutzer: Überlegungen zu Athenaios.” Classica et Mediaevalia 51:223–36.———. 2005. “Mega Biblion, Mega Kakon.” In selecta Colligere, ii: Beiträge zurtechnik des sammelns und Kompilierens griechischer texte von der Antikebis zum humanismus, ed. Rosa Maria Piccione and Matthias Perkams,79–96. Alessandria: edizioni dell’orso.Hesk, John. 2000. “Intratext and Irony in Aristophanes.” In intratextuality: Greekand Roman textual Relations, ed. Alison sharrock and Helen Morales.227–62. oxford: oxford University Press.
Page 35437How To ReAd ATHenAeUs’ DeipnosophistsHinds, stephen. 1998. Allusion and intertext: Dynamics of Appropriation in Romanpoetry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Iser, wolfgang. 1980. “The Reading Process: A Phenomenological Approach.”In ReaderResponse Criticism: From Formalism to poststructuralism, ed.Jane P. Tompkins, 50–69. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press.Jacob, Christian. 2000. “Athenaeus the Librarian.” In Athenaeus and his World, ed.david Braund and John wilkins, 85–110. exeter: University of exeter Press.———. 2001. “Ateneo, o il dedalo delle parole, introduzione.” In Ateneo: i Deipno sofisti. i dotti a banchetto, ed. Luciano Canfora, xi–cxvi. Rome: salernoeditrice.———. 2004. “La citation comme performance dans les Deipnosophistesd’Athénée.” In La citation dans l’antiquité, ed. Catherine darbo-Peschanski,147–74. Grenoble: Millon.Johnson, william A. 2009. “The Ancient Book.” In the oxford handbook ofpapyrology, ed. Roger Bagnall, 256–81. oxford: oxford University Press.———. 2010. Readers and Reading Culture in the high Roman empire: A studyof elite Communities. oxford: oxford University Press.Kaibel, Georg, ed. 1887. Athenaei naucratitae Dipnosophistarum libri XV. Leipzig:Teubner.König, Jason. 2007. “Fragmentation and Coherence in Plutarch’s sympotic Questions.” In ordering Knowledge in the Roman empire, ed. Jason König andTim whitmarsh, 43–68. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Lenfant, dominique, ed. 2007. Athénée et les fragments d’historiens. Paris: deBoccard.Louyest, Benoit. 2009. Mots de poissons: Le banquet des sophistes livres 6 et 7.Villaneueve d’Ascq: septentrion.Luck, Georg. 2006. Arcana Mundi: Magic and the occult in the Greek and RomanWorlds. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press.Lukinovich, Alessandra. 1983. “Tradition platonicienne et polemique antiphilos-ophique dans les Deipnosophistes d’Athénée.” In Concilium eirene XVi:proceedings of the 16th international eirene Conference, prague, 31.8–4.91982, ed. Pavel oliva and Alena Frolíkova, 228–33. Prague: Kabinet prostudia r=ecka, r=ímska a latinska C+sAV.———. 1985. “La poikilia chez Athénée.” ReL 68:14–16.———. 1990. “The Play of Reflections between Literary Form and the sympoticTheme in the Deipnosophistae of Athenaeus.” In sympotica: symposiumon the symposium, ed. oswyn Murray, 263–76. oxford: Clarendon Press.McClure, Laura. 2003. “Courtesans at Table: Gender and Greek Literary Culturein Athenaeus.” London: Routledge.Mengis, Karl. 1920. Die schriftstellerische technik im sophistenmahl des Athenaios.Paderborn: schöningh.nesselrath, Heinz-Günther. 1990. Die attische mittlere Komödie: ihre stellung inder antiken Literaturkritik. Berlin: de Gruyter.olson, s. douglas, trans. 2006–12. Athenaeus: the Learned Banqueters. Cambridge,Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Page 36438JoHn PAULAsPelling, Christopher. 2000. “Fun with Fragments: Athenaeus and the Historians.”In Athenaeus and his World, ed. david Braund and John wilkins, 171–90.exeter: University of exeter Press.———. 2011. “Putting the -viv- into ‘Convivial’: The table talk and the Lives.” In
the philosopher’s Banquet: plutarch’s table talk in the intellectual Cultureof the Roman empire, ed. Frieda Klotz and Katerina oikonomopoulou,203–31. oxford: oxford University Press.Porter, James I. 2006. Classical pasts: the Classical traditions of Greece and Rome.Princeton, n.J.: Princeton University Press.Pucci, Joseph. 1998. the FullKnowing Reader: Allusion and the power of theReader in the Western Literary tradition. new Haven, Conn.: Yale Univer-sity Press.Rodríguez-noriega Guillén, Lucía. 2000. “Are the Fifteen Books of the Deipnosophistae an excerpt?” In Athenaeus and his World, ed. david Braund andJohn wilkins, 244–55. exeter: University of exeter Press.Romeri, Luciana. 2002. philosophes entre mots et mets: plutarque, Lucien etAthénée, autour de la table de platon. Grenoble: Millon.———. 2003. “Ā propos du Banquet de Platon: La polémique anti-platoniciennechez Athénée.” pallas 61:327–39.———. 2004. “Platon chez Athénée.” In La citation dans l’antiquité, ed. Catherinedarbo-Peschanski, 175–88. Grenoble: Millon.———. 2007. “Les citations de Platon chez Athénée.” In Athénée et les fragmentsd’historiens, ed. dominique Lenfant, 341–54. Paris: de Boccard.Rudolph, Felix. 1891. “die Quellen und die schriftstellerei des Athenaios.” philologus supplementband 6:109–62.scodel, Ruth. 2010. “Iambos and Parody.” In A Companion to hellenistic Literature,ed. James Clauss and Martine Cuypers, 251–66. oxford: wiley-Blackwell.sharrock, Alison, and Helen Morales. 2000. intratextuality: Greek and Romantextual Relations. oxford: oxford University Press.swain, simon. 1996. hellenism and empire: Language, Classicism, and power inthe Greek World, AD 50–250. oxford: Clarendon Press.Tsouna-McKirahan, Voula. 1998. the epistemology of the Cyrenaic school. Cam-bridge: Cambridge University Press.van Rossum-steenbeek, Monique. 1998. Greek Readers’ Digests?: studies on aselection of subliterary papyri. Leiden: Brill.walden, John. 1909. the Universities of Ancient Greece. new York: scribner.warner, Charles dudley, ed. 1896. the Library of the World’s Best Literature. 30vols. new York: Peale and Hill.whitmarsh, Tim. 2007. “Prose Literature and the severan dynasty.” In severanCulture, ed. simon swain, stephen Harrison, and Jas;elsner, 29–51. Cam-bridge: Cambridge University Press.wilkins, John 2000a. “dialogue and Comedy: The structure of the Deipnosophistae.” In Athenaeus and his World, ed. david Braund and John wilkins,23–37. exeter: University of exeter Press.
Page 37439How To ReAd ATHenAeUs’ Deipnosophists———. 2000b. the Boastful Chef: the Discourse of Food in Ancient Greek Comedy. oxford: oxford University Press.———. 2007. “Vers une histoire sympotique.” In Athénée et les fragmentsd’historiens, ed. dominique Lenfant, 29–39. Paris: de Boccard.———. 2008. “Athenaeus the navigator.” Jhs 128:132–52.woolf, Greg. 2003. “The City of Letters.” In Rome the Cosmopolis, ed. Catherineedwards and Greg woolf, 203–21. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.wright, wilmer Cave, ed. and trans. 1922. philostratus and eunapius: the Livesof the sophists. new York: Putnam.Zecchini, Giuseppe. 1989. La cultura storica di Ateneo. Milan: Vita e Pensiero.
![300307 - New Hydro - Paris - John Ottestad 2.ppt [Read-Only]](https://static.documents.pub/doc/80x56/61cb51bfa87226651a1a94b4/300307-new-hydro-paris-john-ottestad-2ppt-read-only.jpg)
