#59 Fri (8/19/22) - Sir Thomas Browne on the Deipnosophistae by Athenaeus of Naucratis

The Deipnosophistae was originally in fifteen books.[14] The work survives in one manuscript from which the whole of books 1 and 2, and some other pages too, disappeared long ago. An Epitome or abridgment (to about 60%) was made in medieval times, and survives complete: from this it is possible to read the missing sections, though in a disjointed form.

The English polymath Sir Thomas Browne noted in his encyclopaedia Pseudodoxia Epidemica:

Athenæus, a delectable Author, very various, and justly stiled by Casaubon, Græcorum Plinius.[15] There is extant of his, a famous Piece, under the name of Deipnosophista, or Coena Sapientum*, containing the Discourse of many learned men, at a Feast provided by Laurentius. It is a laborious Collection out of many Authors, and some whereof are mentioned no where else. It containeth strange and singular relations, not without some spice or sprinkling of all Learning. The Author was probably a better Grammarian then Philosopher, dealing but hardly with Aristotle and Plato, and betrayeth himself much in his Chapter De Curiositate Aristotelis. In brief, he is an Author of excellent use, and may with discretion be read unto great advantage: and hath therefore well deserved the Comments of Casaubon and Dalecampius.[16]

Browne's interest in Athenaeus reflects a revived interest in the Banquet of the Learned amongst scholars following the publication of the Deipnosophistae in 1612 by the Classical scholar Isaac Casaubon. Browne was also the author of a Latin essay on Athenaeus. By the nineteenth century however, the poet James Russell Lowell in 1867 characterized the Deipnosophistae and its author thus: 

 ...the somewhat greasy heap of a literary rag-and-bone-picker like Athenaeus is turned to gold by time.

 


*Dinner Sophists or Supper of the Wise

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