ABSTRACT
Even a cursory perusal of the chapters V 1–20 shows that we have before us remnants of writings by the same author who wrote the essay https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780429031830/f207d991-3ec7-4f77-ad1a-81fef86b2ff0/content/inq_chapter3_90_2.tif"/>. Just as so often elswhere in the work of Athenaeus, his name is mentioned towards the end and, as it were, occasionally and by the way: 192 B https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780429031830/f207d991-3ec7-4f77-ad1a-81fef86b2ff0/content/inq_chapter3_90_3.tif"/> A closer inspection reveals the following typical traits, in the presentation of which I follow the order adopted in my edition of the fragments.
The purpose is to make a comparison of convivial customs, as depicted by
Homer,
Plato, Xenophon and Epicurus,
as prevalent in the author’s own time (193 A https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780429031830/f207d991-3ec7-4f77-ad1a-81fef86b2ff0/content/inq_chapter3_90_4.tif"/>, 193 C https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780429031830/f207d991-3ec7-4f77-ad1a-81fef86b2ff0/content/inq_chapter3_90_5.tif"/>, 185 C https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780429031830/f207d991-3ec7-4f77-ad1a-81fef86b2ff0/content/inq_chapter3_90_6.tif"/>, 191 E https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780429031830/f207d991-3ec7-4f77-ad1a-81fef86b2ff0/content/inq_chapter3_90_7.tif"/> https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780429031830/f207d991-3ec7-4f77-ad1a-81fef86b2ff0/content/inq_chapter3_90_8.tif"/>
There is an additional note 191 F https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780429031830/f207d991-3ec7-4f77-ad1a-81fef86b2ff0/content/inq_chapter3_90_9.tif"/>
There is a clear anti-platonic tendency throughout the whole treatise:
177 A, 192 A. In Plato all kinds of guests are invited to the banquet, and there is a general disorder and confusion. Homer on the contrary teaches us what people should be invited.
178 CD. Plato has misinterpreted Homer, Conv. 174 B; the Homeric heroes are no cowards.
180 A. Plato’s banquet is a revel, a https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780429031830/f207d991-3ec7-4f77-ad1a-81fef86b2ff0/content/inq_chapter3_90_10.tif"/> in the true sense of the word, with immoderate drinking, while the heroes in Homer are abstemious.
182 A. Plato’s banquet is frequented by sneerers and mockers (https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780429031830/f207d991-3ec7-4f77-ad1a-81fef86b2ff0/content/inq_chapter3_90_11.tif"/>); in Homer we always find a selected party of distinguished men.
91187 C-F. The general tone of conversation in Plato is rude, boorish and uneducated, rich in abusive words against individuals or against Athens. Paederasty is censured. Yet Homer was expelled from the Ideal State (compare 505 B); a proverb of Demochares is quoted (compare 215 C). On the contrary the young men in Homer are paragons of virtue.
We often meet a magisterial https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780429031830/f207d991-3ec7-4f77-ad1a-81fef86b2ff0/content/inq_chapter3_91_1.tif"/>, 185 B, 186 F, 177 C, 179 B bis, 179 E, 191 D. Besides there are other expressions such as https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780429031830/f207d991-3ec7-4f77-ad1a-81fef86b2ff0/content/inq_chapter3_91_2.tif"/>, and so on. It is on the whole evident that to the author of this treatise Homer is the Great Teacher.
There are many verbal concordances between this treatise and the essay https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780429031830/f207d991-3ec7-4f77-ad1a-81fef86b2ff0/content/inq_chapter3_91_3.tif"/>
{
187
C
https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780429031830/f207d991-3ec7-4f77-ad1a-81fef86b2ff0/content/inq_chapter3_91_4.tif"/>
219
B
https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780429031830/f207d991-3ec7-4f77-ad1a-81fef86b2ff0/content/inq_chapter3_91_5.tif"/>
506
C
https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780429031830/f207d991-3ec7-4f77-ad1a-81fef86b2ff0/content/inq_chapter3_91_6.tif"/>
182
A
https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780429031830/f207d991-3ec7-4f77-ad1a-81fef86b2ff0/content/inq_chapter3_91_7.tif"/>
187
D
∼ 505 B, 188 D ∼ 508 D.
