The Philosopher's Banquet: Plutarch's Table Talk in the Intellectual Culture of the Roman Empire

by Frieda Klotz (Editor), Katerina Oikonomopoulou

The Philosopher's Banquet is the first sustained study of Plutarch's Table Talk , a Greek prose text which is a combination of philosophical dialogue (in the style of Plato's Symposium ) and miscellany. The form of Table Talk was imitated by several later Greek and Roman imperial authors (such as Aulus Gellius, Athenaeus, and Macrobius), making it a vital part of the early Roman Empire's literary and cultural history. Similarly, the great variety of its contents links it with a broader imperial cultural trend, that of systematizing knowledge, which features increasingly prominently as a subject of scholarly study in both classics and the history of science. The contributors to The Philosopher's Banquet offer a range of methodologically innovative and sophisticated readings of Table Talk 's literary form, themes, cultural background, and influence.

288 pages, Hardcover

First published October 6, 2011