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[German version] A. General observations and sources In the wider sense, table culture refers to all practices linked to nutrition, to concrete activities as well as their symbolic representations. This new comprehensive approach to ancient TC owes a lot to the advances in anthropology since Claude Levi-Strauss; anthropological research has revealed astonishing interconnections between the TCs of the societies under examination. The task is no longer merely to list the foods produced and consumed, to know the various ways of food preparation and c…

[German version] I. Near East and Egypt Although there is copious epigraphical and graphic evidence for a highly developed  table culture at the courts of oriental rulers in antiquity, cooking recipes are known to us so far only from Mesopotamia: 34 from the 18th cent. BC (gathered from three clay tablets), one from the 6th/5th cents. BC.…

[German version] Generally, a sacrificial offering in food form, raw (the first fruit of harvest, a cup of wine) or cooked (such as a pot of porridge or the πανσπερμία/ panspermía, a mixture of first fruit or seeds), dedicated to the gods or the dead. The term comprises the offering of consecrated meat, cereals and other vegetarian foodstuffs (vegetables, fruit, cake, cheese), as well as different liquids (wine, milk, honey-based drinks etc.); it includes also the offering of whole meals ( theoxénia ) and animal sacrifice (sacrifice). Offerings of vegetaria…

Plebeian family name (in MSS frequently confused with  Coelius), attested from the 2nd cent. BC. (ThlL, Onom. 24-26). I. Republican Age [German version] [I 1] C., C. praetor or propraetor in Gallia Cisalpina in 90 BC praetor or propraetor in Gallia Cisalpina in 90 BC (Liv. per. 73; MRR 2,25). Elvers, Karl-Ludwig (Bochum) [German version] [I 2] C., C. see C.  Coelius. …

[German version] I. Egypt and the ancient Orient The central Egyptian sources of information regarding banquets are the depictions of the funerary banquet in the tombs of Theban officials dating from the 18th dynasty (15th -14th cents. BC). The early pictures show the tomb's occupant with his spouse as the host in front of a table loaded with dishes of food and faced by their guests in several rows. Servants adorn them with flowers and bring wine and food, pleasant-smelling ointments and utensils for hand-washing. Over the course of time, the scene loses its ritual severity through artistic improvement and the added richness of detail. Between the now smaller group of guests and the hosts there appears a third group made up of the daughters of the occupant of the tomb, female musicians and dancers. The banquet can now be seen as a celebratory event appealing to all senses [1]. Excessive extremes are not far away: morality tales warn against greedy behaviour when at the table of a superior (e.g. […

[German version] The Greek term μάγειρος ( mágeiros) covers three different functions: that of the sacrificing priest who slices the throat of the sacrificial animal, that of the butcher who cuts the sacrificial animal up and that of the cook who prepares a meal. In the Homeric and archaic periods the culinary function cannot be distinguished from the others. In the classical period the term mágeiros describes a culinary specialist, a cook, and mágeiroi are found cooking at State, i.e. public, sacrifices, e.g. at the Posideia festivals ( Poseidon) on Delos ( mágeiroi are mentioned in …

[German version] A. Origins The art of cooking, which is the search for a balance of flavours, the preference for certain kinds of wine etc., in short, good taste in matters of nourishment, probably always existed in the ancient world but only became the subject of scientific discourse in the classical period. (This impression is based on the current state of documentation.) In antiquity the development of a true art of cooking was considered in a contradictory way both a sign of a high degree of ci…

[German version] Semicircular dining sofa, named after the later form of the Greek letter , which in the Roman world gradually took the place of the triclinium and took over entirely in the 4th and 5th cents. AD. Exactly when the s. established itself among the Romans cannot be determined. The first archaeologically attested sígmata, which are identifiable from floor mosaics, can be dated to no earlier than the end of the 2nd cent. or the beginning of the 3rd cent. Already before that, however, this semicircular arrangement had been used for meals in the open air, under the term stibadium (στ…

(Ἡρακλείδης; Hērakleídēs). Famous persons: the politician and writer H. [19] Lembus, the philosopher H. [16] Ponticus the Younger, the doctor H. [27] of Tarentum. I. Political fi…

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(Ἀνθίμος; Anthímos). [German version] [1] Greek doctor Greek doctor who soon after AD 511 wrote a brief Latin treatise in letter form about dietetics, De observatione ciborum ad Theodoricum regem Francorum epistula. As a medical treatise and book of remedies, the work offered a description of the dietary customs of a Germanic tribe. It is written in a language associated with one of the colloquial languages of the people of his time, and his region (vulgar Latin). Schmitt-Pantel, Pauline (Paris) Bibliography Ed.: …

(Ἀρχέστρατος; Archéstratos). [German version] [1] Actor and Tragedian With his tragedy Antaios, an unknown actor triumphed at the Soteria in Delphi betwe…

[German version] (τρικλίν[ι]ον; triklín[i]on). Roman dining room, or in the narrower sense, a group of three couches (Latin lectus; klínē ), on each of which three guests could take their places. Their arrangement around a central round or rectangular table was the typical Roman furnishing for the dining room (cf. ill.). The couches could be built of stone, so that their location is recognizable in the floor plan of the house; however, they were frequently movable. Mattresses, cushions and blankets provided the necessary comfort. Where there was no constructed substructure, a triclini…