"This new critical edition of Athenaeus' Deipnosophists (The Learned Banqueters) replaces that of Kaibel. A separate, parallel edition of the Epitome is included, as is extensive documentation of cognate or derivative material in authors such as Aelian and Eustathius. The text is based on far more extensive manuscript work than Kaibel's edition was, and treats the Epitome manuscripts as substantial and important witnesses to the text. Athenaeus describes a series of dinner parties at which the guests quote extensively from Greek literature. The work (which dates to the very end of the second century CE) is amusing reading and of extraordinary value as a treasury of quotations from works now lost. Athenaeus also preserves a wide range of information about different cuisines and foodstuffs, the music and entertainments that ornamented banquets, and the intellectual talk that was the heart of Greek conviviality."--