Athenion (Ancient Greek: Ἀθηνίων) was a poet of Ancient Greek comedy. The Greek grammarian Athenaeus preserves an extensive extract from one of his plays, The Samothracians (Σαμόρακες), in which a chef discourses philosophically about the role cooking plays in civilized society, namely that it "lured early humans away from cannibalism".[1][2][3][4]
His time is uncertain. We know for certain only that he lived in or before the time of Athenaeus, that is, the 3rd century CE. Stylistically, some scholars place him with Middle Comedy and guess he lived some time around the 4th century BCE, while others have placed him in the 3rd[5] or even mid 1st century BCE (though it is possible some scholars have confused him with the mid 1st century BCE actor Athenion).[6][7]
References
edit- ^ Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae xiv. p. 660
- ^ Wilkins, John (2000). The Boastful Chef: The Discourse of Food in Ancient Greek Comedy. Oxford University Press. pp. 410–412. ISBN 9780199240685. Retrieved 2024-09-06.
- ^ Willis, Wendell (2004). Idol Meat in Corinth: The Pauline Argument in 1 Corinthians 8 and 10. Wipf and Stock Publishers. p. 60. ISBN 9781725211063. Retrieved 2024-09-06.
- ^ Rood, Tim; Atack, Carol; Phillips, Tom (2020). Anachronism and Antiquity. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 131. ISBN 9781350115217. Retrieved 2024-09-06.
- ^ Tyrrell, William Blake; Brown, Frieda S. (1991). Athenian Myths and Institutions: Words in Action. Oxford University Press. p. 82. ISBN 9780195067194. Retrieved 2024-09-06.
- ^ Thomas, Joseph (1870). "Athenion". The Universal Dictionary of Biography and Mythology. p. 199. ISBN 978-1-61640-069-9. Retrieved 2024-09-06.
- ^ Sommerstein, Alan H. (2003). Greek Drama and Dramatists. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9781134509843. Retrieved 2024-09-06.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Greenhill, William Alexander (1870). "Athenion (2)". In Smith, William (ed.). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Vol. 1. p. 403.