Drinking, Table Talk, and Plutarch’s Contemporaries
Drinking, Table Talk, and Plutarch’s Contemporaries
Plutarch’s reported after-dinner conversations in Table Talk suggest an ideal world of social intercourse among friends both Greek and Roman. He insists that the purpose of a symposium or drinking party is to make friends and reinforce prior friendships through a shared experience of wine and intelligent conversation. The Muses, represented especially by such conversation, must join Dionysus, for without them communal drinking can rapidly descend into quarrels, ill-will, and even violence. It is the duty of the symposiarchos or leader of the drinking to moderate the party through understanding of each individual, if possible, and introducing appropriate subjects. Both the proems of the individual books and many conversations treat the proper topics for discussion, such as some problem of popular philosophy or literature, or the experiences of participants. Random chit-chat or mockery should be avoided. Plutarch thus implicitly corrects the less cultivated behaviour often to be found in his contemporary society, working through implication rather than reproof.
Keywords: Plutarch, Table Talk, friends, dinners, Quaestiones conviviales, symposium, society, conversation, Muses, symposiarchos
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