Athenaeus of Naucratis was an ancient Greek rhetorician and grammarian who flourished during the late second and early third centuries AD. While biographical details about his life remain scarce, historical records such as the Suda place his career during the reign of Marcus Aurelius. However, his writings reveal a distinct contempt for Emperor Commodus, who died in 192 AD, suggesting that Athenaeus survived him and continued writing into the subsequent century alongside contemporaries like Adrantus.\n\nHe is primarily remembered for his monumental fifteen-volume work, the Deipnosophistae (or The Deipnosophists), which mostly survives to this day. This encyclopedic text is structured as a series of dialogues at a banquet, serving as an invaluable source of information on ancient Greek daily life, cuisine, literature, and gossip. Through this work, Athenaeus preserved numerous fragments of lost classical literature, particularly from Middle and New Comedy.\n\nIn addition to the Deipnosophistae, Athenaeus mentions having authored other scholarly treatises, though these have unfortunately been lost to history. Among his lost writings are a specialized treatise on the thratta, a type of fish mentioned by Archippus and other comic poets, as well as a comprehensive history of the Syrian kings.
