Banquets in Ancient Rome: Participation, Presentation and Perception

Abstract

Ancient Roman feasting dates back more than 2000 years, but perceptions of that society continue to fascinate. The association of banquets with ancient Rome immediately summons up perceptions, in many modern minds, of excess and decadence. The source of these perceptions is something of a puzzle — a historiographical puzzle.1 ‘How do we know?’ or ‘How do we think we know?’ are questions which will resonate throughout this book, but let us confront them here. A full analysis of why artists and writers in modern periods have chosen one aspect or another of Roman society as the basis for their work, and the sources which they used, would require a large separate study. It suffices here to remind ourselves that all creative work is an artefact of its own times. Some work follows ancient sources more closely than does other work, but even the ancient sources are a reflection of particular preoccupations of the artist/writer or of his own times. This chapter analyses the sources of some modern perceptions of ancient Roman culture and argues for the importance of history in understanding and representing banquets. Food and drink are here a window on to larger problems of historiography.