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The Atlas Obscura Podcast

How to Dine Like an Ancient Philosopher

The Atlas Obscura Podcast

SiriusXM Podcasts & Atlas Obscura

Society & Culture, Places & Travel

4.61.6K Ratings

🗓️ 10 June 2025

⏱️ 16 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

An ancient book contains a controversial Greek recipe, one of the earliest examples of patent law, and answers for a perennial problem: how to make conversation at a dinner party.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Imagine that you have just been invited to a dinner party in third century Rome.

0:09.6

Yes.

0:10.8

This is going to be a very fancy kind of affair.

0:13.3

It's going to be some high-profile guests, and you want to make sure that you're going to make a good impression.

0:18.0

Okay.

0:18.5

So you're going to need a few things.

0:21.1

You can figure out your outfit, of course.

0:23.3

Toga.

0:23.8

I'm assuming a Toga.

0:25.1

Toga, definitely, as long as you're a Roman citizen.

0:28.7

You've got to bring your spoon a napkin because you have to bring those to an ancient

0:32.9

Roman dinner party.

0:34.5

This is expected of you that you come with your own silverware. Yes, because they'll be eating out of communal dishes in the center of the table.

0:41.4

And there's just one thing that you have to maybe do some extra preparation, which is the

0:47.0

conversation.

0:48.2

This is a high society affair.

0:50.7

These people are well traveled.

0:52.7

They're well read.

0:53.9

Let's say, like, I'm kind of outclassed here.

0:56.7

Like, I was invited because I'm, like, the cousin of somebody, and they felt like they had to

1:00.8

invite me. How do I get ready for this? How can I actually prepare to not look like a doof?

1:06.7

Well, that's when you can breathe a sigh of relief and relax, you can go to your library because you've just remembered that you own a copy of a work of literature called dipnosophistic.

...

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