A while ago I posted about Athenaeus, the proto-encyclopediast who was obsessed with fish. I was interested in how he basically had an entry on the origins of slavery in the Greek world. In a different section of his work, the Deipnosophists, Athenaeus has a discussion about cooks in Greek and Roman comedy. Rather intriguingly, this information comes from a cook.
Ulpian, one of the interlocutors, had just finished a speech on cheese when this anonymous cook comes in with a dish called a muma, which is something that none of the diners had ever heard of before. The cook takes this opportunity to show of his own expertise about cooks in Greek history and comedy.
The cook begins with the historian Euhemerus, who is primarily famous today because of his method of explaining Greek myths as originating in the deeds of long dead, and obscured now because of the myths, kings. According to Euhemerus, Cadmus, the mythical grandfather of the god Dionysus, was based off a cook from the city of Sidon, who ran away from the king of Sidon with a flute-girl. To support this position, Euhemerus quotes a bit of poetry:
“But I shall escape, since I was born free.”
Apparently the narrator cook takes this line to imply that this Cadmus was temporarily enslaved as a cook, as our narrator goes onto to explain it is only in the comedies of Posidippus that cooks are slaves:
οὐδὲ γὰρ ἂν εὕροι τις ὑμῶν δοῦλον μάγειρόν τινα ἐν κωμῳδίᾳ πλὴν παρὰ Ποσειδίππῳ μόνῳ. δοῦλοιδ᾽ ὀψοποιοὶ παρῆλθον ὑπὸ πρώτων Μακεδόνων τοῦτ᾽ ἐπιτηδευσάντων ἢ δι᾽ ὕβριν ἢ δι᾽ ἀτυχίαν τῶν αἰχμαλωτισθεισῶν πόλεων, ἐκάλουν δ᾽ οἱ παλαιοὶ τὸν μὲν πολιτικὸν μάγειρον μαίσωνα, τὸν δ᾽ ἐκτόπιον τέττιγα.
For none of you could name a single slave cook in any comedy, except in Posidippus. Slave chefs were first introduced by the Macedonians, who made this practice as a consequence either of their insolence or of the bad luck of the cities they captured. (14.658f-59a, trans. S.D. Olson )
To show that he’s not wrong about Posidippus, the cook goes onto to quote some lines from the play that are from the perspective of a cook who fears her master’s wrath.
I got interested in this passage because contemporary scholars think that Athenaeus is overall correct about his observation. That is, the cooks in Greek comedy should not be considered slaves unless described otherwise. However, I have some reservations about this passage of Athenaeus. First of all, how would Athenaeus know that the cooks in comedies written hundreds of years earlier were free(d)men unless otherwise specified? Athenaeus had access to written copies of these plays, but it is important to remember that even in his time, how the plays were originally performed in Athens was subject for scholarly debate. Second, why would Posidippus be the only comedian to use slaves as cooks?
Ulpian, one of the interlocutors, had just finished a speech on cheese when this anonymous cook comes in with a dish called a muma, which is something that none of the diners had ever heard of before. The cook takes this opportunity to show of his own expertise about cooks in Greek history and comedy.
The cook begins with the historian Euhemerus, who is primarily famous today because of his method of explaining Greek myths as originating in the deeds of long dead, and obscured now because of the myths, kings. According to Euhemerus, Cadmus, the mythical grandfather of the god Dionysus, was based off a cook from the city of Sidon, who ran away from the king of Sidon with a flute-girl. To support this position, Euhemerus quotes a bit of poetry:
“But I shall escape, since I was born free.”
Apparently the narrator cook takes this line to imply that this Cadmus was temporarily enslaved as a cook, as our narrator goes onto to explain it is only in the comedies of Posidippus that cooks are slaves:
οὐδὲ γὰρ ἂν εὕροι τις ὑμῶν δοῦλον μάγειρόν τινα ἐν κωμῳδίᾳ πλὴν παρὰ Ποσειδίππῳ μόνῳ. δοῦλοιδ᾽ ὀψοποιοὶ παρῆλθον ὑπὸ πρώτων Μακεδόνων τοῦτ᾽ ἐπιτηδευσάντων ἢ δι᾽ ὕβριν ἢ δι᾽ ἀτυχίαν τῶν αἰχμαλωτισθεισῶν πόλεων, ἐκάλουν δ᾽ οἱ παλαιοὶ τὸν μὲν πολιτικὸν μάγειρον μαίσωνα, τὸν δ᾽ ἐκτόπιον τέττιγα.
For none of you could name a single slave cook in any comedy, except in Posidippus. Slave chefs were first introduced by the Macedonians, who made this practice as a consequence either of their insolence or of the bad luck of the cities they captured. (14.658f-59a, trans. S.D. Olson )
To show that he’s not wrong about Posidippus, the cook goes onto to quote some lines from the play that are from the perspective of a cook who fears her master’s wrath.
I got interested in this passage because contemporary scholars think that Athenaeus is overall correct about his observation. That is, the cooks in Greek comedy should not be considered slaves unless described otherwise. However, I have some reservations about this passage of Athenaeus. First of all, how would Athenaeus know that the cooks in comedies written hundreds of years earlier were free(d)men unless otherwise specified? Athenaeus had access to written copies of these plays, but it is important to remember that even in his time, how the plays were originally performed in Athens was subject for scholarly debate. Second, why would Posidippus be the only comedian to use slaves as cooks?