WorkPlutarch

Table-Talk

Why alpha heads the alphabet, which of Aphrodite's hands Diomedes wounded: ninety-five questions argued over wine by Plutarch, his family and his friends.

by Plutarch511 passages held

Greek, the original language

Original title: Συμποσιακῶν προβλημάτων βιβλία
First published: 90(aged 44)
Original language: Greek

Report a rights issue

Overview

A Greek proverb said that a drinking companion with a good memory was hateful, because what is said over wine should be forgotten by morning. Plutarch addressed Table-Talk to his friend Sosius Senecio, a Roman consul, and opens it by taking Senecio's side against the proverb: Plato, Xenophon and Aristotle had all written down what was said at table, and so would he. Nine books follow, holding ninety-five questions argued at dinners in Athens, Rome, Eleusis, Patrae and Delphi, with his grandfather, his father, his brothers and his Roman friends among the speakers. The questions range freely: whether the bird came before the egg, why autumn sharpens the appetite, whether the Jews avoid pork out of reverence for the pig or out of disgust, what Plato meant by saying that God is always doing geometry. The case for the whole comes in the preface to the eighth book. Driving philosophy out of a dinner party, Plutarch writes there, is worse than taking away the lamp: decent guests behave no worse in the dark, but no light can rescue a drinking party given over to ignorance. The ninth book moves to Athens, to the festival of the Muses held by his teacher Ammonius, then a magistrate of the city. Ammonius had examined the students of letters, geometry, rhetoric and music and asked their teachers to dinner, where the rivalry grew hotter with each cup. That book runs to fifteen questions rather than ten, because the Muses, Plutarch says, must be given everything that is theirs. Every surviving copy of the work descends from a single manuscript now in Vienna, and nine of the questions survive only as titles.

Key concepts

What is a symposium, and why does this book take place at one?

A symposium is a Greek drinking party at which friends talked as the wine went round. Table-Talk records ninety-five questions argued at such dinners in Athens, Rome, Eleusis, Patrae and Delphi, with Plutarch's family and Roman friends among the speakers. The setting is chosen on principle: Plato, Xenophon and Aristotle had all written down what was said at table, and Plutarch treats the party as a proper place for philosophy.

What is a 'table problem', the kind of question the book is made of?

It is a question put up for argument over wine, where the guests offer rival explanations rather than look up an answer. The Greek title calls the nine books 'problems' of the symposium. They range from nature and the body, such as why autumn sharpens the appetite, to custom, language and literature: why alpha heads the alphabet, or which of Aphrodite's hands Diomedes wounded.

Why does Plutarch say philosophy matters more at a party than the lamp?

Because a lamp only lights the room, while philosophy decides what the evening is. In the preface to the eighth book he writes that driving philosophy out of a dinner party is worse than taking away the lamp: decent guests behave no worse in the dark, but no light can rescue a drinking party given over to ignorance. Good company, on this view, depends on what is talked about.

Why did a Greek proverb call a drinking companion with a good memory hateful?

Because what is said over wine was supposed to be forgotten by morning, so that talk at table could run loose without consequence. Plutarch opens Table-Talk by siding against the proverb, together with his friend Sosius Senecio, the Roman consul to whom the work is addressed: Plato, Xenophon and Aristotle had all written down what was said at table, and so would he.

Themes of the book

What this book returns to, gathered into themes and ordered by how much of the text each one occupies.

Why philosophy belongs at the dinner party

Should what is said over wine be forgotten by morning, or written down? Plutarch sides with Plato, Xenophon and Aristotle, and holds that a party without philosophy is worse off than one without a lamp.

A proverb held that a drinking companion with a good memory is hateful. Plutarch, writing to his friend Sosius Senecio, answers that Plato, Xenophon and Aristotle had all recorded what was said at table, and so would he. The preface to the eighth book puts the case at its sharpest: take away the lamp and decent guests behave no worse in the dark, but no light rescues a drinking party given over to ignorance. The ninth book shows the heat of it, at the festival of the Muses kept by his teacher Ammonius, where the rivalry among teachers grew hotter with each cup.

symposium
conversation
wine
intoxication
hospitality
friendship
humor
social etiquette
moderation
pleasure

Enter a dialogue

Which came first, the bird or the egg?

Is any question too small or too strange for philosophy? Plutarch's guests argue about appetite, custom, letters and Plato with the same seriousness, hunting for the cause wherever it hides.

The questions range freely: whether the bird came before the egg, why autumn sharpens the appetite, whether the Jews avoid pork out of reverence for the pig or out of disgust, why alpha heads the alphabet, which of Aphrodite's hands Diomedes wounded, what Plato meant by saying that God is always doing geometry. Nature, the body, custom, language, poetry and Plato share one table. The ninety-five questions were argued at dinners in Athens, Rome, Eleusis, Patrae and Delphi, with Plutarch's grandfather, father, brothers and Roman friends among the speakers; nine survive only as titles.

natural philosophy
causation
ancient medicine
physiology
food
hunger
perception
botany
heat
religion
symbolism
language
etymology
poetry
music

Enter a dialogue

Within this work

passages held: 511
distinct concepts: 602
by passages held, corpus-wide: #145

What this book thinks together

The wheel takes this book’s leading concepts and shows how often they come up together. The wider the band between two, the more of its passages speak of both. Among them, most often together: “causation” and “natural philosophy”.

Concept co-occurrence, strongest first 8 concepts, joined by 17 pairings. 92 pairings reach beyond these concepts and are not drawn.
Concept	Paired concept	Shared passages
causation	natural philosophy	20
ancient medicine	wine	15
natural philosophy	wine	10
causation	perception	7
conversation	humor	6
natural philosophy	perception	5
ancient medicine	causation	4
ancient medicine	natural philosophy	4
conversation	hospitality	3
hospitality	humor	3
conversation	wine	2
hospitality	wine	2
ancient medicine	hospitality	1
ancient medicine	perception	1
causation	wine	1
humor	wine	1
perception	wine	1

Works held

The author's work in order, this book marked in place. Your-language title first, the original beneath it where the two differ; side chips show which full texts are held.

90 Table-Talk (Συμποσιακῶν προβλημάτων βιβλία) you are here EL
100 Moralia (Ἠθικά)
Everything Plutarch wrote that is not biography: the other half of his surviving work, beside the Parallel Lives. The nine books of Table-Talk belong to it by tradition and have a page of their own.
EL

— or open another of their works