In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:From Feasting to Fasting: The Evolution of a Sin; Attitudes to Food in Late AntiquityJohn F. DonahueVeronika E. Grimm. From Feasting to Fasting: The Evolution of a Sin; Attitudes to Food in Late Antiquity. London and New York: Routledge, 1996. x 1 294 pp. Cloth, $49.95.The role of food in the ancient world has been the focus of much attention in recent years, as both Greek and Roman (...) dining practices have been examined from a number of perspectives—sociological, anthropological, and semiotic, to name but a few. Noticeably absent, however, has been any sustained study of attitudes toward feasting and fasting in major early Christian writers. Veronika Grimm attempts to correct this deficiency by clarifying the social [End Page 655] and symbolic meanings given to food, eating, and fasting in the writings of those who shaped Christian thinking from the first to the fifth century.Chapters 1 and 2 offer necessary background by surveying both Jewish and Graeco-Roman attitudes toward feasting and fasting. Here we come to an essential difference between the two cultures. For the Jew, food and fasting were part of an ethical conduct, the rules for which were given by God. The result was a keen interest in fasting to serve as “penitence, expiation for transgression, the humbling of the self in order to arouse the pity of the Deity” (32). Even so, this focus never implied dualistic negation of “the flesh,” except with Platonic Philo. On the other hand, pagan gods expected worship and sacrifice, yet showed little interest in regulating the daily life of worshipers, what they ate, or with whom they slept. As Grimm reveals, people worked the rules out for themselves, physicians set guidelines for physical well-being, and philosophers stressed moderation as the appropriate human conduct concerning food.Grimm devotes the remainder of her study to a chronological review of feasting and fasting in the works of the principal early Christian writers, beginning with Paul (chapter 3) and continuing with the Acts of the Apostles (chapter 4), Clement of Alexandria (chapter 5), Tertullian (chapter 6), and Origen and Eusebius (chapter 7). Two concluding chapters trace attitudes to food and feasting in ascetic propaganda and practice in the works of Jerome and Augustine.Within these chapters lies the author’s central achievement: the charting of a course from occasional fasting to active self-denial. Thus, writing in the early years of the Church, Paul and the apostles emphasize the religious significance of the celebration and sharing of food but place little value on fasting as an ascetic or religious practice. By the late second and early third centuries, Clement of Alexandria, heavily influenced by Philo, neither regards food as a religious issue nor promotes fasting; nevertheless, he pleads for moderation and decorum in eating, drinking, and sexual activity. Origen, another Alexandrian of the third century, exhibits similar views, despite Eusebius’ attempts to cast him as the stereotypical “holy man” in his Ecclesiastical History. Tertullian, a contemporary of Clement’s from North Africa, reveals an even stronger revulsion from sexuality and, more importantly, holds the distinction of being the first Christian propagandist of expiatory fasting whose writings survive. In Grimm’s analysis it is clearly Jerome, however, who emerges in the fourth century as the true advocate of fasting, especially as an antidote to sexual appetite in women. She portrays him as a spirited supporter of anorexia and as one obsessed with the dangers of sexual temptation. Similarly, Grimm views Augustine’s ascetic program of corporal self-management as perilously approaching anorectic behavior.Thanks to Grimm’s careful treatment of the relevant texts and her professional training as a psychologist, there is much of value in these pages, especially her insights into the relationship between eating and physical, mental, and [End Page 656] spiritual well-being in the ancient world. Even so, a few minor concerns persist. First, her assertion that the Gospels “have no special message concerning food” (74) is puzzling, given that the evangelists frequently mention banquets, both earthly and divine, in their writings. Second, Grimm’s longest chapter, on Graeco-Roman attitudes toward food and fasting, seems to be her most problematic. She cites... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:American Journal of Philology 124.3 (2003) 325-327 [Access article in PDF] Introduction John F. Donahue The present special issue of the American Journal of Philology takes as its focus dining in the Roman world. It grew out of the APA/AIA Joint Panel on that subject, which was part of the annual meeting held in Philadelphia in 2002. The topic is both timely and engaging. Indeed, owing largely to its (...) perishability, its diversity, and the ease with which it can be manipulated for any number of social or political ends, food has proven to be an especially amenable topic for scholarly analysis of all sorts.The articles gathered in this special issue further illuminate the nature and function of this elemental yet highly complex social practice, offering a variety of approaches—historical, sociological, literary, cultural, and material—to food and dining in the Roman world.In the first article, "The Way We Used to Eat: Diet, Community, and History at Rome," Nicholas Purcell shows clearly that food and dining can be profitably approached from a cultural perspective. Here, Purcell explores Roman self-consciousness about nutrition and the way in which diet (and implicitly agriculture) were transformed into a narration of historical change. The process is evident in the "comestible historiography" of the elder Pliny, in which the simple foods associated with earlier Roman history provide insight into the ways in which the Romans thought about time and change by focusing on food. Especially influential in this type of approach was Varro and, before him, Dicaearchus. Thus for the Romans, food played a notable role in the relationship of the present to various pasts; in the process it becomes an important marker in helping us to map the intellectual and cultural history of the Republican period.Turning to Roman literature, John Wilkins, in "Land and Sea: Italy and the Mediterranean in the Roman Discourse of Dining," reminds us that Roman dining was linked both to the ideology of the early Imperial period and to the mythography of the agricultural base of Republican politics. The result is a body of texts that moralize against luxury and excess, however much this viewpoint may be at odds with actual Roman practice. In a refreshing departure from the Latin texts that typically treat these themes, the author points to the Greek writers of the second [End Page 325] century C.E., namely, Athenaeus and Galen. Both were interested in eating and dining, but from a much broader perspective than the moralizing approach typical of so much of Roman dining literature.While approaches of this sort help to illuminate both the universality of the dining experience and its uniquely Roman aspects, the sharing of food also intersects in interesting ways with gender and the body. Matthew Roller, in his article "Horizontal Women: Posture and Sex in the Roman Convivium," examines literary texts, Roman urban funerary monuments, and Campanian wall painting in order to understand more completely the complexities of female posture at Roman convivia. On a historical level such evidence argues for women assuming a reclining posture; on an ideological level, the reclining woman symbolizes many of the same things that a reclining posture symbolizes for men—otium, privilege, and pleasure. Even so, the matter of female sexual propriety is never far below the surface, especially in the non-literary sources.John Donahue, in "Toward a Typology of Roman Public Feasting," examines public banqueting during the Principate against the background of modern typologies of commensality in order to understand not only the form but also the deeper social function of public dining. Donahue assembles a wide cross section of Roman testimonia and weaves them into a coherent (if imperfect) framework of festal typologies, while employing a cross-cultural and interdisciplinary approach, in this instance from French sociology. The Roman evidence is categorized into useful typologies, which, in turn, enrich our understanding of public dining and its place in Roman daily life.Not to be overlooked within the Roman festal landscape were servants, the "human props" of the elite-sponsored banquet, as John D'Arms appropriately characterized them. 1 Here, in the final entry, Katherine M.D. Dunbabin... (shrink)

The categories associated with modern French commensality help to illuminate various forms of Roman public dining, most notably, meals linked to events of the life cycle and religious festivals, as well as those sponsored by collegia and by the emperor himself. A comparative approach of this sort brings into sharper focus the nature of this social practice by underscoring the propensity of meals in the ancient world both to unite and to separate diners by social rank.