Aims

This module aims to introduce students to Greco-Roman dining and Symposium Culture in the ancient world. Students will be taught how to read and interpret literary texts that deal with dining and sympotic culture and will also learn how to analyse technical treatises such as medical works and ancient cookbooks (including those preserved on papyrus). By teaching students about the function of ‘dining’ and symposia in literary works from across the ancient world, we also aim to introduce them to food and food production in a practical sense; thus, this course, whilst primarily centred on literary works and technical treatises, will be truly interdisciplinary, encouraging students to think about how literature and archaeology etc. connect (with food and dining serving as the vehicles for that study). Furthermore, special emphasis will be placed on rituals of commensality, which will provide a comparative element with contemporary society, since every society has rituals of commensality and laws governing the consumption of food and drink. We aim, therefore, to show students how the critical observation of antiquity’s laws and rituals can enable them to become more critical observers of their own culture.

Outline Of Syllabus

Whilst the focus will primarily be on literary texts that deal with food and dining, we will, by reflex, cover topics such as food and everyday life (what did Greeks and Romans eat); the economy of food (production and transportation –farming, fishing etc.); food and religion (e.g., food and the Golden Age; sacrifice; abstinence); drinking (wine and beer; the symposion); food and literature (the symposion as a literary genre; literature performed during the symposion; emergence of cookbooks; food in comedy, parody, and epigram as well as in epic and love elegy); and food and medicine (the emergence of dietetics). The materials used in these sessions will derive from known literary texts, as well as technical treatises (medical works; ancient cookbooks, including those preserved on papyrus). Rather than reading one or two texts in their entirety, students will instead read selections from a larger number of works (in translation) from Greek and Latin literary works (in addition to technical treatises).

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

Lectures impart core knowledge and an outline of knowledge that students are expected to acquire; they stimulate development of listening and note-taking skills. Specifically, a basic lecture format is the most efficient method of expounding this material, which is both quite considerable and (sometimes) quite difficult. All lectures allow time for questions and (some) discussion.

Seminars prepare students for their assessment and provide them with an opportunity to participate in in-depth discussion with a focus on a particular issue arising from the week's lecture and thus to improve their oral communication skills.

The practical workshop will introduce students to the problems inherent in the reconstruction of ancient recipes based on the available textual and material evidence. The workshop will take place if funding is made available by the School/Faculty.

The Workshop at the Great North Museum will familiarise the students with the material aspects of Greco-Roman dining.


The drop-in/surgery will give students an opportunity to ask last minute questions on their research projects in the final teaching week.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

The Inspera digital examination will assess students knowledge of the module content in a closed-book format and their ability to answer commentary and/or essay questions by creatively combining various strands of their knowledge of ancient sources & modern scholarly approaches.

The essay is conceived as a reflective document explaining what has been learnt through the practical workshop while critically assessing modern scholarship on ancient dining. The ideas emerging from this essay will be discussed in class and can inform the students' answers to the essay question contained in the final exam. Both assessment components follow the AI-Pass document.

Study-abroad, non-Erasmus exchange and Loyola students spending semester 1 only are required to finish their assessment while in Newcastle. Where an exam is present, an alternative form of assessment will be set and where coursework is present, an alternative deadline will be set. Details of the alternative assessment will be provided by the module leader.