Chapter 7 - Plutarch at the Symposium

Summary

This chapter assesses the cultural and broader symbolic significance of the symposium in Plutarch’s biographical and philosophical works. It begins by situating Plutarch’s references to the symposium in their cultural context, by examining the symposium/convivium as a key social institution in the Roman imperial period. Next, the chapter discusses the symbolic dimension of conviviality in Plutarch’s oeuvre, through characteristic examples from the Lives and Moralia. It underlines that, for Plutarch, the symposium serves as a tool for evaluating moral character, as well as for conducting cross-cultural comparison. In addition, Plutarch’s interest in philosophical dietetics turns consumption patterns and behaviour at symposia into an important point of focus and concern. The last two sections look closely at Plutarch’s two surviving sympotic works, the Banquet of the Seven Sages and Table Talk. It discusses their genre and literary techniques, their relationship to the philosophical tradition of sympotic writing initiated by Plato and Xenophon, and the central role they both assign to philosophical enquiry.