Greek rhetorician and grammarian Athenaeus of Naucratis (fl. late 2nd 3rd century CE) lived during the reign of Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius. While several of his works are lost, some of the fifteen-volume Deipnosophistae (‘Banquet of the Learned’), a collection of anecdotes and excerpts from ancient writers, reproduced as dinner-table conversation, survives. The banquet supposedly occurred at the house of a wealthy book collector and patron of the arts named Larensius. Apart from matters relating to food and dining, the discussion extends to literary and historical topics, grammar, music, songs, dances, games, and courtesans. It refers to around two and a half thousand works by some eight hundred writers. For many of them, Athenaeus provides the only surviving reference. Since he lived in Alexandria before relocating to Rome, he may have consulted what remained of the Great Library.
from The Deipnosophists
Philip of Macedon's marriages