The Web of Athenaeus (Hellenic Studies Series) Paperback – May 27, 2013

I have never finished reading the Deipnosophistae by Athanaeus but I now have an introduction to make a complete reading possible. The Web of Athanaeus by Christian Jacob is a companion and guidebook for who wish to know about the content and purpose of this, what can it be called? Is it an essay, a drama, a prose poem, a novel, memoir or a anthology of jottings by an author who loves words and quotes to explain their origin. Maybe it's an "entertainment", this "epitome of the inhabited world". Jacob compares it to the use of hypertext links found on internet pages where the reader can wander in an "arborescence of the document" making connections like those of a reader wondering about the text before him or randomly choosing books in a library to see what's inside. He details the structure of this work to make "it possible to circulate without end, and without getting lost, in the labyrinth of words, through the web of Athanaeus". What more can you want in 120 pages plus a bibliography and an index ?Athanaeus : The Learned Banqueters, greek text with english trans. by Olsen available in the Loeb Classical Library series in 8 volumes.The complete text with much on cabbages and kings and many other things.