This book provides three categories of investigation: 1) The Typology and Context of the Greco-Roman Banquet, 2) Who Was at the Greco-Roman Banquets, and 3) The Culture of Reclining. Together these studies establish festive meals as an essential lens into social formation in the Greco-Roman world.

Table of Contents List of Contributors Abbreviations Introduction; Hal E. Taussig PART I: THE TYPOLOGY OF THE GRECO-ROMAN BANQUET 1. A Typology of the Community Meal; Matthias Klinghardt 2. The Greco-Roman Banquet as a Social Institution; Dennis E. Smith PART II: THE ARCHEOLOGY OF THE BANQUET 3. What Kinds of Meals Did Julia Felix Have? A Case Study of the Archaeology of the Banquet; Carolyn Osiek PART III: WHO WAS AT THE GRECO-ROMAN BANQUETS? 4. Social and Political Characteristics of Greco-Roman Association Meals; Richard S. Ascough 5. Banqueting Values in the Associations: Rhetoric and Reality; by Philip A. Harland 6. Women in Early Christian Meal Gatherings: Discourse and Reality; Angela Standhartinger 7. Remembering and Remembered Women in Greco-Roman Meals; Ellen Bradshaw Aitken 8. Present and Absent: Women at Greco-Roman Wedding Meals; Susan Marks 9. Evidence for Slaves at the Table in the Ancient Mediterranean: From Traditional Rural Festivals to Urban Associations; Nancy A. Evans 10. The Sex Trade and Slavery at Meals; Carly Daniel-Hughes 11. The Saturnalia in Greco-Roman Culture; Angela Standhartinger 12. Early Christian Meals and Slavery; Lillian I. Larsen 13. Slaves at Greco-Roman Banquets: A Response; Jennifer A. Glancy PART IV: THE CULTURE OF RECLINING: CORPOREALITY, SEXUALITY, INTIMACY 14. Bodies in Motion, Bodies at Rest: Status, Corporeality, and the Negotiation of Power at Ancient Meals; Carly Daniel-Hughes 15. Temptations of the Table: Christians Respond to Reclining Culture; Jennifer A. Glancy 16. A Valentinian Response to the Culture of Reclining; Ellen Bradshaw Aitken 17. Monastic Meals: Resisting a Reclining Culture?; Lillian I. Larsen 18. Inclined to Decline Reclining? Women, Corporeality, and Dining Posture in Early Rabbinic Literature; Jordan D. Rosenblum Bibliography of Works Cited Index of Ancient Sources