LAUSR

In his Quaestiones Convivales, a sympotic text recounting more than 75 purportedly historical banquets set in Rome and Greece, Plutarch represents intellectuals engaging with early lyric (melic, iambic, and elegiac poetry) as they express broader views about aesthetic taste. In contrast to Homeric poetry, which is commonly quoted by all characters in the symposium but proportionally more by lower-ranking participants, those who quote lyric appear to be exclusively individuals of higher status. The paper provides specific metrics that further illuminate this phenomenon, and it makes a number of suggestions regarding the relationship between literary taste and social status in Plutarch’s Quaestiones Convivales.