Courtesans and Fishcakes: The Consuming Passions of Classical Athens

A most enjoyable book about enjoyment – Peter Stothard, The Times

James Davidson’s concern is with ancient appetites: food, drink and sex in classical Athens. At one level, he provides a guided tour from bordello to Billingsgate; at another, an essay on the politics of consumption. Fish did loom large: it was a gourmet food, and therefore a social indicator. Literary critics found it extraordinary that the heroes of the Iliad lived on kebabs, though they were camped near the rich fishing grounds of the Dardanelles. This is a book of many pleasures, both in analysis and in anecdote. You can meet heroes of hedonism and martyrs of sensuality: Melanthios, who prayed for a neck like a heron’s, so that he could linger long on the delicious mouthfuls; Philoxenos, who consumed a three-foot octopus (except for the head), and nearly died of dyspepsia; the anonymous alcoholic immortalised by Aristotle, who put eggs under his mat and sat on them and drank continuously until they hatched. Davidson presents a superior class of hedonism… His invigorating book paints the scene with polished scholarship and fine Hellenic gusto. – Peter Parsons, London Review of Books

Davidson blows away a whole heap of cobwebs, and at the same time shows up with merciless clarity the dissimulation and hypocrisy at the heart of some modern attitudes. We learn about where tarts took their clients, their tariffs and repertoire of sexual positions (the one called ‘lion on the cheesegrater’ is a puzzler); about the quaint games of kottabos (flicking the remains of one’s wine at a target) and quail-tapping (you rapped a quail on the head and bet on whether it stood its ground or backed off); about the price of fresh eels and barracuda; about plonk and best vintage Chian wine. All students of antiquity will have to have this book. – Christopher Stace, Daily Telegraph

If little boys are still being made to learn dead languages, and expected to enjoy Everyday Life in Ancient Greece, I hope their Greek master reads James Davidson’s fascinating and witty book, and tells them the best stories from it. This certainly ought to wake them up at the back of the class. – Humphrey Carpenter, Sunday Times

An excellent and learned exploration of a subject which for 50 years has crumbled to dust whenever touched. There are pleasures and authors who lie dormant for a century or more until a new kind of vividness, a super-freshness descends upon them. James Davidson has that skill. – Peter Levi, Spectator