Without Athenaeus, however, we would be deprived of the atmos-
phere of dining and the social connections between dinners, guests,
dining environments, and dishes. The association in the above quotation
between eating and the personnel needed to assure elegant dining proves
the point. In the lifetime of Theopompos, which coincided with the two
middle quarters of the fourth centurybc, if not beyond, average lifestyles
in the Aegean became more comfortable, at the very least, and for some,
positively luxurious.^2 Olynthos, the town on the western margins of the
Chalkidic peninsula, is often taken as typical of this period. The spacious
houses documented in the excavations conducted by Johns Hopkins
University have not been closely duplicated in the major civic centres
of the Aegean, at least, not until the later fourth centurybc. Since many
residential properties were used for a variety of practical as well as
productive purposes, comparison is by no means straightforward.^3 The
most striking impression, from the perspective of the twenty-first cen-
tury, is the comparative absence of kitchens andfixed amenities related
to cooking. The evidence from excavated properties of thefifth to second
centuriesbcimplies that meals were cooked in a range of locations, using
portable hearths, rather thanfixed ovens, with minimalfixtures.^4 This is
particularly relevant when we come to consider the amenities of the
better-off, and especially the organization of royal palaces.
Renewed investigations of the palace at Aigeai, and new excavations at
the later and larger palace at Pella, are still in progress, so interpretation
of functions and amenities in particular interiors is necessarily provi-
sional.^5 Nevertheless, the complex at Aigeai has a striking arrangement
of dining rooms, which seem to have been designed as key parts of the
main north, west, south, and east wings. The pattern is clearest on the
south wing, where there are two dining rooms, with distinctive raised
borders to accommodate couches, in two pairs of rooms (H, G and E, D)
either side of a connecting room (F). The arrangement of an ante-room,
or connecting room, opening onto twin dining rooms, is repeated in the
south-east corner (A with A1 and A2); the north-east corner (twin
(^2) Von Reden 2007, 385–406, for a broad review.
(^3) Cahill 2002; Ault 2007; Ellis Jones 2007; see the contributions to Westgate et al. 2007.
(^4) Foxhall 2007; Cahill 2002, 80–1onthe‘kitchen complex’, when recognizable, and
passim (esp. 111, 115, 119, 126, 138–40; 152–69, 204–5); and 282–8, where the economic
implications of the house plans and surviving contents are discussed. 5
Kottaridi 2011b for the most up-to-date description of the palace at Aigeai; see also
Kottaridi in Galanakis (ed.) 2011, 233–6; Étienne 2006, 106–13, with observations on Aigeai
and Pella; Saatsoglou-Paliadeli and Kyriakou 2006; Saatsoglou-Paliadeli 2007; Akamatis
2011, 399–401, with further refs 399 n.20.
272 Dining cultures