Eating to Excess: The Meaning of Gluttony and the Fat Body in the Ancient World (Praeger Series on the Ancient World)

196 Pages·2011·0.98 MB·English

by  Susan E. Hill

Eating to Excess
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Eating to Excess
The Meaning of Gluttony and
the Fat Body in the Ancient World
Susan E. Hill
Praeger Series on the Ancient World
Bella Vivante, Series Editor
Copyright 2011 by Susan E. Hill
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations
in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hill, Susan E.
Eating to excess : the meaning of gluttony and the fat body in the
ancient world / Susan E. Hill.
p. cm. — (Praeger series on the ancient world)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-313-38506-3 (hardback) — ISBN 978-0-313-38507-0 (ebook)
1. Food habits—History. 2. Gluttony—History. 3. Human body—
History. 4. Obesity—History. 5. Excess (Philosophy).
6. Civilization, Ancient. 7. History, Ancient. I. Title.
GT2850H49 2011
394.1'2—dc23 2011021511
ISBN: 978-0-313-38506-3
EISBN: 978-0-313-38507-0
15 14 13 12 11 1 2 3 4 5
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This book is printed on acid-free paper
Manufactured in the United States of America
Copyright Acknowledgments
P ortions of Chapter 3 were fi rst published in Hill, Susan. “Gluttony, Corpulence, and the
Good Life in Plato’s T imaeus .” Soundings 91.1–2 (2008): 89–108. Permission to reprint given
by Soundings, The University of Tennessee Press.
Contents
Illustrations vii
Series Foreword b y Bella Vivante ix
Acknowledgments xi
Chronology of Important Dates xiii
Introduction: The Glutton and the Fat Body in the Ancient World 1
1. “All Fat Is the Lord’s” 21
2. Philosophizing Excess in Plato And Aristotle 43
3. Inside and Out: Medicine, Health, and Physiognomy
in the Ancient World 63
4. Popular Gluttons and Fat Bodies: The Trickster
Herakles, Petronius’s Satyricon, and Athenaeus’s
The Learned Banqueters 81
5. Ingest the Word, Not the World: Early Christian Ideas
of Excess and Self-Restraint 103
6. Gluttony Becomes a Deadly Sin 121
Epilogue 145
Notes 149
Further Reading 169
Index 173
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Illustrations
Map 1 Mediterranean world around fi rst century B CE xv
Introduction
Figure 0.1 Venus of Willendorf. Limestone. Stone Age,
Aurignacien, 25th millennium BCE 4
Figure 0.2 Terracotta fi gurine of a woman riding on a pig.
Hellenistic; made in Egypt, ca. fi rst century BCE 6
Figure 0.3 Sleeping Lady of the Hypogeum or burial chamber
found at the Hal Safl ieni site on the island of Malta 7
Figure 0.4 Brochtorff Circle pair found on the island
of Gozo, Malta 8
Figure 0.5 Excessive abundance and excessive defi ciency 15
Figure 0.6 Parallels between the gluttonous and the fat body 15
Chapter One
Figure 1.1 Analogies between Mount Sinai, the sacrifi cial
fi re, and the tabernacle 28
Chapter Four
Figure 4.1 Statue of the youthful Hercules. Marble.
Roman 68–98 CE 83
Figure 4.2 Athenian terracotta fi gurine of Herakles standing
with a club and lionskin, his bow and quiver in his left
hand. ca. late fi fth or early fourth century BCE 89
Figure 4.3 Athenian terracotta fi gurine of an actor. ca. late fi fth
or early fourth century BCE 90
Chapter Six
Figure 6.1 The seven deadly sins and their corresponding virtues 123
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Series Foreword
T he lives of ancient peoples may seem far removed, socially, linguistically,
and especially technologically, from the concerns of the modern world. Yet
the popularity of historical subjects on both the big and little screens—
Troy, Alexander, 300; HBO’s Rome, the many History Channel programs—
demonstrates the abiding fascination the ancient world continues to exert.
Some people are drawn to the dramatic differences between the ancient
and modern; others seek to fi nd the origins for contemporary cultural fea-
tures or the sources to provide meaning to our modern lives. Regardless
of approach, the past holds something valuable for all of us. It is literally
the root of who we are, physically through our actual ancestors, and cul-
turally in establishing the foundations for our current beliefs and practices
in religious, social, domestic and political arenas. The same ancients that
we study were themselves drawn to their own pasts, often asking questions
similar to the ones we pose today about our past.
The books in Praeger’s series on the Ancient World address different top-
ics from various perspectives. The ones on myth, sports, technology, warfare,
and women explore these subjects cross-culturally, both within the ancient
Mediterranean context—Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, and others—
and between the ancient Mediterranean cultures and those of the Americas,
Africa and Asia. Others, including the volumes on literature, men, sexuality,
and on politics and society, examine their topic more specifi cally within a
Greek or Greek and Roman cultural framework.
A ll renowned scholars committed to bringing the fruits of their research
to wider audiences, each author brings a distinctive new approach to their
topic that differentiates them from the many books that exist on the ancient
world. A major strength of the fi rst group is their multi-cultural breadth,
which is both informative in its comprehensive embrace and provides nu-
merous opportunities for comparative insights. Likewise, the books in the
second group explore their topics in dramatically new ways: the inner life of
male identity; the contributions of both women and men to the social polity;
the ancient constructions of concepts of sexuality and eroticism.