Athenaeus of Naucratis was an ancient Greek rhetorician and grammarian, flourishing about the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 3rd century AD. The Suda says only that he lived in the times of Marcu
The Deipnosophistes belongs to the literary tradition inspired by the use of the Greek banquet. Banqueters playing Kottabos while a musician plays the Aulos, decorated by the artist 'Nicias'/'Nikias'.