Abstract

The epitome of Athenaeus does not retain all the details of how these comic fragments were embedded in the conversation which Athenaeus originally presented, though the extract's first sentence shows that one purpose was to exemplify the application of βρέχω to drinking. Editors of both Athenaeus and Eubulus have left the connection of the latter's fragment to its conversational context at that. I submit that what follows in the epitome, as well as what precedes, casts light both on that connection and on how we should restore the text.