ATHENÆUM, in Antiquity, a public place wherein the professors of the liberal arts held their assemblies, the rhetoricians declaimed, and the poets rehearsed their performances. The three most celebrated Athenæa were those at Athens, at Rome, and at Lyons; the second of which was built by the emperor Adrian.
Athenæus
Athens.
ATHENÆUS, a Greek grammarian, born at Naucratis in Egypt in the third century, one of the most learned men of his time. Of all his works we have none extant but his Deipnosophi, i. e. the Sophists at Table. There is an infinity of facts and quotations in this work, without which we should have been ignorant of many curious circumstances regarding the ancients. The first edition was printed by Aldus in 1514, in folio. The best edition is that by Schweighæusen, published in 1801-7, in 14 vols. 8vo. There is a French translation of Athenæus, in 5 vols. 4to.