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I, Brian · 17th January 2006, 06:11 PM

I'm reading Tyrant by Valerio Massimo Manfredi, but what appeared at first to be a set of anachronisms appears in the first scene - a character enters a common Greek tavern (circa 400 BC) - and proceeds to sit on a chair at a table, where he is served wine in a glass.

Hm...my impression of this period is fuzzy, but I am under the impression that chairs were reserved for people in nobility (essentially, the chair as an imitation "throne"), and that although I don't dispute people drinking from glasses of the period, I'm under the impression that a common tavern certainly wouldn't be serving wine from glasses, but instead from cups.

What's surprising is that the novel is written by a classical scholar, so I figure he should know what he's talking about - but somehow I find the issue of sitting on a chair drinking wine in a common tavern hard to believe for the period.

17th January 2006, 06:11 PM	#1 (permalink)
I, Brian Admin and Tea-boy Join Date: Sep 2003 Posts: 5,603 Blog Entries: 1	Chairs and drinking glasses I'm reading Tyrant by Valerio Massimo Manfredi, but what appeared at first to be a set of anachronisms appears in the first scene - a character enters a common Greek tavern (circa 400 BC) - and proceeds to sit on a chair at a table, where he is served wine in a glass. Hm...my impression of this period is fuzzy, but I am under the impression that chairs were reserved for people in nobility (essentially, the chair as an imitation "throne"), and that although I don't dispute people drinking from glasses of the period, I'm under the impression that a common tavern certainly wouldn't be serving wine from glasses, but instead from cups. What's surprising is that the novel is written by a classical scholar, so I figure he should know what he's talking about - but somehow I find the issue of sitting on a chair drinking wine in a common tavern hard to believe for the period.