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This First-Year Seminar focuses on the cultures of dining and drinking in the ancient Greek and Roman worlds, with excursions into the foodways of other ancient societies abutting the Mediterranean basin. We will investigate the social practices and values that are associated with conviviality in these societies, and how such practices and values change over time. We will consider the kinds of communities that these practices construct, and how and to what extent different kinds of people are included, excluded, or placed in a social hierarchy by their participation in these practices. Special attention will be given to feasting as represented in the Homeric poems, especially the Odyssey; to the Archaic and Classical Greek symposion; and to the Roman convivium and other dining forms extending to late Antiquity. Fueling our investigation and underpinning our discussions will be a wide variety of ancient Greek and Roman texts (to be read in English translation); images and representations of ancient dining in diverse visual media, including Greek vase painting, Roman wall painting, and mosaics; and archaeological evidence for the spaces, settings, and implements of ancient dining and drinking. Throughout, we will engage with key scholarship on aspects of this topic. The seminar includes visits to the Walters Art Museum, the Baltimore Museum of Art, and the Johns Hopkins Archaeological Museum, all of which house objects that illuminate our inquiry. It may also involve screenings of films or clips featuring modern imaginative reconstructions of ancient dining events.