Symposium Flashcards
Homeric Feast - Iliad
- Guests seated
- No separation between eating and drinking
- Portions of meat reflect status of the warriors
- Women not entirely excluded, but only married women are usually present, they take no part in the action and appear to be excluded from eating and drinking
- Poetic performance plays important role
Iliad:
- Seats covered with purple rugs
- Mis less water with the wine
- Meat and bread
- Sacrifice to the gods – offerings into the fire
- Cup of Nestor – only he shall drink from this cup
Origins of Archaic Symposiums
- Near Eastern drinking rituals
- -Syrian and Palestinian Marzeah (high ranking people drank wine together) – celebrating their ancestors and marking their elite status
- Late 7th C customs of banqueting on couches was introduced from same are
- Development of food and wine consumption, express status by equating them to Near Easter kings and Heroes of Homer
- Stage luxurious and divine setting
-First mention of reclining banquet in Greek lit (late 7th C) by Alcman
Greek Symposium
- Differently from both Homeric feast and Near Eastern banquet, doesn’t stress hierarchy
- Is based on principle of quality among the participants
- Originally aristocratic, but gradually extended to broader groups
- Middle ground of Greek society
- Microcosm of equals made of active members of political community (adult male of full citizen status) and adolescents preparing for adulthood
- Women and younger boys are not admitted to the symposion room
- Scholars considered symposion as alternative to polis (others as a context interwoven with polis structures)
Wine consumption
Wonderful and dangerous gift of Dionysos
-Wine consumption as cultural metaphor of Greek civilization
Plato: state should be like a bowl of mixed wine […] produces a potion that is good and moderate
The Symposion
Toast: Agathos Diamon (Good Spirit)
Libations: Zeus Olympois and the other Olympian gods
The Heroes
Zeus the Savior
At the end:
Triple Paian to Apollo
Hymn to Hygieia
Basileus
Master of drinking
- Appointed by the throw of dice
- Chose the wine/water ration
- Usually the number of cups
- Enforced the respect of the rules
- Proposed the entertainment and the penalties
- Game of Kottabos: drinking game, they would throw wine-yeast balls at targets
- Prostitutes at symposion (hetairai)
- Music
- Propose the discussion tropic
- Komos procession – ritualist drunken procession
Symposiast
Respected the rules, took active part in the discussion and entertainment
Types of cups
CRATER: for mixing wine and water (size depended on # of guests)
JUG (oinochoe): for pouring the mixture into cups
- Cups of different shape, depend on age class, type of wine (ie. neat or mix) and were used for libations and other offerings
- Many cups had gorgons eyes and pictures of Dionysus
- warning on bottle of cups for guests (vomiting)
PSYKTER: wine cooler
-Walls on tombs depict people banqueting, reclining in the afterlife with their cups and wine
Symposion hall (andron)
- Standard size (depending on # of couches they could fit)
- Max communication, close contact
- Easily accessible from the street
- Most public part of the house, where guests were received, in many cases very well decorated (garlands, rugs, precious objects on display, etc.)
Art for Symposion
POETRY: related to the event, military performance, poetry describing values of elite
-Designed to be sung with lyre
VASE PAINTINGS: figured vases have active role in suggesting themes, games, jokes, etc.
Francois Crater c. 570 BC -Artemis and Ajax carrying Achilles body
- Hunting of boar
- Chariot race
- Wedding of Peleus and Thetus
- Dances
Decline of Symposion
- Development of radical democracy and decline of many aspects of aristocratic lifestyle after Persian wars (= slow decline of symposion)
- Aristocratic factions still keep symposium alive for long period
- Simpler form of symposion was adopted by middle class, but original function between public and private declined together with the crisis of classical polis
- Hellenistic age true symposion is lost
