Massimo Vetta
The beginnings of the symposium can be traced back to the dawning of the archaic period. The Homeric poems, whose composition spans various periods of the Greek Middle Ages, recount not only meetings in which people both eat and drink but also occasions on which wine drinking is a distinct activity following the meal. In the first book of the Iliad (457–76), after the mass sacrifice in Apollo’s honor to celebrate the restitution of Chryseis to her father and the subsequent banquet, the young men fill their mixing bowls, or kraters, with wine and pass them around. Then, after singing hymns of praise, they fall asleep by the stern cables. This episode is no less significant for the fact that it follows a sacrifice and takes place in the open. In Homer’s world, councils of war overlapped with commensality and entertainment, often enlivened by storytelling and heroic songs accompanied on the lyre.
Unlike in later phases of Greek history, the Homeric banquet and its continuation after the tables had been cleared was an expression of hierarchy. The participants consumed food provided by the mass of soldiers, celebrated a right to sit at the table acquired through their prowess in combat, and recognized a higher kratos than that of the others. Commensality was a private spectacle compared with the public one offered on the battlefield to fellow warriors; it was a representation of wisdom and rhetorical ability.
There is clear evidence of the fact that wine drinking took place as a separate activity in many places. In the Homeric world, however, greater social value is attributed to the consumption of food and the time devoted to it. Although allusions seem to be made to archaic symposia, the Homeric feast encompasses behavior and situations that would be anomalous at a later date. When the contemporaries of Archilochus listened to the rhapsodist tell of the banquet at which the Phaeacians welcome Odysseus, they were entertained by a combination of events that was already extraneous to their culture (Od. VII.182–85). Insufficient importance has been given to the fact that Odysseus, the guest, eats while the others drink to Zeus and, liberally, to one another, and that Odysseus himself describes his ideal notion of entertainment, saying that the best that life can offer is for the bard to entertain the banqueters from the very beginning of the meal (IX.2–11).
The term symposion appears for the first time in the work of Alcaeus, although the practice to which it refers was already common in the islands and Asia Minor at the beginning of the seventh century B.C.E. In this period, unlike in the late Greek Middle Ages, entertainment based on wine drinking alone was codified to the extent that it had its own genre of monodic poetry. The sources are more or less contemporary with the oriental practice of reclining on a kline rather than sitting. From its very first appearance, the symposium can be defined by certain constants to which other ingredients were sometimes added. It was a meeting of men that only took place following a meal. It had a ritual introduction with libations to the gods and the choral singing of the paean. It was not an everyday event but was linked to private or civic celebrations. The participants were related in various ways, rarely based merely on family ties, sharing the same lifestyle and behaving according to norms that they regarded as specific to their ethnic group.
Among its other ingredients, the most frequent and significant was poetry. Apart from the extensive but relatively unvaried data provided by vase paintings, we can understand much of the evolution of the symposium from the archaic age to the Hellenistic age thanks to the uninterrupted and invaluable information provided by poetry. Other important ingredients were games, courtship, the education of youths, and the continuation of the symposium in the form of the komos, when the participants left the dining room as a group.
Up to the rapid transformations that took place as a result of the Peloponnesian wars, the symposium in this form was the most significant moment of social aggregation in Greek culture. It was based on membership of the aristocracy, on a common intellectual and poetic culture, and on a shared vision of the ways and means of political struggle. The enduring value of the symposium was that it was a private expression of a harmonious commingling of religious significance, pragmatic function, and simple pleasure. Wine established contact with Dionysius, although at a later date the ritual also involved Zeus, Apollo, and other divinities, depending on the specific context. The symposium was an occasion for libations and hymns, at first traditional and later improvised by those present. Compared with the solemn sacrifices of public festivities, it was a private moment of religious symbolism based on a circumscribed relationship with the gods. Libation was at times accompanied by a vow (synomosia), which transformed the group of drinkers into a fraternity.
Preceded, as we have seen, by the commensality of Homer, which had its own rules, the Hellenic symposium was primarily an ethical experience inspired by the need to create an ideal emotional condition. The basic principle of being together was a recurrent theme in poetry (which accurately reflected changing social circumstances) and survived unaltered to the imperial age. Hesychia excluded conflict, suspended material acts, and invoked the serenity needed to establish a correct relationship with the gods. Euphrosyne, on the other hand, expressed a state of delight produced by wine and by the pleasure of the occasion, generating the appropriate mood for constructive dialogue and the appreciation of poetry. The gradual effect of wine, producing euphoria, a sense of unusual lucidity, and then oblivion, accompanied the symposium as it moved from seriousness to heightened perception to the free play of courtship and recreation.
Throughout the archaic period, meeting around the krater was a frequently repeated identification ritual, a liturgy of brotherhood without hierarchies, the narration of a dialectic between the political ideal of a group and the actual life of the city. Often illustrated on vases, the krater occupied a central position to symbolize equality and equilibrium (dike). It structured the space of the andron, the room in which the symposium was held, just as the statue of a god organized the emblematic spaces of the city. Equidistance was the essence in these cases, as in others; it governed the position of Homer’s warriors around the booty of war, of hunters who meted out the centrally placed prey into equal parts, and of participants in a sacrifice who divided up the meat of the victim into equal parts.
The krater, in which wine and water were mixed in varying degrees, was specifically Hellenic. The Greeks, who drank undiluted wine only on rare occasions, regarded the mixing of wine as an act that distinguished them from barbarians, uniting those who practiced it and excluding others. A well-known verse by Anacreon (fr. 33 G.) compares these opposed concepts. The symposium was a symbol of Greek hospitality. Since foreigners had both to learn and to make themselves known, the banquet was a moment for memory, knowledge, and truth. Each guest brought as a gift his own story, his family history, and often his poetry. He committed himself to welcoming in his own house at a later date all those who had listened to him around the krater. Symbolizing both integration and exclusion, hospitality was the means by which the fraternity expressed itself politically, often in a way that was different from, and even antithetical to, official city policy. For the foreign guest, the ceremony surrounding the drinking of wine was a test. Despite being an outsider until that moment, he had to show that he was capable of respecting the traditional kosmos, or worldview.
The vision that the Greeks had of the symposium complemented their vision of the hunt and of war. For archaic man, the use of arms and resting after meals represented constructive inaction following activity. This idea already existed for Homer, and its finest example can be found in the fourth book of the Iliad (231–64). Inspecting the Greek army, Agamemnon pauses before Idomeneus. He praises him highly, declaring that he honors him both in battle and at the feast, where the wine of honor is mixed with that of kings. To symbolize Achilles’ withdrawal from the war following the embassy’s visit, Homer depicts him as being involved in something akin to a symposium, entertaining his companion, Patroclus, with a hymn to heroic deeds.
Later, Greek lyric poetry established a convention according to which meetings involving wine and the activity of war were counterposed. War itself, even tales of war, became inappropriate themes in the context of symposial euphrosyne. Wine provided a way of forgetting war and death. The importance of this correlation is testified by numerous vase paintings. In a red figure cup by the Scheurleer painter, datable to the end of the sixth century B.C.E. (Louvre G 70), a banqueter rides a leather bottle and plays a rhyton as if it were a trumpet. This image parodies the warlike gesture depicted on the other side of the cup. A banquet scene on an Attic dinos is placed beside that of a battle and a group of ephebes on horseback (Louvre E 876).
Although the inspiration behind the symposium appears to be the desire to constitute a kosmos and partake in a constructive and yet moderately ludic ritual, the reality of these meetings around the krater was also one of repeated transgression. Poetry says little of this aspect. Like other festivities, the ceremony of wine often transformed itself into an occasion for intemperance and excess. The image of the banquet interrupted by debauchery and violence was a frequent motif in myth and epic. A common theme in vase painting stressed the origins of the war between the Centaurs and the Lapiths, triggered by the outrageous drunkenness of Eurytion in the halls of Pirithous (Od. XXI.295–304).
The symposium was also the place in which conflict took the form of verbal skirmish. There is evidence from vase painting, albeit slight, of the existence of symposia without hesychia, or poetry, in which the effect of wine was welcomed simply to give free rein to competitiveness and erotic play. However, when drinking cups show scenes of unruliness, they are transposed into the lawless world of the satyrs, the iconography of which is based on the uncontrolled use of wine. In contrast to the world of culture represented by the symposium, the ambiguous court of Dionysius symbolized the barbaric, nonceremonial use of wine. Groups of ithyphallic satyrs were often the protagonists of an intemperate and fantastic symposial eros, apparently far removed from the nonviolent seduction that involved adults and adolescents. It seems clear that courtship around the krater was unknown during the Greek Middle Ages. The handmaids of Odysseus joined Penelope’s suitors only after the banquet, when the men had gone to their beds (Od. XX.6–8, XXII.461–64).
Ceremony and History
Throughout its long history, the ceremony surrounding the drinking of wine followed an almost unchanging code of prescriptions that governed the objects used and the order in which events took place. If a Milesian nobleman of the seventh century B.C.E. had found himself at an Attic banquet held by Cimon, he would not have felt out of place. The uninterrupted testimony of vase paintings has provided us with an almost complete record of the ceremony.
Although the event was occasionally, particularly in the archaic period, held outside (for example, Il. I.467–74; Hes. Op. 688–96), those symposia that were not held in the nobleman’s or tyrant’s dining hall took place either in tents set up in the field or in public buildings, above all temples. An idea of the architecture of these places can be obtained by looking at the rooms annexed to large sanctuaries discovered in various parts of Greece, since sanctuaries were among the places used for the sacrificial meal preceding the symposium. They were small rooms, holding an average of seven klinai, one on the wall to the right of the door, which appears to have been placed off center. The first kline on the right was regarded as the place of honor. The cup was traditionally passed from left to right, and banqueters took turns singing following the same order. The reason for the meeting could be entirely private, such as a wedding, the presence of a guest, or a family event, or linked to a public occasion, such as victory in the games, a political appointment, or a civic celebration. Frequently, for fraternity symposia the only reason was the need to make a political decision.
The separation between the preliminary phase devoted to eating and the symposium itself was marked by the fact that the tables were cleared, the floor was purified, and the banqueters, after washing their hands, received garlands for their heads, chests, and cups. The crown, a symbol of initiation, was the physical sign of membership representing the link created by drinking together. As in the theater, once the scene had been set, the sacred phase of the meeting could begin. It can be imagined that this was marked by silence, or euphemia, which predisposed those present to make contact with the gods. Before mixing water and wine in the krater, each banqueter received a cup of undiluted wine from which to pour a few drops in honor of the good spirit (agathos daimon). This religious act formalized a communal link and sealed an eternal bond. Wine and water were mixed according to proportions dictated by the type of entertainment that would take place (Plu. Quaest. conv. 657d). The almost barbaric mixing of two parts of wine to one of water, mentioned by Alcaeus, must have been very rare and was certainly intended for an exceptional occasion (fr. 346V.). A krater in which equal parts of water and wine had been poured was considered dangerous and bound to lead to drunkenness in a very short time. Such a mixture was reserved for symposia in which entertainment was more important than serious matters, as repeatedly mentioned by playwrights. Less alcoholic mixtures, of two or three parts of water to one of wine, were recommended by Hesiod (Op. 696) and regarded by Plutarch as the mixture of perfect balance.
Before the servants started mixing the wine, the symposiarch was appointed. Apart from the distinction between young and old men, this is the only sign of hierarchy to be found in symposia, and it is not clear when the practice began. The position of symposiarch did not necessarily reflect official power, indicating the independence of the meeting from the rules governing public life. The symposiarch established the ratio of wine to water, the number of kraters to set out, and the forms of entertainment to amuse the group. He was the only person who could violate the rules of equality, obliging some to drink more than others or to demonstrate their abilities.
Once the wine had been prepared, the servants filled the cups from a jug (oinochoe) or ladle. With the wine from the first krater, libations were made to Zeus and the Olympic family. The second was dedicated to the spirits of heroes, while the third was drunk in honor of Zeus Soter. The sacrificial part of the feast was accompanied by a double flute and the choral singing of a paean, which could be followed by poetry or the recital of brief sections of hymns to those divinities that had some connection with the purposes of the meeting. After this liturgical introduction, the entertainment began, its form depending on the reason behind the symposium. Appetizers were then served to stimulate the thirst—cheeses and different types of bread (traghemata) can be seen on archaic vases and are mentioned on numerous occasions by playwrights (Ath. XIV.640c–658). In its later, more festive part, known as the komos, the symposium often moved out into the streets. The krater was carried outside by the dancing participants in a drunken parade, more or less unruly, accompanied by the flautist. Scenes of this type can be seen on vases from the end of the fifth century B.C.E. on.
The immutable nature of the rite was accompanied by an evolution in the function and symbolic values of the symposium. This can only be reconstructed in approximate terms. Indeed, on the same evening in the same city, various symposia could coexist to welcome a guest, celebrate a family event, or conspire politically—not to speak of symposia in which these three functions were fulfilled simultaneously.
The Symposium and Poetry
Until the beginning of the Hellenistic age, much of the significance of the symposium derived from the presence of poetry, which provided the ceremony with a constantly renewed relationship to tradition. The Homeric hero waited for the evening, when the bard would release the poetic spell that transformed his heroic deeds into myth.
Most monodic lyric poetry, including elegies and iambics, was uniquely destined for symposia. As well as being a unique opportunity for composition, the symposium also provided a context in which specific aspects of the Greek poetic heritage were preserved until the arrival of the Alexandrian scholars. Flute and kithara players were a constant feature in the iconography, as was the banqueter who sang with a cup in his hand. The musical instruments appear on the walls as a symbol of an indissoluble bond between the seduction of wine and the fascination of images and sounds. The megaron of Odysseus and the court of Alcinous show that heroic and mythological kithara playing was the earliest lyric genre practiced during banquets. The sung epic then became the object of an interesting phenomenon in which poetry had a twofold use. In archaic Sparta, during the reign of Terpander, pieces composed for accompaniment by the kithara or flute in musical contests were later reused for festive banquets. Private performances by poets who competed in the most important pan-Hellenic and local competitions were a common feature in the age of Stesichorus.
Apart from providing an opportunity for listening to professional bards, the symposium allowed banqueters to improvise their own poetry according to the mood of the moment. The opening ritual was followed by general conversation, and personal stories readily became the subject for song. One of the most delightful fragments by Alcaeus, a welcoming song for the return of his brother Antimenides from the East, transformed the story of survival into poetry, just as the Homeric bards had done for guests (fr. 350V.). Reciting poetry was an important sign of equality within the group. It united its members to the exclusion of others and expressed a communal act of creation. According to the testimony of Dicaearchus and Aristoxenus, one meaning of the term skolion was the kind of poetry that the most skilled banqueters offered to the symposium, indicating whose turn it was to sing by passing a twig of myrtle among themselves. The term derives from the irregular path taken by the twig, which traced an ideal line among the best singers. The best contributions stayed in the memory of those present, becoming part of their tradition. Athenaeus preserved a collection of twenty-five anonymous examples of these scolions from archaic and classical Attica, and they still possessed political relevance a century after their composition.
Ever since the dawning of oral epic poetry, the banquet was the exclusive site for verse improvisation. A precious collection of fragments of extemporaneous verse, often anonymous, can be found in the elegiac anthology attributed to Theognis. Containing material that by and large can be dated to the sixth century B.C.E., it contains the most genuine examples of sympotic verse in our possession. In the symposium of Theognis, any of the banqueters could take the myrtle twig from the most skilled performer among the group, according to a variable practice of poetic improvisation. The anthology provides traces of a kind of competitive improvisation that took the form of a “chain” of poetic interventions on a single theme. An opening utterance could stimulate others by a process of accumulation or correction (metapoiesis), often reusing the same verbal material. The opening, or the appropriate addition, could be a quotation from well-known poets; this explains the presence in the anthology of verses by Mimnermus, Solon, and Tyrtaeus.
In addition to the elegiac symposium, inspired by tradition and commemoration, there existed—and at times even coexisted—the iambic symposium, devoted to invective and the playful, unruly telling of stories. The iamb and epic poetry were linked to burlesque improvisations at agricultural feasts in honor of Demeter and Hermes. For those who listened to Archilochus and Hipponax, iambic poetry was none other than the channeling of the village feast into the symposium. At the end of the open-air celebrations, during which grotesque and satirical figures were presented, the meeting of a few friends represented both the offshoot and reflection of the earlier celebration. It was the time for conjuring up imaginary presences, giving voice to absent friends, and creating an event that seemed to prefigure a theatrical performance.
Between the sixth and fifth centuries B.C.E., the great poetry of professionals such as Ibycus, Anacreon, Simonides, Pindar, and Bacchylides was linked to the symposia of tyrants or the richer aristocratic ghene. The poet was a resident of the court and created poems for particular celebrations. He possessed an inexhaustible stock of images to be used in describing the multitude of gestures, fantasies, and desires of those present at the banquet. Poems to celebrate great sports victories were closely linked to banquets in the later archaic period. There must have been an extraordinary atmosphere in those symposia held on the very night of the competition when the contemporaries of the athlete celebrated his victory in a tent or the halls of a sanctuary. The epinicia of Pindar and Bacchylides were certainly composed as poems for banquets to follow up those that had been heard by the entire city.
In the Athens of Pericles and Critias, the poetic repertoire continued to be interwoven with the splendid creations of sympotic improvisation. Dionisios, Euenus of Paros, Ion of Chios, and Critias himself invented a new elegiac language based on the imaginative metaphorization of entertainment based on wine. With the fourth century, the function of spectacle prevailed, and the banquet became the occasion for listening to poetry that had originally been intended for other ends. Gradually, theater took over: professional actors were engaged to sing monodies and to recite particularly significant monologues and even whole scenes. The most gifted among the banqueters often contributed to this kind of performance. The repertoire included the great fifth-century tragedies, with a preference for Euripides and, later, Menander. According to Plutarch, the plays of Menander were so well suited to the mood of the symposium that one could more easily do without wine than without the writer’s verses (Quaest. conv. 712b–e). Alexandrians introduced mime and other kinds of short poetry suitable for recitation, such as the Idylls of Theocritus.
By this time, however, banquets without any poetry at all had become common. In intellectual and philosophical circles, committed discussion, rhetoric, history, and sophistry took place to the accompaniment of wine. Plato provides the earliest evidence for phenomena of this kind. The habit of simple singing continued in more backward outlying regions and among the lower classes, as Polybius testifies, in his lifetime, in Arcadia; two papyrus fragments provide textual support for this (IV.20, 8 ff.; P. Berol. inv. 13270; P. Teb. 1). As time passed, reading together began to predominate. For this practice, sites other than the symposium became established. These were gymnasia, libraries, and the seats of philosophical schools.
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