Five symposiasts are shown reclining on couches, l to r: the first is calling for wine, the second is playing kottabos, and the third is watching the erotically charged interaction between the fourth and fifth figures.

The Greek symposium was a key Hellenic socio-political institution. Though the name originally referred to a drinking party (from the Greek sympotein, "to drink together"), the symposium was a forum for free men to debate, plot, boast, or simply to party with others. They were also held to celebrate the introduction of young men into aristocratic society or other special occasions, such as victories in athletic and poetic contests.

The sympotic elegies of Theognis of Megara and two Socratic dialogues, Plato's Symposium and Xenophon's Symposium all describe symposia in the original sense.

The term has since come to refer to any academic conference, or a style of university class characterized by an openly discursive format, rather than a lecture and question–answer format.

[edit] Structure

Symposiast in typical singing pose, accompanied by a flutist playing the aulos. The text reads "The boy is beautiful." 5th c.

A symposium would be overseen by a symposiarch who set the theme for the evening and managed the event. Symposia were usually held in the andrōn, the men's quarters of the household. The participants would recline on pillowed couches arrayed against the three walls of the room away from the door. Due to space limitations the couches would number between seven and nine, limiting the total number of participants to somewhere between fourteen and twenty seven.^[1] If any free boys took part they did not recline but sat up.^[2] Food was served, together with wine.

[edit] Function and activities

[edit] Drinking

The symposiarch would decide how strong or diluted the wine for the evening would be, depending on whether serious discussions or merely sensual indulgence were in the offing. The wine, usually mixed with water in varying proportions, was drawn from the krater, a large jar designed to be carried by two men, and served by nude servant boys from pitchers. Certain formalities were observed, most important among which were the initial libations by means of which the gods were propitiated.

In keeping with Greek notions of self-restraint and propriety, the symposiarch would prevent matters from getting out of hand. The playwright Eubulus, in a surviving fragment of a lost play has the god of wine, Dionysos himself, describe proper and improper drinking:

For sensible men I prepare only three kraters: one for health (which they drink first), the second for love and pleasure, and the third for sleep. After the third one is drained, wise men go home. The fourth krater is not mine any more - it belongs to bad behaviour; the fifth is for shouting; the sixth is for rudeness and insults; the seventh is for fights; the eighth is for breaking the furniture; the ninth is for depression; the tenth is for madness and unconsciousness.^[3]

[edit] Singing

Participants sang skolia, drinking songs of a patriotic or bawdy nature, which were often performed in a competitive manner with one symposiast reciting the first part of a song and then passing the myrtle branch to another drinker of his choosing, who then was obliged to finish the song.^[4]

Athenaeus describes how the individual participants would each sing a song, and how those songs would be rated:

They would prevail upon each of the wise men to bring some song before the company, and the song they considered fine was the one that seemed to offer some advice or idea that was useful for life.^[5]

[edit] Performances

Entertainment was provided, and depending on the occasion could include games, songs, flute-girls or boys, slaves performing various acts, and hired entertainment. A game sometimes played at symposia was kottabos, in which players swirled the dregs of their wine in their kylikes (platter-like stemmed drinking vessels) and flung them at a target.

What are called flute-girls today were actually professional escorts known as hetaerae who played the aulos, a Greek woodwind instrument most similar to an oboe, hired to play for and consort with the symposiasts while they drank and conversed. When string instruments were played, the barbiton was the traditional instrument.^[6]

[edit] Other aspects

Etruscan symposium scene

Symposiasts also competed in rhetorical contests, for which reason the term symposium has come to refer to any event where multiple speeches are made.

As with many other Greek customs, the framework of the symposium was adopted by the Romans under the name of comissatio. These revels also involved the drinking of assigned quantities of wine, and the oversight of a master of the ceremonies appointed for the occasion from among the guests.

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Symposium scenes

• Ancient Greek art depicting symposium scenes
• Paestum: Tomb of the Diver symposium scenes
• Carlos Museum: Kylix with symposium scene
• Metropolitan Museum: Essay, "The Symposium in Ancient Greece"
• The Wiktionary definition of symposium
•  "Symposium". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911.