When you hear the word ‘symposium’ it’s likely think about a serious conversation likely in a academic or public forum. Blame Plato for this! He took a word that literally means ‘drinking together’ and connoted a male-centric alcohol, sex, song, and games party and rained on that parade by giving that name to a philosophical treatise about desire (eros) and even managed to make that pretty unsexy. We’re going to ignore Plato (mostly, he might sneak in) and focus on the cultural phenomenon of that party.
This hooks onto our engendered space unit as the symposium occurred in a designated room in the typical Greek house known as the andron, or “men’s room” . Androns tend to have a few key features:
- near to entrance of house
- not possible to look directly inside from courtyard or street
- more elaborately decorated (special flooring like mosaics sometimes survive)
- layout/dimensions make easy layout of of couches against walls with an open center space
But for all it is called the men’s room and is centered on the desires and experiences of the citizen male, many women were present at the symposium, but these women were not wives or daughters of citizens, rather they might be free resident foreigners (metics) or enslaved women. Likewise besides the citizen male guests and host who reclined on the couches (typically two to a couch), there might also be free resident foreigners (metics) or enslaved males serving and entertaining.
Much of the pottery we’ve already seen was created for use in this ritualized drinking environment. The symposium is the environment in which the designs on these vessels were made to be viewed. To understand the images we need a better understanding of the cultural context of their use.
We’re going to focus on the kylix or drinking cup in particular. Cup in fact may seem an odd word for this oddly impractical vessel.
Experiment with a Friend or Classmate!
A kylix was closer to a modern dinner plate with a high lip or a wide flat soup bowl with a stem and two handles. Lots of surface area and very little ability to securely hold any great volume of liquid. Approximating the drinking experience will give you a better idea about the symposium and how the pots we are studying were originally intended to be seen.
What you need
- A couch or bed for reclining
- optional: some towels laid down to catch any spills
- a friend or family member who’s game OR a classmate on video and some creative device positioning (a third person to snap a pic is optional)
- a dark liquid (coffee, red wine, cola, chocolate milk, really whatever)
- two dinner plates (or pasta bowls or very shallow flat soup bowls) ideally with some sort of pattern in the center (if not just imagine one)
- a dry erase marker
- a cardboard box or footstool or ottoman: any flat surface that will hold your plates and is lower that what you’re reclining on
- optional: a timing device
Set up steps
- Gather materials and recruit friend.
- Set the scene using the reconstruction illustration by Matilde Grimaldi to figure out where you will recline and how the table will be situated and where the towels might be most effective in catching spills
- on the bottom of the plate draw a simple funny (rude?!) image or word with the dry erase marker and invite your friend to do the same (don’t peek!)
- pour just enough dark liquid into dish to cover the center design
- carry the dishes to the table, recline, set the timer (if using)
- decide what you’re going to talk about, e.g. why’s your favorite song and why?
- try drinking! two hands are recommended!
Discuss, Debrief, Reflect!
- What pace of drinking was comfortable (ish)?
- At what point did you see the bottom of your own cup? How much of the dark liquid to you have to drink to reveal the bottom?
- When did you end up breaking eye contact/conversation because of the size of the cup?
- When did your partner see the bottom of your dish?
- When did you see the bottom of your partner’s dish?
- What position was most comfortable for drinking without putting your feet on the floor?
- How close physically were you to the other person? Did that feel intimate? Awkward? Too close? Too distant?
- Consider trying again with new pictures on the bottoms of your dish to see if you get better with practice. The second (or third) time around try drawing a funny face with really big eyes on the bottom of your plates, maybe with tongue sticking out or something else rude about it.
STOP! Have you tried the experiment? The next part will go better if you have.
Think about the experience of drinking from this cup. What would it be like when filled with a dark liquid? What might it look as the liquid sloshed around? What do you make of the face in the center? Why do you make of that person represent so much smaller than the others? Can you tell the gender of the figures? What visual cues did you use to make your assumptions? (higher res but lower quality image on flickr: zoom in for details!)
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Now imagine the perspective of your drinking companions as your cup rests in front of you on the table or as you take your first sips. What are the designs on either side of the center face? Answer.
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NOW imagine what your close companions and the room as a whole would see as you tried to drain the last drops from your cup. What’s the joke? Whose laughing? The Drinker? The Drinking companions? Why are they laughing?
The following cup is far less subtle in its sexual humor:
Can you spot the visual parallel(s) on the bottom of this kylix? Here your drinking partner would have to be keen eyed to spot it.
What have we learned?
Sympotic pots, especially the cups are playful! They play with the liquid inside and how it slowly disappears, they play with the perspective of different viewers in the symposium as the cup is moved through the space.
Secondary Literature
Glazebrook, Allison. “« Sex ed » at the archaic symposium.” In Sex in antiquity : exploring gender and sexuality in the ancient world, Edited by Masterson, Mark, Rabinowitz, Nancy Sorkin and Robson, James. Rewriting Antiquity, 157-178. London: Routledge, 2015.
PDF for annotation using Hypothes.is
As you read and annotate this piece some vocabulary you should note and learn and use in this class:
erastes and eromenos (pl. eromenoi) – lover/beloved, desirer/desired, pursuer/pursued, penetrator/penetrated
pais (pl. paides) — boy/youth, typically unbearded (English derivatives: pedagogy = “training (agōgē) of boys”, pedaphile = “friendly (philos) towards boys”, pederasty = “desire (eros) for boys”)
gunē – woman/wife (English derivative: gynecology “study (logos) of women” )
hetaira (pl. hetairae) — literally female companion, typically translated courtesan, a high value sex-worker, someone paid for time, not singular sex act, typically foreign, enslaved, or formerly enslaved
aulos-player — flute player, but also slang for a sex-worker, entertaining but not necessarily good for conversation
tondo — the round center of a kylix or the decoration in this area
kalos – beautiful, desirable, often associated with goodness; the phrase ‘the boy is beautiful’ is commonly found written on sympotic pots next to images of paides to indicate their sexual desirability
kakos – ugly, bad, evil, opposite of kalos
On pronunciation:
there are no silent letters
a line over a vowel (macron) makes it long
two vowels together (dipthong) tend to be pronounced as in English (e.g. aisle, audience, algae, Caesar), except if the second vowel has two dots over it (umlaut), this means you say each vowel separately (e.g. co-op).
You may also find these images easier to consult than those in the pdf.
Primary Evidence
The other major reading for annotation in hypothes.is for this unit is more Xenophon. The same man who wrote the “How to Train a Wife” excerpt of his Oeconomicos we read in the previous unit. Refresh your mind about who he was historically by seeing the intro there. The most important things to know is that he was a student of Socrates (like Plato) and that this philosophical dialogue has (like Plato’s) Socrates as an interlocutor (character). We don’t know for certain whether Plato or Xenophon wrote their Symposium first, but one was certainly responding to the other.
Questions for Consideration
- Throughout, note where enslaved people play a role in the narrative.
- How and why does one get a dinner invitation?
- What kind of activities may happen before dinner?
- Who sits? Who reclines?
- Who is possessed by Eros?
- What jokes does Philip tell?
- What marks the transition between the meal itself and what comes after?
- How does Socrates differentiate what is appropriate for men and for women?
- What lessons about gender does Socrates derive from the enslaved entertainer’s performances? (There are at least two.)
- How does Socrates’ justify having a spirited wife?
- What do you learn about ideal body times from this reading?
- What are attitudes to kissing?
- Why is Critobulus glad he’s handsome?
- Why is male body hair significant?
- To whom is Socrates’ said to be attracted?
- What is the attitude towards penetrative male/male sex?
- What is the relationship of the Syracusan and the male entertainer?
- What makes someone a “good” mastropos? How is this word translated?
- Of what type of entertainment does Socrates approve and disapprove?
- How does Antisthenes tease Socrates?
- What’s the right reason to desire someone? Why?
- What are the negative effects of the wrong type of desire?
- Do boys like penetration? Do women?
- How are Zeus’ desires for morals used to support Socrates’ points?
- Does the author believe male-male sex is good in military contexts?
- When does Autolycus leave? with whom? What do you think we are supposed to learn by this exit?
- What type of entertain comes at the end?
- What to the symposium guests conclude after seeing this entertainment?
Gender & Sexuality 