Symposia and drunken women

The Greek symposium was a key Hellenic social institution. It was a forum for men of respected families to debate, plot, boast, or simply to revel with others. They were frequently held to celebrate the introduction of young men into aristocratic society. Symposia were also held by aristocrats to celebrate other special occasions, such as victories in athletic and poetic contests.

Symposia were usually held in the andrōn - the men's quarters of the household. The participants, or "symposiasts", 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.  If any young men took part, they did not recline but sat up. However, in Macedonian symposia, the focus was not only on drinking but hunting, and young men were allowed to recline only after they had killed their first wild boar.

A symposium would be overseen by a "symposiarch" who would decide how strong the wine for the evening would be, depending on whether serious discussions or sensual indulgence were in the offing. In his play "Dionysus," Eubulus  has the god of wine Dionysus 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."

The Greeks, Etruscans, and Romans all held such gatherings but there were major differences between the Etruscan, Roman and Greek symposia. Both Etruscans and Romans  served wine before, with and after food, and women were allowed to join in. In a Greek symposium, wine was only drunk after dinner, and women were not allowed to attend.  Some Etruscan women were even considered "expert drinkers" and drinking and feasting paraphernalia have been found in the tombs of Etruscan women, suggesting that they partook in these activities. 

Although Roman symposia included women, scholars seem to disagree on whether  women attending such a drinking party could drink wine. Classicist Brigette Ford Russell, in her paper "Wine, Women, and the Polis : Gender and the Formation of the City-State in Archaic Rome" states early Roman Republican women were legally prohibited from drinking wine as a matter of public morality.  Apparently, they were perceived as too weak to control their impulses toward inappropriate behavior. 

She cites passages from Aulus Gellius writing in the 2nd century CE referring to statements by the 2nd century BCE moralist Cato the Elder. 

"Marcus Cato reports that women were not only judged but also punished by a judge no less severely if they had been guilty of drinking wine than if they had been guilt of unchastity and adultery." (NA 10.23.3)

The punishment according to Cato could be as severe as death.  So apparently, in addition to exhorting his fellow Romans to destroy Carthage, Cato the Elder railed against the dangers of drunken women.

This taboo was also recognized during the ritual of the Bona Dea.  Although the ceremony included a libation of wine to the goddess and, in all likelihood its consumption by the women present, Macrobius tells us that the wine was carried in a vessel called a honeypot and the forbidden wine itself was referred to as milk.

According to Plutarch, Bona Dea herself was the wife of the god Faunus, who caught her drinking wine and beat her to death for her transgression.

"Of significance also is the instrument of the interperate woman's punishment," observes Russell, "a branch of myrtle, the tree sacred to Venus, thus suggesting a connection between the woman's drinking and sexual impropriety."

Although society was content to let men use their own judgment to moderate their consumption of wine, women were thought, both in Greece and later Rome, to be less able to control their own unruly desires than were men.  Another classicist, Sandra Joshel, viewed this social control of women by men as an attempt at safeguarding the purity of the Roman state itself.

However, the archaeological record appears to contradict the enforcement of this restriction.  Like the Etruscan burials of elite females, burials excavated in Latium of the seventh century BCE contained such grave goods as wine mixing bowls on folding bronze stands and Punic amphorae containing imported Sardinian wine. These may symbolize the female's role as simply a hostess at sumptuous banquets but cast doubt on their own abstemiousness.

Even the legendary tale of the chaste example of a Roman matron, Lucretia, includes a description of the other women socializing at sumptuous banquets with their friends, sharing food, wine, and conversation. 

Another interesting aspect of this prohibition was the sanction to allow male relatives to kiss a woman on the lips to see if she was in compliance with the wine restriction. This "right to kiss" was known as the ius osculi. This custom (doubted by some scholars) allowed not only the husband, but the father, brothers and cousins (to the sixth degree) ​​of an “honest” woman to kiss her on the mouth upon greeting her to ensure that her breath did not smell of wine. By the late Republic, though, such hard-nosed conservatives  as Cato the Younger, in his "De Agri Cultura," began recommending wine consumption for both sexes as a health measure, even for slaves.

Two banqueters and an hetaera sitting on a klinê, detail. Terracotta from Myrina, Mysia, ca. 25 BCE now in the collections of The Louvre in Paris, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Marie-Lan Nguyen.

Terracotta group of Hetaera and young man with a naked slave boy as cupbearer at a symposium 4th century BCE now in the collections of the Staatliche Antikensammlungen in Munich, courtesy Wikimedia Commons contributor Matthias Kabel.

A drunk man vomiting, while a young slave is holding his forehead. Brygos Painter, 500-470 BCE National Museum of Denmark. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Stefano Bolognini.

Sculpture of funerary banquet found in a the chamber tomb known as the "Banquet" in 1978 in Egnazia, Italy, 4th-2nd centuries BCE now in the collection of the National Archaeological Museum of Egnazia, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Xinstalker. 

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Greek-Punic frescoed funeral shrine, with scene of a banquet. Roman imperial period, from Marsala. On the jambs, the symbol of the Phoenician goddess of fertility Tanit. The writing, which defines the deceased as "agathòs" (of good memory), is in Greek. Palermo Regional Archaeological Museum, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Giovanni Dall'Orto. (removed color cast)

A female aulos-player entertains men at a symposium on this Attic red-figure bell-krater, c. 420 BCE courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Marie-Lan Nguyen.

Banqueting scene in a burial chamber of the Tomb of the Leopards at the Etruscan necropolis of Tarquinia in Lazio, Italy courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor, AlMare.

Another Roman fresco with banquet scene from the Casa dei Casti Amanti (House of the Chaste Lovers) (IX 12, 6-8) in Pompeii (PD

Roman fresco with banquet scene from the Casa dei Casti Amanti (House of the Chaste Lovers) (IX 12, 6-8) in Pompeii. A man drinks from a rhyton. His female companion wears a sheer garment and a golden net over her hair. A female servant attends to the couple, proffering a small box. The table in front holds a set of silver vessels for mixing wine. The whole scene represents an idealized Greek drinking party, a pleasurable sight for the guests of this first century CE Roman household (PD)

Gravestone depicting a symposium. Sicily. Archaeological Museum of Syracuse, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Zde.

Statuette of a Banqueter (one of three) bronze, from northern Greece, 550-525 BCE, now in the collections of the Getty Villa, image courtesy of the museum.

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The secret of the rattling kantharos

One of just a handful of “rattling cups” that survive from the fifth and fourth centuries BCE, this elegant black-glazed wine cup from the second half of the 4th century BCE is dedicated to Kastor and Polydeukes (Castor and Pollux), the twin sons of Zeus known as the Dioscouri, who protected sailors, horseman, and chariot racers. Since each brother split his time between Mt. Olympus and Hades, they were often represented by stars, depicted here beneath the cup’s rim.  The cup's ritual purpose is further indicated by a wreath, garlands, and bucrania  bucrania (skulls of sacrificial bulls) decorating the cup’s body.

But, perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the vessel is that lifting and swirling the cup as if drinking or making a libation (liquid offering) during a ceremony produces a rattling noise.  It was assumed the sound was made by loose pellets moving inside the rim but curators at the J. Paul Getty Museum were puzzled by the fact that sometimes they could hear two balls but at other times only one.  So, they wanted to learn more about its construction and conducted a series of radiographic studies to unravel its secrets. The radiographs revealed two small balls that roll along a channel in the vessel’s rim.

Curators speculated that one way the potter might have achieved the construction of the cup is by raising the upper edge of the cup and folding it over to create a hollow space. The clay would be stretched thin by this process, which would reduce the need for ventilation holes that typically prevent pressure from trapped air. As for why it sometimes sounded like there was one ball in the rim and sometimes two, the radiograph revealed that one of the balls was resting in a small niche where it remained caught until it was knocked loose by the other pellet.

So why make an expensive cup rattle in the first place?  Getty curators said it is possible the rattling was intended to trick an unknowing handler into thinking they had broken it—quite a mistake given the cup’s obvious cost! Although the Greeks definitely had a keen sense of humor, I think due to the cup's religious dedication and symbolism, the curators' second theory is far more likely. They point out that the fourth-century BCE poet, Eubulus, mentions a glossy, black “pebble-rattling” cup used as part of a libation ceremony that took place at the end of a meal before a symposium began, in which wine was offered to Zeus Soter (Zeus the Savior). Since ritual events in antiquity were often accompanied by the sound of rattles, cymbals, and tambourines, which were thought to have magical and protective properties, the rattling sound emanating from the cup could have served the same purpose, without the necessity of hiring a cluster of religious performers who would have disrupted a cozy atmosphere conducive to sharing candid thoughts.

Read more about it here: http://blogs.getty.edu/iris/we-shook-an-ancient-ceramic-and-lived-to-tell-the-tale/ 

elegant black-glazed wine cup from the second half of the 4th century BCE is dedicated to Kastor and Polydeukes now in the collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum (Villa location) courtesy of the museum.

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A footbath as dining entertainment?

Although this elegant bowl could easily have been used for serving food, it is designated as a footbath by curators at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. How did they arrive at this conclusion? According to Marjorie J. Milne in her article "A Greek Footbath in the Metropolitan Museum of Art" published in the American Journal of Archaeology back in 1944, such shallow wide bowls with low lion-footed bases appeared fairly often in vase paintings, particularly in representations of Theseus' adventure with Skiron.  Such a bowl is also shown being used as a footbath for washing Odysseus' feet on a skyphos (two-handled cup) from Chiusi by the Penelope Painter.

Another unique aspect of this vessel is that it was cast and not tooled except for the radiating grooves separating the petals of the flower finials.  An armor specialist at the museum at the time points out that casting so large a bowl was a difficult feat.

The "footbath" was used for other purposes, too, by the Greeks, Etruscans, and the Romans, as revealed in literature and other vase paintings. It was apparently used for such tasks as a complete sponge bath or to wash an individual's hair.  It also made a convenient surgeon's basin.  Since the vessel was most frequently used to wash a guest's feet before a meal, it was usually kept in the diniing room. As such it was sometimes comandeered for entertainment purposes such as a wine cooler or to play kottabos, a game of skill played at Ancient Greek and Etruscan symposia (drinking parties), especially in the 6th and 5th centuries BCE. It involved flinging wine-lees (sediment) at a target in the middle of the room. The winner would receive a prize ("kottabion"), comprised of cakes, sweetmeats, or kisses.

Ancient writers including Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides describe these competitions although the practice apparently died out by the Roman period.  Dexterity was required to succeed in the game, and unusual ability was rated as highly as corresponding excellence in throwing the javelin. Kottabos was customary, and, at least in Sicily, special circular buildings were established, so the players might easily be arranged around the target, and follow each other in rapid succession. Like all games in which the element of chance found a place, it was regarded as more or less ominous of the future success of the players, especially in matters of love – and the excitement was sometimes further augmented by some object of value being staked on the event like an attending servant.

The game seems to have originated in Sicily, or the land of the Sikels. But it spread through Greece, from Thessaly to Rhodes, becoming especially fashionable at Athens.  Although some scenes of kottabos have been found depicting women playing the game, such as a scene of four hetairai playing the game with a popular youth as the subject of the toast, painted by Euphronois, it is thought these scenes were meant to be humorous as women were not usually participants in the contest. Another interpretation of the four hetairai is that these female symposiasts are Spartans (Athenians considered them generally unable to control their women). This would account for the Doric dialect used on the inscription and also the absence of couches, which is consistent with the stereotypes about Sparta held by the Athenians. The use of female symposiasts as a humorous trope is consistent with several black-figure vases with figures that are interpreted as Etruscan women. As with Spartan women, they were considered to be uncivilized.

Bronze footbath with its stand, late 5th–early 4th century BCE from Sicily or southern Italy at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  

Image:  Detail from a fresco depicting a symposium scene with kottabos player (center) from the Tomb of the Diver, 475 BCE at the Paestum National Museum, Italy.

 

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Not all Spartans were warriors

 Although Sparta is renowned for its military prowess, there were Spartan poets, sculptors, magistrates, ambassadors, and governors as well as soldiers.  Originally, however, full citizen Spartiates were barred by law from trade or manufacture, which consequently rested in the hands of the Perioikoi, free peoples who did not enjoy full citizen-rights but were not subjected to the restrictions of helots.  Perioikoi served partly as a kind of military reserve, partly as skilled craftsmen and partly as agents of foreign trade - actually rather similar to the roles of freedmen in Roman society.

Spartans were prohibited from possessing gold and silver coins, and according to legend Spartan currency consisted of iron bars to discourage hoarding. It was not until the 260s or 250s BCE that Sparta began to mint its own coins. Though the conspicuous display of wealth appears to have been discouraged, this did not preclude the production of very fine decorated bronze, ivory and wooden works of art as well as exquisite jewelry.

Allegedly as part of the Lycurgan Reforms in the mid-8th century BCE, a massive land reform divided property into 9,000 equal portions. Each citizen received one estate, a kleros, which was expected to provide his living. The land was worked by helots who retained half the yield. From the other half, the Spartiate was expected to pay his mess (syssitia) fees, and the agoge fees for his children. However, we know nothing of matters of wealth such as how land was bought, sold, and inherited, or whether daughters received dowries. However, from early on there were marked differences of wealth within the state, and these became more serious after the law of Epitadeus some time after the Peloponnesian War, which removed the legal prohibition on the gift or bequest of land. By the mid-5th century, land had become concentrated in the hands of a tiny number of elite, and the notion that all Spartan citizens were equals had become an empty pretence. By Aristotle's day (384–322 BCE) citizenship had been reduced from 9,000 to less than 1,000, then further decreased to 700 at the accession of Agis IV in 244 BCE.  In late Classical Sparta, when the male population was in serious decline, women were the sole owners of at least 35% of all land and property in Sparta.

Image: Bronze banqueter from the tripod-support of a bronze bowl thought to be Laconian (Spartan) 530-500 BCE from Dodona that I photographed at the British Museum in 2016.

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