Sympotica: A Symposium on the SymposionOswyn Murray Rituals of commensality are fundamental to the understanding of human societies; the symposion or male drinking group of archaic and classical Greece was an institution whose effects can be detected in the painted pottery and the poetry created for its use, and in many areas of ancient Greek social life, from politics and warfare to sexual attitudes and conceptions of pleasure; Greek sympotic customs spread to other cultures throughout the Mediterranean, with important consequences for their development. Sympotica is the first book to be published on the symposion as a whole. It is the record of a symposium held in Oxford in 1984; the contributions discuss the importance of Greek drinking customs for anthropology, archaeology, art history, literary studies, history, and philosophy, and demonstrate the need for an inter-disciplinary approach. The editor provides a historical introduction to the field of sympotic studies, and a general bibliography. Twenty-four plates illustrate the art of the symposion, and three concluding chapters consider the influence of Greek commensality on the Roman world. The work opens up a new field of research into the cultures of the ancient world. |
Contents
OSWYN MURRAY Oxford | 3 |
Two Models of Civic Instit | 14 |
A Functional Aspect of Greek DiningRoom | 37 |
Copyright | |
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Common terms and phrases
akletoi Alcaeus Anacreon Ancient Archaic aristocratic ARV² Athenaeus Athenian Athens Attic red-figure banquet behaviour Berlin black-figure Bookidis building carmina convivalia century BC Classical context convivial Corinthian couches dance dancers Deipnosophistae Dentzer dining dining-rooms dinner Dionysos drinking elegy epic evidence example feast Fehr festival function Grèce Greece Greek Greek sympotic guests Hellenistic Hephaistos Herakles Hesperia hestiatorion hetaireia Homer klinai kline komasts komos krater Labraunda Lissarrague literary literature London Louvre meal Murray Odysseus Oxford panspermia Paris Perachora Philochoros Plate Plato pleasure Plut poems poetry poets pottery Protagoras prytaneion reclining red-figure references ritual Roman culture Rome rooms sacrifice sanctuary satyrs scenes Schmitt-Pantel seems Skolion social sodalitates Sokrates song Spartan suggested symposia symposiasts symposion Symposium Thasos tholos tradition Tyrtaeus vases Vetta wine wine-pourer Xenophanes δὲ ἐν καὶ περὶ τὰ τε καὶ τὴν τῆς τὸ τοῖς τοῦ τῶν