CLAS 220: The Ancient Symposium/Convivium
compiled by John Porter, University of Saskatchewan

Terms, Relevant Links Elsewhere on the WWW, and Bibliography for Course Lectures on Greek and Roman Banquets.

NOTE: For the most part, links on this page are to relevant material on other WWW sites.
Please do not assume that the material is mine unless the page to which you are directed is clearly marked as being part of this WWW site.

Terms

(Those terms marked with an asterisk are of particular importance.)

Athenian

For links to specific images to be discussed in class, visit the Images of the Greek Symposium page.

• *Symposium
• Deipnon
• Hetaireiai
• *Andron
• Xenophanes, Frg. 1
• *Symposiarch
• Astragaloi
• *Kottabos (Latax)   [Athenaeus 15.665d-668f]
  • Kataktos
    • Plastinx
    • Manes
    • Aristophanes, Peace 1240-44
  • Oxybapha
  • Man playing Kottabos (Perseus)
  • cf. Xenophon, Hellenica 2.3.55-56 (Theramenes and Critias)

• Common Vase Shapes

  Note: The list below focuses on vases commonly found in depictions of the Greek symposium.

  A comprehensive list of vase shapes that you will be expected to know, along with some other commonly found vases, can be found on the Attic Vases page.

  • *Kylix
  • *Kantharos
  • *Skyphos
  • *Krater
    • Bell Krater
    • Calyx Krater
    • Column Krater
    • Volute Krater
  • *Oinochoe
  • Dinos / Lebes
  • Psykter
  • Rhyton
  • Phiale
  • Askos

  • Storage / Transport
    • Pithos
    • Amphora
    • *Pointed Amphora
      Image

• *Skolia
  • Aristophanes, Wasps 1209ff.
• *Komos
  • Plato, Symposium 212cff.
  • Hermocopidae

• *Dionysus
• *Satyr
• Sophia
• Theos
• Cyclops
  • Homer, Odyssey 9.161ff.
• Ikarios (Apollodorus 3.14.7)

• Pithos
• Retsina
• Diogenes
• Pithoigia (first day of the Anthesteria)
• Askos (s.v. "Term")
• Amphora
• Kotyle

• *Hetaira
  • ps.-Demosthenes 59 (Against Neaira) 18-22 and 29-33
• *Porne
• *Gyne
• *Pallake
  • Menander, Woman from Samos 369-98

Roman

• *Cena
• *Convivium
• *Commissatio
• *Triclinium
  • *Lectus
  • *Imus, Medius, Summus
  • *Locus Consularis
• Umbra
• *Sigma Couch / Stibadium
• Varro
• Apophoreta
• Magister bibendi
• Rex Convivii
• Posca

Entertainments

The following passages from Xenophon's Symposium indicate some of the types of entertainment offered at a lavish Greek symposium in the Classical period.

• Symposium 1.11: Philip the Buffoon
• Symposium 2.1: Aulos and Kithara
• Symposium 2.7: Hoop Dance
• Symposium 2.11: Sword Dance
• Symposium 2.21: Comic Dance
• Symposium 3.1: Singing to Kithara
• Symposium 7.2: Dance on Potter's Wheel
• Symposium 9.2: Erotic Masque (Dionysus and Ariadne)

Links to Relevant Sites Elsewhere on the WWW

• See, in general, the Course Notes page on Food in Antiquity.
• The Athenian Drinking Party (Symposium)
• Classification of Vase Shapes
• The Amphoras Project
• Wasser im Wein (Hypertext essay — in German — on wine in ancient Greece)
• Prostitution: Greco-Roman

Bibliography

For a list of journal abbreviations and call numbers, see the
Journals Relating to Classics in the University of Saskatchewan Libraries page.

• Ascough, R.S. "Forms of Commensality in Greco-Roman Associations," CW 102 (2008) 33-45.
• Bérard, C., and C. Bron. "Satyric Revels," in C. Bérard, ed., A City of Images: Iconography and Society in Ancient Greece (Princeton, 1989) 131-50.
• Bergquist, B. "Sympotic Space: A Functional Aspect of Greek Dining-Rooms," in O. Murray, ed. Sympotica: A Symposium On The Symposion (Oxford, 1990) 37-65.
• Boardman, J. "Symposion Furniture," in O. Murray, ed. Sympotica: A Symposium On The Symposion (Oxford, 1990) 122-31.
• Bookidis, N., J. Hansen, L. Snyder, and P. Goldberg. "Dining in the Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore at Corinth," Hesperia 68.1 (1999) 1-54.
• Booth, A. "The Age for Reclining and Its Attendant Perils," in W.J. Slater, ed. Dining in a Classical Context (Ann Arbor, 1991) 105-20.
• Bowie, A.M. "Thinking with Drinking: Wine and the Symposium in Aristophanes," JHS 117 (1997) 1-21.
• Bowie, E. "Wine in Old Comedy," in O. Murray and M. Tecusan, eds., In uino ueritas (London, 1995) 113-25.
• Bowie, E.L. "Early Greek Elegy, Symposium, and Public Festival," JHS 106 (1986) 13-35.
• Bremmer, J.N. "Adolescents, Symposion, and Pederasty," in O. Murray, ed. Sympotica: A Symposium On The Symposion (Oxford, 1990) 135-48.
• Burkert, W. "Oriental Symposia: Contrasts and Parallels," in W.J. Slater, ed. Dining in a Classical Context (Ann Arbor, 1991) 7-24.
• Burton, J. "Women's Commensality in the Ancient Greek World," G&R 45 (1998) 143-65.
• Csapo, E., and M. Miller. "The 'Kottabos-Toast' and an Inscribed Red-Figured Cup," Hesperia 60 (1991) 367-82.
• Dalby, A. Siren Feasts: A History of Food and Gastronomy in Greece. New York, 1996.
• D'Arms, J.H. "Control, Companionship, and Clientela: Some Social Functions of the Roman Communal Meal," Studies in Roman Society (EchCl 28, n.s. 3, 1984) 327-48.
• D'Arms, J.H. "Slaves at Roman Convivia," in W.J. Slater, ed. Dining in a Classical Context (Ann Arbor, 1991) 171-83.
• D'Arms, J.H. "The Roman Convivium and the Idea of Equality," in O. Murray, ed. Sympotica: A Symposium On The Symposion (Oxford, 1990) 308-20.
• Davidson, J.N. "Gnesippus Paigniagraphos: The Comci Poets and the Erotic Mime," in D. Harvey and J. Wilkins, eds., The Rivals of Aristophanes. Studies in Athenian Old Comedy (London, 2000) 41-64.
• Dearden, C.W. "Pots, Tumblers, and Phlyax Vases," in A. Griffiths, ed., Stage Directions: Essays in Honour of E.W. Handley (London, 1995) 81-86.
• Dunbabin, K.M.D. "The Waiting Servant in Later Roman Art," AJP 124 (2003) 443-68.
• Dunbabin, K.M.D. "Convivial Spaces: Dining and Entertainment in the Roman Villa," JRA 9 (1996) 66ff.
• Dunbabin, K. "Triclinium and Stibadium," in W.J. Slater, ed. Dining in a Classical Context (Ann Arbor, 1991) 121-48.
• Dunbabin, K. The Roman Banquet: Images of Conviviality. Cambridge, 2004.
• Dunbabin, K. "Ut Graeco more biberetur: Greeks and Romans on the Dining Couch," in I. Nielsen and H.S. Nielsen, eds., Meals in a Social Context. Aspects of the Communal Meal in the Hellenistic and Roman World (Aarhus, 1998) 81-101
• Dunbabin, K. "Wine and Water at the Roman Convivium," JRA 6 (1993) 116-41.
• Durand, J.-L., F. Frontisi-Ducroux, and F. Lissarrague. "Wine: Human and Divine," in C. Bérard, ed., A City of Images: Iconography and Society in Ancient Greece (Princeton, 1989) 121-30.
• Ellis, S. "Late-antique Dining: Architecture, Furnishings and Behaviour," in R. Laurence and A. Wallace-Hadrill, eds., Domestic Space in the Roman World: Pompeii and Beyond (Portsmouth, 1997) [].
• Forbes, R.J. Studies in Ancient Technology. Leiden, 1964. [Vol. 3]
• Foss, P. "Watchful Lares: Roman Household Organization and the Rituals of Cooking and Dining," in R. Laurence and A. Wallace-Hadrill, eds., Domestic Space in the Roman World: Pompeii and Beyond (Portsmouth, 1997) [].
• Frontisi-Ducroux, F., and F. Lissarrague. "From Ambiguity to Ambivalence: A Dionysiac Excursion through the 'Anakreontic' Vases," in D.M. Halperin, J.J. Winkler, and F.I. Zeitlin, eds., Before Sexuality: The Construction of Erotic Experience in the Ancient Greek World (Princeton, 1990) 211-56.
• Gaselee, S. "Wine in Petronius," Wine and Food 36 (1942) 171-72.
• Giacosa, I.G. A Taste of Ancient Rome. Chicago, 1992.
• Gilula, D. "Entertainment at Xenophon's Symposium," Athenaeum 90 (2002) 207-13.
• Gowers, E. The Loaded Table. Representations of Food in Roman Literature. Oxford, 1992.
• Hamel, D. Trying Neaira: The True Story of a Courtesan's Scandalous Life in Ancient Greece. New Haven, 2003.
• Harrison, G.W.M. "Martial on Sportula and the Saturnalia," Mouseion 1 (2001) 295-312.
• Hayley, H.W. "The kottabos kataktos in the Light of Recent Investigations," HSCP 5 (1894) 73-82.
• Herman, G. Ritualised Friendship and the Greek City. Cambridge, 1987.
• Jones, C.P. "Dinner Theater," in W.J. Slater, ed. Dining in a Classical Context (Ann Arbor, 1991) 185-98.
• Jouanna, J., and L. Villard. Vin et santé en Grèce ancienne. Actes du colloque organisé à l'Université de Rouen et à Paris. (BCH Supplement 40.) Paris, 2002.
• Levine, D.B. "Symposium and Polis," in T.J. Figueira and G. Nagy, eds., Theognis of Megara: Poetry and the Polis (Baltimore, 1985) 176-96.
• Ling, R. "The Decoration of Roman Triclinia," in O. Murray and M. Tecusan, eds., In Vino Veritas (Rome, 1995) 239-51.
• Lissarrague, F. Greek Vases: The Athenians and Their Images. New York, 2001.
• Lissarrague, F. The Aesthetics Of The Greek Banquet: Images Of Wine And Ritual. Princeton, 1990.
• Lissarrague, F. "Around the Krater: An Aspect of Banquet Imagery," in O. Murray, ed. Sympotica: A Symposium On The Symposion (Oxford, 1990) 196-209.
• Lissarrague, F. "The Sexual Life of Satyrs," in D.M. Halperin, J.J. Winkler, and F.I. Zeitlin, eds., Before Sexuality: The Construction of Erotic Experience in the Ancient Greek World (Princeton, 1990) 53-81.
• Luppe, W. "Kottabos-Spiel mit den Essignäpfchen (Kratinos fr.124 K./A.)," Nikephoros 5 (1992) 37-42.
• Lynch, K.M. The Symposium in Context: Pottery from a Late Archaic House near the Athenian Agora. Princeton, 2011.
• McCartney, E. "The Couch as a Unit of Measurement," CP 29 (1934) 30-35.
• McGovern, P.E. Ancient Wine: The Search for the Origins of Viniculture. Princeton, 2003.
• McLeish, K. Food And Drink. London, 1978.
• Miller, M.C. "Reexamining Transvestism in Archaic and Classical Athens: The Zewadski Stamnos," AJA 103 (1999) 223-53.
• Miner, J. "Courtesan, Concubine, Whore: Apollodorus' Deliberate Use of Terms for Prostitutes," AJP 124 (2003) 19-37.
• Murray, O., and M. Tecusan, eds. In Vino Veritas. Rome, 1995.
• Murray, O., ed. Sympotica: A Symposium On The Symposion. Oxford, 1990.
• Neer, R.T. Style and Politics in Athenian Vase-Painting: The Craft of Democracy, ca. 530-460 BCE. Cambridge, 2002.
• Neils, J. "Others Within the Other: An Intimate Look at Hetairai and Maenads," in B. Cohen, ed., Not the Classical Ideal: Athens and the Construction of the Other in Greek Art (Leiden, Boston, and Köln, 2000) 203-26.
• Padgett, J.M. "The Stable Hands of Dionysos: Satyrs and Donkeys as Symbols of Social Marginalization in Attic Vase Painting," in B. Cohen, ed., Not the Classical Ideal: Athens and the Construction of the Other in Greek Art (Leiden, 2000) 43-70.
• Parisinou, E. "'Lighting' the World of Women: Lamps and Torches in the Hands of Women in the Late Archaic and Classical Periods," G&R 47 (2000) 19-42.
• Partridge, B. A History of Orgies. London, 1962.
• Pellizer, E. "Outlines of a Morphology of Sympotic Entertainment," in O. Murray, ed. Sympotica: A Symposium On The Symposion (Oxford, 1990) 177-84.
• Peschl, I. Die Hetaere bei Symposion und Komos in der attisch-rotfiguren Vasenmalerei des 6.-4. Jahr. v. Chr. Frankfurt am Main, 1987.
• Pritchard, D.M. "Fool's gold and silver: reflections on the evidentiary status of finely painted Attic pottery," Antichthon 33 (1999) 1-27.
• Pütz, B. The Symposium and Komos in Aristophanes. Stuttgart and Weimar, 2003. [Reissued: Warminster, 2007.]
• Rathje, A. "Banquet and Ideology. Some New Considerations About Banqueting at Poggio Civitate," in R.D. De Puma and J.P. Small, eds., Murlo and the Etruscans. Art and Society in Ancient Etruria (Madison, 1994) 95-99.
• Richardson, L., Jr. "A Contribution to the Study of Pompeian Dining-Rooms," Pompeii, Herculaneum, Stabiae: Bolletino dell'Associazione internazionale amici di Pompei 1 (1983) 61-71.
• Roller, M.B. "Horizontal Women: Posture and Sex in the Roman Convivium," AJP 124 (2003) 377-422.
• Roller, M.B. Dining Posture in Ancient Rome. Bodies, Value, Status. Princeton and Oxford, 2006.
• Rosen, R.M., and P.C. Díaz."The Death of Thersites and the Sympotic Performance of Iambic Mockery," Pallas 61 (2003) 121-36.
• Rosen, R.M. "Euboulos' Ankylion and the Game of Kottabos," CQ 39 (1989) 355ff.
• Russell, B.F. "Wine, Women, and the Polis: Gender and the Formation of the City-State in Archaic Rome," G&R 50 (2003) 77-84.
• Salza Prina Ricotti, E. "The Importance of Water in Roman Garden Triclinia," in E.B. MacDougall, ed., Ancient Roman Villa Gardens (Dumbarton Oaks, 1987) 137-84.
• Scaife, R. "From Kottabos to War in Aristophanes' Acharnians," GRBS 33 (1992) 25-35.
• Schafer, A. Unterhaltung beim griechischen Symposium. Mainz, 1997.
• Seltman, C. Wine in the Ancient World. London, 1957.
• Shero, L. "Cena in Roman Satire," CP 18 (1923) 126-43.
• Slater, W.J., ed. Dining in a Classical Context. Ann Arbor, 1991.
• Slings, S.R. Symposium: Speech and Ideology. Two hermeneutical issues in early Greek lyric, with special reference to Mimnermus. Amsterdam, 2000.
• Small, J.P. "Eat, Drink, and Be Merry. Etruscan Banquets," in R.D. De Puma and J.P. Small, eds., Murlo and the Etruscans. Art and Society in Ancient Etruria (Madison, 1994) 85-94.
• Sparkes, B.A. "Kottabos: An Athenian After-Dinner Game," Archaeology 13 (1960) 202-07.
• Starr C.G. "An evening with the flute-girls," PP 33 (1978) 401-10.
• Sutton, R.F., Jr. "The Good, the Base, and the Ugly: The Drunken Orgy in Attic Vase Painting and the Athenian Self," in B. Cohen, ed., Not the Classical Ideal: Athens and the Construction of the Other in Greek Art (Leiden, Boston, and Köln, 2000) 180-202.
• Sweet, W.E. Sport And Recreation In Ancient Greece: A Sourcebook With Translations. New York, 1987. [pp.199ff.]
• Topper, K. "Primitive Life and the Construction of the Sympotic Past in Athenian Vase Painting," AJA 113 (2009) 3-26.
• Venit, M.S. "Women in their Cups," CW 92 (1998) 117-30.
• Vickers, M. Greek Symposia. (Joint Association of Classical Teachers.) London, 1978.
• Vickers, M. "Attic Symposia after the Persian Wars," in O. Murray, ed. Sympotica: A Symposium On The Symposion (Oxford, 1990) 105-21.
• Wallace-Hadrill, A. Houses and Society in Pompeii and Herculaneum. Princeton, 1994.
• Wallace-Hadrill, A. "The Social Structure of the Roman House," BSR 56 (1988) []
• Wilkins, J. "Land and Sea: Italy and the Mediterranean in the Roman Discourse of Dining," AJP 124 (2003) 359-75.
• Wilkins, J., D. Harvey, and M. Dobson, eds. Food in Antiquity. Exeter, 1996.

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