As far as the early epigraphic material is concerned, the thrill of the Methone excavations is that they brought to light so much new material but at the same time they seem to confirm many earlier scholarly insights and interpretations. Among other things, as the editors of the Methone volume rightly observe, the new finds confirm the importance of convivial inscriptions at the earliest attested stage of the Greek alphabetization. It is time, then, to ask some general questions about the manner such texts were supposedly to be used at symposia. In particular, I will focus on the fact that so many among the earliest Greek vase-inscriptions are first-person utterances ranging from short ownership statements to elaborate poetic compositions. I will try to show that, to account for the relative frequency of the first-person early vase-inscriptions, we
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