The Symposion in Ancient Greek Society and Thought

Abstract

The symposion was a key cultural phenomenon in ancient Greece. This book investigates its place in ancient Greek society and thought by exploring the rhetorical dynamics of its representations in literature and art. Across genres, individual Greeks constructed visions of the party and its performances that offered persuasive understandings of the event and its participants. Sympotic representations thus communicated ideas which, set within broader cultural conversations, could possess a discursive edge. Hence, at the symposion, sympotic styles and identities might be promoted, critiqued and challenged. In the public imagination, the ethics of Greeks and foreigners might be interrogated and political attitudes intimated. Symposia might be suborned into historical narratives about struggles for power. And for philosophers, writing a Symposium was itself a rhetorical act. Investigating the symposion's discursive potential enhances understanding of how the Greeks experienced and conceptualized the symposion and demonstrates its contribution to the Greek thought world.

A Duoethnographic Study of Power and Privilege in the Psychotherapeutic Space: Dialogical Research as Professional Development

“…It is possible that as a duoethnography conducted amongst therapists this brought a level of empathy and courage that allowed for challenging, for instance, gender expectations, more openly. An interesting metaphor emerged which seemed to capture the ancient Greek 'symposium' flavour of such exchange, with the exception that this was not an exclusively male aristocratic activity (Hobden, 2013):…”

Let Us Rejoice by Drinking and Talking Beautifully: Sympotic Poetics as a Function of Culture

“…12 This was reflected, among other things, in the fact that gnomic wisdom was an important element of sympotic poetics. 13 The archaic symposium as a social institution produced a kind of selfreferential discourse that Luigi Enrico Rossi calls spettacolo a se stesso 'a spectacle unto itself', and Fiona Hobden the metasymptotic dimension. 14 "From self-authorizing assertions of gnomic wisdom to self-promotional spectacles of full sympotic immersion, to competitive challenges to drinking companions, metasympotic songs afforded symposiasts opportunities for self-styling, and for the styling of others too, and to negotiate their place within the sympotic group."…”

“…14 "From self-authorizing assertions of gnomic wisdom to self-promotional spectacles of full sympotic immersion, to competitive challenges to drinking companions, metasympotic songs afforded symposiasts opportunities for self-styling, and for the styling of others too, and to negotiate their place within the sympotic group." 15 On the symposium, For now the floor is clean as are the cups and hands of all. One puts on the woven garlands; another passes along a fragrant ointment in a bowl.…”

Callimachus Romanus

“…23 Cf. Murray 1990Schmitt Pantel 1992;Hobden 2013. For a discussion of sympotic, not only elegiac, poetry as evidence for the archaic symposium as a model of social cohesion within the polis, see fusion of the cultural memories of Alexandria's Greek immigrants into something approaching a new common identity.…”