Dinner first, then the drinking
A Greek dinner party had two parts. The meal itself, the deipnon, was eaten first, and the drinking party, the symposion, began once the food was cleared away. The word means roughly “drinking together”. The symposium was a social institution of the archaic and classical periods, especially associated with elite men, and it appears in poetry, philosophy and painted pottery. Because most of our evidence comes from those sources, it tends to show an idealised or elite version of the event, and ordinary drinking among poorer people is much less well documented.
The setting
The party was usually held in a room of a private house called the andron, or “men’s room”. Guests reclined on couches (klinai) arranged around the walls, leaning on their left elbows, with small tables of food and cups within reach. Excavated houses, such as those at Olynthos in northern Greece, show rooms with raised borders for couches, which gives archaeological support to the written accounts.
Before the drinking began, guests washed, were given garlands and perfumed oil, and often poured a libation, a small offering of wine to the gods. Common toasts were to the “good spirit” and to Zeus the Saviour, though the exact practice varied.
Mixing the wine
Greek wine was normally drunk diluted with water, and drinking it undiluted was associated with excess or with foreigners. A large bowl called a krater was used for mixing, and wine was ladled into cups. The proportions are often described as having more water than wine, though the exact ratios differed by occasion and writer.
A key figure was the symposiarch, the “leader of the symposium”, chosen by the group or by lot. He decided how strong the wine would be and how many mixing bowls would be drunk, and so he set the tone for the evening: restrained or rowdy. In idealised accounts, the aim was good conversation rather than drunkenness, and moderation was praised, even if practice sometimes fell short.
Who took part
The guests were generally adult male citizens and friends, and a young man might attend as a guest of an older relative or lover. Respectable wives were generally not present, although practice can have varied in different cities and households. Others in the room included:
- enslaved servants, who poured wine and served food
- musicians, often women playing the double pipe (aulos), who were typically enslaved or hired
- hetairai, a term often translated as “companions”, who were women of varying status who attended some parties and who could be educated and witty
These categories are drawn from literary and artistic sources, which sometimes portray people stereotypically, so they should be read with some caution.
Songs, poetry and games
Entertainment was part of the point. Guests recited poetry, sang short songs, and took turns improvising verses. Lyric poets such as Alcaeus and Anacreon composed songs that are thought to have been performed in this kind of setting, and a collection attributed to Theognis contains advice about how to behave at the symposium. Some guests sang skolia, short songs passed from one to another around the room, often with the next singer picking up a theme or responding to the last.
Games were common. The best known was kottabos, in which a drinker flicked the last drops of wine from a cup at a target, such as a small disc on a stand or a floating bowl, sometimes with a wish or a loved one’s name in mind. Riddles and challenges also enlivened the evening. Painted cups for the symposium, often decorated inside with scenes that appeared as the wine was drunk, are some of the finest examples of Greek sculpture and pottery.
Talk and philosophy
The symposium was also a place for conversation. Two of the best-known literary examples are the works called Symposium, by Plato and by Xenophon, in which guests, including Socrates, discuss love, beauty and virtue. They are literary creations, not transcripts, but they show how the format lent itself to speeches and questions. Readers interested in the philosophers themselves can follow the thread to Plato and Aristotle and their successors. Later schools, such as those valuing Epicurean pleasure, also treated shared meals and conversation as part of a good life, though in a more restrained spirit.
Politics and the closing procession
A symposium could be a political space. Elite men used it to build friendships and rivalries among peers, and some groups of friends in Athens, known as hetaireiai, were suspected of political plotting. The notorious mutilation of statues called herms in 415 BCE was linked by some ancient accounts to drunken revellers, although who was responsible is uncertain. This private world sat alongside the public life of Athenian democracy, and it could be a place where ideas about that system were mocked or defended.
Parties often ended with a komos, a rowdy procession through the streets with music and torches, which could lead to further parties or trouble. Several surviving Aristophanes comedies include banquet and drinking scenes, with humour that depends on the audience’s familiarity with these customs.
Links with the gods
Wine was linked in Greek thought to Dionysus, and the symposium had its own ritual elements. Libations began and closed the evening, and many drinking cups carry images of the god and his followers. The god’s wider cult is closely connected with the Dionysian festivals at which drama was performed. In this way, an evening of drinking among friends belonged to a wider religious and civic culture.
What it teaches us
The symposium shows how Greek elites combined pleasure, poetry, politics and performance. It also shows the limits of our sources, since much of what survives was made for and about men of means.