The symposium: the Greek drinking party

The Greek word συμπόσιον means “drinking together”: σύν (with) + πίνω (to drink). A symposium came after the dinner, the δεῖπνον. The tables with the food were taken away, and the drinking, the music and the talk began.

A symposium took place in a private house, in a special room called the ἀνδρών, the “men’s room”. Along the walls stood couches, each called a κλίνη. Rooms were often built for seven, eleven or fifteen couches, with about two guests on each. So a symposium was a small group of friends, not a big feast.

The guests did not sit. They lay on their left side, leaning on a cushion, and held their cup in the right hand. The guests were men, mostly rich citizens. Women of their families did not take part. Other women were there to work: slaves who served, musicians and dancers, and the ἑταῖραι, paid female companions.

The Greeks almost never drank wine, οἶνος, on its own. They mixed it with water in a large bowl, the κρατήρ, from the verb κεράννυμι, “to mix”. A slave then filled the cups from the bowl; the wine-pourer was the οἰνοχόος. Guests drank from a wide, flat cup with two handles, the κύλιξ, or from other cups. Many of the painted cups and bowls in museums today were made for symposia.

One guest was chosen as leader, the συμποσίαρχος. He decided how strong the mixture would be and how many bowls the group would drink. Anacreon, a poet of the 6th century BC, asks a boy to pour ten measures of water and five of wine, so that he can enjoy himself without becoming violent (fragment 356a). In a comedy by Eubulus, quoted by Athenaeus (2.36b–c), the god Dionysus says that wise men drink three bowls: one for health, one for love and pleasure, one for sleep. From the fourth bowl on come insults, shouting and fights.

Drinking strong, unmixed wine was seen as a habit of foreigners. Herodotus (6.84) reports a Spartan story: king Cleomenes went mad because he had learned from the Scythians to drink strong wine.

A symposium began with the gods. In Plato’s Symposium (176a), after dinner the guests pour a σπονδή, a drink-offering of wine, sing a hymn to the god and only then turn to drinking.

After that, the evening could take many forms:

• Songs. Guests sang short songs, often to the lyre, about friendship, love, wine or politics. Poets such as Alcaeus and Anacreon wrote many of their poems for this setting.
• Music and dance. A girl often played the αὐλός, a double pipe, and dancers or acrobats performed.
• Games. In κότταβος, a guest flicked the last drops of wine from his cup at a target.
• Talk. Guests made speeches, told riddles and argued.

The most famous symposium is a book. In Plato’s Symposium, set at the house of the poet Agathon in Athens, the guests agree to drink only as much as each one wants. They send the pipe-girl away (176e) and make speeches in praise of Eros, the god of love; Socrates speaks too. Xenophon also wrote a Symposium with Socrates as a guest. Historians remind us that these books show an ideal party; many real evenings were louder and ended with a noisy walk through the streets, the κῶμος.

Many words of the symposium are still alive, but some have changed their job. The Triantafyllidis dictionary of Modern Greek gives συμπόσιο two meanings: the ancient drinking party, or a very rich meal with many guests, and a meeting of scientists who give talks, as in «ιατρικό συμπόσιο». The second meaning came back into Greek through English “symposium”.

Κρατήρας is still the ancient mixing bowl in museums, but most Greeks use it for the mouth of a volcano or a crater on the Moon. The κύλικα is only a museum word. The word κλίνη is formal today: hotels and hospitals count their size in beds, «κλίνες».

For the drink itself, Greeks in a taverna ask for κρασί. The old word οίνος lives on in formal language: on wine labels, in words like οινοποιείο (winery), and in church, where bread and wine are «ο άρτος και ο οίνος». Water is νερό today, not ὕδωρ, although ὕδωρ survives in words like υδραυλικός (plumber).