Symposium
(
συμπόσιον). A Greek term for a drinking-party. The
symposium must be distinguished from the
deipnon (
δεῖπνον); for though drinking almost always followed a dinner-party yet the
former was regarded as entirely distinct from the latter, was regulated by different customs,
and frequently received the addition of many guests who were not present at the dinner. For
the Greeks did not usually drink at their dinner, and it was not till the conclusion of the
meal that wine was introduced. Symposia were very frequent at Athens. Their enjoyment was
heightened by agreeable conversation, by the introduction of music and dancing, and by games
and amusements of various kinds; sometimes, too, philosophical subjects were discussed at
them. The
Symposia of Plato and Xenophon give us a lively idea of such
entertainments at Athens. The name itself shows that the enjoyment of drinking was the main
object of the symposia: wine from the juice of the grape (
οἶνος
ἀμπέλινος) was the only drink partaken of by the Greeks, with the exception of
water. The wine was almost invariably mixed with water, and to drink it unmixed (
ἄκρατον) was considered a characteristic of barbarians. The mixture
was made in a large vessel called the
crater (q. v.), from which it was
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Symposium. (From the painting by Alma-Tadema.)
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conveyed into the drinking-cups. The guests at a symposium reclined on couches, and
were crowned with garlands of flowers. A master of the revels (
ἄρχων
τῆς πόσεως, συμποσίαρχος, or
βασιλεύς) was
usually chosen to conduct the symposium, whose commands the whole company had to obey, and who
regulated the whole order of the entertainment and proposed the amusements. The same practice
prevailed among the Romans, and their symposiarch was called
magister, or
rex convivii, or
arbiter bibendi. The choice was
generally determined by the throwing of
astragali or
tali. (See
Talus.) The proportion in which the
wine and water were mixed was fixed by him, and also how much each of the company was to
drink, for it was not usually left to the option of each person present to drink as much or as
little as he pleased. The cups were always carried around from right to left (
ἐπὶ δεξιά), and the same order was observed in the conversation and
in everything that took place in the entertainment. The company frequently drank to the health
of one another (
προπίνειν,
propinare),
and each did it especially to the one to whom he handed the same cup.
Respecting the games and amusements by which the symposia were enlivened, it is unnecessary to
say much here, as most of them are described in separate articles in this work. Enigmas or
riddles (
αἰνίγματα or
γρῖφοι) were among the most usual and favourite modes of diversion. Each of the
company proposed one in turn to his right-hand neighbour; if he solved it, he was rewarded
with a crown, a garland, a cake, or something of a similar kind, and sometimes with a kiss; if
he failed, he had to drink a cup of unmixed wine, or of wine mixed with salt water, at one
draught. The
cottabos was also another favourite game at symposia, and
was played at in various ways. (See
Cottabus.)
Representations of symposia are very common on ancient vases. Two guests usually reclined on
each couch (
κλίνη), as is explained under
Cena;
Triclinium; but
sometimes there were five persons on one couch. A drinking-party among the Romans was
sometimes called
convivium, but the word
comissatio
(cognate with
κωμάζω) more nearly corresponds to the Greek
symposium. The Romans, however, usually drank during their dinner (
cena),
which they frequently prolonged during many hours, in the later times of the Republic and
under the Empire. Their customs connected with drinking differed little from those of the
Greeks, and have been incidentally noticed above.
See Becker-Göll,
Charikles, ii. 335 foll.; Mahaffy,
Social
Life in Greece, ch. xi.; Becker-Göll,
Gallus, i. 203-211;
Marquardt,
Privatleben der Römer, pp. 331-340;
Valpy,
History of Toasting (1881); Mew and
Astion, The Drinks of
the World (1892); and the articles
Calda;
Cervesia;
Psycter;
Vinum.