After dinner but before the party (symposion) began, a die was cast to decide who would be the 'King of the Feast'. He decided 1) what ratio water to wine should be mixed (usually 3:1), 2) what the rules of the party should be, and 3) what the penalties would be if rules were broken.
The wine was mixed in large pots (krateres).
Naked young slaves (male or female) filled cups with wine using ladles (kantharoi) and passed the cups around. First they gave everyone small goblets, then larger ones. Guests had to empty each glass in one go, drinking to the health of his right-hand neighbour.
The guests might watch:
jugglers (male or female)
rope dancers
sword-jumpers
contortionists (eg woman ladling wine using her feet to hold ladle + cup whilst walking on her hands)
rooster fights
Or they might play games:
a board game called 'the game of cities'
games of chance using dice or knucklebones (astralogoi)
a game in which both players open a clenched hand simultaneously at quick speed, and each person has to call out the number of fingers extended by the other.
Or they might perform mimetic dances
(info from The Greeks and Romans: Their Life and Customs by E. Guhl and W. Koner, Bracken Books London, 1989 pages 267-73)
1 comment:
Fascinating! The contortionist wine pourers would've been worth it alone. They certainly knew how to have fun, those Ancient Greeks.
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