THE SWINEHERDS' SYMPOSIUM: "OD.

" 14, 457-533 AND THE TRADITIONS OF SYMPOTIC

POETRY
Author(s): Deborah Steiner
Source: Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica , 2012, New Series, Vol. 100, No. 1 (2012),
pp. 117-142
Published by: Fabrizio Serra Editore
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23347485

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 THE SWINEHERDS' SYMPOSIUM: OD. 14, 457-533
AND THE TRADITIONS OF SYMPOTIC POETRY

Deborah Steiner

Abstract

This article presente a dose reading of the feast hosted by Eumaeus at O

533 and argues that it offers one of several episodes where the poet glance
the symposium, an Institution explicitly attested only in later sources. A
lyzing several aspects of the scene that indicate its proto-sympotic nature,
that Eumaeus' party supplies insights into the evolution and sociology of
posium.

In asanNestors
articleCup
of and
1994, Oswyn
dated to theMurray argued
last quarter of thethat theCentury
eighth Ischianwas
kotyle known
fashioned for the symposium and furnishes our earliest known sympotic ob
ject.1 Other recent accounts, those of Slater, Ford, W^cowski and Irwin,2
identiiy elements of sympotic discourse and behaviour in the Homeric
songs, and, to a greater or lesser degree, propose that epic omits explicit
mention of the symposium not through ignorance of the Institution, but in
order to preserve the integrity of the heroic age. Discussion of the question
of the absence or presence of what already recognizably possesses the lin
eaments of the archaic symposium3 in Homer has chiefly focused on the
scenes of dining in the 'Phaeacian books of the Odyssey and on the extend
ed dinner parties in Odysseus' halls that occupy much of the final portion
of the poem. My purpose is to suggest that a third Odyssean episode may

1 Murray 1994; on the cup, see too the discussion and additional bibliography cited in
W^cowski 2002a, 633 n. 16.
2 Slater 198α and 1990; Ford 1999 and 2002, 25-45; W^cowski 2002a and 2002b: Irwin 2005,
43-45. Coincident with Murray's argument for the existence of the symposium already in the
late eighth Century is the current tendency to down-date Homeric epic, now assigned by
some to the early to mid seventh Century.
3 This is defined by W^cowski 2002a, 626 as "night-time drinking, a luxurious wine par
ty with a highly ritualized ceremony, in which a very restricted group of males participated
on equal terms, and which was dominated by the egalitarian and at the same time compet
itive spirit of the aristocratic participants"; cf. Murray 1994, 48, "a highly ritualized occasion
for the consumption of alcohol... a focus for luxury and artistic creativity devoted to the
pleasures of the drinking group". For reasons that will form part of my argument, I will be
modifying these defìnitions in some respects. Note too the discussion of how to establish a
taxonomy of the symposium in Corner 2005, esp. 91-94.

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ιι8 DEBORAH STEINER

give us still firmer evidence for (in want of a better term)

practices, ethics and discourse, and this in ways particular
the Homeric poet's knowledge of, and even attitude towar
party
The gathering on which I focus has, for obvious reasons, slipped beneath
the scholarly radar: it occurs in a setting not usually associated with Ho
meric feasting, nor with the symposium of the later archaic and classical pe
riods, viz. Eumaeus' lowly hut amid a company of swineherds. And yet, as
my dose reading of the scene details, at least four aspects of this gathering
go further than other Homeric banqueting episodes in gesturing towards
the symposium: first, the morphology of the event in terms of its partici
pants, structure, and activities; second, Odysseus' use of recognizably sym
potic language and tropes in the prologue to the story that he teils at 468
502; third the generic character and formai rhetorical features of that story,
including the characterization of its teller, its 'meta-sympotic' or self-reflex
ive dimension, and Eumaeus' retrospective designation of the tale as an
ainos; and fourth, the agonistic element in Odysseus' performance and
Eumaeus' response to his tale. The final portion of the discussion suggests
how the occasion in the swineherd's home might contribute new material
to current debates surrounding the evolution and sociology of the archaic
symposium.

1. The Morphology of Eumaeus' Party

Eumaeus' declaration at 14,407, "now it is rime for our evening mea

ates the episode, which begins to unfold largely according to the u
quence of activities and conforms in most respects to what comme
classify as a 'dining type scene'.1 Much of the language from 418-45
mulale as the poet describes the sacrifice of the pig, the setting asi
divine portions, the serving and consumption of the food and drin
is there much here to put an audience in mind of a symposium rath
a more standard heroic-age dais (note, in particular, the bestowal of
tion of honour, the geras, on Odysseus, which points to a hierarchi
of distribution running counter to the 'equal shares for all' princi

1 See particularly 419, 422, 423, 427, 430-431, 437, 453-455 for conventional elem
formulale diction.
2 Reece 1995,148 details the non-traditional aspects in the sacrifice, among them
placement of the οχ or cow by a pig and the use of a piece of firewood to club
for the usuai axe or knife. But these are not relevant to the 'sympotic' dimensi
scene; instead, as Reece argues, they can be explained by the unheroic nature of th
a swineherd's hut in place of the noble household where epic normally locates the
and for which its formulale phrases are designed.

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 OD. 14, 457-533 AND THE TRADITIONS OF SYMPOTIC POETRY 119

served at the symposium, where no guest is privileged above the rest).

lines seem to round out the evening as the diners now "sated with food
drink" make haste to leave for bed (455-456). But here things take an
pected turn. Rather than conduding with the guests' heralded departur
most Homeric dinner parties do, this evening gathering is prolon
Odysseus, disguised as a destitute stranger, needs a cloak to protect h
from the winter cold, and will use his story-telling powers to finagl
from his host before the breakup of the party.
For all the traditional look of the scene, several details in these pre
naries signal departures from normative practice and a conformity w
more sympotic-style gathering that becomes increasingly pronounced
the episode advances. Eumaeus' event, like the archaic symposium, is
phatically a nighttime party, and, unlike the banquets on Scheria, whic
cur more or less throughout the day, the morning induded, and host a
erogeneous group of participants - women and even the entire popula
this more exclusive gathering occurs among a restricted group of men
the later drinking party too, those present at the hut are members of
same sodai (and professional) milieu: all swineherds, and, as Eumae
plidtly characterizes his guests at 407, εταίροι, the term used by Archilochu
Alcaeus and other poets for their sympotic public and addressees. Signif
too is the evening's clear division into two: as already noted, the dinne
ty is drawing to its end - the food has been taken away and the gues
preparing to leave - when the beggar's story abruptly retards the move
towards bed. The break that the narrative signals between the condusio
the meal ("Mesaulios took the food away", 45s)2 and the fresh start ini
by Odysseus' Intervention parallele the way in which the standard sy
sium described by later sources would also fall into two discrete parts:
the dinner, and then the drinking party proper, with Performanc
speech and song reserved for the latter portion. Thus much as in Eum
hut, the meal in Plato's Symposium passes largely in silence (as it also d
Xenophon's account of the event), while speech-making occupies the p
prandial portion of the night, postponed until after the food is remove

1 See Borecky 1963 and Donlan 1994 for the Homeric geras. Also indicative of hierar
is the fact that the giving of that honorific portion belongs to a single individuai.
2 This detail, that Mesaulios serves and removes the food, distinguishes this occ
from other Odyssean feasting scenes. Elsewhere, it is generally the housekeeper who s
the food and drink, and maidservants are present. Mesaulios' role thus conforms to the
gender division visible at symposia, where women were excluded even as servers. On
see Dalby 1993,174-175: "Wherever there is definite evidence about the Service of men
mal meals, it suggests that men and not women were the waiters. The occasionai vase p
ing is not enough to overturn the literary evidence which always refers in the mascul
slaves and hired assistants engaged in these tasks".

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120 DEBORAH STEINER

the tables cleared (176a).1 As Murray observes in a commen

feast in Odyssey 14 as of the later occasions he is describing,
ble étre un repas sans discours".2

2. The Preface to Odysseus' Tale

In addition to situating the beggar's tale within this dinner party s

Homer more narrowly frames Odysseus' performance, furnishing h
rative with a double preface. The poet first alerts his audience to th
fold agenda behind Odysseus' assumption of the role of entertainer
teur. Most immediately, the freezing beggar needs a cloak for the n
more broadly, the giving of the garment will serve as an indicator
maeus' sentiments towards his guest (459-461):

τοις δ' Όδυσεύς μετέειπε, συβώτεω πειρητίζων,

εϊ πώς οί έκδύς χλαΐναν πόροι ή τιν' εταίρων
άλλον έποτρύνειεν, έπεί έο κήδετο λίην*

Odysseus spoke among them, making trial of the swineherd to see if he mi

off his cloak and give it to him, or teil one of his companions to do it, since
for him so much.

The term πειρητίζων pointedly positions the story as a challenge for

dience. Ford, citing Theognis 125-128,571-572 (where forms of the sam
appear) and 1013-1016, notes the continuity between this initial char
tion of Odysseus' address and the language of later sympotic poetry
as Odysseus "tests" Eumaeus after dinner, so Theognis frequently spe
sympotic "testing" of his companions". Consistent too with later pra
the purpose of this test:3 Theognis uses his songs as a means of disc
his fellow symposiasts' ethics and character, of telling friend from e
so too the story will allow Odysseus to gauge the nature and sentim
Eumaeus and his fellow herdsmen towards him, even as it allows th
er still further to conceal his own identity. According to Plato, this d
nation and display of an individual's true seif is among the larger fu
of sympotic gatherings: these allow for 'the revelation of our actual n
{Leg. 652a).

1 In no other banquet described in the Odyssey does the removal of the food immedi
ately precede a turn to story-telling or song in this manner; see, for example, 8,71-72, where
the formulale lines also used at 14, 443-445 are directly followed by the performance of De
modocus, absent the clearing of the tables; so too 8, 484-486.
2 Murray 1992, 67. For fuller discussion of this point, see Corner 2005,167-169.
3 Ford 1999, 113. The precise way in which the story constitutes a test for Odysseus'
fellow-diners is something that only becomes clear after the ainos is done, a point which I
discuss in greater detail later on.

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 OD. 14, 457-533 AND THE TRADITIONS OF SYMPOTIC POETRY 121

Before embarking on his story, the beggar offers his own introdu
(462-467):

κέκλυθι νϋν, Εύμαιε και άλλοι πάντες εταίροι,

εύξάμενός τι επος έρέω" οίνος γαρ άνώγει,
ήλεός, δς τ' έφέηκε πολύφρονά περ μάλ' άεϊσαι
καί θ' άπαλόν γελάσαι καί τ' όρχήσασθαι άνηκε,
καί τι επος προέηκεν, δ πέρ τ' άρρητον άμεινον.
άλλ' έπεί ούν το πρώτον άνέκραγον, ούκ επικεύσω.

Hear me now Eumaeus and all you other companions. I will speak a word that is a
bit of boasting, for the wine that makes a man silly impels me, wine that sets even
one who is very intelligent to singing and laughing softly and dancing, and to emit
a word which would perhaps be better unspoken. Since I have now raised my voice
to a shout, I will not hide it.

While the subsequent section details the way in which this incipit inti
mates the generic identity of the Coming story, here I note two elements
in the address that align Odysseus' Intervention closely with later sym
potic song and discourse, and with what belongs among the defìning
characteristics of the more full-fledged drinking party. First, in conformi
ty with the sympotic sources of the later archaic and classical period,
Odysseus includes a self-reflexive commentary on the nature of the per
formance that he is about to give,1 complete with the warning that it may
exceed the bounds of propriety. Sympotic poems of the seventh and sixth
centuries, in self-promoting nods to their own salubrious and harmony
producing ends, frequently acknowledge the risk of indecorous speech at
the occasion. In the prescriptions for the ideal banquet that fr. ι W. fa
mously presents, Xenophanes strictly circumscribes the type of stories ad
missible at the symposium, with the exclusion of anything improper or
that might turn the drinkers' thoughts to conflict and dissent. The same
sentiment, although tilted towards the more erotic concerns of his verse,
appears in Anacreon, who explicitly rejects the topic that supplies the set
ting, if not the focus, of Odysseus' narrative, "tearful war" (fr. 2 W). In
the view of an anonymous elegist from the late classical age, the task of
'good men' at the symposium is to contribute "fair speech" (εύλογίαν,
Anon. eleg. 27,10 W.), hardly the mode of discourse that the Homeric hero
envisages here. The self-consciousness that Odysseus displays in regard to
the (in)decorum of the story he is about to narrate also distinguishes this
performance from other commentaries on speeches or songs delivered in
the course of the poem's many banquets: much more typically these con

1 See Murray 1994, 49 on sympotic literature's insistence on "talking about the sympo
sion in the symposions", and Corner 2005,125.

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122 DEBORAH STEINER

cern the veracity, charm, orderliness or verisimilitude of t

bard's contribution.1
Stili more striking in the lines, and closely related to the possibility of 'un
bounded' speech, is the role of wine in the scenario that Odysseus describes.
In the course of four lines, the speaker not only promotes drink to centre
stage but also sketches out its role in what constitutes a Virtual 'program' of
the activities that the standard symposium includes as guests attain ever
greater degrees of inebriation. What makes the symposium a novel and dis
tinctive Institution, so different from the Homeric banquet, is, as noted
above, the evening's division into two parts, and the exclusive focus on drink
ing in the second - the symposium proper.2 Odysseus' words not only, and
rather abruptly, as though the poet has elided the period of heavy drinking
that would follow from the clearing of the tables,3 suggest that considerable
amounts of wine have been consumed, but visible here is an account of the
drink very different from that which Homeric epic supplies elsewhere: nei
ther a source of refreshment or restorer of lost strength, nor something that,
drunk to excess, causes quarrels, fatai negligence and actual outbreaks of vi
olence,4 it is instead a catalyst for activities uniquely at home in the sympot
ic milieu. Singular here, and distinguishing the story Odysseus is about to teli
from the more properly 'epic'-style narratives/songs that other Homeric
banquets include, is the description of the first of the actions that wine im
pels. Whereas the aoidos, whether Homer or Demodocus, sings under the
Inspiration and incitement of the Muses (compare άνηκεν at 8, 73 with the
use of a similar term at 14, 464), here drink is named as the instigator of the
coming tale.5 Overall, I suggest, this excursus offers an instance of what
Murray identifies as visible in the inscription on Nestor's cup: the replace
ment of a heroic style of drinking with a more properly sympotic one.6
The very detailing of the powers of drink more narrowly anticipates a
highly familiar motif of sympotic songs, which endlessly reflect on the

1 This is not to deny that several of these issues also permeate the meta-poetic elements
in sympotic song, but only to emphasize that the particular concern for the propriety and
decorum of after-dinner speech is something unique to book 14.
2 While the banquet at the court of Aikinous that Odysseus' arrivai in book 7 Interrupts
seems to observe a similar break - after the meal is done, the krater is brought in, wine is
mixed and served and libations are poured (177-184) - there is no comparable story-telling,
no sympotic commentary, and Odysseus is the solitary diner on that occasion.
3 Note Philochoros' description of the reign of the mythical Athenian king Amphicty
on: "a law was made at the time, that after the solid food is removed, a taste of the unmixed
wine should be served round as a sort of sample of the power of the Agathos Daimon, but
that ali the rest of the wine should be previously mixed" (FGrHist 328 F 387).
4 For this more 'normative' representation, see II. 6, 261, Od. 3,139; 10, 555; 21, 295-304.
5 Von Reden 1995, 41.
6 Murray 1994, 50-51, albeit with the emphasis on the role of the erotic.

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 OD. 14, 457-533 AND THE TRADITIONS OF SYMPOTIC POETRY 123

properties of wine, for both good and ili. As many elegiac and other
composing for the venue also observe, it is wine that prompts unbridle
considered and slanderous speech, those modes of discourse deemed in
missible to the sympotic sites that the songs reflect. Perhaps the füllest Sta
ment belongs to Theognis: "whoever exceeds his limit of drink is no lo
in command of his tongue or his mind. He says wild things which ar
graceful... That man is truly the champion who after drinking many
will say nothing foolish" (479-482, 491-492). Calumny and uncouth spe
uttered by an inebriated symposiast is a commonly cited danger
Theogn. 413-414, Critias fr. 6, 8-11 W.), also parodied in the drinking p
gone awry in Aristophanes, Wasps 1229-1325; within this elite milieu
'hero' Philocleon ends up completely drunk leaping about and laughing
people, and 'mocking in an uncouth way, and what's more telling storie
a quite uneducated way that had nothing to do with the matter at ha
(Wasps 1320-1321, trans. Sommerstein). So too Plutarch notes how mock
and outspokenness were a function of the amount of wine the sympo
had consumed (Mor. 707t), and Alcibiades, much like Odysseus, cite
state of inebriation in the disclaimer that prefaces his address in Plato's
posium, declaring that it isn't fair to compare the words of a drunken
with those of one who has drunk in moderation, and excusing any in
ties in his speech on the grounds of his current insobriety (214c, 2i4e-
Odysseus also comments on drink's maddening properties: dubbed li
ally 'distraught' or 'crazed', it is a substance whose excessive consump
can drive a man out of his wits. The sympotic poets register the associ
between wine and madness on numerous occasions. Although usuall
ed in discussions of Archilochus' association with Dionysiac cult, the p
fr. 120 W., "for I know how to take the lead in the dithyramb, the lovely s
of lord Dionysus, my wits thunderstruck with wine", may belong to a
ing song in which the symposiast comments on how, in a state of drun
ness, he is driven to sing in praise of the god of wine.1 According to T
nis 497-498, "the mind of the foolish and sensible man alike is made
light-headed whenever he drinks beyond his limit" (cf. 503-508) and in an
other reflection he remarks: "Among the mad I am mad, but among the just
I am the most just of men" (313-314). For an explicit link between madness
and wine, there is Eubulus' later account of the effects of progressive
rounds of drink at the symposium: with the tenth and final krater there
comes madness (fr. *93 K.-A. = Athen. 2,36b).2 While the Odyssey registers

1 See West 1974,131 for the suggestion.

2 The larger fragment coincides with the scenario Odysseus describes: "the fourth
krater is not mine any more - it's for hybris; the fifth is for shouting; the sixth is for merry
making...".

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124 DEBORAH STEINER

the wit-befuddling capacities of wine elsewhere, and its r

man to speak and act foolishly,1 unique here is the way in
cautionary remark falls into a programmatic commentary
the occasion framing his performance.
The speaker then goes on to list the componente of the
where wine circulates in abundance: singing, laughing,
guage more normally suppressed. Whereas in Scheria Od
tile 'sympotic preface' focused chiefly on the decorum of t
orderly conduct of the participants (9, 2-11),2 here the spea
different, more animated and even raucous picture that a
lists' of the evening's pleasures in sympotic song.3 Ion of
counterpart in his fr. 27, 7-8 W: "let us drink, let us play
through the night. Let someone dance; willingly begin th
nis similarly couples "taking pleasure in the lyre and in dan
(791), and acknowledges the place for sympotic jesting too,
by a man stili in possession of his wits: "Among fellow din
intelligent, let everything seem to escape his notice as tho
there; and let him contribute jokes" (309-311). Odysseus' r
of the adverb άπαλόν, "softly, delicately" (465) to describ
might, Stanford's commentary suggests, evoke the 'feeble'
hilarity, but the term could also indicate the restraint requ
asts when delivering and responding to mockery and jest.
elegiac fragment earlier cited brings together an initial add
participants in the symposium with prescriptions for the m
and jocularity: "Hail my fellow-drinkers and those of my a
when we come together as friends on business such as thi
with excellence, being happy in each other's company and
er with such jokes as can be borne with a laugh" (Anon. ele
Other sources imagine scenes closer to the loss of verbal
the dose of Odysseus' preface intimates (467). The denouem
riage contest staged by Cleisthenes of Sicyon, which culm
posium featuring a contest that turns about the musical an

1 See particularly 18, 331 = 391; 21, 293, 297-298.

2 Bielohlawek 1940; Slater 1990; Ford 1999, and Irwin 2005,127-128 hav
11 in terms of overlaps with the vocabulary and themes of sympotic po
3 The elements listed by Odysseus form something of a crescend
heightened degree of inebriation. The combination of activities also fi
in images on sympotic vessels of the late archaic and classical age, sho
dancing, singing and drinking symposiasts. Some representations reg
gression through their spatial deployment of the different motifs, as t
tivities associated with the party's start give way to more debauched be
culminating in vomiting and the like); for this see Neils 1995.

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 OD. 14, 457-533 AND THE TRADITIONS OF SYMPOTIC POETRY 125

skills of the participants, realizes something similar to the rather rio

scene that Odysseus describes. Inebriated, Hippocleides dances up
down on a table and addresses a mocking word to his host that, in
thenes' view at least, would have been better unspoken (Hdt. 6,126-130)
the Odyssean ainos constitutes just such a piece of mockery or 'riffin
something that the subsequent section takes up. Striking too in Odys
remarks is the expression άνέκραγον at 467 - a verb found uniquely h
Homer - to characterize the manner in which the speaker has begun. (A
a breach of sympotic etiquette? Anacreon plainly prohibits such over
berant Speech: no "clatter and shouting" over wine, fr. 356b P.). That the ve
is very much at home in contexts where an individuai speaks in a pote
ly transgressive or indecorous manner two later uses of the term attes
dar selects the term when he, also in 'apologisti' mode, begs his audie
indulgence for the excessive enthusiasm with which he has praised h
dando (Nem. 7,75-76). Still more apposite is the reappearance of the e
sion in the passage from Aristophanes' Wasps already cited, where Xan
describes Philocleon's disruption of the upper class symposium. There
lowing his capers, laughter and other riotous acts, the symposiast raise
voice, shouting out a derogatory response in answer to a fellow d
(άνακραγών, 1311). As in the atmosphere that Odysseus' preface e
through its diction and the scenario it paints, Philocleon's conduct put
to what should be a prime component of the drinking party, the sym
hesychia so promoted (in cautionary vein?) by Solon, Pindar and othe

3. The ainos

With this by way of preface, Odysseus then begins his story, an anecdote
that details an incident from the Trojan War when he - or the hapless
individuai whose persona he has assumed - found himself cloak-less on a
bitterly cold night, and gained the necessary garment through the skilled
verbal Intervention of his fellow soldier Odysseus. Very much like the po
ems composed for symposia in the seventh and sixth centuries, the language
of the ainos exhibits a 'metasympotic' level that can point either explicitly or
obliquely to the setting in which the poem was performed and comment on
the activities of its audience. Several discussions have detailed how
Archilochus' evocations of drinking while on guard duty (frr. 2 and 4 W.)
bear closely on the milieu in which the compositions were delivered, while
references to a maritime setting so frequent in the iambographer and other
sympotic poets more indirectly mirror the experience of the participants at

1 E.g., Sol. 4, io W.; Pind. Nem. 9, 48. For detailed discussion of sympotic hesychìa, see
Slater 1981.

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126 DEBORAH STEINER

the event, whose sensations of inebriation resemble those

tossed at sea.1 When read with this reflexive relationship in
tails in the beggar's story acquire fresh cogency and th
tween events in the ainos and the Situation of the narrato
stood not only as a function of Odysseus' desire to teli a s
prompt Eumaeus to give him the necessary cloak, but also
the character of his performance, its conformity with the
sympotic poetry. And if my claim for the proto-sympoti
Odysseus' narrative in terms of these mirror relations fails
noteworthy is the way in which elements and tropes shared
its frame find echoes in sympotic poetry of the later perio
Within the beggar's narrative design, the events in the s
at night, in bad weather,2 and very late - the raconteur s
exchange between the cloak-less protagonist and Odysse
the 'third (i.e. final) portion' of the night (483),3 when th
tense - and among a self-selected group of males. Particul
the visualization of the men gathered together in their am
in the anecdote as 'lying' (κείμεθα) beneath their weaponr
pound form of this same verb appears in Callinus fr. 1, 1 W
in what Bowie and others see as a reference to the positio
at the symposium.4 If, as has recently been suggested, th
clining at dinner - normally dated only to the late sevent
the first references to klinai occur in verbal sources (so Al
reclining symposiasts appear in art - was actually introdu
eighth, and reclining was a feature of early symposia, occ
ently of the Orientalizing' couch,5 then the scene in th
bles what an early sympotic gathering would have look
line 448 describes how, outside of the story and back in t
maeus' hut, the swineherd 'sits down' (εζετο) to his portio

1 Slater 1976; Davies 1978; Bowie 1986,17-18; Lissarrague 1990, 107-1

sions richly document, promoting the illusion are the many sympotic v
representations of ships and seascapes.
2 The phrase 'a bad night carne on occurs in both the story (475) and
3 Note that this moment - when the stars are visibly performing their
- seems the appropriate moment to commence drinking: compare
βεβήκει, with Ale. fr. 352 V, πώνωμεν, το γαρ άστρον περιτέλλεται; cf.
the poet calls for drink even before darkness has fallen, in what seems
mal practice. 4 Bowie 1990, 222; Murray 1994, 52.
5 In her persuasive account, Topper 2009 argues for a disassociation of rec
kline; as she comments, the presence or absence of the sympotic couch in
toire is indicative of the distinetion drawn by artists and viewers between
banquet and the simple one" (13-14). See too the discussion in Corner 2005,
wise proposes an indigenous tradition of the reclining banquet independen

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 OD. 14, 457-533 AND THE TRADITIONS OF SYMPOTIC POETRY 127

formulale diction requires the phrase and anything eise would be too
ing a departure from normative discourse. A fresh intercalation betw
sympotic scene and the ambush occurs a little later on: the frozen in
uai attraete Odysseus' attention, 'for he was lying next to me', by nu
him with his elbow (484-485), and the two proeeed to exchange remar
Map this onto the arrangement of the symposium as shown in the vi
accounts of the archaic and classical age: here individuals, usuall
couches, but also on the ground, lie side by side, propping themselve
on one bent arm while they gesture with the other, their heads turn
face the individuai adjacent to them, with whom, as their gestures ca
dicate, they seem to converse. A careful choice of one's immediate ne
bour turns out to be important for the 'pedagogie' aspect of the gathe
As Theogn. 563-566 advises, and in a reflection that generalizes the sce
enacted in Odysseus' story, "You should get invited to dinner, and sit
side a man of worth who knows every kind of sophia. Whenever he s
something clever, pay heed to it so that you may learn and go home
ing this as profit (κέρδος)" (cf. Od. 14, 509).
Even the premise of Odysseus' story, that the hapless soldier has co
without a cloak, contributes to the self-reflexive quality of the ta
though individuals in images of symposia generally wear a single gar
(if anything at all), putting on fresh clothes, a cloak included, would f
part of the preparations for the drinking party, albeit in classical rather th
archaic sources. Bdelycleon's attempi to dress his father in a new cloak
up a major portion of the scene from 1122-1264 in Aristophanes' Wasp
the youth rehearses his father in the conduct and demeanour to adopt
high-class symposium; in Alcibiades' rueful description of his attempt
duce Socrates after a dinner party, his guest, having been persuaded to
the night, wears a cloak so light that his host Covers him with a second
tle so as to be able to slip underneath (PI. Symp. 219b). If Newton's su
reading of Odysseus' ainos is correct, then the episode in book 14 const
an equivalence between shield and cloak;1 following this, the men lyi
neath their weapons at 474 and sleeping in this manner would match
guest at the symposium who, perhaps too inebriated safely to make it h
would wrap himself in his cloak so as to pass the night in the house o
host.2 In this aspect, the story introduces an element that occurs later
narrative frame; just as the men sleep in the ambush, so Eumaeus

1 Newton 1997-98.
2 It is an axiom of sympotic ethics that the guest who wishes to stay on should n
made to go, particularly a drunken one; for this, see Theogn. 468-470: "don't bid anyo
part who doesn't wish to, nor waken the sleeping one, Simonides, anyone of us whom,
tified with wine, gentle sleep has overcome".

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128 DEBORAH STEINER

panions fall asleep in his hut (and so too the guests at Agath
will pass the night in his dining room).
The 'slippages' described above not only form part of the
and mirrar play on the sympotic entertainer's part; the large
poets' evocations of performing guard duty, bivouacking in
and suffering the dangers of battle is precisely to promote
life (temporarily) free from war. Odysseus' juxtaposition of
bush and evening party - both in the actual setting in which
told, and, more implicitly as conveyed by the language
achieves precisely this end: the beggar and the rustics are s
steading, having eaten and drunk to repletion and ready for
sleep. The miserable weather out of doors (it is pouring and
is blowing up a storm) merely reinforces the sense of conten
it is during just such inclement conditions, complete with t
featured in Odysseus' story and its frame, and the use of t
'Zeus rains' (υει μεν ó Ζευς; cf. δε δ'άρα Ζεύς at 14, 457). th
on his addressee to begin copious drinking to ward off the
(fr. 338 V). The aftermath to Odysseus' Trojan anecdote adds
to these relations of affinity and contrast, extending, as it were
context of the narrative beyond its formai end. As New
maeus, having donned his cloak and equipment in the mann
warrior arming himself, 'sets out for his night watch lookin
version of an Achaean at Troy'.1 Like a soldier indeed, but w
to meet a hostile Trojan among his swine.
Nor was it sympotic poetry alone that juxtaposed the r
with the delights of leisure. Several vessels from the late si
fifth centuries, expressly designed for the symposium, use
drinking party by way of foil for the martial ambush muc
Odyssean raconteur. One side of a red-figure volute krater
sel par excellence) in Rome shows warriors in an ambu
drinkers at a symposium.2 Scenes of ambush also appear ind
other images on vessels used by symposiasts, on oinoch
skyphoi from the late archaic period on. Particularly effecti
the contrast between the two milieus is a red-figure cup from th
Century whose interior displays a warrior crouching in an
ing the vessel, the drinker would encounter this reminder
world from which he enjoys reprieve (Florence, Museo Arch
sco, PD 250, Para. 373).

1 Newton 1997-98,152-153.
2 Museo Nazionale Etrusco xxxo.2088, ARV2 223.2. For a second examp
ing a divine symposium, see the hvdria in Paris, Musée du Louvre, CP10

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 OD. 14, 457-533 AND THE TRADITIONS OF SYMPOTIC POETRY 129

But celebration of the pleasures that the diners currently enjoy is

Odysseus' only concern. When viewed through a sympotic lens, the s
themes also cohere with the preoccupations apparent in the later songs.
as the story aims to prompt Eumaeus to reveal his true sentiments tow
his guest, so Odysseus' narrative is very much taken up with question
friendship and loyalty among companions and, consistent with this,
the demarcation of insiders and Outsiders and with the self-policing b
aries of each sympotic group.1 Anticipating issues so prevalent in Alc
and Theognis, Odysseus' story not only demonstrates the bonds of fr
ship between the 'beggar' and the hero, who instantly contrives a rus
help his freezing companion, but also results in the expulsion of an ind
uai who, falling victim to the Odysseus character's trick, drops his cloa
rushes off into the night. While the narrator opens the tale by signalin
participation in the 'in-group' of the ambush - he pointedly describes
Odysseus and Menelaus invited him to come along (470) -2 Odysseus' c
ploy later in the story stands as a sympotic test (parallel to that which
tual disguised hero devises for Eumaeus) which causes Thoas to reveal
nature as already intimated by his 'speaking name'; in the word play th
ry involves, 'Swifty' springs rapidly (καρπαλίμως, 499) up and runs qu
off (θέειν, 50i).3 It may not be fortuitous that, as audiences familiar with t
Iliad would know, Thoas is a foreigner, leader of the Aetolian conting
and so already an outsider to the group.
But perhaps we can see a still closer parallel between the hero's disco
and one among the several genres of poetry accommodated in the sym
sium in the so-called lyric age. The suggestion made here - that much i
hero's 'performance' in book 14 shares rhetorical features with archaic
bos, whose only securely attested site for performance was the sympo
- follows revisions of the teleological model assumed by earlier scholar
which epic strictly preceded the lyric, iambic and elegiac poetry of the

1 For these concerns in sympotic poetry, see Ford 1999,113 with his discussion of He
273 M.-W. as a means of discerning 'forthright companionship'. Note too Theogn. 97
which effectively glosses the scenario the ainos describes, and its aftermath, but in th
text of the symposium: 'let me have a man who is my friend in deed, not in words. L
exert himself (for me) both with hands and possessions. Let him not beguile me with
beside the mixing bowl, but let him show himself to be a man of worth by his actions,
can. For more on these themes in Theognis, see Donlan 1985.
2 In the light of the other intersections with the narrative frame, could we even se
this detail a glance toward the fluid makeup of the sympotic guest-list? As the openin
Plato's Symposium shows - where Socrates (mis)cites Homeric practice to legitimize
promptu invitation to Aristodemus to accompany him to Agathon's (i74a-b) - a guest
choose to bring another uninvited individuai along to a drinking party.
3 For the pun, see Newton 1997-98,152; Marks 2003, 216.
4 Bowie 1986 and, in more detail, Bartol 1992 and 1993 present the evidence.

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130 DEBORAH STEINER

seventh and sixth centuries; according to the more curren

forms of these poetic genres would have circulated alongs
compositions, with which they interacted in relations of
tion and complementarity.1 From this changed perspective
archaic age would be familiar with a variety of "competing
which deploy a common store of words, phrases and motifs
isters",2 and would be attuned to the ways in which the d
forms would draw on this shared stock so as to make the
play against each other. Also important for my argument
namic model for the evolution of the Homeric songs prop
studies of oral epic: because of an ongoing tradition of co
formance, the Riad and Odyssey would have undergone co
cation and change, both in response to politicai develop
logue with other genres, even after an initial transcriptio
this scenario, influence and borrowing between the epics
ditionally been regarded as 'later' poetry is two-directional
sible to imagine a singer who performs the Homeric song
material from other poetic genres as to assume, following t
that iambic, lyric and elegiac poets were responding to th
fixed epic corpus.
My startingpoint for the overlap between Odysseus' ain
etry is the speaker s adoption of a persona, and the nature
he assumes. As Aristotle teils us (Rhet. 1418b 28), when deli
something that might tend towards 'abuse or boorishn
would speak in a voice not his own, taking on the charact
carpenter in one iambic song, and of the father of a daug
The persona in which Odysseus teils his story, that of a be
luck, is one particularly favored by Hipponax in a series of
particularly frr. 32, 34, 36, 39 W.).4 Of course Hipponax, w

1 Dover 1964 offers an early discussion of the idea; see, more recently
for a forceful Statement, Dalby 1995, 206. As van Sickle (1975,154) rema
ship between melic poetry and epic, "each genre had its own ethos, fo
society, which preceded and then coexisted with heroic epic rather than
it and reacting against it". He further raises "the possibility that an extr
in one genre at some given moment might... transform practice in ot
2 The citation is from Barker and Christensen 2006,15, drawing on
in Foley 1997.
3 This argument is most closely associated with Nagy; see particularly Nagy 1990,1992,
1996.
4 It may be objected that this is the same persona that Odysseus adopts for many of the
'lying stories' in the poem's second half; however, none of the other instances comes com
plete with the set of other generic elements identified here, nor do they contain the element
of mockery and polemic that 1 go on to discuss.

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 OD. 14, 457-533 AND THE TRADITIONS OF SYMPOTIC POETRY 131

from the Odyssey have been well-documented,1 may very plausibly b

ing a leaf from the Homeric poem, much as Archilochus does when, i
exposé of his seemingly unheroic act of casting his shield away (fr. 5 W
echoes the gesture that Odysseus, in another story told to Eumaeus in
14, describes himself enacting.2 But, in the model outlined above, 'influ
may have gone in the other direction. If the mask of beggar and ne'e
well was a recognizable convention associated with a certain style of p
ic performance, and one suited to a particular performative milieu, t
Odysseus' choice to recount a story in this narrative voice declares his
generic identity.
Odysseus' ainos anticipates the contents and perspective of iambic p
ry on a further count. Part of the pleasure of iambos comes from the singe
self-depreciating display of his own ineptitude before the circle of his
rades, his seeming failure to match up to heroic/ martial values as he
with an identity so emphatically not his own. Not only does Archiloc
throw away his shield; on another occasion he achieves only the parti
duction of his object of desire (fr. 196a W).3 Hipponax's first-person
are still closer to Odysseus' tale; he paints himself as impoverished, hu
even denuded of the very cloak that Eumaeus' guest seeks. Just as the
acter played by Odysseus remarks to 'Odysseus' as he feels himself fre
to death, "I shall no longer be among the living" (487), so, afflicted w
hunger, Hipponax declares, "I will surrender my grieving soul to an evi
if you do not send me a bushel of barley as quickly as you can" (fr. 39
In another song he complains, "For you haven't yet given me a thick
as a remedy against the cold in winter" (fr. 34 W.). Again, I suggest that th
common conceits are not so much evidence of Hipponax's appropriatio
Odyssean material, as they are motifs associated with a distinct poetic g
and the performative stance (that of penurious, hapless individuai) th
characteristically involved.4
Consistent too with the extant iambic poems is the demystifying imp
visible in Odysseus' story vis à vis more typical Homeric values and the

1 See particularly Rosen 1990.

1 Seidensticker 1978 elegantly demonstrates Archilochus' replay of Odysseus' fi
tale. As he suggests, the later poet's use of the Odyssean passage may be a way of al
his audience that he, just like the epic hero, is speaking 'in character' here, recount
fabricated episode in an assumed persona.
3 This attitude is true of some of the elegiac poetry of Archilochus too; in the
recently published Archilochus fragment (P. Oxy. 4708), the persona adopted by th
endorses abandoning the field of battle and seeking safety in flight.
4 Note that the 'lack-of-doak' motif reappears in Aristophanes' riff on the figure o
wandering, impoverished poet at Aves 924-952, where the cloak-seeker performs a med
phrases drawn from both epic and melic poetry.

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132 DEBORAH STEINER

nistic, mocking stance the ainos adopts towards some amo

of characters. The ambush is presented as anythingbut a kie
venture or display of bravery; instead the focus falls on the di
soldiers' Situation. Hoekstra notes how the speaker's descr
clement weather and harsh conditions 'contrasts sharply..
where hardships suffered by the soldiers are never mentioned:
of view, the Iliad is a more typical specimen of heroic poetr
would add, Homer's point in including the details in a perf
off from a more epic-style recitation. In Aeschylus' Agame
Hoekstra aptly compares Odysseus' account, evocations of
comfort in bad weather are reserved for non-heroic, demot
Part and parcel of this exposure of the 'underbelly' of e
poetry's characteristic demotion of Homer's grandiose ind
and objects to a much lower piane,2 is the reworking of t
Iliadic Thoas. Whereas the earlier poem presents the Aetolia
steadfast character (see II. 13,216-218), one who rallies the A
poses a successici stratagem in book 15 (281-283,2.86-299), h
guy' and gull to Odysseus' trick, and performs an action w
reading, assimilates him to the cowardly soldier who turns
Marks is correct in seeing the complementary, even doubli
relationship between Odysseus and Thoas in the Iliad and ot
as a type of mimetic rivalry,4 then the way in which
Odysseus - both as internai actor, and as teller of the tale
also anticipates a feature of Ionian iambos: the archaic poe
struct just these types of mirroring-cum-agonistic relations wi
of their poems, who more often than not share modes of c
erties with the iambic ego.5 Within the ainos, Odysseus an
whose identity the tale-teller has assumed score an addition
Aetolian. In a small but telling detail, the cloak that Thoas
ries the epithet φοινικόεσσαν (500). The only other time th
evocative of precious purple dye, describes a cloak is at II.
crimson mantle figures as one among the elaborate garme
puts on. Given the mask assumed by the ainos-teller, we s
sume that Thoas' cloak is much superior to the one this pa
would have left behind;6 wrapping himself in the dothing '

1 Hoekstra 1989 ad 434-437.

2 For detailed demonstration of this, see my discussion in Steiner 201
3 Newton 1997-98,148-149. 4 Marks 2003.
5 See Steiner 2009 for this homology/rivalry between
targets.
6 Cf. Archilochus* comment on the loss of the shield he has thrown away in fr. 5 W: "I
shall get one no worse"; for this see Newton 1997-98,151.

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 OD. 14, 457-533 AND THE TRADITIONS OF SYMPOTIC POETRY 133

effectively supplants Thoas, literally taking on the appearance of the

viduai who, in the mirror play informing relations between the Aetolia
Odysseus, threatens to displace the hero on other occasions.
One final element aligns Odysseus' narrative with what carne to be
ognized as a hallmark of iambic poetry and an element integral to th
ly position it would occupy on the socio-generic ladder. As already no
after the narrative is done, Eumaeus describes what he has heard as a b
less ainos (508). This retrospective designation has given comment
pause. According to some readings, we should understand the term in
formity with its other Homeric usages, where it means praise'. Nagy a
powerfully for this definition, stating that ainos in its four appearances in
Riad and Odyssey describes "a discourse that aims at praising and hon
someone or something or at being ingratiating towards a person" and
speech that is in direct or indirect connection with a gift or a prize".1 On s
eral counts, the narrative in book 14 fits the definition: the ainos does
as praise of the seemingly absent Odysseus (491), and the cloak is the 'p
that it elicits. But in other respects, Eumaeus' usage sharply diverges f
the other occurrences of ainos cited by Nagy, a singularity that suggest
the poet points his audience towards a revised and maybe more r
meaning of the term, here a story with a covert meaning.2 In none of
other three instances does the speaker aim to get a material reward; if
there is, it comes spontaneously on the part of the audience and is not
primary purpose of the address. Also missing from these other examp
the element of mockery in the beggar's ainos identified above, and, m
importantly, the tight relations between the contents of the speech an
external Situation. For all that Van Dijk succinctly declares that "unli
bles, Odysseus' story is not metaphorical", it unmistakably displays t
overlap between story and frame that he singles out as typical of emb
fables.3

Understanding this ainos not just as a fable, but specifically as one

riddling tale performed within a sympotic environment, both illumi
several of its rhetorical features and coincides with the 'proto-iambic'
acter I am suggesting for the story. The fabular nature of the anecdote
some way to explaining Odysseus' lengthy preface. An incipit is a stan
feature of fables when they occur within a surrounding narrative and w

1 Nagy 1979, 235, citing il. 11, 430; 23, 652 and Od. 21,110. Very much in accord with
is Newtons account at 1997-98,155.
2 This is the definition assumed by Hoekstra 1989 ad 508.
3 See van Dijk 1997,125 and n. 11 for the bibliography on the contested definition.
among discussions of the character of Odysseus' story, Meuli 1975 unequivocally styles
'fable'.

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134 DEBORAH STEINER

the introductory element serves both to mark off what i

rateci and to identify the audience for its message.1 Hesio
opening to his hawk-and-nightingale fable - the only other
ainos in the extant hexameter repertoire - offers the firs
practice ('And now I will teli an ainos to the basileis who t
stand (φρονέουσι)", WD 202) and Archilochus follows suit
sions. Frr. 172 and 174 W, generally considered the introduc
of the eagle and fox, name Lykambes and designate the tale
fr. 185 W contains a similar introductory formula: "I shal
(έρέω τιν' υμιν αΐνον), Ο Kerykides, with a painful messag
compares this incipit with fr. 168 W. ("Charilaus... I shall t
funny and you will be delighted to hear it"), suggesting tha
stance the "promised pleasantry was in fact an ainos".2 Re
other examples, and with the caveat that they usually inv
posed to other types of fables, Odysseus' prologue proves
both names the individuals - Eumaeus and his companions
certain the true meaning of the story, and serves as a capta
craving its audience's indulgence for the slightly criticai,
even slanderous nature of the speech to come. For a listen
these Conventions, Eumaeus' declaration at the story's end
gar has just performed an ainos - would come as no surpr
Nor is it fortuitous that three of the four examples cited abo
of our entire cache of fables (at least in their more exten
archaic poetry - belong to iambic song.3 While the 'higher
- chiefly heroic and theogonic epic, choral and monodie ly
avoid ainoi, or admit them only in a very circumscribed f
scribed fables find a home in the more 'middling' or lower p
Hesiod's didactic poetry, iambos and Attic Comedy.4 The a

1 For the fable incipit, see van Dijk 1997,128,143,144. See too Zanetto
2 Zanetto 2001, 67. In an echo of the topos in his fourth Iamb, Calli
his interlocutor, 'sonof Charitades' (1), and theninviteshim tolisten (άκο
6), an indication that the subsequent fable is directed at him. Rosen 2
correspondence between this and the opening of Archil. fr. 185 W. C
proves true to type: when Philocleon, the protagonist of Aristophane
insult his interlocutor by virtue of a fable, he similarly prefaces his nar
want to teil you an amusing story", 1399-1400). Of course the tale that
but amusing for its addressee, the target of its mockery.
3 Apposite to my argument is Martins view of the WD as a generi
1992). There are several other possible uses of ainoi in iambos, but these
'iambic' associations of the fable are acknowledged in Callimachus' re
discourse in several of his Iambi, for which see Acosta-Hughes 2002.1 ha
between ainoi and iambos in Steiner 2012.
4 For the füllest discussion of this, see Kurke 2006. Note too Rothwell 1995.

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 OD. 14, 457-533 AND THE TRADITIONS OF SYMPOTIC POETRY 135

fables and iambic poetry depends in part on the tone and impetus t
two modes of discourse share; as Zanetto comments: "in archaic Greek
culture the ainos is a rhetorical device that a speaker adopts when addressing
his interlocutor in a polemical tone and with an aggressive attitude",1 much
the stance that the iambic persona embraces. Also like the ego in iambos, the
fable teller from Hesiod on regularly presents himself as a lower-status, dis
advantaged individuai who may have suffered injury at the hands of a
stronger party, and against whom he seeks, through telling an ainos, redress.2
One additional facet of the ainos suggests that Homer may be inviting his
audience to compare and contrast this tale with more conventional 'praise
style' ainoi in his compositions, and to register the shift in meaning that Eu
maeus' use of the term involves. Framing the opening and ending of
Odysseus' story are echoing statements of regret for his lost youth, which
was his at the time of the incident that the ainos recalls (468,503). Although,
as de Jong observes, this type of 'nostalgie wish' is a common rhetorical de
vice in Homeric epic,3 it also occurs in the self-designated ainos that Nestor
delivers in the Iliad, which describes his erstwhile partieipation in funeral
games. The same formulale line, "would that I were young again and the
force were still steady within in me", prefaces both stories (Ii. 23, 629), and
where Odysseus closes with a Virtual repetition of the wish (503), Nestor
ends his tale "thus I was once" (643). If the poet intends an echo of that II
iadic site, then the joke lies in the formal rhetorical coincidence between the
speeches - both deploying the same formulale line with its youth/age di
chotomy, both characterized as ainoi by their audiences - and the sharp con
trast in their settings, contents, agendas and the apparent nature of their
speakers. In the Odyssey, a swineherd's hut replaces the elitist athletic games,
a beggar the noble Nestor; so too for a speech describing partieipation in
high-class competitions, the Odyssean audience hears a narrative about an
individuai lying in an ambush freezing to death. And where Nestor's ainos is
designed by way of thanks for a gift given, a lofty jar described as a prestige
good fit for an aristoeratie milieu, Eumaeus' guest devises his tale so as to
procure a gift still not bestowed, a cloak such as a rustie wears.
To end discussion of the ainos, a point about the larger nature of its
teller and Odysseus' conformity with two figures fully established at the
symposium of the seventh and later centuries. First, insofar as Eumaeus'

1 Zanetto 2001, 67.

2 The internal scenario of the ainos often replays the Situation constructed in its frame,
regularly pitting a weaker species against a stronger malefactor, and recording the surprise
victory of the underdog, often through his superior wits and/ or verbal skills.
3 de Jong 2001 ad 1, 253-269; regret for the passage of youth is, of course, a motif very
commonly echoed by sympotic poets.

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136 DEBORAH STEINER

guest provides the evening's chief entertainment by mean

calculated to earn the swineherd's approbation (it neatly c
individuai very dear to Eumaeus' heart), he behaves exactl
of such 'wandering' melic poets as Semonides, Alcaeus, Sol
given hospitality by a locai individuai, and in the context of
that man's home, the traveler, no professional poet in the
aoidos who is 'summoned' by an individuai or commun
forai,2 but just someone who happens to be passing throu
his contribution so as to compliment and praise his hos
representation as a hard-drinking, free-speaking and jesti
consistent with his position as new-comer to the group, a d
his familiarity with the licenses and limitations that memb
potic circle requires, and an advertisement of the type of p
about to give.
But, as the episode's opening makes clear, this performer
do more than just turn an elegant compliment. As one wh
ble benefit for entertaining the company, Odysseus anticip
who becomes a very recognizable presence, even fixture, i
ature from Archilochus through to imperiai times: the par
other mens tables without reciprocating or contributing hi
the wherewithal to participate on a basis of equality (and
start of the evening, at 415-416, Eumaeus comments on h
swineherds deserve the roast pig insofar as ali have worke
furnish the meal), his only means of earning his place is by
ter-dinner divertissement. In Fehr's discussion of the άκλητ
how the parasite 'performs himself, offering a self-mock
ish display of his depravity and Subordination. Odysseus'
exactly fits the bill as he spices his demonstration of his
dependency with wit and mockery. As Eumaeus comm
performer has earned his keep: this story will prove n
(νηκερδές). Both honoured guest, and free-loader, Odysseu
at the occasion may speak to the anxiety that the symp
legitimately have vis à vis an outsider to his usuai dining ci

1 For these, see Bowie 2009; I draw particularly on his summary of hi

2 See Od. 17,382-385 for this figure.
3 For a compendium of sources, see Athen. 1, se-8e and 6, 2340-2628
of Philippos in Xenophon's Symposium. The sympotic άκλητος is alrea
124 W For Iros as άκλητος in a scene that also carries many anticipation
and sympotic poetry, see Fehr 1990 and Steiner 2009.

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 OD. 14, 457-533 AND THE TRADITIONS OF sympotic POETRY 137

4. The sympotic agon

My final suggestion concerns an aspect of the scene already touched on: the
element of 'testing' and competition it involves. Performances of song and
speech at the symposium were inherently agonistic as each symposiast
would try to outdo the individuai who preceded him in the spatial circuit that
the drinkers formed, whether by playing the 'capping' game visible in the ex
change of skolia or in the priamels common in sympotic poetry.1 Displays of
wit and allusivity formed part of this agon, challenging audiences to recog
nize the earlier poetic site to which a singer might refer, and to perceive the
word plays and double entendres so many songs include. In this respect too,
ainoi are particularly at home in the sympotic milieu. Inherently eristic in
sofar as they require their audience to decipher their meaning and discern
the trick their characters may spring on the unwary, they test their listeners'
acuity and, as the passages from Hesiod and the Lykambes Epode cited
above illustrate, the soundness of their φρένες.2 While Odysseus' other nar
ratives performed in the context of banquets both at home and abroad con
tain their share of morals and messages, and may be more or less overtly di
dactic or tools for probing their hearers, none presents itself explicitly as a
test as this one does, nor do these other episodes register the moment when
an audience grasps - or misses - the underlying meaning as Eumaeus' dec
laration at 508-509 patently does. In this respect too, the tale in book 14
sharply diverges from ainoi elsewhere in Homer: none of the other instances
involves this element of challenge, or serves as a comparably eristic device.
This agonism has an additional dimension. In the construction of the
episode, Odysseus particularly intends the story for Eumaeus, the one most
likely to bestow the cloak that the performance seeks by way of its exchange
value.3 As such the swineherd is positioned as the 'opponent' or sparring
partner in this game, a role that extends into the very close of book 14. As
Plato's Symposium illustrates, the ultimate contest that a drinking party in
volves is quite simply the capacity to outlast one's fellow symposiasts: the
man who drinks (almost literally) everyone else under the table, and then
gets up and walks out unimpaired, is the Victor of the event, Socrates on this
occasion, who 'got up and left' (223d). There may already be, as W^cowski

1 See Vetta 1983; Pellizer 1983 and Collins 2004 among many discussions of this dimen
sion of the occasion.
2 So Archilochus pointedly asks Lykambes in the preface to the fable, "who unhinged
your wits (φρένες) which previously were sound?" (fr. 172, 2-3 W, trans. Gerber).
3 This 'commercial aspect' (well explored in von Reden 1995) of the story finds its coun
terpart in several of the fragments of Hipponax already cited; there too the ostensible aim
of the song is to prompt remuneration in some form or another.

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138 DEBORAH STEINER

suggests, a glance at this type of sympotic battle in Od.

the role of a lamp-tender who keeps the braziers burni
night feast, the disguised hero challenges the company
puns on his customary epithet, Odysseus declares that
of night-long reveling cannot prevail over his capacity
ablaze: ει περ γάρ κ' έθέλωσιν έυθρονον Ήώ μίμνειν, / ο
πολυτλήμων δέ μάλ' ειμί (318-319)· As W^cowski comme
as if the endurance of the aristocrat who is capable of
end, i.e. tili the dawn, was an important component of t
of the day And this is exactly what we know of the sym
was perhaps some special prize for the one who survive
dawn".1 In the context of Eumaeus' rustie party, there i
victor here: having cracked the riddle, the host leaves
ions as he heads off to bed down with his swine. Is the
style joke lurking? The conventional conclusion for a nig
its often off-colour songs is going to bed with a flute-g
waiting at home (so Xen. Symp. 9, 7).
By way of conclusion, I'd like to return to an issue int
cussion's start: how do we explain Homer's choice to sta
acterized as a 'proto-symposium' in a venue that seems
posite to an Institution more typically presented by
aristoeratie, luxurious affair? W^cowski's Observation -
posia tend to Cluster in the less heroic environments of t
poet may be less constrained by his tradition and enjoy
incorporate contemporary practices - may go some way
seeming anomaly.2
But there are other, more intriguing explanations pos
so speculates that, perhaps in accordance with the attit
ment of his audience, Homer's choice to stage repeated
quets in Odysseus' halls, where the glances to sympotic
greatest number, may reflect the poet's negative view
posium.3 Eumaeus' dinner party would cohere with this
ing the event in an unmistakably down-market setting,
the symposium from the heroic and elitist world, Stripp
sione towards refinement and sophistication. Reinforci
presentation are the violations of sympotic ethics that
signals; no refined symposiast this, but one who does no
his wine or to perform in a decorous manner. As corolla
the nature of the 'beggar's' performance, which most c

1 W^cowski 2002a, 629. 2 W^cowski 2002a, 626.

3 WQCowski 2002a, 633.

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 OD. 14, 457-533 AND THE TRADITIONS OF SYMPOTIC POETRY 139

a type of poetry which flaunts upper-class practices and ethics, and presen
a cast of low-life characters in the shape of the iambic ego and those wi
whom he deals.1 But where W^cowski's account locates the cause of t
Homeric poet's disapprobation in the potentially disorderly and licentiou
character of sympotic occasione, I would see professional rivalry as t
more likely source of this hostile view. In the song culture of archaic Gree
Homeric epic contests for 'air-space' and generic superiority with many o
er types of poetry2 The newly-evolving symposium provides a perfect ve
ue for some of the existing modes, as well, perhaps, as generating n
forms of melic entertainment. But the superlatively hospitable milieu tha
the drinking party provided for poetic Performances would not have ex
tended to epic: no single nighttime gathering could accommodate poems o
the length and complexity of the Riad and Odyssey, nor is there any evidence
for professional bards or rhapsodes performing epic 'extracts' (as Demod
ocus and Phemius notoriously do) at the private party.
Or perhaps there is no particular poetic/ideological agenda here, bu
more a reflection of the contemporary world of the poet and his audienc
While scholars of the last two decades have almost unequivocally present
ed the symposium as an elite Institution, even a preserve for the aristocr
ic mores, attitudes and politics increasingly out of date and under threat
the late archaic and early classical age, some very recent work challenge
this account, citing evidence for the more broad-based nature of the Ins
tution, and the participation of more heterogeneous segments of the po
ulation in sympotic practices than was previously proposed.3 The me
quarters of a wealthy individual's home, furnished with their couches an
expensive pottery, no longer seem de rigueur for the occasion: instead, as
sual images as well as depictions of symposia in archaic poetry suggest, th
parties might occur in a rustie setting, even out of doors. If the aristoerat
and opulent symposium is as much a classical construction as a reflection
the actual character of the drinking party, then the early history of the even
may be very different from that which has generally been assumed. Far from
representing a departure from the norm, Eumaeus' symposium may give
a unique glimpse into the more variegated sympotic practices that existe
in archaic Greece.

Columbia University

1 But note Eumaeus' very positive appraisal at the story's end; as a specimen of a certain
type of performance, the ainos is indeed 'blameless' and παρά μ,οϊραν (508-509).
2 On the rivalry between Homer and poets performing in other poetic traditions,
although more specifically choral lyric, see Burkert 1987.
3 See particularly Hammer 2004; Corner 2005 and Topper 2009. Earlier dissenters
include Bowie 1997,3 and Schmitt-Pantel 1990,1992,1999.

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140 DEBORAH STEINER

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