The Aesthetics Of The Greek Banquet

In deepening our understanding of the symposium in ancient Greece, this book embodies the wit and play of the images it explains: those decorating Athenian drinking vessels from the sixth and fifth centuries B.C. The vases used at banquets often depict the actual drinkers who commissioned their production and convey the flowing together of wine, poetry, music, games, flirtation, and other elements that formed the complex structure of the banquet itself. A close reading of the objects handled by drinkers in the images reveals various metaphors, particularly that of wine as sea, all expressing a wide range of attitudes toward an ambiguous substance that brings cheer but may also cause harm. Not only does this work offer an anthropological view of ancient Greece, but it explores a precise iconographic system. In so doing it will encourage and enrich further reflection on the role of the image in a given culture. Originally published in 1990. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Pharmakon: Plato, Drug Culture, and Identity in Ancient Athens examines the emerging concern for controlling states of psychological ecstasy in the history of western thought, focusing on ancient Greece (c. 750-146 BCE), particularly the Classical Period (c. 500-336 BCE) and especially the dialogues of the Athenian philosopher Plato (427-347 BCE). Employing a diverse array of materials ranging from literature, philosophy, medicine, botany, pharmacology, religion, magic, and law, Pharmakon fundamentally reframes the conceptual context of how we read and interpret Plato's dialogues. Michael A. Rinella demonstrates how the power and truth claims of philosophy, repeatedly likened to a pharmakon, opposes itself to the cultural authority of a host of other occupations in ancient Greek society who derived their powers from, or likened their authority to, some pharmakon. These included Dionysian and Eleusinian religion, physicians and other healers, magicians and other magic workers, poets, sophists, rhetoricians, as well as others. Accessible to the general reader, yet challenging to the specialist, Pharmakon is a comprehensive examination of the place of drugs in ancient thought that will compel the reader to understand Plato in a new way.

Murlo and the Etruscans explores this and other mysteries in a collection of twenty essays by leading specialists of Etruscan and classical art, all of whom have been associated with the Murlo site. Numerous photographs and drawings accompany the essays. The first eleven chapters survey specific groups of Etruscan objects and challenge the view of Etruscan art as provincial or derivative. Interpretations of the magnificent series of decorated terra cotta frieze plaques and other architectural elements contribute to an understanding of Murlo and related Etruscan centers. Plaques depicting a lively Etruscan banquet offer a way to detect differences between Etruscan and ancient Greek society. The remaining nine chapters treat various aspects of Etruscan art, often moving beyond ancient Murlo, both geographically and temporally. They examine funerary symbolism, sculpted amber, and amber trade contacts along the ancient Adriatic Coast; depictions of domesticated cats; votive terra cottas of human anatomical parts and how they help in understanding Etruscan medicine; and the adaptation of Greek style, myth, and iconography in Etruscan art. "These essays will have a broad impact on the study of the ancient Mediterranean. They will certainly be required reading not only for Etruscologists but for anyone with an interest in the world of classical antiquity. The range of subjects, moving in wide arcs around the archaeological site at Murlo, brings the site into focus in a way that a series of standard archaeological site reports could not."--Kenneth Hamma, J. Paul Getty Museum "There is a fine and commendable interweaving and intertwining of thoughts and scholarly research throughout Murlo and the Etruscans. It will be a useful reference source for the art of Etruscan coroplast, wherein lies the forte of the Etruscan sculptor!"--Mario A. Del Chiaro, University of California

Wecowski offers a comprehensive account of the origins of the symposion and its close relationship with the rise of the Greek city-state or polis. Held by Greek aristocrats from Homer to Alexander the Great, its distinctive feature was the importance of diverse cultural competitions among the guests.

This magnificent book presents 82 masterpieces of Greek vase painting and sculpture in terrocotta, stone, and bronze from the eight great museum collections of the South of Italy and Sicily. 170 colour illustrations

The first of its kind, A Companion to Ancient Aesthetics presents a synoptic view of the arts, which crosses traditional boundaries and explores the aesthetic experience of the ancients across a range of media—oral, aural, visual, and literary. Investigates the many ways in which the arts were experienced and conceptualized in the ancient world Explores the aesthetic experience of the ancients across a range of media, treating literary, oral, aural, and visual arts together in a single volume Presents an integrated perspective on the major themes of ancient aesthetics which challenges traditional demarcations Raises questions about the similarities and differences between ancient and modern ways of thinking about the place of art in society

The Look of Lyric: Greek Song and the Visual addresses the various modes of interaction between ancient Greek lyric poetry and the visual arts as well as more general notions of visuality. It covers diverse poetic genres in a range of contexts radiating outwards from the original performance(s) to encompass their broader cultural settings, the later reception of the poems, and finally also their understanding in modern scholarship. By focusing on the relationship between the visual and the verbal as well as the sensory and the mental, this volume raises a wide range of questions concerning human perception and cultural practices. As this collection of essays shows, Greek lyric poetry played a decisive role in the shaping of both.