For several decades scholars have been questioning periodisation and the polis centred model of ancient Greek history (J. McInerney, ‘Ethnos and Ethnicity in Early Greece’, in Ancient Perceptions of Greek Ethnicity [2001], pp. 51–73; C. Morgan, Early Greek States Beyond the Polis [2003]; K. Freitag, P. Funke, M. Haake [edd.], Kult-Politik-Ethnos: Überregionale Heiligtümer im Spannungsfeld von Kult und Politik [2006]; C. Taylor and K. Vlassopoulos [edd.], Communities and Networks in the Ancient Greek World [2015]). This admirable volume, based on a conference in Utrecht, reminds us, nonetheless, of the rich possibilities that those models, when employed in a critical manner, offer for new research. Indeed, following the seminal works of O. Murray and P. Schmitt Pantel (e.g. O. Murray [ed.], Sympotica: a Symposium on the Symposion [1990]; P. Schmitt Pantel, La cité au banquet [1992]), we now have a new starting block for the study of feasting and the symposium. M. Dietler and B. Hayden's collection, Feasts: Archaeological and Ethnographic Perspectives on Food, Politics, and Power (2001), provides a common theoretical framework (feasts create and reflect economic, social and political patterns), and archaeology is paramount. The volume does what it says on the tin, while also presenting diverse impressions of what it meant to govern and participate in ancient city and country life.
The book looks at the longue durée (roughly the Early Iron Age [EIA] to the Late Hellenistic period) but coalesces around a thesis proposed by van den Eijnde in the introduction: after the EIA with its rulers in the role of priests, sanctuaries took over the role of meat distribution, which was done in the name of the community (the polis), while the private symposium often assumed that of wine. Eventually, Hellenistic monarchies helped usher in a new (and old) social and political dynamic while also preserving social systems that aped an ‘egalitarian’ ideology. Van den Eijnde (Chapter 3) makes an important distinction between the Mycenaean feast, hosted by the wanax (‘ruler’), and later feasts, hosted by god(s)/goddess(es) at a religious festival or sanctuary. He argues for three stages of development, from a possible continuity of Bronze Age feasting practices in EIA Attica, to ‘divine patronage’ and then to the emergence of ‘neutral’ sanctuaries as the sites of ceremonial meat consumption, which are central to our concept of the polis.
A. Alexandridou (Chapter 2) marshals her exquisite command of the EIA Attic evidence to dispense with the interpretation of the Geometric site at Plato's Academy as a ‘sacred house’ (leaving Eleusis as the sole clear case). We now have a unique series of domestic buildings where there was feasting until the seventh century bc, part of a larger trend (mirroring van den Eijnde's three stages) that saw feasting move from the domestic to the cultic sphere.
The next two chapters complement the arguments above, but also throw a necessary regional wrench into the neat sociological antitheses of eating and drinking. V. Vlachou's Chapter 4 on the sanctuary of Apollo Hyakinthos at Amykles (south of Sparta) highlights both the growing evidence for ritual continuity between the Late Bronze Age and the EIA and the evidence at the site for when the important Spartan festival, the Hyakinthia, was formalised. Evidence for drinking formed the core of ritual activity during the earliest stages of transition while evidence for both eating and drinking slowly increases in the eighth century, along with much activity at the site.
J. Whitley and R. Madgwick (Chapter 5) offer an important paper for anyone working on civic territory and social/religious rituals. After cataloguing 556.414 kg of the previous excavator's dump from around a large Classical building in Praisos on Crete, they argue that within the evidence for feasting, some of the goat and hare specimens appear to have been wild. Our literary and iconographic evidence suggests hares and wild goats were often erotic gifts and hunting hares was part of performative masculinity. The mandible of a wobbly-toothed, old dog suggests he would have needed care, adding individual colour to the argument that this large building was an andreion where male youths were initiated into citizenship by men. The emphasis on hunting and ‘the wild’ adds another dimension to the theoretical model of feasting in this volume that deserves further exploration.
The next three chapters deal with modalities of cohesion in democratic Athens and Attica. S. Lambert (Chapter 6) treats us to a contextualisation of the social, political and religious significance of the sacrificial calendar of the Marathon Tetrapolis (SEG 50.168 with text, sine apparatu, and translation in an appendix). He argues convincingly that the monetary funding for this system would have been a holistic one, in which the wealthy pay for the festival programme for the whole community in a way that ‘prevents “undemocratic” relationships of patronage’ (p. 168). This in turn suggests a strong local identity and a sacrificial system that was part of the everyday life of citizens.
Nimbly tackling previous scholarship, Blok and E. van ‘t Wout (Chapter 7) offer support for an interpretation of the lacunose IG I3 131, a decree concerning the Athenian practice of offering a free dinner (sitêsis) in the Prytaneion (translation in an appendix). The authors propose a list of the privileged frequent diners (divine and mortal) as well as a reconstruction of the various historical authorities who may grant sitêsis. If this is correct, and in light of these arguments the stone may be worth revisiting, then we have a remarkable witness to the institutionalisation of feasting by the state.
A. Steiner (Chapter 8) focuses on the values affiliated with the prytaneis (chairmen of the council) who dined in the round Tholos building in Athens (Ath. Pol. 43.3). Notably, its shape contrasts with the rectangular dining spaces of symposia and, surprisingly, many of the drinking cups and other vessels were of a similar (regulated?) size. There is also no evidence of the humorous graffiti found at other dining areas in the agora. This suggests serious democratic morality at play, and Steiner convincingly connects it to the reforms of Ephialtes in 462/1 bc.
The next two chapters on the symposium complement one another. K. Lynch (Chapter 9) clearly demonstrates how different the symposium was, with its focus on wine and equality among participants, from what she dubs the ‘symposium-feast’, wine with food, during which the host could create a patron–client dynamic. This evolution emerges at the end of the fifth century bc, but the chapter covers much ground before and after this time. She argues that eating at the symposium was in fact a return to what is ethnographically and historically the more common form of feasting (food with wine).
In Chapter 10 M. Wecowski argues that: (1) the symposium in the Archaic and Classical periods was characterised by the following features: an intimate setting, mixing wine in a krater, wind- or string-players, poetry performed by guests and proceeding epidexia (‘to the right’) or with skolia (capping verses impromptu); (2) the necessary sympotic skills were widely acquired because they facilitated social mobility; (3) these sympotic trappings and their social efficacy came to an end with the cultural shift in education (sophistic teaching) and the asymmetrical feasting of the Hellenistic period.
The final four chapters address feasting in the Hellenistic period. Strootman (Chapter 11) argues that kings acted as patrons during local civic festivals as much as at international ones and integrated feasting into imperial networks. The court feast and civic feast were ‘overlapping categories’ (p. 290), which both attracted a wide sphere of elites; this suggests that kings funded local sacrifices, becoming ‘citizens of sorts’ (p. 291). (Kings as ‘citizens’ may have been confluent with the burgeoning of democratic ideology in this period, see C. Ando, ‘The Political Economy of the Hellenistic Polis: Comparative and Modern Perspectives’, in The Polis in the Hellenistic World [2018], pp. 9–26.)
M. Mari (Chapter 12) identifies the Macedonian cultural elements of festivals and royal banquets. Treating Alexander's importance as one of spreading innovation, she revises the scholarly narrative by emphasising the continuity of Macedonian practice and its influence on later Hellenistic festivals (e.g. site mobility, increased spectacle and the king as patron) without precluding further Gattungskreuzung from, for example, Persian and Babylonian custom.
S. Paul (Chapter 13) addresses the contradiction – a central issue in this volume and elsewhere – between the hierarchical distinctions acted out during a sacrificial ritual and the ‘egalitarian’ principle in the distribution of the sacrifice. She demonstrates that those who received larger or symbolic shares of the animal(s) often had a complementary role in the procession. Sometimes the distribution of meat was even limited to them, at other times it included metics and possibly slaves. This important paper focuses on local diversity and elucidates how that diversity arranges what we think of as the polis into a more fluid complex than is often visible from a macro-perspective.
J.-M. Carbon (Chapter 14) contextualises instances in which meat is sent to an absentee from a sacrifice or to someone's hearth for a sacrifice from elsewhere. He argues from later evidence for this practice to be more widespread than has been thought and connects it to euergetic networks of xenia. In the variety of religious communities discussed, he further problematises and enriches our understanding of feasting and, consequently, of the polis itself.
This volume's diachronic presentation successfully illustrates the broad developments of feasting's integral role in structures of power within various cities and regions. However, as the gestures towards debates about what constitutes a ‘state’ make clear (pp. 2–3, 126–7), the abundance of local and regional variety of feasting practices still awaits further research and belies a straightforward relationship between the ‘state’ and its inhabitants. Since that is hardly a criticism, I note that at least one contributor to the volume has elsewhere doubted the integrity of an underlying ‘Greek society’, especially in terms of early sanctuary practice (J. Whitley, ‘Afterword’, in Regional Stories Toward a New Perception of the Early Greek World [2017], pp. 723–9). While the symposium (as defined here) may be more clearly ‘Greek’, the extent to which feasting practices were regional or (Pan)hellenic (or more global) is under-explored. A section documenting the discussions at the conference would have been welcome.
That said, this volume will be a significant resource for students and researchers of Greek culture, politics, society and religion. It is a pleasure to read and is edited meticulously. There are two detailed and valuable indexes. The only significant lapses I found were some page numbers missing from the bibliography (p. 203) and minor spelling mistakes, for example temen <e> (p. 19), aegag <r > us (p. 137).
