1. THE IDENTITY OF THE KING

There are two reasons generally given for locating the symposium Ion describes in Sparta: first, the choice of heroes who receive libations (lines 4–5) and, second, the opening greeting to a king (line 1).Footnote ¹¹ The libation to Procles has unmistakable resonances with the Eurypontid house of Sparta. In fact, all four libations, to Heracles, Alcmene, Procles and the sons of Perseus seem to be connected. They are related to the Heraclids, who founded kingdoms in Argos, Messenia and Laconia. Procles was the son of Aristodemus, the great grandson (according to Hdt. 6.52) of Hyllus, the son of Heracles. He and his brother Eurysthenes were twins, hence the origin of the Spartan diarchy. The libations, then, provide a subtle yet definite hint to a Laconian connection.

The same could be said of the opening line. During Ion's lifetime, only five individuals claimed the title of king: the rulers of Persia, Macedonia, Molossia and Sparta. The libation to Procles points to the third option. The Eurypontid successor of Procles who reigned through the better part of Ion's adult life, and is therefore the most likely candidate, is Archidamus (469–428 b.c.). This second claim—that Ion is referring to a real king of Sparta in the first line—has, however, been disputed. There are four other possibilities: a symposiarch, wine, the god of wine Dionysus and Zeus.Footnote ¹² The first, a symposiarch, is the least likely: as Haupt noted, the titles ‘saviour and father’ seem too strong for such an office, even though symposiasts can be addressed as ‘kings’.Footnote ¹³ Wine, our second option, is more plausible. Elsewhere Ion himself refers to ‘the wine that is king’ (βασιλεὺς οἶνος, fr. 26.12 West). However, the identification of wine as a king is not made explicit in this fragment and again the combination of epithets tells against this possibility. If the king of our poem is a god, then Zeus is a much more likely candidate than Dionysus. Ion, in a similar elegy, does invoke ‘father Dionysus’ (πάτερ Διόνυσε, fr. 26.13 West), where he is also styled ‘leader of the hearty symposia’ (εὐθύμων συμποσίων πρύτανι, fr. 26.14 West). However, Dionysus is not one of the gods receiving libations in line 5 and this combination of epithets is nowhere else applied to Dionysus. The only god who is consistently styled king, saviour and father is Zeus. The king of the gods had a strong connection with the symposium. Three craters were generally drunk: the first was dedicated to the Olympians, the second to the heroes and the third to Zeus the saviour (σωτήρ).Footnote ¹⁴ The first crater could also be dedicated to Zeus.Footnote ¹⁵ In Ion's poem, we find that the first libation with which the symposium begins is made to Zeus (ἐκ Διὸς ἀρχόμενοι, 6).

However, although gods can be addressed in the third person, we might expect the second person χαῖρε, as is the case in Ion's address to Dionysus in fragment 26.Footnote ¹⁶ The imperative χαιρέτω is more often used dismissively in the sense of ‘let us leave him to rejoice’.Footnote ¹⁷ Bartol has understood the word in this way, meaning ‘let us stop praising the king’. He sees this as a response to an earlier sympotic offering by one of Ion's fellow guests, presumably an encomium for Archidamus.Footnote ¹⁸ In addition, the possessive adjective ‘our’ (ἡμέτερος βασιλεύς) would be an unusual way to address Zeus, who is king and father of all gods and men.Footnote ¹⁹ Zeus is only addressed as ‘our king’ by another god, Athena, in Homer, and in this case Zeus is understood as ‘king of the gods’.Footnote ²⁰ This, I suggest, is the exception that proves the rule.

An address to ‘our king’ would be more appropriate for a mortal ruler, and moreover one who is being compared to Zeus. The transference of Zeus's epithets to a human ruler is easily explained. Monarchs are regularly compared to Zeus, who is their patron deity. In Homer kings are nurtured by Zeus, while in Hesiod kings come from Zeus.Footnote ²¹ The Muses, Hesiod says, are the gods of poets and Zeus is the god of kings. In his hymn to Zeus, Callimachus (Hymn 1.79) quotes Hesiod, in order to make the same point. Mortal rulers can also be compared directly to Zeus. Cratinus compared Pericles to Zeus and Aspasia to Hera.Footnote ²² Satyrus interpreted a reference to Zeus in Euripides’ poetry as an allusion to King Archelaus of Macedon.Footnote ²³ Xenophon similarly conflated Zeus the King and the King of Persia in the interpretation of a dream (An. 3.1.12). Theocritus (Id. 17.1–4) sets the mortal Ptolemy II next to Zeus. Moreover, the kings of Macedonia were styled as ‘saviour’ in inscriptions on a series of small altars that date, in at least some cases, from as early as the fourth century.Footnote ²⁴ Theodora Jim has recently argued that private individuals used the altars for sacrifices to living monarchs, in gratitude for specific acts of benefaction or liberation. We may also note that the Spartan kings held hereditary priesthoods of Zeus (Hdt. 6.56).

Individual kings, however, only rule over their own lands, while Zeus is unique in being the supreme ruler of the cosmos: hence the qualification of the possessive adjective. Callimachus claims different kings have more power than others. He cites Ptolemy II, who has outstripped other rulers, as proof, referring as he does so to ‘our ruler’ (ἡμετέρῳ μεδέοντι, Hymn 1.86). In this way, Callimachus’ ‘our king’ is easily identifiable as a mortal ruler. A Spartan king is just as likely to have been referred to in this way. Ion may have been following Tyrtaeus who described the Spartan king Theopompus as ‘our king’ (ἡμετέρῳ βασιλῆϊ, fr. 5.1 West).

Ion's choice of epithets for the king, when taken together, suggest that a mortal ruler, Archidamus, is meant here. Is the king actually present at the symposium? The stress laid on the fact that it is ‘our king’, together with the libations referring back to the royal line, suggest that the king is understood to be very much included in the festivities. If so, this explains the unusual third-person imperative χαιρέτω as part of the series of third-person imperatives that structure the poem. Ion progresses through the various stages usual in a symposium in the usual order. The servants prepare a crater, but before the guests drink, libations are poured. Then comes the wine and its accompaniments: song, dancing and general merriment as the company become steadily more inebriated. The first thing that must happen, Ion seems to be telling us, is that the king should be welcomed into the gathering.

Such a use of the third-person is paralleled in the wedding hymn of Sappho, where it is the bridegroom whom she bids to be joyful (χαιρέτω δ’ ὀ γάμβρος, fr. 117 Voigt). Rather than dismissing the king, as Bartol believed, Ion includes him as a prominent and integral part of the assembly, like a bridegroom who comes as the honoured guest to a wedding feast. This is appropriate to a Spartan context, since we are told by Herodotus that the kings were always seated and served first at any public occasion (6.57.1):

Ion may reflect here the Spartan custom whereby the kings are seated (ἵζειν) first. This would make the references to Zeus all the more pertinent, as in Homer all the gods rise upon the entry of their king to the symposium on Olympus (Il. 1.533–6). The entry of the kings must also come before the libations if they hold the privilege of leading this ritual (σπονδαρχίας). Spartan kings may at times also have fulfilled the similar role of symposiarch. Plutarch tells an anecdote in which King Agesilaus himself appears in this capacity (Apophth. Lac. 208C). That Spartans appointed symposiarchs, in common with other Greeks, is confirmed by Xenophon (An. 6.1.30).

Lines 3–4 might have clarified whether the king was present at the symposium, but unfortunately the text is corrupt. Two interpretations are possible. First, the line may refer to a servant who provides the bowl of water to wash the hands of the guests. Campbell has suggested that the first omicron of οἶνον could be changed to a delta giving δῖνον (a drinking goblet). This change has the advantage of contrasting the crater prepared for the assembled guests (ἡμῖν δὲ κρητῆρ’, 2) and their silver cups with the single golden cup held by this unidentified figure. He therefore has proposed ὁ δὲ χρυσοῦν | δῖνον ἔχων χεροῖν νιζέτω εἰς ἔδαφος, which he translates as ‘and let him who holds in his hands the golden jug wash our hands on to the floor’.Footnote ²⁵ This is possible, although the sense is still imperfect. The meaning of εἰς ἔδαφος remains uncertain, since there is no reason why the act of washing should take place on the ground.Footnote ²⁶

Second, these lines may refer back to the king from line 1. In amending the text to include a golden cup, Campbell is following Haupt who went even further in restoring the line to ὁ δὲ χρυσοῦ | δῖνον ἔχων χεροῖν ἱζέτω εἰς ἕδρανον.Footnote ²⁷ In doing so he removes a single nu which could easily have been added by mistake after χεροῖν/ χειρῶν. Whitby attempts to retain ἔδαφος by taking ἱζέτω as a transitive verb with δῖνον as its object, meaning ‘while another with a golden basin in his hands sets it on its base’.Footnote ²⁸ However, I know of no instance where ἔδαφος is used to refer to a raised platform or stand of the kind Whitby envisages. The change from ἔδαφος (‘base’ or ‘bottom’) to ἕδρανον (‘seat’) better fits the identification of the subject in line 3 as the king, who is seated first at the meal.

Alternatively, Alan Sommerstein has suggested ἕδεος to me as a rare alternative for ‘seat’ that would better explain the corruption, while fitting the metre. The word is given by Hesychius as term for a Thessalian ‘seat’ (θρόνος). His source may have been the Hippocratic corpus, since a passage in the De Articulis uses the term ἕδος θεσσαλικὸν.Footnote ²⁹ Is it possible that the text of De Articulis originally read ἕδεος, but that this was mistakenly changed by a later copyist to the common form ἕδος? A similar change in Ion's text would also explain the corruption of the line, as later editors struggled to make the verse scan. This suggestion may be speculative but at least it would make good sense as ‘may he, holding a golden cup in his hands, take his seat’. The article (ὁ δέ) in line 3, in that case, refers back to a previous subject, the king. Ion is taking note of the Spartan custom that the king, when present, must be welcomed and seated first. The king's cup and those of his subjects are filled in preparation for the libations, which the king will lead, as is his prerogative. The Athenian Lycurgus (Leoc. 107) knew of a tradition in which elegies, those of Tyrtaeus, were performed in the tents of Spartan kings on campaign. Perhaps Ion's ode was similarly intended for a royal audience.

2. WHY SPARTA?

We have seen that some connection with Sparta is highly probable given the libation to Procles. I hope to have shown that an address to a Spartan king is at least plausible, given the internal evidence of the text. But is there any reason why Ion chose to celebrate a Laconian symposium rather than a diplomatic mission to the descendants of Demaratus, as Whitby suggested? It is usually believed that he visited Sparta in the company of one of his Athenian acquaintances: either Cimon in 463 or the 450s, or Thucydides son of Melesias around 440 during a period of peace between Athens and Sparta.Footnote ³⁰ Plutarch relates an anecdote in which the fourth-century sophist Hecataeus was invited to the royal syssition, which suggests that distinguished foreigners or ambassadors could be admitted as guests.Footnote ³¹ But what was the purpose of his journey to Sparta? Though connections with either Cimon or Thucydides might have afforded an introduction to the king, this does not explain why he made the journey in the first place. And even though Ion had met and admired Cimon in his youth, there is no evidence that the great man adopted the young and then unknown Chian as his protégé.

I suggest that he was there to attend, and most probably perform at, one of the many festivals of Laconia. The region was already celebrated in the fifth century for its long-standing tradition of festivals and choral dances.Footnote ³² Most important were the three festivals for Apollo: the Hyacinthia, the Gymnopaedia and the Carnea. Each of these gatherings were held over several days and seem to have involved multiple events.Footnote ³³ Xenophon states that the chorus of men was permitted to compete on the final day of the Gymnopaedia of 371.Footnote ³⁴ Given that only one chorus is specified, it is likely, as Bölte supposed, that an uncertain number of rival choruses had performed on previous days.Footnote ³⁵ The designation of this chorus as a chorus of men (τοῦ ἀνδρικοῦ χοροῦ) points to competitions in other age-categories. Other sources refer to performances by three choruses of old men, young men and boys, but it is uncertain whether they refer to separate competitions in different age-categories or a simultaneous performance by three choruses.Footnote ³⁶ It has been suggested that Alcman's maiden dances took place within a competition.Footnote ³⁷ The Dorian phylae may have provided the competing choruses, a form of organization perhaps alluded to by Alcman.Footnote ³⁸

In addition, the fifth-century or fourth-century inscription of Damonon lists athletic contests at no fewer than nine festivals held in Laconia or its environs. One of these, the Paparonia, held in the contested area of the Thyreatis, is said by Hesychius to be a site for choral performance.Footnote ³⁹ Another site of Damonon's victories is a celebration for Athena, conceivably connected to the temple of Athena Chalkioikos on the Spartan Acropolis.Footnote ⁴⁰ If so, it is possible that the chorus of Euripides’ Helen are referring to this festival when they imagine the heroine rejoining the Leucippidae before the temple of Pallas (πρὸ ναοῦ | Παλλάδος, 1466–7). The ode to Athena at the close of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata (1320–1) may similarly allude to choral performances for the goddess. Finally, it has been suggested that the Eleusinia, a sanctuary dedicated to Demeter and the site of yet another family victory, also played host to dithyrambs sung by female choruses.Footnote ⁴¹

The Laconian sanctuaries of Artemis are likely to have hosted choral performances from the archaic period. In Pausanias’ time, choruses of maidens performed annually (κατὰ ἔτος, 3.10.7) at the shrine of Artemis at Caryae. Pausanias (4.16.9) believed that these dances dated as far back as the wars against Aristomenes in the seventh century. This notion receives support from Athenaeus’ reference to a work by the early fifth-century poet Pratinas, entitled Καρυάτιδες or Δυμαίναι, which may well have concerned this festival (Ath. Deipn. 392f = 711 PMG = TrGF I 4 F 1). The Dymainai, one of the Dorian tribes, appear in Alcman as chorus members, while the term is also applied by Hesychius to female Bacchic dancers in Sparta.Footnote ⁴² Similar maiden dances are likely to have taken place, perhaps from the time of Alcman, at the sanctuaries of Artemis Orthia, of Artemis Limnatis on the Messenian border and conceivably also at those of Artemis Corythalia at Cleta and of Helen at Therapnae.Footnote ⁴³

This summary is by no means exhaustive and, in any case, our evidence is hardly sufficient for a complete survey. Yet, it should be evident that musical performances and competitions were a frequent occurrence throughout the Spartan year, much as they were at Athens. At this point we may wonder how the Lacedaemonians maintained such a busy festival programme. The question is all the more pressing, because we know of no native Spartan poets from the classical period. Athenaeus and other later authors do at least indicate that by their time the Spartans possessed a substantial corpus of traditional Laconian ‘old songs’.Footnote ⁴⁴ Some later re-performances of local poems could have taken place at festivals, as Polycrates and Sosibius suggest in their accounts of the Hyacinthia and the Gymnopaedia respectively.Footnote ⁴⁵ Pausanias similarly states that the dance of the maidens at Caryae was of a peculiarly ‘local’ kind.Footnote ⁴⁶ He also mentions a Spartan Gitiadas, the creator of the statue of Athena, who also composed Dorian songs and a hymn to the goddess.Footnote ⁴⁷ Yet, although re-performances of traditional music may have provided Spartan festivals with a distinctive local character in the Hellenistic and the Roman eras, it seems improbable that the old songs alone could have been enough for so many choral performances each year and in all periods.

It is likely, therefore, that the Spartans depended to some extent on foreign poets and musicians. In hosting festivals, few cities can be said to have relied purely on local talent alone. At the Athenian contests, a substantial proportion of the poets who directed the choruses, as well as the aulos-players who accompanied the dancing, were non-citizens. In his list of dithyrambic poets, Sutton includes only six Athenians from the classical period.Footnote ⁴⁸ By contrast, we know of as many as twenty non-citizens who were active at Athens.Footnote ⁴⁹ Like Athens, Sparta could have offered the aspiring poet a range of opportunities to display his abilities.

One might object that Sparta was not the same as Athens and that we need to take into account not only the possibility of Spartan exceptionalism but also ancient reports of Laconian hostility towards foreigners, particularly artisans and other specialists.Footnote ⁵⁰ Yet, there is good evidence that foreigners could attend Spartan festivals in the classical period. Xenophon records that a certain Lichas became famous for hosting foreign visitors at the time of the Gymnopaedia.Footnote ⁵¹ Plutarch, in noting that the news of the defeat at Leuctra arrived while the festival was being held, claims that the city was full of foreigners (ξένων οὖσα μεστή, Ages. 29.2) while the choruses were performing in the theatre. As at the Athenian festivals, some of these foreigners may have been present in an official capacity. Thucydides (5.23.4–5) states that the truce in 421 between Sparta and Athens was to be renewed each year, with the cities sending delegations to the Spartan Hyacinthia and the Athenian Dionysia respectively. These festivals were chosen presumably because both the Hyacinthia and the Dionysia were attended by international visitors from allied states. The same logic is likely to lie behind the decision to publicize the treaty with stelae at the Panhellenic sanctuaries at Olympia, Delphi and the Isthmus (5.18.10).

Laconian xenophobia does not seem then to have extended to Sparta's festivals. This is hardly surprising, since gatherings of this kind were one of the few places where Greeks from hostile polities could regularly meet. Similarly, poets and athletes regularly travelled unmolested through the territory of warring cities.Footnote ⁵² But is there any evidence to suggest that foreign poets actually came to Sparta to compete? Later sources credit the establishment of the great Laconian festivals entirely to outsiders. Terpander, from Lesbos, was known as the first victor of the Spartan Carnea, which was believed to have been founded in the first quarter of the seventh century.Footnote ⁵³ According to pseudo-Plutarch ([De mus.] 1134B–C), a second generation of foreign poets, which included Thaletas of Crete, Xenodamus of Cythera, Xenocritus of Locri and Sacadas of Argos, were associated with the establishment of the Gymnopaedia. Although these traditions are mostly recorded in later sources, the founding myths date to at least the fifth century. The fifth–century historian Hellanicus of Mytilene recorded Terpander's success in his catalogue of victors at the Carnea (FGrHist 4 F 85a). The existence of such a work suggests that the Carnea was recognized as an ancient festival of Panhellenic importance by the fifth century.

Hellanicus’ catalogue may also have been designed both to celebrate the success of performers from his home-island of Lesbos and to justify their continuing special status at Sparta in the citharodic contest. One fifth-century poet who is likely to have cultivated this myth is Aristocleitus, or Aristocleides, who was active at around the time of the Persian Wars and is said to have claimed descent from Terpander.Footnote ⁵⁴ According to the Aristotelian Spartan Constitution (fr. 545 Rose), both he and Terpander were connected with the saying ‘after the Lesbian poet’. This is attested first by Cratinus (fr. 263 K.–A.) and was explained as a reference to the right of the descendants of Terpander to compete first at Sparta. Phrynis of Mytilene, another performer from Lesbos and pupil of Aristocleitus, is said to have performed at Sparta. Plutarch illustrates Spartan conservatism in music by an anecdote, in which an ephor threatens to cut the additional strings off the lyre belonging to Phrynis.Footnote ⁵⁵ This story is likely to be apocryphal, since he applies the same anecdote to Terpander and Timotheus of Miletus, the leading poet of the New Music (Inst. Lac. 238C). Yet, it is an example of how legends surrounding earlier legendary poets from the archaic period could be transferred to fifth-century performers. As Power has suggested, later citharodes were probably responsible for propagating these myths, as part of an attempt to situate themselves within an older and grander tradition.Footnote ⁵⁶

The story of how Thaletas cured the Spartans of plague was also told by Pratinas of Phlius, a contemporary of Aeschylus.Footnote ⁵⁷ Pseudo-Plutarch uses this anecdote to illustrate the capacity of music to benefit a city, and it is possible that Pratinas may have drawn a similar moral from his tale. The career of Pratinas seems to have resembled that of Ion in the following generation. At Athens, he was a foreigner who also produced tragedies.Footnote ⁵⁸ At the same time, he seems to have composed non-dramatic lyric poetry and may have had links with Sparta.Footnote ⁵⁹ In addition to the work Δυσμαίναι or Καρυάτιδες, which is likely to have involved Sparta and choral poetry in some way, he is known to have celebrated the Spartan choral tradition with his reference to ‘the Laconian cicada, well suited for the chorus’.Footnote ⁶⁰

In Bacchylides’ sixth dithyramb we may possess at least one example of a poem intended for performance by a Spartan chorus. Its opening lines allude to a dance by Spartan maidens (20.1–3 = Dith. 6 Maehler):

The papyrus preserves the title ‘Idas for the Spartans’ (Ἴδας Λακεδαιμονίοις). Idas is associated with the abduction of Marpessa from a chorus and, in one tradition, with the story of the first rape of Helen (usually attributed to Theseus).Footnote ⁶¹ Bacchylides’ poem appears to have concerned Marpessa. As Maehler has noted, such a theme would be suitable for performance at Sparta, given the association of the cults of Artemis at Caryae and other sanctuaries with myths of rape.Footnote ⁶² A scholium on the Alcman papyrus notes that the Spartans in the time of its author used foreign poets / chorus-trainers.Footnote ⁶³ The Bacchylides dithyramb suggests that this was indeed the case in the fifth century. Moreover if, as is argued by Bowie and Nobili, Simonides’ elegy on the battle of Plataea was another work composed for a Spartan audience, then perhaps Bacchylides accompanied his uncle on the journey from Ceos to the banks of the Eurotas.Footnote ⁶⁴

While the evidence is admittedly far from conclusive, it is conceivable that for Ion, as perhaps for Pratinas and Bacchylides, both Athens and Sparta formed important centres in a network of festivals covered by travelling poets, tourists and pilgrims. They, like their forebears in the archaic period, were probably attracted, as Nobili has put it, ‘by the long series of musical festivals which characterized Spartan religious life and by the enlightened community which gave much importance to music’.Footnote ⁶⁵ He is likely to have toured some of these festivals from early on in his career. In his Epidemiae, Ion recalled a conversation he had had with Aeschylus while watching the boxing at the Isthmian games. This must have taken place before Aeschylus’ final departure for Sicily at some point after 458.Footnote ⁶⁶ It may therefore have coincided with a visit to Athens in the 460s, where in his youth Ion attended a banquet at which Cimon was also present.Footnote ⁶⁷ Ion could easily have extended such a tour to include Sparta, either on this occasion or later in his career. It may be significant that the Isthmia took place in the spring, roughly between the Athenian Dionysia and the Spartan Hyacinthia.Footnote ⁶⁸

3. DINING AT FESTIVALS

Let us now return to the poem with which we began. We have seen that if Ion did visit Sparta it was most likely on the occasion of one of the great Laconian festivals. Yet, fr. 27 West describes the progress of a symposium. Those who have accepted the likelihood of a Spartan context have assumed that we have here a description of the royal syssition, to which Ion gained access as a friend of a prominent Athenian. There is, however, another possibility: that Ion is recalling the king's presence at a public meal held as part of a city festival.

We have already noted the special privileges granted to the Spartan kings on the occasion of a public sacrifice (θυσίη τις δημοτελής, Hdt. 6.57.1). Foreigners appear to have also partaken of such meals and sacrifices. Cratinus (fr. 175 K.–A.) mentions a type of Spartan meal (κοπίς) held in tents at which foreigners would be feasted. This fragment is preserved by Athenaeus (Deipn. 138e) in a discussion of Spartan dining-practices. It is followed by a lengthy description of the Hyacinthia festival.Footnote ⁶⁹ Another quotation from a fifth-century comic poet, Epilycus, indicates that a feast, which Athenaeus terms a κοπίς, is to take place at the temple of Apollo in Amyclae: the location of the Hyacinthia.Footnote ⁷⁰ The Carnea also involved feasting in tent-like structures (σκιάδες), in which, according to a Hellenistic epigram by Trypho, Terpes (or Terpander of Lesbos?) was singing when he died from choking on a fig.Footnote ⁷¹ There is no reason why Ion's description of a symposium would have been inappropriate for a Spartan audience in the fifth century. Communal drinking was as important to Spartan society as any other Greek city, though with certain modifications designed to discourage total inebriation and a loss of self-control.Footnote ⁷² In the Spartan ‘mirage’, as it is presented to us by Xenophon and Plutarch, Spartans are exceptional not for eschewing wine but for being moderate drinkers.

Large-scale public meals of this kind were a common part of festivals elsewhere in the Greek world. They also seem to have imitated the practices of the symposium and included the drinking of wine.Footnote ⁷³ A symposium, with the priest of Dionysus in attendance, takes place as part of the rural Dionysia in Aristophanes’ Acharnians (1085–94). Cnemon in Menander's Dyscolus (448–9) imagines that those wishing to sacrifice at a rural shrine for the Nymphs will bring jars of wine (σταμνία) with them for their own consumption. According to Athenaeus (Deipn. 3f), Ion awarded each of the Athenians with a present of wine following his victory at the Dionysia. In the first century a.d. a similar allowance of free wine was granted to those gathered for the festival of Apollo Ptoios in Boeotia.Footnote ⁷⁴ Public dining-rooms have been discovered at the sanctuary of Heracles on Thasos, among other sites: Bowie has suggested that shorter elegies could have been performed there following the main festival contest.Footnote ⁷⁵

Elegy had been performed at festival competitions from the archaic period. It is likely that such poems were also recited at symposia held as part of public festivals. In another fragment of elegy Ion praises Dionysus (and his wine) as the raison d’être for foreign sages (or poets?) in precisely these types of venues (fr. 26.2–3 West):

Ion here juxtaposes festivals and meals at which rulers are present. A passage attributed to Theognis suggests that his works may also be re-performed in similar contexts (Thgn. 236–8 West):

It is often assumed that Theognis is referring here to re-performance at the symposium in general. Yet, as Budelmann and Power note, the words θοίνηις δὲ καὶ εἰλαπίνηισι point to ‘a more public and more large-scale event than the symposium’.Footnote ⁷⁷ They suggest that what Theognis has in mind here is the later celebration of Cyrnus in choral lyric or festival contests of elegy sung to the aulos: ‘sympotic elegy, Theognis’ claim would be, turns into public elegy’. But why can sympotic elegy not be public elegy, especially if it is performed at a festival meal? In bidding the assembled company to prepare for dinner, Ion's poem might perhaps be an ideal work with which to round off a musical contest.