As a social institution the Greek symposion exerted a powerful influence on archaic, classical, and later Greek culture, from perceptions of politics and philosophy, to attitudes towards sexuality, death, and religion. This volume collects together papers exploring the symposion by Oswyn Murray, a scholar whose work ignited and defined the field.

• I. DEFINING THE SUBJECT


• 1: The History of Tastes (2016)


• 2: The Greek Symposion in History (1983)


• 3: Symposion and Männerbund (1982)


• 4: Sympotic History (1990)


• 5: Sympotica-Twenty Years On (2003)


• 6: Conviviality in Early Cultures: The Ancient Mediterranean and China (2000)


• II. ORIGINS


• 7: Nestor's Cup and the Origins of the Greek Symposion (1994)


• 8: The Symposion between East and West (2016)


• 9: The Odyssey as Performance Poetry (2008)


• III. THE SYMPOSION-SOCIAL FORMS, MODES, AND LIMITS


• 10: The Iconography of the Symposion (2015). Appendix: Some Modern Interpretations


• 11: Sympotic Drinking Rituals: Mixing Wine with Water, Kalos Vases, and the Meaning of Epidexia, Proposis, and Philotesia (2015)


• 12: The Symposion and Social Status (2017)


• 13: War and the Symposion (1991)


• 14: Violence at the Symposion (2016)


• 15: Law and the Symposion (1992 and 1990)


• 16: Eros and the Symposion (2016)


• 17: Death and the Symposion (1988). Envoi (2016)


• 18: The Affair of the Mysteries: Democracy and the Drinking Group (1990)


• 19: The Chorus of Dionysus: Alcohol and Old Age in the Laws (2013)


• 20: Euphrosyne and the Psychology of Pleasure (2005)


• 21: Hellenistic Royal Symposia (1996)


• 22: Conclusion: Greek Forms of Sociality (1991)


• IV. ROMAN REFLECTIONS


• 23: Symposium and Genre in the Poetry of Horace (1985)


• 24: A 'Stork-Vase' from Mola di Monte Gelato (1991)


• 25: Athenaeus the Encyclopedist (2014)


• V. THE HISTORY OF PLEASURE


• 26: Histories of Pleasure (1995)


• 27: Hedonism and History (2011)


• 28: Renewing l'Histoire des moeurs (2012)


• Endmatter


• Abbreviations and Conventions


• List of Illustrations


• Bibliography


• Index of Ancient Authors


• Index of Greek Vases


• General Index

Oswyn Murray is an Emeritus Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. He studied under the great scholar Arnaldo Momigliano before taking up a research position at the Warburg Institute and becoming successively, between 1968 and 2004, Tutor, Senior Tutor, vice-Master, and Director of the Graduate Centre at Balliol. He is the author of Early Greece (originally published by Fontana Press in 1980 and translated into numerous languages, including Chinese) and over a hundred articles, and has also edited, among other volumes, The Oxford History of the Classical World (OUP, 1986), The Greek City (OUP, 1990), Sympotica (OUP, 1990), and In Vino Veritas (The British School at Rome, 1995). His current interests include Herodotus' Histories (on which he is overseeing the publication of a major new commentary), the history of classical scholarship from 1700 to the present day, and the history of pleasure. In his spare time he makes his own cider.
Vanessa Cazzato trained in Milan, Dublin, and Oxford and holds a post-doctoral research position in the Netherlands, where she works on archaic and classical Greek poetry. She is currently a Visiting Fellow at Tokyo University.
Michael Gabriel, painter, illustrator, and printmaker, has specialized in animation art direction and background painting, with work on films including The Snowman, Pink Floyd-The Wall, The Tailor of Gloucester, Pumpkin Moon, and We're Going On A Bear Hunt. He is an associate artist at Oxford Playhouse where he draws from live theatre.