“I Let Go My Force Just Touching Her Hair”: Male Sexuality in Athenian Vase-Paintings of
Silens and Iambic Poetry
Author(s): G. Hedreen
Source: Classical Antiquity, Vol. 25, No. 2 (October 2006), pp. 277-325
Published by: University of California Press
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GUY HEDREEN
“I Let Go My Force Just Touching Her
Hair”: Male Sexuality in Athenian VasePaintings of Silens and Iambic Poetry
In Archaic Athenian vase-painting, silens (satyrs) are often sexually aroused, but only sporadically satisfy their desires in a manner acceptable to most Athenian men. François Lissarrague
persuasively argued that the sexuality of silens in vase-painting was probably laughable rather
than awe-inspiring. What sort of laughter did the vase-paintings elicit? Was it the scornful
laughter of a person who felt nothing in common with silens, or the laughter of one made to see
something of himself in their behavior? For three reasons, I argue for the latter interpretation.
First, some vase-paintings are constructed so as to invite the viewer to adopt imaginatively
the persona of a silen. Second, parallels for the less-than-triumphant sexuality of silens occur
in Archaic iambic poetry. Like the vase-paintings, the poetry was often constructed so that
performers of the poems are incorporated into the narratives as all-too-human protagonists.
Third, certain formal features of classical satyr-play encouraged the audience to identify with
the point of view of the satyr-chorus, while others reminded it that there were better role models
than silens. In all three media, a negative characterization of male characters or silens is combined with a manner of presentation that invites the viewer or performer to see himself among
those characters despite their negative traits. That form of humor may have been common in
Archaic symposia, but its presence in satyr-play suggests that it may also be a fundamental
characteristic of silens.
THE SEX LIFE OF SILENS IN VASE-PAINTING
Perhaps the most remarkable characteristic of the sexuality of the part-horse,
part-man creatures known as silens (also known as satyrs) is its inexhaustibility,
I have received helpful suggestions from many people on this paper. I thank Sarah Peirce, Ann
Steiner, Richard Hamilton, and Jeffrey Rusten for comments on drafts of the paper. I also thank
the anonymous readers for Classical Antiquity for their detailed suggestions. I thank Mark Griffith
in particular for his thoughtful comments, helpful suggestions, and the opportunity to read his
forthcoming paper.
Classical Antiquity. Vol. 25, Issue 2, pp. 277–325. ISSN 0278-6656(p); 1067-8344 (e).
Copyright © 2006 by The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Please
direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of
California Press’s Rights and Permissions website at http://www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintInfo.asp.
DOI:CA.2006.25.2.277.
278
Volume 25 / No. 2 / October 2006
as Fran ois Lissarrague has emphasized.1 That quality is exemplified by the many
images of silens engaged in masturbation, one of the very early and very popular
visual conceptions about these creatures. On a Tyrrhenian amphora of around 560–
550 (fig. 1), a silen squats, faces the viewer, and strokes himself in a vineyard
as his fellow silens horse around.2 On an aryballos by Nearchos of around 560
(fig. 2), three silens sing and masturbate in concert.3 The inexhaustible quality
of the silens’ sexuality is also manifest in the wide variety of outlets employed
by them. Silens are occasionally depicted as mating with deer.4 In a number
of representations of the return of Hephaistos, such as a fragmentary Tyrrhenian
amphora (fig. 3) or a cup by the Oakeshott Painter (fig. 4), a silen sexually assaults
the donkey or mule ridden by Hephaistos on his triumphant return to Olympos.5
Occasionally, a silen assaults the animal ridden by Dionysos (fig. 5a).6 Those
assaults are astonishing because the donkey (or mule) is also male. The act is
not motivated by an animal instinct to propagate the species, but by the libidinal
urge for sexual release. Silens also make recourse to inanimate objects as vessels
for their sexual passion. At least three vases depict silens employing amphoras
for this purpose, including a cup perhaps by the Nikosthenes Painter in Kassel
(fig. 6).7 They even occasionally make recourse to crude forms of homosexuality.8
1. Lissarrague 1990b: esp. 57.
2. Cervetri 7968, GVGettyMus 5 (1991): 132–34 figs. 1a–c. For other Tyrrhenian amphorae
with this subject, see Hedreen 1992: 172n.24, Louvre E 841, ABV 103,107, Beazley Archive no.
310106, and Louvre C 10700, Para 42, Timiades Painter, Beazley Archive no. 350327.
3. New York 26.49, ABV 83,4, LIMC 7, pl. 435 Psolas 2. The silens are named the Greek
equivalent of “hard-on,” “wanker,” and “shaft-pleaser”. Other early examples of masturbating silens
include London market, Sotheby’s, manner of Lydos, Keuls 1993: 81 fig. 68; New York, private
collection, dinos fragment, Sophilos, Greek and Etruscan Art of the Archaic Period (New York,
1988), 55; Padgett 2003: 236–38 no. 53; Pontegnano, Siana cup from Tomb 3955, Cerchiai 1995: pl.
17,2. For a list of further examples, see Hedreen 1992: 172–73n.24.
4. E.g., Athens, NM 1007, mid-sixth-century Ionian amphora, LIMC 8, pl. 755 Silenoi 51.
For further examples, see Lissarrague 1990b: 61–62.
5. Fig. 3: Florence 3773 and Berlin 1711, neck amphora, ABV 95,8, Castellani Painter, Beazley
Archive vase no. 310008. Fig. 4: New York 17.230.5, band cup, Para 78,1, Oakeshott Painter, LIMC
4, pl. 394 Hephaistos 139a. For further examples and analysis, see Lissarrague 1990b: 62; Hedreen
1992: 18; Padgett 2000.
6. Boston 01.17, ABV 319,2, Painter of Boston 01.17, CVA Boston 1, pl. 54.
7. Kassel ALG 214, cup, signed by Pamphaios as potter, published by Gercke 1981: 111–15
no. 57, attributed to the Nikosthenes Painter by Connor 1983. See also Palermo V651, cup, ARV 2
85,21, Skythes, CVA Palermo 1, pl. 3,2; London E35, fragmentary cup, ARV 2 74,38, Epiktetos, JdI
44 (1929): 183 figs. 24–25; possibly Munich 2613, cup, ARV 2 136,3, Poseidon Painter, which I
have not seen.
8. E.g., Berlin 1964.4, cup, ARV 2 1700, wider circle of the Nikosthenes Painter, Reinsberg
1993: 137 fig. 79. Scenes of homosexual activity are not uncommon in Greek art, but this image
stands apart from them: in visual art, men do not ordinarily fellate each other; and the gymnastic
position illustrated in the center of the scene is an original idea of two inventive silens, not a
traditional position. The silen in the right-hand area of the image even propositions the sphinx,
which is not part of the silen’s virtual space but part of the ornament of the cup. The image is
significant because it effectively conveys the idea that these silens are ignorant of accepted Greek
homosexual practices.
: “I Let Go My Force Just Touching Her Hair”
279
Erika Simon attributed the frequency of the silens’ state of sexual arousal
to their status as δαеονε̋, i.e., as halfway between men and gods.9 In the
quickness with which the silens become aroused, they remind one of the immortal Lothario par excellence, Zeus.10 The importance of sexual activity in
the conception of Zeus coincides with (among other things) his role as the
god of weather, which encompassed the fertilizing power of rain; the connection between Zeus’ sexual activity and fertility of the earth is implicit already
in Homer (Il. 14.346–51). Furtwängler suggested that the choice of beast for
the animal part of the silen, the horse, with its large penis, also emphasized
the fecundity of the silen insofar as it was perceived as a spirit of nature.11
The conception of the silen may have roots in ancient beliefs about the fertility of the earth. The manifestation of the silen in Archaic Athenian vasepainting, however, thematizes qualities of impulsiveness and frustration rather
than fecundity.
The frequency with which the silens make recourse to masturbation needs
to be considered in the light of their relationship with their female counterparts,
the nymphs. The interactions between silens and nymphs in vase-imagery suggest
three things. The first is that the silens’ sexual desire frequently overpowers their
self-control. The second is that the nymphs cannot satisfy the inexhaustible desire
of the silen, even when those girls are willing to try. The third is that the silens lack
the social status or power to force themselves on the nymphs, and so must resort
to masturbation, bestiality, or inanimate objects. A few examples clarify those
three points. Black-figure vase-paintings in which silens are seizing nymphs or
carrying them off are significant because they often also include scenes of intimacy
between the silens and nymphs. For example, the motif of the silen carrying off a
nymph occurs side by side with the motifs of silens kissing nymphs on a neck
amphora in Boston (fig. 7) or silens and nymphs walking arm-in-arm on vases in
Boston or Oxford (figs. 5a–b, 8).12 The presence of intimacy suggests that the
nymphs seized by silens would have gone willingly, at least some of the time.
The images are significant not as representations of power wielded by the silens
over the nymphs but as indications that the sexual energy of the silens is so far
beyond their control that they cannot wait. In several vase-paintings in which
silens assault the donkeys or mules of Hephaistos or Dionysos, there is also a
silen-and-nymph couple walking arm-in-arm (fig. 5a–b) or actually engaged in
9. Simon 1997: 1120.
10. For his many liaisons, see Voutiras 1997: 311–12.
11. Furtwängler 1912: 1: 205.
12. Fig. 7: Boston 76.40, neck amphora, Para 144,1, Dayton Painter, CVA Boston 1, pl. 39,2. On
this vase, the wedding procession of Dionysos and Ariadne appears to be on the verge of degenerating
into a mass consummation of desire. But it seems unlikely that the god will actually allow the silen
carrying the nude nymph to follow through on his impulse and use the wedding couch to consummate
the union. Fig. 8: Oxford 1982.1097, neck amphora, Hattatt Painter, OJA 1 (1982): 140–43, figs.
1–6.
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Volume 25 / No. 2 / October 2006
sexual intercourse (fig. 3).13 The juxtaposition of motifs shows that the silens
were not infrequently intimate with nymphs in Athenian art of this period. The
silens had other, less unconventional outlets than a beast of burden, if only they
could channel appropriately their sexual energy. On several vases, it appears that
the indiscriminate silens even attempted to catch a goddess. On one (fig. 9), a
lekythos dating to the mid-sixth century, among the early representations of silens
in Athenian art, the sexual nature of the pursuit and its futility are suggested by
one of the two silens in pursuit of the goddess (identified as such by her polos
hat); he gives up the chase, turns to look at the viewer, and begins to masturbate.14
In red-figure vase-painting of around 520 and later, relations between
silens and nymphs are less cordial and more hostile than in earlier black-figure
vase-painting. Now the silens find themselves in a two-fold predicament: not
only are they subject to uncontrollable sexual desire, as they have been since
their first appearance in black-figure, but also their former occasional partners,
the nymphs, are now no longer willing to accommodate them at all. The collision
of irrepressible male desire and unbreakable female resistance is the subject of
many innovative vase-paintings of this period, such as the one by the Goluchow
Painter in which the silen has hold of the foot of the nymph and she is yanking
his beard (fig. 10).15 Those images stand in contrast to the many red-figure
13. Scenes of silens actually engaging in sexual intercourse are rare in vase-painting. The few
surviving examples include: Fig. 3: Florence 3773 and Berlin 1711, neck amphora, ABV 95,8,
Castellani Painter, Beazley Archive vase no. 310008. Fig. 14a: Würzburg L164, cup, Chalkidean
black-figure, ca. 525 , Furtwängler and Reichhold 1900–1925: 1, pl. 41; Langlotz 1932: pls.
26–27. See also Vienna IV 3577, Caeretan hydria, LIMC 8, pl. 537 Mainades 54. On Cologne AI
296, amphora, near the Castellani Painter, Berger 1993: 229–32, a silen and nymph appear to be
engaging in “intercrural” intercourse. On Brussels A 715, neck amphora, ABV 103,109, Kyllenios
Painter, Kluiver 1992: 84–85, figs. 17–22, a nymph (affiliated with Dionysos—note ivy crown)
appears to be giving a silen a hand-job. On Louvre C 10519, neck amphora, ABV 102,95, Timiades
Painter, Kluiver 1995: 96 fig. 41, a silen is on the point of receiving a similar service from a female
figure, but her status—nymph or mortal woman—is uncertain, because the other male figures in the
image are men, not silens. For another mixed orgy of men, women, and silens, in which—perhaps
significantly—the silens watch but do not engage in sexual intercourse, see Copenhagen 57 (Chr
VIII 323), neck amphora, Prometheus Painter, CVA Copenhagen 3, pl. 101,1a, Lund and Rasmussen
1995: 140. Compare Würzburg L252, amphora, ABV 315,1, Painter of Würzburg 252, Langlotz
1932: pl. 69, a much later vase that depicts what appears to be rare occurrence in the lives of the
silens, group sex with a willing nymph. As Berger 1993: 232 notes, the representation of silens
and nymphs engaged in sexual intercourse is rarer in Tyrrhenian vase-painting than that of human
(or seemingly human) couples engaged in the act.
14. Oxford 1934.353, ABV 70,8, Sandal Painter, Haspels 1936: pl. 5,2. Haspels 1936: 20
suggested that the goddess is Hera. Compare London E 65, cup, ARV 2 370,13, Brygos Painter,
LIMC 3, pl. 64 Babakchos 1, on which the goddess pursued by the silens is identified as Hera by an
inscription. The pursuit of Hera by the silens occurs also, it seems, on the Archaic metopes from
the Heraion at Foce del Sele: see Kossatz-Deissmann 1988: 696–97. One possible narrative context
for the attack on Hera is the return of Hephaistos.
15. Fig. 10: Ferrara 898 (T. 323), calyx krater, ARV 2 271,1, Painter of Goluchow 37, CVA
Ferrara 1, pl. 15,1. See also Munich 2654, cup, ARV 2 462,47, Makron, Kunisch 1997: pl. 114 no.
340, on which a nymph uses the spiky end of her thyrsos against the genitalia of a desirous silen.
The explanation of the change in receptivity to the desires of the silens on the part of nymphs is
: “I Let Go My Force Just Touching Her Hair”
281
vase-paintings in which gods pursue mortal girls, because nothing in the latter
images suggests that the gods will not get what they want.16 The heightened
frustration for the silens resulting from their lack of physical authority and the
abstemiousness of the nymphs manifests itself in a new, very popular image of
the silens, that of the silen creeping up on a nymph as she sleeps.17 The imagery
suggests that the silens have resigned themselves to never having intimate contact
with those girls when they are awake. Their frustration at the inaccessibility of
the nymphs is beautifully epitomized on a fragmentary hydria attributed to the
Kleophrades Painter (fig. 11).18 On the right, a nymph sleeping quietly on a rock;
on the left, having given up hope for the girl, a silen relieves himself, looking
up to the sky, uttering a climactic “[I see] two suns.” In this period of Athenian
vase-painting, the few successful liaisons between silens and female figures are
with women who may be courtesans. The images are humorous because they
suggests that a creature of mythical stature, a close associate of the god Dionysos,
must resort to sex-for-money with a mortal professional in order to satisfy his
needs.19 Even in this series of images, in contrast to the many images of male
symposiasts forcing themselves on courtesans, the silens are not always successful
having their way with girls. On a cup in Karlsruhe, a courtesan punches a silen
in the nose.20
In Athenian vase-painting, sexuality is a force that silens cannot control, a
need that they cannot completely satisfy, and an activity for which they could
not find enough appropriate partners. In this respect, the sexuality of the silens
differs significantly from the ideals embraced by Greek men of culture in the
Archaic period. As Otto Brendel nicely put it, “[the silens] have not entirely
made the grade of civilized behavior.”21 Their lack of self-control is a lack of
enkrateia or sōphrosyne, the balance of mind and action, the restraint, that was
epitomized in the gnomic expression, “nothing in excess.”22 In Theognis, being
not simple but also not crucial to the theme of this paper: for explanations, see Hedreen 1994: 63–69,
with further references. Add Moraw 1998: 116–20.
16. For a survey of such scenes, see Kaempf-Dimitriadou 1979.
17. For examples, see Caskey and Beazley 1931–1963: 2: 96–99. To Beazley’s list, add: Malibu
86.AE.607, cup, Onesimos, GVGettyMus 5 (1991): 43 fig. 2a; Bremen, private, cup, circle of
Onesimos, GVGettyMus 4 (1989): 89 fig. 2, Schöne 1987: pl. 20; Malibu 81.AE.216D, AM 107
(1992): pls. 26,1, and 27,1. Compare Gravisca 73/10683 and 73/11895, cup, Painter of the Paris
Gigantomachy, Huber 1999: 65–66 no. 236: a silen spying on a nymph bathing at a spring in the
mountains.
18. Malibu 85.AE.188, Kleophrades Painter, GVGettyMus 5 (1991): 142 fig. 5, Lissarrague
2000.
19. Boston 08.30a, plate, ARV 2 135, wider circle of the Nikosthenes Painter, AntK 12 (1969):
pl. 10,1 and 3. Compare Milan, Mus. Civ. 265, cup, near Epiktetos, CVA Milan 1, pl. 3,1–2: that the
woman is a courtesan is suggested by her sakkos, nudity, and apparent willingness to accommodate
the silen’s desire.
20. Karlsruhe inv. 63/104, ARV 2 1700,12ter, Phintias, CVA Karlsruhe 3, pls. 26–27.
21. Brendel 1970: 16.
22. Dover 1973: 62, 64–65; Dover 1978: 97. For the Greek terms, see Foucault 1985: 63–65.
282
Volume 25 / No. 2 / October 2006
unable or unwilling to control one’s libido receives a negative interpretation.23
In Theognis 1326, the narrator prays to Aphrodite for sōphrosyne when his peace
of mind is disturbed by sexual desire. In effect, what Theognis dreads is being
in a situation like that of the silens: overpowered by desire and unable to satisfy
it.24 The inability of the silens to force themselves on women stands in contrast
to the self-presentation of the narrator in Anakreon fragment 417 PMG, who
asserts his capability of “breaking” a “Thracian filly” and implies that she remains
unmolested due chiefly to his own restraint.25 The lack of modesty about genitalia
and sexual activity also puts the silens at odds with prevailing morality, which
was embodied in the concept of aidōs, and according to which those things ought
to be kept out of sight. Compare Pindar (Pyth. 9.26–41): having caught sight of
the nymph Kyrene alone and out of doors, Apollo asks Cheiron if it would be
appropriate to rape her on the spot; Cheiron responds that “both gods and humans
alike shy from engaging openly for the first time in sweet love.”26 A similar
modesty (αÊδοØ) characterizes the refusal of the goddesses to be eyewitnesses to
the adultery of Ares and Aphrodite, whom Hephaistos caught in flagrante in his
bed (Hom. Od. 8.324).27 In contrast, in most representations of silens sodomizing
donkeys or mules (e.g., fig. 4), and in many representations of their self-enjoyment
(e.g., figs. 1, 2), the silen looks toward the viewer, which indicates that the creature
is well aware of having an audience for his action.
Masturbation, as Lissarrague has noted, associates the silens with stereotypes
about slaves.28 In Aristophanes, for example, references to masturbation, with
the exception of Clouds 734, pertain to foreigners or slaves.29 Its association
with slaves rather than men of power is nicely illustrated by a short speech in
Aristophanes’ Frogs, in which Dionysos envisions the following role-reversal
between himself and his slave: “well, it would be ludicrous, wouldn’t it, if
Xanthias, a slave, was lying on his back on a Milesian coverlet and kissing a
dancing-girl, and then asking for a jerry, and I was gazing at him and clutching
my bean. . . .”30 The slave must satisfy himself because he does not have the power,
status, or money to secure the services of a dancing girl. Several vase-paintings
23. Edmunds 1988: 82. For the negative characterization of excessive sexual activity in other
ancient sources, see Foucault 1985: 44–45.
24. See Edmunds 1988: 81–81 and Theognis 1353–56.
25. On this poem, see Stehle 1997: 252.
26. Trans. after Race 1997b. On the Greek notion of shame, see Ferrari 1990; Williams 1993:
78. See also Dover 1973: 60.
27. Among heroes, even businesslike men such as Odysseus, there is shame in revealing
themselves to women: see Hom. Od. 6.129 and 221–22. See also 19.34448. Compare also Hdt.
1.8: as Gyges says, “with the removal of the chiton, a woman is also stripped of her αÊδ¸̋.”
28. Lissarrague 1990b: 57; Lissarrague 2000.
29. This was pointed out by Henderson 1991: 220. Compare Dover 1973: 71.
30. Ar. Frogs 542–45, trans. after Sommerstein 1996. Compare Ar. Knights 24–29. Compare
also the emphatic juxtaposition of the silen—gripping his phallus and surprising two girls at a
well—and the naked old male slave on Berlin V. I. 3228, ca. 500 , CVA Berlin 7, pls. 28 and
29,1–2. The image suggests that the girls are inaccessible to those types of male figures through two
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283
(e.g., figs. 1, 12) depict silens whose orientation to the viewer is emphatically
frontal: faces and torsos oriented directly toward the spectator, with the legs spread
so as to reveal fully their massive sexual equipment.31 The squatting posture taken
by the silens so often in scenes of their self-enjoyment is also the posture most
often taken by slaves or laborers. In one image, the two motifs or ideas are
brought together: a squatting silen, shown frontally with respect to the orientation
of its body to the viewer, with a large but flaccid phallus, is in close proximity
to the artist’s signature, “Sosias epoiesen.” Irma Wehgartner proposed that the
artist Sosias saw himself in the silen, whose squatting position is familiar from
many other representations of artisans.32 The size of the equipment of the silens
marks them as vulgar or, at the very least, out of fashion. Contrast the description
of one ideal athletic male body in Aristophanes’ Clouds (1011–15): “you will
always have a rippling chest, radiant skin, broad shoulders, a wee tongue, a
grand rump, and a petite dick.”33 Finally, the general heterosexual orientation of
the silens suggests that they are ignorant of the refined pederastic culture of the
aristocracy.34
How is one to account for the inexhaustible but also often ineffective sexuality
of the silens? Lissarrague acknowledged that there are a few superhuman aspects
to the sexuality of the silens as it is manifested in art. The frequent image of the
silen with a flute-case hanging from his phallus, as we might hang a strap over
one shoulder, and the remarkable image of a silen balancing a heavy kantharos on
the tip of his erect penis, suggest that the silens’ equipment possesses powers not
possessed by the genitalia of ordinary men.35 But he emphasized that many of
the images are designed to suggest that the exuberant sexuality of the silens is
humorous, not august. The image of the squatting, frontal silen with the quite
oversized but flaccid penis on a neck amphora in Berlin by the BMN Painter
is not an awe-inspiring image of a semi-divine stud.36 The sexuality of the
silens is primarily a bestial sexuality, close to that of animals. This is shown
on the Fran ois vase (fig. 13), for example, by the close visual physiological
different visuals means, through the flaccid condition of the slave’s genitalia and the autoeroticism of
the silen.
31. E.g., fig. 12: San Antonio 87.58, neck amphora, BMN Painter, Shapiro, Picón and Scott
1995: 94–95 no. 44; Berlin F 1671, neck amphora, ABV 226,2, BMN Painter, LIMC 8, pl. 764 Silenoi
112. See Lissarrague 1990b: 56.
32. Berlin F 2315, ARV 2 21,2, Wehgartner 1997.
33. Trans. after Henderson 1998. The passage was singled out for notice by Lissarrague 1990b:
56. On the size and shape of desirable male genitalia, see Dover 1978: 125–26.
34. For the elite associations of pederasty, see Hubbard 1998. Compare Dover 1973: 69. For
one view of the importance of the symposium in the formation of Greek pederastic culture, see
Bremmer 1990. Some insight into the anxiety attendant upon too close an association with women in
a sympotic situation can be gained from the self-reflections of Pindar in a skolion, Pind. frag. 122.13–
15 Maehler, text, translation, and commentary in Kurke 1996: 51 and passim. For the disparagement
of men devoted exclusively to heterosexual love, compare also Pindar frag. 123 Maehler.
35. Lissarrague 1990b: 58.
36. Berlin F 1671, above, n. 31, comparable in everything but flaccidity to fig. 12.
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similarities between the ithyphallic mule carrying Hephaistos and the silens
following behind: the silens have not only the hindquarters, legs, and hooves
of the mule but also, significantly, its super-sized phallus.37 Lissarrague noted
that this aspect of the donkeys sacrificed by the Hyperboreans to Apollo—their
Õβριν æρθÐαν, or “outrageous erectness”—makes the god laugh (Pind. Pyth.
10.36).38 Lissarrague concluded that the characterization of the silens’ sexuality
has significant negative connotations: “large genitals are not the attribute of
the superman. . . . It would also be a mistake to see in the satyrs’ ithyphallicism a
positive sign of hypervirility. Their extraordinary sexual energy brings them closer
to animals than to men, and it provokes laughter, it is in fact hardly enviable, for it
devalues them.”39
Lissarrague’s assessment of the meaning of the silen’s sexual activity—that it
is laughable rather than awe-inspiring—accords with his broader interpretation
of the iconography of silens in general, advanced in a number of articles, viz.
that the silens constituted an anti-type to mortal Athenians. “This race of satyrs
is not an exaggerated reflection of the world of men, but rather a counter-model
to humanity.”40 That is a fundamentally different conception of the silens from,
for example, one offered long ago by Nietzsche: “[T]he satyr was the archetype of
man, the embodiment of his highest and most intense emotions, the ecstatic reveler
enraptured by the proximity of his god, the sympathetic companion in whom the
suffering of the god is repeated, one who proclaims wisdom from the very heart
of nature, a symbol of the sexual omnipotence of nature which the Greeks used
to contemplate with reverent wonder.”41 Archaic Greek vase-paintings of silens
support Lissarrague’s interpretation far more than they support Nietzsche’s. But
the vase-paintings, at least the ones we have considered so far, do not foreclose
the question, did the painters or users of the vases ever see anything of themselves
or each other in the silens depicted on the vessels? If the exuberance, ambition,
and failure of the sexual activities of the silens were regarded by the painters and
viewers as humorous, what sort of laughter did the sight elicit? Was it scornful
laughter of the sort one would direct at a person with whom one felt nothing
whatsoever in common, or with whom one would want to have nothing to do?
Or was it partially sympathetic laughter, the kind of laughter with which one
responds to the sight of a person in an embarrassing situation, but a situation in
which one could imagine oneself?
37. Florence 4209, volute krater, ABV 76,1, Kleitias and Ergotimos, LIMC 8, pl. 747 Silenoi 22.
See Lissarrague 1990b: 54.
38. Lissarrague 1990b: 55.
39. Lissarrague 1990b: 56.
40. Lissarrague 1990b: 66. Compare Lissarrague 1990a: 58: on molded head vases, the “choices
[of heads] seem to have some meaning. . . . One finds only women, both male and female blacks,
Asians, and satyrs. . . . There is just one type that does not exist: the ‘ordinary’ white male. It is as
if the anthropology of such molded vases was meant to define the opposite of the Greek drinker
and to hold up to him all the things that he was not.”
41. Nietzsche 1967: 61 (section 8).
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285
The two different forms of humor may be found already articulated in the
Iliad. In Book 2, Thersites attacks Agamemnon verbally, intending, it seems, to
drive a wedge between the leader and the rest of the Achaians. He was in the habit
of reviling the kings—usually Achilles and Odysseus, in this case, Agamemnon:
“the words in his mind were disordered and many, and not according to logic . . .
but whatever he thought would be funny (γελοÐϊον) to the Argives” (2.212–16).
His disruptiveness and deviation from norms of behavior seem paralleled in his
physical appearance, for he is explicitly characterized, and described at unusual
length, as the ugliest (αÒσχιστο̋) of the Achaians (2.216). His verbal assault
backfires: the Achaians laugh at Thersites when Odysseus in turn assaults him
physically, but they are troubled at heart (2.222–23, 270); the best that can be said
of the function of humor in that episode is that it managed to unite the Achaians in
opposition to Thersites.42 Humor functions in a very different way in Book 1.
The situation is roughly the reverse: an assembly, this time, of gods, is already
embroiled in a dispute, between Zeus and Hera, and the argument has reached
a point at which Zeus has threatened Hera with physical violence. The gods are
troubled. Hephaistos intervenes by describing to his mother his titanic humiliation
the last time he tried to protect her from Zeus—this causes Hera to smile (1.595).
Then he pours nektar for each god and goddess in the company in turn, and the
gods burst into laughter when they see the smith god hobbling through the hall
(1.599–600). It seems likely that the sight caused the gods to laugh not merely
because Hephaistos was a cripple—not merely for reasons of schadenfreude—but,
more importantly, because he was playing a role not in accordance with his stature:
a major god hustling around like a servant, an ugly but very powerful figure taking
on the role of the beautiful but inconsequential Hebe or Ganymede.43 By mocking
himself, making the gods laugh at him, Hephaistos restored harmony among the
gods in such a way that he himself is included in its good feeling.
To return to the vase-paintings of silens, the question is not simply, would the
painters and users of the vases have laughed at the silens or with them, because
the sexuality of the silens departs so significantly from what was expected of
free Athenian men. Today it seems unlikely that Athenian men ever admired
or emulated the sexual conduct of the silens, as depicted on the vases, without
any reservation. But the opposite point of view—that persons looking at vasepaintings of silens never could have seen anything of themselves in the activities
of those creatures or never could have behaved like them, even for the sake
of humor—is not a foregone conclusion. The fact is that the kind of sources
that would clarify definitively the manner in which a vase-painter or viewer in
Archaic period assessed the imagery—a body of newspaper reviews, letters from
artists, and diary accounts of encounters with art—does not exist. It is necessary
to address the question indirectly.
42. For a recent study of this passage, see Marks 2005.
43. Kirk 1985: 113–14.
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In this paper, I rely primarily on formal analysis. I examine first the manner in
which some vase-paintings of silens present themselves to their viewers. They do
so in such a way as to invite the viewer to envision a silen (sometimes perhaps a
nymph) in the viewer’s place; or rather, invite the viewer to enter imaginatively a
world populated by silens and nymphs. The purpose of such a pictorial conception
may have been a humorous, not a serious one. The point may have been to make
the viewer or his fellow drinkers laugh at the idea that he had found himself in
the company of silens and nymphs. Nevertheless, such a pictorial conception
offers a kind of bridge across the conceptual divide between the psychological
world of men and that of silens. In the second part of my paper, I examine iambic
poetry of the Archaic period. That body of poetry offers close parallels to the
imagery of silens in terms of degree of obscenity or explicitness about sexual
activity, lack of self-control on the part of the participants, and lack of complete
success on the part of men. Iambic poetry also invites comparison with vaseimagery because it appears that the poetry, like the vases, circulated primarily
in the quasi-ritual drinking occasion known as the symposium. Moreover, some
iambic poetry is structured formally so that any singers of the songs claimed
to be the persons involved in the often-less-than-triumphant sexual narratives
that make up much of the subject matter of iambos. Like the vase-paintings that
visually invite the user of the vase to see himself (or, rarely perhaps, herself) in
the position of a silen or nymph, the poetry led the singer to adopt temporarily
the persona of a figure usually different in character or temperament. The effect of
such poetic role-playing was presumably humorous to the friends of the singer,
and perhaps humorous and/or embarrassing to the performer. The function of
such role playing may have been similar, roughly speaking, to the function of
Hephaistos’ performance as lowly cup bearer in the feast of the gods, to encourage
harmony and good feeling in the drinking group by mocking oneself through the
playing of a ridiculous role. But the very existence of such involved modes
of sympotic entertainment suggests that it would be wrong to see the function
of vase-painting or poetry in the symposium as exclusively one of inculcating
noble qualities within the drinking group and emphatically excluding from it any
possibility of deviance or experimentation with alternatives. Indeed, the function
of iambic poetry was once understood to be principally the shaming of a personal
or public enemy, the driving out of the community of a person with undesirable
characteristics. But more recent research has shown that the function of iambic
poetry is more complex and less monolithic than that. Third, I consider briefly the
Classical Athenian dramatic genre of satyr-play. Any claim that Athenian men
never conceived of their sphere of thought or action as overlapping with that of the
silens must reckon with the fact that, throughout the fifth century at least, and
perhaps much earlier, Athenian men dressed up and performed as those mythical
creatures. In this paper, my interest in satyr-play does not lie in the possibility
that it influenced the iconography of the silens in vase-painting. The dominant
visual motifs concerning the silens’ sexuality were formed long before satyr-play
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287
in its classical form was incorporated into the festival of Dionysos Eleuthereus.
Rather, my interest is in the relatively recent work of several scholars on the
question of how the audience may have responded to the silens of satyr-play. One
interpretation holds that the behavior of the satyr chorus would have been felt
to be completely reprehensible, that the satyr chorus would have constituted a
model of society antithetical to the ideal. A more recent interpretation went in
the opposite direction, suggesting that the values and actions of the satyr chorus
served as a wholly positive reaffirmation of male sexuality. As Mark Griffith has
convincingly argued, the most productive and least problematic interpretation is
one that accepts neither a wholly negative nor a wholly positive assessment of the
actions and plot-function of the satyr chorus. Rather, certain formal features of
the genre and some characteristics of the silens made it relatively easy for the
audience to identify with the point of view of the chorus, while others reminded
the audience that there were better role models than those relatively ineffectual
creatures. Griffith’s complex and nuanced analysis of the function of the satyr
chorus within satyr-play dovetails, in part at least, with the response that some
vase-paintings of silens invite.
To be fair to the reader, I emphasize that my principal concern in this paper is
not Greek male sexuality in the Archaic period, the institution of the symposium,
or the chorus of satyr-play, but rather the function of the ubiquitous imagery of
silens in Archaic Athenian vase-painting, how vase-painters and users of the vases
saw themselves in relation to those creatures.
SILENS AND INVOLVED SPECTATORSHIP:
THE EYE CUP AND THE FRONTAL FACE
One particular formal characteristic of some vase-paintings of silens, including a few very obscene representations, appears to advance the proposition that
the person looking at the vase-painting belongs among those creatures. Those
vase-paintings employ the frontal face of the silen to achieve this effect. As I have
argued in detail elsewhere, in some vase-paintings, the figures within the painted
decoration, who make eye contact with the viewer, expect to find a member of
their company, a figure from their mythical world, in the viewer’s position. In
this way, the painted decoration encourages the viewer to take up mentally the
role of a mythical figure.44 To synopsize the argument, I begin with a class of
vases that has already been associated with role playing. In the second half of
the sixth century , cups from the so-called Chalkidean workshop of Archaic
Greek pottery always include a pair of eyes on each exterior side. They usually
include a nose and ears as well (e.g., the Phineus cup, fig. 14a–b). In Archaic
Athenian vase-painting, there is a comparable series of cups bearing a pair of
44. Hedreen forthcoming-a.
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eyes, usually also a nose, and occasionally ears.45 Possibly the earliest extant eye
cup is the one signed by the innovative Athenian potter Exekias and dated around
535 or 530 .46 The eyes have sometimes been understood to be apotropaic in
function, but there are numerous difficulties with that interpretation in the specific
case of eye cups, as Didier Martens among other has recently shown.47 For my
purposes, the most important point is that the apotropaic interpretation does not
explain the decoration of the eye cup in its entirety. The Attic eye cups often
include a nose and the Chalkidean cups usually include not only a nose but also
ears. Eyes, ears, and nose together, arranged symmetrically on the exterior of the
cup, make up a frontal face or a mask.
Moreover, the face on many if not all eye cups is not generic. As Gloria
Ferrari emphasized, there are at least two specific types of figures represented
on Chalkidean eye cups. On many cups (e.g., fig. 14a), horse ears indicate that
the face is that of a silen. On others, human ears with earrings (fig. 14b), often
together with a form of eye lacking a pronounced tear duct, suggest a female
face, most likely that of the female counterpart to the silen, the nymph.48 Silen
ears also occur on Athenian cups that imitate Chalkidean models in shape and
decoration, the so-called “Chalkidizing” cups. The most important example is
a cup in Houston signed by the influential Athenian potter Nikosthenes (fig. 15).49
Other characteristics of Athenian eye cups have been understood as signs that the
frontal face is that of a silen, or that more than one type of figure is represented by
them. Fran oise Frontisi-Ducroux observed that the snub nose often represented
on Attic eye cups resembles the typical squashed nose of a silen.50 Jette Keck
suggested that, at Athens, the handles of the eye cups may have been understood
to be the ears of the painted face.51 The pointy profile of the upturned handles of
the cups might specifically have called to mind the pointy ear of the silen. Norbert
Kunisch emphasized that, on Athenian eye cups, there is more than one type of
45. For the Chalkidean series, see Rumpf 1927: 35–39, 125–26; Keck 1988: 64–79. The
Athenian eye cup was studied in detail by Jordan 1988. For the relationship between the two series,
see also Jackson 1976: 61.
46. Munich 2044, type A cup, ABV 146,21, Erika Simon, Max Hirmer, and Albert Hirmer, Die
griechischen Vasen, 2nd ed. (Munich, 1981), pls. XXIV, 73. On the position of the cup within the
series of Athenian eye cups, see Gloria Ferrari 1986:12; Jordan 1988:7–9.
47. Martens 1992: 332–41. See also Ferrari 1986: 11; Kunisch 1990: 20; Frontisi-Ducroux
1995: 101.
48. Ferrari 1986: 14. For the argument that the face with human ears and earrings is that of
a nymph, see Rumpf 1927: 111; Kunisch 1990: 24–25. See especially Steinhart 1995: 61–62, who
argued persuasively that the decorative program of the Phineus cup (fig. 14a–b) in particular suggests
that the female counterpart to the frontal silen on Chalkidean eye cups is a nymph. Ferrari argued that
Dionysos is another possible candidate for the identity of the faces on some eye cups.
49. Houston, De Ménil Foundation, 70–50-DJ, ca. 530–525 , Tosto 1999: 144–45, pl. 143,
no. 156. For other Athenian eye cups with silen ears, see Jordan 1988: 317–31; Keck 1988: 75–76,
284–88.
50. Frontisi-Ducroux 1995: 101.
51. Keck 1988: 70.
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289
eye, the masculine as well as feminine eye, which suggests that the face of the
Athenian eye cup represented several specific types of faces, such as silens and
nymphs, and not merely the human face in the abstract.52
Ferrari’s recognition that eye cups represent the faces of particular types of
characters was an important step in advancing the understanding of the cups,
because it encouraged their consideration in connection with the practice of
masking. John Boardman arrived at a similar conclusion via a different route:
“consider one raised to the lips of a drinker: the eyes cover his eyes, the handles
his ears, the gaping underfoot his mouth.”53 Kunisch argued that the way in which
the eye cup was used was fundamental to the meaning of the face depicted on it.
When the cup was used as intended, i.e., for drinking, it became a veritable mask.
And because the face on the cup was that of a specific mythical Dionysiac being,
the eye cup transformed the symposiast, for his fellow symposiasts watching him
lift the bowl up to his face, into a silen or nymph.54
The ability of the eye cup to invite the viewer to temporarily identify with
a character from the representational world exceeds those moments when the cup
passes in front of the face of a drinker. The full significance of the frontality of
the image—of the eye contact that the represented figure makes with us—has
not been fully appreciated. The gaze of the frontal face is unremitting enough to
suggest that the represented figure is actively looking for someone.55 The eye cup
does not provide a pictorial space within which the watchful frontal face can find
what it is looking for—the face is coterminus with shape of the vase. The space
in which the represented figure must look is the space occupied by the viewer
of the cup. And because it is possible to identify the types of figure represented by
the frontal face as that of a silen or nymph, the viewer can make an educated
guess as to who the represented face is hoping to find in the viewer’s space. In
art, silens and nymphs are most often seen in the company of each other or their
god. One can guess that a silen or nymph, looking attentively at something, is
most likely gazing at another silen or nymph. What the eye cup invites us, the
viewers of the vase, to do is to adjust our response to the frontal face as if we
were the type of figure that the frontal face expects to see before it.56
52. Kunisch 1990: 25.
53. Boardman 1976: 288.
54. Kunisch 1990.
55. On variations in the quality of attentiveness of figures in art, see the schematic discussion in
Riegl 1999: 74–80.
56. Hedreen forthcoming-a. The argument is similar to the analysis of certain Dutch group
portraits by Riegl 1999, and relies on the distinction made by Wollheim 1987: 101–85 between the
spectator of a picture and the spectator in the picture. The distinction is especially important in
the case of eye cups. When an eye cup was lifted to the face of the drinker, and its painted face
covered his actual face, one might plausibly say that the painted figure on the cup entered the space
of the drinker’s companions, and that it was part of the intention of the potter and/or vase-painter that
the cup create such an impression when used for drinking. But when the eye cup is not held up
to the face of drinker, its painted face invites a different kind of response, one that accords with
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The interpretation of the eye cup just summarized, that it employs eye contact
to invite the viewer to adopt the persona of a silen or nymph, is supported by
the pictorial conception of some vase-paintings of silens shown en face or with
a frontal face, who also make eye contact with the viewer. After the gorgon,
the silen is the most frequently represented type of en face figure in Archaic
Athenian vase-painting (e.g., figs. 1, 2, 4, 6, 9, 11, 12). The first appearance of
the en face silen in art coincides with the first appearance of the silen as a visual
motif: the motif is as fundamental to the conception of the silen in art as is the
creature’s exuberant and immodest sexuality. The great frequency with which the
silen is shown en face is often rightly understood as a means of conveying to the
viewer the heightened emotional state of the juiced-up silens.57 Frontisi-Ducroux
articulated how that idea is conveyed formally: the en face figure disengages from
visual interaction with the other figures in the image, and in that way suggests
that his attention is elsewhere.58 As she acknowledged, however, every frontal
face also potentially contains an address to the viewer.59 It seems very likely that
the original viewers of vase-paintings would, in some cases, have seen someone
very like himself reflected in the en face figure. The likelihood is greatest, she
suggested, in cases of en face figures such as symposiasts or warriors, in which the
painted figure’s identity was most similar to that of the original viewer, viz. the
symposiast.60 Some vase-paintings of silens, however, possess a marked visual
address to an unrepresented silen whose location, as determined by the actions
of the depicted figure(s), is more or less that of the viewer. That form of address is
an invitation for the user or viewer of the vase to identify with the undepicted
silen, despite the differences in lifestyles and ontological status.61 The depiction
of three masturbating silens on the aryballos by Nearchos (fig. 2), for example,
a very early representation of a frontal-faced silen, is dominated by a silen who
faces directly toward the viewer. To either side, an identical silen is depicted in
profile view. The silens to right and left face each other and are, in a sense, mirror
images. The symmetry between those two figures encourages one to envision
a similar front-to-back symmetry: who does the en face silen see as he looks
Wollheim’s notion of a spectator in the picture. When the cup is not being used as a literal mask, the
painted frontal mythological figure does not enter the space of viewer; rather, the beholder is invited
to identify imaginatively with a figure within the mythical space of Dionysos and his followers.
57. E.g., Greifenhagen 1929: 73; Korshak 1987: 11.
58. Frontisi-Ducroux 1995: 81–97.
59. Frontisi-Ducroux 1995: 19–20, 88, 90.
60. Frontisi-Ducroux 1995: 88–89.
61. The frontal gorgoneion operates in an analogous way: recognizing that the gorgoneion was
created by Perseus when he encountered the monster Medusa suggests that the gaze of the gorgoneion
is directed at her destroyer. Perseus has caused her gaze to be fixed forever, through rigor mortis,
as it was the moment when she encountered him. The hero is not present within the narrative plane of
most representations of the frontal gorgoneion, where protagonists are almost invariably found in
Greek narrative art. The direction of the monster’s attention suggests that Perseus is to be found
where we, the viewers of the image, are located. See Hedreen forthcoming-a. Such an interpretation
of the gorgoneion was first proposed in the innovative essay of Mack 2002.
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291
directly out of the vase-painting but, like his brother on the left or right, another
self-satisfying silen? The coincidence between the position of the unseen silen
whose presence is implied by the pictorial composition, on the one hand, and the
position of the viewer, on the other, seems to invite the viewer to imagine himself
in the role of the solipsistic silen. Other vase-paintings may invite the viewer to
see himself in a different but equally distasteful position: on the neck amphora
by the BMN Painter (fig. 12), for example, the prodigiously endowed silen has
been oriented completely frontally, toward the viewer, and the space around him
has been emptied of other figures. There is no one within the represented world
away from whom he is turning his attention.62 Either the viewer is in the position
of the object of desire that has whipped up the silen into his present state of
excitement, or the viewer is presented with an image uncomfortably like a mirror
image of himself. As noted earlier, the squatting position of the silens resembles
the position often taken by slaves or artisans in Greek art, but that association
does not disallow or negate an emphatic address to the viewer; on the contrary, it
arguably heightens the potential humor if the viewer took this image as a reflection
of himself: not only is he so lacking in self-control as to satisfy himself in a visibly
open manner, but he is low class to boot.
What might have been the intention behind the use of forms of engaged
spectatorship in connection with this kind of subject matter? One possibility
is that vase-painters called attention to their own inventiveness by creating a
pictorial conception that drew the viewer into the world of the silens and nymphs
and suggested that the viewer behaved like those creatures. Viewers might have
laughed with admiration at the artist’s cleverness in putting them in such a
seemingly embarrassing situation. Another possibility is that such vase-paintings
were employed as jokes at the expense of the viewer. A symposiast’s friends,
for example, might have passed him an eye cup and laughed at him when they
saw him don the visage of a silen or nymph. In all of those cases, the viewer might
have recognized the position the vase-painting put him in without accepting the
identification with the depicted silen (or nymph) as meaningful or significant in
any way. But detached or aloof amusement is not the only possible response to
the vases inviting engaged spectatorship. Kunisch, for example, envisioned the
eye cups as transforming all the members of a symposium into members of the
mythical Dionysiac thiasos, a more psychologically involved and less detached
response to the imagery. And the ubiquitous en face silen may have served as
a frequent reminder that membership in the thiasos was always open. In any
event, the imagery is sophisticated because the vase-painters coupled a developed
iconography of the abjectness of the silens with a pictorial conception that worked
against the viewer’s ability to distance himself from those characters.
62. Compare Berlin 1671, above, n. 31.
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MALE SEXUALITY IN IAMBIC POETRY
In what survives of Archaic Greek culture, the closest parallels for the
explicitness of the silens’ sexuality and sexual activity in visual art are to be
found in iambic poetry of the seventh and sixth centuries , above all in
the poetry of Archilochos and Hipponax.63 Sexually explicit narratives were
not limited to iambic poetry, but they appear to have been common only in
iambos, and to have occurred only sporadically in other genres.64 Like certain
other bodily functions and physical activities, such as eating, sex seems to have
been glossed over as quickly as possible in epic and other serious poetry.65
In iambic poetry, however, the number of overt references to sex organs or
sexual activity is remarkable, given the skimpiness of the surviving texts; it
is a measure of the amount of attention paid to sex in this genre. Sometimes
the references to genitalia are blunt (σθη in Archil. frags. 25, 82, âπεÐσιον
in Archil. 40, possibly 67, τρµι̋ in Archil. 283 and Hipp. 114a), but often
they are more colorful: the penis is a “sausage,” “blind eel,” or “soft horn”;
the vagina is a “nightingale,” “sea urchin,” and possibly a “furrow”; the pubic
hair is “pennyroyal,” “myrtle,” or “meadow.”66 “Fig” is a particularly common
euphemism for the female pudenda.67 The most vivid and elaborate surviving
genital image, Archilochos fragment 43, compares the male human physiology
to that of an animal very closely related to the silens, the donkey, and appears
to describe a man with a libido comparable to that of the silens: δè οÉ σθη
. . . ¹στ' îνου Πριηνèω̋ κ λωνο̋ âπλ µυρεν æτρυγηφγου, “his phallus . . .
63. The fragments of the iambic poets are cited according to the numbers assigned in West 1998.
Translations are after Gerber 1999b, though with occasional modification.
64. One elegiac sexual narrative is Thgn. 265–66. Another example, Anakreon frag. 432 PMG,
is discussed below.
65. See Degani 1990: 51.
66. A convenient list of words in iambic poetry for genitalia or sex acts may be found in
Henderson 1991: 20–22, 243–44; a list of sexual metaphors in Burnett 1983: 74n.58. There is also a
general discussion of obscenity in Archilochos by Rankin 1977: 61–68. For “sausage,” λλ̋, see
Hipp. frag. 84. For “blind eels,” τυφλ̋ âγχèλυα̋, in Archil. frag. 189, see Gerber 1973: 107–109;
Bowie 1987: 17. For “soft horn,” παλäν κèρα̋, see Archil. frag. 247; see below for the possible
connotations of impotence. For “little nightingale,” see Archil. frag. 263 with the testimonium. For
the “sea urchin,” see below. On the “furrow,” îγµο̋, in Archil. frag. 188, compare the interpretations
of Bowie 1987: 15 (not obscene) and Brown 1995 (obscene). On the pennyroyal plant in Hipponax
frag. 84, see Henderson 1991: 134. Compare also Archil. frag. 32, “right through the myrtle spray.”
It is also possible that the “mountain glens” in Archil. 190 are not outdoors: see West 1974: 134;
Bowie 1987: 17; compare Hipp. frag. 2a: “Sindian fissure.”
67. On the connotations of “fig,” Êσχ̋, in Hipponax frag. 124, see Bartalucci 1964: 243–
50. Compare Archil. frag. 116: “good-bye to Paros and those figs and the life on the sea”; on
the metaphorical significance of those Parian figs, see Papademetriou 1974: 77–81. Compare also
Archil. 331, the attribution of which is not always accepted; for the symbolism of the fig tree, see
Buchheit 1960: 206–209. See also perhaps Archil. frag. 250, Archil. frag. 251, and Hipp. frag.
167 with the bibl. in Degani 1991: 234. On Euphronios’ calyx krater in Munich, 8935, ARV 2 1619,3,
Euphronios, Vierneisel 1967: 246; Immerwahr 1990: 64 no. 363, the aulos-girl is named Συκο̄,
or “fig.”
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swelled like that of a Prienian grain-fed breeding ass.”68 In the absence of the full
narrative context, it is unclear whether the size of the member or the quickness
with which it responded to the slightest stimulus is the point of the comparison.69
In either case, in this verse of Archilochos, as in most images of silens, we are
far from the dainty penises and σωφροσÔνη valued, it seems, by aristocratic
Greek men.
When references to sexual activity in iambic poetry contain enough contextual information to ascertain the tastes, morality, and self-control of the person
involved, they are, like those of the silens, less than exemplary. The lovely verse of
Archilochos, λλ' λλο̋ λλωι καρδÐην ÊαÐνεται, “different people are warmed at
heart by different things,” inviting expectations of lofty ideals, turns out to concern
most likely sexual preferences: Μελησ[νδρω]ι¤ σθη . . . βουκìλωι Φαλ[αγγ]ι¤ωι,
“for Melesa(nder) phallus . . . [the opposite] for the herdsman Phal(ang)ios.”70 In
three fragments of Archilochos (frags. 191, 193, and 196), the narrator has no
control over his sexual desire. In one (frag. 191), the noble language of epic is
employed to give form to a basic physical need: τοØο̋ γρ φιλìτητο̋ êρω̋ Íπä
καρδÐην âλυσθεÈ̋ πολλν κατ' χλÌν æµµτων êχευεν, κλèψα̋ âκ στηθèων
παλ̋ φρèνα̋, “for such a desire for sex coiled itself up under my heart, poured
a thick mist down over my eyes, and stole the weak wits from by breast.” Page
argued that not only the language but also the sentiment of the verses is wholly
traditional, but his epic comparanda for the spirit of the lines—Zeus’ reaction
to the eye-popping appearance of Hera sporting Aphrodite’s underwear (Hom.
Il. 14.315–16)—depicts Zeus at his least refined moment in epic.71 Of course,
being overpowered physically by love is described in Archaic poetry other than
iambic. Perhaps the most arresting articulation of the experience is Sappho’s
almost clinical description of the physiological affects of infatuation (frag. 31
Lobel-Page).72 It is perhaps indicative of the special character of iambic that,
whereas Sappho ends her account, it appears, with a resolution to endure her
affliction with self-restraint, Archilochos may follow a different path. If fragment
196 belongs to the opening lines of the extraordinary Cologne epode (discussed in
detail below), as the meter suggests, then Archilochos ends his admission of being
68. The reconstruction of the verse is not certain, because there are two sources for it and the
quotations are not identical. Some reconcile the quotations as a single fragment: see West 1974:
124. Others argue that there were two distinct references in the poetry of Archilochos to the stallion
donkey: see Bossi 1990: 132–35; Luppe 1995.
69. In quoting the fragment, Eustathios (on Hom. Od. 8.335 [1597.28]) called attention to
the word κ λωνο̋ as one of several meaning “lascivious”; but the word was also used of the beam
employed in a water swipe, which suggests that size may be the issue. See also LSJ s.v. and Henderson
1991: 20. For the lasciviousness of donkeys, compare Semonides frag. 7.43–49 and Lloyd-Jones
1975: 76; Hoffmann 1983: 62–64.
70. Frag. 25.2–4, on which, see Burnett 1983: 66; Clay 1986: 8.
71. See Page 1964: 138–39. On this fragment, see also Bowie 1987: 17–18.
72. See also, e.g., Ibykos frags. 286, 287 PMG, and, for Theognis, Edmunds 1988: 81.
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overpowered by desire with a detailed account of how he gave into his feelings
and satisfied his desire, not how he resisted it.
The lack of restraint of the characters in iambic erotic situations is exemplified
by the rushed and furtive quality of the action in a papyrus fragment of Hipponax,
even in its current mutilated condition:
âκδÔντε̋ α[
âδκνοµèν τε κφ[ιλèοµεν
διàκ θυρèων βλè[ποντε̋
µ ¡µεα̋ λβ[
γυµνοÌ̋ âρυ .[
êσπευδε δ' µ[àν
âγ° δ' âβÐνε[ον
frag. 84.9–16
“on the ground . . . with our clothes off . . . we were biting and kissing(?)
. . . looking through the doors . . . in case we were caught naked . . . she
was in a hurry . . . and I was having intercourse. . . .”73
In another fragment of Hipponax (frag. 70), we hear about τäν θεοØσιν âχθρäν
τοÜτον, ç̋ κατεδοÔση̋ τ¨̋ µητρä̋ âσκÔλευε τäν βρÔσσον, “this godforsaken
fellow who used to despoil his sleeping mother’s sea urchin,” which suggests a
rather profound lack of restraint or morality on the part of the main character.74 In
an infamous narrative of cuckoldry, Archilochos allegedly claimed that Deianeira
distracted Herakles with conversation so that the centaur Nessos would have
enough time to have his way with her while he transported her across the river.75
The idea of a centaur having consensual sex with a legendary heroine approximates
closely a sexual fantasy of the silens documented in vase-imagery (fig. 9 is a
comparable if not exact parallel).
In iambic poetry, male sexual activity is often less than triumphant. Hipponax
fragment 48, quoted in part above, in which the narrator describes lovingly and in
detail a sexual encounter with a woman, appears to end in coitus interruptus.76
The final image of the man in what remains of the poem is not one of extraordinary
virility: âγ° µàν ¹σπ[ερ û]υσ¦äν Éστι . . . σφζειν Íπèτ[ . . . ] φαλο¦υτ[, “I . . . like
a wrinkled sail.” In Archilochos’ fragment 252, we hear that “the sinews of [his]
phallus were ruptured.”77 In one or more poems (frags. 5, 6, and 10), Hipponax
73. On this poem, see Rosen 1988a: 37–39.
74. Incest is perhaps indicated also in Hipponax frag. 12 by the word µητροκοÐτη̋. For the
theme of incest in Hipponax, see Miralles and Pòrtulas 1988: 45–69. For a metaphorical, rather
than literal, reading of the word µητροκοÐτη̋, see Golden 1982.
75. Frag. 286. See Clay 1986: 17; Gentili 1988: 184, who follow Schneidewin in suggesting
that frag. 34, “we will not ferry you across the river without pay,” would fit the narrative context. For
reservations, see Gerber 1989.
76. West 1993: 120; Stehle 1997: 257.
77. Compare also Archil. frag. 222, “severed the sinews of (the middle) parts”; for the difficulties
with this text, see West 1974: 136.
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295
described practices associated with the ritual of scapegoating, and focussed in
particular on the flogging of the scapegoat’s penis with fig branches.78 Two
extraordinary poems of Hipponax appear to describe rituals for curing impotence.
Here is one:
â]λθ°ν δ' â̋ οÚ¤κ¦ον, συ꧵ινα δ[ει]π[ν σα̋,
καÈ τÀι κιµαÐωι τìν[δε] ûØνα φοινÐξα§[̋
âπιπτÔσα̋ τρÈ̋ καÈ τ[
]π' Âν âδèψατ' ±̋
frag.78.13–16
“going into his house he dined on mulberries,
and dyeing this [his face or his penis] red at the
nose with the juice he spat three times and . . .
masturbated.”79
Onanism is not something that many characters in Greek literature own up to, but
it is a practice that the silens flaunt in vase-imagery (e.g., figs. 1, 2, 11, 12). One
Archaic poem related to iambic poetry in meter and subject matter, the Margites,
widely attributed in antiquity to Homer, is also noteworthy for its untriumphant
male sexuality. In this poem, the hero, Margites, is characterized by an ignorance
so profound that he did not even know about sexual intercourse: “an idiot who
did not know about copulation.”80 His bride had to employ subterfuge in order
to effect the consummation of her marriage to him. It appears that he also got his
penis stuck in the neck of a chamber pot, though it is not clear whether this was
due to his ignorance about its capability of engorgement or to his use of the jug
to satisfy his newly acquired knowledge of his member’s sexual function (frag.
7). In any case, the image of the man with a vase over his penis is familiar from
vase-paintings (e.g., fig. 6) in which the silen’s use of the vase is due in part to
their lack of authority over women.
The fullest surviving iambic sexual narrative is the so-called Cologne epode—
it is missing only the initial lines.81 The poem is significant for my purposes
because it exemplifies, in a highly refined and subtle manner, the sort of reversal
of elite expectations of male sexual authority that characterized the Archaic visual
conception of the silens. The poem represents a conversation between an aroused
78. See esp. frag. 10. In defense of the manuscript reading θυµÀú, “manhood,” and on the
scapegoat generally, see Bremmer 1983: 300n.8 and passim. On the scapegoat in Hipponax, see
Rosen 1988b: 21–22; Miralles et al. 1988: 34–35, 133–36; Faraone 2004: 214–24.
79. Hipponax frags. 78 and 92; the quotation is from 78.13–16. On these fragments, see West
1974: 142–45; Miralles and Pòrtulas 1983: 42–43; Miralles et al. 1988: 9–21. Impotence may also be
implied in Archil. frag. 247, but see the brief discussion in Gerber 1991: 96–97.
80. Frag. 4, text and trans. in West 2003. Thanks to Mark Griffith for calling my attention to
the pertinence of this poem.
81. Archil. frag. 196a, first published by Merkelbach and West 1974. My citations follow the
line numbers in West 1998. For the arguments in favor of the attribution, see Henrichs 1980. For
speculation about how the poem may have begun, see West 1975: 217–18; Van Sickle 1975b: 129–30.
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narrator and a reluctant girl and the aftermath of the discussion. In the lost opening
lines of the poem, the narrator must have expressed his desire to have the girl
physically, because she turns him down and offers an alternative to herself: εÊ
δ' Âν âπεÐγεαι καÐ σε θυµä̋ ÊθÔει, êστιν âν µετèρου ¡ νÜν µèγ' ɵεÐρε[ι . . .,
“if you are in a hurry and desire impels you, there is in our house one who
now greatly longs for (marriage?)” (lines 3–5).82 The alternative is presumably
Neoboule, whom the narrator emphatically rejects in lines 24–41.83 In his response
to the girl’s speech, in a statement of critical importance for the understanding
of the poem as a whole, the narrator employs a euphemism: ΑµφιµεδοÜ̋
Ç
θÔγατερ
. . . [ τ]èρψιè̋ εÊσι θε¨̋ πολλαÈ νèοισιν νδ[ρσιν] παρàξ τä θεØον χρ¨µα; τÀν
τι̋ ρκèσε[ι], “Daughter of Amphimedo . . . , many are the delights the goddess
offers young men besides the sacred act; one of these will suffice” (lines 10–15).
The expression “παρàξ τä θεØον χρ¨µα” has been understood in two different
ways. Snell, Marcovich, and others have taken it to mean “besides the ritual
of marriage.”84 But West understood it to mean “besides sexual intercourse.”85
West’s interpretation was strengthened by Degani’s important observation that
this very expression was glossed by Hesychios as êξω τ¨̋ µÐξεω̋, “outside of
sexual union.”86 For the understanding of the poem as a whole, it is important to
note that the narrator is very likely suggesting an alternative to sexual intercourse.
What the narrator has in mind may be suggested by his use of architectural and
topographical allusions: θρ]ιγκοÜ δ' êνερθε καÈ πυλèων Íποφ[ . . . µ] τι µèγαιρε,
φÐλη; σχ σω γρ â̋ πο¦η[φìρου̋ κ] που̋, “but, my dear, do not begrudge my
. . . under the coping and the gates. For I shall steer towards the grassy gardens”
(lines 21–24). The grassy garden is the setting of what occurs after the discussion,
and the architrave and gates may similarly refer to the physical setting of the
82. On the restoration of the end of line 5, see Merkelbach et al. 1974: 103; Ebert and Luppe
1975: 226; Miralles et al. 1983: 132; Carey 1986: 62; Bremer, Erp Taalman Kip, and Slings 1987:
32–33.
83. Many scholars have assumed that Neoboule is the girl’s older sister, because she is âν
µετèρου, “in our house,” but others have advanced arguments in favor of the idea that the expression
might be appropriate also for a tight-knit group of girls unrelated by blood. For the latter argument,
see Ebert et al. 1975: 223–24; Burnett 1983: 90; Jarcho 1990: 34. Compare Lefkowitz 1976: 185;
Miralles et al. 1983: 130. For the argument that the girls must be kin, see Bremer et al. 1987: 32. See
also Koenen in Gelzer et al. 1974: 500.
84. Snell in Merkelbach et al. 1974: 105. See also Gelzer et al. 1974: 501–502 (Koenen);
Marcovich 1975: 8; Henderson 1976: 170.
85. West in Merkelbach et al. 1974: 105. He compared Theokritos’ use of the expression τ
µèγιστα in the sense of going all the way in Id. 2.143.
86. Degani 1975. See also Del Corno 1985: 29, who called attention to the occurrence of a
very similar expression in a passage of Aretaios: οÉ στυροι τοÜ ∆ιονÔσου ÉεροÈ âν τ¨ισι γραφ¨ισι
καÈ τοØσι γλµασι îρθια Òσχουσι τ αÊδοØα, ξÔµβολον τοÜ θεÐου πρ γµατο̋, “the holy satyrs of
Dionysos in paintings and sculptures maintain their private parts in a state of erection, a symbol of
the divine thing.” In favor of taking the expression in the epode to mean “besides sexual intercourse”
are also Lefkowitz 1976: 186; Burnett 1983: 88; Bremer et al. 1987: 36. But Gentili 1988: 187 and n.
34 has argued that the word “θεØον” must nevertheless have retained some sense of the religious, and
he incorporated the ritual connotation in his translation of Archilochos: “outside the marriage bed.”
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297
story, but it is also likely that the coping, gates, and grassy gardens are meant
to evoke parts of the girl’s body.87 The idea that the narrator will steer toward
“grassy gardens” that are a pubic mound appears to be picked up in the narrative
that follows the two speeches: the narrator lays the girl down amidst the flowers,
covers her with a cloak, strokes her, and achieves an orgasm without, it seems,
deflowering her: παν τ]ε σÀµα καλäν µφαφ¸µενο̋ [ . . . ]ον φ¨κα µèνο̋
ξανθ¨̋ âπιψαÔ[ων τριχì̋, “caressing all her lovely body I let go my (white?)
force, touching her blond hair” (lines 51–53). There are many conjectures as
to what precisely happened underneath the cloak, but there are good reasons to
believe that it was “a sexual act accomplished in an irregular manner,” as Miralles
and Pòrtulas delicately put it, and not intercourse.88
As Miralles and Pòrtulas have argued in detail, the Cologne epode, as a
tale of impromptu sex, can be understood as a foil to the expectations created
by the many stories in poetry of gods ravishing girls.89 One obvious parallel is
the bedding of Hera on the ground by Zeus (Hom. Il. 14.313–51), who, unlike
the narrator of the epode, does not make any concessions to his partner apart
from conjuring a bit of privacy out of a cloud. Miralles and Pòrtulas contrast
Apollo’s rape of Kreusa in Euripides’ Ion (887–96): “you came to me . . . [as]
I was plucking flowers. . . . Seizing me by my pale white wrists as I cried out
‘Mother!’ into the cave that was your bed you took me, divine ravisher, without
pity, doing what gladdens Cypris’ heart.”90 The attitude of the narrator toward the
girl in the Cologne epode is more comparable to the encounter between Odysseus
and Nausikaa in the Odyssey, which is characterized by a remarkable degree
of respect and deference on the part of the hero toward the young woman.91
87. Metaphors of that sort are commonplace in Greek poetry; for parallels, see Degani 1974:
126–27; Bremer et al. 1987: 39; Henderson 1991: 95–96. Compare especially the use of “grass”
in Pind. Pyth. 9.64. For meadows also as a traditional site of seduction in Greek poetry, see Bremer
1975: with 272–73 on this poem. That the architrave and gates may also allude to the setting of
the poem in a sanctuary is suggested by a Hellenistic epigram of Dioskorides (Anth. Pal. 7.351), in
which the daughters of Lykambes swear never to have “disgraced[d] our maidenhead . . . we never set
eyes on Archilochus, either in the streets or in Hera’s great precinct.” Presumably, the information
in the epigram ultimately derives from poems of Archilochos such as this one. See Gelzer et al.
1974: 482 (West); Gelzer et al. 1974: 506–507 (Koenen); Miralles et al. 1983: 135–36; Gentili 1988:
186–90.
88. Miralles et al. 1983: 42. The choice of participle for the very last line of the poem, âπιψαÔ[ων,
meaning “touch lightly,” is well suited to the idea that the narrator has just made contact with the
girl’s pubic region, and seems less well chosen if he just deflowered her: see Van Sickle 1979–1980.
For the argument that girl is not deflowered, which is compelling, see Degani 1974: 121–22; Van
Sickle 1975a: 9–10; Van Sickle 1975b: 131; Burnett 1983: 88; Stehle 1997: 245. Others have argued
that it was coitus interruptus, preserving the girl from a pregnancy out of wedlock: see West 1975:
218; Marcovich 1975: 10–11, 14; or that it was intercourse in the conventional sense: see Gelzer
et al. 1974: 505 (Koenen); Henderson 1976: 169; or that the outcome is intentionally left ambiguous:
see Slings 1990: 23.
89. Miralles et al. 1983: 137–43.
90. Trans. after Kovacs 1999.
91. There are several other significant parallels in the characterization or self-characterization of
Odysseus in the Odyssey for the actions or opinions of Archilochean narrators. Archilochean poetry
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In the Cologne epode, the desires of the narrator are modified to accommodate
the qualms of the girl. Whether the sexual encounter at the conclusion of the
poem was a pragmatic victory or a humorous, self-mocking admission of failure,
the narrator almost certainly experienced something less than he had originally
proposed to this girl, a result that would be unthinkable for a god or even most
epic heroes. In that respect, the scenario described in the epode is comparable—
more nuanced and subtle to be sure, but nevertheless comparable in general
terms—to the situation in which the silens frequently find themselves in visual
art (e.g., figs. 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 11): overpowered by desire, unable to force themselves
on women, compelled to innovate (in ways that are humorous to us) to satisfy
their needs.
As noted earlier, the behavior of silens in art bears comparison to that of
slaves in several different respects, and many figures in iambic poetry have direct
or indirect experience with slaves or slavish behavior. The sexual partners of the
male characters in Hipponax often appear to be impoverished. In fragment 13, the
slovenly character of the narrator’s date is conveyed in this way: “[they were]
drinking from a [milk] pail; for she had no cup, since the slave had fallen on it and
smashed it.”92 Hipponax fragment 26 describes a person who has eaten up all
his inheritance and lives like a slave.93 When explicitly indicated, the settings of
Hipponax’ poems are squalid, closer to the world of slaves than to that of men of
wealth. In one (frag. 62), there is a bare mattress, in several, a narrow street used
as a latrine (frags. 61, 155), and in another, a cheap bar (frag. 79.17–20): “he went
to the place where the swindler sells wine and found a fellow sweeping the room
with a stock of thorn, since no broom was at hand.”94 Actual slaves are rare in the
poetry of Archilochos, but there are characters who bear comparison to slaves in
their occupation, social status, or behavior. More than a few poems appear to have
dealt with prostitutes.95 Several poems or fragments describe male characters or
narrators with an ignoble weakness for women or wine: e.g., “because of his
love of pleasure and lack of self-control Aethiops . . . sold to his messmate for a
honey cake the [property] share which he had drawn by lot and was to have in
appears to have followed Odyssean attitudes and values when they deviate from more conventional
epic norms of behavior. See Russo 1974; Seidensticker 1978; P. A. Miller 1994: 20–22, 29–34.
92. Compare frag. 14, which may come from the same poem.
93. On the characterization of the people in Hipponax in general, see Fränkel 1973: 215–16;
Miralles et al. 1988; Brown 1997: 80.
94. On settings in Hipponax, see Miralles et al. 1988: 126–27. See also Burnett 1983: 99: she
nicely summed up the lifestyle of the people in Hipponax’ poetry this way: “they quarrel, drink from
buckets and copulate in puddles of beer.”
95. See frags. 30 and 31 together with the bibliography in Gerber 1991: 67. See also perhaps
frag. 119; on the meaning of several words in that fragment, see Gerber 1975: 181–83. Perhaps the
woman in Archil. frag. 42 is also a prostitute. The woman in the verse well known in antiquity (frag.
206), “a revolting woman, fat about the ankles,” is either a prostitute or Neoboule. See the testimonia
associated with that fragment for further references to prostitutes in Archilochos (frags. 207–209).
On the low characterization of the working women in Archilochos in general, see Burnett 1983:
78–83.
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299
Syracuse.”96 Another fragment (124) describes a character, Perikles, as crashing
symposia “like the people of Mykonos” (infamous for poverty, stinginess, and
greed, according to the testimonia): “although you consumed a large quantity
of unmixed wine, you did not contribute to the cost . . . nor again did you come
invited . . . as though a friend, but your belly led astray your mind and wits to
shamelessness.”
The world of iambic poetry may differ from that of the silens insofar as the
latter is wild and the former is urban. And the level of deviancy from accepted
behavioral norms seems greater in the case of the sexual activity of silens than
in the case of that of most characters in iambos. It depends on one’s point of
reference. It seems reasonable to conclude, however, that the sexual lives of
the two groups of figures are similar in that both silens and iambic characters
embody traits—such as lack of self-control, lack of authority over women, lack of
modesty, and affinities with slaves—that are significantly beneath the professed
values of Greek men of wealth, power, or good breeding who are, as I hope to
show in the next section of this paper, the likely audience of the vase-painting
and poetry. One tentative conclusion that may be drawn from the comparison of
the sexualities of silens in art and figures in iambos is that the qualities peculiar
to the silens’ sexuality do not arise entirely out of their semi-divine or part-animal
natures, but correspond in part at least to conceptions of the sexuality of certain
types of mortal men.
THE COMMON SYMPOTIC CONTEXT OF IAMBIC POETRY
AND VASE-IMAGERY OF SILENS
The comparison between the representation of male sexuality in iambic poetry
and the sexuality of silens in vase-painting is significant with respect to one
particular social context, the symposium, for both the poetry and the vase-painting
appear to have been experienced in it. The term Òαµβο̋ first occurs in the poetry
of Archilochos (frag. 215): καÐ µ' οÖτ' ʵβων οÖτε τερπωλèων µèλει, “I have
no interest in iambi or amusements.” The word τερπωλèων occurs in another
fragment of Archilochos (frag. 11): οÖτε τι γρ κλαÐων Ê σοµαι, οÎτε κκιον
θ σω τερπωλ̋ καÈ θαλÐα̋ âφèπων, “for I shall cure nothing by weeping nor
shall I make matters worse by pursuit of amusements and festivities.” The words
τερπωλ̋ καÈ θαλÐα̋ often refer to enjoyable occasions.97 West thus interpreted
the term Òαµβο̋ in frag. 215 as a reference to a type of occasion and not a
reference to a type of meter. Many scholars agree that, in the Archaic and early
96. Test. to frag. 293. See also test. to frag. 270: “Myclus, a piper satirized by Archilochus
for his lewdness.”
97. See Bartol 1993: 31–32; Brown 1997: 48–49. Compare the description of Herakles’ blessed
life after death in the Odyssey (11.602–603): “he enjoys himself at feasts (τèρπεται âν θαλÐηù̋) among
the immortal gods.”
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Classical periods, the term Òαµβο̋ did not call to mind poetry composed in a
particular meter, but poetry characterized by obscene, insulting, or funny content.
Such content would have been appropriate for only certain types of occasion.98
Although some evidence has suggested that public festivals were one occasion
on which iambic poetry was performed, altogether the evidence does not favor
the idea that public venues were the most important ones for the presentation of
this poetry.99 The principal context in which one performed and listened to poetry
in general in the Archaic period appears to have been the symposium, and a
small amount of evidence connects the performance of iambic poetry specifically
with that occasion.100 Archilochos fragment 48, which derives from a sexual
narrative, addresses itself to Glaukos, and thus the poem imagines itself as being
performed in the intimate company of a friend. That may also be true of the
Cologne epode, if fragment 196 is from the opening lines of the poem, since it
too contains an address to a friend, ÂταØρε.101 An anonymous elegiac poem of
the Hellenistic period (adesp. el. frag. 27.3–6) suggests that humorous mockery
could be part of the program of a symposium: “whenever we friends gather for
such an activity, we ought to laugh and joke, behaving properly, take pleasure
in being together, engage in foolish talk with one another, and utter jests such as to
arouse laughter.”102 Though iambos is not explicitly mentioned in this elegy, it
would seem to be a small step from σκ¸πτειν τοιαÜθ' οÙα γèλωτα φèρειν (line
6) to performing an iambic poem. There are also important affinities between
the iambic and elegiac fragments of Archilochos, and it seems likely that the
affinities would have included performance contexts.103 For my purposes, the
potential importance of the similarities lies in the fact that the circumstances of
performance of elegy are better attested than those of iambos. Ewen Bowie has
demonstrated that there is no evidence to suggest that short elegiac poems were
performed on any occasion other than the symposium.104 The expected occasion
of performance is explicitly, programmatically described in a poem attributed
to Theognis (237–43): “I have given you [Kyrnos, line 247] wings with which
you will fly, soaring easily, over the boundless sea and all the land. You will be
98. See Dover 1964: 189; West 1974: 25; Bartol 1993: 33–40; Brown 1997: 13–16.
99. The most difficult piece of evidence to assess is the song composed by Archilochos for public
performance that is contained in the fragmentary inscription of Mnesiepes published by Kontoleon
1952/1955. A text was also published by Peek 1955. The text is printed as testimonium 3 in Gerber
1999b. It is possible that the song was a dithyramb: in favor, see Privitera 1988: 117–19; contra,
Zimmermann 1992: 22–23. See also Bartol 1992: 67–69. For other evidence of possible public
performances of iambic poetry, see Herakleitos (test. 34) in Gerber 1999b. See also P. A. Miller
1994:12.
100. For the sympotic context of Archaic poetry in general, see Pellizer 1990, with bibliography.
101. On this point, see Slings 1990: 8; Bremmer 1990: 137.
102. In this paper, translations of elegiac poems are after Gerber 1999a.
103. See Dover 1964: 184–85. See also Stehle 1997: 215n.11, who notes that the same addressees
appear in both elegiac and iambic fragments of Archilochos.
104. Bowie 1986.
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301
present at every dinner and feast (θοÐνηù̋ δà καÈ εÊλαπÐνηùσι), lying on the lips
of many, and lovely youths accompanied by the clear sound of pipes will sing
of you in orderly fashion with beautiful, clear voices.” Numerous other elegiac
poems or fragments imply that the symposium was the occasion on which they
were sung.105 The notion that some poems of Tyrtaios, Kallinos, or Archilochos
were sung before battle or on military duty is not supported by external or internal
evidence.106 Archilochos fragment 4 need not be imagined as being sung on a ship
simply because it envisions a cup-bearer moving through a boat.107
It seems virtually certain that many Athenian vases were used in symposia,
not only because their shapes are suited to the mixing, pouring, and drinking of
wine, but also because vases of the same shape and decorative schemes are often
included within the representations of symposia that decorate the pots. In other
words, the representations on the vases purport to tell us about how the vases themselves were used.108 A red-figure hydria in Kassel, for example (Fig. 16), depicts a
symposium taking place around a krater on which is painted, as if in black-figure,
a silen.109 A fragment of Pindar seems to refer to Athenian cups in a sympotic
context: “I am sending you this chariot of lovely songs for after dinner. Amid the
company may it be a sweet goad for your drinking companions (συµπìταισιν), for
the fruit of Dionysos, and for the Athenian drinking cups. . . .”110 So the contexts in
which the verbal and visual representations of impetuous, sometimes outrageous
male sexuality appear to have been experienced were the same, the symposium.
The comparison that I am making in this paper, which brings together texts and
artifacts usually studied in isolation from each other, might have been made much
more easily in the Archaic period, if the poems were being performed by and for
men drinking from the very kinds of vases discussed earlier.
In some ways, the silens seem like a close approximation, within the mythical sphere, of a sympotic group. Here is Murray’s list of some of the significant aspects of the Greek symposium: “1. It is an all-male gathering. 2. Its
105. See West 1974: 11–12. For example, the anonymous late-sixth-century elegy, adesp. el. 6 in
Gerber 1999a: “pour a cup for Cedon too, waiter, and don’t forget him, if you are to pour wine for
men of worth.” Those few words evoke a roomful of drinkers, a cup-boy, a communal mixing bowl,
praise for a member—the constituent parts of a Greek symposium. See also the famous elegy of
Xenophanes (frag. 1) as well as the anonymous Hellenistic elegy quoted earlier (adesp. el. 27).
106. For the problem in general and Tyrtaios in particular, see Bowie 1990.
107. See the compelling analysis of the poem in Bowie 1986: 16–19.
108. See Oenbrink 1996, with further references. For other evidence for sympotic use of Athenian
vases, see Boardman 2001: 244–68; Neer 2002: 212–15. The intersection between the kind of poetry
just considered, Athenian vase-paintings, and symposia is suggested also by the occurrence of lines
of the Theognidea within representations of symposia on the vases: see Herington 1985: 196–97,
nos. 16–19. Add the extraordinary tripod pyxis discovered on Aigina in 1972, and attributed to
the Amasis Painter (Bothmer 1985: 236–38 [Martha Ohly-Dumm]): it contains two lines of poetry in
a meter often found in Attic skolia.
109. Kassel A Lg 57, Nikoxenos Painter, GVGettyMus 3 (1986): 51 fig. 12, Gercke 1981: 107–11;
Oenbrink 1996: 103 fig. 18 and 130 B2.
110. Frag. 124ab, text and trans. after Race 1997a.
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members are aristocratic or of high social class. 3. The principle of equality between participants is observed. 4. The emphasis is on drinking rather
than eating, though both occur. 5. Normally the property relationship enters
in only in terms of each member contributing equally from his private property to the common table.”111 As an all-male collective body, without hierarchy, preoccupied with the production and consumption of wine, the silens
bear comparison to at least three, if not four, of those aspects. But they stand
in stark opposition to one characteristic, that symposiasts belong to the aristocracy, and in this respect, the silens are comparable to many characters in
iambic poetry.
RE-PERFORMANCE, FIRST-PERSON NARRATIVES, AND
PERFORMER-INVOLVEMENT IN IAMBIC POETRY
Many of the poems considered in this study, like some of the vase-paintings,
are structured in such a way that it would be more accurate to say that they
effect roles and not merely represent them. The poetry is of interest not simply
for its content but also for the manner in which it invited or compelled symposiasts to identify with the represented characters or situations for the duration
of the performance. Two characteristics of some sympotic poetry together effect such temporary identifications: one is the practice of re-performing poetry
composed by others, and the other is the use of first-person forms of poetic
narration. The poem attributed to Theognis, quoted earlier, not only clarifies
the occasion on which it was to be performed, but also indicates that it was
intended to be performed by singers other than the poet himself: “you will be
present at every dinner and feast, lying on the lips of many.” Re-performance
is also envisioned in Theognis 19–26, in which Theognis identifies himself as
the poet: “for me, a skilled and wise poet, let a seal, Kyrnos, be placed on
these verses. Their theft will never pass unnoticed . . . but everyone will say,
‘They are the verses of Theognis of Megara. . . .”’ The poem seems to be predicated on the assumption of re-performance: another person will not be able to
pass off the verses as his own, because they contain the seal (perhaps the name
of Kyrnos or Theognis) identifying them as the poetry of Theognis.112 There
is considerable external evidence that the poems of many other Archaic poets
were re-performed in symposia.113 Athenaios gathered together a series of poems under the title σκìλια that were routinely re-sung in Athenian symposia,
111. Murray 1982: 50.
112. The poem is the subject of a study by Friis Johansen 1991.
113. The evidence is conveniently collected in Herington 1985: 48–50, 207–10. See also Nagy
1990: 106–107; P. A. Miller 1994: 20, 23n.34. See also West 1970: 310: noting the absence of
specific personal names in several poems of Sappho, he suggested that they could be re-sung, like
Theognis. A fragment of Aelian claims that Solon heard his nephew recite a song of Sappho at a
symposium: see Bremmer 1990: 138.
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including verses attributed to Alkaios, Anakreon, and Praxilla (15.693f–696a).114
Re-performing the songs of Archaic poets is described in a number of plays and
fragments of Old Comedy. One example: envisioning the kind of songs boys
will sing at the wedding party of Trygaios, Aristophanes (Peace 1265–1304)
specifically mentioned Archilochos’ famous fragment 5: “Some Saian exults in
my shield. . . .”115
The practice of re-performing poetry composed by others has one particularly interesting consequence in the many cases in which the poems consist of
first-person narratives. When the symposiast took up one of those songs, he necessarily adopted, for the duration of the performance, the “I” of the poem and
all of the experiences recounted by that voice as his own. The proposition that
symposiasts might identify with the outlooks, claims, or actions of the figures in
sympotic poetry is easy to accept when those poetic ideas match the everyday
self-understandings of the drinkers. As Bowie put it, a poem such as Archilochos
frag. 1, “I am the servant of lord Enyalios and skilled in the lovely gift of the
Muses,” might be sung with equal relevance by any of the poet’s companions,
all of whom were familiar with war, and “any person who sang the couplet would
thereby be validating the claim to be skilled in the gift of the Muses.”116 Some
Archaic poems, however, thanks to the first-person structure of their narratives,
might have demanded a radical shift in the temporary identity of the persons
likely to perform them. The clearest examples are Archaic poems, some iambic
but most elegiac, characterized by first-person narratives with female narrators.
For example, “I am a fine, prize-winning (καλ καÈ εθλÐη) horse, but I carry
a man who is utterly base, and this causes me the greatest pain. Often I was on
the point of breaking the bit, throwing (²σαµèνη) my bad rider, and running off”
(Thgn. 257–60). The feminine forms of adjectives and participle assure us that the
narrator is female, yet the poem was almost certainly intended for presentation in
a symposium, the social preserve of men. It is true that flute-girls and courtesans
attended symposia, but there is little evidence to suggest that they participated
in the central sympotic activity of singing poetry.117 It is also true that authorship
of the poems attributed to Theognis is, in many cases, uncertain, and therefore it
is conceivable that some of them might have been composed by women poets.
But other examples of first-person narratives with female narrators are securely
attributed to male poets: “me, wretched woman (êµε δεÐλαν), me, sharing in all
misery. . . ,” for example, was composed by Alkaios according to Hephaisteion.118
Or: “I come up from the river bringing (φèρουσα) [the washing] all bright,” at114. Compare also a fragment of Ar. Daitaleis quoted by Athen. 15.694a: “take and sing me a
skolion from Alkaios or Anakreon.” On the meaning of the term σκìλιον, see Harvey 1955: 162–63.
115. See also Ar. Clouds 1354–58 and a fragment of Eupolis, Helots, in Athen. 14.638e.
116. Bowie 1986: 14–15 (quote, 15).
117. Bowie 1986: 16–17; Martin 2001: 71. For other examples of female first-person voices
in the Theognidea, see 579–80 and 861–64; detailed discussion of the latter in Martin 2001.
118. Frag. 10B, text and trans. in Campbell 1982.
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tributed to Anakreon by Hephaisteion.119 Those poems are important because they
do not seem to begin with a diegetic introduction to the effect that “I, a male voice,
am going to quote the speech of a woman”; rather, the poems appear to begin emphatically in the persona of a woman.120 There are fragments of iambic poetry that
adopt this narrative strategy, for example one by Semonides (frag. 16), probably
from an erotic narrative: “and I was anointing myself with unguents and scents
and baccaris; for in fact a merchant was present.”121 Or a fragment of Anakreon
(432 PMG): “already I am becoming a wrinkled old thing (κνυζ ), over-ripe fruit,
thanks to your lust,” iambic in both meter and sentiment.122 Bowie concluded
that: “taken together the songs are better seen as evidence for male symposiasts
entertaining each other by taking on—in song at least—a female role.”123
My hypothesis is that some first-person iambic sexual narratives, such as those
described earlier in this paper, were circulated in the symposium because their
narrative structure afforded the opportunity of a temporary shift in the identity of
symposiasts who re-performed them. That is not how iambic poems have always
been understood. Later Greek and Roman writing about iambic poetry considered
the genre to be primarily a medium of invective, a means for a poet to attack
publicly a personal or communal enemy. That conception of iambos is quite
different from the interpretation of the vase-painting of silens I am developing
in this paper, because it conceives of the poetry as radically distancing the target
characters from the poet and audience in terms of lifestyle or values, whereas I am
arguing that some vase-painting of silens attempted to incorporate the users of the
vases into the world of the silens. There are several reasons to believe, however,
that the invective model of iambic poetry is not adequate to account fully for
the character of the poetry or its reception. Gentili recognized the importance
of defining iambos broadly: “[i]t is obvious that the psógos discussed by Aristotle
does not refer exclusively to censure in the narrow sense of personal abuse. Its
semantic field embraces the whole realm of the humorous (geloı̂on). . . . There are
accordingly various nuances and gradations in the relation between a piece of
psógos and its object. Sometimes it appears as biting hostile polemic, sometimes
as good-humored depiction of ridiculous behavior—even on the part of friends.”124
119. Anakreon frag. 385 in Campbell 1988.
120. Martin 2001: 72.
121. See Bowie 2001: 7.
122. On this poem, see Brown 1984.
123. Bowie 1986: 17. As Stehle 1997: 213 put it, “a performer might sing songs he learned from
another, but so long as he adopted the words as his own and was understood to be doing so, the poetry
provided him with a persona, however idealized or artificial it might be.” Compare Edmunds 1988:
91: “if, as is widely held, the poems of Theognis were recited at symposia, then each recitation was a
reenactment of that role.” See also Dover 1964: 207; Burnett 1983: 31. To the list of possible female
first-person narrators, add Simonides frag. 22 as interpreted by Yatromanolakis 1998.
124. Gentili 1988: 108. The important passage of Aristotle is Poetics 1448b35–1449a2, where
Aristotle distinguished between invective and the laughable (geloion) when he claimed that Homer’s
Margites was the first to articulate the principal features of comedy.
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Even in the fragments of Archilochos associated with his alleged bitter feud with
Lykambes, there is humor (e.g., frag. 172): “Father Lykambes . . . now you seem
to the townspeople a source of much laughter (γèλω̋).” In this instance, it appears
that laughter is used as a tool to work up public opinion against the target, much as
Thersites used humor to humiliate the Achaian leaders before their army.125 But
there are many other fragments of iambos in which the target of humor appears to
be one of the poet’s friends, not his enemies. Charilaos, for example, is listed (test.
17) as one of the contemporaries of Archilochos attacked in his poetry. Athenaios
(test. 167) claims that Archilochos criticized Charilaos for gluttony. It is likely
that the beginning of the poem in question is the one that begins (frag. 168):
“Charilaos, son of Erasmon, a funny thing I shall tell you, by far the dearest of
my companions, and you will be delighted to hear it.” The poet roasts the man
for gluttony, but claims that the target is his best friend, that the poetic roasting,
or send-up, is funny, that Charilaos was an addressee of the poem in question,
and that he will be delighted when he hears it. Perikles is also numbered among
the contemporary associates of Archilochos about whom the poet spoke badly
(test. 17), and he is the addressee of frags. 13 and 16. But Perikles is also the
subject of another poem (frag. 124). This fragment is striking because it makes
out of Perikles a caricature of a party-crasher: “about Perikles, Archilochos says
that he burst into symposia uninvited ‘like someone from Mykonos’ [notorious
for stinginess] . . . drinking much wine, and unmixed wine at that, you did not
contribute to the cost . . . nor were you invited. . . . But your appetite led your mind
and thoughts to shamelessness.” The image seems humorous, comparable to the
descriptions of Philokleon failing in his attempt to behave as a proper symposiast
in Ar. Wasps 1122–1264.126 So it appears that some iambic poetry was intended for
presentation within a group that included the person satirized in the poetry, and that
the function of the poetic representation was to make everyone laugh, including
the person being teased, and not to ostracize the subject. This conception of the
role of humor in drinking groups may be attested as early as the Homeric Hymn
to Hermes (54–56), in which the gifted infant Hermes invents the lyre within a
day of his birth: “and the god sang beautifully to it, impromptu, experimentally,
as young men at dinners (θαλÐησι) make ribald interjections (κερτοµèουσιν).”127
125. On the parallels between Thersites and the poetic personae of Archilochos and Hipponax,
see Marks 2005: 6–8. According to later testimonia, Lykambes promised to marry his daughter
Neoboule to Archilochos but reneged; in response, Archilochos abused him and his daughter(s) so
fiercely in poetry that one or more of them hung themselves. See esp. the scholia on Hor. Epod.
6.11–14 and on Ov. Ib. 53–54. All the testimonia, which are not consistent with each other, are
collected in Gerber 1999b: 46–57, and carefully reviewed by Carey 1986.
126. For an example of this sort of playful teasing in Hipponax, see frag. 30: “I don’t think
that Critias the Chian was justly apprehended as an adulterer. . . .” As noted by Bowie 1993: 364, a
graffito on a mid-fifth-century Corinthian skyphos fragment from Athens (Agora P 30076) shows
that such humorous insinuations actually circulated at drinking parties: “the Sicilian woman seems
beautiful indeed to the adulterer.”
127. Trans. after West 2003.
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The anonymous elegy quoted earlier is more precise about the nature of the jokes
that are appropriate to the symposium: whenever men friends gather together as
symposiasts, they ought to “laugh and play behaving creditably (ρετ¨ι)” and
“utter jests so as to arouse laughter” (σκ¸πτειν τοιαÜθ' οÙα γèλωτα φèρειν,
adesp. el. 27). There is evidence supporting this conception of the role of humor
in the symposium in Attic Old Comedy. One example: in a fragment of Eupolis, a
hanger-on or groupie notes that it is important to make entertaining remarks in the
symposium, but if the joke is outrageous enough (σκÀµµα σελγè̋), it will result
in one’s expulsion.128
In many instances, the first-person narrators of iambos themselves, and
not merely the characters, possess less-than-ideal personal traits, and that tendency also does not suit well the invective model. We have already noted the
compromises the narrator is willing to make in Archilochos’ Cologne epode
to satisfy his immediate, impatient desire for the girl-interlocutor as well as
her qualms. In fragment 23, the second-longest surviving erotic fragment of
Archilochos, the narrator’s position vis-à-vis the female character is also not
one of complete mastery. The narrator voices the possibility that his femaleinterlocutor might even perceive him to be δειλì̋, “cowardly” or “wretched.”
And if the city over which the woman rules in this poem is a poetic metaphor
for the narrator’s affections, and not, as Clay argued, a literal city, then his
position is even more like that expected of a woman: “you move about this
city (which?) men have never sacked, but now you have captured it with the
spear and you have won great glory. Rule over it and retain your dominance;
in truth you will be the envy of many people.”129 The self-compromising tendency of Archilochean first-person narrators was noted in the well-known testimonium of Kritias (Archil. test. 33). Kritias faulted Archilochos specifically
for presenting himself in a negative light, for publicly referring to his mother’s
status as a slave, his adultery, and his lecherousness. Hipponax characterizes
himself—or, to be precise, his poetic alter ego—by name, as poor (frag. 36),
an unsuccessful thief (frag. 32), and even (frag. 37) as a pharmakos, being
pelted and stoned.130 In frag. 84, quoted earlier, the narrator is presumably also
Hipponax, because the poet’s archrival Boupalos is mentioned by name. In that
poem, the poet-narrator revels in an impetuous, spur-of-the-moment sexual union
with a girl in a hurry, which ends untriumphantly. Ralph Rosen’s articulation
of the relationship between the first-person narrators and characters of iambos
is significant: “it seems to be a central paradox of the psogos that the aggressor
stoops to the level of the target, accusing him of reprehensible behavior while
128. Text, and other examples, in Bowie 1993: 366. For further evidence of this kind of joking in
the symposium, see Slater 1978: 192–93.
129. See Clay 1986: 10–11 and passim for her argument that the male speaker is Gyges. For
the idea that the city in this poem is metaphorical, see West 1974: 119.
130. For the interpretation of frag. 32, see Fränkel 1973: 216; Degani 1991: 63–64. For frag.
37, see Miralles et al. 1988: 47, 57.
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307
wishing to behave that way himself.”131 The model of humor at work in the
famous scene in Iliad Book 1, in which Hephaistos brings harmony to the gathering of the gods by taking on a ridiculous role, is comparable to the manner in
which some first-person iambic narratives may have generated humor within a
drinking group.132
Although sexually explicit narrative and obscenity have been seen by some
primarily to be a means by which an iambic poet can besmirch an enemy, evidence
has accumulated to suggest that those subjects were in fact treated for their own
sake in iambos. One example: the latter interpretation received considerable
support from the Cologne epode when it was published in 1974. In this poem, the
most thoroughly contextualized example of an attack on a person’s character in
iambic poetry, invective is employed as a means to an end, not an end in itself. In
the poem, the narrator rejects the suggestion that he marry the eager Neoboule
and, in explaining his rejection, trashes her physical appearance and character
(lines 24–38).133 The attack on Neoboule’s character, however, is not the principal
subject of the poem but essentially a digression. The chief poetic function of the
denigration of Neoboule is that it serves to praise by contrast the younger girl,
who is presented as desirable and trustworthy.134 Moreover, the main theme of
the poem is not the denigration of Neoboule but the narrator’s sexual desire for
another girl and the compromises he is willing to make to satisfy it. The poem is a
work of erotic literature more than a piece of invective.
To summarize, the considerations just enumerated all suggest that the function
of iambos was the articulation of marginal, disreputable, or iconoclastic types of
131. Rosen 1988a: 37n.29. The tension or contradiction sensed by Rosen lies, I suspect, in the
recognition that the iambic fragments themselves do not fully support the idea, championed by later
literary testimonia, that the definitive feature of iambic poetry is blaming others. As Bowie 2001
concluded in a recent study, narrative, in particular, erotic or obscene narrative, appears to have been
as important as invective in defining the genre of iambos. As noted earlier, Slater 1978: 192–93
assembled evidence for the idea that friendly, often obscene abuse, ideally delivered in poetic form,
was a traditional part of the symposium.
132. Many other ways in which poetry served to bind symposiasts together are discussed by
Stehle 1997: 213–27.
133. Because of the occurrence of Neoboule’s name in the poem, several scholars have attempted
to associate the Cologne epode with the sordid story of poetic revenge against the family of Lykambes
familiar from later Greek and Latin literature. Merkelbach interpreted the poem as the record of a
vicious act of retribution, and concluded famously that Archilochos was a severe psychopath. See
Merkelbach 1974. Several other scholars have interpreted the poem, in various different ways, as
primarily intended to harm the reputation of Neoboule and her family. See Carey 1986: 62–63; Gentili
1988: 190; Slings 1990: 23–26; Brown 1997: 67–68. The story related in the poem, however, is
not easy to square with the later testimonia: see especially Burnett 1983: 90–91. See also West 1975:
218. For specific difficulties with Merkelbach’s interpretation, see Marcovich 1975: 10; Bremer et al.
1987: 38. In my opinion, the assumptions of Carey 1986: 63n.14 about the girl’s alleged “readiness
to be seduced” and agency are not well supported by the text: contrast the assessment of Slings
in Bremer et al. 1987: 47–48. Also in favor of treating the poem as a fictional, rather than historical,
occurrence are Jarcho 1990: 34–35; Stehle 1997: 240.
134. On the relationship between blame and praise in this poem, see Gelzer et al. 1974: 504
(Koenen); Rankin 1977: 71; Henrichs 1980: 9n.5; Burnett 1983: 84.
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characters, as much as, or rather than, damaging exposés of particular historical
figures. The character portrayals were general enough to be relevant in subsequent
periods, long after their initial historical contexts, if any, were forgotten. What
was the purpose of circulating within the symposium poetry from the past that
put the singer or performer in the role or position of iambic narrators so very far
from the aristocratic ideal? It seems inherently likely that one effect of hearing a
friend or fellow symposiast claiming to be, say, a Hipponactean reprobate would
have been laughter due the incongruity between the singer’s real identity and
his poetic persona. The singer himself might have found the experience funny,
rather than humiliating, if he was certain that his public reputation was secure
enough to withstand the temporary change in his status or moral outlook. There is
some evidence that making such identifications or comparisons was a customary
sympotic practice. ΕÊκìνε̋, or “likenesses,” in which a symposiast compared a
fellow drinker to something else, very often an animal, are described in several
literary sources.135 In fact, in the fullest surviving example in literature, one
symposiast compares another to a silen. In Plato’s Symposium (215a4), Alkibiades
offers a comparison of Sokrates: he is like one of those Silenoi that one can find in
the market that open up to reveal deities inside. Moreover, Alkibiades implies
that this sort of comparison was typically made for the sake of humor, because
he suggests that his comparison of Sokrates to a silen, in this instance, is meant to
be taken seriously.
One possibility is that the poetry, like the vase-paintings encouraging users to
see themselves among silens and nymphs, was popular because it introduced into
the drinking party disreputable types of characters or behavior. It is well known
that the symposium, as a cultural practice, inculcated not only harmonious feelings
among participants but also, sometimes, more antisocial behavior.136 The potential
for a symposium to devolve from an orderly and high-minded gathering to a veritable brawl is epitomized in Euboulos’ well-known enumeration of the cumulative
effects of a party drinking more than three kraters of wine (Athen. 2.36b–c). For
my purposes, it is enough to review briefly the testimonia concerning instances of
indecency, exhibitionism, and lack of self-control in sympotic contexts. In the
indictment of Konon attributed to Demosthenes (54.14, 16–17), it is alleged that
many aristocratic or noble men who participated in sympotic carousing called
themselves the ithyphalloi, “erections,” or autolekythoi, “masturbators”; pursued
female sexual partners; and initiated each other into the “rites of Ithyphallos,”
indulging in acts that, to the writer, were shameful to speak of, much less engage
in.137 Athenaios preserves a tale of exhibitionism in the symposium involving no
less important a political figure than Demetrios Poliorketes, a tale that bears some
resemblance to the indiscreet sexual behavior of silens (13.577e-f): being enam135. E.g., Ar. Wasps 1308–13, Xen. Symp. 6.8. For other examples, see Bowie 1993: 368–69.
136. See Murray 1983: 268–70; Pellizer 1990: 181; Davidson 1997: 47–48.
137. On this passage, see Murray 1990: 157.
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ored of a flute-girl, and having failed to win her attention with various perfumes,
Demetrios took hold of his own phallus, stroked it with his hand, and asked the
girl how the product of his own royal gland struck her. Elsewhere in Athenaios,
the matter is described in general terms (13.607b–c): it is not inappropriate for a
man who has been drinking to mention sex, for people are naturally prone to do so
when under the influence. Those who do so in a measured fashion are to praised,
but those who do so in an animal and immoderate fashion are to be blamed. It is
a fact, however—continues the passage—that those who desire to be moderate
are able to do so up to a point in the drinking, but when the drinking exceeds
a certain level, then even those people exhibit every indecency. Alan Shapiro has
recently argued that the very popular kalos-name of Leagros came to epitomize a
heavy-drinking, sexually promiscuous denizen of symposia in late-Archaic Athenian vase-iconography. Images plausibly connected with his name convey the
idea that he was a favorite of courtesans, that he was sexually irrepressible, and
that he even engaged openly in masturbation. The name of Leagros was even
applied, it appears, to the figures of several silens participating in symposia.138
In short, some literary and visual representations purporting to describe actual
practices of the symposium correspond, roughly speaking, to the images of explicit, irrepressible sexual activity in some iambic poems and vase-paintings of
silens. It is difficult to tell, however, whether reports or representations of sexual
impropriety in the symposium represent a critical point of view held by outsiders
or the self-understanding of symposiasts themselves. And it is worth considering
the possibility that the literary and artistic representations do not so much reflect
what really happened in the symposium as they were instrumental in creating the
stereotype.
Although the parallels between the first-person narrative form of some iambic
sexual narratives and the pictorial conception that involved spectators in the world
and activities of the silens and nymphs (e.g., figs. 2, 12, 14, 15) are not exact
(the poetry relies on verb, pronoun, and participle forms whereas the pictorial
imagery relies on visual subject-object relations), the parallelism is significant,
as far as it goes, because it shows that an aesthetic of involved participation in the
represented fictional world was not limited to vase-painting. This general aesthetic
conception was not invented by vase-painters or reliant on properties unique to
the visual arts, but manifested itself in other sympotic media as well. There is
further evidence to suggest that the ethos and practices of the symposium fostered
the development of this aesthetic conception in art and poetry. A group of vasepaintings gives visible form to the idea that symposiasts dressed up in attire quite
different from ordinary Athenian male clothing (e.g., fig. 16). Several of the vasepaintings include figures identified by inscription as the Ionian poet Anakreon, but
it is unclear whether the images represent actual, historical symposia at Athens
attended by Anakreon, or an imaginary tableau of what a symposium, as described
138. Shapiro 2000: 27–29; Shapiro 2004.
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in Anakreontic poetry, might look like.139 It is also unclear whether the point of
view of the vase-painters was essentially one of objective reportage—this is what
elite symposia really looked like in late Archaic Athens—or humorous, satirical
invention: this is what we think of those symposiasts.140 For my purposes, the
most important question is whether the attire of the “Anakreontic” symposiasts—
unbelted chitons, mitra, sakkos, earrings, boots, barbita, and/or parasols—evoked
not merely Lydian luxury but also transvestism. A number of scholars have
argued that the clothing would not have been understood to be feminine in the late
Archaic period, even though it did have that connotation in the fifth century.141 But
Beazley, Frontisi-Ducroux, Lissarrague, and, most recently, Margaret Miller have
demonstrated that the manner in which the articles of clothing and ornament are
combined in the images would have had feminine connotations already in the sixth
century .142 On the basis of an examination of the Anakreontic vases, FrontisiDucroux and Lissarrague drew the following conclusion: “[w]hat the men of
Athens, as they are represented on their drinking vessels, seem to be searching for
in the practice of communal wine-drinking, and in forms of music, song, and dance
quite distinct from the sorts of music, poetry, and dance that made up the education
by which they had become citizens, is the chance to become other, to become—just
a little bit—woman, Eastern, or barbarian.”143 In other words, the content of some
Archaic poetry and art suggests that symposia regularly afforded participants
opportunities to augment the identities they presented to their associates with
characteristics of figures normally alien to their public personas. The evidence
139. For the vase-paintings with Anakreon, see Caskey and Beazley 1931–1963: 2: 57; FrontisiDucroux and Lissarrague 1990: 215–16, 221.
140. For the possibility of parody, see Price 1990.
141. E.g., Kurtz and Boardman 1986; Neer 2002: 19–23, with further references.
142. E.g., Caskey and Beazley 1931–1963: 2: 56: “while none of the three articles singly [long
chiton, sakkos, parasol] may amount to a real [feminine] disguise, the joint use of them must surely
do so.” See also Frontisi-Ducroux et al. 1990: 217–19, with qualifications, 228–29; M. C. Miller
1999: 236–40. In Miller’s study, note especially the striking similarities between the pair of vases
in her figs. 18–19, one depicting a woman and another depicting a man dressed in “Anakreontic”
fashion. A recognition that this manner of adornment amounted to cross dressing seems virtually
unambiguous in Anakreon’s famous poem about Artemon: “he used to go about in an old cap. . . .
But nowadays the son of Cyce rides in a carriage wearing gold earrings, and he carries an ivory
parasol exactly like the ladies (γυναιξÈν αÖτω̋).” Anakreon frag. 388, trans. after Campbell 1988. As
Slater 1978: 189 has persuasively argued, “[t]he Artemon poem shows that Anacreon was aware that
the komastic apparatus which he attributes to Artemon and which we see on the vases was feminine.”
Slater’s interpretation was besieged by Davies 1981, but Davies does not seem to address the key
words γυναιξÈν αÖτω̋ anywhere in his article. While Brown 1983: 8 acknowledges that the phrase
almost certainly means “in the manner of women,” he argues that Artemon is being attacked for
taking up sexual positions or practices that are “in the manner of women.” That seems plausible, but
it also seems hard to avoid acknowledging that the poem begins and ends with a focus on Artemon’s
dress and adornment.
143. Frontisi-Ducroux et al. 1990: 229. More generally, see Pellizer 1990: 183, or, more succinctly, Neer 2002: 14: “the Greek drinking-party was a place in which poets, singers, and audiences
could all craft identities for themselves, a place in which people could transform themselves, if only
for a little while.”
: “I Let Go My Force Just Touching Her Hair”
311
amassed in this paper suggests that silens and nymphs were among the types of
figures with whom symposiasts were invited to affiliate themselves. The difference
between the approach of Lissarrague and Frontisi-Ducroux and the one taken in
this paper is that the former bases its conclusion on an analysis of the content
of the visual (and poetic) representations: vase-paintings and poetry are looked at
as descriptions of the behavior of symposiasts, as if they were a kind of mirror
in which symposiasts could see themselves, or a window through which we can
see the practices of the symposium as the vase-painters and poets described them.
The approach taken in this paper places the emphasis on formal properties of
visual representations and poetic narratives that invite viewers or singers to see
themselves or each other as part of the worlds of silens (and nymphs) or the
denizens of iambic poetry. The artifacts themselves, the vases and the poetry,
through the demands they made on their users and performers, arguably helped
to form the very conception of the symposium as a place where identity might
be played with.
CLASSICAL SATYR-PLAY
Silens are not exclusively represented in vase-painting, and the symposium
was not the only context in which representations of them were experienced
or enacted. The practice of dressing up as a silen and performing as a chorus
in the guise of those creatures is well attested by the surviving fragments of
Athenian satyr-play. Satyr-play appears to have been incorporated into the festival
of Dionysos Eleuthereus sometime around the end of the sixth century . Satyrplays, like tragedies, were dramatic performances consisting of actors and a
chorus who acted out a story set in the mythical past; the distinctive feature of
satyr-plays was that the chorus always consisted of silens.144 It is probably safe
to say that many commentators on satyr-play treat the practice of dressing up
like a silen as a means to an end and not an end in itself. To create a band of
silens in the medium of drama, it is necessary for some persons to dress up as
those creatures; but the experience of doing so does not seem to be felt to have
been significant in and of itself by many scholars. It is also the case that at least
some commentators believe that the audience could not have identified with the
dramatis personae of satyr-play. Long ago, Friedrich Welcker proposed that the
object of satyr-play was not like that of tragedy (which was to move or affect
the spectator), but to focus on the effect of the play on the satyrs of the chorus.
Empathy with, or participation in the feelings of, the dramatis personae was
impossible, because no one could ever have any empathy with silens.145 Lasserre
144. For introductions to the genre, see Seaford 1984: 1–48; Seidensticker 2003. For a thoroughly
annotated collection of surviving fragments, see Krumeich, Pechstein and Seidensticker 1999. The
most detailed recent study of the genre is Voelke 2001.
145. See Conrad 1997: 17.
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Volume 25 / No. 2 / October 2006
went even further than this, arguing that the satyrs embodied so many ethical
shortcomings that their characterization amounted to a caricature or inversion of
norms of behavior.146 Since then, a number of scholars have accepted the basic
idea that the satyrs of the chorus represented lifestyles or values antithetical to
those of Athenian men.147
Several scholars have recently reconsidered the question of whether or not
any degree of positive identification with the silens of satyr-play, on the part of the
chorus members and/or the audience, was possible. One of the reconsiderations
explicitly builds on Froma Zeitlin’s detailed consideration of the possible effects
of playing the roles of choruses or characters of tragedy. Although the players
of Athenian drama—both actors and chorus members—were men, the roles they
played were predominantly those of women. Zeitlin argued that the experience of
tragedy allowed men to explore a range of emotional responses not open to them in
everyday life. “Tragedy . . . expands an awareness of the world and the self through
the drama of ‘playing the other’ . . . drama . . . tests masculine values only to find
that these alone are inadequate to the complexity of the new situation.” Or: “theater
uses the feminine for the purpose of imagining a fuller model for the masculine
self.”148 Edith Hall has suggested that satyr-play complemented the experience
of tragedy by placing an emphatically masculine presence and role model on
the stage following the many female dramatis personae of the tragic dramas. “In
[tragedy] the Athenian audience had often been identifying with female characters
and reacting with emotions socially constructed as ‘feminine’. . . . one function
of satyr drama [arguably] was to reaffirm in its audience at the end of the tragic
productions a masculine collective consciousness based in libidinal awareness.”149
The suggestion that the audience might not have rejected out of hand the
possibility that the satyr chorus possessed character traits related to its own
is similar to a point I am advancing in this paper. But several of the specific
premises of Hall’s argument are open to question. I single out two points: first, it
is not completely the case that the dramatis personae of the chorus—the silens
of myth—are homosocial in their ideal state. In several passages of satyr-play, the
chorus describes its ideal existence (usually in order to contrast the wretchedness
of its situation within the plot of the play), and that ideal existence is typified
by living side by side with nymphs. “No Dionysus is here, no dances, no wandbearing Bacchic worship, no ecstatic noise of drums by the gushing springs of
water, no fresh drops of wine. Nor can I join the Nymphs on Mount Nysa in
singing the song ‘Iacchos Iacchos’ to Aphrodite, whom I swiftly pursued in the
146. Lasserre 1973.
147. See Seidensticker in Krumeich et al. 1999: 38–39: an “anti-ethic . . . what [the public
audience] should not be and what it should not do.” See also Lissarrague 1990c: 236: “satyric drama
. . . plays with culture first by distancing it and reconstructing it through its antitypes, the satyrs.”
About the silens in general, see Lissarrague 1990b: 66, quoted earlier.
148. Zeitlin 1990: 85, 86.
149. Hall 1998: 13–14.
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313
company of white-footed Bacchants.”150 Or: “What is this din? What are these
dance-steps? What outrage has come to the noisy altar of Dionysus? Mine, mine
is Bromius: it is for me to shout and stamp, racing over the mountains with the
Naiads, singing a song of flashing wings like the swan.”151 The literary image of
silens cohabiting with nymphs in the mountains is a traditional one, going back as
far as the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (256–63).152 Moreover, the silens’ activities
with, or interests in, the nymphs are not exclusively or simply sexual. As the two
passages just cited attest, choral song and dance are a principal preoccupation
of the silens, one that they pursue together with the nymphs and that merges
with their erotic interest in those girls. The intimate and, often, friendly and
respectful character of the relationship between the two groups is well attested in
sixth-century Athenian vase-painting, as noted earlier. The Archaic vase-imagery
corresponds to the classical dramatic characterization of the ideal life of the satyr
chorus with respect both to the permanent presence of nymphs and also to the
importance of choral song and dance in collaboration with nymphs.153 Second,
very likely working against any unqualified identification between the sex life of
the satyr chorus and that of the audience is the high rate of failure of the silens to
achieve their boastful desires for union with female characters. In the Diktyoulkoi,
which contains the most explicit articulation of the intention on the part of the
chorus to achieve sexual union with a character in the play, the heroine is rescued,
the threat by the satyrs is turned back, and this plot pattern appears to play out in
Aischylos’ Amymone and numerous other satyr-plays. Hall’s claim that satyr-play
seems to legitimize aggressive male sexual aspirations by characterizing them
as arising out of nature is implicitly called into question by Voelke’s analysis of
satyr-plays like the Diktyoulkoi, in which the violent act of sexual aggression is
dissociated from marriage, which relies on persuasion, not force. In satyr-play, the
satyrs fail in their pursuit of legendary heroines where men/gods succeed because
the former know only a bestial form of interaction with the female gender whereas
the latter can offer something more.154 If the male audience could identify with the
fantasy of the silens in Diktyoulkoi, as Hall suggested, will they have identified
with the satyrs’ failure as well?
150. Eur. Cycl. 63–71 trans. after Kovacs 1994.
151. Pratinas frag. 708.1–5, text and translation after Campbell 1991: 320–23. The fragment
is most often assigned to a satyr-play: e.g., see Garrod 1920: 133; Pohlenz 1926: 317; Seaford
1977–1978; Ieranò 1997: 219–21. But the assignment was recently called into question again by
Napolitano 2000.
152. For ancient sources on the relationship between silens and nymphs, see Hedreen 1992:
71–73.
153. For the thematic overlap between the sexual relations of silens and nymphs and their
collaboration in dance, see also a fragment very likely from Aischylos’ Prometheus Pyrkaeus, P.
Oxy. 2245, text in Krumeich et al. 1999: 172, 5 Aischylos F 204b. I explore the theme of choral
song and dance in vase-paintings of silens and nymphs as well as some fragments of satyr-play in
further detail in Hedreen forthcoming-b.
154. On this plot pattern, see Voelke 2001: 238–39.
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Volume 25 / No. 2 / October 2006
Mark Griffith has recently offered a nuanced assessment of the question of
the manner or degree to which an audience might have identified with the satyr
chorus. On the one hand, he has identified a series of characteristics that might
have encouraged an audience to sympathize with the satyrs in spite of the low
or disreputable traits of those creatures. First, it is difficult to maintain, like
Lasserre, that the satyrs of drama are simply counter examples or negative role
models because, within the plays, the satyrs are never punished for their behavior,
often get part of what they want, and usually work constructively with the hero or
heroine. “If they are meant to be a negative example, it is striking that they
are presented as being so successful.”155 A good example of the balance of
positive and negative contributions of the satyr chorus to the course of events
in a play occurs in Euripides’ Cyclops (642–63). After much bravado, when
push comes to shove, the satyrs balk at helping Odysseus physically to drive
the stake into the eye of Polyphemos. But they claim to know a song powerful
enough to cause the stake to poke out the eye of the monster by itself. While
Odysseus is inside the cave, the silens perform a song in which they imitate
in words (and surely movement) the thrusting, twisting, and burning of the
stake in the eye. Next thing we hear, the Cyclops is blind. Odysseus played
down the possibility that the satyrs’ song had any real agency, by referring
to it as inspiration for the men doing the actual work inside the cave. But
the text does not foreclose the possibility that the song and dance of the satyr
chorus itself effected the blinding of the monster, just as the satyrs claimed it
could.156 Structurally, a chorus in Greek drama is comparable in its point of
view to the audience inasmuch as it is characterized as an audience within the
play. And the satyrs of drama are usually represented as being intensely curious,
observant, and interested in the matter of the play. Like the audience, the chorus
of satyrs is alive and well at the end of the play, usually having experienced
something extraordinary and new, and often having achieved liberation from
some form of oppression. Griffith has emphasized that the satyrs of drama are
often characterized as essentially childish. As the nymph Kyllene describes them
in Sophokles’ Ichneutai (366–67), for example, “you have always been a child;
grown male as you are, with your yellow beard, you are as lascivious as a goat.”157
Such a characterization arguably made it easier to identify with them than with
the heavily bearded, often balding, long-haired, sometimes heavyset silens of
Archaic vase-painting, who seem more like members of an aging motorcycle
gang than like children. The costume of classical satyr-play too seems to have
presented a figure more human and less bestial than the real silens of vase-
155. Griffith 2002: 201.
156. On this passage, see the analysis of Voelke 2001: 92–93.
157. Trans. after Lloyd-Jones 1996. On this passage, and on the characterization of the satyrs
of drama as partly childlike, see Voelke 2001: 55–66.
: “I Let Go My Force Just Touching Her Hair”
315
painting, and less grotesque and sexually offensive than the costumed characters
of comedy. Most importantly of all, the chorus of satyrs is a collective group,
like the audience.158 On the other hand, any claim that the appeal of the chorus
satyrs to the Athenian male audience would have been wholly positive goes too
far. “The satyrs’ ineffectual, cowardly, infantile, and self-defeating behavior is
made so prominent in these plays, and is presented in such sharp contrast to the
disciplined and successful action and speech of the major characters, that we
should hesitate to conclude that the Athenian theater audience, however rowdily
homosocial and adolescent its prevailing mentality, would have identified wholeheartedly with this choral group in all of its wilder aspirations and attempts at
self-assertion.”159 Griffith proposes that the satyr chorus appealed to the audience’s
unconscious fantasies for what is forbidden rather than to its conscious assessment
or preference of role models. “Their conscious judgment doubtless ridiculed
the shameless exhibitionism of the satyrs and noted with approval their failure
to achieve instant sexual gratification. . . . But as watchers and fantasists, the
members of the audience (like their sympotic counterparts, gazing at satyric
figures painted on their drinking-cups and mixing-bowls) also could not help
recognizing a distorted reflection of themselves in the insatiable and ineffectual
chorus.”160
There are considerable differences between the physique, character, degree of
exhibitionism, and shamelessness of classical chorus satyrs and those of Archaic
painted silens. In general, the Archaic painted versions seem grosser, coarser, and
more obscene than their classical dramatic counterparts. As parallels for the sexual
activity of silens in vase-painting, the Archaic iambic poetic fragments considered
earlier are at least as close as the surviving dramas and fragments of classical satyrplay. There are also significant differences between the manner in which chorus
satyrs were presented to the public and the manner in which vase-painting was
experienced. The experience of vase-painting in the symposium must have been
less predictable and uniform and more individual than the simultaneous mass
experience of a satyr-play. There may have been fewer genre- or conventional
restrictions on the invention of the vase-painter working for individual purchasers
or users of vases than on playwrights composing for the City Dionysia. It seems
to me inherently difficult to generalize about the collective unconscious appeal
of silens to makers, users, and viewers of vases given the variety of types of
scenes and shapes in and on which they appear, and the variety of functions
served by the vases. Furthermore, although the practice of dressing up and
performing in the guise of silens may well be an archaic practice, and may
well have informed the conception of silens in black-figure vase-painting in some
158. Griffith 2002: 211–27.
159. Griffith 2006: 177. For an assessment of Hall’s argument, see also Gibert 2002.
160. Griffith 2002: 228, 232 (quote).
316
Volume 25 / No. 2 / October 2006
ways, the archaeological evidence of the prehistory of satyric performance is
not without ambiguity.161 Less unambiguous are some sixth-century Athenian
vase-paintings that express the idea that mythical choral performances of silens
and nymphs are the prototype for actual choral song and dance.162 Richard Seaford
has argued on the basis of plot patterns, etiological mythology, and comparative
evidence that masquerading as a silen was a venerable initiatory practice in Greece
that very likely informed the origins of Athenian drama.163 But if it were the case
that choral or dramatic performances of men dressed as silens occurred throughout
the sixth century at Athens and informed the vase-painting of silens directly or
indirectly, a fundamental shift in tone would remain to be explained. Generally
speaking, the level of obscenity in Archaic vase-painting of silens is closer to
that of Old Comedy, with which iambos is also closely affiliated, than to that
of classical satyr-play.164 So it would be difficult to account for the similarities
between the presentation of silens in Archaic vase-painting and that of silens in
classical satyr-play, in terms of the response they invited from the spectator, by
any simple history of direct influence. Archaic iambic poetry has numerous links
with cults of Dionysos and Demeter typified by reversal or inversion of norms
of behavior.165 A link between iambic poetry and ritual inversion is articulated
already in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. Demeter was roused from her profound
grief and anger over the loss of her daughter by the eponymous heroine of the
poetic genre, Iambe, who “mocking with many a joke moved the goddess to
smile and laugh and keep a gracious heart.”166 The hymn does not specify what
sort of jokes were employed by Iambe to cheer Demeter up, but later sources
suggest that her intercession was understood to be obscene.167 The practices
of displaying genitalia and using obscenities are well attested for several cults
of Demeter.168 Dionysiac processional festivals at Athens were also famous for
scurrilous behavior known proverbially as τ âκ τÀν µαξÀν, “abuse from the
161. Hedreen 1992: 125–53. For skepticism about aspects of the original argument, see Krumeich
et al. 1999: 51–53; Steinhart 2004: 104 with n. 957.
162. Hedreen forthcoming-b.
163. Seaford 1976; Seaford 1981; Seaford 1984: 8–10.
164. On these points, see Rosen 1988b; Hedreen 1992: 158–59; Griffith 2006: 166–72.
165. Various approaches to the interpretation of ritual inversion, which has been extensively
explored by historians of religion and anthropologists, are examined in Goldhill 1991: 176–88;
Versnel 1993: 115–21.
166. Lines 202–204, trans. after Foley 1994: 12. The poem appears to relate that mythical
incident explicitly to ongoing ritual practice in line 205: “Iambe, who later pleased her moods as
well.” The ritual origins of iambic poetry have been explored by West 1974: 23–25; P. A. Miller
1994: 23–29; Brown 1997: 16–24.
167. Diod. 5.4.7 called Iambe’s jokes αÊσχρολογÐα, “shameful speech.” See also the Et. Mag.
s.v. Iambe, which reports that Iambe not only said “unseemly things” but also made “unseemly
gestures.” Baubo, Iambe’s counterpart in Orphic mythology, made Demeter laugh by uncovering
her genitalia and displaying them to the goddess: for the testimonia, see Olender 1990: 87–90.
168. Most of the testimonia can be found in Fluck 1931. The evidence is reviewed in more detail
in Hedreen 2004: 55–57.
: “I Let Go My Force Just Touching Her Hair”
317
carts.” Some evidence suggests that the behavior was in part at least obscene, and
a plausible argument can be made that the offensive, sexually explicit behavior
of silens in vase-paintings of the return of Hephaistos (e.g., figs. 3–4, 13) is
analogous, in visual mythical narrative terms, to the scurrilous behavior attested
for Athenian Dionysiac processions.169 So a full accounting of the phenomena
relevant to understand the sexually explicit representations of silens in Archaic
Athenian vase-painting would include more than just the study of choral and/or
dramatic performances of men dressed as silens. Nevertheless, the manners of
presentation of silens in Archaic vase-painting and classical satyr-play are similar
in that they combine a negative characterization of the silens, in terms of selfcontrol or success with women, and a pictorial or dramatic conception that invites
the viewer to see himself in the company of those creatures despite their negative
traits. The tension between the negative characterization and representational
aesthetic of involvement appears to be a fundamental feature of the silens as they
are given form in early Greek art and literature.
However much the argument of this paper may be supported by the manner of
presentation of silens in satyr-play, it rests primarily on the formal qualities of
some Archaic Athenian vase-paintings of silens. Those vase-paintings employ
pictorial conceptions that invite viewers of the vases to see themselves or each
other as inhabitants of the world of Dionysos, as silens and nymphs. The existence
of such viewer-involving vase-paintings (e.g., figs. 1, 2, 12, 14, 15, possibly 4 and
9) opens the possibility that other vase-paintings of silens, containing no formal,
pictorial invitation to enter the company of silens, might nevertheless have been
interpreted by contemporary potters or users as making comparison between
their world and the mythical world of Dionysos and his followers. The images
considered in this paper are particularly challenging in that respect, because they
flaunt behavior that is both contrary to accepted norms of behavior and subject
to strong taboos in ancient (and modern) culture. It is perhaps not especially
challenging for a symposiast to accept the idea that his lifestyle was comparable
in general terms to that of a hedonistic character such as a silen, fond of wine,
music, song, dance, and sex. It seems more challenging for such a viewer to
accept the idea that his own sexual behavior or desire is possibly comparable to
the uncontrolled, immodest, shameless, and unsuccessful sexual acts of silens.
The visual invitations to make that comparison (especially figs. 2, 12) may well
have been intended to be funny, but their very existence is significant insofar as
they possessed the potential to unsettle, if only for a few moments, the ancient
Athenian male sense of self-mastery.
Williams College
Guy.M.Hedreen@williams.edu
169. Hedreen 2004: 54–55 and passim.
318
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Fig. 1a-b: Cervetri, Museo Nazionale Cerite 7968, Attic black-figure neck amphora,
Tyrrhenian Group. Photograph courtesy of the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut,
Rome. Schauenburg, Negs. D-DAI-Rom 1976.1350-51.
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2-3
Fig. 2: New York,
Metropolitan Museum of
Art, Purchase, The Cesnola
Collection, by exchange,
1926 (26.49), Attic
black-figure aryballos,
ABV 83,4, Nearchos.
Photograph, all rights
reserved, courtesy The
Metropolitan Museum of
Art.
Fig. 3: Florence, Museo Archeologico
Etrusco 3773, and Berlin, Staatliche
Museen 1711, Attic black-figure
neck amphora, ABV 95,8, Castellani
Painter. Photograph courtesy the
Soprintendenza Archeologica per
la Toscana, Firenze.
4-5
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Fig. 4: New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1917 (17.230.5), Attic
black-figure cup, Para 78,1, Oakeshott Painter. Photograph, all rights reserved, courtesy
The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Fig. 5(a–b): Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 01.17, gift of Mrs. Henry P. Kidder,
Attic black-figure neck amphora, ABV 319, 2, Painter of Boston 01.17. Photograph
©Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
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6-7
Fig. 6: Kassel, Staatliche
Museen, Antikensammlung
ALg 214, Attic red-figure cup,
signed by Pamphaios as potter,
attributed to the Nikosthenes
Painter. Photograph by M.
Büsing, copyright Staatl.
Museen Kassel.
Fig. 7: Boston, Museum
of Fine Arts 76.40, gift of
Thomas Gold Appleton, Attic
black-figure neck amphora,
Para 144,1, Dayton Painter.
Photograph ©Museum of
Fine Arts, Boston.
8-9
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Fig. 8: Oxford, Ashmolean
Museum 1982.1097, Attic
black-figure neck amphora,
Hattatt Painter. Photograph
courtesy the Ashmolean
Museum. All rights reserved.
Fig. 9: Oxford,
Ashmolean
Museum 1934.353,
Attic blackfigure lekythos,
ABV 70,8,
Sandal Painter.
Photograph
courtesy the
Ashmolean
Museum. All
rights reserved.
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10-11
Fig. 10: Ferrara, Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Spina 898 (T. 323), Attic red-figure
calyx krater, ARV 2 271,1, Painter of Goluchow 37. Photograph courtesy of the Hirmer
Fotoarchiv.
Fig. 11: Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum 85.AE.188, fragmentary Attic red-figure
hydra, Kleophrades Painter. Photograph courtesy the J. Paul Getty Museum.
12-13
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Fig. 12: San Antonio,
Museum of Art 87.58,
purchased with funds
provided by Mr. and
Mrs. Robert Willson,
Attic black-figure
neck amphora, BMN
Painter. Photograph
courtesy the San
Antonio Museum of
Art.
Fig. 13: Florence, Museo Archeologico Etrusco 4209, Attic black-figure volute
krater, ABV 76,1, Kleitias and Ergotimos. Photograph courtesy of the Hirmer
Fotoarchiv.
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14-15
Fig. 14(a-b): Würzburg, Martin von Wagner-Museum der Universität Würzburg L 164,
Chalkidean black-figure cup, Phineus Painter. Photograph courtesy the Martin von
Wagner-Museum. Photo: K. Oehrlein.
Fig. 15: Houston, The Menil Collection 70-050 DJ, Attic black-figured cup signed by
the potter Nikosthenes. Photograph courtesy The Menil Collection.
16
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Fig. 16: Kassel, Staatliche Museen, Antikensammlung ALg 57, Attic red-figure
hydria, Nikoxenos Painter. Photograph by M. Büsing, copyright Staatl. Museen Kassel.
