Chapter 4. Traditions in Flux It is thanks to themthat I live in three dimensions,in a space non-lyrical and non-rhetorical,with a horizon real because movable.They themselves do not knowhow much they bring in empty hands.“I owe them nothing,”love would sayon this open question. —Wisława Szymborska, from Gratitude (trans. M. J. Krynski and R. A. Maguire) … Read more
Chapter 5. In Search of Sappho’s Companions: Anthropological Fieldwork on Socioaesthetic Cultures The postcard on the cover of the book depicts a privileged view of a central street of Mytilene at the beginning of the twentieth century. One of the major Greek Orthodox monuments of the city, the elaborate church of St. Therapon, most prominent in Mytilene until today, dominates the left background of the picture, the… Read more
Abbreviations and Bibliography For the fragments of Sappho and Alkaios I cite Voigt’s critical edition [= V]. For the other melic poets I use Page’s Poetae Melici Graeci [= PMG], while for Alkman, Stesikhoros, and Ibykos I refer to Davies 1991 when necessary. For the elegiac and iambic poets, I cite West’s edition [= W]. For Pindar I use Snell and Maehler [= S-M] and Maehler [=… Read more
For Addie ἐγὼ δέ κέ τοι ἰδέω χάριν ἤματα πάντα. Preface The present volume argues for “discordant harmony” (concordia discors) as an aesthetic principle where classical Athenian literature addresses politics in the idiom of sexual desire. Its approach is an untried one for such a topic. Drawing on theorists of the sociality of language, it examines various ways in which erôs, consuming, destabilizing desire, became… Read more
Abbreviations D-K Diels, H., and W. Krantz, eds. 1952, repr. Dublin, 1966. Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, ed. 6. Berlin. FGrH Jacoby, F. 1957–. Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker. Leiden. PCG Kassel, R., and C. Austin, eds. 1983–. Poetae comici graeci. Berlin. PMG Page, D. L. 1962. Poetae melici graeci. Oxford. SSR Giannantoni, G. 1990. Socratis et Socraticorum reliquiae. Naples. GHI Meiggs, R. and D. Lewis, eds. 1988. Read more
Chapter 1. Introduction Problem Writing to a friend, Horace describes the man as fascinated by “the discordant harmony of the cosmos, its purpose and power” (Epistles 1.12.19). Horace refers to Empedocles’ doctrine of a world order in constant flux between cohesion and fragmentation, Love and Strife, harmony and discord. Compressed into a single concept, this flux represents, in Horace’s phrase, concordia discors, a dynamic tension whose… Read more
Chapter 2. “Lovers of It”: Erotic Ambiguity in the Periclean Funeral Oration And so it is that these men have proved themselves worthy of their city. As for you, the living, pray that your resolve will be no less unshakable, yet resolve to be no less bold against the enemy. And don’t just calculate the benefits of beating him back—benefits that it would take too… Read more
Chapter 3. He Loves You, He Loves You Not: Demophilic Courtship in Aristophanes’ Knights In the Acharnians of 425 BCE, Aristophanes promises to “shred” the leather merchant Cleon, a political bigwig and a thorn in the playwright’s side. [1] Delivering on that promise the very next year in Knights, Aristophanes portrays Cleon as a repulsively obsequious, yet violently quarrelsome house-slave named Paphlagon. Read more
Chapter 4. Forgive and Forget: Concordia discors in Aristophanes’ Assemblywomen and Lysistrata In Aristophanes’ Assemblywomen, salvation—sôtêria—for Athens and its citizens dominates the agenda, not just of the political meeting whence the play’s title, but of the play as a whole. [1] To an Athenian audience, that will have suggested a city in crisis, [2] but what kind… Read more
Chapter 2. Ethnographic Archives of Vraisemblance in Attic Ceramics κλίνη, ἐάντε ἐκ πλαγίου αὐτὴν θεᾷ ἐάντε καταντικρὺ ἢ ὁπῃοῦν, μή τι διαφέρει αὐτὴ ἑαυτῆς, ἢ διαφέρει μὲν οὐδέν, φαίνεται δὲ ἀλλοία; If you look at a bed from the side or from the front or from any angle, does the bed itself become different? Or does it appear different, without being different? —Plato, Republic… Read more
