Ancient Literacies

(Marvins-Underground-K-12) #1

prevent the dissolution of the drinkers through drink and bring the right


social qualities of relaxed friendship—‘‘if people engage in it properly,’’¼í


ôØò KììåºHò –ðôÅôÆØ(IV proem [660c]). You must get your sympotic


conversation right. So Plato’s combination of seriousness and play is


explicitly aparadeigmabequeathed by tradition to be followed still (VI


proem [686d])—Book VIII is, suitably enough, conversations from a


celebration of Plato’s birthday—and conversations no less than friends


need to be of proven quality and worth (äåäïŒØìÆóìÝíïıò) before they can


be admitted to a symposium (VII proem [697d]). The proems (except the


last) each talk about the suitability of particular topics for the symposium,


just as the dialogues demonstrate how to go about engaging in such topics.


Plutarch’sSympotic Questionsoffers a normative version of sympotic


behavior for thepepaideumenoi: it is a guide and handbook to social


discourse, which can be used and reused by selective performance.


Plutarch’s famous comment in theLivesthat you can see the character


of a great man by his casual remarks or in a small action as much as by his


world-changing deeds offers something of a theoretical underpinning for


the turn toward anecdotal biographical narrative in theSympotic Ques-
tions. (This, too, is something he learned from Xenophon.) His sympo-


sium brings together Greeks and Romans at the same table, just as his


Livesspecifically juxtapose and compare Greek and Roman heroes (and


are the source of so many anecdotes). Whereas Athenaeus’s dinner party


of sophists creates one idealized image of Greek culture at work, a world


where everyone fully embodies literate Greek culture, Plutarch’s didac-


ticism sits on the boundary of Greek and Roman culture. He addresses


Sossius Senecio in each book; they are entertained at Mestrius Florus’s


house; Romans take part in the conversation. The text represents the sort


of elite occasion in Empire society for which reading Plutarch’sSympotic


Questionsis a suitable preparation.^28


We may read Philostratus’sErotic Lettersor even the letters of Aelian


and Alciphron in the same light. Each of these collections produces


discrete moments of narrative—an anecdote captured through the lens


of a letter—and no more. Even when more than one letter seems to be


connected in theme, as with the first five of Alciphron’sErotic Letters, each


letter takes a well-known anecdote from the fourth-century city and turns


it into a letter from one of the participants in the story. As I have discussed


elsewhere, Philostratus’sErotic Lettersare best seen as ‘‘a manual for self-


expression as a Greek lover within the tropology of classical eros’’—a


handbook in how to present oneself as a lover.
29
Handbooks are the


archetypal way of packaging a culture under threat, circulating knowledge


in restricted units as a gesture toward tradition, as that tradition feels



  1. I wish to record how much I have learnt on this from conversations with Jason Konig,
    whose forthcoming book on late sympotic literature is eagerly awaited.

  2. Goldhill (forthcoming).


110 Situating Literacies

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