In the archaic world of Greece, men of rank met for feasts that served to keep people together. At the “Symposium” people were drinking, philosophizing and politicizing, including sexual pleasure.
Anyone who hears the approximately 2,300-year-old report by the ancient Greek writer Timaeus of Tauromenion, which tells of a drinking bout of young men, senses the exuberance and zest for life of the participants as if it were a recent anecdote. In fact, this is the introduction to a cultural-historical topic of some importance: On the one hand, the so-called symposium, an evening group of men, was often very busy. But the symposium, on the other hand, had certain rules and the elected chairman of the meeting, the symposiarch, had to see that they were followed. A tried and tested means for this: As a rule, only diluted wine was drunk, so that the men could still follow the discussions at an advanced hour. Socially, the symposium had an important function: It was a kind of self-assurance of the members of the Greek upper class, who faced each other in competition and competition and measured each other peacefully in discussions, but also lived out commonalities in amicable relationships.
Flute girls, mostly slaves, played an important role as musicians in the rituals of the symposium. At an advanced hour they were also used by men for sex. The podcast team explains the background to the institution of the symposium, which has been cultivated for centuries. It is not least about the drinking and eating habits of ancient Greece as a whole, but also about the forms of prostitution as they were known to Greek society at the time.
And here is the podcast: