Laura Pepe
Ed. Laterza, Bari 2018
pp. 244
The author, professor of ancient Greek law at the University of Milan, deals with Greek and Roman culture from the point of view of wine in her essay.
In the Homeric poems wine is a constant presence; its abundance is justified by the very high social value connected to it. To those who arrive in their home, the Homeric character, for the respect of the rule of giving a worthy welcome, offers a cup.
The symposium is unknown to Homer. Only male free individuals can participate in it - the only women admitted to the symposium are the ethers - lying on their backs klinai, the beds arranged along the walls, equidistant from the center - where the crater will be placed with wine - so that no one occupies a privileged position, in compliance with the concept of equality. But it is an equality for the few.
It's in Rome? In the eternal city, which undergoes the fascination of Greek culture, the symposium becomes the meeting place klinai they become tricliniums, that is, three-person beds The substantial differences between the two civilizations, however, are the admission of the wives to the convivi and the reduction of the wine to role of simple appearance, in fact "He is no longer in the center of the room; instead there is a table full of all kinds of delicacies. "
The wine, protagonist of some festivals both in the Greek and Roman worlds, is "The only alcoholic beverage worth drinking, typical of a higher level of civilization", to be contrasted with beer, consumed by the "barbarians". Index of civilization, however, is not just what you drink, but how you drink: the uncontrolled intoxication brings, in fact, shame and dishonor.
For Plato "Drinking is an exercise in temperance that involves not giving up pleasure, but acquiring the tools to control pleasure." However, the state of drunkenness is not banned, on the contrary, "both control and loss of control were integral elements of the ethics of collective drinking " where "The intoxication was ritualized to become, thanks to the ritual, an expression of culture at least on a par with its opposite, sobriety. [...] The important thing was, the next day, to regain the usual composure and return to being those always, forgetting what had happened in the symposium. "
Only women, those belonging to a high-ranking family and above all, to Roman women, were forbidden to drink. While, therefore, the symposium is a place of rules where "Wine is the supporting structure, the cultural cement of a complex event in which children must be courted and at the same time educated, in which the ages must entertain and give pleasure, the convivium, at least in imperial age, is instead the place where everything is lawful ", with wine "a precious and indispensable ally of eros that is sought and nourished there. "
Gianlorenzo Capano
