Symposium

It was a forum for the progeny of respected families to debate, plot, boast, or simply to revel with others.

Symposia were also held by aristocrats to celebrate other special occasions, such as victories in athletic and poetic contests.

Due to space limitations, the couches would number between seven and nine, limiting the total number of participants to somewhere between fourteen and twenty seven[3] (Oswyn Murray gives a figure of between seven and fifteen couches and reckons fourteen to thirty participants a "standard size for a drinking group").

[5] However, in Macedonian symposia, the focus was not only on drinking but hunting, and young men were allowed to recline only after they had killed their first wild boar.

A symposium would be overseen by a "symposiarch" (Ancient Greek: συμπόσιάρχης : symposiárchēs) who would decide how strong the wine for the evening would be, depending on whether serious discussions or sensual indulgence were in the offing.

A Roman symposium (convivium) served wine before, with and after food, and women of status were allowed to join.

[6] The wine was drawn from a krater, a large jar designed to be carried by two men, and served from pitchers (oenochoe).

The fourth krater is not mine any more – it belongs to bad behaviour; the fifth is for shouting; the sixth is for rudeness and insults; the seventh is for fights; the eighth is for breaking the furniture; the ninth is for depression; the tenth is for madness and unconsciousness.

Although free women of status did not attend symposia, high-class female prostitutes (hetairai) and entertainers were hired to perform, consort, and converse with the guests.

A game sometimes played at symposia was kottabos, in which players swirled the dregs of their wine in a kylix, a platter-like stemmed drinking vessel, and flung them at a target.

Symposiasts might also compete in rhetorical contests, for which reason the word "symposium" has come to refer in English to any event where multiple speeches are made.

[13] Additionally, Etruscan women were often buried with drinking and feasting paraphernalia, suggesting that they partook in these activities.