Speaking Socially: Group Identity and Sympotic Lyric (original) (raw)

Routledge Handbook of Classics and Cognitive Theory, 2019

Abstract

Around the beginning of the sixth century BCE in the polis of Mytilene on Lesbos, Pittacus the son of Hyrrhas secured his position as tyrant and thus gave material for a poetic campaign that would paint him as slovenly, power-hungry, and gluttonous. Alcaeus, Pittacus’ contemporary and political rival, created a poetic character of Pittacus that made the tyrant into the ultimate out-group to the sympotic group(s) composed of Alcaeus and his hetairoi so that Pittacus alone stood for his entire group of supporters. Alcaeus’ portrayal of Pittacus ostracized the tyrant from the convivial group of the symposion by denying him the sympotic traits of restraint, moderation, and loyalty: the man who ruled Mytilene alone drank alone, opposite in every way to the sympotic and political group to which the poet and his audience belonged. Fragment 129, where Alcaeus gives one of the fullest descriptions of Pittacus and his actions, engages in a process of group identity construction. The fragment characterizes Pittacus in negative, asymptotic terms, and the implicit and explicit oppositions drawn between the in-group (Alcaeus and audience) and out-group (Pittacus and his invisible supporters) characterize the poet’s group in turn as well. By attacking his political opponent, Alcaeus constructs a group identity for those listening and attempts to persuade them of its importance to their social identity.

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