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Voice of the People: Popular Symposia and the Non-Elite Origins of the Attic Skolia
- Transactions of the American Philological Association
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 144, Number 2, Autumn 2014
- pp. 229-262
- 10.1353/apa.2014.0013
- Article
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summary:
This paper reexamines the known performance contexts of the skolion in light of recent advances in our understanding of sympotic demographics and Greek popular culture, providing a close reading of select songs. In showing that the genre was primarily associated with public festivals and non-elite symposia, I argue that the Attic skolia were originally composed, performed, and transmitted by middling citizens at common symposia. Thus, we may isolate within the extant corpus of Greek literature a rare example of popular poetry that expresses the genuine voice of non-elites who articulated egalitarian views based on isonomia independently of elite sources.