Reconstructing Greek Masculinity: Minoan and Spartan Drinking Rituals

Casey J. Starnes (University of Missouri, Columbia)

My paper purports to demonstrate a connection between the Ekdysia festival of Minoan Crete and the syssitia of Sparta under the Lycurgan Regimen via a peculiar drinking ritual. In the Cretan version a young soldier is given a drinking vessel upon the completion of his training in the wild. The training can be summarized as follows: an older male youth (philetor) “captures” a younger male youth (parastatheis), taking him to the local andreion (male dining club) in which he is a member; the suitor then gives the youth gifts and takes him into the country (accompanied by some of the boy’s friends), where they spend time hunting and feasting; finally, after returning to the dining club, the lover presents the youth with a drinking cup and other gifts, to indicate his acceptance.

The Chieftain Cup found in Crete is supposed by scholars to be such a cup. It displays a longhaired, older boy presenting to his beloved a sword and javelin. The reverse side of the cup shows three of the beloved’s friends bringing him flattened ox skins, from which would be made a shield. The interpretation is that the Chieftain Cup is the very prize of the boy who is depicted on it, and the sword, javelin, and shield-makings are the accompanying gifts.

Very likely, Dorian Greeks who settled on Crete absorbed this tradition of ritual abduction (with the Mycenaeans as intermediary) and brought it back with them to Sparta from which it spread into greater Greece. I argue that the abduction ritual occurs in the Lycurgan Regimen of Sparta in a bifurcated form. First, the Cretan excursion to the country is represented in the stealing forays of the Spartan youths into the countryside as well as in the activities of the krypteia, at both of which events sexual camaraderie is expected and encouraged. Second, the actual abduction component of the ritual is manifest in the Spartan practice of “bride capture” and is thus transformed into a heterosexual ritual, yet one which retains many features of the original homosexual relationship.

Other cups from Crete and the mainland appear to have been employed for a similar purpose. Rituals involving cups and the maturation of young men are attested in literature as well, including that of Ephoros, Plato, Aristotle, Ovid, and Athenaeus. This testimony sheds light on the drinking rituals of the ancient Greeks and strengthens the connection between the Cretan practice and that of the Spartans. My paper explores this connection and argues for a direct relationship by examining the cups themselves as well as the supportive literature.