In an octopus' garden: a story from Lesbos

Abstract

In Plutarch’s Banquet of the Seven Sages, the author imagines a remote time when conversations took placein the city of Corinth at a dinner party hosted by the tyrant of that city, Periandros, a historical figure whoselifetime can be dated to the late seventh and early sixth century BCE. The dramatic setting for this imagineddinner party coincides with the era of Sappho and Alcaeus, both originating from the city of Mytilene in Lesbos—and both belonging to a canonical set of nine masters of classical “lyric” songmaking.