Desiring Athletes: The Meaning of Athletic Imagery on Red-Figure Athenian Symposium Pottery

Abstract

This dissertation explores the iconography of athletes on Athenian red-figure pottery of the late sixth and fifth centuries BCE, a period in which athletic imagery pervaded the homes, marketplaces, and sanctuaries of ancient Greece. I explore how such images on pottery of different shapes for use at the drinking party known as the symposium were understood within that particular context. While these ceramic vessles have been examined in the past for details about sporting practice in ancient Greece, scenes set in the gymnasium often do not show sporting events at all, but rather preparing for exercise, washing, grooming, and dressing. In attempting to assess why these images of athletes were interesting to symposiasts, I suggest certain common athletic motifs contained humorous and erotic subtexts for the participants of the symposium. Each chapter discusses different iconographic topics: connections between gymnasia and symposia; the image of the athlete grooming after exercise; the athlete’s pet dog; the athlete’s cloak; and the tying and binding of athletes with victory fillets, boxing thongs, kunodesmê, and the lacing of their sandals. My methodology includes humor and psychological theory, examinations of verbal puns expressed in imagery, as well as some sociological theory. Above all, the examination of the corpus of these images has revealed trends and tropes within the iconography of the gymnasium. Finally, athletic imagery on symposium vessels is revealed to function within the pederastic practice of classical Athens, and the custom’s relationship to the social politics of the city.