Abstract
The ancient Greek kapeleion, or taverna, is an institution shunned by
classicists and archaeologists alike. Preferring instead to focus on the
consumption of wine within sympotic, ritual and religious contexts, this
mainstay of popular life in the ancient Greek city has long been ignored. In
Pompeii, albeit at a later date, tavernas reached a density that compares to
modern cities. An assessment of their distribution in ancient Greece must, of
necessity, be rather more impressionistic, but take to begin with, the laconic
remark which Aristotle in the Rhetoric ascribes to Diogenes the Cynic: ta
kapeleia ta Attika phiditia (‘tavernas are the canteens of Attica’). This paper
discusses evidence for two possible taverna sites in Athens and Corinth.
Introduction
"Just as the common messes feed and water the entire citizenry in Sparta, so the
whole population of Athens can befound of an evening thronging the kapeleia".
It was this line from James Davidson's Courtesans and Fishcakes (comparing two
starkly opposed institutions; the plebeian and democratic Athenian taverna (kapeleion)
and Sparta's communal dining-halls, which inspired my research into the
archaeology of classical Athenian kapeleia. If, as
Davidson
claimed, the entire population of Athens thronged the kapeleia of an evening,
which indeed the ancient sources would appear to corroborate then there must be
a substantial body of archaeological evidence to betray their existence. The
reality however, turned out to be completely the opposite. As I discovered from
the very start, this seemingly well-attested ancient institution has been given
no specific archaeological attention whatsoever. Beyond Courtesans and Fishcakes,
written from the point of view of a classicist, and the reference-packed columns
of Pauly and Wissowa's) panoramic encyclopaedia of the ancient world, it is
impossible to find any detailed study of the kapeleion and few scholars even
bother to refer to it. To some extent, this neglect is a direct result of the
prominence accorded to the symposium and its anthropological model of
commensality, the symposium traditionally being treated as the classic context
for the consumption of alcohol in ancient Greek society). The symposium carried
over from the archaic period associations with the lifestyle of the wealthy
aristocracy and their emulators, and however much the fifthcentury democracy
might try to provide public dining rooms and civic occasions for feasting, the
symposium would remain a largely private and aristocratic preserve.
Those beyond the aristocratic pale had to get their liquid refreshment somewhere
other than the symposium, in the taverna or kapeleion, a far more demotic and
promiscuous space than the private and selective andron or men's room of the
house. (These tavernas sold wine (only barbarians drank beer) and vinegar (wine's
natural by-product), and in some establishments you could have something to eat
as well: tragemata (sweets) or hales (savouries) translated as "bar-snacks" by
Davidson (1997:54). Wine was stored in amphorae, their shape betraying the
region they came from. Once the amphora was opened, the wine would be decanted
into a krater (mixing bowl) , cooled using a psykter or wine-cooler which stood
inside the krater, served from oinochoai or olpai (jugs) and drunk from a
variety of plain or decorated cup shapes such as the kylix , kothon and
kantharos. Ancient wine was much stronger than today (around16
per
cent) and was always mixed with water, one part wine to three parts water being
the preferred admixture. Like today, it came in three different types, austeros
(dry), glukazon (sweet) and autokratos (medium-sweet or somewhere between the
two) and could be red, white or rosé.
In order to establish a criterion against which to test the archaeological
evidence, it was essential to determine a likely commonality between these
establishments as a point of departure. As wine was always drunk mixed with
water, an established taverna would need access to a constant supply, most
likely in the form of a well or cistern (lakkos) on the premises. It was also
essential to identify a likely assemblage of pottery drinking paraphernalia. All
establishments needed the drinking pottery outlined above as well as, depending
on the size and quality of the kapeleion, cooking wares such as escharai (braziers
for grilling spitted meat), lopades (casseroles), griddles and chytrai (cooking
bells) and possibly lamps, coins and items of entertainment such as flutes or
knucklebones (used as gaming pieces).
After an examination of the archaeological evidence from the ancient agoras of
Athens and Corinth (two of the most comprehensively published sites in Greece),
it was possible to identify only two areas which may fit into this picture. It
is those areas which will be discussed in this paper
All information are from site:
http://www.shef.ac.uk/assem/issue6/Kelly_web.htm
