Voices from the Greek Islands

Ancient Greece was not one political entity, as modern Greece is today. In fact, it was made up of hundreds of small poleis (city-states), each fiercely independent of the others. This means that within the Greek world of antiquity, there is considerable diversity in terms of traditions, laws, and religious practices. This case juxtaposes a text from Sappho, who lived on Lesbos, with a vase from ancient Cyprus.

Glittering-Minded deathless Aphrodite,
I beg you, Zeus’s daughter, weaver of snares,
Don’t shatter my heart with fierce
Pain, goddess,

But come now, if ever before
You heard my voice, far off, and listened,
And left your father’s golden house,
And came,

Yoking your chariot. Lovely the swift
Sparrows that brought you over black earth
A whirring of wings through mid-air
Down the sky.

They came. And you, sacred one,
Smiling with deathless face, asking
What now, while I suffer: why now
I cry out to you, again:

What now I desire above all in my
Mad heart. ’Whom now, shall I persuade
To admit you again to her love,
Sappho, who wrongs you now?

If she runs now she’ll follow later,
If she refuses gifts she’ll give them.
If she loves not, now, she’ll soon
Love against her will.’

Come to me now, then, free me
From aching care, and win me
All my heart longs to win. You,
Be my friend.

Sappho, 1. Hymn to Aphrodite

Sappho lived in the late seventh and early sixth centuries BCE. While she is easily the most famous woman writer from antiquity, most of her work has come down to us in fragments. Her Hymn to Aphrodite is one of the few poems that we have in their entirety.

Cyprus, home of the basketball oinochoe on display, was also said to be the home of Aphrodite, who was sometimes called Cypris. This poem seemed an appropriate juxtaposition as it praises Aphrodite, ultimately asking her to be a friend to Sappho.

This basketball oinochoe is from Cyprus, an island to the south of Lesbos in the Mediterranean Sea. The oinochoe originated as a vessel used by pouring wine; it was basically a type of pitcher for wine. There are many types of shape of oinochoe; this one is called a basketball because of the large round cavity. 

Sappho was at the center of an intellectual circle on Lesbos, and we can certainly imagine that wine would have been a part of their gatherings as they gathered - like many men of the time - to hymn the gods (as Sappho hymns Aphrodite here) and to contemplate the serious and not so serious issues of life. Let us imagine, then this oinochoe gracing one of Sappho's gatherings, a woman daring to enter into a man's world.

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