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A ban on public bars in Thasos?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

James Davidson
James Davidson
Affiliation:
Warwick University
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Extract

Among the late fifth-century regulations governing the wine-trade in Thasos is a ban on κοτυλιζεῖν (‘selling wine in half-pint measures’, or more generally ‘breaking bulk’). It is normally characterized as a law of rather narrow relevance, something to do with maintaining the quality of Thasian wines and guarding against false measures. Here I want to examine the possibility that it is in fact a highly political measure on the part of a government hostile to the demos, an attempt to ban an institution identified with democracy–the public bar.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 47 , Issue 2 , December 1997 , pp. 392 - 395
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1997

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References

1 G. Daux, ‘Nouvelles Inscriptions de Thasos 1921–24’, BCH 50 (1926), 213–9 esp. 214–26; Francois Salviat, ‘Le vin de Thasos, amphores, vin et sources ecrites’,Google Scholar in J.-Y, Empereur, Y, Garlan (edd.), Recherches sur les Amphores Grecques, BCHSuppl. 13 (Ecole Francaise d'athenes, 1986), pp. 186–7;Google ScholarR. Osborne, Classical Landscape with Figures (London, 1987), pp. 104–5.Google Scholar

2 Nicostratus, 80 KA.

3 cf. Ar. F699 KA, Ecc. 154–5, where the women want to ban water-tanks from the kapēleia, a joke about the taverners diluting wine, or about the women wanting their wine served neat.

4 Arist. Rhet. 3.10.4, 1411a.24.

5 Lysias 1.24, Blepyrus in the Plutus 435, mistakes Poverty for the . The female speaker in Antiphanes 25 K-A mentions who knows just how to mix wine for her, not too strong and not too watery. A character from Nicostratus' Patriotai 22 K-A mentions another who sells watery wine, vinegar, and torches. Another local kapēleion crops up at Eubulus 80 K-A, where, it seems, a nurse nips across the road for a drink. Pollux, to illustrate in the sense of ‘local, neighbourhood’, cites a fragment of Aristophanes in which the term qualified is (285 K-A). Kapēloi also feature in the corpora of curse-tablets; see index to R. Wuensch (ed.), IG 3.3, Appendix: Defixionum tabellae and esp. 87; cf.Google ScholarGager, J. G. (ed.), Curse Tablets and Binding Spells from the Ancient World, (NYC, 1992), p. 157 n. 8. Another tablet is listed inGoogle ScholarD. R. Jordan's supplementary survey, ‘A Survey of Greek Defixiones Not Included in the Special Corpora’, GRBS 26 (1985), 151–97 11, with curses directed against two women each described as Google Scholar

6 Alexis 9 KA 1.5 cf. Isoc. Antid. 286–7.

7 Cf. Ar. Ecc 154–5.

8 I am not sure of the purpose of the sponge. Is it for stopping the opened amphora or a metaphor for someone who drinks too much? Theopompus 41 K-A also mentions a sponge in the context of drinking.

9 Isoc. Areop. 49.

10 Isoc. Amid. 286–7.

11 Ar. 699 KA.

12 Hyperides 138 Jensen ap. Ath. 13.566f.

13 Cf. Ecc. 134, where the women accuse the men of attending the Assembly in a state of inebriation.

14 Theopompus FGrHist 115 F 62.

15 Phylarchus FGrHist 81 F 7. For these and other references to the popularity of the kapēleia in Athens, see Athenaeus 10.442c, cf. 8.351e.

16 Francois Salviat, ‘Le vin de Thasos, amphores, vin et sources écrites’, in J. Y Empereur, Y Garlan (edd.), Recherches sur les Amphores Grecques BCH Suppl 13 (École Franpaise d'athenes, 1986), p. 149;Google Scholarcf. J. Pouilloux, Recherches sur I'histoire et les cultes de Thasos 1(1954), p. 212, with note2, GXIISuppl. 347.Google Scholar