The Getty Villa in Malibu, California is offering a lecture on Saturday July 21, 2012 entitled “Drinking in the Greek Manner: a Brief History of the Symposium” based on ancient Greek social custom of the “symposium,” an intellectual wine party for prominent Athenians.
The Getty Villa is an educational center and museum dedicated to the study of the arts and cultures of ancient Greece, Rome and Etruria and as a result, organizes many Greece-focused events all year round.
Oswyn Murray, professor at the University of Oxford, will be the lecture’s main speaker. Since 1984 he has conducted extensive research on ancient Greek drinking customs.
Attendants of the lecture will also have the opportunity to taste wines inspired by ancient wine making techniques in the beautiful outdoor setting of the Villa.
‘Symposium’ is the Greek word for “drinking together”- reclining on couches and enjoying the famous triad of “wine, women and song.” Aristocrats mostly attended such gatherings while Plato has also described such a scene in his work, The Symposium.
Admission costs $60 and the lecture starts at 5:00 pm.
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