Talk:Kalos inscription

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Well, actually it is questionable whether kalos inscriptions have a better survival rate than kale inscriptions. It would depend on the relative social stigma of consorting with boys or hetaera. Possibly also on which ones wives would more readily drop!Twospoonfuls 16:11, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I wonder how much say the wife had on the choice of funerary urn. But as for their tastes, here is an amusing anecdote on one wive's view of eromonoi. As for the relative frequency of the inscriptions, I think we are on safe ground as long as we just report the figures. I have seen no speculation anywhere on survival rates of gynophilic vases. Haiduc 18:22, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Shy article

Are you familiar with K. J. Dover’s Greek Homosexuality (Harvard University Press, 1978)? The article as it stands today, when it appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column, doesn’t face the facts: “The purpose of these inscriptions is uncertain…”; “they may have been the expression of a cult of celebrity or part of a concerted effort by the youths' families to increase their sons' public standing”. This is nonsense.

Dover wrote:

“The despairing erastes seems to have used ‘X is beautiful’ as a means of declaring ‘I am in love with X’…” (p. 112)

“It is against this background that we must consider a phenomenon which has naturally played an important part in the study of Greek homosexual ethos by modern scholars, although (like vase-painting in general) not mentioned by ancient writers: the many hundreds of vase-inscriptions which acclaim the beauty either of a named person or an unnamed boy.” (p. 114)

“One could imagine that the erastes commissioned a vessel which would include an acclamation of his own eromenos, thus declaring his passion to his guests at a symposium; or that he commissioned it in order to give it to his eromenos. Some inscriptions would suit this hypothesis well…” (p. 118)

“We are, however, justified in treating the quantity of the [vessel bearing a kalos-inscription] material as evidence of Greek male society’s preoccupation with the beauty of boys and youths, and the ubiquity of ‘boy’ and ‘girl’ —not ‘youth’, ‘man’ or ‘woman’— in the formulae reminds us of the characteristic Greek conception of sexuality as a relationship between a senior and a junior partner” (pp. 121f)

—Cesar Tort 17:39, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. Haiduc 18:00, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

“Nonsense” is putting the matter a little too baldly. It is speculation certainly, but speculation is all we have – Dover is speculating when he says “The despairing erastes seems to have used ‘X is beautiful’ as a means of declaring ‘I am in love with X’…”(my emphasis). If kalos inscriptions functioned like a billet doux then how exactly did the object of this admiration learn of it? As Slater put it in ‘’Signs of Orality’’

“The more popular view is that the purchasers of the vases are the senders of messages. Here we imagine that a would-be erastes might order up a new set of vessels for a party and ask the vase painter to include kalos-inscriptions to the youth he is attempting to seduce. It is a little harder to see how the notion of commissioning a vase to communicate a message might have arisen, although we can construct scenarios in which a practice originating in the potters’ or painters’ affections was detected and imitated by the customers. Yet could Leagros really have attended enough such parties to account for the number of surviving inscriptions in his honour? Moreover some inscriptions appear on ceramic pieces that the honourand most likely never would have seen: at least one Panathenaic vase carries a kalos-inscription, and objects dedicated in shrines could not have had the honourand of a kalos-inscription as their primary audience” (p.150)

I don’t apologize for being cautious in ascribing motives to the makers and consumers of kalos vases. It would be presumptuous to say that such inscriptions were addressed directly to the person named as much as it would be to say that someone wearing a Britney Spears t-shirt is declaring they intend to fuck her. We no more know what went through the minds of the men who read these inscriptions than we do which jokes worked and which fell flat at the first production of Aristophanes.

Twospoonfuls 18:21, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for the massive overhaul, it may have been a bit rash. But I would still include a lot of the Dover material, it is informative. Haiduc 18:33, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

purpose discussion

I have brought over the paragraphs in which I included Dover's ideas, and I have reworked them further, bringing in also Jean Marcade' thoughts on the matter as well as much of the original text. This as a starting point for the discussion. Haiduc 18:50, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

The purpose of these inscriptions, and others like them that simply mentioned the beloved's name or just the epithet "kalos", is uncertain. Principally they are thought to be declarations of love on the part of the author for the young man in question, part of the pederastic courtships which were customary in ancient Greece at the time. According to Dover, “The despairing erastes seems to have used ‘X is beautiful’ as a means of declaring ‘I am in love with X’…”

Dover suggests that “the erastes commissioned a vessel which would include an acclamation of his own eromenos, thus declaring his passion to his guests at a symposium; or that he commissioned it in order to give it to his eromenos,” and that we can reasonably treat these objects as "evidence of Greek male society’s preoccupation with the beauty of boys and youths..." Some names occur more frequently than others, a fact ascribed to the multitude of admirers that some youths attracted.

More probably, they mirrored emotions of the customer, who ordered the work done and had the vases custom made. Beyond that, to which audience the inscription was addressed, what effect it was meant to have, how it was meant to achieve this effect, and how successful this mode of communication was, is unclear.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Haiduc (talk • contribs)

I personally would prefer it if the article remains as it stands as a general explanation of the phenomenon, and that any addition speculation on the purpose of kalos inscriptions was hived off into a separate section which could expand. Dover isn't the last word on the subject and I wouldn't like to see the article constantly rewritten to accommodate competing explanations.Twospoonfuls 19:01, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Twospoonfuls: Have you read Dover’s pages 112-122 cited above, including the vessels plates that appear in the book? Your cautiousness strikes me as denial of the material. Haiduc’s copyedits should be restored. You wrote:

It would be presumptuous to say that such inscriptions were addressed directly to the person named as much as it would be to say that someone wearing a Britney Spears t-shirt is declaring they intend to fuck her.

This is a possibility and you can mention it if you like. But Haiduc’s paragraphs you moved advance another possibility. I don’t understand why you just removed them. —Cesar Tort 19:33, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I have no problem with keeping things separate, as per Twospoonfuls' suggestion. Haiduc 19:42, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I’ve tried to make a general statement of the nature of the kalos inscription in this article, but the matter is complex and obscure and I’m afraid I’ve already somewhat caricatured it. To quote Dover in the way Haiduc did is to imply the kalos vase was purely a love letter presented at a drinks party; this is to misrepresent them. I’m all for adding scholarly speculation but flagged up as such and, please, in a separate section. Twospoonfuls 20:17, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

In keeping with that, Marcade mentions that there are kalos vases depicting Eros with "ho pais kalos" or just "kalos" accompanying the image. Haiduc 20:42, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Still, I take issue with the remark that “the purpose of these inscriptions is uncertain”. According to Dover: “These inscriptions are not graffiti, but were painted on the vessel before firing, they were therefore conceived by the painter as an ingredient of his design, and one would suppose prima facie that any given inscription of this genre expressed the sentiment of the artist, or of the consumer” (my italics).

Here are a few examples:

• “Epidromos is beautiful, yes!”
• “Theognis is beautiful, by Zeus!”
• “Sostratos is extremely beautiful”
• “Khairas is beautiful, beautiful”

It continued long after the Greek vase-painters had shaken off their horror vacui.

• “I belong to Taleides”
• “Korone is beautiful, I love [her]”
• “Beautiful dear is Mikon”
• “Kleuikha is beautiful and dear to him who wrote”

In one case a youth is masturbating in front of a herm (R173). —Cesar Tort 22:07, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't deny that they had a purpose, it's just unclear which purpose. Kalos names also appear of white ground (probably funerary) lekythoi and panathenaic amphorae, how can they have had the same purpose as one on a symposium kylix? As Haiduc points out at least one reads "the boy is beautiful", surely thats too vague to be a love letter. And take the kylix, how was it used? Did you present it to the loved one, or his father, or give it to your drinking buddies to pass on the word you're interested, or use it just as a conversation piece? I don't accept that we can speak generally about how they were intended to be used. If you know of conclusive evidence otherwise then please do produce it. Twospoonfuls 07:55, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

As long as we present speculation as speculation we will be on safe ground. As for funerary inscriptions of this nature (and we should probably note that many of these vases have a funerary role since they are commonly found in tombs) why could not they be tributes to dead boys? As for function, we moderns can to a certain degree speculate. We know about gifts, from poetry and iconography, and what was given was food or toys or pets (unless it was money, which is another matter). There is not anywhere a mention of a boy being given a risqué wine cup, quite possibly because these were not cheap (nobody puts cheap stuff in tombs) and we all know boys break things. But I am bing facetious.

As for the "the boy is beautiful" inscription, that was addressed to Eros ostensibly, sounds more like a pederastic cri de coeur. Haiduc 13:44, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Twospoonfuls: This paragraph—:

It is thought that since the names refered to were largely aristocratic citizens and that certain pottery workshops are associated with some kalos recipients (i.e. the Leagros Group named after the youth Leagros) they may have been the expression of a cult of celebrity or part of a concerted effort by the youths' families to increase their sons' public standing

—is more speculative, and far more unlikely, than Dover’s quotations you removed. It makes no sense to include this speculation and leave out the more credible. Why not just mention the two? —Cesar Tort 17:11, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

More unlikely? I would say that all hypotheses were equally true, i.e. not at all. Discuss Dover if you want, as I've said several times now I'm not stopping you. Twospoonfuls 20:59, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Twospoonfuls, do you have any sources for the celebrity cult or the self-promotion hypotheses? It would be good to be able to cite them in the article. Haiduc 21:28, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Haiduc: Now that there’s consensus I’d prefer you discuss Dover if you want (your English is better than mine). Perhaps you may find it illustrative to include some examples of the cri de coeur ("Epidromos is beautiful, yes!”, “Theognis is beautiful, by Zeus!”, “I belong to Taleides”, etc)? —Cesar Tort 22:05, 10 December 2006 (UTC)