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Ideology, the Symposium, and Archaic Politics
- American Journal of Philology
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 125, Number 4 (Whole Number 500), Winter 2004
- pp. 479-512
- 10.1353/ajp.2005.0005
- Article
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In this essay, I explore the work of two scholars—Ian Morris and Leslie Kurke—and one of their claims: that the archaic Greek symposium served as the site for an anti-polis ideology. I first examine the conceptual underpinnings that guide their understanding of the operation of ideology. I then look closely at the arguments and evidence provided by Morris and Kurke. I argue that their respective conclusions about the symposium are not sustained even by their own evidence but rest on a set of problematic assumptions about the operation of ideology that they have imported into their analysis.