After enjoying a good meal and a coffee, if we have time and the company lends itself to it, the digestifs in a shot version (herb pomace, pacharán and others) usually kick off entertaining gatherings in which any topic is can try and where it is better not to give up so that they don't crucify you . It is also true that if things drag on, the shots give way to other drinks (gin and tonic type) and the pleasant gatherings lead to exaltation of friendship, regional songs, the familiarity with authority and insults to the clergy . Well, all this after-dinner ritual, so ours, was already practiced in Ancient Greece... They called it a symposium .
The symposium it was the time for drinking and chatting among the guests after finishing the main meal (deipnon ). At the end of the meal, the servants cleared the tables, crowned the guests with wreaths of ivy and branches, poured over them some perfumes, began to circulate cups filling them from the krater (containers or pots made of clay where he mixed water and wine for the guests) placed in the center of the room and an arbiter of the talks was chosen... the toasts and the following talks could go on happily until the evening.
The wine, considered a gift from the god Dionysus, animated the celebration and the krater ensured the festive circulation of the toasts that had a lot of ritual. They began with libations of wine poured in honor of the gods; then, under the protection of the gods Dionysus and Zeus, the rest of the pleasures unfolded. of the symposium:perfumes, songs, music, dances, games, talks, drunkenness... and eroticism. The guests were only men, the women of the house did not attend but they did admit hetairas , great dancers, excellent flutists and better lovers. This created a pleasant atmosphere in which the symposia commented on their occurrences and talked casually, especially about love and politics.
In the words of the Greek historian and philosopher Xenophon …
in the symposia sorrows are numb and the loving instinct is awakened.
Collaboration Edmundo Pérez.
Source:Introduction to Greek Mythology – Carlos García Gual.