Title: Surface Tensions: Mutable Materials, Sympotic Sociability, and Bodily Surfaces in the Theognidea

Abstract: In this paper, I will explore the relationship between bodily surfaces and sympotic sociability focused on the corpus of the Theognidea. In particular, I explore the recurring issues of social mutability and adaptability in sympotic and polis communities staged as they are presented in the Theognidea. I argue that the body’s surface, especially the skin (χρώς, χροιή), brings together ethical problems of surfaces/presentation, concealing/deception, and mutability, most clearly articulated through surface-material associations with counterfeit metals (Thgn. 118-28, 447-52) and the adaptable body of the octopus (213-18, 1071-74; Plut. de amic. Multit. 96f). What I suggest this reading of surfaces provides is a way to conceive of a material alignment between the poetic program of the Theognideaand the sympotic world the collection constructs, pegged to the ethical dilemmas of trust and deceit, as well as praise and blame. This nexus of bodily and material surfaces demonstrates how archaic poetry can materially enmesh the body of the symposiast in the occasion the poetry creates as a way to both conceal and reveal these ethical challenges and realities simultaneously at the levels of poet, audience, and poetry.