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The Hellenismus and the convivial tents.

by Eugenia Salza Prina Ricotti

THE HELLENISMUS
The Hellenismus was an extremely brilliant period, based on the immense wealth gained by Alexander’s fortunate campaigns, and the higly refined way of life acquired by the close contact that the Greek world and the Middle East civilization developed during all those battles. The young general and his companions were so fascinated by the ancient eastern civilizations and from the kind of life that the eastern kings led that they even adopted the Persian dress with its rich long tunics, the same we see reproduced in Persepolis’ bas-reliefs.
And with the attires also the banquets of the young hero and of his companions began to be sumptuous affairs. Gold, that still in Philip the Macedonian times was respected and spared, now was squandered to such a point that, when Alexander’s friends invited him to a banquet, cookies were served enveloped in a golden leaf that and, just as if it was not gold but tin-foil, they threw it on the floor to the slaves’ great pleasure and enthusiasm.
The young prince’s banquet followed the imposing choreography of the Persian’s ones, that were always thronged with people, when the convivial Greek reunions were always restricted to a few close friends. As a matter of fact in Greece special laws limited the number of guests to a maximum of thirty people and special officers, addicted to oversee the observance of this law, took care that not even for special occasions as marriages or religious festivals this number of guests could be exceeded. Instead, after having adopted the oriental customs, Alexander began to invite many friends and comrades to his sumptuous dinners. Thus when he celebrated his marriage and that of 91 of his companions with as many Persian girls, he ordered to prepare 100 tricliniar couches with feet shaped as sphinxes, a typical motif for this kind of furniture, also proved by some bronze exemplars that have been found. But the ones ordered by Alexander were no bronze ones, They were shaped in silver, and for his own they were in gold. As the Greek couch was for two people each, the banquet was calculated for 200 guests and, consequently, to host it the young prince was obliged to have a big tent, a special pavilions that starting from this moment made part of the classic world traditions.
These tents were a typical Middle East’s structure. They were much used by all the populations who, accustomed as they were to live under them, knew all their merits, and they went on making them to host banquets also after stable cities had been erected. The convivial tents had the same dimensions of a modern circus, and for its vastness and the absence of encumbrance in its middle were really apt to host the large banquets that were much used in the Middle East.
In ancient times, due to the limitations of the trilithic architecture (one beam seat over two vertical stands) tents were the only mean possible to cover a large space without being obliged to have a forest of encumbering pilasters. Apart from this tents were easy to be dismounted and transported wherever his master, king or satrap, wanted to have them and set at his disposition a sumptuous place for his receptions wherever he had to go.
After he got to know them Alexander had some extremely rich an beautiful tents made for him and we know two of them that have been described by two of his times historians. That means that maybe they described the same tent. However the richness freely bestowed there was really dazzling. The soil was covered by splendid carpets woven with purple and gold threads; the sustaining poles were also revetted by silver and gold, and were studded by precious gems. The drapery of the tent’s roof were all decorated by embroidered animals also them golden ones and after all this it is easy to imagine the splendour of all the table’s furniture and the jugs and cups for the symposia.
It was in these tents that Alexander held his lively and banquets that were announced by the bugles’ blasts and also bugles’ blasts announced each one of the young prince’s toasts. During the dinner minstrels and jesters did their jokes to the great amusement of the young suzerain and everybody drank until they had completely dulled their senses. Thus it seems that it was in one of this occasion, or at least this was what people said, that the courtesan Thais, persuaded her mighty lover and his companions to crown the party by going out and putting fire to the immortal Persepolis’ palace of which now we have only its imposing ruins.
Later on this luxury and these tents that imitated the Great Kings’ of Persia ones were adopted also by Alexander’s successors and extremely sumptuous were the ones made by the Ptolomies in Alexandria, among which the most famous is the one erected by Ptolemy Philadelphus and scrupulously described by Callixeinus of Rhodes. As it was a tent very similar to that of a modern circus it has been possible to trace for it a reconstruction certainly more adhering to the reality of the ones done at the beginning of the twentieth century when the solutions proposed were all absurd and statistically improbable.
From the actual graphic reconstruction we see a very adorned tent held by poles, that in part stood under the pavilion and in part emerged from it. The lower parts were shaped just like columns and were anchored and made stable by heavy marble bases decorated by mythical figures shaped in high-relief, a kind of base that, with a technical definition, is called “columna caelata”, and is very similar to the bases of the columns of the temple of Diane of Ephesus, one of which is now at the British Museum. The part of the poles emerging from the tent sustained with strong cables a metal ring to which the “ouraniskos” (the higher part of the roof) was hanged. The tissue’s heavy weight was supported by a strong but light frame that at the same time served as a skeleton to its interior decoration. All around the central part of the pavilion ran a lower corridor, the “syrinx”, that made more stable the structure and, over it, at a mathroneus level, stood, inaccessible, ample niches, just like rooms. In them statues, dressed with rich clothes, laid on sumptuous tricliniar couches, putting on stage celebrated history’s and myth’s symposia. In front of them dazzling gold vessels were exposed and the scene was really breathtaking.
It was a technical reconstruction but not the kind that those archaeologist that up to now had accepted, cited and reproduced an incredible tene made at the beginning of the twentieth century by a German academician, Studnizka, could accept lightheartedly. They were not prepared to a tent, that was really a tent and was made as a circus’ one, but luckily, just a few days before I gave my manuscript to the publisher, I found one of the “tesserae” that were used for the entry to the Odeon of Pericles and on them the Odeon had been reproduced. Now the Odeon had just been made in one of the Great Kings’ tent, and exactly the one that Xerses had left for one of his generals Mardonius. Mardonius lost and he Royal Pavilion was captured by the Greeks at the battle of Platea and brought to Athens where it was used as a Concert Hall. For a lucky coincidence I found the “tessera” with the representation of the Odeon in an article of another German archaeologist, von Gall. Looking at it I was flabbergasted. It was just like my tent and I am sure that nearly everybody is still persuaded that I knew of it beforehand and copied it. It was however a great pleasure for me to find the proof that I was right, and moreover a proof left for me by no one else than Pericles.