Everything about The Komos totally explained
The
Komos (in Greek κώμος, pl. komoi) was a ritualisitc drunken procession performed by revellers in ancient Greece, whose participants were known as komasts. Its precise nature has been difficult to reconstruct from the diverse literary sources and the evidence of vase painting. Our earliest reference to the komos is in
Hesiod's
Shield of Herakles which indicates it took place as part of wedding festivities (line 281), and famously
Alcibiades gate-crashes the
Symposium while carousing in a komos. However no one kind of event is associated with the komos,
Pindar describes them taking place at the city festivals (Pythian 5.21, 8.20, Olympian 4.9),
Demosthenes mentions them taking places after the
pompe and
choregoi on the first day of the
Greater Dionysia (Speeches 21.10), which may indicate it was a competitive event. The komos must be distinguished from the
pompe and the
chorus, the latter were scripted events where as the komos lacked a chorus leader, script or rehearsal. Demosthenes also upbraids the brother-in-law of
Aeschines for not wearing a mask during the komos as was the custom (On the Embassy 19.287), suggesting costume or disguise may have been involved.The playing of music during the komos is also mentioned by
Aristophanes (
Thesmophoriazusae 104, 988) and Pindar (Olympian 4.9, Pythian 5.22). There are also depictions of torch-lit komoi in vase painting, yet it isn't always clear from the evidence of vases if they depict
symposia, choruses or komoi.
It is now widely thought that komos and
komoedia (comedy) are etymologically related (the derivation being komos + aeido
sing). However
Aristotle records the tradition in part III of the
Poetics that the word
komoedia derives from the
Megaran mime that took place in the villages of
Sicily, hence from komẽ the Dorian word for village. Nevertheless it remains unclear exactly how the revel-song evolved into the
Greek Old comedy of the Dionysian festival in the 6th century BCE.
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