Kalos inscription
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A kalos inscription is a form of epigraph found on Attic vases and graffiti in antiquity, mainly during the Classical period from 550 to 450 BC. The word kalos (Script error: No such module "Lang".), meaning 'handsome' or 'beautiful', was often accompanied by the name of a certain man, or sometimes simply by the word pais (Script error: No such module "Lang".), meaning the 'boy' or 'youth', without naming a particular person. The female version was kalē (Script error: No such module "Lang".). The kalos inscriptions typically had an erotic connotation.Template:Sfn
Overview
The kalos inscription is typically found on vessels used for a symposium. The scenes that accompany the inscription vary, and include athletic exercises and myths.
Some inscriptions are generic, reading only "the boy is beautiful" (Template:Langx, ho pais kalos).Template:Sfn The inscription more often took the form of the beloved's name, in the nominative singular, followed by "kalos" (X kalos, i.e. "X is beautiful"). The beloved is most often a male youth, but a few times girls or women were spoken of as kalē (Script error: No such module "Lang".). In one early cataloging of the inscriptions, among the individuals labeled as beautiful were 30 women and girls, and 528 youths.[2] Male names outnumber female by more than twenty to one. At least some of the women labeled kalē were hetairai, courtesans or prostitutes.Template:Sfn
The names designated as kalos are characteristic of aristocratic Athenian citizens.Template:Sfn Some kalos inscriptions are associated with certain vase painters or pottery workshops. The Antimenes Painter, for instance, is named for the kalos inscription to Antimenes on his pots, and the Leagros Group pottery workshop is named for the youth Leagros, a widely popular object of kalos praise.Template:Sfn These associations suggest a cult of celebrity or a concerted effort by a given youth's family to increase their son's public standing.
The purpose of these inscriptions remains uncertain, and many examples may be declarations of love as part of same-sex courtship in Athens.Template:Sfn In some cases, the inscriptions or vessels may have been made to order.
Kalos names are also found as graffiti on walls, the most abundant example being the find on Thassos of 60 kalos inscriptions carved on rock dating from the 4th century. The non-epigraphic literary evidence consists of two references in Aristophanes.[3] Both of these instances, however, praise the demos (the citizenry as a whole) rather than any individual, and suggest the public performance role of the kalos tag.Script error: No such module "Unsubst".
Examples
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Janiform aryballos with kalos inscription c. Template:TrimScript error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". BC
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The death of Sarpedon with a Leagros kalos (Template:Lit) inscription, c. Template:TrimScript error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". BC[4]
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Kylix tondo depicting the Minotaur with generic "the boy is beautiful" inscription, c. Template:TrimScript error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". BC
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Kalē woman bathing at the laver, with a water bucket, a skyphos, and a wineskin, c. Template:TrimScript error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". BC
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A sexual solicitation scene with generic kalos inscription, 5th century BC
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Nike offering a wreath to an athletic victor, c. Template:TrimScript error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". BC
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Fragment of an Attic white-ground cup with kalos inscriptions
![The death of Sarpedon with a Leagros kalos (Template:Lit) inscription, c. Template:TrimScript error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". BC[4]](/wiki143/index.php?title=File:Euphronios_krater_side_A_MET_L.2006.10.jpg){kind=link}
References
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- ↑ Inscription on the left: (Ϝ(?))ENEMEKNERINE (???), HERMOΓΕΝΕS KALOS ("Hermogenes kalos"). Inscription on the up-right: HEOS ("Eos"), ΔΟRIS EΓRAΦSEN ("Doris Egraphsen"—Doris drew me). Inscription on the right: MEMNON ("Memnon"), KALIAΔES EΠOIESEN ("Kaliades epoiesen"—Kaliades made me).
- ↑ Wilhelm Kroll, "Knabenliebe" in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopaedie der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft, vol. 11, cols. 897–906.
- ↑ Aristophanes, The Acharnians, line 144; The Wasps, lines 97-99.
- ↑ Clark, Elston, and Hart, Understanding Greek Vases, p. 7.
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Sources
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- Neil W. Slater. "The Vase as Ventriloquist: Kalos-inscriptions and the Culture of Fame", in Signs of Orality: The Oral Tradition and its Influence in the Greek and Roman World (ed. E. Anne Mackay). Leiden: Brill, 1999, pp. 143–161.
- Kenneth J. Dover. Greek Homosexuality. 2nd edition. London: Duckworth, 1989.
- François Lissarrague. Publicity and performance. Kalos inscriptions in Attic vase-painting, In: Performance Culture and Athenian Democracy, Cambridge 1999, pp. 359–373.
- H. Alan Shapiro. Leagros the Satyr in Greek Vases: Images, Contexts and Controversies., ed. Clemente Marconi, 2004, pp. 1–12.