Symposium

A dinner party with family, friends or associates. It generally began with a bout of drinking, followed by a big meal. There were often rules to ensure equality. Conversation topics included philosophy, politics, gossip. The word symposia was used to describe the party and the place were it was held and is the source of the modern word symposium. The parties were usually lead by a feast master. Sometimes the guests wore garlands. Some people drank heavily; others held back.
The host pays a man to bring traveling performers (probably slaves), a girl flutists, acrobats, a dancing girl and a boy who dances and plays the kithara, a kind of lyre.
The group played music and did performances involving music, dance, acrobatics and mine. The girl juggled hoops, performed acrobatic stunts over a hoop rimmed with knives, and acted out mythical love scenes with the boy.
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Execution

The Greek symposium was a key Hellenic social institution. It was a forum for men of respected families to debate, plot, boast, or simply to revel with others. They were frequently held to celebrate the introduction of young men into aristocratic society. Symposia were also held by aristocrats to celebrate other special occasions, such as victories in athletic and poetic contests. They were a source of pride for them.
Symposia were usually held in the andrōn (ἀνδρών), the men's quarters of the household. The participants, or "symposiasts", would recline on pillowed couches arrayed against the three walls of the room away from the door. Due to space limitations, the couches would number between seven and nine, limiting the total number of participants to somewhere between fourteen and twenty seven. If any young men took part, they did not recline but sat up. However, in Macedonian symposia, the focus was not only on drinking but hunting, and young men were allowed to recline only after they had killed their first wild boar.
Food and wine were served. Entertainment was provided, and depending on the occasion could include games, songs, flute-girls or boys, slaves performing various acts, and hired entertainment.
The men at the symposium would discuss a multitude of topics—often philosophical, such as love and the differences between genders.
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Components and tools

Drinking
A symposium would be overseen by a "symposiarch" who would decide how strong the wine for the evening would be, depending on whether serious discussions or sensual indulgence were in the offing. The Hellenics customarily served their wine mixed with water, as the drinking of pure wine was considered a habit of uncivilized peoples.
In a Hellenic symposium, wine was only drunk after dinner, and women were not allowed to attend. The wine was drawn from a krater, a large jar designed to be carried by two men, and served from pitchers (oenochoe). Determined by the Master of Ceremonies, the wine was diluted to a specific strength and was then mixed. Slave boys would manage the krater, and transfer the wine into pitchers. They then attended to each man in the symposium with the pitchers and filled their cups with wine. Certain formalities were observed, most important among which were libations, the pouring of a small amount of wine in honour of various deities or the mourned dead.
In keeping with the Hellenic virtue of moderation, the symposiarch should have prevented festivities from getting out of hand, but Hellenic literature and art often indicate that the third-krater limit was not observed.

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Participants

Entertainments
Poetry and music were central to the pleasures of the symposium. Although free women of status did not attend symposia, high-class female prostitutes (hetairai) and entertainers were hired to perform, consort, and converse with the guests. Among the instruments, women might play was the aulos, a Greek woodwind instrument sometimes compared to an oboe. When string instruments were played, the barbiton was the traditional instrument. Slaves and boys also provided service and entertainment.
The guests also participated actively in competitive entertainments. A game sometimes played at symposia was kottabos, in which players swirled the dregs of their wine in a kylix, a platter-like stemmed drinking vessel, and flung them at a target.
Another feature of the symposia were skolia, drinking songs of a patriotic or bawdy nature, performed competitively with one symposiast reciting the first part of a song and another expected to improvise the end of it. Symposiasts might also compete in rhetorical contests, for which reason the word "symposium" has come to refer in English to any event where multiple speeches are made.
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