Project Report. The Sapphic Aphrodite: A Multifaceted (ποικιλόθρονος) Divinity

The CHS Pre-Doctoral Fellowship in Hellenic Studies has been a transformative experience in my academic journey. The fellowship has significantly facilitated my research by granting me access to Harvard University’s online databases and resources, by offering me considerable financial support, and by allowing me to broaden my academic horizons in multiple ways. Most importantly, I had the opportunity to carry out research on a subject that falls into my broader research interests, to present my research results orally before a distinguished audience in the USA, and, finally, to publish a written version, entitled “The Sapphic Aphrodite: A Multifaceted (ποικιλόθρονος) Divinity,” in the CHS Research Bulletin 12 (2024). Prof. A. Lamari served as my advisor and I feel profoundly grateful to her for her guidance and insights, which were truly valuable. The other two members of the committee, namely Profs. Spyros Rangos and Melina Tamiolaki, also deserve my thanks for the fellowship I have been awarded and for which I consider myself particularly fortunate. The academic support and advising in both Greece and the USA have been exceptional. Above all, it is a great honor to be appointed as a Harvard CHS pre-doctoral fellow.

In the course of the various activities that the fellowship involved, I had the pleasure to meet and share great experiences with two other CHS fellows, Chara Theotokatou and Despina Vertzagia; the collaboration with them proved also precious and enjoyable. Of particular mention is our trip to the USA, organized in the context of the fellowship. We had the opportunity to travel to Cambridge, MA, and Washington, DC, and visit the Harvard University’s campus and the Center for Hellenic Studies, respectively. We delivered talks on our projects and engaged in fruitful academic dialogues from the point of view of each one’s special interests and expertise. The ideas we had the chance to discuss and to exchange both with the audience at our talks and, more generally, with all the distinguished researchers we met, were stimulating and allowed us to acquire a privileged perspective into Ancient Greek culture through the lens of multidisciplinary approaches. It is worth mentioning that during our visit we had the pleasure of meeting scholars such as Nicolas Prevelakis, Mark Schiefsky, Caroline Stark, and Naomi Weiss, as well as the US-based CHS fellows, from whom we greatly benefited. Last but not least, we met with Ms. Zoie Lafis, the CHS executive director, and the CHS staff, whom we truly thank for their hospitality.

The final stage of our appointment is a trip to Nafplion, Greece, for the CHS Greece Annual Research Workshop 2024 in early September, which I truly look forward to. I have no doubt that this event will provide a fostering environment for motivating discussions, exchanging ideas, and engaging with other scholars and individuals.

As regards the research that I carried out during the course of the fellowship, I chose to concentrate on a topic that both relates closely to the subject of my dissertation ( Odes and Prayers to Aphrodite and Eros in the lyric and tragic corpus) and carries special interest of its own, occupying a distinct area at the interface between philology and religion. More particularly, I undertook to reinvestigate epithets, imagery, and discourse related to Aphrodite in Sappho’s poetry, in an effort to reappreciate the treatment of the divinity in the lyric fragments. Through detailed analysis of linguistic, performative, literary, and historical aspects featuring in the surviving poetry, I argue that Aphrodite’s persona in Sappho’s lyrics is multifaceted and variegated. My approach has been informed by recent studies (constituting a current trend in the field of classics) that acknowledge and make good use of the importance of the literary discourse for the articulation of divine personae in ancient Greek religion see e.g. Gagné (2015), Pirenne-Delfolge & Pironti (2022). Approaching the Sapphic corpus from such a perspective, we come to acknowledge that the composition and performance of her poetry offered Sappho unique opportunities to poetically construct her intimate divinity in the field of erotic poetry, by presenting a dynamic, complex, and liminal divine figure that encompasses a broad spectrum of experiences and emotions. Notwithstanding the fragmentary nature of the surviving corpus, the goddess appears in various contexts and poetic occasions, and she undertakes a wide array of roles within her sphere of activities. These roles span both positive and negative aspects, such as love and war, sexual desire, tenderness and passion, dream, sickness, destructiveness, marriage, lamentation, and death. The first and quite enigmatic epithet attributed to the goddess by Sappho in her Ode to Aphrodite (1 V), ποικιλόθρονος, meaning either ‘dapple-throned’ or ‘blossom-woven’, can be considered as a programmatic statement of the mythopoetic-religious discourse on the goddess by Sappho. This epithet, which is a focal point in my analysis, seems to denote Aphrodite’s multifacetedness in Sappho’s lyrics if we interpret, as I try to do, the ‘dapple-patterned’ meaning of the epithet as an allusion to the weaving and poetry-composing processes.

My decision to focus on the Sapphic discourse was not irrelevant to my wider research interests in the poetic discourse dedicated to the deities of love, Aphrodite and Eros, in the lyric and tragic material of the archaic and classical times. My Ph.D. thesis aims at investigating this particular area and has progressed in a satisfactory way so far. Having started my doctoral research under the supervision of Prof. Athena Kavoulaki and the guidance of Profs. Lucia Athanassaki and J. C. B. Petropoulos (the three-member advisory committee) in April 2021 and having completed approximately three years of research, I have come to argue that the odes addressed to the principal divinities of love bear distinct features of reciprocal dynamics and, more particularly, various incantatory traits. This fact allows the formation of ‘discourse of enchantment’ (θελκτικὸς λόγος), so that the petitioners ensure a chain of reciprocity through a process of assimilation that suggests a possible poetic of enchantment present in the framework of Aphrodite and Eros’ song tradition. Given that Aphrodite seems to be the love-magic mistress (see e.g. Iliad 14 and the goddess’ magical girdle), it is reasonable that the poets attempt to counterperform Aphrodite and Eros’ magic in the songs addressed to them. In other terms, chanting to Aphrodite and Eros is also about enchanting them.

My CHS research project helped me to establish Aphrodite’s multifaceted persona in Sappho’s poetry and, at the same time, to acquire a better understanding of the different kinds of prayers addressed to the goddess in the Sapphic corpus, as well as the complex reciprocity that is advanced through the use of the appropriate discourse. It is evident that Sappho is able to utilize the appropriate kind of thelxis, in order to propitiate Aphrodite and obtain what she desires: magic as a remedy and ἀγωγή spells, dream magic, curses, epithalamic hexameters, and Hesperus and Adonis’ rituals. Every kind of (love) magic is at Sappho’s disposal, in order for her to imitate her mistress’ magic. Consequently, these two projects concerning the goddess Aphrodite ran concurrently and complementarily, by shedding light to both the poetic persona of Aphrodite and the discourse dedicated to her. In this way, I have been able to unfold a great part of Aphrodite’s spectrum and magic.

To sum up, the Harvard CHS Pre-Doctoral Fellowship in Hellenic Studies was an undeniably unique and life-changing experience. The various components of this fellowship allowed me to broaden my horizons, strengthen my academic background, and partake in once-in-a-lifetime experiences. I am deeply grateful to every member of the CHS community and look forward to our research workshop 2024 in Nafplion, Greece. My aim is to complete my dissertation and continue conducting research on ancient Greek poetry and religion, transformed by my CHS experience and fully appreciative of the benefits I have gained.