Songs and Stones

The Greek chorus was central to ancient communal life. Some of the most famous poets of the archaic and classical age, such as Sappho and Pindar, wrote for women and men dancing in a chorus. Greek drama, furthermore, had its roots in pre-theatrical choral performances. However, the power of the chorus extended well beyond poetry and performance: it served as a religious, ritual, social, and political tool for expressing communal identity. This is true of the early chorus, but what happened to it in the Hellenistic and Roman imperial periods? So far, no one has tried to provide an answer. One reason for the neglect of the post-classical chorus is that the nature of the evidence changes dramatically: instead of scraps of papyri retrieved from the sands of Egypt, it is the epigraphic material across the Greek world that provides a wealth of sources. Inscriptions with choral lyric served to create space and place in which ancient people lived. This process of place-making was entrenched in the physical location of inscriptions but could extend also to an intangible conceptualization of a community's place in the world. By regarding the chorus at the intersection of ephemeral performance and its lithic materiality, Songs and Stones demonstrates that chorality remained fundamental to the expression of community existence in the post-classical era.