Archiloque et Dionysos autour de l'Egée: le dithyrambe archaïque, le festival et le komos

Abstract

Departing from a famous dithyrambic fragment attributed to Archilochus (fr. 120 W, fr. 96 Lasserre), we develop a series of considerations about the relationship between the cult of Dionysus and the dissemination of the dithyramb by means of the maritime trade – also linked to the export of wine and ceramics – around the Aegean. Without despising the epigraphic and pictographic testimonies, the reading proposed here endeavors to sketch the cultural networks created at this time in order to understand them as essential means for the development of later Hellenic culture. Archilochus becomes the center of a broad interpretation of some aspects of archaic Antiquity in the light of his relationships with Dionysus, the god who always comes from elsewhere.