We were delighted to welcome Professor Mary Bachvarova, Director of the First Year Experience, Lindsay and Corinne Stewart Professor in the Humanities, Classical Studies, Willamette University, who joined members of the Kosmos Society for an Open House discussion titled “Lesbian Prayer : Tradition and Innovation in Sappho.”
In this talk Prof. Bachvarova uses Homeric and Near Eastern prayer to illustrate how Sappho innovates on her inherited Lesbian tradition of prayer. While the use of Homeric prayers as predecessors of Sappho may not require explanation, comparing Hittite and Akkadian prayers, which are distant in time and/or place from Sappho’s sixth-century world, does need to be defended, so Prof. Bachvarova also touches on a means of transmission that explains parallels between the prayer traditions as well as providing a motive for innovation: competition among sanctuaries not only for prestige in the human world but also for the gods’ attention. In Early Iron Age coastal Anatolia, Hera and Aphrodite were frequently identified with Phoenician goddesses, so it is no coincidence that they are featured in Sappho’s songs.
To prepare for the event, you might like to read:
– Bachvarova, M. R. (2023). “Methodology and methods of borrowing in comparative Greek and Near Eastern religion: The case of incense-burning,” in The Intellectual Heritage of the Ancient Near East. 64th Rencontre Assyriologique, Innsbruck, July 16th-20th, 2018, eds. R. Rollinger, I. Madreiter, M. Lang and C. Pappi. Vienna. 175-89.
– Bachvarova, M. R. (2022). “Regional loyalties in the Iliad: The cases of Zeus, Apollo, and Athena,” in C. Bonnet, T. Galoppin, & S. Lebreton (Eds.), Naming and Mapping the gods in the Ancient Mediterranean. Spaces, Mobilities, Imaginaries (pp. 105-121). De Gruyter.
The event took place on February 28, 2025 at 11:00am EST and was recorded. The presentation is now available to view on the Kosmos Society YouTube channel and in the frame below.