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Attic kylix with the inscription "Kleomelos Kalos"

The Kalos inscription was a form of epigraph found on attic vases and graffiti in antiquity, common between 550 and 450 BCE, and usually found on symposion vessels. The word καλός means "beautiful"; here it had an erotic connotation, and the inscription took the form of a youth's name, in the nominative singular, followed by "kalos". The individuals mentioned were almost always teenage boys, though occasionally girls and women were spoken of as καλή (kale). Kroll reports that ceramic descriptions of individuals labeled as beautiful include thirty of women and girls, kalē, and five hundred and twenty eight of boys, kalos.^[1] Kalos names are also found as graffiti on walls, the most abundant example being the find on Thassos of 60 kalos inscriptions carved on rock dating from the 4th century. The non-epigraphic literary evidence consists of two references in Aristophanes, line 144 in the Archarnians and lines 97-99 in the Wasps. In both these instances it is the demos that is lauded rather than any individual, and strongly suggest the public performance role of the kalos tag.

The purpose of these inscriptions is uncertain, principally they are thought to be declarations of love on the part of the author for the young man in question. More probably though, they mirrored emotions of the customer, who ordered the work done, and had the vases custom made. Beyond that, to which audience the inscription was addressed, what effect it was meant to have, how it was meant to achieve this effect, and how successful this mode of communication was, is unclear.

Some kalos inscriptions are associated with certain vase painters and potters; the Antimenes painter is named after the kalos inscription for Antimenes on his pots. It is thought that since the names referred to were largely aristocratic citizens and that certain pottery workshops are associated with some kalos recipients (i.e. the Leagros Group named after the youth Leagros) they may have been the expression of a cult of celebrity or part of a concerted effort by the youths' families to increase their sons' public standing. Another possibility is that they were declarations of love on the part of the author for the young man in question, part of the pederastic courtships which were customary in ancient Greece at the time.

According to J.K. Dover, “The despairing erastes seems to have used ‘X is beautiful’ as a means of declaring ‘I am in love with X’…”^[2] Dover suggests that “the erastes commissioned a vessel which would include an acclamation of his own eromenos, thus declaring his passion to his guests at a symposium; or that he commissioned it in order to give it to his eromenos,”^[3] and that we can reasonably treat these objects as "evidence of Greek male society’s preoccupation with the beauty of boys and youths..."^[4] Some names occur more frequently than others, a fact ascribed to the multitude of admirers that some youths attracted.^[5]

More probably, they mirrored emotions of the customer, who ordered the work done and had the vases custom made. Beyond that, to which audience the inscription was addressed, what effect it was meant to have, how it was meant to achieve this effect, and how successful this mode of communication was, is unclear.

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Kalos inscriptions

• Neil W. Slater, 'The Vase as Ventriloquist: Kalos-inscriptions and the Culture of Fame', in Signs of Orality: The Oral Tradition and its Influence in the Greek and Roman World (ed. E. Anne Mackay), Leiden: Brill, 1999, pp.143-161.
• Kenneth J. Dover, Greek Homosexuality. 2nd edn. London: Duckworth, 1989.