The hypothesis of C.'s book, as stated in the introduction, is that, however different the social roles of men and women were in seventh- and sixth-century Lesbos, the deep structure of their respective social formations was similar (p. 11).
The first chapter centres on Sappho and Alcaeus' respective communities and the question whether poetry produced and performed by women reflects a plurality of audiences and contexts, in contrast to the general unity of the audience addressed by Alcaeus and more specifically the poetry performed at symposia (p. 42). C. finds that it is difficult to answer the question whether there existed a separate community for Sappho's poetry because of the lack of comparative material, which does not apply to Alcaeus, for whom Archilochus (among others) and his companions can serve as a parallel. None the less, a group can be presupposed also for Sappho's poetic activity clearly designed for a feminine audience, as well as from fragments and testimonia which include the proper names of Sappho's companions. Therefore the distance between the audiences of Alcaeus and Sappho has to be reduced since both poets seem largely to speak to a unique public, made up of their ‘friends’. Three relationship terms, ἑταιρεία, ϕιλότης and ἔρως, appear in Sappho's poems which are comparable to ἑταῖρος and ϕίλος found in Alcaeus. These remarks lead C. to assert that the distinctive element separating the two poets is the activities which the society has attributed to each of the two genders and not the mere fact that they are separate groups. The eros expressed by Sappho in many poems could then be interpreted in a more ‘social’ key (see below).
This is followed by a long digression on the concept of compagnonnage, covering epic (where C. sees Patroclus and Achilles as an exemplary case of a hetairic relationship) through the societies of the seventh and sixth centuries, and then down to Alcibiades' club in the fifth century. Here, as elsewhere in the book, one may object to the tendency to view phenomena such as the hetaireia as a diachronically consistent social phenomenon or to push comparisons too far (e.g. pp. 278–83, 292 for the use of Xenophon's Oeconomicus to explain the segregation of sexes in Mytilene). For both the set of relation ties of the hetaireia and its function have changed, as clubs no longer consisted solely of aristocrats and they became involved in power struggles inside the polis (as happened, e.g., with the mutilation of the Herms).
The core of C.'s position is that Sappho's feminine community could also be called a hetaireia and could have had a hierarchy and paideutic functions just as Alcaeus'. However, the resemblances between the two do not imply identity, as C. notes. The actions of men and women were differentiated even when they coexisted in the same places (p. 133). It is not the first time that parallels are drawn between Sappho's circle and the hetaireia of Alcaeus (e.g. G.W. Most, ‘Greek Lyric Poets’ in Ancient Writers [1982], pp. 95–6; A. Pippin Burnett, Three Archaic Poets [1983], p. 209; B. Gentili, Poetry and its Public in Ancient Greece [1988], p. 81) or even that Sappho's group is described as being like the masculine hetaireia (J. Trump, ZPE 12 [1973], 139), but this is a systematic attempt at an extensively parallel discussion of the two Lesbian poets through the character of their groups.
Chapter 2 focuses on the places and the occasions for action especially for the female Sapphic community and discusses a number of fragments in connection to sacred, internal and external spaces demonstrating that the Sapphic community acts in a variety of contexts, from the domestic to the ‘public’ to the sacred (i.e. ritual occasions). The eros and a certain type of rituality would not be the only activities of internal spaces because musical performances could also be internally performed for a restricted audience (fr. 22). This context has affinities with the male symposium, including a strong paideutic dimension. For Alcaeus C. notes the absence of sympotic context for the song in connection to the temenos of Messa (fr. 129), which he considers an exception for Alcaeus, and he parallels this to Solon's Salamis elegy (1 W.). Yet his hetaireia would not find an external context of the poems only in political activities but also in various other occasions, such as wedding ceremonies, one phase of which took place in the streets of the city. The external context therefore brings the hetaireia in connection with groups with whom it is not always connected with the bonds of philotes. C. could have mentioned in this context fr. 448 in which Alcaeus seems to have celebrated Thales of Miletus during a panyegyris in Lesbos. Still such poems, like Solon's Salamis, could have been designed for the symposium as well as having been composed for another occasion (cf. also Alcaeus' non-political hymns, e.g. frr. 307–10). Wedding ceremonies take the Sapphic community to outside spaces too. One can suppose that some choral performances took place indoors and thus did not call for a vast audience. Other fragments referring to dance do not allude to a vast public nor to an occasion indicating such a public. The settings of other fragments are unclear, so that it is necessary to avoid immediate linking of dance or choral song to a public performance. Besides the wedding ceremony, another public, external context, can be shown for fr. 140 (the celebration of the Adonia); other frr. could point to other nocturnal festive occasions.
In general, C.'s analysis regarding the way and the context in which the songs could have been performed does not entertain at all the roles that the poetic ‘I’ may play that are distinct from Sappho or Alcaeus, or that their songs were (re)performed on different occasions. On the contrary, C. seems inclined to believe that their poetry was differentiated, from for example Pindar's, admitting a pragmatic use of the first person singular and plural (p. 298).
Chapter 3 sheds light on philotes, the condition of friendship created by being a member of a faction. According to C. blood/family ties are the foundations for this type of relationship (p. 232).
Chapter 4 discusses the ideology of Alcaeus and Sappho. Alcaeus' is the patria (p. 242) whereas for Sappho it is philotes with Aphrodite with S 16 exemplifying the specificity of Sappho's attitude towards Aphrodite in comparison with male poets. Moreover, the house of Cleanactids to which the members of Sappho's community belong may have a particular connection with the goddess which distinguishes Sappho's community from others. That Aphrodite would be present in Sappho not only because she was a female god of love (and thus provide a divine background for the feminine gender scheme of her songs) is suggested also by the central role Aphrodite has in the erotic story of a male member of Sappho's family, her brother Charaxos, in her function as protector of navigation and protector of love (p. 270). But these features are traditional characteristics of Aphrodite and are no more established in Sappho's poetry than other conventional elements connected to the goddess: Aphrodite is also for Sappho the Olympic daughter of Zeus (fr. 1) and the mistress of vegetation (Ἄνθεια) (cf. also the tiny fr. 140a on Adonis, lover of Aphrodite and a vegetarian deity himself).
Chapter 5 re-examines the criteria for belonging to the same group, revisits the composition of the groups in age classes, and summarises the conclusions of the study. C. sees the differences between Sappho's and Alcaeus' groups in two specific contexts, the private and the public space, a diversity which originates in their different sexes (p. 292).
C. succeeds, through a combined use of social and anthropological data, to promote awareness of the historically specific and disparate feminine/masculine cultures on archaic Lesbos. He is less successful in showing whether there were simultaneously also two lyric traditions.
