Among the aristocrats of Mytilene, the meal unfolds in two stages while reclining on couches (klinai). First, the deipnon: the sitos (grain — barley bread or maza) serves as the nourishing base, accompanied by opson, what is eaten 'with' the bread (olives, cheese, fish). Then, after the tables are cleared and a libation is poured to the gods, comes the symposion: guests are crowned, a 'king of the banquet' is chosen to set the water-to-wine ratio in the krater, and the cup circulates from hand to hand to the rhythm of songs. It is here, lyre in hand, that Alcaeus declaimed his poems of wine and political anger.

Drinking pure wine was considered barbaric and dangerous: the Greek always tempers it with water in a large communal vessel, the krater. This gesture — measuring the mixture, sharing the same vintage — is the social heart of the banquet. Alcaeus made it his poetic material, he who repeated that one should 'expect nothing better than wine'.