Cleitagora


Cleitagora or Clitagora or Kleitagora was a lyric poetess mentioned by Aristophanes in his Wasps and his lost play the Danaïdes; a fragment of Cratinus also mentions her. She was called a "female Homer". A drinking song named "Cleitagora" is mentioned in Aristophanes' Lysistrata. Suda wrote that she was a Spartan.
Aside from these few mentions, nothing is known of either Cleitagora or the song named after her.
Sarah Pomeroy argues that Cleitagora was probably Spartan, as a scholiast on Lysistrata claims. As Spartan women, unlike other Greek women, drank wine in their daily life rather than only at religious festivals, it makes sense to name a drinking song after a Spartan woman. If Cleitagora was Spartan, this would explain why the song "Cleitagora" was said to be more appropriate to sing than "Telamon" when the Spartan women are visiting in Lysistrata. However, the scholiast on the Wasps says that Cleitagora was Thessalian, and Hesychius says that she was from Lesbos.

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