0:00:08 > 0:00:12This remote rocky corner of the Aegean Sea
0:00:12 > 0:00:15is largely forgotten by history,
0:00:15 > 0:00:17except for one thing.
0:00:17 > 0:00:22The poet who gave birth to the Western romantic tradition.
0:00:25 > 0:00:29But she and this island are remembered now
0:00:29 > 0:00:32mainly as a cultural curiosity.
0:00:34 > 0:00:39Today, Sappho exists only on the fringe of our consciousness.
0:00:39 > 0:00:42It's down to her that this island, Lesbos,
0:00:42 > 0:00:46has given its name to a whole aspect of human sexuality.
0:00:46 > 0:00:49But in the past she was remembered not as a gay icon,
0:00:49 > 0:00:52but as a prostitute, a priestess,
0:00:52 > 0:00:56a school mistress, even as a tragic heroine,
0:00:56 > 0:00:59who hurled herself off a cliff for love of a man.
0:01:00 > 0:01:05And all this rests on just a few fragile fragments
0:01:05 > 0:01:07of verse rescued from the desert.
0:01:07 > 0:01:12After thousands of years of slanders and obscurity,
0:01:12 > 0:01:15the real Sappho may be about to re-emerge
0:01:15 > 0:01:18thanks to 21st-century science
0:01:18 > 0:01:21and dramatic archaeological discoveries.
0:01:21 > 0:01:25We're reading lines that haven't been read for thousands of years.
0:01:26 > 0:01:31To reignite centuries of smouldering controversy.
0:01:31 > 0:01:34She had her opinion and she wanted to say it.
0:01:34 > 0:01:39A heady cocktail of music, sex and religion.
0:01:39 > 0:01:42This sometimes turns same-sex couples
0:01:42 > 0:01:44into the ancient equivalent of suicide bombers.
0:01:44 > 0:01:46But at its heart,
0:01:46 > 0:01:49a real woman and her family,
0:01:49 > 0:01:52in a time of personal and political turmoil.
0:01:54 > 0:01:56I want to piece together the jigsaw
0:01:56 > 0:01:59to get a picture of what Sappho was like.
0:01:59 > 0:02:03A real woman who still speaks to us
0:02:03 > 0:02:05from 600 years before Christ.
0:02:05 > 0:02:11Why have HER name and HER words resonated through the ages?
0:02:11 > 0:02:15What was so special about Sappho?
0:02:21 > 0:02:26In February 2014, a Greek text written in Roman Egypt
0:02:26 > 0:02:28briefly made headlines around the world.
0:02:30 > 0:02:34No-one apart from a small group of scholars has seen it
0:02:34 > 0:02:36since the third century AD.
0:02:40 > 0:02:45- So, this is it. It's in Greek, but it comes from Egypt.- It is.
0:02:45 > 0:02:48Probably would have been taken there from Alexandria
0:02:48 > 0:02:52by someone who retired or bought property and settled in the Faiyum.
0:02:52 > 0:02:54And then, eventually, it wore out,
0:02:54 > 0:02:59and it was reused to make a kind of cardboard out of the pieces of it.
0:02:59 > 0:03:04This manuscript dates back to around 200 AD.
0:03:04 > 0:03:06An anonymous collector landed it
0:03:06 > 0:03:09on the desk of papyrologist Dirk Obbink in 2012,
0:03:09 > 0:03:12unaware of what it contained.
0:03:14 > 0:03:17When the small pieces were humidified
0:03:17 > 0:03:19they immediately started to peel off
0:03:19 > 0:03:22and the first thing you could see underneath
0:03:22 > 0:03:26were the ends of the first three lines.
0:03:26 > 0:03:29The letters that my eye first focused on
0:03:29 > 0:03:31was the second to last word of the first line,
0:03:31 > 0:03:35"Charaxon" - that's a man's name -
0:03:35 > 0:03:38followed by the verb "elthein"
0:03:38 > 0:03:41in the spelling of the dialect of the island Lesbos
0:03:41 > 0:03:43in the late seventh century.
0:03:43 > 0:03:46The only person we know in Greek antiquity
0:03:46 > 0:03:48who had the name "Charaxos"
0:03:48 > 0:03:53was the brother of the poetess Sappho from the island of Lesbos.
0:03:53 > 0:03:55And she was famous in antiquity,
0:03:55 > 0:03:58much-loved and widely read,
0:03:58 > 0:04:00and imitated and slandered,
0:04:00 > 0:04:03but her poetry didn't survive.
0:04:03 > 0:04:07What did you feel like when you realised what this was?
0:04:07 > 0:04:09Well, it knocked my socks off.
0:04:09 > 0:04:12HE READS IN ANCIENT GREEK
0:04:14 > 0:04:17'..But you always chatter on about Charaxos
0:04:17 > 0:04:20'coming home with his ship full, well, that's for Zeus...'
0:04:20 > 0:04:24What Dirk has discovered is the most complete poem
0:04:24 > 0:04:28to emerge in centuries by the first female writer
0:04:28 > 0:04:31in Western history, Sappho.
0:04:31 > 0:04:37'..That Charaxos bring his ship back home safely to port and find us...'
0:04:37 > 0:04:40Written about 600 BC,
0:04:40 > 0:04:43in it, Sappho talks to someone close to her,
0:04:43 > 0:04:45a sister maybe, or her mother,
0:04:45 > 0:04:50- about the fate of her two brothers. - '..Simply leave it to the gods...'
0:04:50 > 0:04:54First, there's Charaxos, away at sea.
0:04:54 > 0:04:56'..If that's the way Zeus wills...'
0:04:56 > 0:04:59and then there's the younger one, Larichos,
0:04:59 > 0:05:01still struggling to grow up.
0:05:01 > 0:05:05'..And thus, if Larichos would raise his head,
0:05:05 > 0:05:07'if only he might one day be a man,
0:05:07 > 0:05:10'the deep and dreary draggings of our souls...'
0:05:10 > 0:05:14This is not just a long-lost work of ancient literature,
0:05:14 > 0:05:19but a window into the life of one of its most enigmatic personalities.
0:05:19 > 0:05:22By any standards, an extraordinary find.
0:05:24 > 0:05:27It has already started to send shock waves
0:05:27 > 0:05:29way beyond the dreaming spires of academia.
0:05:32 > 0:05:33For a papyrologist,
0:05:33 > 0:05:37making this discovery is a bit like finding the Holy Grail.
0:05:37 > 0:05:40But actually, it's much more than that.
0:05:40 > 0:05:43Because the question it promises to help solve,
0:05:43 > 0:05:44"Who was Sappho?",
0:05:44 > 0:05:48has been at the heart of a vexed debate for centuries.
0:05:50 > 0:05:54The works of the Greeks have shaped the way we think today.
0:05:55 > 0:05:59So, Sappho, antiquity's foremost female poet,
0:05:59 > 0:06:02has been critical in shaping our perception of women.
0:06:04 > 0:06:07Ever since her work was first read, this question,
0:06:07 > 0:06:10"What was a woman doing writing powerful,
0:06:10 > 0:06:12"personal poetry in a man's world?",
0:06:12 > 0:06:16has always been about more than just Sappho.
0:06:16 > 0:06:19For centuries, what you have to say about Sappho
0:06:19 > 0:06:22has been code for what you have to say about women in general
0:06:22 > 0:06:27and particularly, about women who aren't afraid to speak their mind.
0:06:29 > 0:06:32So, how did such a distant, unknown figure
0:06:32 > 0:06:35have such an impact on the world we live in today?
0:06:37 > 0:06:41Her voice seems to be personal and that draws people in.
0:06:41 > 0:06:44Makes them feel as though she's speaking directly to them.
0:06:44 > 0:06:48She set up certain kinds of imagery which has come down to us
0:06:48 > 0:06:51through the centuries and which has become hugely important in all kinds
0:06:51 > 0:06:55of popular culture and in any number of pop songs you care to mention.
0:06:55 > 0:07:01The silver moon, blonde hair, but above all, the symptoms of desire.
0:07:01 > 0:07:03The stuttering in the throat,
0:07:03 > 0:07:07the going hot and cold all over, in the presence of the beloved.
0:07:07 > 0:07:10And she didn't really look like this, did she?
0:07:10 > 0:07:13- SHE LAUGHS - Erm, I don't think so.
0:07:13 > 0:07:16No, this is a 19th-century idea of Sappho.
0:07:16 > 0:07:20Here she is, she's exotic, she's erotic,
0:07:20 > 0:07:23she's wearing these thin, gauzy draperies
0:07:23 > 0:07:25that leave nothing to the imagination,
0:07:25 > 0:07:26her breasts are exposed.
0:07:26 > 0:07:28And she's sullen and brooding,
0:07:28 > 0:07:31this gaze looking down throughout.
0:07:31 > 0:07:34But what's interesting about this picture
0:07:34 > 0:07:39is that it offers us the key attributes of who Sappho is.
0:07:39 > 0:07:42So, she's definitely a woman, she's got her lyre,
0:07:42 > 0:07:45which very often appears in images of Sappho.
0:07:45 > 0:07:48She's by the sea, she's alone.
0:07:48 > 0:07:51And by the time we get to that period of history,
0:07:51 > 0:07:53Sappho has become a bit of a vamp.
0:07:54 > 0:07:57Over centuries of gender wars,
0:07:57 > 0:08:00Sappho has been endlessly re-cast -
0:08:00 > 0:08:03dangerous, emancipated woman,
0:08:03 > 0:08:05a high-class whore,
0:08:05 > 0:08:08an uptight schoolmistress,
0:08:08 > 0:08:10and a feminist icon.
0:08:11 > 0:08:15On the one hand, women consistently claim her as a model,
0:08:15 > 0:08:17as an intellectual woman.
0:08:17 > 0:08:19But on the other hand,
0:08:19 > 0:08:22those who want to cut women in general down to size,
0:08:22 > 0:08:26point to her...um...
0:08:26 > 0:08:29unfortunate sexual practices.
0:08:29 > 0:08:31The point about Sappho is that,
0:08:31 > 0:08:33because we have so little of her work,
0:08:33 > 0:08:35because we know so little of her life,
0:08:35 > 0:08:37she simply becomes this kind of empty space
0:08:37 > 0:08:41where you can paint in whatever it is that you want
0:08:41 > 0:08:45from your political, cultural or social needs
0:08:45 > 0:08:48and she fills up those imperatives.
0:08:48 > 0:08:52When actually, there's only you and there's no Sappho there at all.
0:08:53 > 0:08:56Or so one might think. But with the recent revelations,
0:08:56 > 0:08:59there's more truth there than it appears.
0:09:02 > 0:09:07To start to find her, we need to strip away those years of mythology,
0:09:07 > 0:09:09which have built up around her.
0:09:09 > 0:09:13That process started much closer to Sappho's time than ours,
0:09:13 > 0:09:16in Ancient Greece itself.
0:09:20 > 0:09:24Athens is, today, the capital of the Greece,
0:09:24 > 0:09:27but 25 centuries ago, it was the foremost
0:09:27 > 0:09:30of hundreds of independent city states -
0:09:30 > 0:09:33going through an unparalleled cultural revolution.
0:09:37 > 0:09:40In the museum there, evidence still survives
0:09:40 > 0:09:45as to the esteem in which classical Greeks held the poet Sappho.
0:09:47 > 0:09:50Yes, you can see it here.
0:09:50 > 0:09:53There's S-A-P-P
0:09:53 > 0:09:57and there's another letter there.
0:09:57 > 0:10:02It has to be Sappho. And she's accompanied by several other ladies.
0:10:02 > 0:10:06There's one here who's actually bestowing a crown on her head.
0:10:06 > 0:10:08As if she's won a competition?
0:10:08 > 0:10:13Yes! The city is bestowing the crown for being the best poet
0:10:13 > 0:10:16or the best poetess on the figure of Sappho.
0:10:17 > 0:10:20Most of this kind of pot, made in Athens,
0:10:20 > 0:10:24with the red figures on the black slip, have goddesses on,
0:10:24 > 0:10:26like Aphrodite or Athena.
0:10:26 > 0:10:28Or they have nymphs or muses,
0:10:28 > 0:10:31but supernatural, religious creatures.
0:10:31 > 0:10:35Here we have an actual HISTORICAL person with a name.
0:10:35 > 0:10:37And this is really path-breaking
0:10:37 > 0:10:40and is really testimony to just how important she was
0:10:40 > 0:10:43in the Athenian imagination and the Athenian cultural sphere.
0:10:45 > 0:10:49Sappho is the only historical woman ever to have been depicted
0:10:49 > 0:10:51on an Ancient Greek vase.
0:10:51 > 0:10:56And that's all the more extraordinary given that when this was painted,
0:10:56 > 0:11:00Sappho was long dead from an island far away.
0:11:00 > 0:11:03This vase is 440BC.
0:11:03 > 0:11:07This is an Athenian vase from the great democratic classical
0:11:07 > 0:11:11period of Athens, the famous period of philosophers and playwrights.
0:11:11 > 0:11:15But she's actually living and working around 600BC.
0:11:15 > 0:11:19So, this is more than a century and a half
0:11:19 > 0:11:22since Sappho herself was working.
0:11:22 > 0:11:26This vase is showing us that a poet who is from Lesbos,
0:11:26 > 0:11:28which is an island way over the other side of the Aegean Sea -
0:11:28 > 0:11:31in fact, it's just a few miles off the Turkish coast -
0:11:31 > 0:11:34has got a reputation far away,
0:11:34 > 0:11:37a long sailing ship ride in the ancient world
0:11:37 > 0:11:40from the great city of Athens in the fifth century.
0:11:40 > 0:11:42So, her reputation had spread.
0:11:42 > 0:11:45Do you think they'd have thought Sappho was exotic
0:11:45 > 0:11:47coming from this eastern island?
0:11:47 > 0:11:51Oh, definitely. Lesbos had a very particular reputation.
0:11:51 > 0:11:54Firstly, for producing very beautiful women.
0:11:54 > 0:11:57They also had a very interesting accent,
0:11:57 > 0:12:00which will have sounded almost Oriental to Athenians.
0:12:00 > 0:12:03But the most interesting thing is that they really
0:12:03 > 0:12:08were supposed to be the sexiest people in the entire Greek world.
0:12:08 > 0:12:11In fact, the word "to do a lesbian",
0:12:11 > 0:12:14is actually the Ancient Greek for giving someone...a...blowjob.
0:12:14 > 0:12:17That's not quite what we associate Sappho with now, is it?
0:12:17 > 0:12:20It really isn't, but that's what the Ancient Greeks did
0:12:20 > 0:12:23and very definitely they associated it
0:12:23 > 0:12:25with a woman doing a blowjob on a man.
0:12:25 > 0:12:28- So, sex tourism capital of the Aegean, possibly?- Absolutely.
0:12:34 > 0:12:35As far back as 450 BC,
0:12:35 > 0:12:39Sappho had a reputation for strange sexuality
0:12:39 > 0:12:44that was bound up with that of her exotic eastern island.
0:12:47 > 0:12:50A Lesbian is, in fact, an inhabitant of Lesbos,
0:12:50 > 0:12:54the third largest island in the Greek archipelago -
0:12:54 > 0:12:57one of the richest islands of the Ancient Aegean.
0:13:01 > 0:13:05The reason for the other modern meaning of Lesbian
0:13:05 > 0:13:08is the fact that this was the birthplace of the poet Sappho.
0:13:12 > 0:13:15Ancient authors wrote biographies of Sappho.
0:13:15 > 0:13:17They agree she came from this island,
0:13:17 > 0:13:19but they don't agree on much else.
0:13:19 > 0:13:22Her father was called Simon or Eumenus,
0:13:22 > 0:13:24or Eerigyius or Ecrytus
0:13:24 > 0:13:27or Semos or Camon or Etarchus,
0:13:27 > 0:13:30or Scamandronymous.
0:13:30 > 0:13:34They also tell us that she was married to a very wealthy man
0:13:34 > 0:13:36called Cercylas who traded from Andros.
0:13:36 > 0:13:38Which seems helpful until you realise
0:13:38 > 0:13:41that the comic poets invented this
0:13:41 > 0:13:43and it means "Prick" from "Man-Island".
0:13:45 > 0:13:49In Sappho's poems, she seems to refer to a daughter, Cleis.
0:13:49 > 0:13:53So, she may have been a wife and mother,
0:13:53 > 0:13:56but what has excited and amazed generations of readers
0:13:56 > 0:14:00is what she has to say about the other women around her.
0:14:01 > 0:14:05"And on soft beds, delicate you quenched your desire.
0:14:05 > 0:14:10"Pacing far away, her gentle heart devoured by powerful desire.
0:14:10 > 0:14:13"She remembers slender Atthis.
0:14:13 > 0:14:15"Weeping she left me."
0:14:15 > 0:14:17For most historical figures,
0:14:17 > 0:14:19we're used to knowing facts.
0:14:19 > 0:14:23But for Sappho, we know very little about how she lived,
0:14:23 > 0:14:25who she was, what she did.
0:14:25 > 0:14:28But what we do know about her are her feelings,
0:14:28 > 0:14:32what she was passionate about, the women she loved -
0:14:32 > 0:14:36Atthis, Megara, Telesippa, Mika.
0:14:36 > 0:14:40'He seems to me an equal of the gods
0:14:40 > 0:14:42'Whoever gets to sit across from you
0:14:42 > 0:14:46'And listen to the sound of your sweet speech so close to him...'
0:14:46 > 0:14:50In this poem, you think she's in love with a man,
0:14:50 > 0:14:54but it turns out she's in love with the girl he's sitting next to.
0:14:55 > 0:14:58'Oh, it makes my panicked heart go fluttering in my chest
0:14:58 > 0:15:02'For the moment I catch sight of you there's no speech left in me
0:15:02 > 0:15:05'But tongue gags. All at once...'
0:15:05 > 0:15:08It's because of poetry like this that we now
0:15:08 > 0:15:10think of Sappho as homosexual.
0:15:10 > 0:15:16And Lesbos has become a global by-word for gayness in women,
0:15:16 > 0:15:20with Sappho, the iconic first Lesbian.
0:15:23 > 0:15:27The place of Sappho's birth was Eressos in the far west.
0:15:28 > 0:15:31It's one of the most beautiful spots on the whole island.
0:15:34 > 0:15:37In the summer, it thrives on a tourist industry
0:15:37 > 0:15:38built around Sappho.
0:15:40 > 0:15:44And every year, women flock from Europe and America
0:15:44 > 0:15:47to enjoy the women-only nudist beaches,
0:15:47 > 0:15:49the pick-up opportunities,
0:15:49 > 0:15:52and the free bohemian atmosphere.
0:15:54 > 0:15:56When I arrived, it was the off-season,
0:15:56 > 0:16:01but the most dedicated expats and local converts agreed to meet me
0:16:01 > 0:16:04for a drink and a chat in the famous Tenth Muse bar.
0:16:04 > 0:16:09ALL LAUGH AND CHATTER
0:16:09 > 0:16:12So, she's got a fan club here, has she?
0:16:12 > 0:16:14The lesbians probably think about her as their,
0:16:14 > 0:16:17you know, guru, let's say, yeah.
0:16:17 > 0:16:20The starter of the movement, I'm saying, generally speaking.
0:16:20 > 0:16:23But someone else can approach her because of the fact
0:16:23 > 0:16:25she was a great poetess, you know?
0:16:25 > 0:16:28Because of her talent, and her contribution and everything.
0:16:28 > 0:16:31So, everybody, depends what they want to have.
0:16:31 > 0:16:35Here has a lot of artistic people drawn into here.
0:16:35 > 0:16:39And maybe that's the spirit of Sappho what keeps them here!
0:16:39 > 0:16:42Maybe she's like, "Stay here, stay!"
0:16:42 > 0:16:45So, Sappho in effect started it?
0:16:45 > 0:16:47Was the... Was the catalyst?
0:16:47 > 0:16:48She was the first woman ever
0:16:48 > 0:16:51that had the courage to stand up and say,
0:16:51 > 0:16:53"Listen, I'm feeling this.
0:16:53 > 0:16:56"I don't give a damn about what you're saying. I feel this.
0:16:56 > 0:17:00"And I'm going to say it." And she said it in the most beautiful way.
0:17:00 > 0:17:04After I read Sappho,
0:17:04 > 0:17:07I felt that there was somebody behind me.
0:17:07 > 0:17:09She was my great-great-great-grandmother
0:17:09 > 0:17:11and she was feeling the same things with me.
0:17:11 > 0:17:15And that was an amazing thing in a way!
0:17:15 > 0:17:17Great-great-great-great-great-great- grandmother!
0:17:17 > 0:17:20Great-great-great-great-great, yeah!
0:17:20 > 0:17:24You can say that, but she was... She was feeling the same things.
0:17:27 > 0:17:30This is the most recent vision of Sappho, the lesbian icon.
0:17:32 > 0:17:36But is this modern idea of her just as much an anachronism
0:17:36 > 0:17:40as the 19th-century vamp or the Edwardian schoolmistress?
0:17:43 > 0:17:47James Davidson has literally written the book on Greek love -
0:17:47 > 0:17:50and it's a culture that defies our categories
0:17:50 > 0:17:52of lesbian, gay and straight.
0:17:53 > 0:17:56Here was have frottage, between the thighs,
0:17:56 > 0:17:59surrounded by people in the gymnasium.
0:17:59 > 0:18:02- See, two of them...- Yes. - ..in public.
0:18:03 > 0:18:07People with wreaths, a kind of dancer, even.
0:18:07 > 0:18:10Is this a reflection of reality? Or is this just a...
0:18:10 > 0:18:13Just some artist putting a whole load of things together
0:18:13 > 0:18:15to make a pretty pot.
0:18:16 > 0:18:19Societies are strange, you know, societies do strange things
0:18:19 > 0:18:22and this is a really peculiar cultural phenomenon.
0:18:22 > 0:18:24Instead of Greek homosexuality,
0:18:24 > 0:18:27I sometimes think it should be called Greek homo-besottedness,
0:18:27 > 0:18:31because it's always so over-the-top, it's always so extreme.
0:18:31 > 0:18:33And that seems to be almost a unique phenomenon.
0:18:35 > 0:18:39In Thebes, an army unit was created entirely of lovers.
0:18:39 > 0:18:43In Athens, love affairs could become political alliances.
0:18:45 > 0:18:49For men, gay love wasn't just personal preference,
0:18:49 > 0:18:52it was often the glue which held society together.
0:18:53 > 0:18:56So, do you think she was following male practice
0:18:56 > 0:19:02in writing poetry like that or do you think she was a groundbreaker?
0:19:02 > 0:19:06The female version is much more difficult to discover.
0:19:06 > 0:19:09Sappho is, you know, as ancient critics say,
0:19:09 > 0:19:11she is a "thaumaston chrema",
0:19:11 > 0:19:14she's a wonderful, amazing thing, she's a phenomenon.
0:19:14 > 0:19:16There's no question about that.
0:19:16 > 0:19:21But any kind of genius still follows on the culture of their time.
0:19:21 > 0:19:23What we were told is that, in Sparta,
0:19:23 > 0:19:26women had relationships just like the men.
0:19:26 > 0:19:29Because we've even got a poem which is a maiden chorus
0:19:29 > 0:19:31in which the girls are flirting with each other
0:19:31 > 0:19:34while they're performing a ritual.
0:19:34 > 0:19:37But I think what's interesting about this whole phenomenon
0:19:37 > 0:19:42of Greek love - Greek homosexuality for men and women -
0:19:42 > 0:19:44is that seems to be...
0:19:44 > 0:19:48a kind of cultural and social institution.
0:19:48 > 0:19:51They're using it as a way of social cohesion to break out
0:19:51 > 0:19:55of family groups to establish, if you like, to establish a community,
0:19:55 > 0:19:58so that an army of lovers is also,
0:19:58 > 0:20:02is an army which breaks out of clan groupings and tribal groupings
0:20:02 > 0:20:04and unites the whole polis.
0:20:06 > 0:20:08There's no doubt that Sappho was in love with women,
0:20:08 > 0:20:12but she wasn't a lesbian in our terms.
0:20:15 > 0:20:18In her culture, homosexual feelings and practices
0:20:18 > 0:20:21were an important part of life
0:20:21 > 0:20:24in mainstream heterosexual society,
0:20:24 > 0:20:29and she is our best evidence that this was also true of women.
0:20:36 > 0:20:39So, it seems, to understand Sappho,
0:20:39 > 0:20:42we need to abandon our own preconceptions
0:20:42 > 0:20:45and build up a picture from the evidence alone.
0:20:47 > 0:20:49The problem is that, for a long time,
0:20:49 > 0:20:53there hasn't been very much evidence to go on.
0:20:54 > 0:20:58For centuries, we had no such thing as a text of Sappho,
0:20:58 > 0:21:01because none had been handed down to us from the ancient world.
0:21:01 > 0:21:04Maybe all those monks and Islamic scholars who copied out the works
0:21:04 > 0:21:08of antiquity, didn't want to spend months of their time,
0:21:08 > 0:21:12not to mention expensive ink and vellum, reproducing love poetry,
0:21:12 > 0:21:17written by a possible degenerate in a strange eastern Greek dialect.
0:21:17 > 0:21:21So, how did we know anything of her work, you may ask?
0:21:21 > 0:21:25Well, we found bits of it quoted by ancient authors.
0:21:25 > 0:21:29But not in anthologies of ancient poetry -
0:21:29 > 0:21:30in grammar books,
0:21:30 > 0:21:34analysing the dialect and the verse metre on Lesbos.
0:21:34 > 0:21:38'The Aeolic dactylic tetrameter acatalectic is as follows...'
0:21:38 > 0:21:41'Sappho has composed a line which includes two...'
0:21:41 > 0:21:45'And "sphi" "to them" is used in Aeolic...'
0:21:45 > 0:21:47'Once again, Love, that loosener of limbs,
0:21:47 > 0:21:49'bitter-sweet and inescapable...'
0:21:49 > 0:21:52It's like finding a gold necklace in a heap of rubbish,
0:21:52 > 0:21:55this is the first time in Western literature
0:21:55 > 0:21:58that anyone has defined love as
0:21:58 > 0:22:02"limb-loosening", "bitter-sweet", "irresistible".
0:22:02 > 0:22:07This is the birth of our Western tradition of love poetry
0:22:07 > 0:22:09and we find it in a handbook
0:22:09 > 0:22:13on the Aeolic dactylic tetrameter acatalectic.
0:22:15 > 0:22:18These short quotations by other authors
0:22:18 > 0:22:22were all anyone knew of Sappho until the 19th century,
0:22:22 > 0:22:25when everything started to change.
0:22:27 > 0:22:30In 1896, two British archaeologists,
0:22:30 > 0:22:33Bernard Grenfell and Arthur Hunt,
0:22:33 > 0:22:38were excavating what looked like unpromising rubbish mounds
0:22:38 > 0:22:42in the small ancient town of Oxyrynchus in Egypt.
0:22:42 > 0:22:45They soon realised that what they were finding beneath their feet
0:22:45 > 0:22:48were piles and piles of papyrus,
0:22:48 > 0:22:51thrown away by the Greeks who lived there.
0:22:54 > 0:22:59When these were shipped back to Oxford they revealed shopping lists,
0:22:59 > 0:23:03accounts, personal letters and, most excitingly,
0:23:03 > 0:23:07lost works of Greek literature -
0:23:07 > 0:23:10including fragments of unknown poems by Sappho.
0:23:10 > 0:23:14'She who surpassed all human kind in beauty...'
0:23:14 > 0:23:18'Sing of the bride with shapely feet, she could not remember...'
0:23:18 > 0:23:21'Some say foot soldiers, others call a fleet...
0:23:21 > 0:23:24'But I say, it's whatever you love... '
0:23:24 > 0:23:28Since 1896, scholars have gone through 100 of the boxes
0:23:28 > 0:23:31that came back from Oxyrynchus.
0:23:32 > 0:23:35There are still 700 left to decipher.
0:23:36 > 0:23:39So, at this rate, we'll be finished in seven centuries' time.
0:23:42 > 0:23:46Today, though, we at least have technology to help with the task.
0:23:46 > 0:23:48Where we're at with data visualisation,
0:23:48 > 0:23:52with very simple tools that allow us to see fragments like this.
0:23:52 > 0:23:54But not in a static way.
0:23:54 > 0:23:56We can actually manipulate them, move them around
0:23:56 > 0:23:58and it actually allows for great freedom.
0:23:58 > 0:24:01So, with delicate pieces of papyrus like this,
0:24:01 > 0:24:04we don't actually have to physically touch them
0:24:04 > 0:24:05and you know, beat them up.
0:24:05 > 0:24:09We can just do this visually and it helps preserve the fragments.
0:24:09 > 0:24:11You can do that even if you haven't got
0:24:11 > 0:24:14all the pieces of papyrus, where you are, can't you?
0:24:14 > 0:24:15Yes, yes. That's even better.
0:24:15 > 0:24:18So, you could be sitting anywhere around the world
0:24:18 > 0:24:22and still working on your reconstruction of Sappho.
0:24:22 > 0:24:24It's an almost impossible jigsaw,
0:24:24 > 0:24:28not least because we only have a fraction of the pieces.
0:24:28 > 0:24:30So, a big part of the job
0:24:30 > 0:24:32is guessing what might have been in the gaps.
0:24:35 > 0:24:38But every now and then, new archaeological discoveries emerge
0:24:38 > 0:24:41which replace our guesswork with the real thing.
0:24:45 > 0:24:47In the early 2000s there was a new discovery from Cologne,
0:24:47 > 0:24:51this is the so-called "Cologne Sappho Papyrus".
0:24:51 > 0:24:53What's specific about this fragment is that
0:24:53 > 0:24:57where the fragment from Oxyrhynchus breaks off on all these lines,
0:24:57 > 0:25:01the Cologne fragment fills them out for us.
0:25:01 > 0:25:03Can see the pairing of the same exact lines, here?
0:25:05 > 0:25:08For the longest time, we just had this word for fawns,
0:25:08 > 0:25:10and originally it was more thinking
0:25:10 > 0:25:13that the girl's dancing around like a fawn.
0:25:13 > 0:25:17But what the Cologne papyrus showed us is that, it was quite different.
0:25:17 > 0:25:20It was about Sappho, you know, her knees are old
0:25:20 > 0:25:23and so they don't carry her quite the same way.
0:25:23 > 0:25:26Whereas once before, they were very nimble
0:25:26 > 0:25:28and she danced like a fawn.
0:25:28 > 0:25:32So, we now know she's talking about old age, really,
0:25:32 > 0:25:35and not being able to dance around like fawns,
0:25:35 > 0:25:37like young deer, any more.
0:25:37 > 0:25:39I have some sympathy with that.
0:25:39 > 0:25:42We're reading lines that haven't been read for thousands of years.
0:25:42 > 0:25:45And, in this case, you know, it's not just any poet,
0:25:45 > 0:25:47it's a female poet, it's a woman's voice.
0:25:47 > 0:25:49And, you know, her voice has been emanating
0:25:49 > 0:25:53very silently and quietly for decades, centuries.
0:25:53 > 0:25:57And the more fragments we find, the louder her voice becomes.
0:25:57 > 0:26:00Piece by piece, fragment by fragment,
0:26:00 > 0:26:04we are building up a picture of the real Sappho.
0:26:04 > 0:26:08Not young and sexy here, but ageing with bad knees.
0:26:09 > 0:26:13And there's another blow to our image of Sappho,
0:26:13 > 0:26:15the confessional Lesbian writer.
0:26:16 > 0:26:20These written documents all date to centuries after her death.
0:26:22 > 0:26:26In Sappho's day, writing was new-fangled technology.
0:26:28 > 0:26:33Poetry was something to be learned by heart and sung out loud.
0:26:33 > 0:26:36MAN SINGS
0:26:36 > 0:26:41Everybody forgets that Ancient Greek poetry was actually sung music.
0:26:42 > 0:26:45Armand d'Angour has used ancient evidence
0:26:45 > 0:26:48to reconstruct what the new brothers poem
0:26:48 > 0:26:50might originally have sounded like.
0:26:50 > 0:26:58The first line where it says... HE SPEAKS IN ANCIENT GREEK
0:26:58 > 0:27:01..you hear my voice going up and down
0:27:01 > 0:27:05and if we then apply them to this scale system, the Mixolydian Scale,
0:27:05 > 0:27:08HE PLAYS SCALE
0:27:08 > 0:27:13So it goes something like... HE SINGS IN ANCIENT GREEK
0:27:13 > 0:27:15HIS VOICE FADES
0:27:15 > 0:27:22WOMAN'S VOICE SINGS MELODY IN ANCIENT GREEK
0:27:24 > 0:27:28This other-worldly music was, to Greeks,
0:27:28 > 0:27:32the chief appeal of Sappho. Both these words and this tune
0:27:32 > 0:27:36would have spread through the Greek world orally
0:27:36 > 0:27:38long before they were written down.
0:27:38 > 0:27:42People are much more likely to remember a song
0:27:42 > 0:27:43than a poem, aren't they?
0:27:43 > 0:27:48The Muses, who were the goddesses of poetry and song and dance were...
0:27:48 > 0:27:54In myth, the Nine Muses were the daughters of Mnemosyne which means "Memory".
0:27:54 > 0:27:59This must have been the most marvellous music as well as poetry.
0:27:59 > 0:28:02I think there's every reason to think that she was one
0:28:02 > 0:28:05of the great poets of the ancient world
0:28:05 > 0:28:07and must have been a wonderful musician.
0:28:10 > 0:28:13Sappho wasn't a writer, she was a singer-songwriter.
0:28:16 > 0:28:19It's a revelation that shifts your perspective completely.
0:28:21 > 0:28:24It sets our quest off in a new direction.
0:28:24 > 0:28:28What kind of woman could be a singer in Ancient Lesbos?
0:28:30 > 0:28:34In the Ancient Greek societies we know anything about,
0:28:34 > 0:28:39it was quite something for a woman to perform music in public.
0:28:43 > 0:28:47Sappho isn't just the earliest Greek female poet we know of,
0:28:47 > 0:28:49she's practically the only one.
0:28:49 > 0:28:51And in historical times,
0:28:51 > 0:28:55respectable Greek women were supposed to stay at home.
0:28:55 > 0:28:59We even know that, in Crete, if a man raped a woman in her own home,
0:28:59 > 0:29:01he was fined a thousand staters,
0:29:01 > 0:29:05if he raped her in the street, the fine was reduced by 50%.
0:29:05 > 0:29:08By being out, effectively,
0:29:08 > 0:29:10she was asking for it.
0:29:10 > 0:29:14The only women men would have seen singing and dancing
0:29:14 > 0:29:17would have been like this woman here,
0:29:17 > 0:29:21playing the flute, wearing sexy see-through garments,
0:29:21 > 0:29:24at an all-male drinking party.
0:29:24 > 0:29:26A prostitute, basically.
0:29:29 > 0:29:31Sappho might not have been a lesbian,
0:29:31 > 0:29:35but she might have been some kind of Geisha or courtesan.
0:29:38 > 0:29:42In Germany, one expert went through her work piece-by-piece
0:29:42 > 0:29:45to pick out all of the names of girls Sappho loved
0:29:45 > 0:29:49and others she hated, with surprising results.
0:29:51 > 0:29:54Apparently, there were four kinds of names.
0:29:54 > 0:29:58Some are ethnic names like Atthis, which means she comes from Athens.
0:29:58 > 0:30:02Or they're abstract nouns like Peace or Justice.
0:30:02 > 0:30:07Or nicknames like "Gyrinno" which means "tadpole",
0:30:07 > 0:30:10or "Doricha", "gift lover",
0:30:10 > 0:30:15and there are names from mythology like "Andromeda" and "Gorgo".
0:30:15 > 0:30:18The theory is that those names
0:30:18 > 0:30:21are not far from modern porn-star names
0:30:21 > 0:30:23like Houston or Fantasy.
0:30:25 > 0:30:30And even the name Sappho, or should I say "Psapfo", is a strange word.
0:30:30 > 0:30:32It's not Greek at all.
0:30:32 > 0:30:35So, what's going on here?
0:30:37 > 0:30:42The term Sappho uses for her friends, "hetaira", "companions",
0:30:42 > 0:30:45is the one later Greeks used for courtesans
0:30:45 > 0:30:47or high-class prostitutes.
0:30:48 > 0:30:50So, is this what we're missing?
0:30:50 > 0:30:53Was Sappho leading a band of go-go dancers,
0:30:53 > 0:30:57who offered a little more than just titillating songs,
0:30:57 > 0:31:00or are we yet again being misled
0:31:00 > 0:31:03by other people's prejudice?
0:31:06 > 0:31:10We have to remember that Sappho lived at a specific time and place
0:31:10 > 0:31:13with its own distinctive culture.
0:31:14 > 0:31:17And there, it seems there were other venues for a performer
0:31:17 > 0:31:20than an all-male drinking party.
0:31:23 > 0:31:27Lesbos, way back in 600 BC, was a different place
0:31:27 > 0:31:30from the classical world of later centuries.
0:31:32 > 0:31:34The island still glimmers
0:31:34 > 0:31:37with haunting natural beauty,
0:31:37 > 0:31:39and to an ancient poet,
0:31:39 > 0:31:42that was evidence for the presence of the divine.
0:31:44 > 0:31:50Sappho is full of images of the natural world that surrounded her -
0:31:50 > 0:31:56roses, honey, clover, chervil and moonlight over the briny sea.
0:31:56 > 0:31:58We can still see all of that today,
0:31:58 > 0:32:03but for her, that whole natural world was populated by gods.
0:32:03 > 0:32:07Gods were everywhere and gods are everywhere in her poetry.
0:32:12 > 0:32:17For a go-go girl, Sappho seems surprisingly obsessed with religion.
0:32:22 > 0:32:25The heart of her sacred landscape was known literally as the middle -
0:32:25 > 0:32:29Messa - an idyllic spot in the heart of the countryside
0:32:29 > 0:32:32where worshippers would come together
0:32:32 > 0:32:34from all four corners of Lesbos.
0:32:36 > 0:32:38I went there with Cathy Morgan,
0:32:38 > 0:32:41director of the British School at Athens.
0:32:41 > 0:32:45It creates the impression of having two colonnades around...
0:32:45 > 0:32:48Local archaeologist Ioannis Kourtzellis
0:32:48 > 0:32:51showed us what remains of the ancient temple
0:32:51 > 0:32:53to three of the great Olympian Gods.
0:33:04 > 0:33:08And it's good he did, because you need to look carefully
0:33:08 > 0:33:11to see the remains of the building that Sappho might have known.
0:33:21 > 0:33:23- Quite narrow, as well.- Yes, yes.
0:33:27 > 0:33:30So, these columns that we can see now were later.
0:33:30 > 0:33:32They weren't here in archaic times,
0:33:32 > 0:33:36they're the classical one about 300 years after Sappho.
0:33:36 > 0:33:37Yes, definitely.
0:33:44 > 0:33:47- And then a stone wall inside that. - Definitely, yes.
0:33:47 > 0:33:51And then, behind it is the later building, which is much bigger.
0:33:54 > 0:33:56When Sappho was alive,
0:33:56 > 0:33:59all that was here was a tiny, chapel-sized building -
0:33:59 > 0:34:03now dwarfed by the monumental temple built later.
0:34:05 > 0:34:09In her time, the building itself was an afterthought.
0:34:09 > 0:34:14What mattered was this holy piece of land set aside for the gods
0:34:14 > 0:34:18and the island-wide festivals that regularly took place here.
0:34:23 > 0:34:26I imagine a Greek festival
0:34:26 > 0:34:29with all these colours and blood
0:34:29 > 0:34:34and wealth being sacrificed and social business going on
0:34:34 > 0:34:39as being a kind of mixture of state funeral, Woodstock...
0:34:39 > 0:34:43SHE LAUGHS Whichever you like to call it!
0:34:43 > 0:34:45The sort of nice, bleached view of a Greek sanctuary
0:34:45 > 0:34:48that sometimes we have, it's completely alien.
0:34:48 > 0:34:51Yes, we think of people in wafting in spotless white garments
0:34:51 > 0:34:56- and white marble buildings. - Completely bloodstained!- Exactly.
0:34:56 > 0:34:59And you mentioned song and performance.
0:34:59 > 0:35:03Is it possible that Sappho, that a woman like Sappho
0:35:03 > 0:35:06might have had a role performing at a ceremony here?
0:35:06 > 0:35:08Very likely, actually.
0:35:08 > 0:35:13We do have visual evidence of lines of women dancing and performing.
0:35:13 > 0:35:17So, dance, presumably song and music attached to it.
0:35:17 > 0:35:19And her songs might have been sung
0:35:19 > 0:35:24- by her leading a chorus, is that possible?- Perfectly possible, yes.
0:35:26 > 0:35:30Far from the seedy drinking parties of Athens,
0:35:30 > 0:35:33it may be at these raucous countryside festivals
0:35:33 > 0:35:36where we should imagine Sappho performing,
0:35:36 > 0:35:39possibly with other girls from the community.
0:35:39 > 0:35:42Which isn't quite our idea of a sort of paid singer
0:35:42 > 0:35:44and maybe paid is the wrong term, as well.
0:35:44 > 0:35:48These rituals are a reminder of what society is,
0:35:48 > 0:35:52what it feels like. So, paying someone else to come in and perform,
0:35:52 > 0:35:55perhaps, but it's a little bit different
0:35:55 > 0:35:57from the occasion in the festival
0:35:57 > 0:36:00where the women of the community come and sing their song.
0:36:00 > 0:36:03It's almost like dances in Greek villages nowadays.
0:36:06 > 0:36:10In the new poem, Sappho entrusts the fate of her brother
0:36:10 > 0:36:13to the King of the Gods, Zeus.
0:36:13 > 0:36:18She asks to be sent to pray to his Queen, the Goddess Hera,
0:36:18 > 0:36:22and hopes for another god or "daimon" to give them relief
0:36:22 > 0:36:26from their troubles, most probably Dionysus, the God of Wine.
0:36:29 > 0:36:32Wouldn't it have gone better
0:36:32 > 0:36:36if she was singing these words here at the sanctuary to those three gods
0:36:36 > 0:36:40rather than just at some late night men's drinking party?
0:36:41 > 0:36:43This all starts to make sense.
0:36:43 > 0:36:47Sappho may have performed her songs here in front of people
0:36:47 > 0:36:50from all over the island of Lesbos.
0:36:51 > 0:36:53Maybe she even made her name here.
0:36:55 > 0:36:56Far from a showgirl,
0:36:56 > 0:37:01Sappho may have been renowned for performing at religious events.
0:37:03 > 0:37:08For some people, this has been a chance to pigeon-hole her once more.
0:37:08 > 0:37:12A priestess, possibly of the Goddess of Love, Aphrodite.
0:37:15 > 0:37:20But do you have to be a priestess to sing religious songs?
0:37:23 > 0:37:25When I was in Eressos, I was lucky enough
0:37:25 > 0:37:28to be invited to a real big, fat, Greek wedding.
0:37:28 > 0:37:32MUSIC AND CHATTER
0:37:32 > 0:37:34And this is one kind of religious occasion
0:37:34 > 0:37:37where we can be pretty sure Sappho performed.
0:37:38 > 0:37:41A whole book of the Complete Works of Sappho
0:37:41 > 0:37:43is devoted to wedding songs.
0:37:43 > 0:37:45There's the ones for the hen night
0:37:45 > 0:37:47"Virgins, celebrate all night,
0:37:47 > 0:37:50"let's get all the unmarried men your age
0:37:50 > 0:37:53"so we'll get less sleep than the nightingale."
0:37:53 > 0:37:57And then there's the ones when the groom is coming -
0:37:57 > 0:37:59"Hymenaios! Hymenaios!
0:37:59 > 0:38:03"Here comes the groom like Ares..." - that's the God of War -
0:38:03 > 0:38:05"..and he's larger than even a big man!"
0:38:07 > 0:38:10And then, perhaps sadly, the wedding night itself -
0:38:10 > 0:38:13remember the bride might be only 12 years old
0:38:13 > 0:38:17and getting married to someone more than twice her age.
0:38:17 > 0:38:20"Virginity! Virginity! Where have you gone?"
0:38:20 > 0:38:23and the chorus singing, "We've gone, never to return!"
0:38:26 > 0:38:30ALL CHATTER AND CLAP
0:38:32 > 0:38:35- I have to leave for..- To change!
0:38:35 > 0:38:40- That's too beautiful not to wear! - But too big! I can't dance!
0:38:42 > 0:38:45Religious celebrations the world over
0:38:45 > 0:38:48are also an excuse for a knees-up,
0:38:48 > 0:38:51I can picture Sappho at an evening like this,
0:38:51 > 0:38:54the best singer-songwriter anyone knew.
0:38:54 > 0:38:57She could muster a hymn to the gods in the day,
0:38:57 > 0:39:01and a party tune for the celebrations as the night drew on.
0:39:09 > 0:39:12I don't think we need to pigeon-hole Sappho as a priestess
0:39:12 > 0:39:14any more than a prostitute.
0:39:15 > 0:39:18Singing about love and singing to the gods
0:39:18 > 0:39:21were just natural things for a poet to do.
0:39:23 > 0:39:25And now, the discovery of a new poem
0:39:25 > 0:39:29is opening up another side to her life - her family.
0:39:31 > 0:39:34'But you always chatter on about Charaxos coming home
0:39:34 > 0:39:37'with his ship full
0:39:37 > 0:39:39'Well, that's for Zeus...'
0:39:39 > 0:39:42What's the real story behind this poem?
0:39:42 > 0:39:44Someone's nagging Sappho about the need for her brother
0:39:44 > 0:39:47to come back with a full ship.
0:39:47 > 0:39:49Our best guess is that's her mother.
0:39:49 > 0:39:52There's no mention of a father anywhere.
0:39:52 > 0:39:54Her other brother is little more than a child.
0:39:54 > 0:39:58He's serving wine to the grown-ups in the town hall.
0:39:58 > 0:40:01And if Charaxos blows it all on fast women in Egypt,
0:40:01 > 0:40:05the family fortunes may well depend on Sappho.
0:40:06 > 0:40:09The family were most likely landowners
0:40:09 > 0:40:11in the small town of Eressos,
0:40:11 > 0:40:13but at some point, Sappho moved east
0:40:13 > 0:40:16to the island's largest city, Mytilene.
0:40:21 > 0:40:26Today, a huge fortress occupies the site of Sappho's city.
0:40:26 > 0:40:29And on the horizon is a reminder why.
0:40:29 > 0:40:33The coast of Asia only six miles away.
0:40:34 > 0:40:37In recent centuries, political tensions with Turkey
0:40:37 > 0:40:42have turned this narrow strait into a tensely watched frontier.
0:40:43 > 0:40:46But in Sappho's time, the people across the water
0:40:46 > 0:40:49were trading partners, not enemies.
0:40:50 > 0:40:53Although sailing the Aegean did have its dangers.
0:40:53 > 0:40:58"You keep chattering that Charaxos must come with his ship full."
0:40:58 > 0:41:01And I wonder how many women from Mytilene
0:41:01 > 0:41:03stood somewhere like this,
0:41:03 > 0:41:07gazing out to sea looking for a son or a brother or a husband
0:41:07 > 0:41:10and some of them may have prayed, too,
0:41:10 > 0:41:12although probably not all to Queen Hera.
0:41:14 > 0:41:19But think how much greater the anxiety must have been in 600 BC,
0:41:19 > 0:41:22with no proper maps, no letters home.
0:41:22 > 0:41:26And people like Charaxos were sailing right to the edge
0:41:26 > 0:41:28of the then-known world.
0:41:28 > 0:41:30And many of them didn't return.
0:41:31 > 0:41:36But the ones that did come back transformed the society
0:41:36 > 0:41:38and the culture here on Lesbos.
0:41:40 > 0:41:44'Headscarves, fragrant purple
0:41:44 > 0:41:46'Monassus sent you from Phocaea
0:41:46 > 0:41:48'Valuable gifts...'
0:41:49 > 0:41:52Sappho's poems tell of a world in which sailors
0:41:52 > 0:41:57were coming back to Lesbos with tantalising, exotic goods.
0:41:57 > 0:42:00'A decorated slipper.
0:42:00 > 0:42:02'A lovely piece of Lydian work...'
0:42:02 > 0:42:07'Robe, saffron, Phrygian purple
0:42:07 > 0:42:10'Embroidered headbands from Sardis...'
0:42:20 > 0:42:23These pieces are fantastic, they're really beautiful.
0:42:23 > 0:42:25I mean, look at how fine those designs are.
0:42:27 > 0:42:30These treasures of the British Museum
0:42:30 > 0:42:34give us a sense of the Eastern luxuries Sappho might have known.
0:42:37 > 0:42:40Yes, this beautiful jewellery comes from a number of different graves
0:42:40 > 0:42:44from the end of the seventh century BC in Kamiros Rhodes.
0:42:44 > 0:42:48So, not far from Lesbos, and about the time Sappho was alive.
0:42:48 > 0:42:51- Yes.- So, when Sappho writes about a headband for her daughter,
0:42:51 > 0:42:55she might have been thinking about something like this piece here.
0:42:55 > 0:42:57That's right. If she was extremely wealthy,
0:42:57 > 0:43:00it might have been a gold piece like this.
0:43:00 > 0:43:03Alternatively, she might have had something from textile.
0:43:03 > 0:43:06Would they have been made in Greece or imported?
0:43:06 > 0:43:08There were probably made locally,
0:43:08 > 0:43:12but the representation of this winged goddess
0:43:12 > 0:43:16with the beautiful little lions either side
0:43:16 > 0:43:20is a motif that you get from the Near East.
0:43:20 > 0:43:22What's this little figure here?
0:43:22 > 0:43:26It's an Egyptian faience bottle for perfumes.
0:43:26 > 0:43:29So, it's not too farfetched to think of Sappho
0:43:29 > 0:43:33sitting putting on perfume from something like that,
0:43:33 > 0:43:36and maybe fastening her cloak or her dress with something like that?
0:43:36 > 0:43:38Of course.
0:43:38 > 0:43:41'This finery all comes from a time when Greeks
0:43:41 > 0:43:44'were reaching across the Mediterranean
0:43:44 > 0:43:46'as traders and colonists.
0:43:46 > 0:43:50'And Charaxos, it seems, may have been headed for Egypt.'
0:43:52 > 0:43:55We understand, from a number of different sources,
0:43:55 > 0:43:59that he was trading wine with Egypt
0:43:59 > 0:44:03and the major trading port of Egypt at this time was Naucratis.
0:44:03 > 0:44:06And this was the port where all traders,
0:44:06 > 0:44:10including our friends from Lesbos, would have come.
0:44:10 > 0:44:15Now, this settlement was settled around the time of Sappho's birth
0:44:15 > 0:44:17and we find lot of Greek objects,
0:44:17 > 0:44:22including those that the Greek traders dedicated to their deities.
0:44:22 > 0:44:25And these two here came from Lesbos.
0:44:25 > 0:44:28And this one here mentions a dedication
0:44:28 > 0:44:31from someone from Mytilene.
0:44:31 > 0:44:35- Ah. That might have been Charaxos. - Well, who knows? Potentially.
0:44:37 > 0:44:41Charaxos was one of thousands of young men across Greece
0:44:41 > 0:44:45setting out with the produce of their family farm -
0:44:45 > 0:44:46gambling on making a profit
0:44:46 > 0:44:48in places like Naucratis -
0:44:48 > 0:44:50the ancient equivalent
0:44:50 > 0:44:52of Hong Kong or Dubai.
0:44:54 > 0:44:56Sappho would have had no way of knowing
0:44:56 > 0:45:01what had become of her brother and the family's precious cargo.
0:45:01 > 0:45:03But incredibly, we do.
0:45:05 > 0:45:07By an extraordinary coincidence,
0:45:07 > 0:45:09the historian Herodotus
0:45:09 > 0:45:13mentions him in a passage about a high-class courtesan
0:45:13 > 0:45:15called Rhodopis - "Rosy Face".
0:45:15 > 0:45:18Well, what he actually says is,
0:45:18 > 0:45:23"Rhodopis, our heroine for the moment, came to Egypt.
0:45:23 > 0:45:26"She arrived and she worked there as a prostitute
0:45:26 > 0:45:30"and then she was freed for a great sum of money
0:45:30 > 0:45:33"by a man from Mytilene, called Charaxos,
0:45:33 > 0:45:39"son of Scamandronymus, who was the brother of Sappho the poetess."
0:45:39 > 0:45:41But he was a bit of a bad boy.
0:45:41 > 0:45:48I think, he spent pretty much all of his liquid cash on freeing her.
0:45:48 > 0:45:51And do we know what Sappho thought of that?
0:45:51 > 0:45:53Herodotus says in a poem,
0:45:53 > 0:45:57Sappho abused her brother immensely.
0:45:57 > 0:46:00And I think Sappho was not happy with the way her brother
0:46:00 > 0:46:03was both spending his money, which was in a way, her money,
0:46:03 > 0:46:07on freeing what she probably would have called a tart.
0:46:08 > 0:46:12So, instead of returning to Mytilene with a profit for the family,
0:46:12 > 0:46:16Charaxos blew everything on this romance with Rosy Face,
0:46:16 > 0:46:20and when he got back, Sappho angrily confronted him
0:46:20 > 0:46:23in a song which hasn't survived.
0:46:23 > 0:46:26So, she wasn't taking the moral high ground, probably,
0:46:26 > 0:46:29- it was a business issue? - I wonder... It could have been both.
0:46:29 > 0:46:32Was she a respectable married woman with a child
0:46:32 > 0:46:34and therefore, was ripping...
0:46:34 > 0:46:39really ripping into a feckless brother who should have settled down
0:46:39 > 0:46:43and got married to a nice Mytilenean girl? One doesn't know about that.
0:46:45 > 0:46:50This finally makes sense of the new poem we've discovered.
0:46:50 > 0:46:54Sappho must have sung a series of songs about her brother.
0:46:54 > 0:46:58The one we have found is set early on in the story.
0:46:59 > 0:47:04She's telling her mother not to get her hopes up about Charaxos.
0:47:05 > 0:47:08Then later, she sang one to Charaxos himself,
0:47:08 > 0:47:12berating him for leaving the family without a penny.
0:47:17 > 0:47:20It's a tragic domestic soap opera -
0:47:20 > 0:47:23far removed from the Lesbian romances
0:47:23 > 0:47:26we've come to expect from Sappho.
0:47:26 > 0:47:30And it shows us the real problems a woman faced in 600 BC.
0:47:33 > 0:47:35And in Oxford, there's intriguing evidence
0:47:35 > 0:47:40that the problems she faced weren't just financial, but political.
0:47:46 > 0:47:51This stone was purchased in 1627, by Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel,
0:47:51 > 0:47:54who was a prominent courtier of Charles I,
0:47:54 > 0:47:58but also a prominent grand tourist and art collector.
0:47:58 > 0:48:01And this is actually the oldest historical record
0:48:01 > 0:48:03we have from Ancient Greece.
0:48:05 > 0:48:07It is a crude list of dates,
0:48:07 > 0:48:10originally set up on the island of Paros,
0:48:10 > 0:48:13telling key events of Greek history
0:48:13 > 0:48:17from 1580 to 263 BC.
0:48:20 > 0:48:23It's very difficult to read now because the letters
0:48:23 > 0:48:26have got so worn over time.
0:48:26 > 0:48:29But what this bit actually says is...
0:48:29 > 0:48:38SHE READS IN ANCIENT GREEK
0:48:38 > 0:48:40Excuse my awful accent.
0:48:40 > 0:48:44But what that means is that a certain period of time had elapsed
0:48:44 > 0:48:48since Sappho sailed from Mytelene to Sicily fleeing.
0:48:50 > 0:48:54The rest of the section gives us more information so we can date it,
0:48:54 > 0:48:57but what's interesting is that word "fugusa",
0:48:57 > 0:48:59which I've translated as "fleeing",
0:48:59 > 0:49:03but which really suggests that she was sent into exile.
0:49:05 > 0:49:10The discovery of this stone was like a bolt from the blue.
0:49:10 > 0:49:13From it, we learn in a few faint carvings,
0:49:13 > 0:49:18that Sappho was exiled from her home city to the island of Sicily,
0:49:18 > 0:49:22about a week's sail away.
0:49:22 > 0:49:25Then all is silence.
0:49:25 > 0:49:30So, not only was Sappho bankrupted by her brother,
0:49:30 > 0:49:34she fell foul of the authorities enough to be sentenced to exile.
0:49:36 > 0:49:38To find out why,
0:49:38 > 0:49:42we need to go back to the turbulent world of Sappho's Mytilene.
0:49:46 > 0:49:49So, James, what was Mytilene like when Sappho was alive?
0:49:49 > 0:49:53- What was going on here? - Amazingly, we actually have
0:49:53 > 0:49:56evidence from one of her contemporaries.
0:49:56 > 0:49:58Someone called Alcaeus.
0:49:58 > 0:50:03He was writing maybe ten or 20 years before Sappho's time.
0:50:03 > 0:50:08And he describes a world which was actually very politically disturbed,
0:50:08 > 0:50:11lots of faction fighting, endless coups
0:50:11 > 0:50:17and counter coups and people trying to establish tyrannies.
0:50:17 > 0:50:20Alcaeus, like Sappho,
0:50:20 > 0:50:23wrote about passionate homosexual love affairs -
0:50:23 > 0:50:26but for him, that was partly about bonding
0:50:26 > 0:50:28with his fellow conspirators.
0:50:28 > 0:50:33Quite a party, really. Would Sappho have been part of that scene at all?
0:50:33 > 0:50:37One thing is that some of the papyri are revealing more and more
0:50:37 > 0:50:40about the way that maybe Sappho and her friends
0:50:40 > 0:50:43could be involved also in these family politics
0:50:43 > 0:50:46because some of the names that we hear in Alcaeus
0:50:46 > 0:50:49and the faction of Alcaeus and his brothers
0:50:49 > 0:50:53also crop up in some of the papyri of Sappho.
0:50:53 > 0:50:57I've got one here, it concerns someone called Mika.
0:50:57 > 0:51:00"That I shall not allow you, you chose the friendship
0:51:00 > 0:51:02"of ladies of the house of Penthilos"
0:51:02 > 0:51:06and that house of Penthilos seems to be one of the original
0:51:06 > 0:51:11very old aristocratic families that starts all the faction fighting.
0:51:11 > 0:51:14So that's a tiny clue to indicate
0:51:14 > 0:51:16that the women and Sappho's ladies
0:51:16 > 0:51:20are also involved with the faction fighting.
0:51:20 > 0:51:22So, when she's complained that Mika's left, it isn't just
0:51:22 > 0:51:25that she's left her for another woman or another man,
0:51:25 > 0:51:28she's crossed over to the enemy, she's gone to the other side.
0:51:28 > 0:51:31That seems to be the case, yes, so just as with Alcaeus
0:51:31 > 0:51:34underneath the romantic
0:51:34 > 0:51:38and the loving, hot, erotic poetry,
0:51:38 > 0:51:42there seems to be some kind of politics of alliance going on.
0:51:42 > 0:51:47Whose side are you on? You used to be my lover, used to love me,
0:51:47 > 0:51:49and now you've gone over to the other side.
0:51:49 > 0:51:52Women are of course more subtle than men - we know that, don't we?
0:51:52 > 0:51:55SOME women are more subtle!
0:51:57 > 0:52:00This is a completely new perspective on the love affairs of Sappho.
0:52:00 > 0:52:06That behind all of that talk of love was political alliance-making.
0:52:06 > 0:52:11And Sappho must have allied with the wrong side to end up in exile.
0:52:18 > 0:52:20Bankrupted, exiled,
0:52:20 > 0:52:23each step in this tale takes us further
0:52:23 > 0:52:27from the other-worldly Sappho of romantic cliche.
0:52:28 > 0:52:31We're uncovering, I feel,
0:52:31 > 0:52:35not a dreamer, but a prominent figure on the island of Lesbos.
0:52:35 > 0:52:40A celebrated performer at its great festivals and gatherings.
0:52:40 > 0:52:44A woman heading up one of its great families
0:52:44 > 0:52:47in the absence of her brothers.
0:52:47 > 0:52:50A player in the island's cut-throat political struggles.
0:52:53 > 0:52:59But this truth about her was slowly clouded by the mists of time
0:52:59 > 0:53:04and we've replaced it with the image of a poetess we wanted to see.
0:53:06 > 0:53:10And nowhere is this truer than with the story of Sappho's death.
0:53:15 > 0:53:17Of course, a passionate, tragic poet
0:53:17 > 0:53:20had to come to a passionate, tragic end.
0:53:20 > 0:53:22And legend has it that Sappho killed herself
0:53:22 > 0:53:24by leaping from the cliff of Lefkas.
0:53:27 > 0:53:30At some point in history, a tragic love story grew up
0:53:30 > 0:53:33about Sappho and a man called Phaon
0:53:33 > 0:53:37that ended with her suicide on the white cliff of Lefkas -
0:53:37 > 0:53:40far off in western Greece.
0:53:42 > 0:53:44It's ironic, isn't it,
0:53:44 > 0:53:48that a woman whose poetry is so full of love for other women,
0:53:48 > 0:53:53goes down in history as having leapt to her death for love of a man.
0:53:58 > 0:53:59Well, it's rubbish, of course.
0:53:59 > 0:54:03The story is that, she was worked among her girls
0:54:03 > 0:54:06and then she fell in love with this handsome young man called Phaon.
0:54:06 > 0:54:08Who, in fact, had been an old ferry man
0:54:08 > 0:54:12but was translated and made youthful by Aphrodite.
0:54:12 > 0:54:14And Sappho falls in love with him,
0:54:14 > 0:54:16deserts all her girls and runs after him.
0:54:16 > 0:54:18And he's not interested and so she throws herself off
0:54:18 > 0:54:22the cliff off the cliff of Leucadia. You know, as you do.
0:54:22 > 0:54:24For centuries Sappho's Leap
0:54:24 > 0:54:28has been the most common image associated with her.
0:54:28 > 0:54:31But this melodramatic suicide story
0:54:31 > 0:54:33is a fiction shaped in large part
0:54:33 > 0:54:38by the antipathy of male elites towards powerful women.
0:54:38 > 0:54:41- So, she's overreached herself in a number of ways, then?- Absolutely.
0:54:41 > 0:54:45She's writing poetry, she's claiming a public role,
0:54:45 > 0:54:47she's speaking about women
0:54:47 > 0:54:51and all of this is out there and it has a political content
0:54:51 > 0:54:54as far as other viewers are concerned.
0:54:54 > 0:54:57So, this is why that has to be taken back
0:54:57 > 0:54:59and she has to be consumed with feeling.
0:54:59 > 0:55:02She has to be put back into a classic feminine role
0:55:02 > 0:55:06which is sexualised, and then she has to die.
0:55:06 > 0:55:08- And that's the end.- The end!
0:55:08 > 0:55:11So, she throws herself off the cliff.
0:55:11 > 0:55:15And this picture of Sappho killing herself becomes hugely prevalent.
0:55:15 > 0:55:19Just at this moment when women are beginning to claim rights
0:55:19 > 0:55:24to education to employment, to the custody of their children, so...
0:55:24 > 0:55:27- This is what happens to you? - Yes, if you go down that route,
0:55:27 > 0:55:29this is what will happen.
0:55:31 > 0:55:33This reshaping of Sappho's story
0:55:33 > 0:55:36by male artists began in Ancient Greece itself.
0:55:37 > 0:55:41But at some time, Sappho actually became a figure of fun, didn't she?
0:55:41 > 0:55:45Yes, absolutely. It's really strange that this poetess
0:55:45 > 0:55:48becomes a sort of grotesque comic role.
0:55:48 > 0:55:52In fact, several playwrights wrote comedies about her.
0:55:53 > 0:55:57If there was any one place that reshaped Sappho's reputation
0:55:57 > 0:56:01it was here, the Theatre of Dionysus in Athens,
0:56:01 > 0:56:03where, a century after Sappho,
0:56:03 > 0:56:06the world's first plays were performed.
0:56:06 > 0:56:10Ancient Greek comedies are all played by male actors
0:56:10 > 0:56:12in front of male audiences.
0:56:12 > 0:56:16But they liked to see men in transvestite roles.
0:56:16 > 0:56:20And it seems as though Sappho was played very ugly, very small,
0:56:20 > 0:56:23and the Ancient Greeks didn't like short women.
0:56:23 > 0:56:27Very dark skinned, and she did all sorts of strange things.
0:56:27 > 0:56:30She seems to have fancied men often younger than her
0:56:30 > 0:56:32and she's very randy and rather desperate.
0:56:32 > 0:56:36And I think it's a response in the fifth century, in Athens,
0:56:36 > 0:56:39which was the kind of society where female sexuality
0:56:39 > 0:56:42wasn't something that was allowed to be talked about in public.
0:56:42 > 0:56:45And respectable women, it certainly it wasn't recognised
0:56:45 > 0:56:48that they had any kind of sex life or sexual experience.
0:56:48 > 0:56:51So, it's in that context that an educated,
0:56:51 > 0:56:55in fact, aristocratic woman, with a public sex drive
0:56:55 > 0:56:58has to be made funny, burlesque and comic.
0:56:58 > 0:57:01It's the only way that a patriarchal male society can cope with her.
0:57:01 > 0:57:03Because otherwise they feel threatened by her?
0:57:03 > 0:57:05They genuinely would feel threatened by her.
0:57:05 > 0:57:08And they don't want their women to have a role model like her?
0:57:08 > 0:57:10They certainly don't, so she's got to be small, dark,
0:57:10 > 0:57:12hideous, ugly and a figure of fun.
0:57:14 > 0:57:17As the mythologised Sappho grew in popularity,
0:57:17 > 0:57:21so the real Sappho's influence slowly waned.
0:57:22 > 0:57:25And by the eighth century AD,
0:57:25 > 0:57:29the last books of her works had been consigned to the dust heap.
0:57:31 > 0:57:36But now, 2,600 years after her death,
0:57:36 > 0:57:39she is finally re-emerging from obscurity.
0:57:42 > 0:57:45We know that the family fortune
0:57:45 > 0:57:47was blown by Charaxos on his rosy-faced courtesan -
0:57:47 > 0:57:52and maybe one day we will know if Larichos
0:57:52 > 0:57:54ever did grow up to become a man,
0:57:54 > 0:57:58and what became of Sappho's daughter Cleis.
0:57:58 > 0:58:04And we may never know what actually became of the poet herself.
0:58:04 > 0:58:07But Sappho knew that she would have the last word.
0:58:07 > 0:58:11She wasn't afraid to say about people that she didn't like.
0:58:11 > 0:58:14"But when you die you will lie there.
0:58:14 > 0:58:18"And afterwards there will never be any recollection of you
0:58:18 > 0:58:20"or any longing for you.
0:58:20 > 0:58:22"Unseen in the house of Hades,
0:58:22 > 0:58:25"you will go to and fro among the shadowy corpses."
0:58:26 > 0:58:28But of herself she wrote,
0:58:28 > 0:58:32"And if you judge me by the divine Muses,
0:58:32 > 0:58:36"you will know that I escaped the gloom of Hades
0:58:36 > 0:58:38"and that no day will ever dawn
0:58:38 > 0:58:42"that does not speak the name of Sappho, the lyric poet."
0:58:44 > 0:58:47And so far, she's been right.