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Homeric and Archaic Greek Communities

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Title: Homeric and Archaic Greek Communities


1
Homeric and Archaic Greek Communities
  • Prof. Michael Arnush
  • February 14, 2005

2
Last time
  • What constitutes a community in the
  • family?
  • household (oikos)?
  • palace (megaron)?
  • world of the elite (aristoi)?
  • world of the people (demos)?
  • world of the slaves (douloi)?
  • world of the other (xenoi)?

3
Herodotus, passage 1
  • Blood and language close-knit kinships, same
    alphabet, similar dialects, modes of
    communication
  • Religion rituals, worship of the same gods,
    festivals, temples
  • Customs

4
Greek festivals
  • Parthenon, 432 BCE

5
Festival processions Panathenaia
  • Parthenon, Panathenaic frieze

6
Panathenaia
7
Olympia, Sanctuary of Zeus stadium
8
Delphi, Sanctuary of Apollo temple of Apollo
9
Agon competition
  • Pankration

10
Greek values
  • arete manliness, virtue
  • time honor
  • kleos reputation, renown
  • avoidance of aidos shame

11
Rhapsodes and performance
12
Delphi, sanctuary of Apollo theater
13
Homer, passage 2
  • Agora
  • market
  • meeting place
  • civic and religious space
  • court trials with elders as judges
  • heralds keeping order
  • demos as spectators
  • dancing place (orig. threshing floor, later
    orchestra?)
  • fields, vineyards, pasturelands
  • basileus as warrior ruler
  • proto-polis

14
(Athens) Agora now
15
(Athens) agora then
16
Homer and the oral tradition
  • Late Bronze Age 2000-1200
  • Trojan War 1186
  • Dark Age 1100-750
  • Homeric world ca. 800
  • Homer 750-725

17
Thucydides, passage 3
  • nostoi
  • revolutions and factionalism
  • migrations
  • Dorian invasion
  • colonization

18
Homeric culture
  • reliance on the sea
  • social contracts
  • fortified communities
  • political relations assemblies, royal councils,
    basileus and basileis

19
Archaic Age 750-490
  • Land and topography
  • Limited arable land
  • Crops oil, wine
  • Contact with Phoenicians
  • Alphabet
  • Codification of law
  • Land pressures, growing population, interest in
    exploration, historie, all led to

20
Colonization
  • Acquire arete, time, kleos
  • Knowledge of other places
  • Consult Delphic oracle
  • Send out nobles, landless poor, disenfranchised
    politicals, exiles, merchants
  • Founder oikistes to found an oikos
  • Stake out land, temenos
  • Reliance on hoplites (hoplon)
  • Maintain connection to mother-city
  • Places to colonize southern Italy, Sicily, Black
    Sea

21
Distribution of colonies
22
The polis the autonomous city-state, ca. 700-323
  • Colonization contributed to the sense of
    isolation and autonomy
  • polis autonomous, self-governing, urban (astu)
    and rural (chora)
  • usually fortified with a high point (akropolis)
  • identified with the citizens (politai)
  • ruled by the aristoi (hence, aristocracy)

23
Archaic intellectualism Greek philosophy
  • world of discovery, inquiry, challenge to
    authority
  • development in art, architecture, literature,
    mathematics, astronomy, medicine, government
  • analogy of ships at sea
  • philosophia love of wisdom, or devotion to
    uncommon knowledge

24
Greek world view according to Hecataeus, 6th
century
25
6th century spiritual movements
  • social, intellectual, spiritual stirrings
  • dissatisfaction with Hesiods world view and the
    Homeric conception of myth
  • craving for life after death, curiosity about
    what happens to the soul
  • Orphism, Dionysiac worship, mystery cults
    (Eleusis), Pythagoreanism

26
6th century intellectual movements
  • Ionian thinkers, originating in or near Miletus
  • Thales water is everything
  • Xenophanes kosmos is everything
  • Heraklitos change is everything
  • Parmenides being is everything

27
Archaic age
  • an age of political development
  • an age of intellectual curiosity
  • an age of artistic achievement
  • an age of kings giving way to aristocrats giving
    way to oligarchs giving way to tyrants and
    awaiting democracy

28
This week
  • Wednesday Aeschylus Agamemnon (Prof. Erika
    Nesholm)
  • Thursday, 5.30pm A Very Liquid Heaven (Prof.
    Mary Crone Odekon)
  • Friday Sophocles Ajax (Prof. Nesholm)
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