Rise of the Polis
Homeric Society
Oikos vs. Polis
organization
of the community around the household
ideal
of self-sufficiency and the need for contacts
assemblies
and justice
Warrior code:
aret – excellence, virtue, the
quality of being good at something
tim – honor, status, the physical
manifestations of respect from others
kleos – fame, glory, the preservation
of deeds in song and memory
Glaucus, why do they hold us both in honor,
first by far with pride of place, choice meats and brimming cups, in Lycia
where all our people look on us like gods? Why make us lords of estates along the Xanthus' banks, rich
in vineyards and plowland rolling wheat?
So that now the duty's ours - we
are the ones to head our Lycian front, brace and fling ourselves in the blaze
of war, so a comrade strapped in combat gear may say, 'Not without fame, the
men who rule in Lycia, these kings of ours who eat fat cuts of lamb and drink
sweet wine, the finest stock we have.
But they owe it all to their own fighting strength - they lead our way
in battle!' Ah my friend, if you
and I could escape this fray and live forever, never a trace of age, immortal,
I would never fight on the front lines again or command you to the field where men
win fame. But now, as it is, the
fates of death await us, thousands poised to strike, and not a man alive can
flee them or escape - so in we go for attack! Give our enemy glory or win it for ourselves! (Homer, Iliad, XII.359-381)
Hospitality
Code - Xenia
Guest
friend and host
Gift
exchange vs. market economy
Marriage
alliances and the traffic in women
Mycenaean Civilization and the Trojan
War
Heinrich
Schliemann -1870
Troy
VIIa - destroyed circa 1250-1200 BCE
Minoan
Civilization - Crete c. 2200-1450 BCE
Mycenaean
Palace Culture destroyed circa 1200 BCE
-- Linear B writing
illiterate
'Dark Ages' (roughly 1200-750 BCE)
Phoenician
alphabet comes to Greece - first surviving evidence around 750 BCE
|
Collapse of Mycenaean Civilization Myth
of the Dorian Invasion - the Sons of Herakles (Heraclids) Sea
Peoples Natural
Disasters Migrations
and dialect groups Aeolian Ionian Dorian |
|
Homer and Hesiod as Pan-Hellenic poets
But
whence each of these gods came into existence, or whether they were for ever,
and what kind of shape they had were not known until the day before yesterday,
if I may use the expression; for I believe that Homer and Hesiod were four
hundred years before my own time - and no more than that. It is they who created for the Greeks
their theogony; it is they who gave to the gods the special names for their
descent from their ancestors and divided among them their honors, their arts,
and their shapes. (Herodotus 2.53)
Homer -
Iliad composed circa 750-725 BCE??
Odyssey composed circa 743-713 BCE??
Homeric Oral
Epic - traditional form of poetry in dactylic hexameter
six metrical
feet of dactyls ( ) and spondees ( )
Hesiod (born 750 BCE??) - father immigrated
from Cyme on the Aeolian coast of Asia Minor, settled at Ascra, near Mt.
Helikon in Boeotia
Hesiod's Theogony
The Creation
of the World:
Chaos Gaia Eros Tartaros
Erebos Night
Pontos Ouranos
Titans - Kronos
Olympians - Zeus
Hesiod's Works and Days
Pandora
- the creation of the Race of Women - a beautiful evil
Myth of the
Five Races
Golden Race - ruled by Kronos, like gods without
sorrow or toil, feasted endlessly, earth bore food in abundance, become pure
spirits after death
Silver Race - hundred year infancy, short
maturity filled with wrongdoing to men and gods, become underworld spirits
after death
Bronze Race - great strength and violence, bronze
weapons and houses, destroyed each other in war and went to Hades
Race of Heroes - demigods, killed in battle in the
Theban wars or the Trojan war, some sent to the Isles of the Blessed - ruled by
Kronos, without sorrow or toil, earth bears fruit thrice a year
Iron Race - no rest from sorrow and toil, endless
troubles, destroyed when born with grey hair and families disintegrate
Dark Age to Archaic - end of 9th to beginning of 8th century
BCE
shift
from oikos ruled by basileus to polis ruled by aristocratic clans
shift
from pastoralism to agriculture
population
explosion – differing effects in mountains and fertile plains
Men came
together by cities and by tribes, because they naturally tend to hold things in
common, and at the same time because of their need of one another; and they met at the sacred places that
were common to them for the same reasons, holding festivals and general
assemblies; for everything of this
kind tends to friendship, beginning with eating at the same table, drinking
libations together, and lodging under the same roof. Strabo 9.3.5
Temple Building - temenos, temple, altar
increase
in votive dedications
nonurban,
suburban and urban sanctuaries
nonurban
sanctuaries the earliest and most monumental
marking
the boundaries: defending the
fields, defining the citizens
Thesmophoria
and the role of women
Temple
of Hera at Argos
Temple
of Hera on Samos
Temple
of Hera at Perachora near Corinth
Temple
of Poseidon near Corinth
Temple
of Artemis at Brauron near Athens
Temple
to Demeter at Eleusis near Athens
Temple
to Apollo Hyacinthos in Amyclae near Sparta
For Next Week Read:
Buckley
ch. 2
Herodotus
IV, esp. 144-159
Thucydides
VI 1-8
Fornara
# 5 (Naxos & Megara), 6 (Croton), 9 (Tarentum), 33 (Locrian laws)
Founding of Cyrene Documents
Greek Lyrics: Archilochus (pp. 1-6)
Alcman, Stesichorus, Ibycus, Sappho (pp. 33-42)
Pindar Pythian IV, V, and IX
What were the reasons for Greek
colonization?
What cities took the lead in
colonizing? What areas were
colonized?
How do the concepts of center and
periphery apply to this process of colonization?
What do the colonization narratives in
Herodotus and the lyric poets tell us about the process of colonizing? What common themes and patterns recur
in these stories?
Compare Herodotus IV.145-159 with the
accounts in Pindar's Pythian Odes and the Theran Decree in the Foundation of
Cyrene documents: What was the
motivation for colonization? What
was the role of Delphi in the process?
How did the colonizers get information on where to settle?
What are the strengths and weaknesses of
Herodotus and the poetic sources?