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:
aretê excellence, virtue, the quality of being good at
something
timê 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
³Men 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.² 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?