BRONZE AGE CRETE AND GREECE |
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Palace of Knossos |
BRONZE AGE CRETE AND GREECE |
|
Palace of Knossos |
I. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
A. END OF THE MYCENAEAN AGE
1. Dorian invasion (?): c. 1200 B.C.
a. Destruction of Mycenae, Tiryns, Pylos, and other Mycenaean sites on the mainland
b. Where did the Mycenaean Greeks go?
2. Upheaval in easterm Mediterranean
a. Hittite empire collapses; destruction of Troy
b. Egyptian records describe how the "Peoples of the Sea" attack Egypt: Peleset Philistines?); Sherden (Sardinians?); Danuna (Homer's Danaoi 'Greeks'); Tjekker
c. Israelites become dominant in Palestine; period of the Judges; struggles with the Philistines; establishment of the monarchy under Saul
B. The IRON AGE (DARK AGE)
1. Rise of the new polis 'city-state' in Greece.
a. Athens, Corinth, Thebes, Sparta
2. Survival of Mycenaean mythology in Greek mythology: Theseus and the Minotaur; Trojan War; Labors of Heracles; Jason and the Argonauts; legends of Danaus and Cadmus
a. preservation of the myths in an oral culture
II. HOMER
1. Little known about his life: Chios (?) his birthplace; blind (?)
2. Iliad and Odyssey
a. Our texts go back to about 750 BC
B. HOMER AND ARCHAEOLOGY
1. Henry Schliemann and the excavations at Troy.
a. See preceding chapter
C. HOMER AS AN ORAL POET
1. Milman Parry: studied at the Sorbonne; dissertation on Serbo-Croatian oral poetry; visits Yugoslavia (Bosnia); feast of Ramadan; oral poets; guslar, a musical instrument; the meter is trochaic pentameter
2. Formulaic language vs. memorization
a. why is Achilles swift-footed? why is the dawn rosy-fingered? Agamemnon, king of men? etc.
3. Direct poetic link with the Mycenaean Age: Homer is at the end of an oral tradition; introduction of writing and the end of the oral tradition
D. SELECTIONS FROM THE ILIAD
a. marriage of Peleus and Thetis; Eris and the golden apple for the most beautiful goddess; the contest with Paris as judge; the bribes; Helen, wife of Menelaus; elopement and marriage in Sparta
b. Greek war fleet sails with Agamemnon as its leader; sacrifice of Iphigeneia
c. war has lasted for ten years
2. The quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles (Book 1).
a. Chryseis and Briseis
b. Achilles withdraws from the fighting and plans to return to Greece
3. The scene in Troy (Book 6)
a. Paris and Helen; Hector and his wife, Andromache; their son Astyanax
4. The embassy to Achilles (Book 9)
a. Agamemnon's offer refused; short life with glory or long life in obscurity
5. Patroclus takes the place of Achilles (Book 16)
a. killed by Hector
b. Hephaestus makes new armor for Achilles at Thetis' urging; the description of the shield (Book 18)
6. Achilles kills Hector (Book 22)
a. Achilles as the epitome of the Greek hero: special relationship to a god; miraculous birth; warrior or beast slayer; invulnerable; indispensable; shame not guilt the greatest evil; glory the greatest good
b. intervention of Athena
c. abuse of Hector's body
7. Priam and the ransom of Hector's body (Book 24)
a. Achilles relents
E. SELECTIONS FROM THE ODYSSEY
1. Folkloristic motifs in the Odyssey: monsters; magic (beautification); impossible quest (homecoming); weak but intelligent overcome strong but stupid; arrival in the nick of time
2. Maturation of Telemachus: his relationship to Penelope; opposes the suitors; visit to Pylos and Sparta; joins with his father in the slaughter of the suitors
3. Calypso
4. Land of the Phaeacians
a. flashbacks: a. the evil cannibalistic giant Polyphemus; Circe, witch who lives in the forest; visit to Hades (Elpenor, Tiresias, Anticleia, Agamemnon, Achilles, Ajax); Sirens; Scylla and Charybdis; cattle of the sun
5. Return to Ithaca in the nick of time
a. the evil suitors: Antinous, Eurylochus, Amphinomos
b. the evil slaves: Melanthios and Melantho
c. the faithful slaves: Eumaeus, Philoetius, Euryclea
d. the test of the bow and the death of the suitors
e. reunion with Penelope
III. VISUAL ARTS
A. PROTO-GEOMETRIC VASES(1000-900 B.C.)
1. Circles and semicircles.
B. GEOMETRIC VASES(900-700 B.C.)
1. Linear designs: zigzag, checkerboard, meander.
2. Human figures in Dipylon vase: crude and primitive; mourners at a funeral.
C. CORINTHIAN STYLE
D. PROTO-ATTIC STYLE
E. BEGINNINGS OF SCULPTURE
1. Kouroi: Egyptian influence (rigid stance; left foot advanced; hair styles)
a. archaic smile; nudity; function: grave markers?
2. Korae: clothed; painted; jewelry; archaic smile
IV. ARCHAIC AGE
A. SCULPTURE
1. Progress over kouroi and korae: more natural, anatomically more detailed
a. Anavysos Kouros; Moschophoros.
2. Relief: figures are attached to the stone background; high vs. low (bas) relief
3. Critian Boy
B. VASE PAINTING
1. Exekias (c. 625 B.C.)
a. black on red style: paint figures in black; unpainted clay turns red in the kiln
C. ARCHITECTURE
1. Doric style
a. columns and capitals
b. entablature:architrave, frieze, cornice, pediment
c. triglyphs and metopes
2. Ionic style
a. Ionic frieze: continuous
D. LITERATURE
1. Semonides
2. Archilochus (7th century)
3. Sappho of Lesbos (born c. 612 B.C.)
a. reputation of women of Lesbos in antiquity
b. was Sappho a lesbian? bisexual? : married with a child named Cleis according to her poetry.
c. occupation: did she run a a kind of finishing school for young ladies? evidence of her poetry but can we learn about a person's life from their poems?
d. lyric poetry: personal and introspective; her use of language (alliteration and assonance); the Sapphic meter.
e. survival of her poetry: only fragments; quoted by other authors whose works did survive; papyri found in Egypt; role of copyists.
f. examples in the reader.
E. PHILOSOPHY: THE PRE-SOCRATICS
1. Thales of Miletus (c. 585 B.C.)
a. most scientific of the so-called seven sages: measured the height of the pyramid of Cheops by using proportional triangles and the length of their shadows; said to have foretold solar eclipse of 585 B.C. (Herodotus 1.74.2)
b. given credit for the development of theoretical geometry (axioms and provable theorems) by generalizing the Egyptian methods of land measurement
c. the search for ultimate reality, the first principle, the arche: all things reduced to water: materialism
2. Empedocles of Acragas in Sicily (c. 492-435 B.C.)
a. long poem On Nature: four basic material elements: earth, fire, water, and air
b. cyclic theory of cosmic history regulated by Love and Strife. When love is dominant, the world is a homogeneous whole.
3. Pythagoras of Samos (c. 550 B.C.)
a. religious tradition: founder of a cult with initiation ceremonies, secred doctrines, dietary restrictions, burial rites, and passwords.
* harmony and kinship of living things
*. transmigration of souls (reincarnation, metempsychosis)
b. scientific tradition:
*mathematics: all things can be reduced to numbers; Pythagorean theorem; the irrational numbers and the number line
*. music: length of strings and the octave
4. Heraclitus of Ephesus (c. 500 B.C.)
a. a central element in his philosophy is the logos: word, speech, thought; the logical structure of language.
b. stresses change: panta rhei 'all things are flowing'
5. Parmenides of Elea (c. 510 B.C.)
a. his philosophical poem survives in large fragments.
b. thought and speech: if something can be thought or said, it must exist.
c. being is permanent and thus there can be no change.
d. a middle ground: do things change? do we remain the same entity over the years?
6. The atomists: Leucippus and Democritus of Abdera in Thrace (ca. 460 B.C.)
a. universe has two ingredients: Being and Non-being. The beings (existing things) are separated from each other by non-being or empty space.
b. existing things consist of atoms (not cuttable); the atoms move randomly in space (chance) thus explaining change.
c. soul: extra fine atoms (materialism)
F. HISTORY
1. Herodotus, the father of history (lies) (ca. 484-420)
a. his travels in Egypt and Asia
b. purpose of the work: explain the Persian Wars; religious explanation: hybris of Xerxes and the role of the gods.
c. battle of Thermopylae: Xerxes, Leonidas, Ephialtes
d. Solon and Croesus
e. Hippocleides
f. the clever thief
g. battles of Salamis and Plataea