HI204 Scope of the course

1. Welcome to HI204 Athens, Alexander the Great and Cleopatra/www.skidmore.edu/classics/courses/2010spring/hi204

2. HI204 Scope of the course • Perikles, Athens, Sparta & the Peloponnesian War • 432/1-404/3 BCE • 4th century before Philip and Alexander • 404/3-359/8 BCE • Philip and Alexander • 359/8-323/2 BCE • Hellenistic age • 323/2-31 BCE • Cleopatra, Caesar, Antony and Augustus • 100-31 BCE

3. HI204: Athens, Alexander the Greatand Cleopatra • Highlights • Peloponnesian War • Athens in the Balance • lecture on February 15th on Homer by Prof. Ruth Scodel • Alexander the Great and Hellenization • Homerathon! on March 4th • Hellenistic literature, art, philosophy, mathematics, science, technology • building a ballista • Parilia, Union College, April 16th • Cleopatra, Rome and Greece • final project

4. HI204: Athens, Alexander the Greatand Cleopatra • Syllabus • Overview: Skills and Academic Integrity • Texts • Requirements • Schedule • Blog • Syllabus

5. Historical sources for Greek history • Historians: extant works • Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War(432-411) • Xenophon’s Hellenica, Apology (411-362) • Sources for the lives of Philip and Alexander (359-323) • Polybius Histories (220-146) • Plutarch Lives (146-31)

6. Poetic sources for Greek history • Epic poets • Homer’s Iliad, Odyssey (ca. 750-700) • Tragic poets • Aeschylus 525/4-456/5 (7 of 90 extant) • Sophocles 496/5-406/5 (7 of 123 extant) • Euripides 491/0-406/5 (19 of 91 extant) • Comic poets • Aristophanes 461/0-386/5 (11 of 40 extant) • Hellenistic poets • Callimachus 310-240 (Alexandrian librarian) • Aitia(elegiac), Epigrammata(short witticisms), Pinakes (library catalog) • Aratus 315/310-240 • Phaenomena (astronomical) • Apollonius 270?-246/5? • Argonautica (epic) • Theocritus 3rd century • Idylls (bucolic)

7. Philosophical sources for Greek history • Classical philosophers • Socrates 469-399 • Plato 428/7-348/7 • Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo • Aristotle 384-322 • Athenian Constitution, Politics • Hellenistic schools of philosophy School Founder Origins • Cynicism Antisthenes 5th-4th centuries • Platonism Speusippus 4th century • Aristotelianism Theophrastus 4th-3rd centuries • Epicureanism Epicurus 4th-3rd centuries • Stoicism Zeno 4th-3rd centuries

8. Material sources for Greek history:architecture, sculpture, vase painting • Architecture • often can be dated • internal ideologies • evidence of wealth • evidence of skill • Sculpture, vase painting • -can be dated stylistically • reveals social customs • high level of sophistication

9. Material sources for Greek history:archaeological evidence: inscriptions • Epigraphy: inscriptions on stone, metal, terracotta – durable materials • typically contemporary • often fragmentary • nearly useless if not dated • Genres • poetry, laws, decrees, votes • treaties, dedications, honors

10. Material sources for Greek history:archaeological evidence: papyri • Primary medium for … day-to-day activities • correspondence • petitions • edicts • receipts • Limited survival of texts • Aristotle’s Athenian Constitution • Oxyrhynchos Historian • many fragments of (un)known works

11. Material sources for Greek history:archaeological evidence: coins • Field of numismatics (<νομίζειν, to use according to νόμος – “law” or “custom”) • post 550 BCE • limited use as propaganda, so little internal evidence • long periods of usage, so broad range of dates

12. All sources for Greek history:literary and material • Context is key • Congruence is rare • Historians must draw upon all sources to complete the picture

13. Periodization of Greek history

14. Altitude High Low Topographic map of Greece, the Aegean Sea and Asia Minor

15. Extent of Greek colonization: 750-550 BCE

16. PanhellenismOlympia, stadion and starting line, 5th c. BCE

17. Panhellenism: Delphi, Pythiaand Temple of Apollo6th and 4th centuries BCE

18. Synoikism of Attica  Athens

19. Sparta and the Peloponnesian League Corinthian Gulf Delphi Isthmus ACHAEA Athens Corinth ELIS ATTICA Olympia ARGOLID ARCADIA Argos Saronic Gulf PELOPONNESOS LACONIA Aegean Sea MESSENIA Sparta

20. Commerce: Corinth & Temple of Apollo (6th c. BCE)

21. Warfare: trireme and hoplites

22. Performance: Theater of Dionysus,5th-4thcs. BCE

23. Political systems: democracy in Athens Western side of the Athenian agora, looking north Bema (speaker’s platform) at the Pnyx, meeting place of the ekklesia (citizens’ assembly) Model of the statue group of the 10 eponymous heroeslocated on the western side of the Athenian agora

24. Pnyx and the ἐκκλησία (ekklêsia):decrees, laws, ambassadors, ostracism

25. Heroic past: Plain of MarathonAthens & Plataea vs. Persians, 490 BCE Marathon Bay Persian cavalry Persian fleet Persian camp Greek camp at sanctuary of Herakles Soros

26. Heroic past: Leonidas of Sparta, 7000 hoplites:μολὼν λαβέ(molōnlabe: Plut. Moralia 225c11)“Come and take [them]!”

27. Heroic Past: Battle of Salamis, 480 BCE Greeks vs. Persians Mt. Aigaleos (Xerxes) Salamis Psyttaleia Phaleron

28. Heroic Past: Unified Greece vs. Persians “Again, there is the Greek nation – the community of blood and language, temples and ritual, and our common customs; if Athens were to betray all this, it would not be well done …. So long as a single Athenian remains alive we will make no peace with Xerxes” (Hdt. 8.144) • τὸ Ἑλληνικὸν ἐὸν ὅμαιμόν τε καὶ ὁμόγλωσσον καὶ θεῶν ἱδρύματά τε κοινὰ καὶ θυσίαι ἤθεά τε ὁμότροπα ... • to Hellênikon eon: “the Greek nation” (lit. “being Greek”)

29. Pentekontaetia: 479/8-432/1 BCE Remnants of the Themistoclean wall, Kerameikos, Athens: 479-478 BCE The wars between the wars: from Greeks vs. Persiansto Greeks vs. Greeks Next class: Read Thuc. 1.87-1.118 (syllabus link)

30. Age ofPerikles son of Xanthipposthe Athenian

31. Athens in the age of Perikles (462/1-429/8)