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Athens: democracy and religion I

Athens: democracy and religion I. From last week…. Homeric cosmos: humans and gods living side by side, immortality, hubris The ‘Polis’ as the center for Greek religion and civilization Sparta as a model: we saw the posing of the dichotomy between pious and legal, but both are necessary

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Athens: democracy and religion I

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  1. Athens: democracy and religion I

  2. From last week… • Homeric cosmos: humans and gods living side by side, immortality, hubris • The ‘Polis’ as the center for Greek religion and civilization • Sparta as a model: we saw the posing of the dichotomy between pious and legal, but both are necessary • We started to see Athens: Solon and Clisthenes start to build Athenian democracy, which gets consolidated after the victory against Persia

  3. Athens after the Persian victory • Athens’s hegemony in Greece threatened by Sparta • Athens against Sparta 460 BCE: the first Peloponnesian War begins • 445 BCE: the first Peloponnesian War ends with the Thirty Years’ Peace, kind of like…

  4. …the Cold War!

  5. Pericles: the protagonist of this phase of Athenian history

  6. Athenian democracy: how it worked • Demes remained the local pivotal points • The Council, called ‘boule’, as the organism that prepared laws to be discussed by • The Assembly, or ‘ecclesia’, the key to Athenian direct democracy!!! • What does this have to do with religion?

  7. Democracy and religion • Let us start thinking about the Greek word for assembly, that is to say ‘ecclesia’…. • Ecclesiastical now means something having to do with the Church: so?? • SOCIAL ROLE OF RELIGION • HUMAN ROLE OF RELIGION • THE GREEKS OFFER AN ABSOLUTELY CRUCIAL ELABORATION ON THIS DUPLICITY!! -Remember the Spartan source: impious and illegal: how does that develop?

  8. Now let us start from the public aspect of religion • Worship of the gods on the part on the individual is a CIVIC DUTY • What is impious, is illegal!! • Athens: 415 BCE: The case of the statues of Hermes

  9. Hermes

  10. What happened in 415 BCE? • Some Athenian citizens mutilated all the statues of Hermes that could be found in the city of Athens • The culprits were discovered, and the state put them to death. • What does this suggest you?

  11. USA and the American flag

  12. Greek drama • Tragedy for the Greeks was not only a form of poetry (like Shakespeare), but a religious ritual (in honor of Dionysus) • Everybody had to attend! • The concept of catharsis • What can we learn from it? • Religion both in its social and human sense

  13. Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides: the three great tragic poets

  14. Gods, men, state: three parts of a cosmic order Aeschylus, (525-456 BCE)

  15. Aeschylus: the story of Agamemnon

  16. The story • Agamemnon, Greek king, sacrifices his own daughter, Iphigenia, to propitiate the Greek victory against Troy • At his return, he is slain by his wife, Clytemnestra, who avenges the daughter • Clytemnestra is then killed by her own son Orestes, who is finally pardoned by the gods

  17. Look at your source! • Zeus bestows ‘fixed laws’ on mortals • Wisdom, that is to say, moderation, comes from suffering • Emphasis on the ‘house’ of Agamemnon, that is to say, his entire family, that is to say, the state • Whoever violates the cosmic order individually is responsible for the ruin of his state • Only the gods can restore the lost order

  18. Aeschylus, Mesopotamia and Egypt • Remember the relation between king and gods in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt • Aeschylus expresses, in a more sophisticated way, the same idea that the gods and the king are deeply linked • What is impious, that is to say, against the gods, brings about the destruction of the state • The concept of morality is not, in Aeschylus, distinct from that of piety

  19. But… • Can something be pious and illegal, or impious and legal at the same time? • What if gods make mistake? Remember the Israelites and Job…. • How did the Greek respond? • Come next class and we’ll find out!! For now, however, remember…

  20. Conclusions • Athens is the ‘triumph’ of the ‘political’ religion (i.e. religion of the polis): remember the case of Hermes! • Athens is the venue for elaborating also on the ‘human’ value of religion: tragedy is important for that • The concept of religion in Classical Greece evolves, that is, gets modified over time: we saw step 1, that is, Aeschylus: • As in Homer, for Aeschylus too pious and legal have to be together: what is impious is also illegal!

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