Ancient Greece Culture and Society

Ancient Greece Culture and Society Foundations of the Modern World

Overview • Greek Society • Literature • Philosophy • Religion and Mythology

The Rise of Humanism • "Man is the Measure of all Things"- Protagoras of Abdera (c. 480 - 410 B.C.) • Importance of the individual • Early communities were based on family • Colonists were rugged individuals • Humanism: individual’s • Uniqueness • Potential • Prerogatives (rights)

Athenian Democracy developed around the fifth century BC in the Greek city-state (known as a polis) of Athens, comprising the city of Athens and the surrounding territory of Attica. Athens is one of the first known democracies.

Greek Society • The flaw in Athenian democracy: only for true citizens • Adult males, Athenian ancestry (15 %) • Slaves • Foreigners, about 30 % • Worked shops, farms • Some special skills e.g. sculpture • Some mining, hard labour • Provided freedom to owners for politics & philosophy • Women • Sparta - public freedom • Athens - confinement

Athenian Marriage • Men absolute household authority • Families arranged marriages, usually older man to young woman • Custom deemed necessary to protect male property & citizenship rights • Women no formal education • Learned weaving, cooking • Patterns of the elite • Records written by upper classes School boy - kylix 480 BC Woman at home - kylix 480 BC

Separate Lives • Elite women • Had female slave attendants • Were confined to homes except for • funerals, festivals, visits to female relatives • Thesmophoria festival • 3-day camp • Mystery & ritual • Plays • Antigone, Lysistrata • About assertive women • Elite men • Work, politics by day • Dined, slept in men’s quarters Daughters of Demeter - krater 440 BC Hunting the lion

The Phylae • “tribes”: largest political subgroups in polis • Athens: 10 phylae • Kin groups • All citizens belonged • Religious • Own priests, temples • Military • Trained and served as hoplite units • Political • Own officials, representatives to Assembly and Council

Symposium • Means "drinking together" • Aristocratic social institution • After meal, men only • Private association of individuals • Slaves, musicians, dancers, prostitutes, young boys • Role of Conversation • Aristocratic males expected to participate • Debates on political & philosophical issues, recitations of speeches & poetry

Gymnasium “School for naked exercise” • Public institution for training athletes (opposite of palaestra- private school for physical training) • Staff: 10 gymnasiarchs, one from each tribe • Maintained gymnasium, paid athletes in training, held athletic festivals, supervised training staff • Facilities • dressing rooms, baths, training quarters, stadium, covered porticos for exercise & lectures in philosophy, literature, and music • Athens: three great public gymnasia: Academy, Lyceum and Cynosarges

Greek Literature Sappho & Alcaeus • Lyric poetry:celebrating the individual • e.g. Sappho • Pre-Socratic Thinkers • Questions about nature • Air, earth, fire, & water • Atomic theory • History • Logographers: wrote historia, accounts of geography, cities, families • Herodotus 485 - 425 BC • First modern historian • Greek war with Persia, analyzed causes Herodotus of Halicarnassus

Greek Thinkers • Sophists (“wise men”) • Traveling teachers • Taught logic, public speaking • Rhetoric: constructing persuasive arguments • Belief in Reason • phusis (nature): amoral, inhuman, often lethal • nomos (culture): custom, power of mind to order & control

Socrates • 470 - 399 BC • Sculptor by trade • Life • Teacher, thinker • Company of young men • Deflated pretensions, challenged people to think • Socratic method: asking probing questions • Death • Charged with • Corrupting youth • Not believing in gods • Condemned to death by drinking hemlock • Young men withdrew from public life

Plato • 428 - 347 BC • First truly literate generation • Founded school for young men • The Academy • Higher education, especially philosophy and mathematics • Wrote Dialogues • Socrates uses question and answer method • Meaning of justice, excellence, freedom • Best known Dialogue: The Republic • Theory of Forms: particular vs. ideal • Political Utopia: philosopher kings

Aristotle • 384 - 322 BC • Born in Macedon, father physician to king • Educated at Plato’s Academy in Athens • Tutored Alexander the Great • Founded school in Athens, Lyceum • Peripatetics: walking while lecturing • History, biology, zoology • Works: De Anima, Poetics, Metaphysics • Covered every field of knowledge, established modern arts & sciences • Only lecture notes survive: remarkable range, sophistication, originality, systemization • Approach is empirical, pragmatic, worldly

Greek Religion • Eusebia • Piety, reverence for traditional gods • Concern for family, clan, polis • Public display to foster peace, avert disfavour of the gods • Rite of animal sacrifice, feasts of music drama dance sport • Philosophy • Cosmology: origin of universe • Theology: gods’ nature & function • Psychology: study of soul • Ethics: man in society • Mysteries • Secret cults of individual gods • Two Goddesses of Eleusis, Dionysus Sacrifice to Vesta - Goya Wine for Dionysus

Public Worship Temple of Athena • State-sponsored festivals • Civic pride & personal piety • Central ritual: sacrifice of animals • Temple: gods’ residence in town • Gifts for favours • Cake, wine at altar • Luck, protection • Oracles • Sacred sites where gods spoke with humans about future • Sought by individuals, city-states • Oracle of Apollo at Delphi most sought Temple of Apollo

Mythology • Living our myths • Not our history • Need for origin story • Literature is displaced mythology • Basic stories of our culture • Repeated in modern forms • Anthropomorphic gods • Looking & acting human

Principal Deities • Titans • Cronus & Gaia • Olympians • Zeus and Hera • Apollo & Artemis • Aphrodite & Athena • Poseidon & Hades • Ares & Hermes • Other Gods • Dionysus, Eros, Pan, The Muses Zeus and Titan Aphrodite & Adonis (David)

Ancient Greece Culture and Society