Homeric and Archaic Greek Communities

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Homeric and Archaic Greek Communities

• Prof. Michael Arnush
• February 14, 2005

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Last time

• What constitutes a community in the
• family?
• household (oikos)?
• palace (megaron)?
• world of the elite (aristoi)?
• world of the people (demos)?
• world of the slaves (douloi)?
• world of the other (xenoi)?

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Herodotus, passage 1

• Blood and language close-knit kinships, same
  alphabet, similar dialects, modes of
  communication
• Religion rituals, worship of the same gods,
  festivals, temples
• Customs

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Greek festivals

• Parthenon, 432 BCE

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Festival processions Panathenaia

• Parthenon, Panathenaic frieze

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Panathenaia
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Olympia, Sanctuary of Zeus stadium
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Delphi, Sanctuary of Apollo temple of Apollo
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Agon competition

• Pankration

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Greek values

• arete manliness, virtue
• time honor
• kleos reputation, renown
• avoidance of aidos shame

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Rhapsodes and performance
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Delphi, sanctuary of Apollo theater
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Homer, passage 2

• Agora
• market
• meeting place
• civic and religious space
• court trials with elders as judges
• heralds keeping order
• demos as spectators
• dancing place (orig. threshing floor, later
  orchestra?)
• fields, vineyards, pasturelands
• basileus as warrior ruler
• proto-polis

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(Athens) Agora now
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(Athens) agora then
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Homer and the oral tradition

• Late Bronze Age 2000-1200
• Trojan War 1186
• Dark Age 1100-750
• Homeric world ca. 800
• Homer 750-725

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Thucydides, passage 3

• nostoi
• revolutions and factionalism
• migrations
• Dorian invasion
• colonization

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Homeric culture

• reliance on the sea
• social contracts
• fortified communities
• political relations assemblies, royal councils,
  basileus and basileis

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Archaic Age 750-490

• Land and topography
• Limited arable land
• Crops oil, wine
• Contact with Phoenicians
• Alphabet
• Codification of law
• Land pressures, growing population, interest in
  exploration, historie, all led to

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Colonization

• Acquire arete, time, kleos
• Knowledge of other places
• Consult Delphic oracle
• Send out nobles, landless poor, disenfranchised
  politicals, exiles, merchants
• Founder oikistes to found an oikos
• Stake out land, temenos
• Reliance on hoplites (hoplon)
• Maintain connection to mother-city
• Places to colonize southern Italy, Sicily, Black
  Sea

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Distribution of colonies
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The polis the autonomous city-state, ca. 700-323

• Colonization contributed to the sense of
  isolation and autonomy
• polis autonomous, self-governing, urban (astu)
  and rural (chora)
• usually fortified with a high point (akropolis)
• identified with the citizens (politai)
• ruled by the aristoi (hence, aristocracy)

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Archaic intellectualism Greek philosophy

• world of discovery, inquiry, challenge to
  authority
• development in art, architecture, literature,
  mathematics, astronomy, medicine, government
• analogy of ships at sea
• philosophia love of wisdom, or devotion to
  uncommon knowledge

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Greek world view according to Hecataeus, 6th
century
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6th century spiritual movements

• social, intellectual, spiritual stirrings
• dissatisfaction with Hesiods world view and the
  Homeric conception of myth
• craving for life after death, curiosity about
  what happens to the soul
• Orphism, Dionysiac worship, mystery cults
  (Eleusis), Pythagoreanism

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6th century intellectual movements

• Ionian thinkers, originating in or near Miletus
• Thales water is everything
• Xenophanes kosmos is everything
• Heraklitos change is everything
• Parmenides being is everything

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Archaic age

• an age of political development
• an age of intellectual curiosity
• an age of artistic achievement
• an age of kings giving way to aristocrats giving
  way to oligarchs giving way to tyrants and
  awaiting democracy

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This week

• Wednesday Aeschylus Agamemnon (Prof. Erika
  Nesholm)
• Thursday, 5.30pm A Very Liquid Heaven (Prof.
  Mary Crone Odekon)
• Friday Sophocles Ajax (Prof. Nesholm)