Modern Love CD Song List
1. Suzanne
Leonard Cohen
The Best of...
1975
2. I can’t quit you baby
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
1969
3. You shook me
Led Zeppelin
4. Chelsea Hotel No. 2
Leonard Cohen
The Best of...
1975
5. Take this longing
6. Take this Waltz
The Essential Leonard Cohen
2002
7. First we take Manhattan
8. The Future
9. In my secret life
10. Love itself
11. If it be your will
Various Positions
1984
12. Don’t start talk me talkin’
Sonny Boy Williamson
13. Nice ‘n sleazy
The Stranglers
The Singles (United Years)
14. Wicked Game
Chris Isaak
15. Ziggy Stardust
David Bowie
Ziggy Stardust & the spiders from Mars
1972
16. Lady Stardust
David Bowie
Ziggy Stardust ...
1972
17. Heroes
David Bowie
Singles
18.
David Bowie
Singles
19. She’s Lost Control
Joy Division
Substance 1977-1980
1988
20. Love will tear us apart
Joy Division
Substance 1977-1980
1988
21. Self Control
Laura Brannigan
22. Dance me to the end of love
Leonard Cohen
Various positions
1984
23. Sound & Vision
David Bowie
Singles
24. Soufi Music
from the Holy City
of Konya, Turkey
25. Soufi Music
26. Tears through rain
Covenant
27. Let’s do it
The Beatles
The White Album
1968
28. Love you forever
The Beatles
The White Album
1968
29. Julia
The Beatles
The White Album
1968
Thursday, May 26, 2005
SLL301F: Draft synopsis of our discussions
Themes considered in the Modern Love section of Sex: Sappho to Cyber SLL301F
Changing Ontologies
Characterizing the temperaments of modern life- thinking about their origins, our guiding assumptions, what moves us, what we expect from love.
Our ancient identification of sex & knowledge
sex & hubris
sex & sin
sex & health
What is a human being? What can a human become?
Essence
Authority
Power
Limit
The continuity of moral tradition
Christianity- Science- State- History
The salvation of human life:
freedom
self-creation
rebellion & transgression
Persona
Society-Individual
Soul to Self
Eternity to History
Will to Power
Always the questions what is sex for? What does sex mean? What does sex do? are necessarily answered by the questions What is a human being? What does a life mean? What must one seek to be & act?
Communication: poetry to god, poetry to beloved, poetry to a cause, to an idea.
Changing Ontologies
Characterizing the temperaments of modern life- thinking about their origins, our guiding assumptions, what moves us, what we expect from love.
Our ancient identification of sex & knowledge
sex & hubris
sex & sin
sex & health
What is a human being? What can a human become?
Essence
Authority
Power
Limit
The continuity of moral tradition
Christianity- Science- State- History
The salvation of human life:
freedom
self-creation
rebellion & transgression
Persona
Society-Individual
Soul to Self
Eternity to History
Will to Power
Always the questions what is sex for? What does sex mean? What does sex do? are necessarily answered by the questions What is a human being? What does a life mean? What must one seek to be & act?
Communication: poetry to god, poetry to beloved, poetry to a cause, to an idea.
Tuesday, May 24, 2005
SLL258F Myth Test- 24 May 2005- IMPORTANT NOTICE
Due to the excellent and unfailing competence & very professional reliability of the UCT venue allocations unit, we will have to move the venue of tomorrow's test once again. We will not sit the test in Jameson Hall. The test will be offered in LS2C at 11hoo. No doubt, much ensuing chaos on the day. Sincere apologies for this. Let it not reflect on the Classics department, still, like Lucretia, I feel shame for something beyond my control. Though I'll not be thrusting any knives into my person. Ciao and good luck.
David van Schoor
David van Schoor
SLL258F- Points to consider as we read Roman Rape Myths
I. While rape for us is one of the most disgusting violations of constitutionally enshrined individual rights and not a matter of shame for the raped but only for the rapist, Roman rape is a question for the community not the individual.
II. Rape constitutes the violation of family and thus community identities, the transgression of the proper boundaries of the community.
III. Rapes in Roman legend precipitate social change.
IV. Rape accounts reflect at the domestic, private level, broader social violations of citizen body rights.
V. Social Standing: rape is tyrannical behaviour, it bespeaks inequality amongst citizens. It is proper to slaves not the women of free Romans. Society shapes itself along a hierarchy of honour or social standing. An insult to a family’s honour is a disrution of social order.
VI. Keep in mind always how Livian historico-myth demonstrates the values proper to Romans:
i. The priority of Roman community over family and individual life.
ii. Law must regulate power.
iii. In the face of extremity, heroic and exemplary figures are self-effacing and ultimately act for moral and thus social vindication, for the restitution of violated honour, the restoration of a better, once more stable order.
Marriage: the opposite of Rape
Marriage
i. proper exchange
ii. union
iii. covenant, treaty, agreement
iv. loyalty
v. peace & prosperity
vi. law
Rape
i. inequality, tyranny
ii. disunion, the breaking of social covenant, separation
iii. infidelity
iv. violence, strife, lust, unbridled passion, Power untempered by Law
v. lawlessness, chaos
Friday, May 20, 2005
Heroes Bibliography and Essay
SLL258F - ANCIENT MYTHOLOGY
HEROIC MYTHS
BIBLIOGRAPHIES
IMPORTANT STUDIES AND STANDARD REFERENCE WORKS
*BURKERT, W. 1985. Greek Religion Oxford <292.08 BURK/GREE>
BURKERT, W. 1992. Orientalising Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age Cambridge, MA <901.9138056 BURK>
HORDEN, P. 1985. Thoughts of Freud, in HORDEN, P. (ed.) Freud and the Humanities: 1-25, London <150.1952 FREU>
LEFKOWITZ, M.R. 1986. Women in Greek Myth London [Read chap. 7 "Misogyny" pp.112-32, and "Epilogue" pp.133-36] <880.9352 LEFK>
LEXICON ICONOGRAPHICUM MYTHOLOGIAE CLASSICAE (LIMC)
s.v. Helen, IV.1 (1988): 498-563 [I. Kahil & N. Icard] (in French), plates IV.2 (1988): 291-359.
s.v. Herakles IV.1 (1988): 728-838 [J. Boardman et al.] (in English), plates IV.2 (1988): 444-559); V.1 (1990): 1-262 [various] (in various languages), plates V.2 (1990): 6-188
s.v. Oidipous VII.1 (1994): 1-16 [I. Krauskopf] (in German), plates VII.2 (1994): 6-17
*MORFORD, M.P.O. & LENARDON, R.J. 1994 (ed.5) Classical Mythology White Plains, N.Y. [Read section on Heracles pp.420-448, Helen pp.352-358, and Oedipus pp.324-329] <292.13 MORF>
MURRAY, O. 1980. Early Greece Fontana <901.9138 MURR>
*POWELL, B.B. 1995. Classical Myth Englewood Cliffs, N.J. [Texts on Heracles pp.439-72, Helen pp.543-57, Oedipus pp.482-89] <292.13 POWE>
SEGAL, R.A. 2004. Myth: a Very Short Introduction Oxford <201.3 SEGA>
THE ARCHAEOLOGY, SOCIOLOGY, AND IDEOLOGY OF HERO CULT
COLDSTREAM, J.N. 1976. Hero cults in the Age of Homer, Journal of Hellenic Studies 96: 8-17
FOXHALL, L. & SALMON, J. (edd.) 1998. Thinking Men. Masculinity and its Self-Representation in the Classical Tradition [contains a stimulating essay on the subject of masculinity in antiquity in general by Matthew Fox pp.6-22, and some interesting information on a peculiar aspect of Heracles' iconography by Emma Stafford pp.52-53] <880.9352041 THIN>
GOLDEN, M. 1998. Sport and Society in Ancient Greece Cambridge [esp. "Heracles, wage-labour and sport" pp.146-157] <938.0013 GOLD>
HADZISTELIOU-PRICE, T. 1979. Hero-cult in the "Age of Homer" and earlier, in BOWERSOCK, G.W. et al. (edd.) Arktouros. Hellenic Studies presented to Bernard M.W. Knox on the occasion of his 65th birthday: 219-228 Berlin <880.9001 ARKT>
*KEARNS, E. 1989. The Heroes of Attica London <292.13>
*SEAFORD, R. 1994. Reciprocity and Ritual. Homer and Tragedy in the Developing City-State Oxford [Read chapter IV, "Collective death ritual" pp.106-143] <883.14 SEAF>
SHAPIRO, H.A. 1989. Art and Cult under the Tyrants in Athens Mainz an Rhein [Read "The growth of Athenian Cults under the tyrants" pp.12-15, and "Herakles: hero and god" pp.157-163] <901.91385>
SNODGRASS, A. 2000. The archaeology of the hero, in BUXTON, R. (ed.) Oxford Readings in Greek Religion, pp. 180-190, Oxford <292.08 OXFO>
TYRRELL, W.B. & BROWN, F.S. 1991. Athenian Myths and Institutions. Words in Action Oxford [Read chap. 3 "The arete standard as a source of mythmaking" pp.41-72] <292.18 TYRR>
*WHITLEY, J. 1988. Early states and hero cults: a re-appraisal, Journal of Hellenic Studies 108: 173-182
HERACLES
BOARDMAN, J. 1982. Herakles, Theseus and Amazons, in KURTZ, D. and SPARKES, B. (edd.), The Eye of Greece. Studies in the art of Athens, 1-28, Cambridge
*BURKERT, W. 1980. Structure and History in Greek Mythology and Ritual Berkeley [Read chapters I to III, and chapter IV "Heracles and the master of animals"] <292.13 BURK>
CYRINO, M. 1998. Heroes in d(u)ress: transvestism and power in the myths of Heracles and Achilles, Arethusa 31: 207-241
FITZGERALD, G.J. 1991. The Euripidean Heracles: an intellectual and a coward? Mnemosyne 44: 85-95
GALINSKY, G.K. & UHLENBROCK, J.P. 1986. Herakles: Passage of the Hero through 1000 years of Classical Art New Rochelle, N.Y.
*LORAUX, N. 1990. Herakles: the super-male and the feminine, in HALPERIN, D.M., WINKLER, J.J., & ZEITLIN, F.I. (edd.) Before Sexuality: 34-40 Princeton, <306.70938 BEFO>
MARCH, J.R. 1987. Deianeira and Heracles, in The Creative Poet: 49-77 <881.9 MARC>
*PIKE, D.L. 1977. Heracles: the superman and personal relationships Acta Classica 20: 73-83.
*PIKE, D.L. 1984. Pindar's treatment of the Heracles myths, Acta Classica 27: 15-22.
AMAZONS
BLOK, J.H. 1995. The Early Amazons: Modern and Ancient Perspectives on a Persistent Myth Leiden <880.352042 BLOK>
GRAF, F. 1984. Women, war, and warlike divinities, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 55: 245-54
RIDGWAY, B.S. 1974. A story of five Amazons, American Journal of Archaeology 78: 1-17 <913.305 AME>
TYRELL, W.B. 1984. Amazons: a Study in Athenian Mythmaking Baltimore <938.0013 TYRR>
WEINBAUM, B. 1999. Islands of Women and Amazons: Representations and Realities Austin <810.99287 WEIN>
HELEN
*AUSTIN, N. 1994. Helen of Troy and her Shameless Phantom Ithaca <880.9251 AUST>
*BASSI, K. 1993. Helen and the discourse of denial in Stesichorus' palinode, Arethusa 26: 51-75
BELL, R.E. 1991. The Women of Classical Mythology: a Biographical Dictionary Santa Barbara
*CLADER, L. 1976. Helen: The Evolution from Divine to Heroic in Greek Epic Tradition Leiden <883 CLAD>
LARSEN, J. 1995. Greek Heroine Cults Madison <291.213 LARS>
LYONS, D. 1997. Gender and Immortality. Heroines in Ancient Greek Cult and Myth. Princeton <880.9352042 LYON>
*SEGAL, C. 1986. Interpreting Greek tragedy: Myth, Poetry, Text London [Read Ch. VII, "The two worlds of Euripides' Helen", pp. 222-267] <882.01 SEGA>
*WOODBURY, L. 1967. Helen and the palinode, Phoenix 21: 157-76
OEDIPUS
BREMMER, J. 1983. Scapegoat rituals in Ancient Greece, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 87: 299-320
*BREMMER, J. 1987. Oedipus and the Greek Oedipus complex, in BREMMER, J (ed.) Interpretations of Greek Mythology: 41- 59, London <292.13 INTE>
*BUXTON, R.G.A. 1980. Blindness and limits: Sophocles and the logic of myths, Journal of Hellenic Studies 100: 22-37
*DE KOCK, E.L. 1961. The Sophoklean Oidipous and its antecedents, Acta Classica 4: 7-28, and 5(1962): 15-37
*EDMUNDS, L. 1981. The cults and the legend of Oedipus, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 85: 221-238
EDMUNDS, L. 1981. The Sphinx in the Oedipus Legend Hain <292.13 EDMU>
*EDMUNDS, L. 1985. Oedipus. The Ancient Legend and its Later Analogues Baltimore <292.13 EDMU>
LLOYD-JONES, H. 1985. Psychoanalysis and the Study of the Ancient World, in HORDEN, P. (ed.) Freud and the Humanities: 152-180, London <150.1952 FREU>
*PARKER, R.C.T. 1983. Miasma Oxford [Read chapter IV "The shedding of blood" pp.104-143, chap. IX "Purifying the city" pp.257-280, chap. X "Purity and Salvation" pp.281-307, and chap. XI "Some scenes from Tragedy" pp.308-321] <938.0013 PARK>
RANK, O. 1992. The Incest Theme in Literature and Legend Baltimore <809.93353 RANK>
VERNANT, J.-P. 1982. From Oedipus to Periander: lameness, tyranny, incest in legend and history, Arethusa 15: 19-38
WILSON, J.P. 2004. The Hero and the City: an Interpretation of Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus Ann Arbor <882.22 OEDI(WILS)>
ESSAY TOPICS
Write an essay of about 2000 words on one of the following topics. Submission date:
Tuesday 10 May. Please hand in your essay to the Departmental Secretary, Beattie 203.
Either:
Heroes are often seen as paradigms of manhood. Do the myths of Heracles and Oedipus support this view?
Or:
"Female heroes are mainly defined in cult and myth by their relations to male kin." Evaluate this statement with respect to the myth and cult of Helen.
Or:
Examine the cults and stories of the Amazons and discuss their significance and function for Greek culture and society
HEROIC MYTHS
BIBLIOGRAPHIES
IMPORTANT STUDIES AND STANDARD REFERENCE WORKS
*BURKERT, W. 1985. Greek Religion Oxford <292.08 BURK/GREE>
BURKERT, W. 1992. Orientalising Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age Cambridge, MA <901.9138056 BURK>
HORDEN, P. 1985. Thoughts of Freud, in HORDEN, P. (ed.) Freud and the Humanities: 1-25, London <150.1952 FREU>
LEFKOWITZ, M.R. 1986. Women in Greek Myth London [Read chap. 7 "Misogyny" pp.112-32, and "Epilogue" pp.133-36] <880.9352 LEFK>
LEXICON ICONOGRAPHICUM MYTHOLOGIAE CLASSICAE (LIMC)
s.v. Helen, IV.1 (1988): 498-563 [I. Kahil & N. Icard] (in French), plates IV.2 (1988): 291-359.
s.v. Herakles IV.1 (1988): 728-838 [J. Boardman et al.] (in English), plates IV.2 (1988): 444-559); V.1 (1990): 1-262 [various] (in various languages), plates V.2 (1990): 6-188
s.v. Oidipous VII.1 (1994): 1-16 [I. Krauskopf] (in German), plates VII.2 (1994): 6-17
*MORFORD, M.P.O. & LENARDON, R.J. 1994 (ed.5) Classical Mythology White Plains, N.Y. [Read section on Heracles pp.420-448, Helen pp.352-358, and Oedipus pp.324-329] <292.13 MORF>
MURRAY, O. 1980. Early Greece Fontana <901.9138 MURR>
*POWELL, B.B. 1995. Classical Myth Englewood Cliffs, N.J. [Texts on Heracles pp.439-72, Helen pp.543-57, Oedipus pp.482-89] <292.13 POWE>
SEGAL, R.A. 2004. Myth: a Very Short Introduction Oxford <201.3 SEGA>
THE ARCHAEOLOGY, SOCIOLOGY, AND IDEOLOGY OF HERO CULT
COLDSTREAM, J.N. 1976. Hero cults in the Age of Homer, Journal of Hellenic Studies 96: 8-17
FOXHALL, L. & SALMON, J. (edd.) 1998. Thinking Men. Masculinity and its Self-Representation in the Classical Tradition [contains a stimulating essay on the subject of masculinity in antiquity in general by Matthew Fox pp.6-22, and some interesting information on a peculiar aspect of Heracles' iconography by Emma Stafford pp.52-53] <880.9352041 THIN>
GOLDEN, M. 1998. Sport and Society in Ancient Greece Cambridge [esp. "Heracles, wage-labour and sport" pp.146-157] <938.0013 GOLD>
HADZISTELIOU-PRICE, T. 1979. Hero-cult in the "Age of Homer" and earlier, in BOWERSOCK, G.W. et al. (edd.) Arktouros. Hellenic Studies presented to Bernard M.W. Knox on the occasion of his 65th birthday: 219-228 Berlin <880.9001 ARKT>
*KEARNS, E. 1989. The Heroes of Attica London <292.13>
*SEAFORD, R. 1994. Reciprocity and Ritual. Homer and Tragedy in the Developing City-State Oxford [Read chapter IV, "Collective death ritual" pp.106-143] <883.14 SEAF>
SHAPIRO, H.A. 1989. Art and Cult under the Tyrants in Athens Mainz an Rhein [Read "The growth of Athenian Cults under the tyrants" pp.12-15, and "Herakles: hero and god" pp.157-163] <901.91385>
SNODGRASS, A. 2000. The archaeology of the hero, in BUXTON, R. (ed.) Oxford Readings in Greek Religion, pp. 180-190, Oxford <292.08 OXFO>
TYRRELL, W.B. & BROWN, F.S. 1991. Athenian Myths and Institutions. Words in Action Oxford [Read chap. 3 "The arete standard as a source of mythmaking" pp.41-72] <292.18 TYRR>
*WHITLEY, J. 1988. Early states and hero cults: a re-appraisal, Journal of Hellenic Studies 108: 173-182
HERACLES
BOARDMAN, J. 1982. Herakles, Theseus and Amazons, in KURTZ, D. and SPARKES, B. (edd.), The Eye of Greece. Studies in the art of Athens, 1-28, Cambridge
*BURKERT, W. 1980. Structure and History in Greek Mythology and Ritual Berkeley [Read chapters I to III, and chapter IV "Heracles and the master of animals"] <292.13 BURK>
CYRINO, M. 1998. Heroes in d(u)ress: transvestism and power in the myths of Heracles and Achilles, Arethusa 31: 207-241
FITZGERALD, G.J. 1991. The Euripidean Heracles: an intellectual and a coward? Mnemosyne 44: 85-95
GALINSKY, G.K. & UHLENBROCK, J.P. 1986. Herakles: Passage of the Hero through 1000 years of Classical Art New Rochelle, N.Y.
*LORAUX, N. 1990. Herakles: the super-male and the feminine, in HALPERIN, D.M., WINKLER, J.J., & ZEITLIN, F.I. (edd.) Before Sexuality: 34-40 Princeton, <306.70938 BEFO>
MARCH, J.R. 1987. Deianeira and Heracles, in The Creative Poet: 49-77 <881.9 MARC>
*PIKE, D.L. 1977. Heracles: the superman and personal relationships Acta Classica 20: 73-83.
*PIKE, D.L. 1984. Pindar's treatment of the Heracles myths, Acta Classica 27: 15-22.
AMAZONS
BLOK, J.H. 1995. The Early Amazons: Modern and Ancient Perspectives on a Persistent Myth Leiden <880.352042 BLOK>
GRAF, F. 1984. Women, war, and warlike divinities, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 55: 245-54
RIDGWAY, B.S. 1974. A story of five Amazons, American Journal of Archaeology 78: 1-17 <913.305 AME>
TYRELL, W.B. 1984. Amazons: a Study in Athenian Mythmaking Baltimore <938.0013 TYRR>
WEINBAUM, B. 1999. Islands of Women and Amazons: Representations and Realities Austin <810.99287 WEIN>
HELEN
*AUSTIN, N. 1994. Helen of Troy and her Shameless Phantom Ithaca <880.9251 AUST>
*BASSI, K. 1993. Helen and the discourse of denial in Stesichorus' palinode, Arethusa 26: 51-75
BELL, R.E. 1991. The Women of Classical Mythology: a Biographical Dictionary Santa Barbara
*CLADER, L. 1976. Helen: The Evolution from Divine to Heroic in Greek Epic Tradition Leiden <883 CLAD>
LARSEN, J. 1995. Greek Heroine Cults Madison <291.213 LARS>
LYONS, D. 1997. Gender and Immortality. Heroines in Ancient Greek Cult and Myth. Princeton <880.9352042 LYON>
*SEGAL, C. 1986. Interpreting Greek tragedy: Myth, Poetry, Text London [Read Ch. VII, "The two worlds of Euripides' Helen", pp. 222-267] <882.01 SEGA>
*WOODBURY, L. 1967. Helen and the palinode, Phoenix 21: 157-76
OEDIPUS
BREMMER, J. 1983. Scapegoat rituals in Ancient Greece, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 87: 299-320
*BREMMER, J. 1987. Oedipus and the Greek Oedipus complex, in BREMMER, J (ed.) Interpretations of Greek Mythology: 41- 59, London <292.13 INTE>
*BUXTON, R.G.A. 1980. Blindness and limits: Sophocles and the logic of myths, Journal of Hellenic Studies 100: 22-37
*DE KOCK, E.L. 1961. The Sophoklean Oidipous and its antecedents, Acta Classica 4: 7-28, and 5(1962): 15-37
*EDMUNDS, L. 1981. The cults and the legend of Oedipus, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 85: 221-238
EDMUNDS, L. 1981. The Sphinx in the Oedipus Legend Hain <292.13 EDMU>
*EDMUNDS, L. 1985. Oedipus. The Ancient Legend and its Later Analogues Baltimore <292.13 EDMU>
LLOYD-JONES, H. 1985. Psychoanalysis and the Study of the Ancient World, in HORDEN, P. (ed.) Freud and the Humanities: 152-180, London <150.1952 FREU>
*PARKER, R.C.T. 1983. Miasma Oxford [Read chapter IV "The shedding of blood" pp.104-143, chap. IX "Purifying the city" pp.257-280, chap. X "Purity and Salvation" pp.281-307, and chap. XI "Some scenes from Tragedy" pp.308-321] <938.0013 PARK>
RANK, O. 1992. The Incest Theme in Literature and Legend Baltimore <809.93353 RANK>
VERNANT, J.-P. 1982. From Oedipus to Periander: lameness, tyranny, incest in legend and history, Arethusa 15: 19-38
WILSON, J.P. 2004. The Hero and the City: an Interpretation of Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus Ann Arbor <882.22 OEDI(WILS)>
ESSAY TOPICS
Write an essay of about 2000 words on one of the following topics. Submission date:
Tuesday 10 May. Please hand in your essay to the Departmental Secretary, Beattie 203.
Either:
Heroes are often seen as paradigms of manhood. Do the myths of Heracles and Oedipus support this view?
Or:
"Female heroes are mainly defined in cult and myth by their relations to male kin." Evaluate this statement with respect to the myth and cult of Helen.
Or:
Examine the cults and stories of the Amazons and discuss their significance and function for Greek culture and society
Perseus Digital Library
Excellent resource for ancient texts, maps, pictures, timelines and information.
Thursday, May 19, 2005
Political Myths: essay & exam, some tips
Myth Exam & Essay: some tips
The aim of this course is to give as full an introduction as possible to the informed reading of Ancient Greek & Roman Mythology. While you are strongly advised to make breadth of personal education & intellectual discovery your priority while you are at university (and throughout your life, of course), to attend all lectures and read and think for all topics, you would do well to specialize in certain topics. The final section of this course, for example, if it is thematically one, that is a discussion of the political content of certain myths, is divided into four topics:
Theseus founder of Athens
Aeneas, first founder of Rome & Dido, founder of Carthage
Romulus, next legendary founder of Rome
Rape as a motif in Roman Myth
Your responsibility is to be familiar with each topic and to have a developed undertsanding of myth as a political tool and a reflection of historical world view. Clearly though, there remains the space for you to specialize since in the exam, as in the essay questions, you are asked to choose a topic, show a familiarity with the content of the myth or myths and discuss, to a level of some sophistication, what that myth reveals and how it may be seen to operate as historical, rhetorical, propagandistic discourse. Be warned however that you should specialize in at least two topics. You may very well have fewer than four questions per section in the exam.
Essay writing for Classics:
1. Formulate your essay in precisely the same terms as the question.
2. Show a close familiarity with the pertinent ancient text or texts.
3. If you are unsure of a date or fact, check it or leave it out; an absurd error is far more conspicuous and abrasive than a detail passed over. Approach your response to an essay or exam question as you would the formulation of a legal brief, that is with lucidity and analytical precision.
4. Draw parallels from other topics and even other sections: display the breadth of your knowledge, while remaining to the point.
5. Design your discussion as simply as possible, in as straightforward a language as you can muster.
Fundamental then is that you read the works of ancient literature and that you be able to talk someone through the significance of a myth’s shape and details. Next you should be informed in your reading by an awareness of two or three secondary texts of modern scholarship, some exemplary manners of critical interpretation of the myth, (this perhaps less important in the exam, therefore all the more impressive there) and obviously the contemporary historical circumstances that might explain the character and features, or, even, the point of the myth. The most important point to remember in Classics is that the text is always the focus of discussion. Be familiar with your myth, then show what it reveals of its own context and make some further relevant points that you may have gleaned about that historical, political context. Finally, be warned: you will not receive the text in the exam, you must remember its substance.
The aim of this course is to give as full an introduction as possible to the informed reading of Ancient Greek & Roman Mythology. While you are strongly advised to make breadth of personal education & intellectual discovery your priority while you are at university (and throughout your life, of course), to attend all lectures and read and think for all topics, you would do well to specialize in certain topics. The final section of this course, for example, if it is thematically one, that is a discussion of the political content of certain myths, is divided into four topics:
Theseus founder of Athens
Aeneas, first founder of Rome & Dido, founder of Carthage
Romulus, next legendary founder of Rome
Rape as a motif in Roman Myth
Your responsibility is to be familiar with each topic and to have a developed undertsanding of myth as a political tool and a reflection of historical world view. Clearly though, there remains the space for you to specialize since in the exam, as in the essay questions, you are asked to choose a topic, show a familiarity with the content of the myth or myths and discuss, to a level of some sophistication, what that myth reveals and how it may be seen to operate as historical, rhetorical, propagandistic discourse. Be warned however that you should specialize in at least two topics. You may very well have fewer than four questions per section in the exam.
Essay writing for Classics:
1. Formulate your essay in precisely the same terms as the question.
2. Show a close familiarity with the pertinent ancient text or texts.
3. If you are unsure of a date or fact, check it or leave it out; an absurd error is far more conspicuous and abrasive than a detail passed over. Approach your response to an essay or exam question as you would the formulation of a legal brief, that is with lucidity and analytical precision.
4. Draw parallels from other topics and even other sections: display the breadth of your knowledge, while remaining to the point.
5. Design your discussion as simply as possible, in as straightforward a language as you can muster.
Fundamental then is that you read the works of ancient literature and that you be able to talk someone through the significance of a myth’s shape and details. Next you should be informed in your reading by an awareness of two or three secondary texts of modern scholarship, some exemplary manners of critical interpretation of the myth, (this perhaps less important in the exam, therefore all the more impressive there) and obviously the contemporary historical circumstances that might explain the character and features, or, even, the point of the myth. The most important point to remember in Classics is that the text is always the focus of discussion. Be familiar with your myth, then show what it reveals of its own context and make some further relevant points that you may have gleaned about that historical, political context. Finally, be warned: you will not receive the text in the exam, you must remember its substance.
Roman Mythology Introduction- Political Myth
Roman Mythology
Hellas
Greek myth formed a body of rich, diverse, variant narratives, which expressed the most profound fears and desires of human life; the relationships between men & gods, between human beings; history; gender roles; relations between peoples; concepts of hero, heroic deeds, excellent behaviour; accounts of nature; aetiologies, explanations of rituals and customs important to society. Polyvalent, profound & serving many different functions greek mythology is local in colour yet transcendant in universality of theme, reflects historical conditions & events but becomes supra-historical also.The product of a singularly imaginative people, set of peoples, greek myths often grapple with the great problems of being & establish types, articulate dilemmas & respones to being in the world to which we have always returned, recognizing types & symbols of universal pertinence & power. The fertility of imagination in Greek myth is unmatched in Roman. Rome is culturally dominated by Greece.
Rome
Not much seems to survive of native Italic or Roman myth- no creation myth of its own- no comparable myths of the deities- much adaptation of & literary treatment of Greek myths and divinities.
“...for these unspeculative & imaginative people...no myth-creating imagination winds its tendrils round the gods.” (Latte, K.)
Roman mythology is characterized by a “...peculiar aridity..” (Grant, M.)
This had long been the common evaluation of the scant Roman mythopoeic tradition. However there is another school:
Romans had a rich tradition of native mythology, they inserted this into their history- little literary evidence of native Roman mythology till relatively late (3rd Century BC) is not to say none existed- Wiseman (1989) oral transmission of these/ dramatic performances at Roman festivals: main evidence of Roman, Etruscan, Italian myths in dramatic form before merely Roman versions of Greek ones: Italian pottery, severly limited.
“...there exists on Roman soil sure signs of a non-literary mythology untouched by the influence of Greek poetry. The signs are divided equally among the archaic Roman, the Etruscan, and the Greek components of the historical Roman religion.” (Koch, C.)
Myths given literary treatment by the Romans divided into classes:
Greek myths retold by Roman writers.
Stories of Rome’s distant past, such as aetiological & foundation myths. These bear historical connections & are regarded by some scholars as legends.
Virgil’s Aeneid seems a fusion of these two classes. Livy’s history of early Rome of the aetiological, legendary variety.
Roman Conception of Myth
Cicero in On the Nature of the Gods “distinguishes between mythological stories about the gods, which he regards as something Greek, and Roman expectations of religion; Roman religion is made up of (1) ritual, (2) taking auspices and (3) prophetic warnings issued by interpreters of Sibylline oracles, or of the entrails of sacrificed animals, on the basis of portents and omens. ‘I am quite certain that Romulus by instituting auspices and Numa ritual, laid the foundations of our state, which would never have been able to be so great had not the immortal gods been placated to the utmost extent.’” (Gardner, J. Roman Myths [London, 1993] p.5)- stories of divine shenanigans were not so relevant as the function of religious practice, which was to retain good, stable relations bewteen gods & state. Rome’s success thus prove divine sanction.
What is history for? Literary quality (thus pleasure,) and Education (social and moral): Livy writes, “What makes the study of history particularly beneficial & profitable is that you have all manner of experience set out in full view as if on a memorial, and from there you may choose both for yourself and for your country examples of what to imitate [strong echoes of Aristotle in his Poetics] and what things (bad begun and worse ended) to avoid.” Thus history, as tragedy should have been in 5th Century Greece, according to Plato then Aristotle, was affecting and didactic and should be interpreted to derive the best possible lessons for living men. History and historical legends, is exemplary. It is instrumental, not factual.
Most of our Roman mytho-historical sources are writers of the first century BC and the first AD. They are very far removed from the legendary period of Rome’s founding. They write for their day and for an urbane male readership of the upper classes. They fuse history, Greek myth, folktale motifs and family traditions of the oldest Roman nobility. Their mythical history is then a mix of traditions, which are expressive of the history of encounters, wars and unifications that make up the Roman past. It is aetiological and self-defining.
Myth: A Mode of History
Roman Mythology fundamentally political mythology: its focus=the polis, the transformations of legend reflect those the of the transforming Roman context.
Historical Myth = History without primary sources. (see Veyne, P.)
The Romans are a practical people with a genius for politics & organization, this is reflected in the priorities of their historical imagination.
The Aeneid
“This synthesis of five elements- (1) contemporary relevance, (2) history, (3) myth, (4) rivalry with Homer, (5) symbolism- gives the Aeneid its peculiar status as a mixed or
composite work of art...Any serious attempt at understanding the poem must take cognizance of the constant tension between the story told and the implications of that
story- what we may call, if we like, the poem’s message.” (Quinn, K. Virgil’s Aeneid: a critical description [London, 1968] p. 57)
Some themes to consider as we examine the legend of Aeneas & Dido, of the founding of Rome & its early history:
Romanized Hellenisms: with this epic Virgil inscribes Rome into an epic tradition and makes it the equal of Greece in antiquity, authenticity and also historical authority.
Genealogy: Priam’s line is cursed, Anchises is blessed. Aeneas’ mother is Aphrodite/ Venus. As an Iliadic hero Aeneas is in the ranks of Hector, he fights Achilles. He adventures on a nostos like Odysseus.
Unification: Aeneas embodies Roman moral ideal, he enters treaties, unites peoples and prefigures the unity which will be Rome and Rome’s unification of many other people’s in Italy and the Mediterranean under its imperial sway.
Aeneas & Inevitability: Aeneas is blessed and protected, he is an embattled survivor, a man with a great future and a goddess for a mother: Aeneas is Rome, whose destiny was always to be great, in him the inevitability of roman imperium, the naturalness of the order of things, the prefiguring of Augustus’ accesion to Imperial power and his victories, its symbolic justification.
Abroad & at home: Greeks- Etruscans- Carthiginians- Actium [ 31BC, Mark Anthony&Cleopatra are defeated, the completion of the Roman political hegemony over Hellas]: accounting for subsequent international relations.The foundation of Rome by Aeneas is rich in aetiological, narrative and rhetorical value. relation to the gods, relations amongst men. Proper relations, the order of things. Remember what this foundation myth reflects of Virgil’s contemporary Roman context.
Identity Politics: the Roman against the foreign, characterizing the self & the other.
Men/ Women: Dido; echoes of Theseus, as well as Odysseus. Characterization: Aeneas is marked by his pietas, his sense of duty and destiny. How is Dido evoked, why?
Some Dates:
1184-1053? Destruction of Troy
1053-753: Alban Kings
753 Romulus restored his grandfather Numitor to the throne, which Numitor’s younger brother had usurped. Romulus then founded Rome in 753.
715-673: Numa, from the village of Cures, gave Rome religion & laws.
673-642:Tullius Hostilius, the warrior king- 642-617: Ancus Marcius, courted popular favour- Tarquins, 616-579: L. Tarquinius Priscus & 534-510: L. Tarquinius Superbus
510: L. Junius Brutus leads an uprising against Superbus to avenge rape of Lucretia. Brutus later one of the first two consuls of Rome. Beginning of Republican Rome.
264-241: First Punic War; 218-202 Second Punic War; 149-146 Third Punic War
86: Sulla sacks Athens
44: assasination of Julius Caesar, a time of civil wars, the passing away of Republic and bloody birth of Imperial Rome.
31: Augustus’ victory over Antony & Cleopatra at Actium (North Western Greece).
27: Principate of Augustus begins
Hellas
Greek myth formed a body of rich, diverse, variant narratives, which expressed the most profound fears and desires of human life; the relationships between men & gods, between human beings; history; gender roles; relations between peoples; concepts of hero, heroic deeds, excellent behaviour; accounts of nature; aetiologies, explanations of rituals and customs important to society. Polyvalent, profound & serving many different functions greek mythology is local in colour yet transcendant in universality of theme, reflects historical conditions & events but becomes supra-historical also.The product of a singularly imaginative people, set of peoples, greek myths often grapple with the great problems of being & establish types, articulate dilemmas & respones to being in the world to which we have always returned, recognizing types & symbols of universal pertinence & power. The fertility of imagination in Greek myth is unmatched in Roman. Rome is culturally dominated by Greece.
Rome
Not much seems to survive of native Italic or Roman myth- no creation myth of its own- no comparable myths of the deities- much adaptation of & literary treatment of Greek myths and divinities.
“...for these unspeculative & imaginative people...no myth-creating imagination winds its tendrils round the gods.” (Latte, K.)
Roman mythology is characterized by a “...peculiar aridity..” (Grant, M.)
This had long been the common evaluation of the scant Roman mythopoeic tradition. However there is another school:
Romans had a rich tradition of native mythology, they inserted this into their history- little literary evidence of native Roman mythology till relatively late (3rd Century BC) is not to say none existed- Wiseman (1989) oral transmission of these/ dramatic performances at Roman festivals: main evidence of Roman, Etruscan, Italian myths in dramatic form before merely Roman versions of Greek ones: Italian pottery, severly limited.
“...there exists on Roman soil sure signs of a non-literary mythology untouched by the influence of Greek poetry. The signs are divided equally among the archaic Roman, the Etruscan, and the Greek components of the historical Roman religion.” (Koch, C.)
Myths given literary treatment by the Romans divided into classes:
Greek myths retold by Roman writers.
Stories of Rome’s distant past, such as aetiological & foundation myths. These bear historical connections & are regarded by some scholars as legends.
Virgil’s Aeneid seems a fusion of these two classes. Livy’s history of early Rome of the aetiological, legendary variety.
Roman Conception of Myth
Cicero in On the Nature of the Gods “distinguishes between mythological stories about the gods, which he regards as something Greek, and Roman expectations of religion; Roman religion is made up of (1) ritual, (2) taking auspices and (3) prophetic warnings issued by interpreters of Sibylline oracles, or of the entrails of sacrificed animals, on the basis of portents and omens. ‘I am quite certain that Romulus by instituting auspices and Numa ritual, laid the foundations of our state, which would never have been able to be so great had not the immortal gods been placated to the utmost extent.’” (Gardner, J. Roman Myths [London, 1993] p.5)- stories of divine shenanigans were not so relevant as the function of religious practice, which was to retain good, stable relations bewteen gods & state. Rome’s success thus prove divine sanction.
What is history for? Literary quality (thus pleasure,) and Education (social and moral): Livy writes, “What makes the study of history particularly beneficial & profitable is that you have all manner of experience set out in full view as if on a memorial, and from there you may choose both for yourself and for your country examples of what to imitate [strong echoes of Aristotle in his Poetics] and what things (bad begun and worse ended) to avoid.” Thus history, as tragedy should have been in 5th Century Greece, according to Plato then Aristotle, was affecting and didactic and should be interpreted to derive the best possible lessons for living men. History and historical legends, is exemplary. It is instrumental, not factual.
Most of our Roman mytho-historical sources are writers of the first century BC and the first AD. They are very far removed from the legendary period of Rome’s founding. They write for their day and for an urbane male readership of the upper classes. They fuse history, Greek myth, folktale motifs and family traditions of the oldest Roman nobility. Their mythical history is then a mix of traditions, which are expressive of the history of encounters, wars and unifications that make up the Roman past. It is aetiological and self-defining.
Myth: A Mode of History
Roman Mythology fundamentally political mythology: its focus=the polis, the transformations of legend reflect those the of the transforming Roman context.
Historical Myth = History without primary sources. (see Veyne, P.)
The Romans are a practical people with a genius for politics & organization, this is reflected in the priorities of their historical imagination.
The Aeneid
“This synthesis of five elements- (1) contemporary relevance, (2) history, (3) myth, (4) rivalry with Homer, (5) symbolism- gives the Aeneid its peculiar status as a mixed or
composite work of art...Any serious attempt at understanding the poem must take cognizance of the constant tension between the story told and the implications of that
story- what we may call, if we like, the poem’s message.” (Quinn, K. Virgil’s Aeneid: a critical description [London, 1968] p. 57)
Some themes to consider as we examine the legend of Aeneas & Dido, of the founding of Rome & its early history:
Romanized Hellenisms: with this epic Virgil inscribes Rome into an epic tradition and makes it the equal of Greece in antiquity, authenticity and also historical authority.
Genealogy: Priam’s line is cursed, Anchises is blessed. Aeneas’ mother is Aphrodite/ Venus. As an Iliadic hero Aeneas is in the ranks of Hector, he fights Achilles. He adventures on a nostos like Odysseus.
Unification: Aeneas embodies Roman moral ideal, he enters treaties, unites peoples and prefigures the unity which will be Rome and Rome’s unification of many other people’s in Italy and the Mediterranean under its imperial sway.
Aeneas & Inevitability: Aeneas is blessed and protected, he is an embattled survivor, a man with a great future and a goddess for a mother: Aeneas is Rome, whose destiny was always to be great, in him the inevitability of roman imperium, the naturalness of the order of things, the prefiguring of Augustus’ accesion to Imperial power and his victories, its symbolic justification.
Abroad & at home: Greeks- Etruscans- Carthiginians- Actium [ 31BC, Mark Anthony&Cleopatra are defeated, the completion of the Roman political hegemony over Hellas]: accounting for subsequent international relations.The foundation of Rome by Aeneas is rich in aetiological, narrative and rhetorical value. relation to the gods, relations amongst men. Proper relations, the order of things. Remember what this foundation myth reflects of Virgil’s contemporary Roman context.
Identity Politics: the Roman against the foreign, characterizing the self & the other.
Men/ Women: Dido; echoes of Theseus, as well as Odysseus. Characterization: Aeneas is marked by his pietas, his sense of duty and destiny. How is Dido evoked, why?
Some Dates:
1184-1053? Destruction of Troy
1053-753: Alban Kings
753 Romulus restored his grandfather Numitor to the throne, which Numitor’s younger brother had usurped. Romulus then founded Rome in 753.
715-673: Numa, from the village of Cures, gave Rome religion & laws.
673-642:Tullius Hostilius, the warrior king- 642-617: Ancus Marcius, courted popular favour- Tarquins, 616-579: L. Tarquinius Priscus & 534-510: L. Tarquinius Superbus
510: L. Junius Brutus leads an uprising against Superbus to avenge rape of Lucretia. Brutus later one of the first two consuls of Rome. Beginning of Republican Rome.
264-241: First Punic War; 218-202 Second Punic War; 149-146 Third Punic War
86: Sulla sacks Athens
44: assasination of Julius Caesar, a time of civil wars, the passing away of Republic and bloody birth of Imperial Rome.
31: Augustus’ victory over Antony & Cleopatra at Actium (North Western Greece).
27: Principate of Augustus begins
Themes to consider as we read Roman Foundation Myths
SLL258F Themes to consider as you read Roman Myths:
I. History is not determined or inevitable, one political function of myth is to confer on the accidents and haphazard forces that shape history the order of narrative and the justification or rightfulness of apparent determination, fate.
II. Much Roman history is legend that has become canonical: myth in Rome was a mode of history.
III. The works of Virgil, Livy and Ovid are works of patriotic Roman Italians for a patriotic Roman audience.
IV. What is history for? Pleasure, education, moral exemplum: it is not our collection of data and analysis of primary sources but edifying acoount of how things have been and how they have come to stand the way they do.
V. Human history is the story of migrations, population dynamics exchanges, conflicts, resolutions: transforming circumstance. As you read about the early history of Rome think about how legend is a vehicle of explanation of the forces in Roman history and the role of those forces in determining how things have come to stand as they did by the age of Augustus:
i. Hellas: explaining the relationship with Greece.
ii. Diverse unity: the Romans are fused out of several peoples.
iii. Italy: Etruscans, Sabines, indigenous tribes: everybody needs good neighbours.
iv. Carthage, Provinces, Macedon, Gaul, Britain, Germania: the History of Rome is the history of the Romanization of a region in Western Italy, the Italian peninsula, a sphere of influence and finally the Hellenistic Mediterranean.
VI. The Romans are defined more and more clearly through time then by their common difference from outsiders, foreign others, whom they either conquer or assimilate into their globalizing hegemony. But they are weakened internally by:
i. Internecine strife.
ii. Dangerous class inequalities and tensions.
iii. The dangers of moral decadence.
VII. Roman moral & political values:
i. Devolution of executive power.
ii. Peace & stability- the Roman finds Novae Res repugnant, he wants no revolutions and initaites hostilities against a likely threat to the sacrosanct safety within the walls of Rome. Augustus: Pax Romana, ubique pax=peace everywhere
iii. Strength, efficiency, justice, loyalty, endurance, stoic resignation.
VIII. What is woman for?
i. Woman is family, family is the crucible and nexus of history: the continuation of race, the expansion of nation, the bearer of warriors and workers. To have women, land and strength is to have a future.
ii. Marriage seals bonds between communities.
IX. Man/Woman; Citizen/Slave; Patrician/Plebeian; Insider/Outsider; Peace/War: an economy of relations we must try to decode in Roman Historical Myth.
I. History is not determined or inevitable, one political function of myth is to confer on the accidents and haphazard forces that shape history the order of narrative and the justification or rightfulness of apparent determination, fate.
II. Much Roman history is legend that has become canonical: myth in Rome was a mode of history.
III. The works of Virgil, Livy and Ovid are works of patriotic Roman Italians for a patriotic Roman audience.
IV. What is history for? Pleasure, education, moral exemplum: it is not our collection of data and analysis of primary sources but edifying acoount of how things have been and how they have come to stand the way they do.
V. Human history is the story of migrations, population dynamics exchanges, conflicts, resolutions: transforming circumstance. As you read about the early history of Rome think about how legend is a vehicle of explanation of the forces in Roman history and the role of those forces in determining how things have come to stand as they did by the age of Augustus:
i. Hellas: explaining the relationship with Greece.
ii. Diverse unity: the Romans are fused out of several peoples.
iii. Italy: Etruscans, Sabines, indigenous tribes: everybody needs good neighbours.
iv. Carthage, Provinces, Macedon, Gaul, Britain, Germania: the History of Rome is the history of the Romanization of a region in Western Italy, the Italian peninsula, a sphere of influence and finally the Hellenistic Mediterranean.
VI. The Romans are defined more and more clearly through time then by their common difference from outsiders, foreign others, whom they either conquer or assimilate into their globalizing hegemony. But they are weakened internally by:
i. Internecine strife.
ii. Dangerous class inequalities and tensions.
iii. The dangers of moral decadence.
VII. Roman moral & political values:
i. Devolution of executive power.
ii. Peace & stability- the Roman finds Novae Res repugnant, he wants no revolutions and initaites hostilities against a likely threat to the sacrosanct safety within the walls of Rome. Augustus: Pax Romana, ubique pax=peace everywhere
iii. Strength, efficiency, justice, loyalty, endurance, stoic resignation.
VIII. What is woman for?
i. Woman is family, family is the crucible and nexus of history: the continuation of race, the expansion of nation, the bearer of warriors and workers. To have women, land and strength is to have a future.
ii. Marriage seals bonds between communities.
IX. Man/Woman; Citizen/Slave; Patrician/Plebeian; Insider/Outsider; Peace/War: an economy of relations we must try to decode in Roman Historical Myth.
Theseus Information Sheet
Theseus: hero, synoikist, incarnation of values, civilizer, protector, liberator, nation builder, symbol.
Periods of Greek History
Heroic Age: 2200BC?-1200; 1400-1200 Bronze Age/ Mycenaean: centres= southern mainland greece: Mycenae, Argos, Pylos. technology: Linear B script, an early form of Greek (in the palaces); highly centralized power, aristocratic societies. 1200 sudden cataclysmic end to this period, destruction of the palace fortresses.
Dark Ages 1200-800 Writing disappears; arrival of iron; birth Greek World= Hellas/ Hellenes, not politically or territorially united but abstractly. Extensive Mediterranean diaspora, scatttered Greek presence throughout. An Age of invasions, upheavals, refugees. Composition Iliad & Odyssey? projected, archaizing visions of a Mycenaen world that had passed away and only survived residually.
Archaic 800/750 to 500: from the time when the political geography of the Greek Peninsula and the Greek coastline of Asia Minor had become reasonably fixed to the era initiated by the Persian Wars. From circa 800 use of adapted Phoenician alphabet. Literature=poetry: personal, contemporary, some exceptions in archaic heroic style; Hesiod, Homeric Hymns, Lyric Poets.
Classical the 5th & 4th centuries independent city states, cultural zenith.
Transformation of Greek Communal Structure:
Archaic Age: Established communities, more so than in world of Homeric poems, less so than the flower of the fully developed city state of the Classical period.
Archaic communities small and independent- large scale building returns with temple, then city walls, not palaces- small isolated communities because after Mycenaean collapse a world of insecurity and flux [remember the labours of Theseus, who cleans up the country roads, brings law, the rule of right, security]; also fragmenting geography of Greek world means a division into many small independent communities. Athens, however does succeed in overcoming this tendency and unites large of area of attica into one city state with Athens as its capital. Thebes failed in this, Greek communities carried abroad retaining individual cast. The tenaciously independent community, ineradicable habit of self-organization, social structure amongst the Greeks.
Urbanization: residential clusterings and demarcated community spaces for gathering and religious rites- agora [central meeting place later market place];
Town & Country: no antagonism, one community bound by common cult and tradition both mythical & historical so the Athenians a political unity, Athens an urban capital.
The Greeks then= Hellens not barbarians & more locally groups and sub-groups within Hellas: Thebes, Theban, Boeotian, Greek, each term its own myth informed inflection, thus complex structure of memberships & loyalties in being Greek.
Beware of anachronistic narrowly national concept of Ancient Greece.
Political Power: individual communities ruled not by chiefs & kings but by aristocratic family groups who monopolized land & ruled through institutions, councils, magistracies; as an established prder through marriage & kinship connections; through the authority of ancestry, they produced genealogies that extended to the Heroes & even gods.
Thus a nobility & a larger population: tensions & open conflict- because of 1.scarce resources, overpopulation; 2 land tenure system and debt laws benefitting the owners, worked by free men who constitued the labour force; 3 new class of military man inevitably a new political force: the aristocratic homeric warrior replaced by the heavily armed infantryman ‘hoplite’ soldier, men of some means, middle stratum, [similar to the Roman equites class].
Colonies: two waves of emigration west & east; colonies ‘apoikoi’ independent greek communities not colonies in the modern sense of economice satellites but both politically and economically independent.
Tyrants & Lawgivers: class conflict, political tensions & resolutions “Redistribute the land & cancel debts”
594 Athenian class struggle comes to a head, Solon chosen by agreement by the Athenians. Benevolent lawgiver.
Solon= codifier, lawgiver; his achievements summed up by Aristotle: abolition of enslavement for debt; creation of right of 3rd party to seek justice in court on behalf of another agrieved; introduction of appeals to a popular tribunal.
Tyrant
Peisistratus= “He wished to govern according to the laws without giving himself any prerogatives.” Aristotle. In power 545-527, a period of peace, prosperity, growing power and deepening sense of community spirit: public works & religious festivals.
The 6th Century a phase of increased political sophistication, the gestation period of Athenian democracy.
Theseus’ Life:
Birth & Lineage
Labours
Arrival at Athens
Crete
Unification & Extension of Attica
War with Amazons
Dishonourable traditions
Friendship with Peirithous, fights Lapiths & Centaurs, meets Herakles
Menestheus
Death of Theseus
Canonization
The Career Of Theseus
Herakleian
Unites Autochthonous Athenians
Heroic Synoikist
Fights abroad on behalf of his people
Stands against foreign otherness
Similarities with other lordly heroes
Civilization: justice, persuasion, grace, strength,
Institutionalized: festival; moments of community expression; establishes common identity
Theseus is monumental: he is worthy of emulation; his myth organizes the past; explains the present; prepares for the glories that will come. Myth & the inevitability of the polis, of Athens the flower of culture and law, the sanctuary of Hellas.
Kirk p.152-156
Thes. owes persona to desire of Athenians, especially Peisistratos 6th Cent. to make him a hero:
2 ways- association of him with beau ideal Herakles & ascribing to him various political acts benevolence beginning Athenian Democracy.
No doubt Thes myth much elaborated recently: 6th & 5th – by pisistrato & sons/ authors of various Theseis (sub epics)/ various Athenian local historians 5th Cent.
But part Thes myth much older, how distinguish with any precision?
152-154 good synopsis of Thes. life
p.155 ‘hotch potch: solemn mysterious-Labyrinth, Ariadne very holy... to trivial derivative Helen & underworld adventure- political parts “barely mythical”- Amazon queen/ Phaedra & Hippolytus= romanticdevelopment.
Herakles modelling seem from literary & artistic evidence 7th & 6th creations
Lapiths? Peisitratos had Thessalian allies could thus his innovation
black white sail folk tale element
Cretan Adventure
Homeric hesiodic era poss. earlier
Later Bronze Age:
‘labyrinthos’ pre-greek word based on ‘double axe’ a symbol carved on several of the surviving stones of the palace
bull: bull worship & games prominent part Minoan culture
athens as tributary of Crete plausible in Late Bronze but not in any other Age
‘Achaean Greeks gained control Crete 1500BC, myth may reflect that, though with special emphasis Athens
Ceos Is. off Attic coast once a minoan colony, conceivably parts Attica once under Minoan control.
Rape Helen & attempt on Persephone not recent- found represented in works of art described by Pausanias- already trad by 6th or 7th . Assoc with Peirithous son of famous sinner and unabridges delinquencies suggest those elements too trad by 7th & 6th to be expurgated.
Theseus Myth complex. Certain: main development in literary period.
only quest against crete undeniably ancient
‘interstingly it seems to reflect, and perhaps to justify, some dimly remembered historical event, and so provide a model for the political elaborations to which many other parts of the Theseus story owe their existence’
Theseus Myth complex. Certain: main development during literary period.
only quest against Crete undeniably ancient. Cretan episode:
‘interstingly it seems to reflect, and perhaps to justify, some dimly remembered historical event, and so provide a model for the political elaborations to which many other parts of the Theseus story owe their existence’
Periods of Greek History
Heroic Age: 2200BC?-1200; 1400-1200 Bronze Age/ Mycenaean: centres= southern mainland greece: Mycenae, Argos, Pylos. technology: Linear B script, an early form of Greek (in the palaces); highly centralized power, aristocratic societies. 1200 sudden cataclysmic end to this period, destruction of the palace fortresses.
Dark Ages 1200-800 Writing disappears; arrival of iron; birth Greek World= Hellas/ Hellenes, not politically or territorially united but abstractly. Extensive Mediterranean diaspora, scatttered Greek presence throughout. An Age of invasions, upheavals, refugees. Composition Iliad & Odyssey? projected, archaizing visions of a Mycenaen world that had passed away and only survived residually.
Archaic 800/750 to 500: from the time when the political geography of the Greek Peninsula and the Greek coastline of Asia Minor had become reasonably fixed to the era initiated by the Persian Wars. From circa 800 use of adapted Phoenician alphabet. Literature=poetry: personal, contemporary, some exceptions in archaic heroic style; Hesiod, Homeric Hymns, Lyric Poets.
Classical the 5th & 4th centuries independent city states, cultural zenith.
Transformation of Greek Communal Structure:
Archaic Age: Established communities, more so than in world of Homeric poems, less so than the flower of the fully developed city state of the Classical period.
Archaic communities small and independent- large scale building returns with temple, then city walls, not palaces- small isolated communities because after Mycenaean collapse a world of insecurity and flux [remember the labours of Theseus, who cleans up the country roads, brings law, the rule of right, security]; also fragmenting geography of Greek world means a division into many small independent communities. Athens, however does succeed in overcoming this tendency and unites large of area of attica into one city state with Athens as its capital. Thebes failed in this, Greek communities carried abroad retaining individual cast. The tenaciously independent community, ineradicable habit of self-organization, social structure amongst the Greeks.
Urbanization: residential clusterings and demarcated community spaces for gathering and religious rites- agora [central meeting place later market place];
Town & Country: no antagonism, one community bound by common cult and tradition both mythical & historical so the Athenians a political unity, Athens an urban capital.
The Greeks then= Hellens not barbarians & more locally groups and sub-groups within Hellas: Thebes, Theban, Boeotian, Greek, each term its own myth informed inflection, thus complex structure of memberships & loyalties in being Greek.
Beware of anachronistic narrowly national concept of Ancient Greece.
Political Power: individual communities ruled not by chiefs & kings but by aristocratic family groups who monopolized land & ruled through institutions, councils, magistracies; as an established prder through marriage & kinship connections; through the authority of ancestry, they produced genealogies that extended to the Heroes & even gods.
Thus a nobility & a larger population: tensions & open conflict- because of 1.scarce resources, overpopulation; 2 land tenure system and debt laws benefitting the owners, worked by free men who constitued the labour force; 3 new class of military man inevitably a new political force: the aristocratic homeric warrior replaced by the heavily armed infantryman ‘hoplite’ soldier, men of some means, middle stratum, [similar to the Roman equites class].
Colonies: two waves of emigration west & east; colonies ‘apoikoi’ independent greek communities not colonies in the modern sense of economice satellites but both politically and economically independent.
Tyrants & Lawgivers: class conflict, political tensions & resolutions “Redistribute the land & cancel debts”
594 Athenian class struggle comes to a head, Solon chosen by agreement by the Athenians. Benevolent lawgiver.
Solon= codifier, lawgiver; his achievements summed up by Aristotle: abolition of enslavement for debt; creation of right of 3rd party to seek justice in court on behalf of another agrieved; introduction of appeals to a popular tribunal.
Tyrant
Peisistratus= “He wished to govern according to the laws without giving himself any prerogatives.” Aristotle. In power 545-527, a period of peace, prosperity, growing power and deepening sense of community spirit: public works & religious festivals.
The 6th Century a phase of increased political sophistication, the gestation period of Athenian democracy.
Theseus’ Life:
Birth & Lineage
Labours
Arrival at Athens
Crete
Unification & Extension of Attica
War with Amazons
Dishonourable traditions
Friendship with Peirithous, fights Lapiths & Centaurs, meets Herakles
Menestheus
Death of Theseus
Canonization
The Career Of Theseus
Herakleian
Unites Autochthonous Athenians
Heroic Synoikist
Fights abroad on behalf of his people
Stands against foreign otherness
Similarities with other lordly heroes
Civilization: justice, persuasion, grace, strength,
Institutionalized: festival; moments of community expression; establishes common identity
Theseus is monumental: he is worthy of emulation; his myth organizes the past; explains the present; prepares for the glories that will come. Myth & the inevitability of the polis, of Athens the flower of culture and law, the sanctuary of Hellas.
Kirk p.152-156
Thes. owes persona to desire of Athenians, especially Peisistratos 6th Cent. to make him a hero:
2 ways- association of him with beau ideal Herakles & ascribing to him various political acts benevolence beginning Athenian Democracy.
No doubt Thes myth much elaborated recently: 6th & 5th – by pisistrato & sons/ authors of various Theseis (sub epics)/ various Athenian local historians 5th Cent.
But part Thes myth much older, how distinguish with any precision?
152-154 good synopsis of Thes. life
p.155 ‘hotch potch: solemn mysterious-Labyrinth, Ariadne very holy... to trivial derivative Helen & underworld adventure- political parts “barely mythical”- Amazon queen/ Phaedra & Hippolytus= romanticdevelopment.
Herakles modelling seem from literary & artistic evidence 7th & 6th creations
Lapiths? Peisitratos had Thessalian allies could thus his innovation
black white sail folk tale element
Cretan Adventure
Homeric hesiodic era poss. earlier
Later Bronze Age:
‘labyrinthos’ pre-greek word based on ‘double axe’ a symbol carved on several of the surviving stones of the palace
bull: bull worship & games prominent part Minoan culture
athens as tributary of Crete plausible in Late Bronze but not in any other Age
‘Achaean Greeks gained control Crete 1500BC, myth may reflect that, though with special emphasis Athens
Ceos Is. off Attic coast once a minoan colony, conceivably parts Attica once under Minoan control.
Rape Helen & attempt on Persephone not recent- found represented in works of art described by Pausanias- already trad by 6th or 7th . Assoc with Peirithous son of famous sinner and unabridges delinquencies suggest those elements too trad by 7th & 6th to be expurgated.
Theseus Myth complex. Certain: main development in literary period.
only quest against crete undeniably ancient
‘interstingly it seems to reflect, and perhaps to justify, some dimly remembered historical event, and so provide a model for the political elaborations to which many other parts of the Theseus story owe their existence’
Theseus Myth complex. Certain: main development during literary period.
only quest against Crete undeniably ancient. Cretan episode:
‘interstingly it seems to reflect, and perhaps to justify, some dimly remembered historical event, and so provide a model for the political elaborations to which many other parts of the Theseus story owe their existence’
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