Monday, November 28, 2011
A. internationalization
1. reduction in local content
2. traveling troupes of professional actors
3. marginalization of chorus: embolima, interludes
B. tragedy
1. rhetoricization; ingenuity of plot; happy endings?
2. Aristotle’s Poetics
C. comedy: retrenchment
1. reduction in political satire and obscenity
2. move toward more realism in costume, toward types in character
3. Middle Comedy and New Comedy
A. reduced range musically and thematically and psychologically/socially (ordinary families, country and city, distinction between free citizens and slaves, cooks, etc.)
B. type characters: old man, young man, hetaira, cook, parasite, slave, soldier, young girl/new wife
C. minor excesses of character (suspicion, hasty judgment, jealousy, greed, anger)
D. confusions: mistaken identity, foundling babies, kidnapped children, returns from apparent death, anonymous rape at festivals
E. essentially harmless universe: obstacles overcome, acquisition of status (citizenship, marriage), reintegration into family and society, continuity into the future
F. beneficent gods: prologue gods, role of chance and coincidence
G. “romantic love” and love at first sight
H. Menander of Athens (ca. 342/1-292/1); “realism” and “humanity”; 5 acts; coherent Aristotelian plot
I. influence on subsequent western tradition of comedy: Plautus, Terence, Shakespeare, Molière, Wilde, TV sitcom
A. blocking figure Knemon
1. isolation, intolerance, with some justified criticism of conventional behavior (446ff., 710-720, 740ff.)
2. temporary recognition, then relapse (750)
3. punishment by cook and slave at end
B. curable excesses
1. silliness of young man in love (Sostratos)
2. suspicions of Daos and Gorgias (note slave vs. freeman): 212, 218ff., 271ff.
3. Gorgias’ poor man’s pride (821ff.)
4. Kallipides’ rich man’s pride (794)
C. divine favor: Pan and Nymphs
1. falling in love
2. dream of Sostratos’ mother (410ff.)
3. broken rope
D. gender roles
1. unnamed girl, value of being raised in total isolation
2. a few lines for girl and for mother, none for Sostratos’ sister
3. danger of allowing girl outside; shame for Gorgias if anything happens
4. Gorgias shy of joining party with women present
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
A. typical New Comedy motifs
1. rape and impregnation at a festival (here, boy and girl are known to each other; sometimes identities unknown)
2. trickery of slave, son, and other subordinates directed at the father of the household
3. concealment of pregnancy and motherhood
4. the girl herself is unseen on stage
B. reflections of social status
1. girl cannot marry in absence of the father to give her away
2. foreign concubine not intended for childbearing; refusal of Demeas to assume responsibility for the child
3. anger of Nikeratos at loss of face caused by pregnancy and childbirth of unmarried daughter
C. confusions and excesses of emotion
1. Moschion’s embarrassment, inability to just tell truth at once
2. Demeas’ reaction at learning that Moschion is father (of what he still thinks is Chrysis’ child)
3. Moschion’s defence of Chrysis misinterpreted by Demeas
4. Nikeratos’ explosions
5. Moschion’s foolish pretence in Act V
A. Philip II of Macedon, in power 359-336
1. conflict with Athens in northern Aegean
2. intervention in Phocis (“Sacred Wars”)
3. Peace of Philocrates 346
4. Battle of Chaeroneia 338 effectively ends power of mainland Greek states
B. Demosthenes (384-322)
1. Peace of Philocrates of 346: Demosthenes an ambassador along with Aeschines and others
2. after conclusion of peace, Demosthenes accuses Aeschines of having been bribed by Philip, setting off a long feud
3. Aeschines counterattacks with accusation of Demosthenes’ associate Timarchos, who is deprived of civil rights on grounds of having been a male prostitute
4. Demosthenes forced to drop accusation
5. Second Philippic delivered in assembly in 344/3
6. prosecution of Philocrates (associate of Aeschines) in 343, Philocrates flees into exile
7. Demosthenes indicts Aeschines over embassy; Aeschines barely gets off
8. in 336 Ctesiphon proposes that Demosthenes be awarded a golden crown in the Theater for his general services to Athens and for contributions to repair of city-walls
9. Aeschines indicts Ctesiphon for unconstitutional proposal, preventing award, but neither sides presses for a trial
10. in 330, Aeschines brings the case, but Demosthenes’s eloquence wins the victory
C. arguments of Philippic 2 (delivered in 344-343)
1. appeal to Athens’ sense of past glory, sense of looking out for the Greeks, difference from other Greeks (10-11, 27)
2. appeal to freedom, antipathy to tyrants and kings (23-25)
3. warning of future troubles and greater dangers
A. Early Life
1. Born in 356 BC, son of Philip II of Macedon and Olympias
2. Aristotle served as Alexander's teacher
3. 336: assassination of Phillip II; Alexander becomes king, suppresses Greek resistance by destroying Thebes in 335
B. Expedition into Asia
1. 334:begins expedition planned by his father
2. Darius III, King of Persia, defeated in several battles and eventually assassinated
3. Conquest of Anatolia (Turkey), the Levant (modern Syria, Lebanon, Israel/Palestine), Egypt, Media, Babylonia (modern Iraq), Persia (modern Iran), Sogdiana and Bactria (modern Afghanistan), and part of India/Pakistan
4. 323: Alexander dies in Babylon at age 33
Friday, December 2, 2011
A. The immediate aftermath of Alexander's death
1. No viable successor (half-brother Philip Arrhidaeus, unborn Alexander IV)
2. Alexander's generals divide army and territory
3. three major Hellenistic kingdoms emerge
a. Antigonus and successors in Anatolia
b. Seleucus and successors in Syria, Babylonia, and eastward
c. Ptolemy and successors in Egypt
B. Characteristics of the kingdoms
1. Different degrees of control asserted by central authority
2. Greek and Macedonian colonists form new elite
3. Local populations co-exist with them
4. Hellenization of locals (Greek culture = elite culture)
5. Some adoption of local tradition (esp. religion)
f. Koinê the “common” dialect
A. Loss of individual international political power
B. Growth of federal leagues, such as Achaean League, Aetolian League
C. Continuity in local identity, civic practices
D. Patronage of Hellenistic monarchs
A. conquest of Greeks in Italy and Sicily in 3rd century
B. interventions across the Adriatic from 220
C. “freedom of the Greeks” from Macedonia in 196 (Flamininus)
D. Macedonia made a provine with defeat of Perseus at Pydna in 168
E. mainland Greece becomes province of Achaea in 146, after destruction of Corinth