Friday Aug. 27, 2011
waiting list is not automatic; attendance for first two weeks will establish claim to a place in the class. (Please see policy.)
A. Why study Greek civilization? intrinsic interest; knowledge of the other; influence
B. Goals of the course intrinsic interest; knowledge of the other and of the past; influence
gain a certain amount of factual knowledge, for cultural literacy
learn to read "foreign" literature with appropriate consideration of its context
think and write critically about issues raised by the texts and the culture
C. topics and reading (see Syllabus); nature of exams and papers (1200-1800 words); bSpace and instructor’s home page
D. exhortation on reading
A. the built environment: Greek, Greco-Roman, Renaissance, Greek Revival, Beaux-Arts traditions (Slides: Athenian Acropolis and environs; Lincoln Memorial; Berkeley campus architecture)
B. language
1. the alphabet: symbols for math and science, initials for fraternities, ornamental inscriptions (Slides 12-17: alphabet)
2. words: note the names of scientific disciplines: economics, physics, biology, political science, mathematics, anthropology, palaeontology, botany, entomology; scientific coinages up to the present day: teraflop, gigabyte, megahertz, nanosecond; medical terminology: esophagus (oesophagos), carpal tunnel syndrome (karpos, syndromê), oncologist, geriatrics
C. artistic tradition: theater, tragedy, comedy; the nude; architectural sculpture
D. ideas: philosophy and its subdivisions; democracy and political terms; Olympic movement, organized athletic competition (athlete, pentathlon, decathlon, discus); myths (literary adaptations, movies/TV, video games)
Monday Aug. 29, 2011
A. relation to other centers of ancient civilizations: Near East, Egypt, Asia Minor, Carthage, Etruria
B. relations and rivalries across the Mediterranean
A. Early phases
Neolithic 6500-3000
Bronze Age 3000-1150
Early 3000-2100
Middle 2100-1600 (Minoan Civilization)
Late 1600-1150 (Mycenean Civilization)
Iron Age 1150-
Early Dark Age 1150-900
1050 Ionian Migration
1000 Dorian settlements ("Invasion")
Late Dark Age 900-750
B. Phases represented by readings in this course
Archaic Period: 750-490
Classical Period: 490-330
Hellenistic Period: 330-30
C. Later phases
Roman Imperial period: 30 B.C.E.-330 C.E.
Byzantine Period: 330-1453 C.E.
Early: 330-650 (also called "Late Antiquity")
"Byzantine Dark Ages" 650-800
Middle: 800-1200
Late: 1200-1453
Ottoman Period (Turcocratia): 1453-1821
Modern Greece: 1821-
A. mountains: difficulty of transportation by land; few large fertile valleys; regionalism (variations in dialect, religious practices, myths, laws)
B. water-supply: seasonal streams and marshes; long dry season
C. coast-line: rocky and dangerous, limited number of safe harbors (examples of Corinth, Athens, Syracuse)
D. agriculture: herds as wealth require ample land and water, growth in population and division of land favor other economic activities; pastoral vs. growing of grain, vines, olives; subsistence vs. surplus; urbanization requires surplus or trade
E. regional names: (reader p. 94 map)
A. Cycladic Civilization: 3rd millennium B.C.E.
1. on Aegean islands (Cyclades) with influence on nearby Attika and Euboea
2. small settlements, relatively secure from invasion and marauders
3. distinctive artefacts, including figurines and pottery (slides)
B. Minoan Civilization: ca. 2100-1600 B.C.E. in Crete
1. palace culture
2. large population
3. social stratification
4. accumulation of agricultural surplus
5. bureaucracy for storage and record-keeping (Linear A clay tablets)
6. public spaces for rites and ceremonies (so-called Theater at Phaistos)
7. luxury goods and luxury burials
8. major sites: Knossos (north central coast), Phaistos (south central coast), Mallia (east of Knossos)
9. Thera/Santorini: city buried ca. 1600 by volcano; Minoan wall painting shows Egyptian influence, but also Minoan developments
10. after decline and destruction ca. 1500, Crete controlled by Mycenaean culture
C. Mycenaean Civilization: ca. 1600-1150 B.C.E.
1. major centers on mainland: Mycenae, Tiryns, Thebes, Pylos
2. palace culture replacing or superimposed on scattered small settlements: wanax = lord (later anax)
3. military character evident from graves and luxury goods (horses, chariots, fine weapons)
4. storage and record-keeping (Linear B clay tablets = Mycenaean Greek)
5. trade for luxury goods and raw materials
6. distinctive tholos-tomb form
7. distinctive form of megaron (great hall: cf. palace scenes in Odyssey)
8. peak of power 1475-1250, expanded to Crete and Ionia; collapse around 1200 (earthquake, invaders, internal strife? coincidence with legend of Troy story and end of heroic age)
9. relations with other Aegean powers? Trojan War legend implies activity in Asia Minor; 14th-13th century Hittite documents (powerful kingdom in Asia Minor) mention Ahhiyawan, perhaps the same as Akhaiwoi = later Akhaioi (Achaeans)
Wednesday Aug. 31, 2011
A. the proem
1. mênis
a. mênis = wrath on a quasi-divine level; other wrath words are thumos and cholos
b. story-pattern: withdrawal in anger also seen in story of Demeter after seizure of her daughter (Homeric Hymn to Demeter), in story of Meleager seen in Bk. 9 in speech of Phoinix; in Roman story of Coriolanus (also a play of Shakespeare)
2. the quarrel of Achilles and Agamemnon: "best of the Achaeans" (aristos, aristoi)
a. "best of the Achaeans": Iliad vs. Odyssey = Achilles vs. Odysseus; Ajax vs. Odysseus in events after the Iliad; within Iliad quarrel between Agam. and Achilles
b. Agam.: older, richest, most territory, most ships and men, most allies, accepted as leader of expedition
c. Achilles: younger, highest birth, best fighter, fastest runner, best horses, armor, spear
B. argument over prizes
1. Chryses’ supplication
a. distinguish supplication by contact with the sacred, by physical contact with another human being, figuratively by pleading words
b. compulsiveness of supplication in some contexts
c. Iliadic examples: Chryses, Thetis, Greek emissaries in Bk. 9 (Litai = Prayers); Priam
2. Chryses’ prayer: reciprocity in Greek religion
3. ransom, honor (timê), and geras = gift of honor, prize (in distribution of war booty, portions of meat, etc.); part of gift-exchange system among the allied fighters; elite are equals and not equals, great tact needed to determine where to assert equality and where not
4. the assembly
a. nature of assemblies: any leader may call it; coercion of the weak possible (Kalchas 1.74-120, pp. 61-62, Thersites 2.211-277, pp. 81-83); tact needed for what can and cannot be discussed before all (Nestor in Bk. 9); analogous patterns in scenes of councils of the gods in Zeus’ hall
b. directness and indirectness
c. fear of king’s anger
d. intervention of Athena (and Hera)
e. Nestor
C. Achilles, Thetis, and Zeus
1. honor as compensation for short life
a. kleos as compensation for risk and mortality
b. shame vs. duty of those who have honors and wealth to "be in the forefront": 11.404-410, 12.310-323
c. shame vs. duty of all to stick together, fight for community: 15.561-564, 661-666
d. warfare is proper role of the young: 22.71-76 young corpse is seemly, old man’s corpse is unseemly
2. supplication
D. appeasement of Apollo’s anger
1. sacrifice at Troy and at Chryse
2. Chryses’ second prayer
3. commensality and worship; song
E. interactions at the court of Zeus
1. Zeus’ strength and supremacy
2. Hera’s resentment
3. Hephaistos as pacifier; commensality and music
Friday Sep. 2, 2011
A. myth of Trojan War is a major part of the heroic legends which were the Greeks’ way of commemorating and imagining their distant past; the events of the Iliad are one small part of a much larger complex
B. gods and men: myth of initial closeness or togetherness of gods and men, followed by a "fall" or separation; even after separation, some sexual mingling, producing "heroes" in sense of children of mixed divine and human parentage
C. end of Mycenaean civilization imagined in part as a "plan of Zeus" to relieve the earth of overpopulation
D. Sequence of stories:
Thetis and the oracle about her offspring; Zeus, Poseidon, and Peleus
Apple of Discord (Eris)
Wooing of Helen, oath of the suitors
Judgment of Paris (Alexandros)
Kidnapping of Helen
Gathering of the Achaeans: Iphigenia at Aulis
prolonged war at Troy (nine years without decision)
10th year: incidents within Iliad: quarrel, death of Patroklos, death of Hektor
10th year: incidents after Iliad: death of Achilles; Philoctetes, Neoptolemos, Palladion, Trojan Horse
Nostoi, including wanderings of Odysseus and Menelaos
Oresteia: death of Agamemnon on his return home, later vengeance of his son Orestes on the murderers, including his mother
A. epic poetry:
1. Indo-European oral poetic tradition (meter, key phrases, stories or story-patterns)
2. Greek oral tradition, extending back into Dark Age and perhaps into Mycenaean times
a. composition in performance, role of memory, formulas and typical patterns
b. formula: noun-epithet clusters; half-lines and full lines; type-scenes; typical sequences
c. extensibility of the style, lack of fixity in the tradition
3. audiences and settings: from depictions in Odyssey and references in Hesiod and Homeric Hymns, two major settings can be imagined: (1) the hall of a chieftain entertaining his peers and dependents; (2) public festivals, celebrations, funerals
B. nature of epic
1. foundational or aetiological (explaining origins and causes), demonstrating historical/cultural turning points; representation of ethical and social organization
2. epic objectivity: narrator in general self-effacing; large amount of directly quoted speech
3. epic leisure: at least in Iliad and Odyssey, story has become a monumental poem; retardation of events; elaboration of parallels stories or experiences (Telemachus/Odysseus, Diomedes/Achilles); digressive descriptions, mythical narratives or examples, similes
4. epic concreteness: objects lent dignity and significance by standard epithets and insistence on description
C. epic divine apparatus: parallel plane of action, but also contrast; omniscience of narrator shared with audience, but lacking for the characters within the action; transparency and development of anthropomorphic characteristics tied to narrative, not necessarily developed in same way in other aspects of religion; panhellenic gods vs. local manifestations