Monday, September 19, 2011
transition from Dark Ages to Archaic Age; many interrelated factors make it an age of experimentation, of borrowing and adaptation from older cultures, of internal shifts of political and social structures
A. general growth in population after period of relative depopulation
B. increase in arable farming, decline in pastoralism
C. scarcity of land; wealth based on landholding; economic hardship caused by small holdings (because of inheritance patterns) and use of marginal land
D. colonization:
1. trading post vs. agricultural settlement
2. solution to scarcity and strife
3. starting from scratch in form of government and distribution of land (MAPS)
E. state-formation: emergence of the polis (city-state) replacing kingly rule or smaller clan-based units
1. sunoikismos (synoecism)
2. end of hereditary kingships
3. political reorganizations, such as Lycurgus in Sparta
4. signs of city-cults, public decrees, dedications, and treaties
F. interstate alliances reemerge: tradition of Lelantine War in Euboea
G. re-opening to influences from Near East and Egypt, including alphabet, artistic motifs and techniques
H. panhellenic features: Olympic games, authority of Delphic oracle, Homeric epic and other hexameter poetry
I. beginnings of the hoplite-phalanx: military and social consequences
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
A. equality: concept emerges in various contexts; extent of group to which it applies is in question, as in classical city and thereafter into modern times
1. colonies
2. hoplites
3. Spartan homoioi
4. panhellenic games and shrines
5. the symposium (sumposion, symposion); hetairoi (already in Iliad: Achilles and Patroklos, army at large and Achilles (Bk. 9 appeal), followers of a chief
B. tyrannos = tyrant, tyrannis =tyranny
1. non-hereditary autocrat, attaining power with various degrees of participation or approval of citizens
2. mixed reputation: some admired for success, counted among Wise Men, but others became paragons of arbitrary power and sick society
C. example of Corinth (Herodotus 5.92, 3.48-53)
1. rule by one clan (Bacchiadae) for several generations after end of kingship in 8th century
2. Kypselos 657, his son Periander 627-587
3. then fall of tyranny shortly after Periander's death
4. note hostile stories in Herodotus 5.92 (lopping heads of grain, stripping Corinthian women)
Friday, September 23, 2011
A. choral song and solo song (not absolute categories)
B. contexts of performance:
1. religious festivals
2. weddings, funerals
3. private celebrations
4. display-entertainment put on by tyrants
5. symposium (defining the group, excluding outsiders)
6. soldiers' mess or camp
7. women's private gatherings?
C. contents
1. traditional wisdom; contest for authority by critiquing or modifying traditional wisdom ("what is best?")
2. heroic myth as parallel or example for current activities
3. male-bonding and rivalry (blame-poetry)
4. love and friendship
D. comments on specific poems and fragments in the reader
1. Archilochus: shield poem; invective (class protest?); erotic adventure (autobiographical? imaginary scenario? ritual purpose/ abuse?)
2. Tyrtaeus: military values of the polis; hoplite ideology (cf. Callinus)
3. Semonides: elpis (hope, expectation), telos (end, fulfillment)
4. Alcaeus: ship of state allegory; civil strife (Pittakos)
5. Solon: his political actions; Hymn to Muses
6. Theognis: comradeship and strife in Megara
7. Anacreon and Ibycus: court poetry of pleasure
8. Simonides: Persian War memorials