PASCO HERNANDO COMMUNITY COLLEGE
WESTERN CIVILIZATION (EUH 1000) CLASS NOTES
. Instructor: Dave Tamm / Term: Spring 2008 .
THE GREEKS (Pg. 30-50)
Sources: davies, schatt, levack et. al., noble.
There is an excellence about greece. In
the same way that greek light enabled painters to see form and color,
so the conditions for human development favored external enviornment
and the internal development of mankind. high intensity sunlight was
an ingreedient that produced the parthenon? plato is native genius
plus photochemistry?
why greece? 1. sun means vibrant outdoor life. 2. the aegean sea and
island straits provided ideal nursery for commerce, seafaring and
colonies, and diversity of place. 3. proximity of older est.
civilizations whose achievements could be imported and adapted.
other places? california, north east florida, south australia, baltic,
great lakes,... but nowhere did all three merge. perhaps only around
the sea of japan. breathtaking achievments in every feild of human
endeavor, history knows of no such burst of vital energy until the
renaissance.
There is something about the word classical. We look to the past to
find our roots, the place where we began. And we find Greece. We speak
of classical music, classical films, classic coke even. something that
has stood the test of time and is considered good, maybe not only for
an age, but for all ages.
Greek world was different than the Hebrew. Not the world of covenants.
The greeks placed the western tradition on a footing that remains to
this day. we take it for granted because the greeks created or
invented so many of the strains of human activity that occupy us
today: science, math, literature, arts etc.
Classical Greece
The Heroic Age: Minoans and Mycenaens (3000-1600)
The Dark Age (1100-600)
The Golden Age (Hellenic) (600-323)
The Hellenistic Period (Alexander) (323-31)
WIDE RULING AGEMEMNON
You were born in greece. no i was born in detroit. but intellectuals
used to say it. we were born in greece. we've spent time studying pre
greece. well the greeks learned from these people... and some things,
phoenician commerce, monotheism, etc.
but there is an unbroken line between the greeks and us. the greeks
are the birth of Western Civilization.
MINOAN CRETE 2000 BC starts it all.
Minos gives his name to it. legend, mystery. we dont know who they
were, like the sea peoples. Indo-European language, but not
desciphered.
They wrote Linear A- and we don't know the language! its not like
Greek, and since scholars classify people by their ethno-linguistic
group, we dont know who they are!
But they left us big hints of what they were like, the palace of minos
at knossos is huge. 5 acre building, central courtyard, 50m inside a
house. and beauty. unlike the near east palaces, elaborate asthetics-
so we infer but without documents. Excavated by Arthur Evans. Total
pop. 250,000, 40k in Knossos.
Storehouses on the exterior flanks, cereal, grain, olive oil
Linear A documents probably bureaucratic stuff like the sumerian cuneiform.
Art: frescoes (painting on wet plaster of a wall so the paint becomes
part of the wall itself). art suggests contact with egypt, seafaring,
transfer of ideas, trade with mesopotamia too, but a people apart. a
civilization apart. other things permit inference: utter lack of
fortifications. No fear?
No fear of attack from anyone from each other. no fortified palaces
though wealthy, no fortified seaports though traders. women wearing
cosmetics, beautiful hair styles, jewelry, etc. and time, time spent
on pleasures and pleasing.
Bull leaping? how about that! their favorite sport was bull leaping.
Minoans did this gymnastic thing with bulls, though it was tough for a
loser- but compare this with the assyrian art or babylonian? or the
hittite, or egyptian. men, weapons, submissive peasants.
Tidal wave from Thera, 1626, crushed it all. initiated a process of
decline. dissappearance of half that island into the mediterranean.
Lost city of atlantis? about 75 years after it... Minoans were
conquered by... people who came from the Greek mainland... who had
contact with them (we know from their art) to the Myceneans.
MYCENAEN GREECE
We think of the stunning cultural achievements but the land it tough,
craggy, bad weather in the north, hotter in the south. bad soil, tough
place. Life of the Greeks is
not played out on Hawaii... not paradise.
3000 BC to 1700 BC migrations from central europe, or from Anatolia, related
Mediterranean triad of crops begins: cereals, olives and grapes. wine,
not beer. all of those made with cereal grains.
2000 BC a Mycenean culture begins. Mycenae is the best of the Mycenaen
cites. Mycenae was the city of agamemnon. They conquere minoan crete
(at a late stage) because they grew up with them, were behind them,
and saw they were ripe for the picking after the volcano, and went
down to do it.
City states, each with a king. Agamemnon, Menaleus, etc. In
archeology, massive remains. Pylos, Corinth, Mycenae. Now we have
citadel. AND citadel at the center... NOT a temple, not a tomb... but
a warrior aristocracy's palace. People had their day jobs, and they
were also warriors. The only time the cities may have united is
against Troy.
Homer brings this period into focus for us. Illiad and Odyssey were
these. Considerable wealth and power, massive building projects, huge
citadel, road with stone walls from city wall to citadel. quite
impressive. Sustained by agriculture.
Linear B was their language. thousands of documents, bureaucratic. no
first edition of the Iliad! How is A vs B? Well we can read B. Not A
though. Enigma code breakers during WWII went to work in the late 40s
on "What is Linear B?" Well they figured out that it WAS Greek, but
written in a bizarre way. Arrayed in lines, like cuneiform, but a
particular kind- a syllabic writing. Not a pictograph where pictures
are nouns and verbs, but syllabic writing. cuneiform is, but less
efficient than alphabetic. we need a symbol for every single sound
combination. a ba ca da fa ga...
They WILL learn phonician alphabet, alpha beta etc but for the ancient
period its all Linear A and B, the syllabic predessessor.
Homeric poems, Iliad is Ilion, Troy. Agamemnon going to fight at Troy.
Controversial because of the age of the material. Gods and goddesses
of the Iliad have different jobs of the classical greeks. assembled as
a corpus of material and iconic in the 700s. You had to tell it a
certain way, and that is Homer. Homer made the story into a supereme
epic poem. But how to reconcile 700 with 1200! They are 1) a work of
art, an artistic vision. They are also 2) oral formulaic poetry. Rosy
fingered dawn and the wine dark sea, and wide ruling agmmonon and
diomedes of the loud war cry. these formulas appear because they fit
with a metric. people can build poems that way. So is it just a free
for all? then we can't read it as history. he made it up as they went
along.
And then, in Jugoslavia in WWII some guys found bards that had half a
million lines at at time. or a popular singer who knows all the songs,
or lawrence olivier, who did every single shakespearian play. but we
dont use our memories to their max today as much... so its not
unreasonable to think they DID remember it for 500 years. Names of
characters? no reason to change. cities? no change. iron weapons? well
no. there were
no iron weapons it was the bronze age. And then Schleimann found it.
1194-1184 BC the tradition says, 1210-1200 archeology says. was
certainly a mycenean war vs. the trojans across the sea. not by Helen,
the face who launched a thousand ships, but probably a trade war.
Ethical teachings though, are probably from Homer. To that epic world,
in the dark age of greece. we now turn.
DARK AGE
But there was not a straight line from destruction of Mycenaen
sites... even if burned buildings were rebuilt, we can find fire
evidence. widespread destruction. inference tells us that they all
burned, the cities were burned. It may well be that the Mycenaens
spent themselves in the Trojan War. Though won, recall egypt and the
hittites. wearing out.
A number were never again inhabited. Mycenae was never. Corinth was
etc. Invaders? The Dorians. People who trailed behind the first greeks
in Thessaly. Now they entered the Peloponnesus. But they were not
alone.
Greece? They call themselves Hellens, and Hellas! Why Greece? Romans
called them Grecians and Grecia. Many kind of Greeks. Spoke in
slightly different ways: Dorians on mainland, Ionians on Asia Minor,
Illic Greeks north of the Gulf of Corinth near Olympus, Attic Greeks
near Athens.
It was not an awful time, small illiterate communities. Gee, yes, they
actually forgot how to write. Totally and completely. No Linear B
anymore. Hundreds of years. They just stopped. Dark because of the
fact we don't know much. Depopulation, deurbanization, scant
construction.
Archeology: in the past it was to 'find awesome things' 'beautiful
things' venus de milo
now: to slowly strip the stuff away, to find ordinary things, to
reconstruct daily life.
So: life went on in Greece, albeit of a lower order. no palaces and
great works left, but cities remained. pottery etc. declined in worth.
But, as the centuries went on, stirrings returned: the Games of the
Olympiad I: 776. The writing by Homer of the Iliad and the Odyssey:
750. Optimism and adventure. At least, it was peaceful. Depopulated.
You lived undisturbed by external forces. When population grows, and
it did everywhere. arable land becomes scarce. But the fundamental
institution that was built was the Greek Polis. How did they respond
to it?
Gradual pressure of population on resources helps generate the Polis.
Now, the phoenician commercial trading was attractive and many greeks
took to it. Greece is always less than 150 miles from the sea. anyone
who takes a train in greece today knows that its the sea that is best
to travel.
1. Sparta: not enough land? you conquer your neighbors: the
Messenians, made helots out of them. helot = state slave.
2. Phoenician way: Athens decided to live by trade: they turned to the
sea and made them a commercial sea power.
Corinthian way: colonize. you export your surplus people, not "out the
door... go" but instead, you send them out to make cities of their
own, and remain on friendly terms. Corinth goes to Black sea, north
africa, sicily... scyracuse, napoli neapolis is the real name! a
corinthian colony. Its greek. magna grecia was italy! And colonization
is a hallmark of the West.
All greek stuff, were spread all over the mediterranean basin.
phoenicians were the first spreading of a common culture. but they
were never as numerous, and not so much of an singular idea, a
consciousness, of spreading yourself there. the stuff of the west.
common culture. accelerating the process of spreading a common greek
culture.
They also took from others some things: borrowed the alphabet from the
phoenicians. from 8th century. a huge thing, plus spreading writing
all over.
Greek attitudes also emerge: decorations on pottery- not the first to
make beautiful pots but... they put beautiful geometric designs on
them. measuring precisely. you think geometry you thinks shapes,
forms, measure, proportion... Greek. on some pots, you reduce the
shape of living things to geometric forms. neck on the pot you get
stags. all the same stag, stylized abstract image. abstracts from the
world around us. suggest there may be another world - one of
perfection, a 'heaven' where perfection is, and here an imperfect
world. There is a quest for order and balance and harmony.
Also a spectactual level of ceramics, sculpting and technae, skill in
greek. there is the skill but also the vision that informs the skill.
bronze figures, stone figures, early sculpture gives us hints on the
differences that the greeks thought of the world: hittites, egyptians
and mesopotamians all had unblinking, unfeeling and unthinking people.
But now we get the hit, a suggestion, of someone who is an actual
person. not a lifeless figure, but a real one. now close observation.
HOMER
Not a sacred text, but one esteemed above all others.
amazing- when they started writing again, they took the phoenician
alfabeta and added vowels... and the first thing written down was the
Illiad. The metric moves the illiad. and remember, you cant look
anything up. the equivalent of the library of congress is your head.
Old Homer dictated the Illiad and the Odyssey to a young lady who
wrote it.
The story is what it is. its not like the bible, no rules or
legislation. it revealed greek ways. focusses on about a month and a
half in the 9th of 10 years. to watch him in battle is amazing, not
possible! incredible. that is what achilles is bringing to the table.
so no matter what he does, the greeks honor that. Helen of troy? the
cause of immense suffering, describes herself as a slut. but is so
unbelivably beautiful and desirable, that as she walks along the walls
of troy, the men who are too old to fight look at her and say "we do
understand". there dispicable husband paris says "i am awesome."
people fight about being awesome and their reputation. an evocotive
model is high school boys. whose cool. whose got the best girl the
best sports the best stuff.
"Who is the fairest Paris? Hera bribes him with power. athena with
technae (technology- the ability to do and know stuff), aphrodite
bribes him with total erotic fulfillment in the guise of marriage to
helen. Paris picks... Helen. But Helen is married to Menalaus of
Sparta, Brother of agamemnon of mycenae. Paris makes her and takes her
and after ten years of siege, a fight between agamenmnon vs achilles
(who informed everyone that agamemnon).
Theme: its all based on the pursuit of arete. like pursuit of
happiness, but different: pursuit of excellence. Ty Cobb and Babe
Ruth. neither one was flawless. Cobb had every vice of the spirit,
Ruth had every vice of the flesh. still they were great. achieving
greatness is an end in itself. for us too!!! we try to gain the
admiration of people. But there is no commandment that says "thou
shalt make the best of your abilities"
We are greeks. we hate to say it but for everyone trying to be st.
francis, dozens of others are trying to be achilles and helen. arete,
if its manifested, generates cleos "praise". did you see that? wow!
man! whoo! that was great! that is what achilles had. THAT is claos.
There is another kind of reputation too. not from ability really, but
by position. If Prince Charles and Michael Jordan walked into a
room... one has timae, one has arete. Charles has position, jordan has
prowess in sport.
all the stuff that comes with it, stuff, is the pursuit of cleos.
unabashed and ok. they didnt have the checks on that stuff in their
culture which we do, which comes from the bible and hebrew /
christianity. amour propre.
the only check is that you dont want to crow around too much, because
the gods will not like it. that hubris. you'll be cut down. cuase you
forgot you were mortal. From Homer then, we get nothing preached. but
he cristialized individualistic ethic of achievement instead of of
submission, obedience and compassion. Well, Homer informs western
culture and lets face it, American culture in particular.
What gives hints about the polis? a vista of ideologies and changes.
Iliad is intense in competition. olympics, iliad, and others
besides... about prizes! all the time games, panhellenic games too!
not for the fun of it, for the winning! athletic stuff was about the
winning! not about in greek art, warriors fight with words: speeches,
fighting with words! you dont just die...
you die with your words!
BRAINS AND BRAWN- sound mind and sound body.
powerful sense of competition. achilles, wise old man in iliad always
turned too...
questions too... is the king worthy? is he a good king? obligations of the
whole story is if achilles wrath was justified. his honor is damaged?
is it worth it?
what do i owe you in our political community? can you make me fight?
citizens of the polis will for the first time see they have no
"betters" but only equals. Not in the presence with betters. no
betters, but citizens. with citizenship you are a real one.
THE POLIS
In the Homeric poems is the change towards the Polis. And now we have
the dawning
of the Classical world, the rise of the Polis.
Physically: its a formula: City Proper plus Agricultural Hinterland
Athens plus Attica = Athenian Polis
Sparta plus Laconia = Spartan Polis
Features of the polis: agora (informal public life), temples of that
city god, then to other god cults, a special building where courts of
law, formal public life was... theatre and stadiums like at Olympia.
the high point: acropolis, elevated above urban core.
Aristotle said that man is by nature a creature best suited for a
Polis. And politics is what
we do in a polis. that is natural. About 200. Aristotle and his people
studied the laws of each Polis. His treatment of the Athenian laws.
SPARTA
Origins: A mythical lawgiver, Lycergus, gave Sparta a constitution
from the gods in 750. From the oracle. The Spartans conquered the
Messenians around them. They chose that option...
The Spartans did not like change. very conservative. conserve the
traditional ways.
Class: The Equals: Homoioi: All men over 18. All voting, all rights- a
wide degree of equality!
Class: Perioikoi: People Around the House (dwellers around). People
who were respected but not citizens
Class: Helots: The conquered Messenians of Lakdameon. They were slaves sort of,
but they did not belong to individuals- they belonged to the Polis.
Two kings (from the same families) son succeeding father- one is the CEO of the
polis, and one in the field with the army. Absolute veto over the
other. Two consuls
in sparta (bicameral). Assembly was direct participation of all the
equals. not elected etc., you were there. Propose laws, war, finishing
war, treaty, trade etc. but it could not enact, but set an agenda. The
council then- guardian of the spartan system- king and 5 ephors and
all equals above the age of 60, decides. Who in the world was 60?
Antiquity it was 30s (still today in parts of the world), but if you
lived to 20, you may well live into the 60s. If a woman made it to 30,
you were good. childbirth was tough, and babies died often.
Not like our system. They honored age. If you made it to 60, you knew
well the traditions. tough to change. hippies didn't get far.
The social system that informed this political system: Moses is
exposed, Sargon was, babies were, Oedipus Rex was, but they are found,
not to kill, but to be found. inspection and healthy given to parents.
At 7: military brotherhood till 18- rigerous physical and military
training. serve if Sparta needs you till 60.
Marriage was not for love! one fundamental purpose: make more equals.
so, the institution didnt bring the bonds of family affection as much.
The whole system was for military excellence, but also loyalty,
powerful bonds among equals and to their society. austere and simple
archeology, men ate simple food. not being gabby and chattery. Laconic
means not having much to say friviously.
Helots worked in the fields farming, made spartan life possible, and
this gave Sparta the freedom to make the Peloponnesian League, and
lead it. the city states ceded military matters to Sparta.
Spartans ate black broth of pork cooked in its own blood and salted
with vinegar. it was a very isolated society, spartans discouraged
consumptuion by not issuing coins, but heavy iron rods. foreign
products were corrupting, so it was thought, and when foreingers were
in sparta, their movements were monitored. they were frequently
expelled. this system produced the premier hoplite land force for
several hundred years. all city states had walls except for sparta
because "the spartans need no walls." what was sacraficed? the city
was a rude military camp compared with the beauty of athens and other
cities. little contribution to human progress except in sport and
military manner. But this one little city was the dominant land power
in the entire world.
The Spartan system had admirers, they liked its stability, its
durability, its simplicity. It lasted until the Romans conquered
Greece in the 100s. They respected them. Well, people like stable
systems, Russia for example. Even if rights for individuals are
skewed.
ATHENS
Polis: was an idea of how a society should function, an idea of a
community of politically active members. Look at early chapters of the
illiad to see how the fighters wanted to gain an enfranchisement in
the poelis. Why? because archons were elected by aristocrats, and
commoners had no say.
Tyrants showed greeks that the people had a will.
famous tyrants:
pheidon of argos -675
cypselos of corinth -664
orthagoras of sicyon -650
thrasybulus of miletus -600
polycrates of samos -530
peisistratus of athens -530
These guys were a response to the population problem and the fact that
social societies can be swayed by popular people cum rulers.
In athens, we can speak of three leaders of infuence who presided over
big changes leading to democracy:
Draco 621
Solon 594
people got tired of draconian laws and solon became 'sole-archon'. he
began the democratic process: everyone elects the archons, not just
nobles.'
Athens was not stable, it blazed. In every field of human activity, it
was almost unbelievable. Not order, not stable, was proceed in orderly
fashion from crisis to crisis. A shift of power from small rulers to
the demos. The people. Democracy.
We love democracy. The ancients did NOT see it as a super great thing,
or the end result of political evolution. No one said "lets have a
democracy..." it just happened. Athens' leaders responded to problems
and just happened on it:
600s BC - many city states had "tyranny"- not bad but a strongman who
was popular.
only two did not, Athens and Sparta. Aristocrats
ruled, and they were often
not quite fair - the Spartans got their Lycurgan
system, and in Athens,
Draco was asked to post his laws on the agora. It was
very harsh.
Draconian. but it represented a new and public sense
of law, that it was
a society ordered by set laws, not aristocrats.
Just like Hammurabi. Publishing the law didnt help everything, but it
totally did. Farmers still had a boom bust cycle (if grain on black
sea is big, their crop loses value). Other group: merchants... many
people move to Athens, unrooted. they are not the old Athenians, so
what is there place? In 594, Solon, the aristocrat, as a lawgiver like
Draco. A reformer.
Groups: Established aristocrats, disinfranshised merchants and boom
bust farmers.
So: He abolished debt, and debt slavery, bought back debt sold farmers overseas.
He divided political power to wealthy merchants to be equal to
aristocrats. Council of 400 that set the agenda for the assembly of
all male citizens. Opposite of Spartan system! Solon's reforms pleased
no one. He must have done the right thing!
Pesistratus comes next, he respected Solon's system- and he
redistributed some land to farmers that were brought back by Solon.
"You get your own new farm!" He made the Pan athenic festival. massive
public building projects to booster the spirit of athens. also, to get
people to focus the loyalty to the city. Also jobs for the poor.
Eventually, Sparta got pissed at these reforms and got the system
thrown out. Too able to spread to the Pel League.
Clistenese in 500 now, who got a blank slate. Unintened consequences.
He decided to build the people into the Athenian system... and where
Pesistratus joined the people emotionally, Clistenese did it
institutionally. The Plain the Coast and the HIll. He gerrymandered
the political structure into ten groups (part from plain, coast and
hill each) and MADE the people cooperate!!! All men are welcome to the
political system.
Hold office, vote. And, ostracism. Once a year, everyone comes into
the agora, and writes a name, if someone gets a few thousand votes, is
out. If you angered the demos and went against its interest, you are
out for 10 years. Better than jail!
Other Reforms: Clistenes reformed the Athenian navy, which were manned
by the rowers- who were the lowest class leftover. Well, after the
massive wars the greek world fought with the Persians, Admiral
Themistocles, victor of Salamis, was so popular he swayed the assembly
to vote for the enfranchisement of the sailors.
PERICLES
modern democracies tend to emphasize individual rights over
responsibilty to the community. not so in athens, where demokratia
called for total immersion of the citizen into the democratic process.
SEE THE DAVES NOTES ON IT
PERSIA
one of the great coalition that brought assyria down became its
replacement as dominator of the Near East.
LYDIANS in anatolia were another, and they disappeared, but they
invented coinage
king croesus is richest of all...
persians included later on, who would
medes and persians as well, medes lived in the zagros mts
PERSIANS
pg. 57 quote. inspirational ruler. core-periphery.
map on pg. 61.
persians lived on iranian plateau, were never interested in mesopotamia
ethnically related, similar language etc.
cyrus the shah in shah, formed an alliance with medes and led both in fusion
launched campaigns all over: east to india, west to egypt, to
anatolia, all levant,
and all mesopotamia. all the way to ionia. remarkably fast... forming
the largest
empire until that point
how? herodotus says they had a million men. today we say 300k men, and
that number is still huge. also inside that army 10,000 immortals
great cavalry tactics, on the field. you want to outflank the enemy,
and stop from
being outflanked by them. persians discovered that when infantry is
engaged, cavalry can come around and attack at the right moment, to
win.
persians tolerant
locals left in charge - core periphery
saytraps in charge, 'eyes and ears' who you didnt know.
in building an imperial state, you can use your own people and send them out
or you can use people who are homegrown. 1st are totally loyal to the center.
persians were clever. romans will be masters at it. you elevate someone beyond
anything they could dream of...
weights and measures standardized, and travel, royal road. if one
state used ounces
and pounds and another kilos? different money? single coinage... good
feeling of an effective state. road? they didnt build JUST to be nice,
but in order to move troops... but other benefits flowed from creation
of the Persian road system. language of trade was aramaic. semetic...
a lingua franca. smart stuff...
aramaic, greek, latin, french, now... english
religion. zoroasterianism. zarathustra. avesta, the spiritual
scriptures of persia. one god, ahura mazda (single creator), and
ahriman, the devil. evil. if there is a single god who is good, why is
there evil? so there is a devil. twin child of ahura mazda. world
history is a struggle of this good vs evil. people reflect in common
ways - this dualism of good vs evil is here. light and dark, hope and
fear, flesh and spirit... dualism, understanding these polarities is
how we can overcome evil and remain good.
the world out there is messy, troubling, complicated... this world is
a false impression of the spiritual realm, the better world that
exists out there. dualism. part of western tradition.
legacy? assyrians and babylonians left impressive buildings, but not
much else. persians however, left religion, good kingship and
transportation. from isolation to multiethnic empires, exchange of
ideas, astronomy, languages, trade, money etc. lots of what the west
is based on today.
Europe and Russia itself? P. 27-29.
crucial phase in western civ. huge and long history of art,
architecture, religion, etc. that lay at the feet of Greece.
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THE PERSIAN WARS
Croesus wants to attack the empire. get them out. he goes to the
oracle of apollo on ionian coast. "what will happen if i attack
persia?" "you will destroy a great empire". he did, his own. he
attacked and he destroyed his empire. Well, that brought the persians
into anatolia they marched into ionia. they conquered the greek world.
Croesus was the trigger. herodotus explains it. Herodotus opens with a
lesson in great states being arrogant, then. and, in all his travels,
he understood for the first time the reality of east and west. "We
will not get along." We are different. People in Persia are slaves to
a great king. east west, greece persia, freedom tyranny. Free men
fight for things which they value. slaves do not, they fight cause
they are made to.
Thucydidies knew herodotus and wrote of the peloponnesian war. athens
vs sparta, ending in 400. A 50 year war.
-Persia in the Greek mind
-Marathon and Darius
-Salamis, Thermopolyae and Platae - Xerxes
Culture of confidence afterwards
The 50 Years. Athens in the age of Pericles 480-431 time of cultural elan
GOLDEN AGE
The last vestiges of the higher review were struck down, and pay was
now given to public servants. If you did NOT pay for public service,
only the idle rich could serve. Pay is a democratizing force. So now
democracy is really born. No review, weak executive, the Archons,
elected among the people.
Indications of how it all worked: debate was vigorous, speak, argue,
democratic mainstay. Danger of demagogue , (leader of the people). The
assembly was too easily swayed. too erratic. no continuity. Spartan
system was against change, but Athenian was freewheeling, but couldnt
put the brakes on.
Athenian citizens (males with two Athenian parents), not for women,
not resident aliens, not slaves, etc. so like 10% of the population.
Financed by tribute money... Athenian Delian League formed cause some
Ionian Greeks were still dominated by Persia, some Greeks went home,
like Sparta, but some wanted to free them, and Athens led the way.
Slavery was based on it too.
Many people critisized athens! Plato and Aristotle did! Aristocracy is
the way to go! Democracy does not bring the best forward. This
demogogery is crappy thucididies said. Its too changable. It fired
peoples imagination for 2.5 millenia. Their democracy demostrated what
a democracy what it MIGHT BE.
So S and A are political and social institution, but what about a cultural one?
GOLDEN AGE: POLIS AS A CULTURAL INSTITUTION
Civic culture: all cities have some common things, and then features
of their own. The most public of all art forms, architecture, is
communal. great civic buildings are just there, we argue about them,
criticize them, talk about them. and they tell us about society.
Homer mentioned temples (700s), in the Dark Ages, people no longer
built urban fortifications or palaces on the scale of the Mycenaen
period, now it began to be civic. Public buildings were for meetings,
temples for their gods. greek colonies built mirrors of the polis that
had sent them out in the first place. Pesistratus built a lot in
athens. points to this civic trend. Many of these things were burned
by the Persians, rebuilt in the Delian League building spree.
450-420: many new buildings, inc. the Parthenon. What does it tell us
about athens- how can we 'read' this building? consecrated to athena.
Phidias sculpted it. Elements of structure: temple was a form- (not a
worship center only)- imagine looking at it with supermans xray
vision- and then right above it. horizontal and vertical: dimensions:
column has : the base or pedestal, the capital, and the column itself.
The doric and ionic . is the doric from Sparta and Ionic from asia
minor? resounding maybe.
Doric conveys durability and sturdiness. Ionic is fluted, graceful and
scrolled at the top. a corinthian column is in between in power, but a
super capital. The Romans built in corinthian. athens not so much.
Post and Lintle architecture.
Parthenon was in perfect condition until 1687 when a Venetian ship hit
it by accident and blew the roof off (it was a Turkish city) using
parthenon as a weapons depot. Drawings made in 1674 thank goodness
that shows everything where it was. Today the British Museum houses
the best sculptures, and the Greeks are pissed.
Over 100ft long down each side, 17 and 8 across. builders played an
optical illusion- if you look at it like at railroad they meet. a mile
and a half above the building, they all touch in the middle.
Nashville TN has a Parthenon. It was supposed to crown athens, make
the athenians accept their position at the top of an empire. it was
supposed to be costly, and well loved. it was the place of the
festivals. technical proficiency and engaged in a constant
conversation of
Drama: Pericles gave free tickets to the theater. tragedy and comedy.
Actor named Thespis, 530BC was the first actor. We know there were
over a hundred greek plays. only 20 survive. we know there were 30
dramatists, we have 3. Aescylus, S and E.
Aristotle invented literary criticism. written in moving and elegant
language, to arouse fear and emotions, purify the people. Walk out of
a movie theater, "that was great". you feel almost a part of it.
Everyone dies, not everyone really lives. If you live and then die,
that struggle is ennobling.
A public art of the very time: Aescylus wrote "The Persians" to show
they are people too, with the same hopes and fears of Greeks.
Sophocles wrote about justice and principle.
Euripides was unconventional. inventive and still philosophical.
revenge emotion, etc.
Comedies: Aristophanes Arist-aw-fa-nes, holding up public officials to
helarious ridicule.
An OPEN SOCIETY!
History is born. The Bible is partly a historical narrative. And
history had a powerful historical mindedness. The Egyptians marked
down the dynastys of pharaohs. But hebrew history was the relationship
between their God and the people. One side of that
History is a public conversation. Is it weird? Voltaire said "History
are the lies the living tell about the dead." Henry Ford said "history
is bunk." Hebrews had powerful historical mindedness... prophetic
force too... the past can help you chart the future. But... in Greece
its different. history was a way to understand NOW, and also to show
why we are like that. like hebrew, but religous component is gone.
they invented a new literary form.
Aristorle wrote poetics. "poetry and history are the same... but poets
don't lie." Historians talk about details, poets have sweet ways to
talk though. history tells why people did what they did, not only what
they did. herodotus and thucididies insert the extraordinary into the
ordinary. i can derive a large principle from some small thing
(marathon), and give a grand lesson. Good history connects us with
reality. Herodotus, father of history, wrote one great book. Persian
Wars. defining moment. He was from Ionia. It was not just athens and
sparta! ionia too. Lost of invoking of homer, but more than that. he
travelled thorughout the persian empire to learn about them before
writing. travelled to egypt, interviewed people, all over greece.
Now, the greatest empire in the world, was defeated by the Greeks.
what a bet! herodotus was fascinated by it. how the hell did it
happen? Have we ever asked how a group of arguing half loyal colonists
defeated the greatest empire of the time?
Herodotus asks the who what when where why and how.
Greece is cradle of western education. living in city states, greeks
considered education a major service of the state and an essential
instrument for the training of its citizens. life and death struggles,
peril from within the city state itself, education was looked to for
training citizens defending the city in a crisis. majority of course
were not educated, but a large number were.
each city had its own system. spartans were the minority, but dominant
group so they aimed for military education. promotion of courage and
obedience. xenophon physical fitness was paramount. corporal
punishment. boxing was encouraged. Spartans did not like art and
poetry, they did like Homer though, his military epics. They liked
dancing. wrestling. care in the upbringing of girls. motherhood was
high ideal.
COLONIES
Greeks went all over, thrace by land, macedonia by land, euxine sea
(named hospitable to disguise its real nature- to attract settlers!)
Syracuse was to Athens what New York is to London.
RELIGION, OLYMPIANS AND MYTHOLOGY: meant to tell a much larger truth
than the words that are in the story. But the gods themselves were
nothing to look up to except for their strength. Zeus and his consort
Hera ruled over the headstrong family of olympians. apollo, pallas,
athene, haydes, etc. they were joined by satyrs, nymphs, muses who the
greeks paid their oblations to through animal sacrafice, usually
burned to a crisp. there was no devil, ares and posideon could be
vengeful, but no evil force to prey on man's deeper fears. mans
supreme fault was not sin, but hubris. this was punished by nemesis,
the wrath of the gods.
endless stories (myths) abound over the everyday happenings of the
olympians. all had their cults. when Jesus walk (around the time of
the 200th olympiad, cults for the olympians were going around, as well
as those of eastern gods isis, mithra etc.
look up timeline of mythology in daves notes
CLASSICAL CULTURE
Culture is art, literature, thought, religion.
Culture is: system of shared ideas and meanings that pattern a
society. Want to understand a culture? look at
values- what you ought or not do. what is the importance of honesty,
charity, chastity
laws- what political authorities have decided people should do and not
do, penalties
rules and taboos- what a society has decided is ok and not (marriage,
child rearing etc.)
social catagories
tacit models: how to address a police officer or judge or elders vs. friends
assumptions: hard work will be repaid, things will get better (this
used to be in american culture a huge thing)
fundamental: catagories of thinking about people - dualities male female,
greece: applonoian vs dionysian culture: appolonian is like delphi
oracles incriptions on the gate: know thyself and nothing in excess.
appolonian is the greatness in greek culture, the individual -
expressed in art, philo etc.
dionysian is ecstasy, loss of control, celebration of sex, human
tragedy and comedy.
Greeks lived in both of these worlds at the same time. apollo was a
major god, his temples at delos and delphi were central to
understanding- but there was dionysis, too. festivals in every city
and under whose care theater came about.
ART -ARCHITECTURE: parthenon
LITERATURE
AESCYLUS
SOPHOCLES
EURIPIDES
ARISTOPHANES
HISTORY
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ATHENS : DEMOCRACY AND EMPIRE
Cleisthenes (508)
9 archons (must be wealthy)
assembly (ekklesia)
ostracism
PERICLES and EMPIRE
Delian League founded in 478
Naxos tries to leave the League, crushed by athens 470
League fleet destroys Persian fleet off Eurymedon River 469
Thasos revolts and is defeated by League 465
League aids egyptians by sea in failed revolt against Persia 454
League treasury moved from delos to athens 454
Peace of Callias in 450 officially ends hostilities with Persia
democracy and imperialism?
PELOPONNESIAN WAR 431-405
Problem with athens dominating the Delian League was that the
cornerstone of Greek life since the Archaic Age was the indpendent
polis, a system which is now undermined. by playing top dog, athens
itself is no longer self determinant either, as it relies on the other
members of the league- as they do it. Also, athens was democratic, but
did not rule their League democratically. cities were preturbed by the
arrogance of athens, but were afraid of persia. rivalries get more
intense, esp. athens and corinth, greece's longtime third power. some
look to sparta for help.
Land power Sparta vs Sea power Athens
1st PW: 460-445: Sparta opposes athens attempt to subjugate thebes and
add Boeotia to its empire
2nd PW: 431-405: Pericles, Kleon and Nicias vs. Archidamus, Brasidas
and Lysander
-Athens establishes a strategic island garrison off Messenia and
Sparta must call for peace (421)
-Athens send an expedition to Sicily which ends in disaster (413)
-Financial ruin, political problems, Sparta's army, Syracuse's Navy,
finances from Persia force Athens to surrender.
THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR
athens saw sparta as against their democratic values and xenophobic
sparta feared continual empowerment of cosmopolitan athens. In 432
sparta moved against athens and declared war, while other city states
took sides, but not along ideological lines. democratic syracuse
allied with sparta.
the spartan land force laid waste to attica, forcing all the people of
the region behind city defenses, which included a powerful 10 mile
'long wall' that protected access from Athens to its harbor at
Pireaus. The spartans could not starve them into surrender so long as
they had access to food from the sea. the seige lasted many years.
In 430 a plague broke out in athens, overpopulated with refugees. many
died including pericles. athens zenith would never return, and a dark
day had come. during the next 10 years the war continued and the rest
of Greece was brought into it. Sparta ruled the land, so Athens tried
to use its mastery of the sea. A fleet was sent by Acibaldes to
Syracuse to take the city and its fabled wealth. This was the major
blunder of the war, for the fleet was repulsed with huge losses.
Unrest at home resulted, and the democratic order was removed by the
upper class, who were then overthrown themselves. Power was weakening
and Spartan sieges continued. Persia was courted by Sparta, which
sells out the Ionian Greek cities to the Empire in exchange for
support against Athens.
In 404 the rest of Athens fleet surrendered at the Hellespont. The
city surrendered thereafter. Shorn of its empire and with its navy at
the bottom of the sea, the Athenian luster was dulled. In the words of
Pericles during the eulegy for the 1st year's fallen, "they all walked
the same streets and watched the same parthenon being built. and the
oracles prediction was fulfilled, 'you will become an eagle among the
clouds for all time.'"
SPARTA RULES AWHILE (405-370)
Sparta moved against Persia now, to reclaim the cities it sold out in
Ionia. A Persian force was wasted near Babylon, but the
Perisan-Phoenician navy sunk Sparta's ships near Cnidus, after 10
years of intermettant fighting. Sparta withdrew back to Greece. Persia
did not invade Greece, where Sparta held its own, but the Emperor
Artaxerxes played a balance of power game against them, keeping Greece
divided and weakened (not that they needed help to be divided!).
Corinth and Thebes incited helot revolts in Lacedameon, while Persia
kept the cities of Ionia. A far-sighted Athenian, Isocrates, (check
the dates on him) revealed the intentions of artaxerxes, "he doesnt
care about any of us, only that we fight each other." His position, to
band against Persia, is called pan hellenism. Thebes tries, Athens
tries by proposing a 2nd delian league, but these are rejected on
grounds of distrust. Athens cannot rebuild its navy either, as it has
not enough money. Thebes becomes Sparta's chief rival now, which now
tries to take Athens place.
Sparta proved incapable of leading Greece. It offends with arrogance
and breeds resentment- and Spartan orators lacked the skills valued by
other Greeks. Thebes, corinth and athens finally combine against it in
the CORINTHIAN WAR (387) which is inconclusive and ends in
humiliation because the peace was adjudicated by the Emperor of
Persia.
In the mid 300s, then, Greece's independence is waning, but not yet
gone. There will be an outsider, schooled in the philosophy of
Aristotle by Aristotle himself, who will unify the cities, and bring
back glory to the land of Greece.