An Introducti

on toThe Greek

World

Primary Sources: works produced within a culture:

•art and architecture

•literature and written records of other sorts (business lists etc.)

Secondary Sources: Commentary by modern authors on the ancient cultures:

•textbooks and other modern writings

Internet Resources:

•can be primary sources (if they reproduce texts or images from the original culture)

•or secondary sources (if they are modern commentary)

Sources

Greece in the Mediterranean

The Greek Environment

http://www.ancient-greece.org/map.html

The Greek Landscape

First settlers: c. 50,000 BCE

Agriculture develops: c. 7000 BCE

Bronze appears: c. 3000 BCE

Prehistoric Greece

Abbreviations:

BCE= Before the common era

CE= common era

c. = circa (about)

The Bronze Age (c. 3000 BCE – c. 1200 BCE)

Three civilizations develop in three different parts of the Greek world:

Mycenaean culture develops in the mainland of Greece

The Minoans lived on the Island of Crete

The culture of the Cyclades (Cycladic Islands)

Prehistoric Greece

The Cycladic culture is known for its figurines (also called “idols”) which were found in tombs and could be objects of personal devotion (like icons in modern Greece).Cycladic culture was closely allied with the Minoan civilization.

“Idol”: Vroma

Flying fish: R. Basic

Cycladic Culture

Minoan culture was characterized by:

•palaces, built on an open plan, with a great many rooms, but without fortifications•an apparent focus on the ocean, including seafaring and tradeThera Freso, R.

Basic

Minoan Culture

Sacred images often focused on the mysterious labrys (double ax), and on bulls, including the enigmatic representations of bull-leaping

There are many

images of women,

often portrayed

in positions of authority

Minoan civilization

may have been more

egalitarian with worship

oriented toward female

deities

Fresco, R. Basic

Priestess, Thera fresco, R. Basic

Minoan Culture

Minoan figurine

•faience (quality workmqnship,

highly specialized technique)

•what are the figure’s attributes

(iconography)?

•what did she represent within

her society?

Minoan Culture

Detail of a sacrifice from Minoan Crete, 1450- 1400 BCE.

Minoan Culture

In contrast, Mycenaean palaces are fortified with huge walls and built to withstand siege.

Mycenaean art tends to emphasize hunting and

warfare, while other indicators (i.e. grave

goods) argue for a warrior-dominated society.

Mycenae’s Lion Gate, R. Basic

“Mask of Agamemnon,” Artchive

Mycenaean Culture

Fresco fragment depicting Mycenaean woman; 13th century BCE

Mycenaean Culture

In about 1400 BCE, the volcanic island of Thera exploded in a disaster whose atmospheric effects were felt around the world.

Probably, ashfall ruined agriculture for years.

Possibly, a tidal wave destroyed the Cretan navy and led to the fall of Minoan culture.

Thera fresco, R Basic

Upheavals ...

Minoan civilization suffers a major setback. Soon, the local writing system, Linear A, disappears. Linear B, a form of Greek, used by the Mycenaeans, appears in Crete.

Minoan civilization is dead, but Mycenae flourishes.

Linear B tablets reveal a complex economic and religious world.

Many of the names of classical Greek gods appear on these early bronze age tablets.

Warrior Vase, R. Basic

Mycenaean Dominance

By about 1200 BCE, nearly all of the Bronze Age power centers had been destroyed or fallen into disuse.

Greece entered a “dark age” in which monumental building and art were not practiced.

But the culture continued to develop and expand.

The “Dark Age”

Some cities lost prominence, others became more important.

Greeks colonized the coast of Asia Minor and Southern Italy.

By 750 BCE, national sanctuaries at Delphi and Olympia were formed.

Agriculture intensified and population grew.

The first poets whose works are preserved in writing, Homer and Hesiod, were composing their epic works.

Archaic Greece

Classical Greece: The Polis

Individual city-states (polis, pl. poleis) developed

Each had its own governmental system, laws, and religious festivals

All shared language, literature, and the same divine pantheon

Most shared similar ideas about gender roles, division of labor, sexuality, education, and family identity.

Polis and Community

Shared Government

Shared laws

Shared religious festivals

Shared myths

Agriculture

Family Groups

Men’s Social Roles

Social Roles varied from society to society; some widespread phenomena:

Farming work or overseeing farming work on one’s own land

Service in the military

Participation in government to the extent allowed by the state’s constitution

Participation in rituals of one’s state

Education of one’s children

Women’s Social Roles

To marry and bear citizen children

To care for the household resources

To spin and weave

To participate in the state’s religious rituals

Daily Life

Drawing water at a fountain – onerous duty but also social time

Spinning and Weaving

Daily Life

Woman at a laver (wash basin) having filled it with a water jar

Daily Life

Daily Life

Woman sacrificing

Daily Life

Caring for children

Sexuality

Sexuality was not a matter of the partner’s gender (male vs. female) but concerned active vs. passive roles.

Active roles were appropriate for grown men, whether the partner was male or female

Passive roles were appropriate for women and to some extent, teenaged men, but not for adult males

How far did the reality match the ideal? Public vs. private? Hard to say …

The Greek gods were a family, led by Zeus, whose authority commanded his two brothers, three sisters and eight children. In myth, the family squabbled and fought, a macrocosm of real families; the goddesses, while under paternal authority, often pursued their own agendas.

Zeus, a sky god, and was seen as a moral and ethical force. On the other hand, myth abounded with stories of his seduction of mortal women.

The Greek Gods

Hera, Zeus’s sister, was his wife and queen. Zeus and Hera’s marriage was portrayed as rocky and contentious in myth, but in cult and art it represented the ultimate divine marriage as a model for humans. Hera was a beautiful, desirable bride, Zeus a manly, welcoming husband.

Zeus and Hera

Zeus’s brother Poseidon was god of the sea, while his brother Hades ruled the

underworld with his wife, Persephone

Poseidon and Hades

Demeter is the grain god, and Persephone, her daughter by Zeus,

is the queen of the underworld.

Their mother-daughter relationship

represents the life-affirming process of

yearly cycles and crop fertility, where death is transformed into

life.

Demeter and Persephone

Athena, born from her father Zeus’s head, was goddess of warfare, but also of intelligence and women’s crafts, especially weaving.

Athena

Artemis, the huntress, remained forever a virgin, roaming the wilderness, a liminal and often threatening figure

Yet her other aspect was to promote the fertility of animals, aid in childbirth, and oversee the transition of virgins into brides

Artemis

Apollo, Artemis’ twin brother, was the beautiful, unapproachable god of music, poetry and prophecy

Hermes, another youthful god, was both divine messenger and trickster

Apollo and Hermes

Aphrodite was the goddess of love, symbolizing intoxicating sexuality and beauty.

In myth she is often portrayed as a willful “girly-girl,” but she is elsewhere portrayed as a powerful, personally-accessible goddess.

Aphrodite

Hephaestus, the lame god of the forge and craftsmanship, was married to Aphrodite – the ugliest god married to the most beautiful.

Ares, god of war, was Aphrodite’s lover.

Hephaestus and Ares

Dionysus was the god of wine. His celebration could involve loss of self and ecstasy, and was

particularly appealing to women.

Dionysus

finis