Classics 101 quiz 3

Politics, commerce, and enslavement:

Archaic Period

no “Greece“, polises begin colonizing other regions, Greeks are put in competition with persion empire for resources in Iona

What sense of “Greece“ was there in the Archaic Period?

There was a collection of polises connected by language and some shared cultural elements but there was no “Greece“ in the sense of unified political entity

What was the result of colonization in the Archaic Period?

Over 500 colonies established in the 8th and 7th centuries BCE

Result of Greeks being in competition with Persian Empire for resources

sparks the Persian wars, combined Greek forces against the Persians, Greeks win, enough sense of Greek-ness to join in opposition to non-Greek Persians

Classical Period

After the Persian wars, Athens is especially powerful and forms the Delian league, eventually leads to conflict between Athens and other Greek city-states, especially sparta

Result of Athens becoming powerful and the formation of the Delian League

Athens needs money for the upkeep of the navy→ goes to other city-states to raise it → expands navy → needs money for upkeep of navy, also uses the money for other things like the Parthenon, extracts a lot of tax revenue

Conflict between Athens and other Greek city-states in the Classical Period

Sparta puts together the competing Peloponnesian League, Peloponnesian War occurs between Athens and Sparta, Sparta wins

When was democracy established in Athens

510 BCE by Kleisthenes

Structure of Democracy in Athens

made up of Boule and ekklesia

Boule

A council of representatives of each of 10 tribes, met every day, were paid, presents proposals to the ekklesia

ekklesia

general assembly of all interested citizens; quorum of 6000, met 4 times a month and were paid

Democracy in court (Athens)

juries were chosen by lot, at least 201

How were political offices chosen in Athens

elected or chosen by lot

Who was actually included in Athenian Democracy?

unusual in the ancient Mediterranean but also excludes women, foreign residents, and the enslaved, only about 10% of the population could vote in the ekklesia

Oligarchy in Sparta

Decisions are made by 2 kings, council of 28 elders, assembly and a 5 member executive committee

Slavery in Sparta in the 8th century

Spartans enslaved the native population of neighboring regions, enslaved people were called helots and performed most of the labor in Sparta, enslaved greatly outnumbered the free Spartans

Lawgivers

Draco and Solon

Draco

Athenian acron, created a system of law, earliest lawgiver we know of

Draco’s laws

written out so that the literate would have access to them and display them in public, characterized by their harshness, death was punishment for most criminal offenses

Draco’s law on homicide

distinguishes between murder and manslaughter

Solon

Athenian Statesman, lawmaker and poet, applauded for his common sense and moderation, created a new class structure and produced a new law code, often credited with laying the foundations for Athenian democracy

Solon’s new class structure and law code

opened the ekklesia to all Athenian citizens, ended debt slavery, citizens could bring lawsuits on behalf of others and seek appeals

Sources of Roman Law

The twelve tables, Praetorian Edict, Jurists, Ius, the emperor, statutes

The twelve tables

established c. 450 BCE, poorly preserved (mostly in quotations), hard to tell what they were even about, positively laconic

Praetorian Edict

Urban praetor is responsible for most of Roman civil law, second in precedent only to the consuls, didn’t necessarily know anything about the law, jurists knew things for him, wouldn’t create law but would determine how it would be applied

Jurists as sources of law

professional lawyers, the only people in the whole system who necessarily know anything about the law, offered opinions on legal interpretation

Schools of law

There seem to have been two major schools but we have no idea how they differed, Proculian and Sabinian

Ius as a source of law

old unwritten law, sometimes translated as “right“

The emperor as a source of law

emperors rarely initiated legal questions but mostly responded

statutes

not terribly related to civil law, aggressively literal

Major Principles of Private Roman Law

family and inheritance, property, commerce, litigation,

Family and inheritance principles

People are either sui iuris or alieni iuris (under one’s own or another’s power), paterfamilias has power of life and death over family members and can give people under his power an allowance

property principle

Can have ownership of something from the beginning, by holding it for a period of time, or by acquiring it from whoever had it before, people seemed to have argued a lot about property with their neighbors

commerce principles

Loans could be made by stipulatio or by mutuum, but mutuum didn’t allow for interest, investments could be secured by personal security (a third party promises by stipulatio that a borrower will pay) or real security (a property is put forth)

litigation principles

The defendant gets a say in the formula, so to get the praetor to give one, you’ve got to catch the guy, Praetor then puts together a formula, which is basically an if/then statement on question of law, Judge then decides questions of fact

Hesiod’s five ages

golden, silver, bronze, heroic, and iron

Golden Age

age of plenty and peace, earth provided everything, no rivalries, people didn’t age

silver age

People lived as children for 100 years, mature and then are in pain; destroyed by Zeus

Bronze age

people were fierce and warlike; destroyed by Zeus

Heroic Age

Heroes also inclined towards war, die, but have a happy afterlife

iron age

toil and hardship; everyone works harder/competes to be more successful than those around them

archaeological remains of commerce

pottery, coins, shipwrecks

archaeological remains of agriculture

bioarchaeology

The Mediterranean triad

comprised of grains, olives/olive oil, grapes and wine, would have been stored and transported in amphorae, traded and transported throughout the history of the Mediterranean

Greek Agriculture

bad soil and little arable land, dependent on imports and trade, Greek colonies throughout the Mediterranean

Roman Agriculture

plenty of arable land, in early Republic many smaller farmers, Latifundia: huge commercial estates formed in the Roman Empire

Early barter economies

cattle and tools are exchanges for other goods before coinage

coinage

comes into its own around the 7th c. BCE but value is predicated on the value of the metal itself, also used as propaganda

Numismatics

the study of coins

archaeological evidence for Roman Slavery

it can be extremely difficult to tell enslaved from free, one of the best proofs of ubiquity of slavery is the number of monuments for freedmen

legal sources for roman slavery

According to Gaius, slavery was not part of Roman private law but simply the way of the world, barely attested the Twelve Tables, appears in later legal writing, but many sources are highly theoretical

Literary evidence of slavery: nonfiction

no surviving literary accounts, get some information from histories, some from biographies, some from legal sources, even in accounts that offer significant information, questions of reliability remain, best information is from texts that focus least on slavery

literary evidence of slavery: fiction

slavery is not a major topic, the issue of perspective is even more present and reality can be hard to determine, there are a handful of influential characters

numbers of slaves

estimates range wildly, but are consistently below the numbers we have for the American south in the antebellum period

sources of slaves

war captives, exposed infants, debt bondage, “voluntary” slavery, kidnapping and piracy, foreign slaves, and births to enslaved mothers

-in, -ine

chemical substance

-itis

inflammation of, inflammatory disease of

-meter

a device for measuring

-logist

one who studies

-logy

study of

-oma

diseased condition, result of

-osis

diseased condition of

-path

one who suffers from a disease of

-pathy

disease of

rrhea

abnormal discharge of

-therapy

treatment of or by

-tomy

surgical operation of or by

artht-

joint

cardi-

heart

cephal-

head, skull, brain

chlor-

light green

cirrh-

yellow, tawny

dendr-

tree

enter-

intestine

hydr-

water

hyster-

uterus

leuc-

white

mast-

breast

melan-

black, dark

my-, us-, myos-

muscle

myc-, mycet-

fungus, mould

nephr-

kidney

neur-

nerve

ophthalm-

eye

oste-

bone

ot-

ear

phleb-

vein

psych-

mind

sthen-

strength

tachy-

swift

tach-

speed

tox-

poison

xanth-

yellow

antenatal

before birth

anterior

near the front

atrium

one of the two upper chambers of the heart

biped

two-footed animal

cerebral

relating to the brain

dorsal

of, on, or near the front

femur

thigh