Greece

Closed society

• Citizenship determined by birth into the society

• Cannot be a citizen without both mother and father being citizens

Open society

• Anyone can become a citizen

• Does not matter if one’s parents were citizens

epinetron

A vase for wool working

Epic poetry

• Long narrative of a hero’s journey

• Homer

Lyric poetry

• Personal emotions, feelings, or reflections of a single speaker

• Musicality, rhythm

• Sappho

Greek and Roman Invective

• Structured rhetorical genre designed to publicly attack, shame, and ruin the reputation of political or personal enemies through harsh, often exaggerated abuse

Funerary Epitaphs

Dedicated to the spirits of the dead

Apollo

God of prophecy, sickness, healing

Chryses

Priest of Apollo, intermediary between gods and mortals

Chryseis

Agamemnon’s ‘trophy’

Briseis

Achilles’ ‘trophy’

Athena

Goddess of weaving, war, reason

Patroclus

Friend of Achilles, homosocial culture

Nestor

Old man, advisor, story teller

Thetis

Sea goddess and mother of Achilles

Calchas

• Primary seer and auger

• Convinces Agamemnon to return Briseis to Achilles

Aeneas

• Son of Aphrodite

• Side of the Trojans

• Founder of Rome

Xenia

Hospitality and male guest friendship

ho pais

boy

he pais

girl

Oikos

• Household, estate, family

• a house, a woman, and an ox for ploughing

• Patriarchal and patrilineal

Oikonomikos

Household management, “economics”

kyrios

• Guardian, lord, master

• father

• All women required to have one as guardian and legal representative; either father, husband, or an other male representative

Hestia

• Hearth

• Perpetuating the Male Family Line

• acceptance of brides

• Incorporation of newborns

• Introduction of new enslaved persons

Gynaikon

• Women’s quarters

• (upstairs or back of the house?)

Andron

• Men’s quarters,

• Symposium (drinking party)

choes

undifferentiated children in early years

partheneion

• Maiden songs

hymenaios

• Wedding songs

• e.g. Wedding songs from Sappho

threnos

• Lamentations for the dead

• e.g. Andromache’s ritual lamentation over Hector

Sappho

• Female poet in ancient Greece

• Main evidence: her poems

• Lyric poet (c. 630-570 BCE)

• Influence of Homer

• Mytilene, island of Lesbos

• Born into a wealthy family

• 3 brothers, Charaxos, Larichus, Eurygios

  • Brothers Poem (2014)

• Daughter, Cleïs?

• Exiled to Sicily c. 600

• Out of 10,000 lines, only 650 survive

• Most are fragments (at left)

• Only one complete poem (poem 1, “Ode to Aphrodite”), Saphhos' poem "An Old Age" (lines 9-20). Papyrus from 3 cent. B.C. The exhibit from

Anne Carson

Poet, Classical scholar, and Translator

Parthenos

• unmarried female, girl

• not necessarily ‘virgin’

• no equivalent term for males

• the unmarried goddess: Athena, Artemis, Hestia

Rites of Passage

rituals that mark the transition to adulthood

Artemis

• Goddess of the female procreative cycle, e.g., virginity and childbirth

• Associated w/wilderness, places untouched by human civilization, hunting, wild creatures

Peri Parthenon

• a series of gynecological treatises for doctors

• Addresses ‘problem‘ preventing transition from Parthenos to gyne

Aristotle

contemporary of the Hippocratics, not a doctor but concerned with natural history

Parthenoi

Virgins

Kore

Archaic Greek statue depicting a standing, draped young maiden typically crafted in marble or limestone as a votive offering

e.g. Phrasiclea

Kouros

A statue of a standing nude youth that did not represent any one individual youth but the idea of youth

aidos

• ‘modesty,’ ‘shame’

• veiling and covering the body, downcast gaze, silence

hymn

• a song/poem in praise of a god

• Describes formative moment displaying the god’s specific power

Demeter

• goddess of grain, agriculture

• Loss and return of daughter

• Foundation of cult at Eleusis

Hekate

• goddess of witchcraft, magic, night, ghosts, and crossroads

• Persephone’s companion

Cretan tale

escape from captivity

Demophon

• Child of Celeus and Metanira

• Nursed by the goddess Demeter

• Nectar, ambrosia, and fire → like a god

Persephone

• Daughter of Demeter

• Wife and niece of Hades

• Links transition of females into adulthood with death

Rhea

• grandmother

• reunites with her daughter (Demeter) and escorts Persephone and her to Olympus

Kheir epi karpo

Relic of Bride Capture

hand on wrist

Gyne

woman and wife

Mêter

mother (Demeter)

Pandora

• The First Greek Woman

• Punishment of men

• she who “receives all gifts” or “gives all gifts”

• A “beautiful evil”

Prometheus

a Titan, sympathetic to humans

kalon kakon

beautiful evil

Semonides

• Greek poet

• Part 1 (1-94) describes 10 women, 7 animals, 2 elements

• Culminates with bee

• Part 2 (95-end) evil women in general

long-bristled sow

• poor housekeeper

• filthy

• unbathed

• ‘grows fat’

vixen (fox)

• moody

• know-it-all

bitch

• busybody

• always yapping

earth

• ignorant

• gluttonous

sea

• emotionally volatile

• calm yields to storm

ash-gray ass (donkey)

• stubborn

• eats

ferret

• sex-crazed and infectious

• theft

proud mare with a long mane

• lazy

• cold

• vain

monkey

• no neck

• no butt

• ‘knows every trick and twist’

bee

• causes his property to grow and increase

• grows old with a husband whom she loves and who loves her

• mother of a handsome and reputable family

• stands out among all women, and a godlike beauty plays about her

• takes no pleasure in sitting among women in places where they tell stories about love

• Women like her are the best and most sensible

Antinous, Eurymachus + others

• Suitors

• “have no brains”

• abuse xenia and Odysseus’ household while he’s away

Eurycleia

elderly, faithful nurse of Telemachus and Odysseus

Eurynome

loyal maid

Melantho

• disloyal maid

• Ridicules the beggar

• frames Penelope’s virtue

nostos

Homecoming

Argus

• Odysseus’ dog

• Loyally waits, recognizes him, then dies

Kleos

fame

polis

city state

Hetaera

• female companion/girlfriend

• highly educated and independent courtesans in ancient greece

• sophisitaction, artistic talents, and intellectual companionship

• could attend symposia , own property, and freedom of movement

• highest paid

Pallakai

• concubines

• typically enslaved women, prisoners of war, or low status foreign women

• kept for sexual and reproductive purposes

• lacked legal marriage rights and social standing though accepted as part of standard in greece

Dowry

• transmission of money and property from a girl’s father to her husband

• Required to be returned upon divorce

• a form of economic empowerment

Xenophon

• historian

• philosophical dialogues

• portraits of Socrates

Ischomachus

The husband who claims to have trained his wife

yoke

• marriage/partnerships

• heavily patriarchal

Citizens

adult free males, born of Athenian father and mother

Thespis

world’s first actor and inventor of tragedy

Satyrs

• woodland spirits and loyal, hedonistic followers of Dionysus

• part male part animal

maenads

female followers of dionysus, bound in mania

Euripides

playwrite of Alcestis and Bacchae

Alcestis

wife who gives her life up in her husband’s place (Admetus)

Admetus

• husband who asks his wife to give up her life in his place

• goes back on all promises

• known for hospitality

Pheres

• father of admetus

• refused to give his life in son’s place

• admonishes him for thinking he must do this

agon

Quarrel between father and son

Eros

god of passionate love, desire, and fertility

Eratosthenes

• murdered when found sleeping with a man’s wife

Oratory

art of public speaking, fundamentally driving democracy, legal systems, and political decision making

Euphiletos

husband who killed his wife’s lover

Sophrosyne

modesty, sexual self-control

Moichos

a citizen man who sleeps with a married, citizen woman

hybris

outrage

Hippolytus

• Stepson of Phaedra and companion of Artemis

• honorable and tries to avoid everything to do with Aphrodite

• hates women

Phaedra

• Stepmother of Hippolytus

• forced by Aphrodite to fall in love with him

• kills herself thinking of protecting her children, then claims he raped her

Theseus

• Father of Hyppolytus and husband of phaedra

• returns to find his wife dead and uses a request to his father Poseidon to kill his son

Amazons

• One-breasted warrior women

• nomadic

• female only community

Agoge

• Attraction Spell

• Designed to attract compel or lead a person to the practitioner

• often inscribed on thin lead tablets and deposited in graves, Wells, or sanctuaries to enlist chthonic powers