Intro to Greek Civilizations - Midterm #2

Sophocles

The guy who wrote the Antigone. He lived to be about 90 years old. He seemed to have been allowed to put on plays more than anybody else. The Athenians loved him and he is a fantastic writer.

In his plays he makes all the attachments of the main character end up gone causing them to be alone and isolated having to face a dreadful situation.

Creon

There was only one actor who plays him and he only plays him. His character is on stage almost all the time. Thematically significant. The character becomes increasingly isolated from people as the play goes on.

- Creon is the brother of Jocasta; he is not in the male line of the ruling house (no legitimate claim). He is all there is to rule the city; he is the kurios of Oedipus and Jocasta daughters. Has a son named Haemon, and a wife named Eurydice. He starts making decrees; in effect he is basically a turranos. Creon is denying burial not just to Polyneices but all the men who fought alongside him (hundreds of rotten bodies surrounding the city). Major problem caused by Creon; denying the brother to be buried and he locks up Antigone in a cave as punishment. Creon pollutes the entire city because of the dead bodies. Creon refuses to admit he has caused miasma and in turn he angers the gods.

- He is the main character, his story. Anyone who gets caught trying to bury Polyneices will be executed. Creon did not care that Antigone was family, his responsibility as ruler is more important. He changes Antigone's execution to be death by being locked in a cave. His last decision he gets to make is undoing everything he did. He unburies Antigone and then he buries Polyneices. Creon wants to die at the end; but he doesn't want to do it himself. Creon took his oikos for granted.

Polyneices

A young man old enough to rule. Problem of inheritance with him and his brother Eteocles; "how do you divide kingship?". He was not willing to let his brother have the authority of becoming king and it was vice versa. They decided to take turns being kings. Polyneices went to Argos and then at the end of the year he would return to Thebes and become king (alternating this).

Eteocles is king and Polyneices went to Argos and married a princess and then came back to try and be king early. Eteocles told him to get lost and Polyneices said no and then went to Argos to talk to his father-in-law. The plan was to attack Thebes. Polyneices attacked the city of his birth as an invader, and it didn't matter to him he just wanted to rule. Really bad battle and the two brothers met in combat and killed each other. In the end Thebes had no king.

Not allowed to be buried.

Oedipus

King of Thebes and he was very smart, brave and a good ruler. Married to the queen of Thebes Jocasta; she was the widow of the previous king. Very devoted to each other and they had four children; two sons and two daughters. Ismene, Antigone, Polyneices and Eteocles.

The king and queen discovered they had known each other before they got married; Jocasta was his mom. Upon discovering this Jocasta killed herself by hanging. Oedipus stabbed his eyes with her broaches until he was blind. You cant have a king who has been marked with miasma.

Miasma

It means you are stained/mark the world. A problem with miasma is that it is infectious.

ex. sex with your mom is a bad thing and it correlates with this (Antigone story).

Nomos

Law

Oikos

Oikos is still important as law and tradition.

442/1

Sophocles got to put on his play in this year at the festival of Dionysia.

Antigone

She says that law is not written down; the laws are the traditions, beliefs and values. She says her laws are grounded in the authority of the Gods.

Teenage girl. She wanted help to bury their brother Polyneices. Her sister Ismene did not help because she believed it was more important to obey the authority of the city. Antigone wants to obey the oikos and Ismene the polis. Antigone believes she isn't messing with the city policies or being political, but she is.

Ismene

Sister of Antigone. Rather follow the city laws.

Chorus

Part of the drama that is most tightly close to Dionysus and is most intimately involved with honoring the god. More people in the chorus. For a tragedy there was 15 men performing. There must be fancy choreography and really elaborate costumes; lots of money spent on training them and making costumes. They were always Athenian citizens, doing one of their duties.

Dionysus

One of the most important polis gods. Look to ensure the unity of the citizen body. His theatre in Athens could hold 30,000 people. The festival of Dionysus had been introduced to the Athenians in the 6th century.

Peisistratos

Introduced the city of Dionysia in the 6th century. He wanted the festival to be very prestigious. "A festival that never fell into the hands of the traditional elite". He made the festival for the people.

Polis

The city state.

Tragedy

Performed in the city Dionysia. Involves actors and a chorus like comedy. Performed in the theatre of Dionysus in Athens and performed in honor of Dionysus. It was arranged for three actors for the play; they would double up on roles. Always has plots based in myths and always about the actions of elite people (heroes, kings, queens, princesses, etc.). Problems in the royal oikos are problems for everyone. Tragedies always take place out in public. Women in tragedy are always seen as transgressive from an Athenian perspective.

Thebes

Is northwest of Athens. Enemy of Athens and ruled by a narrow oligarchy and had to spread it to many other communities in its region; Boiotia. Athenian tragedies take place in Thebes more than anywhere else. Traditionally hostile to Athens, but they are not fond of Spartē anymore in 403.

Agrarian

"Economy in the fields". Agriculture was the most important part of economy. It may also include things like trees, forestry, keeping of animals (primarily sheep and goats).

Inhumation

The action or practice of burying the dead; the fact of being buried.

Peiraieus

It was fortified. Walls around this port so that even if they were attacked they could still function.

Prostatēs

The guy who stands up on your behalf "patron". A metics representative. Like a woman having a kurios.

Phaleron

Dedicated almost exclusively to trade. The metics of Athens mostly lived here.

Metics

Free non-citizens. Athens has the largest population of them because of their ports. Athens treated them better than other Greek city states. If you stayed in Athens for more than a month you were a metic. Had to register with the city, had to pay one drakhmai per month. Once you had a prostatēs you were protected, included in religious life, had responsibilities, liable for military services, etc. They could not own land and could not marry a citizen.

Laureion

In the fifth century silver mines were discovered. Athenians made money from this. There used to be a giant statue of Poseidon there. Athens the city owned the mines, and they leased the right to expedite and bring it to private individuals. Predominately enslaved labour. The revenue the Athenians got just from leasing paid for a lot. The city was basically feeding itself. One standard lease (three-year term) could earn 100 talents of silver: 1 Athenian talent equals 6,000 drakhmai, 1 drakhmai is basically a skilled labourer would earn in one day - one lease would earn something in the range of 250 million dollars.

Themistokles

New money made under him because of the ports and the mines, as well as the Delian League.

Kēdeai

It means cared for: take care of a dead family member; strict laws about what to do at funerals, restricting the amount of display a person has at a funeral.

Eros

Greek word for love. Very particular kind of love; desire. Any kind of powerful, physical appetite: could have it for sex, for food or for water when you're thirsty. In the original sense it is the drive of a person's body; makes people move towards a goal. Goal-oriented desire. Eros is at best ambiguous and at worst it is a bad thing.

Core element for Greeks in the fifth century.

An "enchantment" in a way.

Takes away a person’s capacity to make decisions.

Tiresias

The prophet. Makes it clear that Creon can't tell the difference between one important demand and another. He doesn't know what isn't right or wrong. He doesn't bury Polyneices when he should, and he buries Antigone when he shouldn't.

Stasimon

A song the chorus sings.

Haemon

Creon's son. Antigone's fiancé. He tries to talk to his father to persuade him to let him go. He says the people of the city think Creon is doing the wrong thing and Creon gets angry at him. Haemon is upset because it is his fiancé being killed. Chorus tries to implicate that if it had been another person he wouldn't care, but in this case, he would be grumpy because he's going to lose his bride.

Eurydice

Creon's wife. She commits suicide after learning that Haemon and Antigone both killed themselves.

Ekkuklēma

A wheeled device used in ancient Greek plays, that could be rolled out to view, which portrayed a tableaux.

Komos

is a part in a play where the actor and the chorus sing together. Usually, actors don't sing. When there is a tragedy, they are performing for someone who just died etc. In Antigone they perform it as a way for a funeral for Antigone.

Rite of passage

for the Greeks funerals and weddings are rites of passages. Rituals that create and mark a transition from one stage or identity in life to another. Most Greek city states had things that marked adolescents coming of age. Marriage as a rite of passage was all about the bride; focus and object of attention. Brides transition not the grooms. Bride goes from her natal home to her married home. In marriages, people shouted obscenities because it is a fertility ritual.

Natal

family home.

Prodosia

take this very seriously. Eradicates the person who is guilty of this crime.

Epiphany

Dionysus does this when he appears.

Maenads

Female followers of Dionysus. Raging women; enchaining madness. Makes someone smarter and stronger.

Corinth

one of the largest and most important cities of Greece, part of Peloponnesian league.

Melos

was non-aligned during the first ten years of the war. Did have friendship and past ties with Spartē. Has some strategic value. Run by an oligarchy. The Athenians ended up wiping them out. Destroyed in 416-415.

Nikias

opponent of Alkibiades.

30 Tyrants

abolished the boule, the ekklēsia. Made a new council and new laws to govern the courts. Suspended every law and the big thing they did was go after their personal enemies. They went after metics; wealth they had was movable. They would find wealthy metics to murder them and steal their wealth. Supported by a Spartan garrison that was on the acropolis. They were safe to do whatever they wanted. 1500 men were murdered by the 30 tyrants. Lots of people fled, pro-democracy people ended up in Thebes.

Perikles

in some way was the leader of Athens. He was very effective and was able to get people to vote with him.

Alkibiades

the nephew of Perikles. Very wealthy, super elite guy, ambitious, very young in 421 and wanted to establish himself fast in Athenians politics. Keen on war because it was a way to enhance his reputation. In 421-420 he wanted Athens to keep fighting. He wanted to become the next Perikles. Oriented towards the interest of the average Athenian, small own landers. His argument was that war if they win, war is good for most of the population; provides jobs, poor men could work as rowers in the Athenian navy. Alkibiades and Nikias were political opponents. Constantly undermined him.

Sicily

a huge island, directly south of Italy. It had settlements in the eastern part of Greek cities and the western part was African settlements. The Greek city states on Sicily became very big.

Dekeleia

an Attic deme (township) on the east end of Mount Párnis overlooking the Athenian plain. Its traditional friendship with Sparta is traced to the legend of Decelus, the hero for whom the deme was named.

Eleusis

an ancient Greek city and religious center that was a major site of worship for Demeter and Persephone.

Leuktra

a village in ancient Boeotia, Greece, and the site of a famous battle between the Spartans and Thebans in 371 BCE.

Argos

non-aligned during the first ten years of the war. Big, rich and important city state. Treaty with Spartē and friendly dealings with Athens. Turned their back on Spartē and signed a new treaty with Athens.

Syracuse

on the east coast of Sicily.

Aigispotamoi

river; at its mouth was the scene of the decisive battle in 405 BC in which Lysander destroyed the Athenian fleet, ending the Peloponnesian War.

Amnesty

a not remembering. No Athenians could be held accountable between the establishment of the loss of 30 tyrants and the strike of amnesty. Everyone gets a clean slate.

Philip II

Philip II became the ruler of Greece. Ruled differently. Philip was the most powerful and most important and he united all of the tribes after he became king in 359. Messed up stuff in Greece and caused its collapse.

Peace of Nikias

and the Corinthians refused to sign it and instead stayed at war with Athens. The Athenians returned the elite spartan citizens they had captured.

421

there were people who wanted the Athenians to keep fighting.

420

Spartē and Athens were ready to stop fighting. Military losses, attrition etc. were the losses for the Spartans. In Athens the death of Kleon was a big loss. Athens and Spartē wanted a truce, some allies of Spartē did not want to make a truce they wanted to crush Athens (Corinthians and the Boeotians). One year after the singing of the peace of Nikias, the treaty between Argos and Spartē expired. Alkibiades convinced the ekklēsia to exploit the ending of the treaty; stir up trouble. He went himself to Argos and slandered the Spartan ambassador, result was that Argos and Spartē did not sign a new treaty.

419

Athenians sent an army to Argos under the command of Alkibiades. Goes with them to stir up trouble in the city states in the Peloponnesian. Encouraging Argos to start a war with an ally of Spartē. Spartē could not allow a war to start.

418

Spartē declared war on Argos because they could not let a war happen. One big battle at a city state and Spartē won. So Spartē remained in control of the Peloponnese. A consequence of this war that Alkibiades did not like was that Corinth and the Boiotian League was that the relationship between Spartē and these guys was restored. Spartē was at a better position than it had been before at the end of this.

416

At the island Melos something happened. Melos was not aligned during the first ten years for the war, but they had long ties of friendship with Spartē. The Athenians sent a fleet to Melos to try and take it over. Leaders of the fleet went to the leaders of Melos and said either you join, or we destroy you. Melos expected help from Spartē so they told the Athenians they couldn't do anything. Athenians told them the Spartans would do nothing to fight with the Athenians. Melos kept waiting and Sparta never sent help. The Melians surrendered and the Athenians punished them by killing all the men of miliary age were killed, all women and children were sold into slavery and a group of Athenians were sent out to colonize Melos. Melos became part of Athens. Like what the Athenians had been doing at the beginning of the war. People noticed and unrestraint part of aggression from the Athenians.

415

Melos was destroyed. Athenians started thinking about Sicily. Athenians wanted an excuse to get involved with the Greek city states on Sicily. One of their allies on Sicily was in a dispute with another Sicilian city state and they decided let's send a fleet to help our ally. There was a big debate in the ekklēsia about what to do; the two main speakers are Nikias and Alkibiades. Alkibiades was successful in persuading the Athenians in voting to send a fleet to Sicily. Nikias then made a speech about the distance being too great between Athens and Sicily. Said they must send the biggest fleet ever because of Syracuse; crush all opposition. The fleet was under the control of Alkibiades, Nikias and Lamakhos. The fleet was supposed to sail in summer of 415, but two things upset everyone in Athens; the defacing of the Hermai (rep of Hermes; bearded man, with a pillar with an erect phallus (used as boundary markers)) and another religious criminal crime was committed; at a western place in Athens a huge temple of Demeter; some people at a party had enacted the mysteries of Demeter and Kore in front of people who had not been initiated. Everyone became worried about how the Gods would feel about Athens as they were sending people out on the fleet. The Athenians conducted a very aggressive, illegal hunt for the people who did bad stuff; people died and were tortured. The fleet did leave. After they left, someone very prominent was involved in performing the mysteries of Demeter: Alkibiades was impacted in this. Sent a fast ship after the fleet to get Alkibiades to face a atrial for his crimes.

415 cont'd

Alkibiades thought to himself that if he goes back he will die and so during the night he got into a ship and snuck away to Sparta. He started giving them advice about how to deal with Athens and one piece of advice was to put a permanent thing at Dicophyala all the time.
- Mutilation of the herms; seen as a religious slight; seen as the disruption between the gods protecting the city; attempt to undermine the decision of the ekklēsia
- Festival in honor of Demeter and Kore; a mystery cult means its main rituals were secret and you had to be initiated into them; part of initiation was an oath that you would never reveal what went on, almost no idea what happened at those rituals
- Korē - girl or daughter

414

Spartē sent a fleet to support Syracuse, Lamakhos died, and the Athenians were destroyed at Syracuse.

413

Besieged Syracuse . The Athenians fleet was destroyed. Nikias was captured and executed by the Syracusans. All the Athenian men who didn't die were put to work in the quarries and they eventually died to. The big loss was not the ships, but the people. They were trained crews who knew how to fight, but they lost thousands and thousands of fighters. The navy never recovered. Persians got involved and approached Spartē and said they need help if they want to destroy the Athenians (Persians did not want a united Greece). Peloponnesian league built their own fleet with the help of the Persians. Disruption with the Delian league meant that Athens would suffer. They had to bring food from the southeast and northeast. As soon as the Delian league meant that it was harder for them to get food to feed a bunch of people.

411

when the Athenians voted out their democratic constitution and put in the oligarchic thing. They wanted to start with 400 people and expand to 4000.

406

major naval battle between the Delian league and Peloponnesian league. Athenians were victors by they lost a lot of men. After this the Spartans offered a truce and the Athenians rejected it.

405

the decisive battle at Aigispotamoi. The remains of the Athenian fleet were defeated. The Spartans sent a big army into Attieke after this.

404

The Athenians surrendered. The Spartans took over Athens and abolished the democratic constitution and put in place an oligarch constitution. There were 30 men in the oligarchy. The people in charge were all Athenians but were friendly with Spartē.

403

the democrats in exile organised a coup and were able to capture the court. They retook the city and by the summer they had restored the democratic constitution. Those of the 30 tyrants who had not been killed took council the int temple of Demeter in ulussyes. The Athenians laid siege to the thirty tyrants for almost three more years, and they were successful. Spartē intervened essentially as a mediator to help the oligarchs and democrats in Athens draw up a truth. Spartē decide to become more imperialistic. Started to butt heads with Thebes. The Athenians and Thebans aligned together to destroy Spartē.

371

After this time, Spartē ceased to be a major player of the Greeks. Thebes tried to be as big as Sparta once was.

346

Athens and Thebes had been diminish and were no longer the most important. The Macedonians came in. Philip II became the ruler of Greece. Ruled differently. There no city states, there was tribes. Feudal society. Philip was the most powerful and most important and he united all the tribes after he became king in 359. He moved into Greece and worked hard to stir up relationships between the Greek city states. He took over in the north and started coming south. The Athenians tried to get help from Persia, but Philip destroyed Athens and Thebes from 338 and onwards.

Hoplite

middle (income) military

Epikouroi

mercenaries; not strictly Greek people

Psiloi

light army men; basically means bare

Stratēos

general; must be elected

Peltast

lower (income) military

Circumvallation

a military strategy that involved surrounding a city with a wall to starve the city into surrender.

Trireme

ship that has 3 banks of rowers

Hippeis

A force of probably young, aristocratic Spartans, 300-strong, chosen by officers called hippagreta.

Stasis

an episode of civil war within an ancient Greek city-state or polis.

Apotropaic

something that turns away

Xenphon

in 400, he out together an army of 10,000 (mostly Athenian) and went with his army fought on behalf of Cyrus; in Persia Cyrus was trying to make himself king