ARTES Y U M A N I T I A
through the centuries
ARTES Y U M A N I T I A
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Through the times of ancient Greece and Rome 1200 BC. 476 AD James Allan Evans, Editor
Arts and Humanities Through the Ages: Ancient Greece and Rome (1200 BC – AD 476) James Allan Evans
Project Editor Rebecca Parks
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CATALOGING DATA IN LIBRARY CONGRESS PUBLICATION Arts and Humanities Through the Ages. P. cm. Including references and index. ISBN 0-7876-5695-X (hardcover set: alkaline paper) — ISBN 0-7876-5696-8 (Renaissance Europe: alkaline paper) — ISBN 0-7876-5697-6 (baroque period: alkaline paper) — ISBN 0 -7876-5698-4 (Ancient Egypt: alc. paper) — ISBN 0-7876-5699-2 (Ancient Greece: alc. paper) — ISBN 0-7876-5700-X (Medieval Europe: alc. paper) 1 art – History. 2. Civilization - History. NX440.A787 2004 700'.9 – dc22
2004010243
This title is also available as an eBook. ISBN 0-7876-9384-7 (Set) Contact your Thomson Gale sales representative for ordering information. Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
\ CONTENT
ABOUT THE BOOK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix C O N T R I B U T O R S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . x OVERVIEW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii TIMELINE OF WORLD EVENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv CHAPTER 1: KEY ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN EVENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 OVERVIEW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 TOPICS OF ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN Traditional Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Minoan and Mycenaean architecture . . . . . . . . . 8 Greek Architecture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Etruscan architecture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Roman Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Late Antiquity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture . . . . . 39 IMPORTANT PEOPLE Adriano. . . . . . . . . . . Pausanias. . . . . . . . . . Plutarch. . . . . . . . . . Suetonius. . . . . . . . . . Vitruvian. . . . . . . . . .
GENERAL DESCRIPTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 TOPICS OF DANCE Dance in prehistoric Greece. war dances. . . . . . . . . . . . female choirs. . . . . . . The dithyramb. . . . . . . . . folk dances. . . . . . . . . . . . dance in the theater. . . . Dionysian dance. . . . . . . . Professional dancers. . . . . . Dancing in Rome. . . . . . . . .
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48 52 57 57 60 63 66 69 70
ESSENTIAL PEOPLE Arion. . . . . . . . . . . . Bathilus and Pylades. Memphis . . . . . . . Theodora. . . . . . . .
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DOCUMENTAL SOURCES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 CHAPTER 3: MAJOR FASHION EVENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 OVERVIEW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
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DOCUMENTAL SOURCES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 CHAPTER 2: MAIN DANCE EVENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
FASHION TOPICS Fashion in the Minoan period. . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 Clothing in Classical Greece. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 The cloak . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 Textiles from the Greek and Roman Worlds. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 dress to impress in Greece and Rome. . . . . 102 The clothing of Roman women. . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 The soldier's clothing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109v
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Important people of Alcibiades. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 Constantius II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114 Diogenes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Pindar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Claudius Ptolemy Pythagoras. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . of course . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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229 230 230 231
DOCUMENTAL SOURCES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
DOCUMENTAL SOURCES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
CHAPTER 4: LITERATURE
CHAPTER 6: PHILOSOPHY
IMPORTANT EVENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
IMPORTANT EVENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
VERSION OF DEATH. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
VERSION OF DEATH. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
THEMES OF LITERATURE The era of the Homeric epic. . . . . . . . . . . The Boeotian School of Epic. . . . . . . . . The Age of Poetry. . . . . . . . . . . . Poets for Hire. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Herodotus, the father of history. . . . . . Thucydides. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . History after Thucydides. . . . . . . . . . . . Greek comedy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Greek tragedy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The art of public speaking in Greece. . . Greek Literature after Alexander the Great. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . roman theater. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Latin Poetry Before the Age of Augusta. . . Latin prose writers before the time of Augustus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Golden Age of Latin Literature under Augustus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Latin Literature of the Silver Age. . . . . . Imperial Greek Literature. . . .
THEMES OF PHILOSOPHY Beginnings of Greek philosophy. . . . . . . . Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans. . . . . . . Xenophanes, Heraclitus and Parmenides. . Empedocles, Anaxagoras and the Atomists The Atomic Theory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The sophists. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Socrates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . plato . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Aristotle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Stoics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Other philosophies in the Hellenistic world. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Epicurus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Neoplatonism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Important People Aeschylus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Thucydids . . . . . Virgil . . . . . . . . . .
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122 126 128 131 133 136 137 138 144 154
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175 175 176 177
Important people of Aristotle. . . . . . . . . . epithet . . . . . . . . connoisseur. . . . . . . . plato . . . . . . . . . . . Plotinus. . . . . . . . . such . . . . . . . . . . Zeno of Citium. . . .
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273 275 275 276 277 278 279
DOCUMENTAL SOURCES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280 CHAPTER 7: RELIGION
DOCUMENTAL SOURCES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
IMPORTANT EVENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
CHAPTER 5: MUSIC
VERSION OF DEATH. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
IMPORTANT EVENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
RELIGIOUS TOPICS The religion of Minoan Crete during the Bronze Age. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The first Greeks in mainland Greece The Middle Ages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The gods of Olympus. . . . . . . . . . . Other gods besides the twelve. . . . . The underworld and its inhabitants. . heroes and demigods. . . . . . . . . . . . Heracles, the superhero. . . . . . . . . . Discovering the Will of the Gods: Oracles and Prophecy. . . . . . . . . .
GENERAL DESCRIPTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 MUSIC TOPICS Musical Instruments . . . . Music in Greek Life. . . . musical education. . . . . . Music in Roman life. . . Women in ancient music theory. . . . . . . . .
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MEANINGFUL PEOPLE Aristoxenus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228 vi
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287 291 292 294 307 309 312 314
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Arts and Humanities Through the Ages: Ancient Greece and Rome (1200 BC - 476 AD)
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The Worship of the Gods: Sacrifices and Temples. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The religion of early Rome. . . . . . . . . . The Religion of the Roman Republic. . . The cult of the Roman gods. . . . . . Immigrant religions: the arrival of new cults from the East. . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Rise of Christianity. . . . . . . . . . . . Important people Constantine. . . . . . . Homer. . . . . . . . . In Pompilius. . . São Paulo. . . . . . . . . . Socrates. . . . . . . . . .
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DOCUMENTAL SOURCES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342 CHAPTER 8: THEATER IMPORTANT EVENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346 GENERAL DESCRIPTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349 THEATER THEATER ORIGINS OF THE GREEK THEATER. . . . . . . festivals and theaters. . . . . . . . . Types of Greek Theater. . . . . . . . The beginnings of Roman theater. Roman theater, playwright and actor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Other Types of Roman Theater. .
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Aristophanes understand por race. . . . . . . . . Euripides . . . . . . . Livius Andrônico . Lycoris . . . . . . . . Menander . . . . . . Gneo Nevio . . Nero . . . . . . . . . . Titus Maccius Plautus Quintus Roscius Gallus Seneca el Joven
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351 352 357 366
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Sophocles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382 Terence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382 DOCUMENTAL SOURCES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383 CHAPTER 9: VISUAL ARTS IMPORTANT EVENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386 GENERAL DESCRIPTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390 SUBJECTS OF FINE ART Ceramics in the Bronze Age . . . . . Early pottery from Greece. . . . The government of Athens. . . . . Hellenistic and Roman pottery. . Sculpture in Archaic Greece. . . . Classical sculpture. The Hellenistic Period. . . . . . . . Roman sculpture. . . . . . . . . . . Greek painting. . . . . . . . . . . . . roman painting. . . . . . . . . . . . Photos. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . mosaics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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392 394 397 402 404 410 420 425 429 435 439 444
Call important people. . . . . . . . . . . Hezekiah. . . . . . . . Lysippe . . . . . . . Be loyal. . . . . . . . polygnot . . . . . . Praxiteles . . . . . . . Zeus. . . . . . . . .
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DOCUMENTAL SOURCES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455 GLOSSARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 457 OTHER REFERENCES . . . . . . . . . . . . 475 MEDIA AND ONLINE SOURCES . . . . 483 A ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . 487 CONTENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 489
Arts and Humanities Through the Ages: Ancient Greece and Rome (1200 BC - 476 AD)
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\ ABOUT THE BOOK
SEE THE STORY FROM A DIFFERENT VISION. History classes involve more than just facts about the rise and fall of kings, the conquest of lands and the great battles fought between nations. While these events are fundamental to the study of any period, cultural aspects are of equal value in understanding the development of societies. Different forms of literature, the philosophical ideas developed, and even the type of clothing worn at a particular time provide important clues to a society's values, and when these arts and humanities are studied alongside political and historical events, a fuller picture. is revealed to this society. This interdisciplinary approach to the study of history is at the heart of the Arts and Humanities Through the Eras project. Modeled after its organization after the successful products American Decades, American Eras, and World Eras, this seminal work aims to provide the reader with an in-depth perspective on a specific era in history through the study of nine distinct subjects in the arts and humanities. : • Architecture and design • Dance • Fashion • Literature • Music • Philosophy • Religion • Theater • Plastic Arts
Although treated in separate chapters, connections between these topics are emphasized both in the text and through the use of "see also" references to give the reader a broad perspective on the culture of the time. Readers can learn about the influence of religion on literature; explore the close relationships between dance, music and theatre; and see parallel movements in architecture and the visual arts. The development of each of these areas is discussed in the context of important historical events, allowing the reader to see history from a different angle. This perspective is unique to this reference work. Most history books over a period of time offer only a cursory look at the arts and humanities in order to provide the broadest possible historical treatment. Reference works spanning the arts and humanities tend to cover only one of them, often spanning multiple time periods, making connections between disciplines difficult and limiting the perspective of the discipline's impact in a given era. In Arts and Humanities Through the Ages, each of the nine disciplines is covered in detail in individual chapters, and the focus on one era ensures that the analysis is comprehensive. AUDIENCE AND ORGANIZATION. Arts and Humanities Through the Ages is designed to meet the needs of beginning and intermediate history students. Written by subject matter experts, the material covers a wide range of concepts and masterpieces, but these concepts are built "from the ground up" so that a reader with little or no background can follow along. Technical terms and other definitions appear in both ix
About the book
in the text and glossary, and the background of historical facts is conveyed. The volume's organization facilitates learning at all levels by presenting information in a variety of ways. Each chapter is organized according to the following structure: • Chronology, covering important events in that discipline during that time • Brief description of the development of that discipline during that time • Themes, highlighting the movements, schools of thought and masterpieces that characterized this discipline during that time • Biographies of significant figures in the discipline • Contemporary documentary sources This framework facilitates comparative analysis both across disciplines and between volumes of Arts and Humanities Through the Ages, each covering a different period. In addition, readers can access additional research opportunities by referring to "Additional References" and "Online and Media Sources" at the end of the volume. While every effort has been made to include only online sources associated with institutions such as museums and universities,
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The Sites are subject to change and may become obsolete in the future. PRIMARY DOCUMENTS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. In order to provide the most in-depth perspective possible, Arts and Humanities Through the Ages also includes several primary documents from the period that offer a first-hand account of the culture of the people who lived there. Letters, poems, essays, epitaphs and songs are just a few of the many types of documents contained in this volume, each illuminating an aspect of the discipline in question. The text is enhanced by 150 illustrations, maps, and drawings that add a visual dimension to the learning experience. CONTACT INFORMATION. The editors welcome your comments and suggestions for improving and enhancing the arts and humanities over the centuries. Send your comments or suggestions to: The Editor Arts and Humanities Through the Eras Thomson Gale 27500 Drake Rd. Farmington Hills, MI 48331-3535 Phone: (800) 347-4253
Arts and Humanities Through the Ages: Ancient Greece and Rome (1200 BC - 476 AD)
\ EMPLOYEES
University from 1994 to 1998. At Arizona State, she is the founder and co-director of the Bachelor of Classics program and teaches courses in Ancient Greek and Latin, as well as Classical Mythology, Culture and Literature. She is the recipient of a Whiting Fellowship and an award from the American Philological Association's Women's Classical Caucus. Professor George's research interests range from Greek and Roman theater and Homer to Xenophon and gender studies in antiquity. Her publications include the forthcoming book Prostitutes in Plautus; Articles on Plautus and Aeschylus; and chapters on Ancient Greece and Rome in Mythologies of the World (New York, 2001).
James Allan Evans, editor, received his Ph.D. in Classics from Yale University in 1957 with a minor in Greek and Roman Social and Economic History. He was a Thomas Day Seymour Fellow at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, Greece in 1954–1955 and taught at Wilfrid Laurier University, the University of Texas at Austin, and McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, where he was professor of history. In 1972, he accepted a professorship at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, and taught there until his retirement in 1996. Since his retirement, he has been Visiting Professor of History at the University of Washington, Seattle, and Special Visiting Professor at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, Canada, and Whitehead Visiting Professor at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens. He is the author of A Social and Economic History of an Egyptian Temple in Greco-Roman Egypt (Yale Classical Studies, 17, 1961), Procopius (Twayne, 1972), Herodotus (Twayne, 1982), Herodotus, Explorer of the Past: Three essays (Princeton, 1991), The Age of Justinian: The Circumstances of Imperial Power (Routledge, 1996) and The Empress Theodora: Partner of Justinian (University of Texas Press, 2002). He was also editor of the Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History series (AMS Press) from 1977 to 1996. In 1992 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He is currently writing a book on Byzantine court intrigues and power plays in the Justinian period.
John T. Kirby, Counselor, is Professor of Classics at Purdue University, where he directed the Classics and Comparative Studies programs. His books include The Rhetoric of Cicero's Pro Cluentio (J.C. Gieben 1990), The Comparative Reader (Chancery Press, 1998), Secret of the Muses Retold (University of Chicago Press, 2000), Classical Greek Civilization (Gale Group, 2001), and A Roman Republic and the Empire (Gale Group, 2001). His sites include the popular CORAX site (www.corax.us), a hypersite offering a comprehensive online classical curriculum. His awards and honors include a Morehead Fellowship, an NEH Fellowship, and teaching awards at the departmental, university, state, regional, and national levels.
Lisa Rengo George received her Ph.D. in Classics from Bryn Mawr College in 1997 and has been Assistant Professor of Classics in the Department of Languages and Literature at Arizona State University since 1999. She has been a guest lecturer in Classics at Skidmore
William H. Peck was educated at Ohio State University and Wayne State University. For many years he was curator of ancient art at the Detroit Institute of Arts, where he was responsible for ancient Greek, Roman, Etruscan, Egyptian, and Xi art.
Employees
Close to the east. He has taught art history at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, the University of Michigan, and Wayne State University. He currently teaches at the Detroit College of Creative Studies. His books include Drawings from Ancient Egypt (Thames and Hudson, 1978), The Detroit Institute of Arts: A Brief History (Detroit Institute of Arts), and Splendors of Ancient Egypt (Detroit Institute of Arts). He has published academic and popular scientific articles on Greek and Roman sculpture, as well as Egyptian art and archaeology. He has many years of archaeological experience, resulting in a direct familiarity with ancient architectural techniques. His travels to Europe, North Africa and the Middle East gave him the opportunity to study first-hand the most important monuments in the history of architecture. He was responsible for a series of exhibitions at the Detroit Institute of Arts and also lectured on art and archeology throughout the United States and Canada.
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Nancy Sultan received a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Harvard University in 1991. She joined Illinois Wesleyan College in 1993, where she is Professor and Director of Greek and Roman Studies and Chair of the Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literature. His academic interests are in the areas of Hellenic cultural studies, oral poetics, ethnomusicology and gender studies. Relevant publications include a book, Exile and the Poetics of Loss in Greek Tradition (Rowman and Littlefield, 1999), and several articles on Greek musical traditions: Private Speech, Public Pain: The Power of Women's Laments in Greek Poetry & Tragedy, in Rediscovery of the Muses: Women's Musical Traditions, ed. K. Marshall (Northeastern, 1992), "Women in 'Akritic' Song: The Hero's 'Other' Voice", in The Journal of Modern Greek Studies (1991), and "New Light on the Function of 'Borrowed Notes' in Ancient Greek Music: A Look at Islamic Parallels,” in the Journal of Musicology (1988).
Arts and Humanities Through the Ages: Ancient Greece and Rome (1200 BC - 476 AD)
\ E R A GENERAL SUMMARY
THE BEGINNING. The history of Greece and Rome spans over 2,000 years, from prehistoric Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations to the dawn of the Byzantine Empire, which continued the language and culture of Greece, albeit now in an environment steeped in Christianity. The story is divided into more or less well defined periods. There was the Bronze Age: the age of the Minoan civilization on the island of Crete and the Mycenaean civilization on the mainland. Then, for reasons that modern historians cannot understand, there followed an age of unrest and invasion that affected the entire eastern Mediterranean. The invaders who came to plunder and burn reached as far as Egypt, where Egyptian sources recorded their attacks and called them "sea peoples". In Greece, the years after 1200 BC are marked by destruction and migration. Refugees from Greece made their way to the west coast of Asia Minor and nearby islands, where they established settlements that grew into thriving cities. QUIT AND RECOVERY. What followed the collapse of the Mycenaean civilization was a period known as the "Dark Ages" because little is known about it other than what archaeological remains reveal. However, it was a time when Greece's distinctive political structure developed: the polis, or city-state, an urban center with a defensible citadel called the Acropolis - the name simply means "the city on the hill" - surrounded by the territory of Greece. city State. A large polis like Athens grew through the amalgamation of several small states until the entire region known as Attica became Athenian territory. Another development was the invention of the
Greek alphabet, using letters borrowed from Phoenicia, and still another was the beginning of literature, when storytellers and oral bards wove stories of the gods and the men and women who lived in the Mycenaean period, now part of the Mist. Past. THE ARCHAIC TIME. The "dark ages" easily slipped into the archaic period, which occurred in the 6th century BC. it ended. gave way to the fifth. Poets now wrote their poems and thinkers began to speculate about the nature of the universe. The twelve Ionian cities founded on the west coast of Asia Minor and in the Dodecanese became brilliant centers of Greek culture. In one of them, Miletus, Greek philosophy was born with thinkers such as Thales, Anaximanders and Anaximenes, and in another, Ephesus, the Ionian-style temple of Artemis, was the largest temple in the Greek world. Towards the end of the period, the Greek cities of the eastern Aegean fell under rule, first the Lydian Empire based in Sardis and then the Persians, who ruled in 546 BC. overthrew the last Lydian king, Croesus. Persian power was on the rise, and the historical event that marked the end of the Archaic era and ushered in the Classic period was the invasion of Greece by the Persian Empire in 490-479 BC. and his defeat. THE CLASSIC TIME. The coalition of Greeks that repulsed the Persian offensive was led by Sparta, but it was the Athenian fleet that made victory possible, and Athens entered the classical period with renewed confidence. The government of Athens was democratic and its culture aroused the admiration even of its enemies. and xiii
summary of the era
Athens had many enemies, as it commanded the Aegean with its fleet and, guided by the policy of an imperialist statesman named Pericles, transformed an alliance founded on defense against a new Persian aggression into an empire that paid homage to it. The tribute financed a building program that made Athens the most beautiful city in Greece. The last two decades of the 5th century BC. They were consumed by a war between imperial Athens and an alliance led by Sparta, and Athens lost. The brief golden age was over, though the classical period lasted until Alexander the Great changed the face of the Greek world with a series of campaigns that radically expanded Greece's territory. THE HELLENISTIC AGE. Alexander's conquests marked the beginning of the Hellenistic world. Alexander's generals created kingdoms for themselves and welcomed Greek immigrants. Royal capitals like Antioch, Pergamum, and Alexandria competed with Athens as cultural centers. In Alexandria, the Egyptian kings built a large library and turned it into a center of study for Greek intellectuals. But in the West, Rome was expanding. Its greatest rival, Carthage, was at the end of the 3rd century BC. humiliated. and in the years that followed, the Romans moved into the eastern Mediterranean. The last Hellenistic kingdom to fall to Rome was Egypt, and in 30 B.C. Cleopatra, the last monarch descended from one of Alexander's generals, committed suicide. THE ROMAN REPUBLIC. The history of Rome is divided into two periods: the republican period when there was a
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small town near the mouth of the Tiber to rule the Mediterranean, and the Imperial Age, when emperors ruled a vast region stretching from Britain in the west to Syria and Iraq in the east. The Roman Republic was traditionally founded in 509 BC. founded. when a dynasty of Etruscan kings was expelled and their place taken by elected magistrates called consuls. The republic expanded, first dominating Latium, the Latin-speaking area around Rome, and then extending its rule into Italy and beyond Italy to the countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea. As Rome expanded its government, it expanded its citizenship, until finally in AD 212, long after republican government gave way to emperors, everyone in the Roman Empire became a citizen of Rome. THE ROMAN IMPERIAL AGE. As the empire expanded, the incompetence of the narrow ruling class that dominated the republican government led to its downfall, and in 30 BC. C., Octavius, adopted son of Julius Caesar, became lord of Rome and began to establish a new governmental structure. He retained the insignia of the Republic, but placed power firmly in the hands of the Emperor, or Commander-in-Chief. Octavian adopted the title of Augustus, which was bestowed on his successors, and the empire prospered for over two centuries before the tide turned against him. However, the last emperor in the west did not abdicate until 476 AD, and in the east an emperor continued to rule Constantinople until the Turks conquered the city in 1453.
Arts and Humanities Through the Ages: Ancient Greece and Rome (1200 BC - 476 AD)
\ WORLDWIDE EVENTS TIMELINE By James Allan Evans, Michael S. Allen and Patricia D. Rankine
approx. 2000 BC Greek speakers migrate to Greece. around 1900 BC During the Protopalace period from –c. 1700 BC Minoan civilization in Crete, large palaces are built in several places, mainly Knossos, Mallia and Phaestos. around 1700 BC This is the New Palace period in Crete - c. 1450 BC when the Minoan civilization reaches its peak and ends with further destruction of the palaces. around 1600 BC A new dynasty at Mycenae on mainland Greece began to bury their dead in tombs with rich offerings, and Mycenae gave its name to the civilization now developing on mainland Greece. circa 1450 BC The palace of Knossos in Crete is again inhabited by Greek speakers. around 1450 BC The Mycenaean civilization is at its –c. 1200v altitude; his merchant ships plyed the eastern Mediterranean, reaching Sicily and Italy. approx. 1250 BC The Mycenaean Greeks attack and destroy Troy. around 1200 BC BC Mycenaean palaces fall victim to –c. 1150 BC Incursions by the "sea peoples".
around 1150 BC BC New immigrants appear in Greece. -W. 1000 BC Greece emerges from this period, with the Dorians controlling the eastern Peloponnese, Crete and the southwestern part of Asia Minor, including Rhodes. the Ionians controlled Attica, the island of Euboea, and the west-central coast of Asia Minor, including the coastal island; and the Aeolians controlled Lesbos and part of the northern coast of Asia Minor. 950 BC The vases are decorated with geometric motifs: 700 BC. Swallows with circles, straight lines, meanders, and we find abstract representation in sculpture. This is known as the geometric period. approx. 900 BC Sparta is founded when four Doric Greek villages in the valley of Eurotas, Limnai, Mesoa, Kynosura and Pitane unite into a single settlement. The natives of the region become helots, that is, serfs. 814 BC The Phoenician city of Tire founds Carthage in present-day Tunisia. approx. 800 BC Indian Aryans continue their Ex–c. 550 BC BC Expansion into the Asian subcontinent, settlement west along the Ganges xv
Timeline of world events
Apartment. During this period the first of the Upanishads, the most important mystical and philosophical writings in Hinduism, was written. 798 BC Kingdom of Israel led by Joash wages wars -782 BC with the Aramaic armies of Ben Hadad II recapturing previously lost territories from Hazael of Damascus; Judah, including its capital Jerusalem, also falls to Joash and loses its independence. 776 BC The Olympic Games are established and we have records of the winners from that date to 217 CE 770 BC. The Chou move their capital to Loyang, marking the beginning of the Eastern Chou dynasty. 753 BC According to traditional sources, the city of Rome was founded by Romulus, son of a princess of Alba Longa and the god Mars. approx. 750 BC The Greeks spread out around -550 BC. Mediterranean during this period, establishing colonies in Sicily, southern Italy, southern France, eastern Spain, Libya, the northern Aegean and Black Sea region. 743 BC CE Tiglath-Pileser III. of Assyria launches its first major campaign against the neighboring states to the west and besieges the Urartian allies at Arpad. approx. 740 BC Sparta under King Theopompus c–c. 720 BC Chr asks Messenia, nearly doubling its size and reducing the Messenians to helots. 731 BC CE Revolution breaks out in Babylon; Tiglath-pileser III returns from his campaign in the west to crush him. 722 BC Samaria falls to Assyria; Shalmaneser V is succeeded by his son Sargon II, under whose orders thousands of Israelites are taken captive to Mesopotamia. approx. 720 BC In China, the Hung Kou (Great Ditch) is being built, connecting a tributary of the Huai with the Yellow River. xv
709 BC Chr Sargon II of Assyria sends Merodachbaladan into exile and declares himself king in his place. approx. 700 BC After a long and indecisive siege of Jerusalem, Hezekiah agrees to pay homage to Sennacherib; Sidon and Tire also submit to vassalage under Assyria. Celtic peoples begin to settle in Spain. approx. 681 BC Esarhaddon, son and heir of Sennacherib, quells a rebellion instigated by one of his brothers who murdered his father. Azaradon becomes king of Assyria. 668 BC Ashurbanipal succeeds Esarhaddon as king of Assyria; A patron of Assyrian and Babylonian culture, he compiles a vast library of tablets chronicling literature, history, science and religion. 663 BC Assyria conquers Thebes, defeats Tanouatamon, and ends Ethiopian rule in Egypt. Psamético I becomes pharaoh of the new dynasty; Taking the ancient kingdom of Egypt as a model, the so-called Saite Revival begins, a renaissance in religion, art and literature. approx. 660 BC The Messenians are trying to get rid of -c. 640 BC their Spartan overlords with the help of neighboring Achaia, Elis and Argos. Sparta barely suppressed the revolt and thereafter became a militaristic state to maintain its dominance over its helots. 657 BC Cypselus becomes a "tyrant" (dictator) of Corinth and expels the aristocratic Bacchiad clan that controlled the Corinthian government. The tyranny of Cypselus and his descendants lasts until 580 BC. 642 BC According to tradition, Ancus Martius becomes king of Rome; During his reign, he builds a bridge across the Tiber. approx. 624 BC Draco writes the first written law book of Athens.
Arts and Humanities Through the Ages: Ancient Greece and Rome (1200 BC - 476 AD)
Timeline of world events
approx. 616 BC Tarquinius Priscus, the first in a series of Etruscan rulers, becomes king in Rome; The Cloaca Maxima (a canal through Rome), the Temple of Jupiter Capitoline and the Circus Maximus (an arena for chariot racing) were built under his reign. 611 BC Nabopolassar leads his armies against Harran, where Assuruballit II attempted to rally his Assyrian forces; However, with his Median allies absent, Nabopolassar was unable to capture the Assyrian stronghold. 609 BC The remaining Assyrian armies, allied with Egypt, attempt to recapture Harran, but to no avail. Neko II succeeds Psammetic I in Egypt and directs his armies north to aid Assyria. 608 BC On his march north, Neko II meets Josiah of Judah at Megiddo. Josiah is killed and Judah is conquered, but the Egyptian army is prevented from reaching their Assyrian allies in time to save them from defeat. 597 BC CE Babylonian armies besiege Jerusalem. When it falls, after nearly three months, thousands of Israelites are taken captive to Babylon. 594 BC Solon appointed sole archon to carry out the necessary economic and constitutional reforms and lay the foundations of what would become Athenian democracy. 586 BC Jerusalem falls to Nebuchadnezzar, who destroys the city and takes a second wave of Jewish captives to Babylon. This defeat marks the end of Judah as a nation. 578 BC Rome, under the reign of Servius Tullius, –534 BC Join the Latin League. 560 BC Peisistratus makes the first of three attempts to become tyrant of Athens. 559 BC Cyrus the Great rises to power in Anshan after Persia. approx. 551 BC CE Confucius is born.
approx. 550 BC BC Celtic tribes begin to settle in Ireland, Scotland and England. Lao-tse, traditionally the author of the Tao Te Ching and founder of Taoism, thrives in China. 547 BC Cyrus II, of the Achaemenid royal house of the Persians, who were vassals of the Medes, overthrows the Meded king Astyaages and unites the Medes and Persians under his rule. 547 BC Cyrus, king of Persia, overthrows Croesus, –546 BC. King of Lydia and takes the Greek cities on the coast of Asia Minor into his kingdom. 546 BC Chr Pisistratus finally succeeds in becoming the tyrant of Athens, and when he becomes tyrant in 527 BC. his son Hippias seizes power as tyrant. 539 BC C.E. Cyrus the Great conquers the city of Babylon and the exiled Jews are freed from their captivity. 534 BC C.E. Pesistratus establishes the great festival of the Dionysian city of Athens. Thespis des Deme, that is, of the people, from Icaria wins first prize in the tragedy contest. 533 BC CE Cyrus the Great invades India and demands tribute from Indus Valley cities. According to Herodotus, he establishes the twentieth of the Persian satrapies or provinces in Gandhara. 520 BC The Jewish Temple in Jerusalem is rebuilt - 515 BC. at the insistence of the prophet Haggai. 510 BC A new temple of Apollo is completed at Delphi with the help of a generous donation from the Athenian family of Alcmaeonidae, who thus win the favor of Delphi. Roman tradition dates the exile of Tarquinius Superbus ("Tarquinius the Proud"), the last king of Rome, to this year. Two elected consuls replace the king as the main officials of the Roman state.
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At the request of the oracle of Delphi, Sparta forces the tyrant Hippias to leave Athens. 509 BC The Roman Republic is founded according to traditional stories; Lucius Junius Brutus and Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus (Lucretia's husband) are appointed consuls. On the Capitoline Hill stands the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. 509 BC Under the leadership of Cleisthenes, who died –507 BC. Athens belongs to the Alcmaeonidae family and establishes a democratic form of government based on equality before the law. 508 BC A dithyrambic dancing and singing contest is held in the Dionysian city of Athens, in contrast to the tragedy, which has now become a dramatic performance. approx. 500 BC The Bantu peoples of Africa begin their migrations. Iron is imported into China. West African Nok culture begins to flourish. A rebellion against Persian rule breaks out in Ionia, led by Aristagoras of Miletus, and Athens and Eretria send aid to the rebels. 496 BC Roman dictator Postumius defeats the Latins at the Battle of Lake Regillus. The Latin armies were led by Lars Porsenna in alliance with Tarquinius Superbus, the exiled king of Rome. 494 BC The rebel Ionian fleet is crushed by the Persian navy at the Battle of the Ark and the embers of revolt are quickly extinguished. 490 BC The Athenians, with the help of their small neighbor Plataea, defeat a Persian expeditionary force led by Datis and Artaphrenes at the Battle of Marathon. 480 BC Xerxes I of Persia is defeated by the Greek army at Salamis. Celtic tribes that previously spread across the British Isles in small numbers are now arriving in droves. xviii
479 BC The Persian army led by Mardonius is defeated at the Battle of Plataea and in the same year the Persian fleet is destroyed at the Battle of Mycale. 477 BC The Delian League is formed under Athenian leadership to combat future Persian expansionism. 472 BC Tragic poet Aeschylus produces The Persians, the oldest surviving tragedy. approx. 450 BC Rome receives its first written code, the Law of the Twelve Tables. 449 BC Hostilities with Persia cease, but Athens forces the Delian League allies to continue paying their annual tribute to the League's treasury, which Athens now uses to finance Pericles' building program. 447 BC Work begins on the Temple of Athena Parthenos (the Parthenon) on the Acropolis of Athens. 445 BC Athens makes a thirty-year peace with Sparta, recognizing Spartan hegemony in the Peloponnese, and Athens and Sparta agree not to interfere in each other's spheres of influence. 444 BC Chr Chinese mathematicians calculate the length of the year to be exactly 3651/4 days. 443 BC After ostracism - ten years of exile - 429 BC During the tenure of his last serious political opponent, Thucydides, son of Melesias, Pericles held undisputed power in Athens and was elected year after year to the Committee of Ten Generals. His imperialist policies put Athens on a collision course with Sparta. 437 BC CE Construction of the monumental entrance to the Acropolis of Athens (the "Propylaea") begins and is completed five years later. 432 BC The Parthenon is completed and opened in Athens. 431 BC The Peloponnesian War breaks out between Athens and the Spartan alliance.
Arts and Humanities Through the Ages: Ancient Greece and Rome (1200 BC - 476 AD)
Timeline of world events
Euripides' tragedy Medea is staged in Athens.
his fleet to death for failing to rescue the shipwrecked crews.
430 BC The plague breaks out in Athens and within four years a third of the population dies, including Pericles.
The tragic poets Sophocles and Euripides die in this year.
427 BC Philosopher Plato is born. 425 BC Athenian comedian poet Aristophanes produces his Acharnians, an anti-war comedy that is the first of his surviving works. 421 BC The Fifty Years' Peace, known as the "Peace of Nikias" after the Athenian who negotiated it, is concluded between Athens and Sparta, restoring the status quo ante. Construction begins on the temple known as the Erechtheum on the Athenian Acropolis. 415 BC BC Athens embarks on a major expedition to Sicily, which is completely destroyed two years later. 413 BC In the last phase of the Peloponnese - 404 BC. War, Sparta occupies Decelea in Athenian territory and uses it as a base to devastate Athenian territory and encourage the escape of slaves. Persia grants Sparta subsidies to build a fleet to challenge the Athenian navy. 411 BC Athens introduces an oligarchic government to replace its democracy, but the Athenian army refuses to accept the new constitution and democracy is restored within a year. approx. 410 BC Celtic tribes, later known to the Romans as the Gauls, begin their southward migration across the Alps.
405 BC In Sicily, the Carthaginians conquer Akragas, now Agrigento, and advance to Syracuse. Greek cities unite under Syracuse's tyrant Dionysius I and resist the Carthaginian advance. The Spartan fleet commanded by Lysander captures the Athenian fleet at Aegospotami (River of the Goat). 404 BC Athens surrenders and Sparta takes over the Athenian Empire, except for the Greek cities on the coast of Asia Minor, which are returned to Persia. Sparta controls the cities of its empire by establishing pro-Spartan oligarchic governments within them supported by garrisons under Spartan governors known as harmosts. 403 BC Chr Thrasybulus restores democracy to Athens with the consent of the Spartan king Pausanias. 401 BC After the death of Persian King Darius II, his son Artaxerxes II takes the throne, but his younger brother Cyrus rebels, recruits an army that includes ten thousand Greek mercenaries under the command of a Spartan commander, Clearchus, and advances into the heart of Mesopotamia to Cunaxa where Cyrus died fighting Artaxerxes. The Greek mercenary force, led by the Athenian Xenophon, retreats north to the Black Sea coast. 399 BC Chr Socrates is sentenced to death, accused of corrupting Athenian youth and introducing new gods.
409 BC The Carthaginians launch an offensive into Sicily and destroy the cities of Selinus and Himera.
399 BC 394 BC Sparta resumes the war against Persia for liberation. the Ionian cities, but with limited success.
406 BC BC Athens achieves its last war victory over the Spartan fleet in the Arginusae Islands, but deposes the commanders
396 BC In Italy, after a ten-year war, Rome captures and destroys the city of Veii, further up the Tiber from Rome.
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Timeline of world events
which had blocked Rome's northward expansion.
dominates and continues the war between Thebes and Sparta.
395 B.C. A coalition from Athens, Corinth, Thebes, –387 B.C.E. and Argos, subsidized by Persia, fights against Sparta and in 394 a Spartan fleet off the island of Knidos is defeated by a Persian fleet commanded by the Athenian Conon, who then sails to Athens and rebuilds the fortifications that were later destroyed during the War from the Peloponnese.
Thebes, led by Pelopidas and Epaminondas, intended to unite all Boeotia under their leadership.
That same year, Sparta defeats an anti-Spartan coalition at Coronea and, with signs of a revival of Athenian power, Persia and Sparta resolve their differences. 390 BC The Romans are defeated by invading Gauls led by Brennus at the Battle of Allia. Then the city of Rome is besieged and only the Capitol does not fall. After the conquest of the Gauls, the Latins and Hernicians ended their alliance with Rome. 387 BC In Italy, Rome is sacked by a tribe of Gauls (Celts) who besiege the Capitol and only leave with much loot after receiving a ransom. Athens and Sparta sign a peace mediated by the Persian king for the so-called "Peace of the King" or "Peace of Antalcidas" in honor of the Spartan admiral who was the main negotiator. Persia retains control of the Greek cities in Asia Minor, but guarantees the freedom of the remaining Greek cities. 386 BC CE Plato founds the Academy in Athens, where he will teach for the rest of his life. 382 BC In a surprise attack, Sparta occupied and garrisoned Cadmeia, that is, the acropolis of Thebes. approx. 380 BC In Rome, after the sack of the Gauls, a fortification wall, the so-called Wall of Serbia, is built around the Seven Hills that form the core of the city. 379 v A squadron of young Thebans surprises the Spartan garrison at Cadmeia y xx
377 BC CE Athens establishes a new sixty-member autonomous naval alliance to resist Spartan imperialism. 371 BC Sparta and Athens sign a general peace, but Thebes do not sign it because the terms of the peace would force them to reverse the unification of Boeotia. Therefore, Sparta orders King Cleombrotus, who had an army in Boeotia, to attack Thebes, and the Theban army under Epaminondas inflicts a catastrophic defeat on the Spartans at the Battle of Leuktra. 371 BC Thebes, under the leadership of Pelopidas - 362 BC CE and Epaminondas, is the most important military power in Greece. A Theban army frees Messinia from Spartan control, depriving Sparta of half of its territory. 367 BC The young Aristotle arrives in Athens and becomes a student of the philosopher Plato. He remains a member of Plato's Academy for twenty years until Plato's death. 362 BC Thebes defeats a Spartan-Athenian alliance at the Battle of Mantinea, but the Theban statesman and military genius Epaminondas is killed in battle. 359 BC Philip II becomes king of Macedon after his brother's death. 358 BC In Italy, the Samnites, a warlike Italic people from south-central Italy, extend their territory to the west coast of Italy and form a league. 356 BC To defend against the Huns, China builds its first wall along its borders; Along with others to be built later, it will serve as part of the Great Wall. 347 BC CE Plato dies and is succeeded as director of the Academy by Speusippus, son of Plato's sister.
Arts and Humanities Through the Ages: Ancient Greece and Rome (1200 BC - 476 AD)
Timeline of world events
343 BC In Italy, war—the so-called early Samnites—began in 341 BC. CE War: Outbreak between Rome and the Samnites, an Italic people of south-central Italy, triggered by an alliance of Rome with Capua. The war ends with a peace agreement. 342 BC Aristotle goes to Macedonia to tutor young Alexander the Great, son of King Philip II of Macedon. 340 BC The Latin League, a coalition of cities in –338 BC. Latium allies with Rome, tries to end the alliance, and Rome, with the help of the Samnites, crushes their separatist revolt, dissolving the Latin League and forming separate alliances with each Latin city. 339 BC Chuang-tzu, an important interpreter of the Tao - 329 BC ism and celebrated literary stylist, thrives in China. 338 BC At Chaironeia, Greece, Philip of Macedon defeated the combined armies of Athens and Thebes. Thebes is severely punished; Athens gets easier conditions. 337 BC C.E. League of Corinth founded under the auspices of Philip of Macedon. The League appoints Philip as supreme leader and general, grants autonomy to all cities, and decides to declare war on Persia to end the Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BC. revenge. 336 BC Chr Philip is assassinated and his son Alexander the Great becomes king. 335 BC Thebes rebel against Macedonia upon learning of Philip's death and are defeated by Alexander, who enslaves the citizens of Thebes and destroys the city, saving only the house of the poet Pindar. Aristotle returns to Athens and founds the Lyceum, where he spends the next eighteen years teaching, writing and researching. 334 BC Alexander begins his campaign against the Persian Empire, defeating the Persian satraps of Asia Minor at the Granicus River in May and continuing his victory.
Capture the Greek cities along the coast of Asia Minor and attack east through Caria and Phrygia into Cilicia. He replaces the Persian satraps with Macedonian officials to govern the conquered territory. 333 BC Alexander defeats Persian King Darius III. Codomannus at the Battle of Issus. He rejects a peace offer from Darius and proceeds to conquer Syria. 332 BC After a siege of seven months, Alexander takes the Phoenician city of Tire and advances along the Mediterranean coast to Egypt, where he spends the winter. There he visits the shrine of Zeus Ammon in the Siwa oasis, where he is hailed by the high priest as the son of Zeus. 331 BC Antipater, whom Alexander had left as his lieutenant in Macedonia, suppresses a Spartan rebellion in Greece. Alexander defeats Darius III. at the Battle of Gaugamela, forcing him to flee the battlefield. The Babylonian satrap Mazaeus surrenders and joins Alexander, who confiscates the Persian treasury in Babylonia and Susa. Alexander the Great founds the city of Alexandria in Egypt. 330 BC Alexander captures and burns the Persian ceremonial capital of Persepolis, marking the conclusion of the Panhellenic campaign to avenge Xerxes' invasion of Greece in 480 BC. 330 BC Chr Alexander pursues Darius, who died -329 BC. Prisoner of the satrap Bessus, who catches up with him too late to avoid being assassinated by Bessus, who now assumes the title of king. Alexander proclaims himself successor to the Achaemenid line of Persian kings. One of Alexander's generals, Philotas, is probably inadvertently implicated in an alleged plot against Alexander and is executed; to be on the safe side, too Alexander
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he orders the death of Philotas' father Parmenion, who had served under Alexander's father Philip of Macedon. 329 BC BC Alexander conquers eastern Iran. Bessus is captured and executed. 328 BC Chr Alexander fights in Sogdiana, where he meets and marries Roxane, daughter of a Sogdiana baron. Alexander introduces the ceremonial of the Persian court, including proskynesis, i.e. reverence for the king, which the Macedonians and Greeks in his retinue oppose. 327 BC The so-called "Page Conspiracy" is crushed and Alexander's court historian Callisthenes, Aristotle's nephew, is executed. Alexander advances through modern Afghanistan to India. 327 BC Alexander the Great invades India. –325 BC 326 BC A second war breaks out between Rome and the Samnites in Italy. Alexander defeats the Indian Rajah Porus on the Hydaspes River in northern India and advances until a rebellion on the Hyphasis River forces him to turn back. He makes his way to the mouth of the Indus, where he builds a fleet and embarks part of his army on it, sending it back along the coast to the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, while he leads the bulk of his army. . through the desert regions of Gedrosia and Carmania to Persepolis. 324 BC At Susa, Alexander pursues a plan to create a mixed Macedonian-Persian elite by marrying eighty of his officers to Asiatic women and arranging the marriage of ten thousand of his soldiers to Asiatic women: he himself marries the daughter of Darius III. xiii
After a mutiny in Opis, Alexander reorganizes the empire, giving equal rights to Persians and Macedonians. Currency is standardized across the empire, laying the groundwork for the great economic expansion of the Hellenistic world. 323 BC Alexander dies on the eve of a new expedition in Babylon. Perdiccas, to whom Alexander gave his signet ring on his deathbed, becomes regent and guardian of the kings: Alexander's half-brother Arrhidaeus and Alexander's unborn child: Roxana is pregnant when Alexander dies. Alexander's generals, the so-called Diadochoi (successors), conquer dominions for themselves: Antipater, left to Macedon in Alexander's absence, conquers Macedonia and Greece, Antigonus the One-Eye conquers Phrygia and Lycia, Ptolemy, Egypt and Lysimachus, Thrace, while Eumenes, Alexander's secretary, supports Perdiccas. Upon learning of Alexander's death, Greece attempts to throw off the Macedonian yoke in what is known as the Lamian War, but Antipater crushes the revolt. Athenian democracy is suppressed, anti-Macedonian leaders are assassinated, and Demosthenes commits suicide to avoid capture. 321 BC In the Second Samnite War, Rome suffers a humiliating setback at Caudine Forks, but does not accept defeat. The Via Appia (Via Appia) is being built south of Rome as a supply line for the Roman army. 320 BC In the spring, Perdiccas marches into Egypt with an army to expel Ptolemy, but is killed by his own troops trying to cross the Nile Delta. The Diadochoi hold a conference at Triparadeisos ("Three Parks") in Syria.
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Antipater replaces Perdiccas as guardian of the kings, Ptolemy remains in Egypt, Antigonus the One-Eyed, with Cassander, son of Antipater, in his staff receives command of the Macedonian forces in Asia with the task of eliminating Eumenes, and Seleucus receives the satrapy from Babylon. 317 BC Alexander the Great's mother, Olympias, invades Macedonia with an army from Epirus to defend Alexander IV, son of Alexander and Roxana, and executes Philip Arridae, his wife Eurydice, and a hundred of his supporters. Cassander invades Macedonia to expel Olympias. 317 BC Cassander calls the Aristotelian -307 BC. Philosopher, Demetrius of Phalerum, to govern Athens as his deputy. Expelled by Demetrius Poliorcetes, he goes to Egypt, where he advises Ptolemy on the construction of the Great Library of Alexandria. 316 BC Forced to return to the eastern satrapies, Eumenes fights an indecisive battle at Paraetacene and is subsequently betrayed by Antigonus and executed. 316 BC Antigonus the One-Eyed, now in power –301 BC from Asia after the death of Eumenes and his son Demetrius Poliorcetes (City Siege) make an attempt to conquer Alexander's empire. 312 BC To combat the ambitions of Antigonus the One-Eyed, Ptolemy of Egypt re-establishes Seleucus as satrap of Babylon. The Seleucid dynasty counts this date as the first year of the Seleucid era, still used in the Middle East long after the dynasty's fall. 307 BC Demetrius, son of Antigonus the One-Eyed, attempts to conquer Rhodes; The siege earned him the nickname "Poliorcetes" (Besiegers of the Cities) due to the siege engines he and his engineers designed to break through Rhodes' defenses.
To commemorate their victory, the Rhodians built the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. 304 BC Rome emerges victorious from the long and arduous Second Samnite War and annexes Campania, the region between Rome and Naples, preventing Samnite expansion. 301 BC Lysimachus, Cassander and Seleucus eliminate Antigonus the One-Eyed at the Battle of Ipsos, although Demetrius Poliorcetes escapes. Four Hellenistic kingdoms arise: Macedonia under Cassander, Thrace and Asia Minor under Lysimachus, Egypt and Palestine under Ptolemy, and the heartland of Persia and northern Syria under Seleucus. 298 BC The Third Samnite War breaks out in Italy. Rome faces a coalition of Samnites, Etruscans, Celts, Sabines, Lucans and Umbrians. 297 BC In Macedonia, Cassander dies, and his death is followed by disorder as Pyrrhus of Epirus, Demetrius Poliorcetes, and Cassander's own sons bid for the Macedonian throne. 295 BC In Italy, Rome wins a victory over a coalition of Etruscans and Celts at the Battle of Sentinum, and the Etruscans make a separate peace with Rome. 290 BC Rome makes peace with the Samnites, who must now serve in Rome's army. 286 BC In Greece, Lysimachus adds Macedonia to his kingdom. 285 BC BC Rome secures 282 BC. control of central Italy. Victory over the Celtic tribe of the Senones. 282 BC War breaks out between Rome and the Greek city of Taranto, now Taranto, when Rome invades Taranto's sphere of influence. 281 BC In Asia Minor, Seleucus defeats Lysimachus at the Battle of Corupedion and takes over his kingdom, including Macedon.
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280 BC Tarentum brings Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, with an army of mercenaries to Italy, where he defeats the Romans at the Battle of Heraclea. Seleucus is killed by Ptolemy the Thunderbolt, a renegade son of King Ptolemy I of Egypt. Ptolemy becomes king of Macedon, while Antiochus, son of Seleucus, inherits his father's kingdom in Asia. 279 BC A horde of Celts, also known as Gauls, invades Macedon, defeating and killing Ptolemy the Lightning, leaving Macedon without a king. The Celtic horde advances into Greece, around Thermopylae and on to Delphi, but is stopped by guerrilla resistance from the Aetolian League in northwest Greece. In Italy, Pyrrhus of Epirus inflicts a second defeat on the Romans at Ausculum, where his heavy losses evoke the aphorism "Pyrrhic victory", a victory as costly as defeat. The Roman Senate rejects Pyrrhus' offer of peace. 278 BC Pyrrhic Campaigns against Carthage - 275 BC C.E. Ginians in Sicily serving Greek cities. He forces the Carthaginians back to their fortress of Lilybaeum, modern Marsala, but cannot bear it. His ambition to create a Sicilian kingdom for himself is thwarted by Greek cities. 278 BC A horde of Celts is brought into Asia Minor by Nicomedes of Bithynia, who hopes to use them against Seleucus' heir, Antiochus I, to secure the independence of the kingdom of Bithynia in northwest Asia Minor. The Celts (or Gauls) soon became a threat to Greek Ionia. 275 BC King Antiochus I, son of Seleucus, defeats the Celts in the "Battle of the Elephants", so called because Antiochus employed a corps of elephants in his army, but then Antiochus goes to war with King Ptolemy II of Egypt, Philetaerus, a eunuch whom Lysimachus XXIV
responsible for his treasure in the citadel of Pergamum, but after the death of Lysimachus he acts independently. Pyrrhus returns to Italy with an exhausted army and is defeated by the Romans at Beneventum, after which he returns to Greece. 274 BC After a defeat inflicted on the Celts in the Dardanelles, Antigonus Gonatas, son of Demetrius Poliorcetes, occupies the vacant throne of Macedon, where he will rule the dynasty of the Antigonids until the last king, Perseus, is dethroned by the Romans in 167 BC 272 AD Taranto surrenders to Rome and the Greek cities of southern Italy become allies of Rome. 264 BC The First Punic War begins and pits Carthage against Rome. The two powers fight for control of the colonies on the island of Sicily. 263 BC In Asia Minor, Eumenes I, Philiteer's nephew and successor, inherits the dominion of Pergamum, nominally as governor of King Ptolemy II of Egypt. 260 BC Antiochus II recovers much of the territory - 253 BC. ries in Asia Minor lost by Antiochus I during the Second Syrian War against Ptolemy II of Egypt. Pergamum remains independent. 260 BC BC Rome wins a naval battle for the Carthaginian fleet off Mylae in northeastern Sicily using an iron grappling hook called the Corvus, which allowed the Romans to use boarding tactics effectively against Carthaginian ships. 256 BC The Romans score another naval victory off Cape Ecnomus in southern Sicily, then land in Africa and defeat the Carthaginians. Xantipus, a Spartan mercenary, reorganizes the Carthaginian army and defeats the Romans at the Battle of Tunis the following year, forcing their surrender.
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The Chou dynasty ends in China. At 771 years old, the Chou are the longest dynasty in Chinese history. 251 BC Aratus of Sicyon adds Sicyon to the Achaean Confederacy. He is an aggressive General of the Confederacy and later adds city-states like Megalapolis (235) and Argos (229). 250 BC A rebuilt Roman fleet is victorious at Panormus, modern Palermo, but is defeated the following year at Drepanum, modern Trapani. In Bactria (eastern Iran), the Greeks, whose ancestors were established by Alexander the Great, celebrate their general Diodotus as king. The kingdom lasted for over a century, although in later years it split into two kingdoms under rival kings. 246 BC The Third Syrian War is fought between -241 BC. Ptolemy III (Euergetes) of Egypt and the Seleucid king Seleucus II, who replaced Antiochus II. 241 BC Attalus I succeeds Eumenes I of Pergamum. For refusing to pay tribute to the Galatians, he is given the name Soter ("Saviour"). Under Attalus, Pergamum becomes a major power and is the focus of Roman policy in Greece and Asia Minor. Hamilcar Barca is defeated by the Romans in the islands of the Aegean Sea. The First Punic War ends. 238 BC Carthaginian mercenary insurgents in Sardinia ask Rome for help and force Carthage to cede the island to him. 237 BC Chr Carthage, under the leadership of Hamilcar Barca, begins to expand its empire in Spain. Amílcar Barca is conquering southern and eastern Spain with his 10-year-old son Aníbal. New Punic outposts in the region challenge Roman hegemony. 232 BC Chr Ashoka, the Buddhist monarch of the Maurya Empire in India, dies.
227 BC BC Rome united Sardinia with Corsica to form its second province. 226 BC Chr Hasdrubal, successor to his father-in-law by Hamilcar Barca as Carthaginian commander in Spain, makes a treaty with Rome in which he agrees not to expand north of the Ebro, but Rome goes on to forge an alliance with Saguntus south of the Ebro. Antiochus III. (the Great) begins his reign over the Seleucid Kingdom. He extends the dynasty into Armenia and reconquers Parthia and Bactria. 221 BC Hasdrubal is assassinated and Hamilcar Barca's eldest son, Hannibal, becomes Carthaginian commander in Spain. 219 BC Chr Hannibal conquers Saguntum, an ally of Rome. Rome demands that Carthage surrender Sagunto and hand Hannibal over to them, and when Carthage refuses, they declare war. 218 BC BC The Second Punic War begins. Hannibal crosses the Pyrenees, marches through southern France and the Alps into Italy with 50,000 men, 9,000 horsemen and 37 war elephants. In autumn he defeats the consul Publius Cornelius Scipio at Ticinus, at the foot of the Alps. The other consul joins Scipio and both are defeated at the river Trebia in December. 217 BC Hannibal defeats the consul Gaius Flaminius at Lake Trasimene. Quintus Fabius Maximus is appointed dictator for a period of six months, avoiding battle with Hannibal. 216 BC At Cannae, Hannibal inflicts a catastrophic defeat on the Romans, led by the Consuls of the Year, prompting Rome to adopt more cautious tactics and avoid combat with Hannibal. 215 BC After Rome's defeat at Cannae, King Philip V of Macedon allies with Hannibal, and to block Philip, Rome allies with Hannibal.
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The Aetolian League and the First Macedonian War between Rome and Macedon begins. In Sicily, Rome's former ally King Hiero of Syracuse dies, and under his successor Syracuse falls to Carthage. Commanded by the consul Marcellus, Rome besieges Syracuse, defending itself with war machines designed by Archimedes, who lives in Syracuse. 214 BC The First Macedonian War begins with Philip V's attack on Messene. Construction of the Great Wall of China begins when smaller, pre-existing boundary walls are connected and strengthened. The purpose of the wall is to prevent the entry of the Hsiung-nu, nomads from northern China (Mongolia). 212 BC Syracuse is conquered and Archimedes is killed in the ensuing sack. Carthage leaves Sicily. 207 BC Chr Hannibal's brother Hasdrubal brings Hannibal reinforcements across the Alps, but is defeated and killed at the Metaurus River in northeastern Italy. 206 BC The Romans under the young Publius Cornelius Scipio gain control of Spain. Hannibal's younger brother Mago leads the Carthaginian fleet from Spain to Genoa to incite the Celts and Ligurians of northern Italy to revolt against Rome. 205 BC Chr Scipio returns from Spain and is elected consul. Philip V of Macedon and Rome sign peace, known as the "Peace of Phoenicia" after Rome withdrew its troops from Greece two years earlier. 204 BC Chr Scipio leads an army into Africa, forcing Carthage to seek peace. Peace talks lead to Hannibal's withdrawal from Italy. 202 BC After the failure of peace talks, a decisive battle ensues between the Roxxvi
the men led by Scipio and the Carthaginians led by Hannibal at Zama, where the Carthaginians are defeated. Rome imposes a huge indemnity as part of the peace terms. 201 BC BC The Second Punic War ends. Carthage signs a treaty with Rome, handing over its navy and territories to Spain. 200 BC King Antiochus III. defeats the army of the Egyptian king Ptolemy V at the battle of Panion and annexes southern Syria and Palestine, which until then belonged to Egypt. Jerusalem now falls under Seleucid rule. After receiving appeals from Pergamum, Rhodes and Athens against the expansionism of Philip V, Rome sends an army and navy to Greece, starting the Second Macedonian War. The volcanic islands of the South Pacific are inhabited by maritime peoples who migrated from Southeast Asia. The Hopewell culture begins to develop in central North America in the states of Ohio and Illinois; This society is characterized by building mounds. 197 BC A Roman army under the command of Titus Quinctius Flamininus advances towards Thessaly and in the Battle of Cynoscephalae defeats Philip V, who is forced to retreat to his own kingdom, paying an indemnity and his entire fleet, except for six abandoned ships. 196 BC At the Isthmian Games, Flamininus proclaims that all Greek cities should be free, and two years later, Roman troops leave Greece. 192 BC War breaks out with Seleucid King Antiochus III. which was decisively defeated two years later at Magnesia, south of Pergamum in Asia Minor. 188 BC The Peace of Apamea kills Antiochus III. harsh conditions, beginning the decline of the Seleucid Empire, and Rome is now master of the eastern Mediterranean.
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around 185 BC The Sungas replaced the Mauryas as the dominant empire in India. Pusyamitra becomes the first Sunga ruler, transforming India from Buddhism to orthodox Hindu. 175 BC Chr Antiochus IV Epiphanes ("God revealed") becomes king of the Seleucid Empire and attempts to stem its decline. His quest to be recognized as divine and to receive sacrifices like a god leads to a rebellion by conservative Jews in Judea, known as the "Maccabean Revolt", named after their leader Judas Maccabeus. 171 BC The Third Macedonian War begins between Rome and Perseus, son of Philip V, king of Macedon. 168 BC After some initial setbacks, Lucius Aemilius defeats Paulus Perseus at the Battle of Pydna. Perseus is captured in Rome and the Macedonian kingdom is dissolved. Polybius of Megalopolis is one of a thousand hostages of the Achaean League who were brought to Rome and while there he is writing his universal history in 39 books. 164 BC The Maccabees rededicate the temple in Jerusalem. The event is celebrated as Hanukkah from this date onwards. Antiochus IV dies. 149 BC A third war breaks out between Rome and Carthage.
Han Wu-ti is the Emperor of China. He is an innovator in education, business and defense. He establishes a public granary in China and innovates chivalry. 136 BC A slave revolt breaks out in Sicily, led by a -132 BC Syrian slave Eunus who is captured after Enna and Tauromenium, two centers of revolt, fall to Rome. It is estimated that twenty thousand slaves will be crucified. 133 BC Chr Attalus III, the last king of Pergamum, dies, leaving his kingdom Rome. Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus is elected tribune (an annual position) and attempts land reform to settle poor Roman citizens on small farms, using the royal treasury of Pergamum to pay the cost of this measure. Gracchus is killed trying to secure his election to a second term as the people's tribune, which his opponents found unconstitutional. 130 BC An anti-Roman revolt in Pergamum, left by its last king to Rome, is suppressed and Pergamum organized as the Roman province of Asia. 129 BC The death of Antiochus VII marked the end of Seleucid power in the eastern region. The Parthians remain the main force east of Babylonia.
146 DC A Roman army under the command of Publius Scipio Aemilianus conquered and destroyed Carthage.
123 BC Gaius Gracchus, younger brother of Tiberius, -122 BC Renews the agrarian reform initiated by Tiberius, but loses voter support when trying to extend citizenship to Rome's allies. When Gracchus' group occupies the Aventine Hill, the Senate declares martial law, Gracchus' followers are killed, and Gracchus allows his slave to kill him.
Rome suppresses an Achaean League rebellion in Greece and destroys the city of Corinth. The territories of the Achaean League are annexed and Rome turns Greece into a Roman province called Achaia.
112 BC Jugurthine's War in Numidia brings -105 BC CE, the incompetence of the Senate government in Rome comes into focus. Jugurtha finally dies in 106 BC. defeated by Mario. and the following year he surrendered to Lucius Cornelius Sulla.
141 BC A period of Jewish independence begins in Judea. Simon Maccabee becomes High Priest following the murder of his brother Jonathan.
113 BC The Cimbri and Germanic migrate from -101 BC. Jutland to Gaul (modern France) and defeats the Roman armies, meeting them three times. There is panic in Rome, and
149 BC In Mace breaks 148 BC. an anti-Roman revolt. don and after its suppression Macedonia becomes 146 v. Chr. a Roman province.
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Marius returns from Africa, is elected consul and remains in power until 100 BC. re-elected in successive consulates. He reforms the Roman army so that it is no longer recruited from large landowners, but from landless proletariat who hope to settle down on small farms when they are demobilized. 102 BC Chr Marius defeated the Germans at Aquae Sextiae (modern Aix-en-Provence) in southern France with his reformed army. circa 100 BC The Belgians, a Gallic people, arrive in Britain. The city of Teotihuacán, 40 kilometers from present-day Mexico City, is becoming a major commercial center; It houses the Pyramid of the Moon and the Pyramid of the Sun, the latter being the largest building in pre-Columbian America. 91 BC A tribune, Marcus Livius Drusus, proposes to revive the Gracchan land reform and extend Roman citizenship to Rome's Italian allies, but is assassinated. 91 BC The assassination of Drusus sparked a -89 BC revolt. Rome's Italian allies, who fought for civil rights and are now bitterly disappointed. They form their own independent federation, and the resulting civil war will not end until Rome grants them citizenship. 88 BC Chr Mithridates VI. attacks the Roman province of Asia and urges the Greeks to revolt against the hated Roman officials and fiscals. Eighty thousand Romans in Asia Minor are killed in the resulting massacre. The Roman Senate places Sulla in charge of the war against Mithridates, but the popular assembly places Marius in charge. Sulla marches his army to Rome, expels Marius' followers, restores the Senate's rule, and then starts the war against Mithridates. 87 BC After Sulla's departure, Marius returns to Rome with his followers, slaughters his political opponents, and is elected consul for the seventh time. xviii
87 BC In Greece, Sulla besieged and conquered -86 BC. Athens, which had supported Mithridates, and after taking it, many Greek works of art are sent to Rome. Plato's Academy closes. 86 BC Chr Marius dies shortly after assuming his seventh consulship. Sulla defeats Mithridates' army at Chaeronea in Greece and again the following year at Orchomenos. 83 BC Chr Sulla returns to Italy and destroys the Marian followers and their allies, the Samnites and Lucanians, the following year at the Battle of the Colline Gate, one of the city gates of Rome. 82 BC Sulla, assuming office as dictator, –79 BC He draws up a list of enemies to kill, including ninety senators and 2,600 knights, then reforms the constitution, placing control of the Roman government in the hands of the Senate, dominated by a close-knit group of ancient Roman families. circa 80 BC Invaders from Central Asia begin to spread into the Indus Valley. Chinese silk is increasingly becoming an important luxury import for wealthy provinces such as Roman Egypt. 79 BC Chr Sila voluntarily renounces the dictatorship and dies a year later. 78 BC After Sulla's death, one of the consuls for the year, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus attempts to reverse Sulla's constitutional reforms, and when he resorts to armed rebellion, the Senate grants one of Sulla's young officers, Gnaeus Pompeius (Pompeius), extraordinary powers suppress it. . 77 BC Pompey convinces the Senate to give him -71 BC a special command to quell a revolt in Spain, led by one of Marius's former officers, Quintus Sertorius, whom Pompey withdraws after Sertorius is betrayed and killed.
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74 BC After war breaks out again with Mithridates VI, king of Pontus, a former supporter of Sulla, Lucius Licinius Lucullus, is sent to suppress him and is initially very successful. 73 BC As a gladiator, Spartacus led a -71 BC rebellion. slaves in Italy. The rebellion is suppressed by Marcus Licinius Crassus, and the remnants of the slave army are disposed of by Pompey, who finds them returning to Italy from Spain. 70 BC Pompey and Crassus, both successful commanders with armies to support them, demand the office of consul and, once the consuls are elected, dismantle Sulla's constitutional reforms. The Roman poet Virgil was born in the city of the Andes, near Mantua, in the province of Gaul Cisalpina. 68 BC Pompey receives an extraordinary order to suppress piracy in the eastern Mediterranean, which he efficiently completes in six months. 66 BC Chr Pompeius is 63 BC. as a replacement for Lucullus. defeats Mithridates, conquers most of Asia Minor, and advances along the Mediterranean coast to the border with Egypt. He takes Jerusalem and enters the Holy of Holies in the Jewish Temple, earning the Jews' hatred. 63 BC Chr Marcus Tullius Cicero, famous as a statesman, orator and author of works on philosophy and politics, is one of the two consuls of the year and during his consulship suppresses a conspiracy led by Lucius Sergius Catiline. 60 BC Chr Pompey, Crassus and Julius Caesar form the so-called "First Triumvirate", an unofficial three-man coalition to further their various political goals. 59 BC With the support of the First Triumvirate, Julius Caesar is elected consul, with an intransigent senator, Bibulus, as a colleague. Caesar fulfills Pompey's political agenda and gains dominance over the city.
provinces of Cisalpine Gaul (Italy north of the Rubicon), Gaul Narbonensis (southern France) and Illyria (present-day Croatia and Serbia) for a period of five years. 58 BC Caesar conquers all of Gaul (present-day France - 51 BC) and twice crosses the English Channel to investigate Britain. 56 BC Chr Julius Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus renew their political coalition and agree that Pompey and Crassus will be consuls for the next year and then receive provincial governors, while Caesar will rule Gaul for another five years. Pompey marries Caesar's daughter Julia to consolidate the alliance. 55 BC Chr Pompey and Crassus are consulted, and then Pompey is appointed governor (proconsul) of Spain for a five-year term, and Crassus of Syria, where he plans to win military laurels by attacking the Parthians. Pompey remains in Rome and rules Spain with legates as his representatives. Britain faces a Roman invasion under Caesar. 52 BC Due to the gang wars in Rome, Pompey is elected consul without peer to maintain law and order and, at the end of his term, is given the government of Spain for another five years. 51 BC Uxellodunum becomes the last city in Gaul to fall to Caesar. End of Roman wars against Gaul. 49 BC The Roman Senate, having refused Caesar's request to attend the consulship in absentia, which would allow him to avoid prosecution for illegal acts during his consulship, decrees that Caesar must relinquish command and instructs Pompey to defend the Republic. the Rubicon River separates the province of Cisalpine Gaul from Italy and runs to Rome while Pompey evacuates Italy to Greece. Instead of following Pompey, Caesar goes to Spain and crushes Pompey's armies in six months.
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48 B.C. BC Caesar defeats Pompey at the Battle of Pharsalus in Greece. Pompey flees to Egypt, where, on the advice of his ministers, who believed this would gain Caesar's favor, he was killed by the boy king Ptolemy XIII. It runs. Caesar comes to Egypt in search of Pompey, where he takes the young princess Cleopatra as his mistress and becomes involved in a war with Ptolemy XIII. and the Alexandrians engage. 47 B.C. Chr Cleopatra gives birth to Julius Caesar's son: Ptolemy Caesar, commonly known as "Caesarion" (little Caesar). After placing Cleopatra on the Egyptian throne, Julius Caesar went to Asia Minor, defeated Pharnaces, son of Mithridates VI and supporter of Pompey, at Zela (Zila, in north-central Turkey) and sent a dispatch to the Roman Senate saying: Veni , vidi, vici ("I came, I saw, I conquered"). Caesar lands in Africa to quell Pompey's supporters who have gathered there in a last-ditch effort to "save the republic". 46 B.C. Chr Caesar crushes Pompeian resistance in Africa at the Battle of Thapsus. Caesar returns to Italy, becomes dictator for ten years, introduces a series of reforms, including the Julian calendar, which sets the year at 365 days with an extra day every four years, and travels to Spain in November to celebrate the resistance of his cited calendar to suppress the sons of Pompey. 45 B.C. At Munda, southeast of Seville, Spain, Caesar defeats the last stand of the Pompeians. 44 B.C. Chr Julius Caesar is assassinated by a cabal of senators led by Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus. Julius Caesar's great-nephew Octavian, whom Caesar had adopted and named as his heir in his will, comes to Rome to receive his inheritance. Dacia burebistas is murdered; his kingdom is divided into several kingdoms. xxx
43 BC The Roman poet Ovid was born at Sulmus, about ninety miles from Rome. The "Second Triumvirate" of Mark Antony, Octavian and Lepidus is formed, and the next day the bandits begin: a list of political enemies is drawn up, including Marcus Tullius Cicero, and they are liquidated. 42 BC Chr Brutus and Cassius, Caesar's assassins, are defeated in two separate battles at Philippi in northern Greece. 41 BC In Tarsus, Asia Minor, Cleopatra, queen of Egypt, meets Mark Antony, who accepts her invitation to spend the winter with her in Alexandria. 37 BC Herod the Great, with Roman support, –34 BC rules Judea. Herod encourages the spread of Hellenism throughout the province, which provokes the opposition of his subjects, especially the Pharisees. 36 B.C. BC Sextus Pompey, the last surviving son of Pompey, is defeated in the naval battle of Naulochus and expelled from southern Italy and Sicily. Octavian demotes Lepidus after taking power. circa 35 BC A writing system is introduced in Guatemala in Central America. 31 BC Octavian defeats Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium. 30 BC Chr Octavian enters Alexandria as a conqueror. Antony has already committed suicide and Cleopatra takes poison to avoid being taken to Rome in triumph. 29 BC Chr Octavio returns to Rome and celebrates a triple triumph. 27 BC Chr Octavio, Julius Caesar's heir, agrees with the Roman Senate to share power with him. Octavian continues to hold the office of consul each year, but can claim to have restored the republic and is bestowed by the Senate with the title "Augustus", the "Honored One", carried by all subsequent emperors.
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23 BC Chr Augustus resigns from the consulate mid-year; thereafter he is consul only twice. Instead, he is given tribunician power (tribunicia potestas), giving him powers previously exercised by a tribune in the republic, including general veto power. 16 BC The provinces of Spain and Gaul date back to 13 BC. EC back. organized under the Roman Emperor Augustus. The emperor divided Hispania Ulterior into Bética (Andalusia) and Lusitania. 14 CE Emperor Augustus dies and is succeeded by his stepson Tiberius. 9 A.D. Wang Mang rules China. As with his pre-23 AD successors, the problems plaguing his rule are economic (resistance by wealthy landowners leading to famine) and military (continued struggle against the Hsiung-nu in the north). around 30 A.D. The crucifixion of the Jewish leader Jesus – c. 33 CE from Nazareth. 37 CE Tiberius dies and is succeeded by Gaius Caligula, whose ancestry traces back to Augustus Caesar through Augustus' daughter Julia. 41 CE Gaius Caligula is assassinated by the Praetorian Guard, who place Caligula's uncle Claudius on the throne. around 45 A.D. St. Paul begins his missionary work to bring Christianity to Gentile communities across Europe. 54 CE Claudius dies, rumor has it, poisoned by his fourth wife, Julia Agrippina, who plans the accession of Nero, her son by a previous marriage, leaving behind Claudius' own son Britannicus. 64 AD Great fire destroys half of Rome. Nero takes the opportunity to build his palace known as the Domus Aurea (Golden House) in the area cleared of the fire. St. Paul is executed in Rome. Under the Roman Empire, persecution of members of the Christian sect begins.
66 CE The "Zealot" party (Jewish nationalists) leads a revolt against Rome in Judea. 68 CE Vindex, governor of Gallia Lugdunensis, rebels and puts forward Servius Sulpicius Galba, governor of Hispania Tarraconensis, as his candidate to replace Nero. The Vindex rebellion is suppressed, but Rome's Senate and Praetorian Guard accept Galba as emperor. Nero escapes and commits suicide. 68 AD After three men, Galba, Otho and Vitel – 69 AD Lius were quickly succeeded, Vespasian, general responsible for suppressing the revolt in Judea, assumes the throne. It remains painfully clear to everyone what the Roman army can do and crush emperors. AD 69 Natives besiege the German town of Colonia Ulpia Traiana (Xanten); Mainz also rebelled. AD 70 Vespasian's son Titus, who took command of the Roman army in Judea, conquers Jerusalem and destroys the Temple. The spoils of Jerusalem are taken to Rome and placed in the new forum of peace that Vespasian is building. 78 EG As governor of Britain, Roman general Gnaeus Iulius Agricola advances towards Scotland. The Saka era begins in India. Many scholars prefer this date to the beginning of the reign of Kaniska, the Buddhist king responsible for protecting the Kushans from Chinese sovereignty. 79 EG Vespasian dies and is succeeded by his son Titus, who has already been named co-emperor. Mount Vesuvius erupts near the Bay of Naples in central Italy, burying Pompeii, Herculaneum and Oplontis in lava and ash. 81 EG After Titus's death, his younger brother Domitian becomes emperor. 96 EG Domitian is murdered by members of his own family, including his wife.
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home. The Roman Senate elects an elderly senator named Marcus Cocceius Nerva to succeed him. AD 97 Faced with the threat of rebellion by the Praetorian Guard, Nerva adopts the governor of Upper Germany, Trajan (Marcus Ulpius Traianus), and names him co-emperor. 98 CE Trajan succeeds Nerva as emperor. w. AD 100 Indonesian traders sail along the African coast, possibly leaving behind settlers in Madagascar. The Funan, a Hindu people originally from Southeast Asia, occupy the Mekong Delta region of present-day Vietnam, as well as parts of Cambodia and Thailand. They trade with India and China. The Anasazi begin to develop their culture in the deserts of southwestern North America. They make baskets, grow corn and build adobe structures. 105 AD Trajan makes a second campaign in AD -106 Dacia and annexes Dacia as a Roman province. AD 117 Trajan dies and on his deathbed adopts Hadrian. 122 AD Hadrian's Wall, a boundary wall dating to -128 AD, is built. from Wallsend-on-Tyne to Bowness-on-Solway to protect Roman Britain from attacks from the north. 138 CE Hadrian dies after adopting Antoninus Pius as his successor, who in turn, at Hadrian's request, adopts Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus. In Dacia there are records of the presence of Moors (or Muslims); They occupy the city of Racari. around AD 150 The Goths migrate to the region north of –c. 200 AD the Black Sea; earlier migrations brought them from southern Scandinavia to the Vistula region. 161 CE Antoninus Pius dies after a long and peaceful reign and is succeeded by Marcus Aurexxxii
lius and Lucius Verus, who was co-emperor until 169 CE 165 CE Seleucea destroyed by Gaius Avidius - 166 CE Cassius of Rome. The fall of the city destroys an important trading center in Babylon; Mesopotamia becomes a Roman protectorate. 166 CE The plague, brought back to Rome by Lucius Verus's troops fighting in the east, sweeps through the empire. The Germanic tribes crossed the Danube border and advanced into the empire as far as northern Italy. 180 AD Marcus Aurelius dies in a camp in Vienna while fighting the barbarian tribes known as the Marcomanni and Quadi on the Danube frontier, and is succeeded by his eighteen-year-old son Commodus. 184 AD The Romans are forced to cede the border in Scotland. The Roman border in Great Britain extends only as far as Hadrian's Wall. The Yellow Turban Rebellion against the Han Dynasty in China begins. The peasant revolt is crushed by Ts'ao Ts'ao in six years. 193 CE The assassination of Commodus is followed by a period of civil war, ending with Septimius Severus' seizure of power. The Siege of Byzantium begins, which lasts about two years. The city supported the rebellion of the general Pescennius Niger against the Roman ruler Septimius Severus. 211 CE Severus dies while campaigning in Britain and is succeeded by his sons Caracalla (co-emperor from 198) and Geta (co-emperor from 209). In the year 210, Caracalla kills Geta. 212 CE Emperor Caracalla extends Roman citizenship to all Roman provincials. 226 AD The Sasanians overthrow the Parthian dynasty in Iran. The Parthian Empire had covered a large expanse stretching
Arts and Humanities Through the Ages: Ancient Greece and Rome (1200 BC - 476 AD)
Timeline of world events
a period from the Iberian Peninsula (east of the Black Sea) to the Persian Gulf. 235 AD The Severan dynasty ends with the assassination of Emperor Alexander Severus, followed by fifty years of military anarchy. 248 AD The Goths invade the Balkan city of Moesia and assassinate the Roman Emperor Gaius Messius Quintus Decius (251); later they sacked Nicaea and Nicomedia and raided the Ionian cities.
305 AD Diocletian and Maximian retire and Galerius becomes Augustus the Greater in the west instead of Diocletian and Constantius Chlorus Augustus the Minor. AD 306 Constantius Chlorus dies in York, Roman Britain, and his troops proclaim his son Constantine Emperor in his father's place. 311 CE Galerius, Augustus in the East, ceases persecution of Christians and soon dies.
249 A.D. To eradicate Christianity, Emperor Decius issues an edict ordering all citizens to make sacrifices to the gods and receive certification that they have done so. The order became extinct after Decius' death in 251 AD.
312 CE Constantine defeats Maxentius, son of Maximian who took control of Italy, at the Milvian Bridge outside Rome. On the eve of the battle, he converted to Christianity and, once in control of Rome, built his first Christian church, the Lateran Basilica.
c. 250 AD The Classic Maya period begins in Mexico and Central America; The dedication of monuments to astrology and mathematics distinguishes this era.
313 CE Constantine and Licinius, now emperors in the East, agree to grant freedom of religion to Christians (the so-called "Edict of Milan").
254 CE Barbarian attacks in Upper Germany cause many Roman troops to withdraw.
The Edict of Tolerance of Christian Worship is adopted in Trier, Germany.
257 AD The Franks, a confederation of Germanic tribes, invade Lower Germany.
317 AD The Eastern Chin Dynasty begins in China. The ruler will eventually succumb to continued attacks from the north.
284 CE Diocletian becomes emperor and reforms the empire's government, making Maximian co-Augustus, ruling the western empire while Diocletian himself rules the east, and later naming Galerius (in the east) and Constantius Chlorus (in the east) as Caesars . in the west).
320 AD Candra Gupta I reigns in India. He controls the center of the country at the time of his death and establishes a power base from the Ganges to the coast of Bengal.
287 AD Marcus Aurelius Mausaeus Carausius, a former Roman admiral, conquers Britain and northern Gaul and proclaims himself Emperor.
324 AD Constantine unites the empire by defeating Licinius the Augustus of the East.
c.301 AD Christianity becomes the official religion of Armenia, making it the oldest Christian civilization. AD 303 Diocletian issues an edict authorizing general persecution of Christians, which Diocletian's successor Galerius continues to carry out vigorously in the east but less vigorously in the west.
Saint Pachomius founds the first cenobitic community in Egypt.
Byzantium becomes the founding site of Constantinople, the Roman capital on the banks of the Danube. 330 AD Constantine inaugurates his new capital, Constantinople, now Istanbul. 337 AD Constantine dies and is succeeded by his three sons Constantine II (337–340), Constantius (337–350) and Constantius II (337–361).
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354 AD Aurelius Augustine (Saint Augustine) is born; becomes one of the most important authors of the early Catholic Church. His works include Confessions (c. 400), De doctrina Christiana (On Christian Doctrine, 397–428), De trinitate (On the Trinity, 400–416), and De civitate Dei (On the City of God, 413–426). . 331 C.E. The reign of the last pagan Emperor Julian - 363 C.E. who is killed during a disastrous expedition against the Persian Empire. 370 AD The Huns expel the Ostrogoths from Ukraine. The Ostrogoths are a division of the Goths who formerly immigrated from Scandinavia to the region south of the Vistula. 378 AD A Roman army led by Emperor Valens is crushed by the Goths at Adrianople in Thrace. 382 CE Emperor Theodosius I establishes the Goths within the empire as federated troops; They are not inducted into the Roman army, but serve their own chiefs as allies (foederati) of the Roman Empire. 395 CE After the death of Emperor Theodosius, the empire is divided between his two sons, with Honorius ruling the west and his older brother Arcadius ruling the east. c.400 AD The first settlers from the islands of Polynesia arrive in Hawaii. Pelagius, the British Christian writer, is active during this period. He spends a few years in Rome, but the political turmoil there takes him to Africa and Palestine; Pelagius' Admonition to Demetrias is credited as the first British literature.
The voyage marks the end of Roman rule in Gaul. 410 AD The city of Rome is conquered and sacked by a horde of Visigoths led by Alaric. Great Britain is abandoned by the Roman Empire. Saxons and other Germanic peoples are becoming more common; Celtic culture is also very widespread. Alaric dies. 429 AD The Vandals invade North Africa and take control of the Roman provinces for the next ten years. 441 AD Attila leading the Huns against the Eastern Roman Empire – 443 AD; They destroy cities like Naissus in Moesia. 451 AD The Huns are defeated in Gaul by a Roman force along with the Visigoths on the Catalan plains. The Council of Chalcedon establishes the doctrine of Diophysitism, the idea that Christ is both human and divine; the council declares that all other doctrines are heresies. Persians defeat Armenians at the Battle of Avarayr. The Zoroastrian faith replaces Christianity as the official religion in this region. AD 476 Odoacer the Germanicus deposes Romulus Augustus in Rome; The Ostrogoths soon establish an empire in Italy. Genseric, king of the Vandals and Alans, who had conquered Rome eleven years earlier, dies the following year. The last Western Roman emperor, Romulus Augustulus, is deposed.
The Olmec civilization ends in Central America.
490 AD The Ostrogoths under their king Theodoric invade Italy and establish the Ostrogoth kingdom, which lasts until 554.
406 CE Germanic Vandals occupy the Rhine area – 407 CE after the Huns drove them west; The nomadic Alans from Russia were also taken into Gaul by the Huns. this example
527 AD Emperor Justinian reigns in Constantine – 565 AD tinople and leads a campaign to reconquer North Africa, Italy and part of Spain for the Empire.
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Chapter One
ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN William H. Peck
IMPORTANT EVENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 OVERVIEW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 TOPICS Traditional Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Minoan and Mycenaean architecture . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Greek Architecture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Etruscan architecture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Roman Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Late Antiquity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture . . . . . . 39 IMPORTANT PEOPLE Adriano. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pausanias. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Plutarch. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Suetonius. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Vitruvian. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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DOCUMENTAL SOURCES. . . . . . . . . . 42
MAIN PAGES AND DOCUMENTS Primary sources are listed in italics
The Ruins of Mycenae (Pausanias explains the history behind the ruins of Mycenae). . . . Pausanias describes the Parthenon (Pausanias explains the historical and mythological significance of the Parthenon decorations). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Urban planning was not just invented by the Greeks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The formation of the architect (Vitruvius describes the formation of a Roman architect). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Emperor Augustus changes the face of Rome (Seutonius comments on the architectural legacy of Emperor Augustus). Nero builds a "Golden House" (Suetonius tells the story of Nero's luxurious palace). . Great Baths (Ancient Commentary on the Greatness of the Public Works of Rome). . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Having been visible to later Greek travelers, it is under construction.
IMPORTANT EVENTS in architecture and design c. 3000 BC The beginning of Hellenic civilization in mainland Greece includes the construction of some of the first structures for domestic and public use. approx. 2000 BC The first attempts at more carefully designed architecture occur in Greece. approx. 2000 BC Inhabitants of Crete are influenced –c. 1600 BC through his contacts with other peoples of the eastern Mediterranean to attempt larger and more complete constructions. approx. 2000 BC Minoan palace culture on Crete – c. 1450 BC Chr flourishes; This architecture is known for the arrangement of buildings around a central courtyard, several levels connected by small staircases and monumental entrances. around 1600 BC The development of the Mycenaean –c. 1200 BC Palace culture spreads across parts of mainland Greece. This architecture is influenced by Minoan palace culture, but has more logical layouts and is built like fortresses. around 1450 BC Cretan palaces destroyed, probably by invaders from mainland Greece. around 1300 BC The “Treasure of Atreus” at Mycenae – c. 1250 BC Chr is built. It is an almost perfectly preserved example of the "Tholos" type of tomb. approx. 1250 BC The Lion Gate of Mycenae, one of the few Mycenaean monuments, the 2nd
around 1100 BC On this date or shortly before, there is a total destruction of palaces and citadels. About four centuries of confusion and poverty followed, later dubbed by some scholars the "Dark Ages" of Greece. approx. 800 BC The first Greek temples are built first - c. 700 BC BC with pre-Doric designs. approx. 580 BC The Temple of Artemis at Corfu and the Temple of Hera at Olympia are built. These temples are the oldest known examples of archaic Doric architecture. approx. 550 BC The Temple of Apollo at Corinth and the Basilica at Paestum are completed. They are the best-known surviving examples of purely Doric-style temples. approx. 490 BC The Temple of Aphaia at Aegina is completed. It is the first temple to combine Doric and Ionic styles. approx. 447 BC The Parthenon in Athens is built. -W. 432 BC It is the best-preserved example of a Doric temple with Ionic elements. approx. 437 BC CE The Propylaea in Athens is built. -W. 432 BC It is one of the few surviving monumental gate buildings. approx. 421 BC The Erechtheum of Athens is con–c. 405 BC structured. It is the only significant temple built entirely in the Ionic style. approx. 350 BC Construction begins on the Epidaurus Theater, one of the best-preserved Greek theaters. approx. 170 BC Construction of the Temple of Olympian Zeus in Athens begins and is not completed until the 2nd century AD. It is one of the most balanced examples of Corinthian-style Doric architecture.
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approx. 150 BC Around this date, the Stoa of Attalus is built, a public meeting place and shop in the Agora of Athens. It is a typical example of a building designed for practical use and commerce. circa 100 BC The Temple of Fortuna Virilis was built in Rome and incorporates elements of Greek and Etruscan design.
c.111 CE Construction of Trajan's Forum, –c. 114 CE, the largest of the imperial forums, takes place during this period. c.113 CE Trajan's Column is dedicated in his forum in Rome. This marks the first pillar, which serves as both a burial place and a commemorative landmark.
circa 40 BC The Tower of the Winds is built in Athens. It is the first truly Roman structure built in Greece.
c.125 A.D. The Pantheon in Rome is built. -W. 128 A.D. It is a fine surviving example of the Roman use of concrete to make domes and rotundas.
circa 27 BC The Pantheon in Rome was begun by Agrippa but not completed until the 2nd century AD under Emperor Hadrian.
c.135 AD Hadrian's villa at Tivoli is completed. It is a rare architectural complex that incorporated the landscape in the design of several buildings.
circa 16 BC The Pont du Gard aqueduct is dated – c. 13 BC structured. It is admired for its functionality in water transport, as well as its architectural features such as its proportional arches and varying heights.
c.211 A.D. The Baths of Caracalla in Rome are -c. Built in 217 AD, one of the best preserved major seaside resorts. It shows the extravagances that architectural projects began to include, such as swimming pools, bathrooms and playrooms.
Maison Carrée was built in Nîmes. It is the best surviving example of the combination of Greek and Etruscan designs used in Augustan architecture.
c.300 AD Diocletian's Palace is built at Spalato, following the architectural decay of Persian designs.
c.64 AD The Golden House of Nero is completed. It brings together all the architectural techniques known at the time, including a revolutionary rotating dome. c.70 AD Rome's Colosseum, an unprecedented four-story structure, is completed. It was created using innovative architectural tools such as arches, columns and mechanical elements such as pulleys and elevators.
c.306 AD The Basilica of Maxentius in Rome is –c. 313 AD built. It is one of the most important monuments of classical antiquity and one of the first Christian monuments in Rome. circa 310 AD Completion of the Basilica of Constantine at Trier in northern Gaul. It is the last of the large civil basilicas built before the style was fully adopted by religious structures.
circa 79 AD The destruction of Pompeii by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius preserves Roman architecture for future generations.
c.312 CE The Arch of Constantine in Rome is -c. Built in 315 AD, it also marks regular use of the Corinthian-Roman style. The arch is also the best-preserved example of a triumphal arch.
c.81 A.D. Completion of the Arch of Titus in Rome. It is the best-preserved example of an entrance arch.
c.532 CE Hagia Sophia in Constantinople is -c. 537 AD built. It is the greatest example of Byzantine architecture.
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OVERVIEW OF ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN THE HERITAGE OF CLASSIC ARCHITECTURE. The architecture of Greece, Etruria and Rome has been one of the most important parts of the western world's heritage since ancient times. The forms and traditions that developed in ancient Greece and its colonies were complemented by the influence of Etruscan traditions through the innovations of Roman architects and engineers. These inspired and shaped the architectural forms of Europe and the United States and all the cultures they touched. The traditions of classical architecture lasted well into the 20th century, only to be partially replaced by the advent of modern building techniques and materials. For many years, the models for banks, train stations and other public buildings were the temples of the Greeks and the baths of the Romans. SOURCES AND EVIDENCE. The sources of knowledge available to modern scholars for studying the architecture of the Greeks, Etruscans and Romans are mainly of four types. The most obvious evidence is the ancient buildings that are still standing in whole or in part, although there are very few structures that fit this category. Examples are the Pantheon in Rome and the Maison Carrée in Nîmes, France. The second material comes from the excavation of ancient sites and remains of destroyed buildings. This evidence provides the additional opportunity to reconstruct some of the appearances of extinct monuments and also provides much of the modern view of domestic architecture, house building and housing. A third source is the writings of a limited number of ancient Greek and Roman authors, who have preserved some descriptions of the appearance of buildings and the construction methods employed or architectural theories. Added to these three sources is the depiction of monuments and buildings on coins and other works of art. This can give you an idea of what long-lost structures look like. 4
CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS. The materials used by ancient architects were generally simple and somewhat limited by the technology of the time. In the beginning, adobe and raw plaster were used, with the addition of wood as a covering material. The development of stone architecture was slow at first, dependent on the metal technology needed to facilitate the removal and finishing of the material. The use of the stone was initially limited to important structures, mainly temples of worship. The main constructive technique consisted of a horizontal element supported by two vertical posts. Even the use of this simple form was limited by the technical possibility of placing stone elements at great heights. As knowledge of the load capacity of stone was better understood, buildings could take on larger dimensions. At the same time, the decoration of buildings progressed as the artistic qualities of architecture developed and changed. Complex architectural elements using arches and vaults and the advanced use of brick and concrete were relatively late innovations mostly made during the Roman Empire period. These advancements allowed for larger structures that could encompass large spaces. MINOAN AND MICAEA CULTURE. The oldest records of structures designed in Greece come from the remains of palaces on the island of Crete built by the Minoan civilization between 1700 BC. and 1200 BC It is necessary to mention them only because they represent an important architectural tradition of distant memory in the Aegean region and represent a stage of development to which later Greek architects would return. The multi-storey complexes of these palaces, with upper floors supported by columns and frescoed walls, achieved a level of functional design and sophistication unrivaled in the ancient world. The Minoans were succeeded by the Mycenaean civilization of mainland Greece, which made significant advances in its final phase (ca. 1400-1100 BC). Solid stone architecture for citadels, temples and tombs became typical, but this tradition did not continue into what is known as the "Dark Ages" of Greece (c. 1200-800 BC). Much of the knowledge about architectural achievements and technical progress was lost and had to be reinvented after almost 400 years. GREEK ARCHITECTURE. The early beginnings of traditional Greek architecture can be traced only very sparsely. These include the excavated remains of a building called the megaron at the Themon site in Aetolia, Greece, dating from around 1000 BC. Terracotta models of similar buildings from two centuries later provide further evidence of the importance
Arts and Humanities Through the Ages: Ancient Greece and Rome (1200 BC - 476 AD)
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The megaron consisted of a single room or hall with an open end and a portico supported by two columns. Buildings of this type were likely more of an official meeting place than a religious building, but the plan anticipates the general plan of later formal temple layouts. At the end of the 7th century BC. The EG The two main arrangements or "orders" of Greek architecture began to develop. The Doric and Ionic Orders take their names from the two Greek dialects commonly spoken on the continent and in Asia Minor. As styles of architecture, Doric developed earlier, but the two orders were used simultaneously throughout Greece and in the colonies. The plan of the temples of this period was still a simple plan, consisting of an elongated room with a portico supported by columns. Some relief carvings were added and statues of cult deities were evident. Around 600 BC The emerging form of the Greek temple can be traced to the remains of the Temple of Hera at Olympia. This temple is also clear evidence of the transition from wooden to stone architecture. In the early 6th century, around 570, the formal elements of arrangement and decoration were standardized. The result, exemplified by the Temple of Zeus, also at Olympia, was an example of logical and impressive design. After the destruction of the Acropolis of Athens by the Persians in the early 5th century, the Parthenon was built between 447 and 439. It is dedicated to Athens and is considered the epitome of classical architecture and the culmination of an architectural development that transformed simple functional buildings into impressive, artistically implemented monuments. The architecture of the Hellenistic period (330-146 BC) used variations and elaborations on the forms developed from the classical architecture of the 5th and 4th centuries, but maintained standards of proportion and design, striving for a more dramatic and impressive effect. ETRUSQUE ARCHITECTURE. Etruscan architecture began to develop at about the same time as early Greek architecture. The Etruscans were mainly in contact with the Greeks in northwest Italy and shaped the Romans. The evidence of Etruscan architecture mainly consists of the remains of their temples and tombs. The tomb used to be an underground chamber or chambers, sometimes marked by a tomb or mound. The typical form of the temple contained a chamber with a deep porch, usually raised on a platform with steps leading there. Much of the surviving decoration of Etruscan temples was made from molded and painted terracotta, rather than the carved stone favored by the Greeks. Etruscan forms such as the elevated temple
and the round tombs influenced the architecture of the Roman period that followed. CLASSIC AND BYZANTINE ARCHITECTURE. The Romans continued in many ways the traditions of Greek architects, but they were also influenced by the Etruscans. The unique innovations of the Romans were the more widespread use of the arch and the development of the vault and dome. These forms were made possible through the use of construction techniques that involved the use of concrete, a material considered natural in modern times but not widely used until the end of the Roman Republic. The theaters, arenas, bridges, baths and aqueducts of the Romans represent an era of technological advancement almost unparalleled in world history. Advances in engineering and construction techniques made during the late Roman Republic and early Empire continued after Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire. This was particularly evident in the use of the basilica form, originally a profane type of administrative building, for the architectural design of the church, but also in the use of vaulting and vaulting techniques in the construction of increasingly elaborate church forms. When Emperor Constantine moved the capital to Constantinople, the state encouraged the development of monumental structures dedicated to the new religion. UNIVERSITY DEGREE. Classical world architecture began simply to meet basic human needs. It was based on practical considerations and constrained by limited technical capabilities. Its evolution at home and in the Greek colonies stretches back over 700 years in the development of a style that continues to inspire today. The complexity of architectural production among the Romans remains one of the great construction achievements of history, culminating in the religious architecture of the Byzantine Empire. This evolution of architectural form spanned a period of approximately 1,500 years, a period during which much of the enduring vocabulary of Western architectural design was invented and refined.
TOPICS in Architecture and Design SOURCES OF SURVIVING THE LOSS OF EVIDENCE. The architecture of ancient Greece and Rome never completely disappeared. Many
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architecture and design
Examples of buildings or their remains have always been visible or easily rediscovered, particularly in mainland Greece and Italy. However, traces of classical antiquity can be found in the countries of the Mediterranean, Aegean, North Africa and the Middle East. These vestiges were not always respected and preserved. It is evident that old buildings have been repurposed for purposes other than those originally intended, often requiring structural or decorative changes. For example, in Syracuse, Sicily, one can see the original pillars of a temple embedded in the wall of the later church that occupied the original site. Marble and sandstone could very well be reused and limestone was often burned because of the lime it contained. Decorative columns were removed and used in later churches and mosques. Metal fittings and other decorative elements were regularly removed from buildings to be cast. Many dedicatory inscriptions in metal letters have disappeared as a result of this practice. THE REDISCOVERY IN THE RENAISSANCE. In the late 14th century, artists and architects, particularly in cities across Italy, including Rome and Florence, began to take an interest in the art and architecture around them. It was an important part of the general awakening or "renaissance" of interest in classical antiquity at the time, encompassing all aspects of ancient learning. Scholars, artists, and architects began to study ancient remains, study and copy surviving decorations, and analyze the proportions of monuments. The result of this newly developed field of study was an attempt to imitate the art and architecture of antiquity, considered the exemplary and consummate art of its time. Vitruvius' writings were taken very seriously as guides to the proper application of the rules of ancient architecture, despite the fact that his work was limited to a brief period of history by his own time and experience. However, renewed interest in classical architecture was mostly limited to Roman rather than Greek examples, due to the nature of the available remains. It was not a simple copy of Roman buildings, but an attempt to understand elements, systems of proportion and decorative means to use them appropriately for their own time. Architects such as Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446) and Michelozzo Michelozzi (c. 1396–1472) were among the leaders and innovators of the newly developed style, but it was artist-architects such as Bramante, Michelangelo and Palladio who reached their peak. higher expressions. 6
THE CLASSIC RENAISSANCE. Italy's Renaissance architecture had a significant influence on later developments in France and England, but the discovery and excavation of ancient remains, such as the buried city of Pompeii in the mid-18th century, has also sparked renewed interest in ancient architecture. The ancient monuments of Athens were also studied and published, as were the structures of Palmyra, a city in the Syrian desert. The Pantheon in Paris, designed by Jacques Germain Soufflot (1709-1780) and inspired by ancient Roman buildings in Rome, is a good example of this renewed interest. Many products of this reuse of old principles and ideas can be found across Europe. A prominent example is the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, designed by Karl Gotfried Langhans (1733–1808) and built in the late 18th century. It was clearly inspired by a structure in Athens, although some details have been changed. One of the most prominent names for the classical revival in America is Thomas Jefferson. Believing that Roman architecture was best suited for large buildings in the new American republic, he applied his first-hand knowledge of ancient remains and his theories to numerous projects, including the Virginia State Capitol. Greek forms were also used by other architects in the young country, such as the Bank of the United States project in Philadelphia. Architect William Strickland (1787–1854) used the Parthenon in Athens as a model and inspiration. The ideals of classical architecture have survived almost to this day. Many important buildings were designed with models from ancient Greece and Rome in mind. This is such an integral part of the development of American architecture that it almost goes unnoticed today because the forms are so familiar to us. EXISTING BUILDINGS. Architectural remains from the Greek and Roman worlds survive in various states of preservation in various locations around the Mediterranean. Some Roman examples, such as the Maison Carrée in Nîmes, France, opened in the early 1st century, or the Pantheon in Rome, largely a 2nd century structure, still stand as they were built in antiquity. These testify to the construction method with which they were built, but also to the esteem in which they were later used as Christian churches. On the contrary, the most important monuments such as the Parthenon of the Acropolis of Athens were not so well treated and are testament to this neglect. The Parthenon was used as a church, mosque and later as a gunpowder depot. It was partially destroyed when a munitions store explosion destroyed much of one side of the structure in 1687. In addition to this accident, it may be
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one of the best preserved Greek temples in the modern world. Not many examples of Greek and Roman architecture survive, although there are many lesser-known remains outside Greece and Italy that contribute to modern knowledge. SURVIVING GREEK ARCHITECTURE. The ancient buildings of Greece are justifiably famous and include some examples such as the Parthenon with the complex of buildings on the Athenian Acropolis and the temple called Theseus, also in Athens, which give modern scholars an idea of what ancient Greece looked like. buildings. Remains of structures in various stages of preservation can be found across the country. For some monuments, such as the great temple of Olympias, the appearance of the building was determined only by site excavation, extensive studies, and paper reconstructions. In others, where perhaps only a few columns remain, the plan of the structure can still be determined from the remains of the stone foundations. The most significant examples of Greek architecture outside mainland Greece can be found in southern Italy, Sicily and the west coast of Turkey (Eastern Greece). For studying the development of early Greek architecture, temples at Paestum, south of Naples, and at various sites on the island of Sicily, including Selinut and Agrigento, provide essential supplementary evidence. Coincidentally, these more complete or reconstructable examples exist in the ancient colonies of Greek city-states. When the Greeks colonized southern Italy and Sicily, they brought their architects and artists with them and imported their own art and design traditions. For most of the construction, they simply used local materials. In contrast, the great Temple of Diana at Ephesus, in what is now western Turkey, survives only as a foundation platform; it still provides enough clues to form an idea of what one of the great structures of antiquity must have looked like. ETRUSCANS SURVIVAL
Y
ROMAN ARCHITECT
DOOR. The preserved architecture of the Etruscans is limited to
ited to tombs, thousands of which have been found. Etruscan tombs were usually underground structures containing multiple chambers or rooms. Some of the architectural details incorporated into the decoration suggest that the tombs were intended to imitate the architecture of temples and houses, but few examples of domestic and religious structures actually survive. There are roughly hewn stone city walls that can be dated back to Etruscan times, but the actual style of the buildings can only be reconstructed from excavations. In contrast, evidence of the development of Roman architecture during the Republic
lic and the empire is extensive and a variety of structures survive in whole or in part. In addition to famous buildings like the Pantheon and Maison Carrée, there are many monuments in the city of Rome and on the Italian peninsula that give a vivid picture of the variety of Roman buildings. This includes temples and tombs, palaces and theaters and a variety of public structures including aqueducts, bridges, bathing complexes, markets, administrative buildings and the like. Arguably the best-known examples are the amphitheaters and ceremonial arches exemplified by the Colosseum and Arch of Constantine in Rome. But also the cities of Ostia, the port city of Rome, and the two cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, which were saved from the eruption of Vesuvius, provide considerable evidence of urban planning, design and development. Other evidence also exists outside of Italy. As the Roman Empire grew, colonies undertook building projects that left many examples partially or fully preserved. To name just a few areas, entire ancient cities have been preserved in the North African colonies, unearthed only through excavations. In these places, traces of civic centers, religious and political monuments, residential complexes were found. Across Europe, especially in France and Spain, amphitheaters, bridges and aqueducts are testament to the skill of Roman architects and engineers. LITERARY AND OTHER EVIDENCE. Considerable inscriptional evidence of Greek architecture and construction survives. In this material the architects are named; Mining, material handling, and actual construction contracts are detailed, and wages for the various classes of workers are detailed. Modern scholars are also fortunate that the professional Roman architect Vitruvius Pollio, writing in the time of Emperor Augustus, has left an extensive and detailed discussion of surviving ancient architectural techniques. He was a practicing architect and military engineer with theoretical and practical knowledge. In his work De Architectura (On Architecture) he dealt with numerous subjects, from the types and properties of building materials used during the early Empire to the location of buildings in relation to the natural environment. His point of view was one that looked to classical Greek architecture as an imitative model, but he also left valuable insights into the nature of Etruscan buildings. What he wrote about building methods and materials and the rules of proportion in architectural design is invaluable for understanding ancient architecture. Pliny the Elder (Gaius Plinius Secundus) also wrote about it
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Map showing Ancient Greece and Crete, the cities of Delphi, Thebes, Athens, Corinth, Mycenae, Olympia, Sparta, Troy, Knossos, important monuments, the Parthenon, the Palace of Knossos, the labyrinth of King Minos. XNR PRODUCTIONS, INC. THE GALE GROUP. REPRODUCED WITH PERMISSION.
Uses of Metals and Stones in Architecture in Their Encyclopedic Natural History. Also, many ancient authors or travelers described the buildings they saw. Probably the most important of these was the Greek traveler Pausanias. He left priceless descriptions of what struck him as he visited the important cities of Greece in the second century CE. In addition to inscriptions and literary descriptions, there are numerous examples of buildings or parts of buildings depicted on coins, wall paintings, decorative ceramics and even terracotta models. They often represent structures or monuments that no longer exist and provide supplemental information that can be used to complete our knowledge of ancient architecture. SOURCES
J. J. Pollitt, The Art of Greece, 1400-31 BC. C.: Sources and Documents (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1965). —, The Art of Rome, 753 BC. C.-337 AD C.: Sources and Documents (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1965). 8th
Vitruvius, The Ten Books of Architecture. Trans. Morris Hickey Morgan (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1914).
CULTURAL BACKGROUND OF MINOEAN AND MYCENAIC ARCHITECTURE. Before the classical Greek architectural style flourished on the continent, there were two important periods of development in building that preceded it. The Minoan (c. 2600-1100 BC) and Mycenaean (c. 2800-1100 BC) civilizations thrived on the island of Crete and mainland Greece for nearly 2,000 years. Many of its achievements in art and architecture have been attributed to the Greeks of the 7th and 6th centuries BC. EC unknown. but some memorabilia of their achievements in mythology and epic poetry, such as Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, survive, and some archaeological remains of their structures survive. Minoans are known to moderns.
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A light source at the Minoan Palace of Festus in Crete.
COURTESY OF JAMES ALLAN EVANS.
The scholars with the modern name they were given descended from the mythical King Minos, who in mythology was said to have a great palace at Knossos in Crete. They were an island people and seafarers who traded extensively in the eastern Mediterranean and came into contact with the cultures of Egypt and the Middle East. No doubt they were aware of and may have been influenced by the monumental buildings built by the peoples of Mesopotamia and the Nile Valley. However, fortresses and temples did not play a major role in his construction project. The insularity of the culture offered some protection against invaders and marauders, so the art of fortification and fortification was not particularly developed. The idea of building shrines or temples to the gods was also not very well developed. Therefore, the most important examples of Minoan architecture were the result of a highly developed style of complex palatial design. What is known about the remains of Minoan palace architecture, as evidenced by palaces such as the one at Knossos, has been brought to light through excavations and reconstructions. MINOAN ARCHITECTURE: KNOSSOS. In Crete are the bare remains of simple house plans
The late prehistoric period was discovered, but it was not until the excavation of the Palace of Minos at Knossos by Sir Arthur Evans that the complexity and part of the development of Minoan architecture became known. The palace, probably between 1600 and 1500 BC. C., it is essentially a combined administrative center of government and a royal residence. Arranged around a large central courtyard were dozens of rooms, chambers, small courtyards, halls and storerooms. The labyrinthine arrangement of these elements may even have been the inspiration for the myth of the legendary labyrinth. The building was unusual in that it had several floors and the upper floors were supported by columns. The shape of these architectural elements has been debated, but there is ample evidence that the columns were tapered in a way that was the opposite of the normal shape in later Greek architecture; they were larger at the top and gradually smaller at the bottom. Stairs and light shafts provided access and air circulation to the complex building. The palace walls were decorated with frescoes (painting on wet plaster) and plaster reliefs. Both the complexity of the building, built over a long period of time with many alterations and expansions, as well as the colorful decoration, demonstrate a
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View of the inner courtyard of the Minoan Palace of Phaisto in Crete.
highly developed civilization with considerable wealth and material resources at its disposal. ANOTHER MINOAN ARCHITECTURE. Although the Minoan civilization is best known today from the partially reconstructed ruins of the Palace of Knossos, many other remains of this culture exist on the island of Crete. The most important evidence is found in Festus, Mallia and Hagia Triada. The final phase of construction of the palace in Festo, in the south of the island, is characterized by a more regular plan. While not symmetrical in its layout, it appears to adhere to an almost rectangular grid. One of the most important features of the palace is an open courtyard or peristyle with columns surrounding it. This seems to anticipate one of the main features of the typical Greek house a thousand years later, but it is probably just an example of an interior design solution that could have been developed anywhere. The Palace of Mallia, on the north east coast of Knossos, is characterized by a large courtyard from which many small rooms branch off in a tangled arrangement that does not appear to have been carefully planned. The labyrinth of rooms is believed to have supported an upper floor where the layout of rooms may have been more formal. until the 10th
COURTESY OF JAMES ALLAN EVANS.
In terms of terrain, the small palace (or villa) at Haiga Triada on the south coast was designed in an "L" shape without a central courtyard. This indicates that Minoan period architects adapted to local conditions when designing large administrative buildings and dwellings. MICEAN ARCHITECTURE. Mycenaean cities, named after Mycenae, the most important city on mainland Greece at the time, gave way to a new attitude towards architecture and building. The Mycenaeans were a dominant culture and soon spread from mainland Greece to the Greek islands, overtaking the Minoans of Crete by 1400 BC. and being a continental culture, compact citadels and fortresses protected by massive walls began to be built instead of large sprawling palace complexes. The citadels of Mycenae and Tiryns share many common features, including a clean, compact plan, surrounding walls, and rooms that were used for both administrative and residential purposes. The inner walls were of stone with the tops of sun-dried brick. The internal support columns were made of wood, the floors of plaster or plaster and plaster ornaments, as well as some
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The Lion Gate at Mycenae, Greece, named for the carving in the limestone slab above the lintel, depicting two lions with their feet resting on an altar. © CHRIS HELLIER/CORBIS.
engraved stone. The "megaron" form, essentially a long meeting hall, is an important element in Mycenaean architecture. This general shape is considered by some to be the basis for later Greek temple design. The other great architectural achievement of the Mycenaeans was the tomb of Tholos. Originally considered treasures or deposits of value, they are now considered to be the tombs of Mycenaean rulers. The Tomb of Tholos was a circular underground stone structure with a sharp interior. The stone construction was carried out using the corbel system, with each upper row of stones overlapping or projecting further into space. If a dome or corbel arch is trimmed or cut on a curve, it is virtually impossible to determine that it is not based on an actual arch. The "Treasure of Atreus" at Mycenae (1300-1250 BC) is an excellent example of the tholos type of tomb. It was reached by a straight passage of about 35 meters excavated in the hillside. The main entrance portal was decorated with half columns of green stone, other walls of red stone. These were decorated with
Rattles, chevrons, rosettes and other geometric patterns. The enormous size of some of the stones, in particular one of the lintels estimated at over 100 tonnes, indicates a level of expertise and organizational capacity that allowed for the shaping, moving and manipulation of extraordinary building elements. This ability to work large stones, also seen in citadel building, is linked by some scholars to the work of contemporary Hittites in Asia Minor (present-day Turkey). The remains of a palace have been found at Pylos in the southwest. It is a complex that is somewhat reminiscent of Minoan architecture, with courtyards, rooms, stairs and storage areas. There was an original Megaron, but it's not the focus of the plan. Two construction phases can be seen, with an extension becoming the most important part of the building. In the final phase is a larger and more formal megaron, with a central fireplace and four pillars that once supported a four-sided veranda. This grand audience hall was decorated with frescoes and mosaic floors, richly indicating the wealth and power of the rulers of Pylos.
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THE RUINS OF MYCENA INTRODUCTION:
In the second century CE, the Greek traveler Pausanias, who can only be described as an antiquarian, a person who studies ancient remains, left an account of the sites he saw and attempted to provide historical explanations for them. His descriptions of the monuments of Greece are an invaluable source and reference. He often describes the way the temple area was decorated and gives the names of the artists responsible for the sculpture as well as the architects. His historical explanations of events are sometimes a little fanciful, but they were based on the historical knowledge available to him at the time. For example, his description of the citadel of Mycenae and its gate decorated with lions illustrates the fact that vestiges from a period of Greek history going back more than a thousand years were still visible and were still identified with the people who built them.
It was envy that drove the Argives to destroy Mycenae. For at the time of the Persian invasion the Ar-
THE DARK AGE. The centers of the Mycenaean fortresses were built in the early 11th century BC. destroyed. when the Dorians began to invade Greece. Like any invading culture, the Dorians brought their own cultural styles with them, and Mycenaean and Minoan influences began to be suppressed. Many historians have dubbed this the "Dark Ages" of Greek history, as the Dorians did little to further the cultural aspects of society and architecture, which existed in the 8th and 7th centuries BC. mainly adopted Doric traditions. in this period in the Mycenaean style. When Greek culture in the 5th and 4th centuries BC. By the time BC began building its famous temples and structures, many of the architectural designs of the Mycenaeans and Minoans had been lost, but many were the basic elements of what many scholars consider classical Greek architecture. SOURCES
Reynold Higgins, Minoan and Mycenaean art. Revised edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981). A.W. Lawrence, Greek Architecture. Rev. RA Tomlinson (New York: Penguin Books, 1983): 35-70. SEE TOO
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Religion: The first Greeks on the continent
da made no move, but the Mycenaeans sent eighty men to Thermopylae, who took part in the conquest of the Lacedaemonians. This desire for distinction led to their downfall, angering the Argives. However, parts of the city walls remain, including the lion gate. These are also considered the work of the Cyclopes, who built the Wall of Tiryns for Proetus. In the ruins of Mycenae there is a well called Persea; There are also the underground chambers of Atreus and his sons where their treasures were kept. There is the tomb of Atreus, along with the tombs of those who returned from Troy with Agamemnon and were killed by Aegisthus after giving them a feast. Cassandra's tomb is claimed by the Lacedaemonians who live around Amyclae. Agamemnon has his tomb, as does Eurymedon the charioteer, while another is shared by Teledamus and Pelops, twin sons, it is said, of Cassandra, who killed Aegisthus as a baby after her parents. SOURCE: Pausanias, Description of Greece. Trans. W.H.S. Jones (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1918): 331.
GREEK ARCHITECTURE GREEK CONSTRUCTION TECHNIQUES. Almost all great Greek architecture used the simple "fit and lintel" system. In this type of construction, two or more supports (columns, pillars or walls) support horizontal elements whose length is limited by the strength of the stone capable of supporting its own weight. The "mullion" is the vertical structural member and the "lintel" is the bridging element intended to protect openings or support the roof of the building. The Greeks mastered this style of building when they developed methods for extracting, transporting and handling large masses of stone. Ingenious devices for lifting and lifting building materials were invented. From the testimonies of the inscriptions, we know that the stump and hoists, a device today taken for granted, were used for wooden elevatory constructions. These early cranes had two, three or four legs, depending on the situation and weight requirements. Stone lifting systems were developed that used pulleys for lifting, while crowbars and crowbars were used for placement. These devices seem commonplace today, but in their day they represented technological advances over the ancient technique of moving rocks through the air on sleds and ramps. Wooden beams were used to support and form the roof structure, which was usually tiled. In residential architecture, in houses, shops and other functional buildings, construction was much simpler. He
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The treasury (storehouse) of the Athenians at Delphi, Greece, built after the Athenians defeated the Persians at Marathon in 490 BC. CE PHOTOGRAPH BY HECTOR WILLIAMS. © HECTOR WILLIAMS.
It usually consisted of burnt or unfired brick walls on rough stone foundations. The tools used for most architectural work were simple but reflected the state of the art at the time. Architects and engineers used measuring lines, angles, plumb bobs, and spirit levels to maintain construction accuracy. Masons used hammers, axes, files and chisels to work the stone. Iron tools were suitable for shaping marble and limestone. THE FIRST TEMPLES. The history of Greek architecture is essentially the history of the development of the Greek temple. In the Bronze Age and Minoan and Mycenaean fortification periods of Crete and mainland Greece, the temple was not the main place of worship of the gods. An abode or center of worship for the deity was not defined by an elaborate structure, so the importance attached to temple construction signaled a new and different attitude toward worship. One important consideration must be remembered. The temple in Greek culture was not a building to house groups of believers. It was the house of the god or goddess with a statue of the deity and perhaps
some additional rooms that functioned as a treasury, but the rites and sacrifices offered to the god were performed on an altar in front of the temple. The earliest examples of temples from the Greek period can only be deduced from archaeological evidence. There are ceramic models of one-room buildings with gabled roofs from the 8th century BC. giving an indication of the design of the early temple. The idea of surrounding a temple with one or more rows of columns seems to have been a purely Greek invention. In other ancient cultures, notably Egypt, pillars were mostly used in temples, sometimes in great abundance. In Greek architecture, the exposed column was one of the most characteristic elements. Probably the oldest verifiable rectangular temple with a colonnade around it is the temple of the goddess Hera on the island of Samos. It has been dated to the end of the 8th century BC. dated. Back then, columns were made of wood on stone bases. The temple was built in the 7th century BC. rebuilt, expanded a bit and remodeled to bring it closer to the temple
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Ruins of the Temple of Hera at Olympia, Greece, dating from the early 6th century BC.
COURTESY OF JAMES ALLAN
EVANS.
possible proportions and design of the temples of the classical period. ANCIENT DORIC STYLE. Around 580 BC A Doric-style temple dedicated to the goddess Artemis was built on the island of Corfu, off the northwest coast of mainland Greece. Although it was fully quarried, enough limestone blocks have been found to give clues to its size: about 23 meters wide and about twice that long. Enough has been salvaged from the pediment, the triangular space at the end below the gabled roof, to show that it was decorated with relief carvings depicting a gorgon and a battle between gods and giants. This is one of the earliest examples of pedimental carving that can be determined. Around the same time, a temple to the goddess Hera was built at Olympia. Only the superstructure survives, but it can be deduced that it had sixteen columns at the sides and six at the ends, the corner columns being counted twice. The columns did not have a separate base, but rested on the upper step of the platform. Columns of the so-called Doric type were fluted and provided with a series of shallow vertical channels.
nels-y tapers upward. The capital or top of the column consisted of a curved pillow-shaped part with a square block on top. The plan of the Temple of Olympias includes a pronaos, a cella and the earliest known example of an opisthodomus. The cella was the central room or sanctuary of the temple, and the pronaos was the small vestibule in front of it. The opisthodomo is a small porch at the back of the cell. There were two rows of internal columns to support the roof and evidence that there were also hook columns attached to the side walls. This temple originally had wooden pillars, which were gradually replaced by stone. As a result, they come from different eras and styles from the 6th century BC. to Roman times. In the second century CE, Pausanias noticed a wooden pillar that was still standing and had not been replaced. The walls of this temple were made of sun-dried brick on a stone foundation. The architrave or base of the roof structure that connected the columns was apparently made of wood, and the roof itself was covered with terracotta tiles. A large limestone plinth was found within the cell, presumably for the cult statue of the goddess or a
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Temple of Hera in Paestum in Italy. mid-6th century BC built.
Double statue of Hera and Zeus. This early temple is important not only for its design and proportions, but also for the evidence of temples originally built with wooden elements that were replaced by more durable stone construction. In the Doric order, the frieze, the horizontal band above the architrave, was decorated with a pattern of alternating triglyphs and metopes. The triglyph is a single block with its face carved to resemble three vertical bars. A metope is a rectangular panel that can be plain but can also be decorated with painting or relief carving. Some think that the design of the triglyph was reminiscent of the ends of beams in wooden architecture, but this explanation is not accepted by all architectural historians. The Temple of Apollo at Corinth around 540 BC. It is the only example of a 6th-century mainland temple with some columns still standing. Each pillar is a monolith carved from a single block, about 21 feet high, from what was originally finite porous limestone.
THE ART/GARDENS ARCHIVE.
covered with stucco. There were six pillars at the end and fifteen on each side, making the length two and a half times the width. The platform under the colonnades rose in a slight convex curve. This is the first known example where this adjustment was made to correct the optical illusion that causes the baseline to appear curved. The interior of this temple was divided into two consecutive chambers, each accessed by its own portico. Other surviving examples of sixth-century Doric architecture can be found in the Greek colonies of Sicily and southern Italy. To fully appreciate the early development of the Doric style, it is necessary to examine some of them. Three well-preserved temples in Paestum, south of Naples, including one to Hera from the mid-6th century. It has long been known as the "Basilica" and is still referred to by that name in some publications. The entire surrounding colonnade is still standing and the architrave is still in place, but the walls are completely gone. it was nine
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Temple E, probably dedicated to Hera, at Selinunte, Sicily. It began at the beginning of the 6th century BC. EC
Columns at each end and eighteen on each side. This is somewhat unusual, with an odd number on the façade dividing it in half. The cella contained a central row of columns the same size as the colonnade. A feature of this early stage in the development of the Doric order is that the columns of this temple were radically tapered from bottom to top to give the structure an elastic appearance. FIRST IONIC ARCHITECTURE. The Doric and Ionic architectural orders have several differences, but the most important is the position, shape and proportion of the columns. The Doric column stands directly on the temple platform; Ionic has a base usually made up of different elements that can even contain carved decorations. Compared to the simpler Doric capital, the Ionic capital has a pair of volutes (ornaments in the form of a spiral or volute), suggesting construction in materials other than stone and also reflecting the influence of West Asian or Egyptian cultures. The Ionic column is generally thinner in proportion to its height than the Doric, 16°
THE ARCHIVE OF ART/DALGI ORTI.
and Ionian temples generally have only two levels, while Doric ones have three levels. Two temples built at the same time in the mid-6th century are examples of the early Ionian style and are also among the first major temple structures in Greek architecture. One was a second temple dedicated to Hera on the island of Samos and the other to Artemis at Ephesus in eastern Greece, now on the west coast of Turkey. The temple at Ephesus was paid for in part by King Croesus of Lydia, whose wealth became proverbial, "rich as Croesus". In Ephesus, the Temple of Artemis had a double colonnade with 21 columns on one side, measuring almost 360 feet. This huge building is built in marble with a wooden roof covered with terracotta tiles. Some of the drums on the lower column were decorated with relief carvings. The temple of Hera at Samos also had a double colonnade and faced east, as was the normal orientation of Greek temples. The Temple of Artemis, on the other hand, faced west. This may have been influenced by an earlier shrine at the Ephesian site. A later temple at the site of Samos, begun in
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Exterior view of the Parthenon on the Acropolis of Athens from the east.
530 BC C., was the largest Greek temple known to modern scholars. It measured 179 feet by 365 feet and had columns 63 feet high. The columns themselves were made of limestone, but their capitals and bases were of marble, presumably to preserve the valuable marble. 5TH CENTURY TEMPLES In the 5th century, the refinement of the relationship between architectural elements and proportions was effectively worked on, resulting in the 'classical' appearance of Greek temple architecture. The ideal ratio of end-to-end column numbers has been resolved to six to thirteen. Marble gained importance as the main building block, replacing limestone where it was available. An important example of the refinement that developed between the 6th and 5th centuries BC. developed. The architecture is that dedicated to the goddess Afaya on the island of Aegina, southwest of Athens. Much of this survives, including part of the pediment carving, allowing for a reliable restoration. Its hilltop location is a reminder that the site of a Greek temple was often chosen for its imposing height and views of the sea or surrounding countryside. The temple had six by twelve columns, still not the ideal ratio of six to thirteen BC.
FOTO VON HECTOR WILLIAMS. © HECTOR WILLIAMS.
come over. The interior of the cella in this temple had two rows of smaller columns supporting a second smaller row above. This two-story inner colonnade was not unique and can be found in some other temples. Its purpose was to support the construction of the roof. As it was not considered adequate for the internal columns to be taller than the external ones, the solution was to have two overlapping layers of smaller columns to reach the height between floor and ceiling. This arrangement can also be seen at the Temple of Hera (believed to have been dedicated to Poseidon) at Paestum in southern Italy. Probably the best surviving example of a Greek-style temple, this temple was also built in the early to mid-5th century. The exterior decoration of the Aegina temple included marble tiles around the edge of the roof, a gargoyle in the shape of a lion, palmette-shaped prefixes and a considerable amount of color detail. Although there is some debate about the amount of decorative color used in Greek architecture, many examples of surviving painted surfaces have been found, lending considerable support to the idea that these structures were not the bright, austere color of marble or limestone as they currently exist. .
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PAUSANIAS DESCRIBES THE INTRODUCTION OF THE PARTHENON:
It is often the descriptions written by a traveler in antiquity that give us a true sense of what monuments were like in those days. When Pausanias, the Greek traveler and historian, visited Athens in the second century CE. and climbed to the top of the Acropolis, he saw the Parthenon in a condition that should have been close to its original condition. As was usual in his writings, he tried to identify the themes of the decoration and explain their historical or mythological significance.
Upon entering the temple they call it the Parthenon, all the sculptures you see on the so-called pediment refer to the birth of Athena, those on the rear pediment represent the land dispute between Athena and Poseidon. The statue itself is made of ivory and gold. In the center of his helmet is an image of the Sphinx, the story of the Sphinx, which I will tell when I get to my description of Boeotia, and in both
THE ACROPOLIS. The buildings of the Acropolis, literally "upper city", in Athens, have a long history dating back to Mycenaean times. The oldest temple of the goddess Athena on the site dates back to at least the 7th century BC. Originally a fortified fortress, the limestone plateau above the city with its main altar remained the center of tutelary goddess worship after its military importance waned. At the beginning of the 5th century BC. The EG Athenians started a building project to replace the old temple and build a new propylon - portal - to the sanctuary. This plan was thwarted by the Persian invasion and the destruction and sacking of the Acropolis in 480 BC. CE interrupted. Plans for a new temple dedicated to the city goddess were not realized until after mid-century. This new temple is known to modern scholars as the Parthenon, so called because it was dedicated to a particular aspect of the goddess Athena Parthenos: Athena the Maiden or Athena the Virgin. Eventually, their cult center contained several important buildings in addition to the main temple. They are the Propylaea, or entrance to the Acropolis, the Temple of Athena Nike or Victoria, and the Erechtheum, a building designed to organize various cults in a single structure. THE PARTHENON. Under the leadership of Pericles, the old building plan of the 480s was revived in the middle of the century. The architects of the new Temple of Athena were 18 years old
Side of the helmet are embossed griffins. These griffins, says Aristeas de Proconneso in his poem, fight for gold with the Arimaspi beyond the Issedones. The gold which the griffins guard, he says, comes from the earth; the Arimaspi are all born with one eye; Griffins are animals like lions, but with the beak and wings of an eagle. I won't say more about the faucets. The statue of Athena is erect, with a mantle that reaches to the feet, and on the chest is the head of Medusa carved in ivory. He holds a statue of Victory about four cubits high, and in his other hand a spear; at her feet is a shield, and by her spear is a serpent. That serpent would be Erichthonius. The pedestal depicts Pandora's birth in relief. Hesiod and others sang how this Pandora was the first wife; Before Pandora was born, there was no female gender. The only portrait statue I remember seeing here is one of Emperor Hadrian and at the entrance one of Iphicrates, who accomplished many notable achievements. SOURCE: Pausanias, Description of Greece. Trans. W.H.S. Jones (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1918): 23, 25.
Ictinus and Callicrates. The cult image in the temple is of Phidias, who probably also created the decoration program for the entire building and is traditionally considered the general director of the works. The temple was started in 447 and opened in 438, but the sculptural decoration was not fully completed until 432. The building was later used as a Byzantine church, a Catholic church, and a Muslim mosque. In 1678, an explosion of gunpowder stored in the cella destroyed much of the then well-preserved center of the temple. In the period 1801-1803, the English collector Lord Elgin obtained permission from the Turkish authorities to remove part of the sculpture, known as the Elgin Marbles, which are now in the British Museum (and a source of controversy with the current Greek government). . These included some of the pediment figures and most of the relief friezes that are among the most important examples from the 5th century BC. tell. Greek art. The building itself was built of Pentelic marble on a limestone base that partially covered that of the previous temple. Some of the pillar drums in the ruined temple were found in good condition and used in the new one, which dictated the size of the pillars (34 feet and a quarter high) but not the overall proportion. The Parthenon has eight columns at the ends and seventeen on the sides because it is a little wider.
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A view of the Acropolis of Athens from the southwest with the Propylaea (monumental entrance).
COURTESY OF JAMES ALLAN
EVANS.
Part of that had been the rule. It is possible that this extra width was intended to accommodate the interior view of the extraordinary colossal gold and ivory statue of Athena in the cella. The plan included the peripteral colonnade, the six-columned front and rear porticos, and a chamber behind the cella, which may have served as a treasury. The cell had a two-story colonnade on the sides and back, presumably for viewing the statue of Athena. By the middle of the 5th century, Greek architects reached a level of design, with refinement and harmony of proportions rarely matched. This was done over time by trial and error, taking advantage of technological advances in construction, and experimenting extensively with the visual effects of size, shape, and relationships. Made visual improvements to fix optical illusions. Thus, the main horizontal elements of the building's facade (the stylobate platform and the superstructure entablature) curved gently downwards from the center. Columns and walls slope slightly inwards. Columns taper towards the top in a smoothly curved ecstasy, balancing the depth of the column
The rib is flatter at the top. The Doric column from the 5th century BC. It has been greatly refined from its predecessor a hundred years ago, and its sweeping profile is much more subtle. Many scholars consider this an incorporation of Ionic aspects into the Doric style. Much has been said about the ideal mathematical proportions that Greek architects conceived to define the visual relationships of building parts. Several examples of this principle in action can be seen in the Parthenon. The proportion between width and length of the temple is 9:4; The distance between the columns and their diameter has the same ratio of 9:4, which is also evident in other aspects of the building. The use of simple, repeating proportions and geometric relationships provided visual order and harmony, resulting in an architectural masterpiece. THE PROPYLENE. The Propylaea was the great ceremonial gate and entrance to the Acropolis precincts. It replaced an earlier structure, as the Parthenon had replaced an earlier temple. It was the work of the architect Mnesicles and began in 437
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The Erechtheion of Athens; the east view.
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BC,
after the construction of the Parthenon was completed and the work was completed in 432 BC. have been discontinued. The Propylaea was made entirely of marble and took five years to build, but it was never fully completed according to plan. In addition to the large portico with a wide central corridor, it had porticoes with six columns on the outside and inside and was intended to have two large rooms flanking the portico. Pausanias described one of these rooms as a "picture gallery", but it has also been suggested that it was a formal dining room. The building was constructed entirely of expensive marble, and on such a grand scale that some of the roof beams were fifteen feet long. Due to their size, they are estimated to weigh over eleven tons. This ability to handle large weights at height indicates a well-developed system of construction techniques. THE TEMPLE OF NIKE AND THE ERECHTHEUM. High up to the right of the Propylaea, construction on a small temple began some five years after work on the ceremonial entrance had stopped. This compact structure was dedicated to the goddess of victory, Athena Nike. It was designed in the Ionic style with four slender columns at each end. The cell was inserted between two pillars or square pillars connected to the side walls by bronze trusses. A carved frieze depicting the Greeks fighting the Persians adorned the four sides of the entablature, a typically Ionic element.
this in the Doric style. The upper pediment had carved figures, as can be seen from the additions, and a parapet carved on three sides was later added. Another important building on the Ionian-style Acropolis is the Erechtheion. It takes its name from Erechtheus, a legendary king of Athens, whose palace is said to have been there. Begun in 421 and completed in 405, it is probably the most unique structure in the enclosure due to its irregular layout. This was perhaps the result of the need to bring together different shrines or places of worship. There were three inner chambers and three portals or porticoes of different sizes and levels. On the south side, the portico had six caryatids, architectural supports shaped like human figures, supporting the entablature instead of columns. These famous female statues were transferred into museum protection and replaced with copies. One of the important lessons to be learned from the Erechtheum is the fact that Greek architects knew how to adapt to the needs of an unusual situation. THE TEMPLE OF OLYMPIC ZEUS. The southeast of the Acropolis in Athens was built around 520 BC. began the construction of a large temple dedicated to Olympian Zeus. C., but it remained unfinished and only the platform was used to finish it much later. Under Antiochus IV, king of Syria, he worked in the
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The Temple of Olympian Zeus in Athens, begun in the 6th century BC. but completed by Emperor Hadrian (117–138 CE).
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JAMES ALLAN EVANS ESTES.
ple in the 2nd century BC. but it was not finally completed until 131 CE. at the time of the Roman Emperor Hadrian. It is believed to have been originally planned in the Doric style, but when completed it had elements of the Corinthian order, including ornate floral Corinthian capitals. The original plan called for a double row of columns in the perimeter colonnade, with a third row at each end. This was likely influenced by other great ancient temples such as that of Hera at Ephesus. The Temple of Olympian Zeus was one of the largest in Athens, measuring 135 feet by 353.5 feet with columns 57 feet high. Its completion hundreds of years after its founding was likely the result of Emperor Hadrian's admiration for Greek culture. THE GREEK THEATRE. While the temple form is the most important architectural type in Greek history, there are other types of structures to consider. Besides the temple, there were many other types of public buildings, monuments, altars and tombs that need to be mentioned. The theater was perhaps the second most typical expression of Greek architecture.
textured design. All festivals, sports competitions and theatrical performances took place in the open air. Originally, even the civic assembly of Athens was held outdoors on the steep rocky outcrop known as the Pnyx. This allowed attendees to see and hear speakers who were at a lower level. It is concluded that the performances in honor of the god Dionysus took place in a hole where the audience could sit on the sloping hill. Throughout the history of Greek drama, most theaters were built where they could take advantage of the natural hills. The beginnings of drama were in choral dances, so the most important area of the theater was the circular orchestra, which literally means “dancing field”. The body of the auditorium or theatron consisted of a semicircular set of rows of gently sloping stone seats. As the idea of dramatic theater developed and the number of actors increased, it became necessary to provide a stage with some kind of support. This was called a skene and provided a sounding board for projecting the actors' voices and a rudimentary stage. The idea of the theater as a special building.
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Hellenistic theater of Kourion in Cyprus.
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appears to be late 6th-early 5th century BC. have developed. CE, but one of the earliest still found is the Theater of Dionysus on the south slope of the Acropolis. It was later changed or modified due to a series of reconstructions during the 4th century and the Roman Empire. One of the best-preserved examples of a theater is at Epidaurus, on the east coast of southern Greece. According to Pausanias, Polykletos the Younger was the architect of this theatre. It was built around the year 350, when the essential elements of theatrical design were formalized. The auditorium, a little more than semicircular, is cut into the hillside. The stone seats are divided into wedge-shaped blocks or sections, with a horizontal aisle separating the lower part from the upper part, which is steeper and has higher seats. The seating design even provides some legroom underneath to allow spectators to make room for passers-by. The lower seats were for special attendants and had a backrest and armrests. In some theaters these dignitary seats were almost enthroned with elaborately carved decorations. There was probably an altar in the center of the or22
Chestra as evidenced by a stone plinth found at the site. The stage building must have been tall, again judging by the remaining foundations. This theater could accommodate between 12,000 and 15,000 people seated relatively comfortably and who seemed to be able to get in and out easily. The design of Greek theaters changed slightly to accommodate other types of dramatic performances as they developed, but the basic parts remained the same and were standard throughout the Greek world. SPECIAL USE BUILDING. One of the most important buildings in Greek everyday life was the stoa, a one- or two-story building with a long colonnade that could house shops and also serve as an informal meeting place. The Stoa of Attalus in the Agora (open market) in Athens has been reconstructed using archaeological evidence and serves as a good example of this type. These pillared structures offered protection from the elements to the public in their daily activities and were therefore found in complex religious sites and markets. Other public buildings were designed specifically as meeting places for citizens' councils, meeting rooms for a specific cult, and so on.
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Interior view of the Stoa of Attalus in the Ancient Agora of Athens, Greece. Originally built as a gift from King Attalus II of Pergamum (159-138 BC). PHOTO BY HECTOR WILLIAMS. © HECTOR WILLIAMS.
to informal spaces for social clubs. Functional buildings included houses with fountains where people filled their pots with water. These are often illustrated in Greek vase painting. A special type of building was the clock tower. The only surviving example is the so-called "Tower of the Winds" preserved in Athens. It was founded in the 1st century BC. It is an octagonal (eight-sided) building with carved reliefs representing personifications of the winds at the top of each side. In addition to space for a water clock and reservoir, there were sundials on the sides and a weathervane on top. HOUSES AND URBAN PLANNING. The typical Greek house responded to the need for an enclosed space that offered privacy and protection. The normal space plan centered on an open courtyard with peristyle or terraces. Several examples have been excavated and generally follow the same layout, consisting of an entrance hall with a small room on one side and a central courtyard with rooms of various sizes at the front. These houses were generally single-story and laid out in a square plan, with adobe walls over stone or
rubble foundation. Floors in specific areas, such as the dining room, can be decorated with mosaics. The dining room was also often equipped with platforms for reclining guests. The baths were partially paved and equipped with terracotta bathtubs, but other sanitary facilities were rarely found in excavations. The doors of the houses were made of wood, and modern scholars know from representations in vase paintings that they were decorated with metal handles. The regular arrangement of dwellings in an orderly urban plan was introduced in the early 5th century BC. Popular EC. Greek cities were designed with provisions for public gatherings and places of commerce (the agora or public square), as well as centers of worship and sanctuaries that housed temples and shrines. Cities were typically surrounded by a protective wall with towers, moats and defensible gates. Such fortifications were the result of the need to protect against attacks and provide a sense of security. SOURCES
A. H. Lawrence, Greek architect. Pfr. RA Tomlinson (New York: Penguin Books, 1983).
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temples and their sites. It should always be remembered that Vitruvius died at the end of the 1st century BC. and he had a desire to explain and apply classical styles in the work of his own time. He was a practicing architect and profoundly knowledgeable about materials, working techniques and other areas of knowledge such as B. Site planning, which was part of the required architectural training. His motives and the time he was writing, early in the reign of Caesar Augustus, influenced his attitude. As one of the few ancient authors whose writings on architecture survive, he was highly regarded during the Renaissance. Architects of the time looked to his work for the clearest explanation of ancient styles and techniques available to them.
The Horologion, known as the "Tower of the Winds", in Athens, Greece, which served as a sundial, water clock and weather vane (built between the 2nd and 1st centuries BC). THE ART ARCHIVE / DAGLI ORTI.
GMA Richter, Arte griego (Londres: Phaidon Press, 1967): 7–44.
Fashion: Clothing in Classical Greece; Religion: The gods of Olympus; Religion: Worship of the Gods: Sacrifices and Temples
SEE TOO
TRUSCAN ARCHITECTURE BACKGROUND. The study of Etruscan architecture is primarily the study of tomb design, as most surviving evidence consists of underground tombs. The study of architectural types such as temples and other public structures cannot be based on standing buildings, as may be the case with Greek or Roman materials. Archaeological finds, which mainly consist of foundations and remains of parts of buildings, should be used here. However, descriptions by ancient authors, especially Vitruvius, complement modern knowledge. His De Architectura (On Architecture) is a particularly useful reference work, as it describes, among other matters, his understanding of the basic rules of Etruscan design and construction.
MATERIALS AND TECHNIQUES. From its earliest days, Etruscan architecture used the crude technique of adobe and adobe, a construction method using sticks tied together with a layer of adobe. Evidence of tomb decorations imitating living structures clearly show that in the early 6th century BC. CE wood were used. when building a house. Other evidence shows that the Etruscans used tuff blocks and ashlar masonry in foundations, buildings and walls. "Toba" is a porous volcanic rock common in Italy, and "Ashlar" describes large square stones. The construction of adobe and wood frame on stone foundations was also practised, a technique that uses wood to frame and raw brick to fill the spaces between the frames. Clay and wood bricks were the main building materials for temple walls throughout most of Etruscan history. The lack of abundant physical evidence for understanding temple architecture can be attributed in part to the transience of the material used. THE ETRUSK TEMPLE. Our main knowledge of Etruscan temple architecture comes from Vitruvius, who described its design and construction in as much detail as he understood them. In addition to the sparse archaeological evidence and literary sources on temple planning and construction, there are imitations of temples found in tombs and on tomb facades and miniature copies used as votive offerings. The Etruscan-style temple, also called the Italo-Etruscan temple, had its own shape that resisted the growing influence of Greek architecture. The Etruscan temple had a more open plan than the Greek one, influenced in part by the need to observe natural phenomena such as the flight of birds in divination. Etruscan temple material never changed like the wooden elements in Greek construction.
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Mentos were later replaced by stones. Materials in Etruria continued to be stone-based wood, with significant use of terracotta for decorative elements and tiles. One of the standard plans seems to have been a simple structure with a tripartite cell, interpreted as a provision for the worship of a triad of gods (Jupiter, Juno and Minerva). There are also examples of installations with one or two rooms, depending on the number of deities worshiped in a given location. The main part of the temple opened onto a pillared portico. The temple was usually built on a podium or platform accessed by a ladder. The raised platform and stairs remained a feature of later Roman temple architecture, in contrast to the Greek preference for a closer visual relationship to the ground plan. ETRUSQUE TOMBS. Early Etruscan burials were of two main types: a pit burial with an urn containing the ashes of the deceased or a trench burial for the remains. Around 700 BC more developed tombs began to appear. These too were of two general types. One was a type of chamber tomb somewhat similar in design to the tombs of Mycenaean tholos, with a domed or "hive" shape built of cantilevered masonry. The shape varied and could be round or square. Auxiliary rooms provided space for the remains of other family members or personal belongings. This type of tomb could house the sarcophagi of the deceased, as well as some funerary furniture and personal belongings. The mound or tomb that this type covered became a distinctive feature of the landscape and made the location of the tomb clearly visible. Around 400 BC Cremation of the dead became a more regular practice and the architecture of tombs underwent a gradual change. Instead of the stone chamber covered by a mound, the tomb was carved into the rock or tuff slope. Imitations of wooden architectural elements were carved on the facade and inside the tombs. In lieu of space for sarcophagi, shelves of urns were provided to contain the cremated remains of various family members. The decoration of the walls of tombs of both types included reliefs and paintings. In addition to the funeral meal, Etruscan tomb paintings also featured scenes from Greek mythology. URBAN PLANNING AND DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE. Etruscan towns and cities were situated to take advantage of water supplies and defensive positions, as were most early ancient communities. Access to the sea was important, but most settlements were remote.
far enough inland to offer some protection from intruders from the sea. Defensive city walls did not appear to be an important part of urban planning if the choice of site offered sufficient security. An ancient tradition credits the Etruscans with inventing the type of city plan in which streets intersect at right angles, forming a north-southeast-east-west grid. Although this urban planning system became very popular among the Romans, there is still not enough evidence that it was an Etruscan innovation in mainland Italy. Etruscan houses from the early 7th century BC. They were typically oval in plan and placed to take advantage of the terrain, not according to a grid plan. These houses were made of adobe and of the adobe type with a thatched roof. From the middle of the 7th century, rectangular houses appeared. These were built on a stone foundation with a wooden frame and unfired mud bricks. Gradually, the plans for the house evolved from a spacious floor plan with an entrance hall and a few rooms to one with a long entrance hall leading to a courtyard surrounded by several rooms. This type of courtyard house continued in later Roman dwellings with an atrium, a larger and more formal central courtyard. SOURCES
Axel Boëthius e JB Ward-Perkins, arquitetura etrusca e romana (Baltimore, Maryland: Penguin Books, 1970). Friedhelm Prayon, "Arquitectura", en Etruscan Life and Afterlife: A Handbook of Etruscan Studies. Ed. Larissa Bonfante (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1986): 174-201.
ROMAN ARCHITECTURE BACKGROUND. Roman architecture is essentially a hybrid of elements inherited from the Etruscans combined with outside influences from the Greeks. For example, native Etruscan building traditions can be seen in the earliest substructures of the Capitoline Temple in Rome. With such archaeological evidence, supplemented by ancient descriptions, this temple can be identified as being of the type described by Vitruvius as typically Etruscan, consisting essentially of a large structure with a deep portico. In contrast, the Temple of Apollo at Pompeii, probably late 2nd century BC. built. C.E., is a typical example of a temple that shows Greek influence in its plan. Early Etruscan and Roman arts and architecture were heavily influenced by Greek advances, particularly structures built in Greek times.
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Urban planning was not just invented by the Greeks, there seems to have been an almost universal need among peoples throughout history to impose some order on their communities through the use of a general plan where local terrain would permit. This orderly arrangement of cities and towns can be seen in many parts of the ancient world in cultures as diverse as ancient China and Egypt. Leopold Arnaud, a respected professor of architecture, explained in an essay entitled "Social Organization and City Planning" that it would be a mistake to attribute the invention of urban design to the Greeks alone. He said the idea of a rectangular pattern for urban planning is very old. The system's origins may have evolved from the method of plowing a field or setting up a military camp, but it was a practical arrangement and the idea could have evolved in many different places independently. In Egypt, during the Old Kingdom (2175-2134 BC), the streets of the City of the Dead, at the foot of the Great Pyramid of Giza, were laid out in a grid pattern, with the streets intersecting at right angles. It probably mimicked
Colonies in southern Italy and Sicily. Ultimately, however, Rome's contributions to the development of architectural design were of a different nature. The development of new materials and techniques allowed for revolutionary advances in the creation of monumental structures and particularly in the treatment of architectural interiors. Greek construction, whether in wood or stone, relied heavily on the system of posts and lintels (posts supporting a crossbar), resulting in a style that produced a strong horizontal sense of stability and solidity. The exterior of a Greek temple usually featured an orderly and carefully planned arrangement of its parts viewed from all angles, but the interior was a less important consideration. With the development of concrete as a building material from the 2nd century BC. Roman architects and engineers were free to experiment with construction on a colossal scale, enclosing vast interior spaces and creating a fundamentally new and highly inventive architectural style. ROMAN CONSTRUCTION TECHNIQUES. The stone building practiced by the Greeks required skilled bricklayers and masons, the help of engineers and masons to carry out the actual construction, and little else. Some carpentry was needed to allow the wooden beams to support the roof and weavers were needed to finish the roof. 26
and it looked like the arrangement used in cities for living. There are other examples of urban planning in Egypt found in archaeological excavations that show that this pattern continued throughout Egyptian history. The plan attributed to the Greeks developed towards the end of their history during the time of Alexander the Great and his successors in the Hellenistic period (end of the 4th century to the end of the 1st century BC). This is not to say that the Greeks learned urban planning from the Egyptians, but simply that the same form of organization was seen as viable in both cultures. The Roman city plan was similar to that of the Greeks and they are indebted for that. In a Roman community, the two main streets were called cardo, from north to south, and decumanus, from east to west. Other streets ran parallel to Cardo and Decumanus, forming a regular system of blocks. However, large cities like Rome and Athens were not planned according to an organized scheme. They simply grew and expanded from small settlements over a long history. Attempts were made in both cities at different times to bring order to their plans, but without general success.
The Romans' newly developed techniques, on the other hand, required a wider range of specialists for the greatly expanded building program. As concrete is liquid to begin with, its use requires the collaboration of skilled carpenters to build structures and forms, and masons for some of the stone elements, such as foundations and door frames, bricks and tiles for building parts and ceilings. , plumbers for drainage systems, plasterers and painters for finished work and artists/decorators for murals and mosaic floors. In ancient Rome, the need for this variety of skills led to the development of specialized work groups or guilds that could provide the necessary training and continuity of experience. The early use of concrete by the Romans may have been due to a compacted clay construction method, but it more likely evolved from the use of clay to bond layers of brick or stone together. After discovering that fragments of rubble could be joined together by pouring a liquid mortar over them, the next natural step was to build wooden forms that would hold the mortar until it hardened. Basically, Roman mortar was made of lime, and the best lime mortar used volcanic ash as the aggregate. Casting structural elements out of concrete rather than carving them out of stone gave Roman architects freedom
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ARCHITECT TRAINING INTRODUCTION:
The only Roman textbook on the art and science of ancient architecture was written by Vitruvius Pollio, who lived during the reign of Emperor Augustus. In The Ten Books on Architecture, he covers topics such as urban planning, architectural styles, building materials, and building methods in detail. Being a practicing architect and an educated man, the information he left behind is particularly valuable, not only for the study of Greek and Roman architecture, but also for the descriptions he makes of extinct Etruscan architecture. Vitruvius' work has also been described as a practical guide to becoming a Roman architect. In this section he lists what education an architect should have.
1. The architect must be endowed with knowledge of many branches of study and various kinds of learning, for, according to his judgment, all work done by the other arts is examined. This knowledge is the child of practice and theory. Practice is the continuous and regular exercise of an occupation that involves manual work with the necessary material according to the design of a design. Theory, in turn, is the ability to demonstrate and explain the products of skill based on the principles of proportion. 2. It follows that architects who claimed skill without erudition could never achieve a position of authority commensurate with their efforts, while those who relied only on theory and erudition evidently pursued the shadow, not the substance. But those who have full knowledge of both, as armed men at all points, have reached their goal sooner, and carry authority with them. 3. In all things, but especially in architecture, there are these two points: - the meaning and the
to create more complex shapes, reach greater heights and span larger spaces. Although the arch, vault and dome were known in other ancient cultures, it was not until the Romans developed the use of cast concrete that its full potential was recognized and realised. ANCIENT ROMAN ARCHITECTURE. The Romans retained many building ideas from their Etruscan predecessors, but they also adopted some of the Greek ideas passed down to them by the Etruscans. Houses for the worship of the gods were obviously important in both cultures. The designs of these places of worship or temples in Greece and Etruria were different, but the
which gives it its meaning. Meaning is the subject we can talk about; and what makes sense is a demonstration of scientific principles. Anyone professing to be an architect must therefore be familiar with both directions. He must therefore be naturally gifted and accessible to instruction. Neither natural ability without training nor ability without natural ability can make the perfect artist. That he is educated, skilled with the pencil, educated in geometry, that he knows a lot about history, that he has closely followed the philosophers, that he understands music, that he has some knowledge of medicine, that he knows the opinions of lawyers and that he is familiar with astronomy and celestial theory. 4. The reasons for all this are as follows. An architect must be a learned man to leave a lasting impression in his writings. Secondly, you must have drawing skills so that you can easily make sketches showing how the proposed work will be. Geometry is also very useful in architecture, and in particular it teaches us to use rulers and compasses, for which we are specially prepared to make plans of buildings on their site, and correctly use the square, spirit level and plumb bob. optics can direct light onto buildings from fixed points in the sky. It is true that the total cost of buildings and dimensions are calculated by arithmetic, but the difficult questions of symmetry are resolved by geometric theories and methods. 5. A broad knowledge of history is necessary, because among the ornamental pieces in an architect's design there are many whose underlying idea of use he must be able to explain to those interested. SOURCE: Vitruvius, The Ten Books of Architecture. Trans. Morris Hicky Morgan (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1914): 5-6.
Early Roman temples were more based on Etruscan prototypes. Unlike Greek temples, which had a noble solidity, early Etruscan and Roman temples suggested openness and a sense of mystery. The first temple in Rome dedicated to Jupiter, the Capitol, at the end of the 6th century BC. It was certainly built in the Etruscan style, but on a grand scale, judging by the foundations and some of the surviving blocks. Following the Etruscan pattern, it rested on a high platform or podium, had a wide portico supported by columns and a cella divided into three cult chambers. It could only be reached from the front via a wide staircase
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THE EMPEROR AUGUST CHANGES THE FACE OF ROME INTRODUCTION:
The Etruscans built many of their structures from perishable adobe, including not only private homes but also temples and other public buildings. As Roman civilization developed and Rome became a major power in the Mediterranean, it was natural for important structures to be built with more durable and attractive materials. Marble was not only more durable, but also more beautiful. Suetonius, the Roman historian, attributes the formation of Rome to the emperor in his Life of Emperor Augustus. SPRING:
Suetonius, The Divine Augustus, in The Art of Rome, c. 753 v. Chr.–337 n. Chr., Quellen und Dokumente. ed. JJ Pollitt (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966): 104.
proposed moving ordinary life into the precinct of a god or gods. Later Roman temples retained these features: the design emphasis on the front porch and raised dais, reached by an imposing staircase.
through the construction of monuments, columns and arches, and a well-developed system of theaters and arenas provided entertainment to the people. The last required architectural form was tombs for the burial of the dead.
ROMAN URBAN PLANNING. Whenever possible, Roman cities were laid out in a system of streets intersecting at right angles, a type of layout also used for Roman military camps. This system is believed to have been inherited from Etruscan town planning, but some Greek cities also used a grid and it is difficult to prove its exact derivation from the Roman plan. In the Roman system, the main north-south road was called the cardo, and the main east-west road was the decumanus. Always wider than the others, these two streets functioned as the axis of the plan. Close to their intersection in the center of a city were the forum, major temples, major ceremonial and administrative buildings, and other structures central to community life, such as major bathing establishments. In urban planning, some elements were standard and necessary for Roman life. The most obvious need was for some form of housing, which in Roman parlance could range from a humble structure to a grand palace. Providing clean water for drinking and bathing was probably the second most important consideration, hence the focus on developing methods of transporting water over long distances, such as the Roman aqueduct. The need for structures dedicated to religion and the worship of the gods led to a wide variety of temple designs. The commemoration of military victories or the glorification of emperors and generals was enough.
THE ROMAN HOUSE. During the almost 200 years of the Roman Republic, from 200 to 27 BC. C. several standard architectural forms were developed. One of the most typically associated with the Roman architectural style was the shape of the house. Like its Greek predecessors, the Roman house looked out for itself. The outer façade of a street was undecorated, having only the main door and possibly some windows, although these were not a prominent feature of the design. The plan was often symmetrical and balanced. Beyond the entrance hall was the atrium: the central courtyard with an opening in the roof, usually with a pool in the center to collect rainwater. The living and sleeping quarters were located around the atrium. Passing through the atrium was the tablinum, a formal space for entertaining visitors. Next to the tablinum was the triclinium, the dining room. In a more elaborate house there may be an additional peristyle or an open courtyard and even an internal garden from which other rooms branch off. This basic plan can become more complex depending on the owner's wealth, rank, and position. Countryside villages from the republican era, such as Vila dos Papiros from the 1st century BC. in Pompeii. They were already extremely complex and expensive. The layout of the house with atrium and peristyle became the basis to which annexes and separate buildings, gardens and swimming pools were added, depending on the size of the family.
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and the number of relatives, servants and slaves. Unlike standard plans, examples of housing in commercial centers such as Ostia, the port of Rome, survive. These buildings had four or five floors and were arranged in blocks. The ground floor was regularly occupied by shops, and individual apartments often had their own staircase. The city of Ostia is an excellent example of urban planning aimed at accommodating a large population in a limited space, while providing the necessary services for comfortable living. PALACE AND VILLA. During the period of the Roman Empire, the emperor's power and wealth were often expressed in the construction of an elaborate palace. After the Great Fire of 64 CE After destroying much of central Rome, Emperor Nero had a magnificent palace built—the Domus Aurea, or “Golden House”—modeled after a sprawling country house with gardens and a lake artificial. Although much of it was later destroyed, enough survives (supplemented with descriptions by Roman historians) to give an idea of its layout and decor. One of the surviving parts consists of a large octagonal room with a vaulted ceiling and smaller rooms extending from it. The arrangement of the room is radical enough for a villa or palace, but when you couple these remains with ancient descriptions describing the walls covered in gold and ivory, one can imagine the rich impression such a palace would have made, and therefore the so-called “Golden House”. The villa built by Emperor Hadrian around 135 AD in Tivoli. it was more a collection of buildings and fixtures than a country house with a uniform layout. It contained two main living areas, changing rooms, at least three theaters and a stadium, reflecting pools, gardens and other structures, some of which are not easily explained. As Hadrian was a great traveller, he named parts of his "Villa" after places he visited, such as "Canopus" after a city in Egypt. Many of the architectural advances made by the Romans in the use of concrete and vaulting were incorporated into parts of Hadrian's villa. In stark contrast to Hadrian's Villa, and even Nero's Golden House, is the floor plan of Emperor Diocletian's palace in Spalato (divisions in former Yugoslavia), built in the early 4th century AD. This palace complex was surrounded by a wall with towers and gates. Inside, it looked like a military camp with two main streets. In addition to the formal chambers and audience rooms, the palace contained a temple (probably dedicated to Jupiter) and a
Model of ancient Rome in the Museo della Civilta. In the center is the Colosseum and above it the Temple of Venus and Rome designed by Emperor Hadrian. © ARALDO DE LUCA/CORBIS. REPRODUCED WITH PERMISSION.
Tomb prepared for Diocletian. In Piazza Armerina, in a valley in central Sicily, is another palatial villa that may be contemporary with the Spalato Palace, but the owner has not been positively identified. In many respects, its plan resembles that of Hadrian's villa, being a loosely organized set of colonnaded courtyards, audience halls, and residential areas. Two aspects of the village make it extraordinarily interesting. It is located in an isolated area in the center of the island, suggesting a retreat or vacation spot. The well-preserved floors are covered with exceptionally attractive decorative mosaics. There are hunting scenes with the capture of exotic animals, probably for the arena, scenes of chariot races in the circus and even images of half-naked female athletes training. A respected personality, probably the owner of the villa, is represented with his assistants. The quality of these mosaic "paintings" has led some to believe that Villa Pizza Armerina was also an imperial residence. AQUEDUCT. As Rome's power increased and urban centers increased in size, it became one of the most important
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NERO BUILT A "GOLDEN HOUSE" INTRODUCTION:
Nero's reputation in popular history characterizes him as the emperor who "played the fiddle while Rome burned". The great fire of Rome certainly gave him the opportunity to build a palace in one of the areas devastated by the fire, but it was also a part of the city, occupying considerable space, where ordinary Romans lived. Nero spared no luxuries. Where crowded tenements housed a large population, he designed himself spacious housing with gardens and swimming pools for his own enjoyment. Part of this building still exists. Other parts were destroyed and later structures were built on top. The Roman historian Suetonius tells the story.
SOURCE: Suetonius, Nero, in The Art of Rome, c. 753 BC 337 AD, Sources and Documents. ed. JJ Pollitt (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966): 143.
Out of general considerations for the greater good was the importance of a safe water supply. Roman engineers became particularly skilled at building stone pipelines, often many kilometers long, that brought water to cities from springs high in the mountainous terrain. Being exceptionally well built, traces of these remarkable structures can still be found today, not just around Rome, but also in places that were once 30 years old.
part of the vast empire, as in Segovia in Spain or Tunis in North Africa. An aqueduct from Tunisia stretched 45 miles from Zaghouan, site of a great spring in the south of the country, to ancient Carthage on the coast. It was built so well that many sections are still standing. The best-known and probably most typical example of aqueduct construction is a section called the Pont du Gard, which joins the Gardon River near Nîmes, France. The entire aqueduct was built between 20 and 16 BC. It was built around 300 BC and stretched over 50 km with an estimated slope of 1 in 3000. The part that emptied into the river is one of the most visible examples of Roman aqueduct construction, measuring almost 300 meters long and 50 m high. . The structure is on three levels with smaller arches on the upper course to support the aqueduct. One of the most important ancient sources on the construction and maintenance of Roman aqueducts is a work by Sextus Julius Frontinus, an administrator and strategist who wrote a treatise on Rome's water supply in the first century AD. TEMPLE. The typical Roman temple, derived chiefly from an Etruscan prototype, is well illustrated by the so-called Temple of Fortuna Virilis on the Tiber in Rome. It was founded in the second half of the 2nd century BC. Built around 1000 BC, it has a façade of four Greek-style Ionic columns plus two on each side of the portico known as the prodomus. The columns on the sides of the cella, main room or chancel are not freestanding, but "hook-shaped", seeming to project from the wall, and are actually parts of it. This use of built-in columns is a feature seen in many Roman temples. A good comparison is the Maison Carrée in Nîmes, one of the best preserved examples of temple architecture from the time of Emperor Augustus in the late 1st century BC. It is larger than the Fortuna Virilis Temple, with six pillars front and back and eleven on each side, eight of which are recessed. The capitals are of a more ornate Corinthian style (fluted columns with flowered capitals), but otherwise a comparison of these two temples reveals that really only the size of the building differs. The basic elements of the raised podium, steps and deep porch are the same. In contrast, near the Temple of Fortuna Virilis in Rome stands a round temple that is much more Greek in spirit. The podium is covered on all sides and not just the front. The twenty Corinthian columns form a circular colonnade around a circular cella. This building is difficult to date, but it shows that Greek-style temples can coexist with those of a more Italian tradition and temples with a specific purpose.
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Pont du Gard, an aqueduct in Nimes, France, built before the 5th century AD. It was the tallest bridge structure in the Roman world. AUDUBON SOCIETY/PHOTOGRAPHICAL RESEARCHERS, INC. NATIONAL COLLECTION. REPRODUCED WITH PERMISSION.
can take on special forms. Another example of the possible diversity in the plans of Roman temples is the Pantheon in Rome, one of the best preserved buildings of classical antiquity. The translation of the name means that this structure was supposed to be a temple for all the gods. Its preservation is due to its conversion into a Christian church around the 7th century AD. The Pantheon is unusual in that it has a rectangular portico with a circular interior, a traditional temple facade with an innovative interior. Much of the structure can be dated to the time of Emperor Hadrian in the early 2nd century AD, but there has been considerable debate as to the date of the entire temple. The sixteen Corinthian columns supporting the portico are 38-foot granite shafts, an engineering feat in itself. The proportion of the "roundabout" is mathematically harmonious, as the height of the interior is equal to the diameter of the interior. The construction of the main part of the building relies on an ingenious system of embossed arches within the walls to distribute the weight vertically. also the
The concrete for each level of the rising wall was deliberately made from lighter and lighter materials. The Pantheon's architects and engineers worked together to create one of the best preserved, but also one of the most beautiful buildings of Roman times. BASILICA AND BATHS. Two types of construction that best illustrate Roman architectural achievements in the inventive use of concrete and in enclosing large spaces are the basilica and the bathhouse. Both types were public meeting places. A basilica can be defined simply as a large space used for civic and administrative purposes, capable of accommodating large crowds. The Roman bath also used to be a large, complex structure built on a grand scale. The Basilica of Maxentius in Rome, built in the 4th century AD, is a good example of the grandeur and complexity that a civic building can achieve. In size it was larger than a football field, 213 feet by 328 feet, with a great central room covered by huge vaults. In
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A Maison Carrée in Nimes, France.
ARQUIVO ICONOGRÁFICO, S.A./CORBIS.
On each side were three large bays. This reflects the plan of the later basilica form used in Christian churches, which consisted of a high central nave with two naves. Emperor Constantine finished the building, so the structure is sometimes referred to by his name rather than that of Maxentius. One side of this basilica is still a vivid example of the grandeur and scale of late Roman architecture. Compared to the basilica, the Roman bath could be much more complex. In the early 3rd century AD, Emperor Caracalla completed a vast public bath begun by his father, Septimius Severus. The Baths of Caracalla were conceived as imperial propaganda, built at great expense for the common good, and reflected the emperor's desire to appear as a concerned ruler. Whatever Caracalla's motives may be, the ruins of his baths are another example of construction on a grand scale, with the main building alone measuring over 250 meters in diameter. There were three essential parts of a Roman public bath: the frigidarium, 32
the tepidarium and caldarium, a series of rooms that were gradually heated. The standard method of heating baths used a hypocaust system, pipes for steam or hot water under the floor. In the Baths of Caracalla, as in many of the large bathing establishments, there were changing rooms and laundries, exercise and games areas, swimming pools, gardens, libraries and other social spaces. Visiting the baths was an important part of a Roman's social life and here you were in good hands. In modern times, the dimensions of the Baths of Caracalla can only be compared to large structures such as large railway stations and public libraries. THEATER AND ARENA. The Roman theater was significantly different in construction from the type developed by the Greeks. Although Greek and Roman theaters look very similar, the only thing they really had in common was that they both had areas for dancers or actors and seating for spectators. He
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Interior of the Pantheon, Rome, completed between 125 and 128 AD.
© MICHAEL MASLAN HISTORICAL PHOTOS/CORBIS. REPRODUCED WITH PERMISSION.
The Pantheon in Rome from the reign of Emperor Hadrian showing the colonnade at the front.
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LARGE BATHROOMS INTRODUCTION:
There was much more to Roman baths than the word "bath" suggests. The luxurious bathing facilities planned in all Roman cities were also social centres, places of recreation and sport. Almost as important, they offered the ruler or an important official the opportunity to show generosity to the population. If the emperor wanted to express his interest and concern for his subjects, he could do so by building important public buildings such as markets and baths. Since Roman engineers and architects developed methods for capturing large interior spaces, it was only natural that such techniques would be used in large building plans as part of imperial propaganda. Proof of this are the Baths of Caracalla, which are still in ruins and are among the most imposing buildings in Rome. In the Historia Augusta, a collection of imperial biographies from the time of Diocletian and Constantine, the possible construction of the baths is discussed.
Imaginative drawing of the interior of the Baths of Caracalla, Rome's most magnificent imperial baths, built between 212 and 217 AD with huge vaulted rooms and an intricate heating system. © UPI/CORBIS-BETTMANN. REPRODUCED WITH PERMISSION.
SOURCE: Historia Augusta, Antoninus Caracalla, in The Art of Rome, c. 753 BC 337 AD, Sources and Documents. ed. JJ Pollitt (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966): 196.
The Greek theater hall was more semicircular in plan, while the Roman type was almost always semicircular. The orchestra in the Greek theater was the center of much of the action, but the stage, with an elaborate permanent backdrop of intricate design - the 34th
scaena – was the place where Roman drama was enacted. The Aspendus Theater in Asia Minor (present-day Turkey), built in the 2nd century AD, is an excellent example of the developed and elaborate nature of the Roman type. The auditorium is over 300 feet in diameter and the raised stage is over 20 feet deep. It is estimated that this building can accommodate more than 7,000 people. Such a large building attests to the importance of the theater in Roman life. In many ways, the amphitheater was equally important for gladiatorial and other games. One of Rome's most visible and imposing monuments is the Flavian Amphitheater, better known as the Colosseum, but it is only the best-known example of a type built in many parts of the empire. The Colosseum was begun by Vespasian and completed by his sons Titus and Domitian between AD 70 and 80. He occupied the grounds of the Golden House of Nero and entered the humans
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Aerial view of the interior of the Flavian Amphitheater in Rome, popularly known as the Colosseum, opened in 80 AD. with a festival that lasted 100 days. AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS. REPRODUCED WITH PERMISSION.
Part of the city he had occupied for himself. The Colosseum was a masterpiece of engineering, supported by an interlocking structure of corridors, stairs and ramps, all necessary and carefully planned to hold between 45,000 and 50,000 spectators. Beneath the arena was an underground labyrinth of corridors, storerooms, and cages that housed prisoners and wild animals. The exterior decoration reflects the kinship with Greek practice, using Doric columns on the ground floor, Ionic on the second, Corinthian on the third and Corinthian pilasters committed to the fourth body. There was also an awning system to provide some shade from the strong Roman sun. Colosseum-like amphitheaters were built throughout the empire: in Pompeii and Verona in Italy, Nîmes and Arles in France, and El Djem in southern Tunisia, to name a few. The El Djem stadium, with capacity for around 30,000 spectators, is one of them
some examples better preserved because it is now in a sparsely populated part of the country. The surviving Roman theaters and amphitheaters are living reminders today of the popular entertainments enjoyed by the Roman people and provided by the emperors. However, as examples of a highly developed architectural and engineering tradition, they recall the dramatic and comic literature of the Roman stage, as well as the bloody spectacles of the arena. MONUMENTS. The Romans were particularly fond of commemorating their military conquests by holding a "triumph" - a triumphal procession decided upon by the senate - and erecting a monumental triumphal arch. An example is the Arch of Titus at the eastern end of the Roman Forum. It celebrates his victory in the Jewish War of 70 AD and the two large relief sculptures inside illustrate the triumphal procession. In one, Titus is shown in his chariot.
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Arch of Trajan in Benevento, Italy, marking the end of the Via Traiana. COURTESY OF JAMES ALLAN EVANS.
Trajan's Column in Rome.
COURTESY OF JAMES ALLAN EVANS.
accompanied by the goddess Roma and a winged victory. In the other, victorious soldiers carry off spoils from the temple in Jerusalem, including an enormous menorah, the seven-branched candelabrum. An example of a monumental arch commemorating an event other than a military triumph is the one erected by Trajan at Benevento, south of Rome. In this arch, dating from AD 14–17, Trajan is shown distributing food to the city's poor. The arch is also adorned with images of victories and seasons, as well as some later additions, including the young Hadrian emphasizing his relationship with Trajan. Not all arches commemorate a special event. Some mark the entrance to a city, forum, market or even the end of a bridge, and some serve only as urban decoration. A type of monument comparable to the "triumphal arch" is the memorial column. Trajan's Column at the Forum that he built commemorates his two wars against the Dacians in a band of relief carvings that winds slowly to the top of its 125-foot tower. Built with carved marble drums weighing about forty tons, the shaft with 36
It contains a spiral staircase with 185 steps and a burial chamber for the emperor's ashes. It is a documentary in stone that mixes cane scenes of the emperor addressing his troops with detailed views of the Roman army at war, where even the insignia of the various units have been faithfully reproduced. Its purpose was to emphasize the emperor's nobility and the character of the Roman army. Trajan's Column is one of the most complete narrative examples of Roman art, although the upper parts are nearly impossible to appreciate. Commemorative arches and columns like this one and the later Column of Marcus Aurelius speak volumes about the Romans' desire to commemorate important events and campaigns. They functioned as decoration and focal point of the cityscape and served as visual reminders of the power of the Roman Empire. TOMB OF THE DEAD. Like the Etruscans before them, the Romans practiced both cremation and burial. The tomb had a dual purpose: to protect the remains and to commemorate the dead. Depending on the social standing of the deceased and local custom, tombs can take on a variety of shapes, from a simple square box, a cylindrical mound-like structure, a tower, and even a pyramid. In one case, a baker's grave was designed to resemble an oven; in another, the tomb of Cestius on the Via Appia, the shape is pyramidal for reasons that have it
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Arch of Titus in the Roman Forum erected in 81 AD to commemorate the victory of Emperors Vespasian and Titus in the Judah War (70 AD). FRANCISCO G. MAYOR/CORBIS.
it was not explained. The tomb of Emperor Augustus was a cylindrical monument 80 meters in diameter, erected on the Campo de Mars outside Rome. It was built in several layers with a circular colonnade in the second phase. The emperor's intention was to make his tomb a memorial to the Juliana family, and he had the ashes of other family members collected to be buried with him. Just over a hundred years later, Hadrian also had his tomb designed as a large cylindrical construction, perhaps based on Augustus. Augustus's tomb was filled with Nerva's remains, the last to be deposited in it. Contrary to tradition, Trajan's ashes were interred in his pillar, so Hadrian built a mausoleum for the imperial family's continued use and used it as such until Caracalla's burial. Hadrian's tomb is now known as Castel Sant'Angelo and was used as a fortress in the 6th century. Its decorative elements were lost a long time ago and in a
Bead sculptures were dropped from their heights like missals. Many monuments in Rome shared this fate. The buildings were stripped of their stone to be reused in new constructions. The Pantheon was converted into a Christian church with the addition of towers that have since been removed. The Arch of Titus was built into the wall of a medieval fortress, and the Roman Forum became a pasture for animals. SOURCES
Axel Boëthius e JB Ward-Perkins, arquitetura etrusca e romana (Baltimore, Maryland: Penguin Books, 1970). Richard Brilliant, Roman Art from the Republic to Constantine (Londres: Phaedo, 1974). Nancy H. Ramage e Andrew Ramage, Roman Art: Romulus to Constantine (Nova York: Harry N. Abrams, 1991).
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Arch of Constantine in Rome, built by the Roman Senate to commemorate Constantine's victory at the Battle of Milvian Bridge in 311 AD. TRAVELSITE/DAGLIORTI.
LATE ANCIENT THE ARC OF CONSTANTINE. With the accession of Constantine to the throne in the early 4th century AD, architecture entered a period of transition from traditional Roman forms to those used in Byzantine Christian buildings, a period that has been conveniently labeled "Late Antiquity". The Arch of Constantine from this period is one of the most visible monuments in Rome. It's close to the Coliseum and in some ways is a prime example of continued respect for tradition. Its general design, with three arched doorways, is very similar to the Arch of Septimius Severus at the west end of the Forum, built a few hundred years earlier. The main difference between the two monuments is that the sculptural decoration of the Arch of Constantine has several distinct styles. Some of the reliefs depict him and follow the style of his time, others were reused from Hadrian's time and still others. It's almost as if a con38
A convenient model was used, and available decorations were put into service without regard to their stylistic relationships. Side by side you see realistic representations from Hadrian's day and more stylized figures from the time the arch was built. THE SHAPE OF BASIL. The term "basilica" simply denotes a gathering and gathering space. In Roman usage, this usually meant a civil building for administrative purposes. The Basilica of Maxentius in the Roman Forum was an example of the type, which was taken to its most elaborate design with side bays and vaulted ceilings. The more typical form was much simpler in design. For example, at Trier on the Moselle in northern Gaul, Emperor Constantine completed a vast palace complex begun by his father. This included residences, a large bathhouse, a circus, warehouses and other structures. One of the most important buildings in the history of architecture, included in it
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it is the audience hall or basilica, much of which remains. It was a simple plan: a large rectangular room, 95 feet by 190 feet, with a semicircular apse, a curved alcove usually at the end of a building, as is the case here. Opposite the entrance to the main hall were a transept, a vestibule or narthex, and a portico or vestibule. To increase the width without resorting to vaults over the aisles on both sides of the nave, as the central space was called, the ceilings of the aisles were lower. This provided the opportunity to incorporate windows into the nave's side walls, which helped to lighten the interior. As the Christian church evolved from the secular Roman form for public use, the architectural parts served to draw the believer's attention to the ceremony. This was achieved through the unique orientation of the tunnel-like space that ends in the apse, with the help of the rhythmic repetition of the columns on either side. Examples of this form can be found in the plan of the ancient Basilica of Saint Peter in Rome, or in churches from the 5th century AD, such as Santa Maria Maggiore and Santa Sabina, also in Rome. The large forms that enclose spaces, exemplified in structures such as the Roman baths, were not completely forgotten. Built under Justinian in the mid-sixth century, Hagia Sophia in Constantinople retains the basic plan of the basilica, but on a scale and with an elaborate dome system that is almost unrecognizable as such. What Hagia Sophia shows us is the continuation of Roman values in an architectural tradition that produced monumental results but served the Christian faith rather than the Roman state. SOURCES
John Beckwith, Early Medieval Art (New York: Praeger, 1969). Axel Boëthius and JB Ward-Perkins, Etruscan and Roman Architecture (Baltimore, Maryland: Penguin Books, 1970). Richard Brilliant, Roman Art from the Republic to Constantine (London: Phaedo, 1974). David Talbot Rice, Byzantine Art (Baltimore: Penguin Books, Ltd., 1968). DS Robertson, Handbook of Greek and Roman Architecture (London: Cambridge University Press, 1964).
FRUIT-CHRISTIAN AND BYZANTINE ARCHITECTURE THE FRUIT-FRUIT BASILICA. When Emperor Constantine recognized Christianity as the official state religion in the early 4th century, Christians were able to practice their faith openly. Whereas before they had secretly met in the catacombs and other
in non-public places they could now freely appear as an organized and recognized sect. The first Christian meeting places were private homes, and it was not until religious ritual became formal that a special building was needed. Probably to differentiate themselves from ancient religions, the "pagan" forms of Greek and Roman temples were not used for Christian worship. The elongated rectangular shape of the civil basilica was easily adapted to this use, although some modifications had to be made. The basilica was primarily a meeting house capable of accommodating large groups for business and other civic purposes, although some changes in form had to be made for its new religious purpose. The normal civil basilica had its entrance on one side, and this was modified to accommodate the necessary internal orientation and direction of the church. One of the best examples of an early Christian basilica was the original Church of St. Peter in Rome. It was built by order of Emperor Constantine on the site of the Circus of Nero, where the Apostle Peter was martyred. Construction began in 324 AD, but was demolished at the end of the 15th century to make way for a later church. There are numerous references to drawings and plans that indicate its design. Its overall plan included an atrium, a large open courtyard through which participants passed to enter the body of the church. Although the general assembly hall followed the general plan of the civil basilica, the addition of the atrium recalled the form of private houses originally used for worship. In the Church of San Pedro, a large central nave known as the nave was flanked on either side by two parallel aisles. Only the largest churches had five naves; A large central nave with just two aisles was more typical. The focus of religious ritual was on the altar at the far end of the entrance, as is the arrangement in most Christian churches today. While the outer and inner walls and columns were made of stone, the nave's roof and side aisles were made of wood. This was a pattern followed in most early Christian basilica-type churches, discarding the use of stone or brick vaults in favor of cheap and easy-to-construct wooden roofs. Conceived as a gathering place for large crowds to conduct business and government affairs, and used throughout the Roman world, the format became the standard for a Christian place of worship. The pattern set by the early St. Peter's Church was followed in many early churches. An example is the Church of Santa Sabina in Rome, begun in 425. Its arrangement follows the basilica pattern with a semi-dome over the apse, the semi-circular niche at the end of the church
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To send. In it, as in many primitive churches, the columns that support the side walls of the nave were brought from previous constructions. In some cases, such building elements were reused regardless of their style or order. Mosaics were often used to decorate the facade, side walls and apse. These enlivened the interior with color and reflected light, but also served as informative and devotional illustrations of Scripture. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE BYZANTINE CHURCH. Known in ancient times as Byzantium, the city was refounded by Constantine in 333 AD as "New Rome". When the Roman Empire fell in 335 to Constantine's successors, it became the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire under the new name of Constantinople. The development of the style of church architecture in the east, serving the same purposes as in the west, took a slightly different form. There are several reasons for the difference, including the lack of wood for the roof, leading to a return to the arches and vaults developed by Roman architects. While this may be part of the explanation, it is more likely that church architecture in eastern Byzantium was the result of a combination of local building traditions and influence from eastern (Persian) architecture. While Roman architects were comfortable designing round buildings like the Parthenon that could be covered by a dome, Byzantine architects faced the problem of a round dome resting on a square or rectangular building. This problem could be solved in two ways: using trumpets or using pendants. The squinch uses an octagonal arrangement formed by bridging the corners with a lintel or arch. The pendant uses a second dome shape from which sections have been removed, leaving a circular base supported by four triangular sections supported by four pillars. Essentially following the design of a basilica, Hagia Sophia in Istanbul is an example of the use of domes supported by pendants. A variation on a plan popular in the East was a central plan in a circular or octagonal building, as seen in the Church of San Vitale in northwest Italy, built between 526 and 547, which would be popular in the West except for baptistries. and other special uses. Separate eastern and western architectural traditions have continued into modern times and are still evident in the differences between modern Greek Orthodox rite churches and those of more western tradition. SOURCES
John Beckwith, Arte Medieval Temprano (Londres: Thames and Hudson, 1964). 40
Jean Lasuss, The Early Christian and Byzantine World (Londres: Paul Hamlin, 1967). David Talbot Rice, Arte bizantino (Harmondsworth, Inglaterra: Pelican Books, 1968). VER TAMBIÉN
Religion: The Rise of Christianity
IMPORTANT PEOPLE in architecture and design H ADRIAN AD 76–AD 138 Emperor PATRON OF MONUMENTS. Publius Aelius Hadrianus (Adrian) was emperor from 117 to 38 AD. After his father's death, he became a student of Emperor Trajan. He held several important military and civilian posts, including governorship in Syria, until Trajan's death in 117. Trajan had named Hadrian as his successor on his deathbed. An important aspect of Hadrian's reign was his extensive journey through the Roman Empire, literally from one end (Britain) to the other (Syria). His reasons for traveling for years combined a need for sightseeing and a desire to prove himself the ruler of remote provinces. His importance in Rome's architectural history includes the completion of the Pantheon in Rome, the Temple of Olympian Zeus in Athens, his imposing tomb in Rome (Castel San Angelo) and his imperial villa in Tivoli. SOURCES
Michael Grant, „Hadrian“, em The Roman Emperors (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1985). JJ Pollitt, Die Kunst Griechenlands 1400–31 v. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1965): ix–x.
PAUSANIAS mid 2nd century AD – late 2nd century AD Ancient Greek Traveler. The traveler and antiquarian Pausanias left a detailed account of the parts of Greece he saw.
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in his book Descriptions of Greece, which contains detailed descriptions of numerous monuments and buildings. The book also covers the history of the location described, as well as some of the local customs, cult systems and local myths. His reports are like a modern travel guide. He was very interested in shrines, tombs and statues and wrote extensive sections on Attica, Megara, Argolis, Laconia, Messenia, Elis, Olympias, Achaia, Arcadia, Boeotia, Phocis and Delphi. He was also careful to describe notable battle scenes and historical and artistic monuments. He was selective about what he described and left out, drawing attention to what he considered important in the fields of architecture, culture and the arts. Often Pausanias is the only surviving source for the original appearance of a temple or shrine, at least as it appeared in his day. Little is known about the man, except that he was likely of Lydian origin and the period in which he lived and wrote can only be inferred from internal evidence in his text. SOURCES
Pausanias, Guide to Greece. 2 vols. Translated by Peter Levi (New York: Viking/Penguin, 1984). JJ Pollitt, The Art of Greece 1400-31 BC. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1965): ix-x.
to work. Their stories bring the historical record to life through biography. SOURCES
NGL Hammond e HH Scullard, The Oxford Classical Dictionary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989): 848–849.
SUETONIUS c. 69 A.D. - w. AD 140 Official Academic CÉSAR BIOGRAFO. Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus had a distinguished career in the Roman imperial civil service and was probably secretary to Emperor Hadrian. He was a learned man recognized for his qualities by Pliny the Younger and others. His Lives of the Caesars is a tale composed of twelve biographies from Julius Caesar to Domitian, but also a valuable source of information about the buildings constructed during their reigns. His work is particularly useful as a source of information about an architecture that no longer exists. SOURCES
C. 50 n. Chr.–c. 120 DC
N. G. L. Hammond e H. H. Scullard, The Oxford Classical Dictionary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989): 1020.
antiquarian biographer priest
IN ITRÚVIO
P LUTARCH
GREEK BIOGRAPHER. Plutarch was a man from a distinguished Greek family with considerable influence in ruling circles. For the last thirty years of his life he was a priest in a temple at Delphi. He was also a prolific writer, using his works to influence greater cooperation between Greece and Rome. His literary output includes philosophical, rhetorical, and antiquarian works, but he is best known for his Lives of Famous Men. He arranged the biographies in parallel pairs: for example, he depicted the Greek and Roman orators Demosthenes and Cicero side by side to contrast and compare them. Some of the biographies are particularly revealing about architectural projects. Plutarch's Life of Pericles is an important source of detailed information about his building projects on the Acropolis of Athens. It includes lists of the types of craftsmen employed, the names of the architects of the various buildings, and even the fact that the sculptor Phidias was the general manager of the building.
Florida. 1st century BC Architect Military Engineer WROTE MANUAL OF ARCHITECTURE. Vitruvius was a Roman architect and engineer who lived and worked during the early reign of Emperor Augustus. In addition to his architectural achievements, his main work was a treatise entitled De architectura (On Architecture). This was based on his own experiences as well as the works of other (mainly Greek) architects. The contents of this handbook include chapters on urban planning, general architecture and architect's degree, building materials, temples, civil buildings, residential buildings, paving and plastering, water supply, measuring and geometry, and machines. His work is particularly valuable because it reflects his practical experience and because of his careful analysis of the
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architecture and design
architectural orders and rules of proportion. His description of the "Tuscan" temple design contributes to modern knowledge of what lost Etruscan architecture looked like. The sections on building materials and methods are particularly helpful in understanding ancient building techniques. Little is known about Vitruvius other than his written works and the buildings attributed to him. SOURCES
N. G. L. Hammond e H. H. Scullard, The Oxford Classical Dictionary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989): 1130.
DOCUMENTARY SOURCES in Architecture and Design Pausanias, Description of Greece (2nd century AD) – Pausanias traveled extensively throughout the Mediterranean world and was a keen observer of the places he visited. In his account of his travels in Greece, he gives a brief outline of the history and layout of important cities, but it is his detailed description of many important monuments (temples, shrines, treasury and other public buildings). It has shown
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one of the most valuable sources for the history of Greek architecture. His travels in Greece included most of the major cities such as Athens, Olympia and Delphi. Pliny the Elder (Gaius Plinius Secundus), Natural History (1st century AD): Pliny's Compendium of Facts included a discussion of building and building materials and the techniques of artists and decorators for great architectural works. Suetonius (Gaius Paulinus Suetonius), History of the Caesars (2nd century AD): Suetonius' account of the lives of the twelve Caesars, from Julius Caesar to Domitian, contains descriptive material about the buildings and monuments of Rome. He often describes works that no longer exist, or are in ruins, as they were in his day. Vitruvius (Vitruvius Pollio), On Architecture (late 1st century BC - early 1st century AD): Virtruvius's work on architecture is the only surviving source written by a professional architect of the time and has survived into modern times. In it, he covers virtually every aspect of the craft as it was then understood, including architectural history, style, site layout, and construction. Its section on architect education is particularly interesting because it describes the different areas of knowledge and skills an architect was responsible for.
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Chapter Two
BAILE James Allan Evans
IMPORTANT EVENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 OVERVIEW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 TOPICS Dance in prehistoric Greece . war dances. . . . . . . . . . . . female choirs. . . . . . . The dithyramb. . . . . . . . . folk dances. . . . . . . . . . . . dance in the theater. . . . Dionysian dance. . . . . . . . Professional dancers. . . . . . Dancing in Rome. . . . . . . . .
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They refer to the Arion PEOPLE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bathilus and Pylades. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Memphis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Theodora. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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DOCUMENTAL SOURCES. . . . . . . . . . 78 BARS AND MAIN DOCUMENTS Primary sources are listed in italics
The Minoans were famous dancers (Homer describes the shield made by Hephaestus with his representation of Minoan dances). . . . . . . 49 Theseus dances the Geranos (an excerpt from Plutarch's biography of Theseus). . . . . . . . . . fifty
Dance in Plato's ideal state (Plato describes the characteristic movements of war dances). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 War dances of the Greeks (Xenophon describes several war dances performed by armed soldiers). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Curetes and Coribantes (Lucretius describes the ritual dance of the Coribantes) . . . . . . . . . 56 Aeschylus reinvents tragic dance (Athenaeus comments on dance innovations introduced by Aeschylus) . . . . . . . 63 The Importance of Gesture (excerpt from Quintilian's discussion of useful gestures for an orator) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 The ecstasy of the Bacchae (Euripides writes about the ritual dance and madness of the Bacchae) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 A dancer enjoys herself at a banquet in Athens (Xenophon describes dancers performing at a banquet attended by Socrates). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 Death of a Roman businessman (3rd-century inscription on the tomb of a dancing teacher). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 Luciano of Samosata argues about the virtus of pantomime dance (Luciano contrasts pantomime with contemporary tragedy) . . . . . . 73 The pantomime dancer, Pylades (Macrobius remembers Pylades, who revolutionized pantomime during the reign of Augustus). . . . . 74
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each comic production, which bears the costs and oversees the training of the 24 dancers in the choir. 423 BC Aristophanes, in his comedy The Clouds, attacks the new experiments in music and dance that were being introduced onto the Athenian stage at this time.
IMPORTANT EVENTS in dance c. 1500 BC A small soapstone vase (black soapstone) found in the Hagia Traiada in Crete, dating from this period, shows a harvest dance carved in relief. circa 1300 BC A small clay figurine from this period, found in Palaikastro, Crete, shows women dancing in a circle around a musician playing the lyre. 544 BC The "Feast of the Naked Children" is held in Sparta, where Spartan youths and older men dance naked in the marketplace and sing hymns in honor of those killed in the Battle of Thyrea, fought with Sparta's northern neighbor Argus. 534 BC The tyrant Pisistratus founds the Festival of the Dionysian City in Athens, at which Thespis wins first prize for his "Tragedy", a dithyramb (choral song) in which he himself plays the lead role. 508 BC A separate competition for dithyrambic song and dance is organized in the Dionysian city. 501 BC At the festival of the Dionysian city in Athens, one day of comedy is added to three days of tragedy. The signature dance of comedy, the kordax, is considered vulgar when performed backstage. 486 BC Comedy is produced for the city of Dionysia in the same way as tragedy: the chief magistrate of the state named "Archon" assigns a "choregus" to 44
364 BC The plague devastated Rome, and to appease the divine wrath, the Romans introduced Etruscan dancers, who performed dance performances in the Etruscan style without singing or imitating the music. 334 BC The playwright Lysicrates erected his choregic monument, which still stands in Athens, to commemorate his chorus' victory in a dithyrambic competition in 335-334 BC. to remember. approx. 300 BC A guild of Dionysian artists (actors, musicians and dancers) is founded in Athens. 279 BC Shortly after this date, the artists of the Dionysian Guild of Athens had their right to travel freely in Greece confirmed by the Amphiconic League, a federation based in Delphi that oversees the government of the Temple State of Delphi. 240 BC Chr Lucius Livius Andronicus of Tarentum produces his first dramatic performance in Rome, which includes songs accompanied by interpretive dancing. approx. 200 BC Dancing becomes a social achievement in Rome and upper-class parents begin sending their sons and daughters to dance schools. approx. 150 BC In Rome, General Scipio Aemilianus Africanus tried to close the dance schools. circa 22 BC The famous pantomime Pylades, a protégé and presumably former slave of Emperor Augustus, introduces a new style of pantomime dancing to Rome.
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2 A.D. The Sebasta, Greek Games, are established in Naples to compete with the great festivals of Greece, such as the Olympic, Pythian, Nemean and Isthmian Games. Sometime after the death of Emperor Augustus in AD 14, pantomime dance competitions are added to the games, along with other theatrical arts competitions. 23 A.D. Emperor Tiberius bans all pantomime from Rome because of the riots pantomime leads to.
mances cause in theaters. They are not allowed to return to Rome until Gaius Caligula becomes emperor in AD 37. 162 AD Emperor Lucius Verus returns to Rome - 165 AD to the famous pantomime dancer Apolaustus, known as "Memphius", from his campaigns in the East. c. 525 AD Theodora, a former pantomime dancer in Constantinople, marries Justinian. They became Emperor and Empress of the Roman Empire in 527.
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SHOWING DANCE THE KINGDOM OF TERPSICHORE. Dancing was part of what the Greeks called mousike, the arts of the nine muses, daughters of Zeus. Four of them, Polyhymnia, Calliope, Euterpe and Erato, inspired poets; Melpomene presided over the theater of tragedy and Thalia over the theater of laughter; Urania marked the movements of stars and planets; and Clio has preserved the memories and myths of the past. The leader of all, however, was Terpsichore, ruler of the dance. Dancing took place in festivals, religious rituals, theatrical performances, banquet entertainment, youth education, and military training. Terpsichore's mastery extended to all body movements, including acrobatics and especially hand and arm gestures, which the Greeks called kheironomia. Modern knowledge of ancient dance comes from widely dispersed sources: vase paintings, carved stone inscriptions, and references in Greek and Latin manuscripts. Most of the information comes from the period of the Roman Empire, when many of the ancient dances, if still danced, changed a lot. The names of several ancient Greek and Roman dances and the traditions associated with them are known, but there are gaps in this knowledge. An example is the Gymnopaideia ("Dance of the Naked Boys"), which was danced every year in the marketplace of ancient Sparta. There are records of nude dancers, but this information also shows that men and boys participated in the dance, leaving both the meaning of the dance and the title open to interpretation. Another example is the Geranos (“Dance of the Crane”) performed on the sacred island of Delos. Although the records make it clear that this was a dance closely associated with religion, there is no indication that the dance had anything to do with cranes or birds of any kind. The most famous example is the "tragic chorus" that danced and sang in Greek tragedies. While not much is known about the origins of many Greek dances and traditions, their influence in many different areas, from religion to literature to fashion, is evident. 46
ORIGIN. The purpose of dance in Greek and Roman society is similar to the role dance played in almost all ancient cultures where dancing was directly linked to the rites of religion. The dance evoked the changing of the seasons, life and death, social solidarity and the connection between humanity and the invisible forces that affect human existence. If a tribe depended on hunting wild animals for food, hunters could dress in animal skins and dance to the success of the hunt. As religious rituals were extremely conservative, dances involving dancers posing as animals continued long after society depended more on harvesting than hunting for food. After the domestication of plants and animals, another type of dance emerged: the community danced on the threshing floors after the harvest, expressing not only the joy of the harvest, but also the hope that the crops would be plentiful next year. . The dances performed at spring festivals, in which dancers leaped into the air, were intended to promote fertility in the fields. Then there were dances to celebrate marriages, war dances designed to keep warriors in peak physical condition, and some dances designed to break free from the constraints and limitations of the world of everyday work. When dance passed to the theater, it became a spectacle. In the Roman Empire, dancing competed with gladiatorial games and chariot races for the public interest, and famous dancers traveled and performed in provincial theaters found in cities of all sizes throughout the Roman Empire. THE CONTRIBUTION OF CRETE. The earliest description of a dance comes from Homer's description of Achilles' shield in the Iliad, in which the blacksmith god Hephaestus performed two dancing scenes. One is a dance performed by harvest workers as they gather the grapes for the harvest. The other is a dance specifically reminiscent of Minoan Crete, a prehistoric civilization found on an island off mainland Greece. The dance was performed on a dance floor similar to that of Ariadne, daughter of Minos of Crete. Homer's mention of dancing in the Iliad indicates that the Greeks recognized the Cretan contribution to dancing, which included the hyporchyme, a lively dance of music, pantomime, and instrumental music played on the lyre or aulos. The Geranos, the "dance of the cranes", also comes from Crete. According to legend, the Athenian hero Theseus brought the dance on his way back from Cnossus to the sacred island of Delos, where he slew the Minotaur, a half-man, half-bull monster trapped in a labyrinth-like structure. called "Labyrinth". Geranos continued to be danced on Delos at a festival held every July.
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DANCE AS A RELIGIOUS RITE. It would not be wrong to say that all Greek dances had a connection with religion, as the dances took place at festivals in honor of one god or another. However, there were some dances that were vital to certain religious rites. The Great Mother Goddess Cybele, whose cult center was in Phrygia in western Asia Minor, on the periphery of the Greek world, was assisted by eunuch priests called Coribantes, who performed ecstatic dances as part of their ritual. But better known is the Dance of the Maenads, where followers of the wine god Dionysus, in fits of temporary madness, danced wild dances or orgies during which they captured wild animals and killed them. They are often shown on Greek vases as companions of Dionysus. In many Greek states, congregations of women gathered every other year in the dead of winter, even while climbing snowy mountains, to dance their "orgies" in honor of Dionysus. THE VARIETY OF GREEK DANCE. In addition to the Bacchae, Greek literature mentions many types of dancing. There was the Pyrrhic dance, a war dance that imitated combat between warriors. It was the national dance of Sparta, a militaristic state, but similar dances occurred in other parts of the ancient world, including a very ancient dance in Rome that is said to have been started by Rome's founder, Romulus. The Herakeio was a female dance in honor of the goddess Hera, and the Epilinios was a dance performed during the grape harvest in honor of Dionysus, the god of wine, stomping the grapes. The dance performed by the chorus in the staging of a Greek tragedy was the Emmeleia. It was a dignified dance, whereas the Greek comedy dance, the kordax, was not. Among the satyr plays performed at the end of a three-day tragedy during a festival were sikinnis, in which dancers dressed as satyrs. The Partheneia ('Dance of the Maidens') was a chorus of ten or eleven girls who could be married off, while the Himenaios was a nuptial dance danced by the bride with her mother and a few female friends. The Hormos was a dance of men and women forming a chain, and the young man leading the chain displayed his dancing skills along with his warrior skills. Hailing from Crete, Hiporchema was a combination of pantomime and dancing performed by boys and girls singing to musical accompaniment as they danced. THE DICTARY. The dithyramb was a choral song and dance performed in honor of Dionysus. According to Aristotle's essay The Art of Poetry, Greek tragedy began with the dithyramb because the chorus told a story.
of myth with song and dance. Around 600 BC A famous dithyramb artist, Arion, whose patron was the Corinthian tyrant or dictator Periander, gave it a particular shape. Its development into tragedy began in Athens, when the festival known as the "Dionysian City" was founded and a dithyrambic leader, Thespis, participated as a soloist. However, tragedy did not supplant dithyrambs in the Dionysian city, for in 508 BC. CE Dithyrambos were given their own place at the festival. They have also been featured at other festivals; Indeed, the Theater of Dionysus in Athens was used more often for dithyrambs than for tragedy and comedy. DANCE AS A PROFESSION. Most professional dancers remained nameless in ancient Greece. They were mostly slaves owned by a company master. In Xenophon's Banquet, which describes a banquet attended by Socrates in 421 BC. he participated. E.C., a business owner from Syracuse, Sicily, provides dancers to entertain guests. It would have been a shame for an Athenian citizen to have a troupe of dancers, but this master was a foreigner and therefore not subject to Athenian conventions. There was also interpretive dancing performed by professionals in Greece, although little is known about it. One story tells the representation of the tragic actor Neoptolemus in the myth of Cinyras, the king of Cyprus, who there founded the cult of Aphrodite and, without knowing it, committed incest with his own daughter, who gave birth to Adonis. It was probably a song and dance performance, a forerunner of Roman pantomime. MIME. Pantomime is said to have existed in 22 BC. having been introduced into Rome. of the artist Pylades and his rival Bathillus. In the Roman setting before 22 B.C. He interpreted pantomimes and songs. C., but Pylades and Bathillus introduced a new type of interpretive dance that became very popular. Pylades and the pantomime artists who followed him danced while an assistant recited the story and a small orchestra played the music. Emperors had their favorite pantomimes: Augustus supported Pylades, while his minister of public affairs, Maecenas, sponsored Batilus; Gaius Caligula (r. 37–41 CE) worshiped Mnestor, and Lucius Verus (r. 161–180 CE) was a fan of Menfio, who is said to have taught Pythagorean philosophy through his dancing. Unlike mimes, mimes were usually men who performed as characters wearing masks, and quick mask switching allowed them to quickly change from one character to another when the script called for it. However, these were closed-mouth masks, not the open-mouth masks of theatrical dramas. There were also pantomime dances, which were skits occasionally involving unmasked actors.
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Dance
Women. The Copiola Gallery, for example, is remembered for having been built in 82 BC. BC performed their first dance on stage. and the last in AD 9 at the age of 104. In the late Roman Empire, pantomime and pantomime were mixed, with women dancing roles from mythology on stage. Empress Theodora, wife of Emperor Justinian (r. 527–565 CE), was a pantomime actress before meeting her future husband. The sketch for which she was best known recounted the myth of Leda's rape by the god Zeus in the guise of a swan. Theodora's choreography was easy because although she was a talented comedian, she was not a talented dancer. She removed all clothing except the mandatory belt around her crotch, and reclined on the stage as a servant sprayed her with pimples. Then a flock of geese entered the stage and ate the grains from her body. Although the Roman Empire was largely Christianized in Theodora's time, the Christian church's disapproval of theater did not eradicate the depiction of ancient myths.
TOPICS in D ANZA dance
EM
PREHISTORIC GREECE
MINOAN CRETE. Bronze Age civilizations in Greece carry labels that are applied to them in modern times. The Minoan civilization of Crete, which lasted from about 2000 until just before 1400 BC. C., was a non-Greek culture with an indecipherable language likely associated with contemporary societies in Asia Minor. The Mycenaean civilization on mainland Greece developed a few centuries after the start and end of the Minoan civilization, at roughly the same time. Its name comes from the first place where it was discovered: Mycenae, the legendary capital of Agamemnon, who led the Greek coalition in the Trojan War. Since the first archaeological discoveries at Mycenae in the 1870s and Crete at the so-called Palace of Minos at Knossos in the early 20th century, archaeologists and historians have uncovered a wealth of information about these Bronze Age cultures. For example, at a Minoan site in eastern Crete, Palaikastro, archaeologists discovered an early clay figurine depicting women dancing in a circle with a man playing a lyre in the middle. Six clay birds were found near the figurine. The figure dates from after 1400 BC. when Greek-speaking immigrants from mainland Greece had already invaded the island, 48
and is the oldest surviving depiction of a musician playing the lyre surrounded by dancers in a circle. Harvest was a time of dancing in Crete; as evidenced by the so-called "Harvester Vase", a small black soapstone vase depicting a procession of harvesters discovered at Hagia Triadha in Crete. The "Harvest Vase" offers scholars a glimpse into a harvest dance that took place around 1500 BC. in Crete. The vase depicts the reapers walking side by side on all fours, chanting and raising their knees with each step. They carry on their shoulders elongated objects that have been identified as flails or sieves, tools used to separate grains. The main collector is a man who shakes a sistrum, a type of rattle used in Egyptian religious ceremonies, and appears to sing with enthusiasm. Another Cretan dance ceremony is shown on a gold signet ring found in tombs from the 15th century BC. was discovered. at Vapheio near Sparta in Greece. The signet ring shows a woman dancing under a tree in the elegant court dress worn by ladies in the palace of Minos on Crete. To her right, a young man jumps to pick a fruit or a flower from the tree. Although visual references are fundamental to dance in the ancient Cretan civilization, the best evidence of the dance tradition does not come from archaeology, but from Greek literature centuries later. THE EVIDENCE OF LITERATURE. One of the first literary texts on the Cretan dance tradition after the collapse of Bronze Age civilization comes from the poets of the island of Lesbos. A poem from the 7th century BC. attributed to Sappho or Alcaeus. …” Other examples of the famous Cretan dance rituals come from the Homeric epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey. The Iliad tells how the blacksmith god Hephaestus created new armor for the hero Achilles so he could get back into the fight after his best friend Patroclus was killed while wearing Achilles' armor. The shield that Hephaestus made showed scenes of everyday life in ancient Greece, in peace or war, and in the middle were two dancing scenes. One showed a dance while the grapes on the vine were harvested, reminiscent of the "vintage vase". The other represented a dance on a dance floor, which Homer explicitly compares to one built by the legendary craftsman Daedalus at Knossos for Ariadne, daughter of King Minos of Crete. The Odyssey tells how the hero Ulysses arrived on the island of Feacia in his wanderings. Ruled by a generous king and a wise queen, Phaeacia is believed to be based on popular memories from the world of ancient Crete, although the Odyssey was written at least six years earlier.
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THE MINOANS WERE FAMOUS DANCERS
Crete, on the dance floor of Ariadne, daughter of King Minos of Crete in Greek mythology. Homer recalls the tradition of that Minoan Crete, where a pre-Greek civilization lived between 1700 and 1450 BC. C., was famous for dancing.
INTRODUCTION:
Homer's Iliad reflects the tradition that the Minoans were famous dancers in Bronze Age Crete. The passage quoted here describes how the blacksmith god Hephaestus made new armor for Achilles, since Achilles had lent his armor to his friend Patroclus, who was killed by the Trojan hero Hector. The shield that Hephaestus designed was a work of art. In it he staged scenes from Greek life, including two dance scenes, one of which is particularly reminiscent of the dances that took place in the palace of Minos at Knossos. The first scene shows a historic ball where young people, men and women, dance in the grape harvest while in the center a boy plays the lyre and sings Linus's song, a sad song that does not express any joy. but sadness. Perhaps it was a lament here for the passing of summer and the coming of winter. The second dance scene described below featured boys with daggers and girls with garlands on their heads. Both are dressed in their best clothes (the men rubbed theirs with oil to make them shine) and perform an intricate dance, first forming a circle and doing a circular dance, and then forming two lines that move towards each other. . In the center of the circle were two gymnasts, or vaulters, performing somersaults and high jumps in the air. This type of acrobatic dancing was considered a Cretan speciality. Homer points out that they were like the dances performed at Knossos.
Centuries after the zenith of the Minoan civilization. King Alcinous of Phaeacia had five sons, and they all need clean clothes to dance with. Alcínoo's daughter Nausicaa carried the garment to the beach, where she met Odysseus and led him to her father's palace. There he attended a feast where the Phaeacians showed their special ability to dance. The dance floor was swept, the minstrel took his place in the center of the dance floor with his lyre, and the young dancers performed in a circle around him. Then two dancers demonstrated their ability to dance with a ball: one threw the ball in the air; the other jumped up and caught him before his feet touched the ground. So they danced, each throwing the ball to the other, who caught it and threw it back. From this example, it is clear that ancient Cretan dance encompassed a wide range of movements: juggling, pirouettes, and arm and hand gestures. It was all part of mousike, the arts sacred to the muses of dance, music and poetry. THE DANCE OF GERANOS. One dance that originated in Crete was the Geranos. Many scholars originally translated
The glorious lame god also represented a dance floor, as Daedalus once drew for Ariadne with her beautiful braids in wide Knossos. In it, young men and women, whose marriage would cost many oxen, danced, hand in hand on the wrists. The girls were dressed in fine linen and the boys wore well-knit doublets that glistened faintly with olive oil. The girls wore beautiful garlands and the boys had gold daggers hanging from silver baldrics. And now they danced in a circle, with light and agile feet, as when a potter sits on his potter's wheel, which fits neatly between his hands, and finds that it turns easily; and then they would form lines and move quickly to meet each other. A large crowd was merrily around the beautiful dance floor [and among them a divine minstrel playing his lyre] and among the dancers leading their dance steps were two acrobats swaying and shaking them. SOURCE: Homer, The Iliad, ix, 689-709. Translated by Andrew Lang, Walter Leaf and Ernest Myers (London: Macmillan, 1911). Text revised by James Allan Evans.
He suggested geranos as the Greek word for "crane", leading to speculation that geranos were a dance in which performers imitated the flight of cranes or dressed like cranes. Animal and bird dances of this type were well known in Greek culture. However, representations of geraniums discovered on pottery indicate that the dancers did not disguise themselves as herons. An attempt to explain the dance's title suggests that the dance simply simulated the migratory flight of cranes. A widely accepted theory is that the word geranos was mistranslated as "crane". Rather, it derives from a word meaning "to end" in Indo-European, the ancient language from which most modern European languages are derived. This idea of closure is supported by visual depictions of geraniums, which show dancers with their hands clasped together forming a line that moves back and forth, sometimes even reversing direction, as if moving through a maze. Many scholars began to speculate that the geranos was a "twisting dance" intended to represent a serpent and that it was performed in rituals to honor a large snake such as a python. There is archaeological evidence of this.
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THESEUS DANCES THE GERANOS INTRODUCTION:
The life of Plutarch of Chaeronea lasted from the 1940s AD. until the reign of Hadrian (117-138 AD). He is best known for his Parallel Lives, which compared biographies of eminent Greeks with eminent Romans. He dedicated a biography to the hero Theseus and in the following section he describes how the dance called "crane" reached Crete. Dicearchus, whom Plutarch cites as a source, was a pupil of Aristotle.
On the way back from Crete, Theseus touched Delos. There, after sacrificing Apollo and enshrining in his temple the statue of Aphrodite which he had received from Ariadne, he and the young Athenians performed with him a dance which is said to still be performed by the people of Delos, consisting of a series of dancing serpent figures. at regular intervals representing the tortuous passages of the labyrinth. The Delians call this type of dance the Crane, according to Dicearchos, and Theseus danced it around the altar known as the Keraton, which consists of horns all coming from the left side of the head. It is also said that Theseus founded the games on Delos and that the practice of applauding the victors began there. SOURCE: Plutarch, “Theseus,” in The Rise and Fall of Athens; The Nine Greek Lives of Plutarch. Trans. Ian Scott Kilvert (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books, 1960): 27.
Rituals involving snakes in Minoan Crete and Greek mythology relate that when Apollo took over the sanctuary and made it his own, he killed a sacred python worshiped at Delphi. MYTHICAL ORIGINS. Another possible origin of Geranos comes from Greek mythology. According to a myth, King Minos of Crete forced Athens to annually send him seven boys and girls as tribute who would serve as food for the Minotaur, a half-man, half-bull monster trapped in the Labyrinth, a labyrinth of sinuous serpents. paths and corridors in Knossos. It is not clear whether the labyrinth was a building, an outdoor area or even a dance floor, as one scholar has suggested. The hero Theseus, son of the king of Athens, insisted on going to Knossos as one of the seven young men to be sacrificed to the Minotaur, and there he killed the Minotaur and escaped the upheavals of the 1950s.
Labyrinth following a rope given to him by Minos' daughter Ariadne. On his way back to Athens, Theseus stopped at the sacred island of Delos, where he and the rest of the young Athenians who had fled with him danced the geraniums. This scene from the myth is depicted on the Vase François, a famous black-figure vase named after the excavator who discovered it in an Etruscan tomb in Italy in the early 19th century. On one side of the vase, below the rim, Theseus and his companions can be seen disembarking from the boat and forming a line of dancers, holding hands, alternating by gender. Dancers would then come and go to celebrate the twists and turns they found in the labyrinth. There are records that show that geraniums were held annually on the island of Delos around an altar of horns similar to those found in the Palace of Minos in Crete, lending even more credence to the theory that geraniums were of Cretan origin. THE GERANOS IN THE CLASSICAL PERIOD. Regardless of the origin of the Geranos, the dance continued on the sacred island of Delos into Hellenistic and Roman times. The dancers were men and women, forming a kind of chorus with a leader at each end known as geranoulkoi ("those who pull the crane"). Some inscriptions from Delos survive, giving further evidence of the dance. It was usually performed during a festival held in the month the Greeks called Hekatombaion - which corresponds to July in the modern calendar - and was danced at night by the light of lamps and torches. The inscriptions show payments for torches, lamp wicks and oil to light the lamps. They also show that each of the dancers was paid ten drachmas, not a small amount when a stonemason earned between one and two drachmas a day. The inscriptions also state that the dancers were equipped with branches that were symbols of victory and cords or ropes used by the dancers, accessories that refer to the myth of the labyrinth. As the geranos were danced at night, this was probably part of the rituals performed to honor the underworld deities, the chthonic ("earth") deities. Some scholars believed that this was further evidence that the geranos were a ritual snake dance, as snakes were underworld creatures. Geraniums survived into the early Roman period of Greek history, but became popular after the first century BC. CE is no longer displayed. OTHER ANCIENT DANCES. There were also other dances that the Greeks thought originated in Crete. One of these was the Hyporchyma, a joyous choral hymn sung to the god Apollo, which was also included.
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dance. The chant has also been attributed to Crete; it was a hymn of prayer to Apollo, similar to the hyporchyma. When festivals and offerings to Apollo were held on the sacred island of Delos, children's choirs danced and sang both hyporchema and canticle to the accompaniment of the aulos, a wind instrument similar to the oboe, and the lyre. The nomoi, narrative poems about the adventures of heroes or gods, also of Cretan origin, were sung to the sound of the lyre or double aulos. In ancient Greece, nomoi were accompanied only by a series of gestures, but later versions also included dance steps. Dances with men carrying their weapons, originally war dances, were widespread in the Greek world, but the traditional war dance of Sparta, known as Pyrrhus or "Dance of Pyrrhus", had Cretan origins. A Spartan myth surrounding the founder of the Spartan constitution, Lycurgus, tells of Lycurgus's desire for dances befitting a society of warriors, so he persuaded a musician and choreographer named Thaletas to come from Crete and teach the Spartan Spartans in song and dance. Thaletas of Crete was a historical figure: he was a musician and dance teacher known to have been active in the 7th century BC. in Sparta. He may have redesigned the Pyrrhic dance in Sparta, but records show that Sparta had the Pyrrhic warrior dance long before Thaletas got there. Because of their wide influence, Cretans gained the reputation of dancers they had with the ancient Greeks. Long after the Minoan civilization of Crete had receded into the shadows of mythology, the tradition of their ancient dances continued. PAEAN AND HYPORCCHEMA. The Pean received its name from a ritual call of the faithful to the god Apollo: "ie ie paian". It was a rhythmic scream accompanied by a dance: three short syllables followed by a long one, or in musical notation, three quarter notes followed by a white one. This rhythmic beat became known as a "pean". The hymn was sung to expel the plague or to celebrate victory, although it probably began as a hymn to Apollo. Hymns to Artemis and Ares and to Poseidon in his capacity as “EarthShaker”, the god of earthquakes, were also sung and danced. Fragments of more than 22 hymns written by Pindar survive, providing scholars with evidence that these dances and songs were part of religious rituals. Sometimes confused with the hymn of praise, hyporchema also played an important role in religious ceremonies. The chorus that sang the Hiporquima was divided into two sections: one sang without dancing, or when dancing used a simple dance step, while the other did not sing but danced an interpretive dance adapted to the lyrics of the song. I use one
Rhythm similar to the anthem, although the hyporchyme seems to have been the livelier of the two. Sometimes the term "hyporchem" simply means a lively dance when mentioned in literature. ANIMALS DANCES. Another type of dance with prehistoric roots was the animal dance, in which dancers wore animal masks or even performed as wild animals without wearing masks. In Brauron, on the outskirts of Athens, an animal dance was performed at a shrine dedicated to Artemis. During the Brauronia festival, held every four years, girls aged between five and ten would perform a bear dance. The founding legend of Brauronia relates that a group of Athenian youths killed a bear in Brauron, provoking the wrath of Artemis, who sent a plague; the Brauronia, with its choral dances by the girls, expiated the sacrilege. Another animal dance revolved around the bulls. A Greek vase in the British Museum depicts, in black silhouette, three dancers wearing bull masks, bull tails and hoof-like coverings on their hands. This scene evokes the legend of the Minotaur guarded by King Minos in the labyrinth of Knossos in Crete. Further evidence of bull dancing comes from the Palace of Minos, where a fresco shows male and female acrobats leaping in graceful somersaults on the back of a charging bull. The Greeks would have considered acrobatics like this a form of dancing, and in Crete the tradition of acrobatic dancing survived into later periods. Greek literature mentions owl dances - the owl was sacred to Athena - and a wine decanter in the British Museum shows two dancers dancing dressed as birds while a flutist plays the aulos. Other archaeological evidence of animal dances comes from the sanctuary of the goddess known as Despoina at Lycosura, in the highlands of Arcadia. Despoina is not a proper name; means "lady" or "lady" and probably this goddess was a manifestation of the ancient goddess called "Lady of Wild Animals" who was honored with animal dances. A broken piece of marble carved in bas-relief on the colossal statue of Desponia at Lycosura shows ornamental motifs such as eagles, lightning bolts and girls riding dolphins. Also included is a group of dancers wearing animal masks. Several wear masks representing rams' heads; at least one carries a horse's head. Further evidence comes from finds near an altar on the hillside above the Temple of Despoina. Some exploratory excavations found a large number of clay figurines of dancers with animal heads buried there. Licosura was visited in the 2nd century AD. by the Greek traveler Pausanias, who described what was left of it in his day and noted that it was the oldest city in the world, leading scholars
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believing that the worship of the "Lady" with her animal dances was an ancient rite recognized down to later Greek times. SOURCES
IR Arnold, "Festivals locais de Delos", American Journal of Archaeology 37 (1933): 452-458. A. Burns, "Ariadne's Chorus", Classical Journal 70 (1974-1975): 1-12. Claude Calame, Jovens Coros Femininos na Grécia Antiga. Trans. Derek Collins e Janice Orion (Lanham, MD: Rowman e Littlefield, 1997): 53-58. Lillian B. Lawler, "Dança na Creta Antiga", no vol. Estudos apresentados a David M. Robinson 1 (St. Louis, Missouri: Washington University Press, 1951): 23-51. —, "The Dancing Figures of Palaikastro: A New Interpretation", American Journal of Archaeology 44 (1940): 106–107. -, "The Geranos Dance - A New Interpretation", Transactions of the American Philological Association 77 (1946): 112-130. S. H. Lonsdale, "A Dance Floor for Ariadne (Iliad 18.590-592): Aspects of Ritual Movement in Homer and Minoan Religion", em The Ages of Homer: A Tribute to Emily Townsend Vermeule. J.B. Carter e S.B. Morris eds. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995): 273-284. Steven Lonsdale, Animals and the Origin of Dances (Londres, Inglaterra: Thames and Hudson, 1981). —, Dance and Ritual Play in Greek Religion (Baltimore Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993). L. Mueller, "A Parábola das Garças e dos Pigmeus: Um Estudo da Metáfora Homerica", Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 93 (1990): 59–101. P. Perlman, "Atuando como Urso para Artemis" Arethusa 2 (1989): 111-133. C. Sourvinou-Inwood, "Ritos Antigos e Construções Modernas: Sobre os Ursos Brauronianos Novamente", Boletim do Instituto de Estudos Clássicos 37 (1990): 1-14.
THE WAR DANCES THE PIRRHIKE. The most famous war dance of ancient Greece was the Pyrrhicus, which became the national dance of Sparta and persisted there long after Greece became a province of the Roman Empire and similar war dances in other cities disappeared. The Greeks had several stories responsible for the name of the Pyrrhic dance. One said it was invented by a Spartan named Pyrrhicus, although an alternative version claimed that Pyrrhicus was a Cretan. Another story connected the 52
Dance with the son of the hero Achilles, who had two names: Pyrrhus and Neoptolemus. After Achilles died in the battle of Troy, Pyrrhus came to Troy to take his father's place, and his crowning achievement was to kill Euripylus, the leader of a Hittite force that had come to the aid of the Trojans. After slaying Eurypylus, he performed a jubilant victory dance, and from his dance the Pyrricane was named after him. The pyrrican and many other war dances were popular between the 10th and 7th centuries BC. Widespread among the peoples of the Greek world, as well as in neighboring countries. Dancing served a practical purpose in ancient Greek warfare, when warriors often fought in single combat and nimble feet made the difference between a warrior dodging the spear his enemy threw at him or being impaled by it. In Homer's Iliad, the Trojan prince Hector tells the Greek hero Ajax that he is not afraid of him because he knows the steps of "the deadly dance of Ares, the god of war". But in the middle of the 7th century BC. CE the face of war had changed. The battles became contests between two battle lines of heavily armed foot soldiers called "hoplites", and a good hoplite didn't dodge or dance; Instead, he stood firm in his place in the line of battle, pushing back the enemy who faced him with his shield and slashing at them with his spear. Dancing was no longer an important part of military training, except in Sparta, which maintained its militaristic traditions long after it ceased to be a military power. At the end of the second century AD, Pyrrhic was only practiced in Sparta, where children as young as five years old were trained to perform it. However, pyrrhic remained the most commonly represented dance in war sculpture and vase painting. ACCESSORIES FOR MILITARY TRAINING. Intended only for the warrior elite who controlled the state, Spartan training was aimed at producing excellent soldiers who were physically fit and skilled with weapons. Hoplomachia (weapons training) among men was an important part of a warrior's training and resembled a kind of dance. When the philosopher Plato discussed the Pyrrhic Dance in the Laws, he described it as part of Hoplomachy. However, as the Pyrrhic dance developed in Sparta, the young men preparing for battle first had their training session honing their skills with the weapons of war, and when it was over, they danced. A piper played the aulos, which sounded like bagpipes, and the young warriors formed a line and danced with quick, light steps. As they danced, they sang songs composed by musicians who lived in the 7th century BC. worked in Sparta. such as Thaletas, for whom the organization of the Gymnopaidiai (a
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DANCING IN THE IDEAL STATE PLATO'S INTRODUCTION:
In Plato's old age he returned to the theme of his most famous work, The Republic, and tried once more to sketch what the government and society of an ideal state should be like. The result is the Laws, Plato's last attempt to build a utopia. It will be a city-state called Magnesia with a population of exactly 5,040, plus slaves and a few foreign residents whose stay in Magnesia will be limited to twenty years. Citizenship education is important. Plato addresses the type of literature young people should be exposed to, the type of music they should listen to, and the type of physical fitness they should have. The discipline of physical preparation leads him to dance, which he divides into two classes, the decent and the sloppy, and decent dancing in turn can be divided into two classes, the war dances and the war dances. The next section deals with war dances, that is, the Pyrrhic dances.
So let's take what we've said so far as an adequate statement of what wrestling can do for a man. The correct term for most other movements that can be performed by the body as a whole is "dance". Two types are to be distinguished, the decent and the disreputable. The first is a representation of people's graceful movements, and the aim is to create an effect of grandeur; the second imitates the movements of ugly people and tries to portray them in an unattractive light. Both have two subdivisions. The first subdivision of a decent kind represents handsome and brave soldiers engaged in the fierce engagements of war; the second depicts a man of temperate character enjoying temperate pleasures in a state of prosperity, and the natural name for this is 'Dance of Peace'. War dance is fundamentally different from war dance.
Spartan party). Therefore, Pyrrhic dance was probably not part of weapons training, but rather served to improve the mobility of warriors. CHANGED TO PANTOMIM. Another source of literary information about the development of the Pyrrhic dance comes from an author named Athenaeus, who wrote a discursive work in the late second century AD. called scholars at a feast. In it, Atheneu imagines banquets in which he exhibits his knowledge on various subjects, including dance. According to learned men at a banquet, the Spartans, who had a penchant for warfare, trained five-year-old boys in armor in the Pyrrhic dance as late as the 2nd century AD. However, dancing was no longer a war. Dancing at this time Athenaeus described him as a type of Pandionysian
Dance of Peace, and the proper name for it will be "Pyrrhus". Represents the movements performed to avoid blows and shots of all kinds (dodge, retreat, jump in the air, crouch); and he also tried to portray the opposite type of movement, the more aggressive postures adopted when shooting arrows and discharging javelins and delivering various types of blows. In these dances, which depict delicate bodies and noble characters, correct posture is maintained when the body is held erect in a state of vigorous tension with the limbs nearly straight. A position with opposing properties that we reject as false. As for the Dance of Peace, here is what every chorister must observe: how successfully - or how disastrously - it maintains the beautiful style of dancing expected of men brought up under good laws. ? This means that we can better distinguish the doubtful dance style from the style we can accept without question. So can we define the two? Where should the line be drawn between them? "Bachic" and similar dances which are (dancers claim) a "representation" of drunken people called Nymphs and Pans and Sileni and Satyrs and which are performed during "purifications" and "initiations" are a problem. ; Considered as a group, they can neither be called "peace dances" nor "war dances" and, in fact, resist all attempts to label them. I think the best course of action is to treat them separately as "war dances" and "peace dances" and put them in their own category which a statesman can ignore as it is beyond his reach. This entitles us to set them aside and return to the Dances of Peace and War, which certainly deserve our attention. SPRING:
Plato, "Dancing", in The Laws. Trans. Trevor J. Saunders (London: Penguin, 1970): 307-308.
tomime: Dancers performed an interpretive dance that recounted various myths of the god Dionysus, including his expedition to India and his return to his home state of Thebes. In the days of Athenaeus, Pyrrhic dances were performed for Roman tourists, and indeed, Pyrrhic dancers sometimes performed in Rome to amuse crowds at public games, as a prelude to the deadlier entertainments involving gladiatorial games and animals. wildest combat. messengers . Julius Caesar organized Pyrrhic dances in Rome, as did Emperors Caligula, Nero, and Hadrian. The North African rhetorician and philosopher Apuleius of Madauros (c. 123-c. 190 AD), whose novel The Metamorphoses or The Golden Ass is the only complete surviving Latin novel, described a typical dance performance that took place in the amphitheater in
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Young Athenians performing the Pyrrhic dance. A marble relief from Athens, 4th century BC.
THE ART ARCHIVE/ACROPOLIS MU-
HE WAS BORN IN ATHENS/DAGLI.
Corinth in its time. First there was a pyrrhic dance performed by elegantly dressed boys and girls, then a pantomime, a ballet about the 'Judgment of Paris' in which the young Trojan prince Paris judges a beauty contest of goddesses, and finally the pièce de Resistance, a convicted murderer who was torn apart by wild beasts. THE GIMNOPAIDIAI. Another famous Spartan war dance was the one performed for the Gymnopaidiai, first translated by scholars as "Feast of Naked Youth". Usually held in the Spartan summer heat in honor of the god Apollo, the central feature of the festival was a dance competition in which participants danced naked. The competition was not just limited to children, but was divided into three age groups: retired warriors too old for active duty, military-age warriors, and youths too young to serve in the army. Many scholars have 54
they came to believe that the word Gymnopaidiai should be translated as "Festival of Unarmed Dance", as instead of wearing armor like the Pirrica dancers, the Gymnopaidiai dancers wore nothing. The dancers imitated wrestling and boxing scenes, but their feet continued to move in time with the music. As they danced, they sang songs by Thaletas and another musician, Alcman, who was practicing in Sparta at about the same time. ARMED DANCES OUTSIDE SPARTA. The pyrrican may have been the national dance of Sparta, where it was part of the warriors' regular exercise to keep themselves in good physical condition for battle, but it was also found in other parts of the Greek world. In Sparta, the Pyrrhic dance was sacred to the divine twins Castor and Polydeukes, known to the Romans as Pollux. In Athens, the Pyrrhus dance honored the warrior goddess
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INTRODUCTION TO GREEK WAR DANCES:
Xenophon (c. 430–c. 354 BC) was a student of Socrates who, against Socrates' advice, joined a troop of soldiers of fortune recruited by the younger brother of King Artaxerxes II of Persia, Cyrus, who plotted to overthrow Artaxerxes and make himself king. But in the decisive battle at Cunaxa in Mesopotamia, Cyrus was killed and his Asiatic followers disappeared, leaving the Greek mercenary force to find their way home. To make matters worse, the Persians invited the Greek officers to a parliament and killed them, thinking that the Greek troops would be helpless without their leaders. But the troops chose new officers, including Xenophon himself, and headed north to the Black Sea, and from there the survivors split off to find new employers. When they reached Paphlagonia in Asia Minor, the ruler of Paphlagonia sent emissaries to the Greek officers who gave them dinner, and the various ethnic groups in the small Greek army entertained them with war dances, the dancers carrying weapons. Visitors to Paphlagonia were amazed that all the dancers wore armor while dancing, so they brought a dancer who performed the "Pyrrhus" dance, a Spartan war dance named after the son of the hero Achilles, Pyrrhus, also known as Neoptolemus. The Paphlagonian was even more impressed. They wondered if Greek women fought side by side with men in battle, and the Greeks jokingly responded that it was their women who defeated the king of Persia, Artaxerxes II. Xenophon describes the scene in an animated passage from his Anabasis (The Invasion), which tells the story of how the ten thousand mercenaries that Prince Cyrus recruited from among the Greeks and his neighbors - for not all recruits were Greeks - he marched into the Middle East and back again.
After pouring wine on the ground in honor of the gods and singing a hymn, the first two Thracians got up and, in full armor, began to dance to the whistle, nimbly jumping into the air, brandishing their sabers. . Finally, one of them hit the other and everyone thought that the man was mortally wounded. His downfall was smart, I think. The other man took off his armor as the Paphlagonians howled and made their move.
Athena, the tutelary goddess of Athens. It was part of the annual Panathenaic Festival ceremony held in honor of Athena, as well as the Great Panathenaic Festival, where non-Athenians could participate in the sporting events. The dancers were called pirricistas and were chosen among the ephebes (young people over 18 years old). It has several relief sculptures.
go and sing a Thracian war song known as "Sitacles". The other Thracians carried the fallen dancer as if he were dead, but he was unharmed. Then some dwarves and magnesians got up and danced the dance called Karpaia, dressed in their armor. The dance went like this: A man leads his oxen while sowing a field, arms outstretched at his sides, often looking around like a man who is afraid. A thief approaches, and when the sower sees him, he grabs his arms and goes to meet him, struggling to save his team of oxen. These soldiers did this to the sound of the reed flute. And finally the thief ties the man and takes the oxen. But sometimes the owner of the oxen ties up the thief. Then, with his hands tied behind his back, he harnesses him to the oxen and leaves. Then a missionary appeared with a light leather shield in each hand. And at some point he danced and simulated a fight against two opponents. Then he brandished his shields as if he were fighting a single opponent. Then he turned and did a somersault, still holding his shields. So it was a good show to see. Finally, he danced the "Persian dance": he collided with his shields, crouched, then jumped. He did all this to the rhythm of flute music. Then the Mantines and some others from the region of Arcadia approached, dressed in the best armor they had, and performed an exercise to a marching tune played on the flute and sang a war hymn. And they danced as they did in processions with which they honored the gods. And as the Paphlagonians watched, they thought it strange that all the dances were performed with weapons. A Missian, seeing her astonishment, responded by persuading one of the Arcadians, who had acquired a dancer, to dress her in the best possible attire, place a shield of light over her, and lead her in an elegant performance of the 'Pyrrhus' dance. .” Then there was a roar of applause, and the Paphlagonians asked if the Greek women also fought side by side with their men. The Greeks replied that these were the same women who drove the king from his camp.
Xenophon, Annabase. Book 6 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998): 466-470. Translated by James Allan Evans.
survives and depicts Athenian Pyrrhic dance. One shows youths, naked except for helmets, shields, and swords, dancing a light dance step; another shows them in chorus, presenting their shields. His festival training was funded in the same way as the theater productions; A wealthy commoner who paid and had the expenses was chosen as coregus ("choirmaster")
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CUREATES AND CORIBANTS INTRODUCTION:
The Curetes and the Koribantes had one thing in common: they both danced wild ritual dances, but they should not be confused. According to legend, they learned the dance of the Curetes from Rhea, a mother goddess who belonged to the Titan generation, and first danced to protect Rhea's son, Zeus. When Zeus was born his mother took him to a cave on Mount Dicte in Crete to save him from his father Kronos who would have swallowed him as he had swallowed his other children to prevent their birth and because of him hiding, the Curetes they danced. her frantic dancing with big jumps and clash of weapons. In classical times, the Curetes were a Cretan tribe who performed a ritual dance on the sacred island of Delos, an ancient dance similar to that performed by Roman priests known as the Salii. The Coribantes were priests of the great mother goddess Cybele, whose center of worship was Pessinus in Phrygia in western Asia Minor, where the holiest object at their center of worship was a black stone that embodied the divinity of the goddess. The cult of Cybele and her young lover Attis, god of vegetation, was celebrated between 205 and 204 BC. brought to Rome. CE, and a temple was built to her on the Palatine Hill, one of the seven hills of Rome, but until the reign of Emperor Claudius (41–54 CE) she was confined to her temple and served only by eunuch priests, immigrants were from the East , because his rites and the ecstatic dances of his followers shocked the Romans. In the following passage, Lucretius, writing in the first century AD, describes a procession of coribans, which he claims the Greeks called "Phrygian Curetes", and understandably compares them to the Cretan Curetes because both have wild dances in the service of a mother. goddess. As Lucretius wrote in Latin, he gave the gods their Latin names: Kronos is Saturn and Zeus is Jupiter or Jupiter.
General monitoring of production. Crete was another source of war dances, the best known of which was the Dance of the Curetes. It had a legendary origin: when the mother goddess Rhea gave birth to her son Zeus, she hid him in a cave on Mount Dicte in Crete to save him from his father Kronos, and the Curetes performed the dance that Rhea taught them. to camouflage its hiding place. They spun around on their shields and slashed at them with their swords as they leaped high into the air. This performance was a primitive ritual associated with the cult of Zeus in Crete, which differed greatly from the cult of Zeus in mainland Greece because the Cretans believed that their Zeus died and was reborn with the seasons. The Dance of the Curetes marked his rebirth. In ancient times, the Greeks and Romans saw a connection between the Curetes Dance and the 56th.
Several nations greet her [Cibele] with a ceremony consecrated as Our Lady of Ida. To keep them company, they assign a Phrygian entourage, claiming that the crops were first grown within Phrygia's borders and from there spread throughout the country. He receives eunuchs as assistant priests to indicate that those who defied their mother's will and showed their father ingratitude should be considered unworthy of bringing children alive to the sunny world. It is accompanied by a rumble of drums, tense and played by clapping hands, and a clatter of hollow cymbals; the hoarse-throated horns roar their deep warning, and the pierced flute charms all hearts with Phrygian tones. Before their weapons are brought, symbol of rabid frenzy to punish the ungrateful and unholy hearts of the rabble for fear of their divinity. Thus, when she is first escorted to a great city and silently bestows silent blessings on mortals, the hay spreads with a generous abundance of copper and silver, and casts a shadow over the mother and her retinue with a snow of roses. Then an armed band called by the Greeks the Phrygian Curetes compete in tournaments and participate in rhythmic dances, merry with blood and shaking their heads to shake their fearsome crests. They are reminiscent of those Curetes de Dicte who, it is said, once in Crete, drowned out the cry of the child of Jupiter by lightly dancing an armed group of children around a child and rhythmically beating bronze on bronze. lest Saturn seize him and crush him in his jaws, inflicting a wound in his mother's heart which will not heal. SPRING:
Lucretius, "Movements and Forms of Atoms", in On the Nature of the Universe. Trans. Ronald Latham (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books, 1951): 78-79.
frenetic dance of the Korybanten, the priests of the Great Mother, Cybele, the ancient goddess of Phrygia in western Asia Minor, and perhaps there is this great connection: both rituals go back to an ancient fertility religion. The dance of the curetes, however, was not a priestly dance like the dance of the corybantes, but a warlike dance, although neither dance seems to have much in common with the Pyrrhic dance. SOURCES
EK Borthwick, "Trojan Leap and Pyrrhic Dance", Journal of Hellenic Studies 87 (1967): 18–23. -, „PAG. Oxi. 2738: Athena and the Pyrrhic Dance“, Hermes 98 (1970): 318–331. —, „Two Notes on Athena as Protector“, Hermes 97 (1969): 385–391.
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Paul Cartledge, The Spartans (Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook Press, 2003). Nigel Kennell, The Gymnasium of Virtue, Education, and Culture in Ancient Sparta (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1995): 67–69. DG Kyle, Athletics in Ancient Athens (Leiden, The Netherlands: Mnemosyne Supplement 95, 1987). Kurt Latte, The Saltationibus Graecorum (Gießen, West Germany: Töpelmann, 1913): 27–63. JP McCarthy Poursat, "The Representations of Armed Dance in Attic Pottery", Hellenic Correspondence Bulletin 91 (1967): 550-615. Noel Robertson, Festivals and Legends: The Formation of Greek Cities in the Light of Public Ritual (Phoenix Supplement 31) (Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press, 1992): 146–165. Fritz Weege, Der Tanz in der Antike (Halle/Saale, Lower German Republic: Max Noemeyer Publishing House, 1926): 38–56. EL Wheeler, "Hoplomachia and Greek Dances in Arms", Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 23 (1982): 223–233.
FEMALE CHOIRS THREE CATEGORIES. Female choirs can be divided into three categories: preteen girls; single girls, called Parthenoi, Korai or Nymphai; and married women. Most evidence survives in Parthenoi, a Greek word that many scholars have translated as "virgins", but literary evidence suggests that this word means "women who have not yet borne children". The size of the Parthenoi Chorus can vary, but the majority consisted of ten members. A Parthenoi chorus was often depicted on Greek vases; A vase from the early 7th century BC found in the marketplace of ancient Athens. it shows ten young women, all dressed in white, holding hands, with their heads tilted upwards as if singing and dancing. Another vessel, a bowl for mixing wine (the Greeks drank their wine mixed with water), made in the mid-5th century BC. in Athens. C., shows ten young people holding hands and an eleventh woman playing the flute. Similar youth choirs existed between 800 and 350 BC. C., but Greek artists preferred to depict female choirs in most art forms. PARTNER. Partheneia were the songs and dances performed by the girls in their choirs. One of the first choral poets, Alcman, was famous for the Parthenion, which he composed in the second half of the 7th century BC. wrote to the Spartan girls. A papyrus copy of this Parthenion was found in the 19th century CE, and many scholars have used it as a starting point for their knowledge.
Fringe of the Parthenoi Partheneion texts indicate that it was danced and sung by a chorus of ten related girls and contained an agido ("song leader") and a hagesichora ("dance leader"). According to literary records, it was most often performed at dawn in competition with another chorus. There is no idea what the dance was like or how complicated the dance steps could have been, except that the meter he used in his poetry was generally simple. To Caryatis. The Caryatis was another type of dance whose origins can be found in Caryae in Spartan territory. The goddess Artemis had a statue there and a sanctuary where the young women of the region (known as "caryatids") annually performed a traditional dance in honor of the goddess. Much of the knowledge of this dance comes from a description by Pausanias, a Greek traveler of the 2nd century AD whose guide to Greece is the Classical Archaeologist's Bible, but additional information comes from various forms of art, including a group of statues of three caryatids. excavated at Delphi in the 19th century AD. The dance was an energetic dance with lots of turns and pirouettes. In the statue discovered at Delphi, a caryatid is shown with a tambourine and another with castanets. Their usual attire was a light knee-length chiton ("tunic"), and on their heads they wore a kalathos, a vase-shaped basket topped with palm fronds or rose bushes. The dance became so famous that the dancers were immortalized not only in art, but also in architecture. The term "caryatid" is a description of a pillar carved to resemble a caryatis dancer. The most famous examples are found in the "Portico of the Maidens" attached to the temple known as the Erechtheum on the Athenian Acropolis. Many column capitals (column tops) adopted the designation "Kalathos" because they closely resembled the headdress of Caryatis dancers. SOURCES
Claude Calame, Young female choirs in Ancient Greece: their morphology, religious role and social function. Trans. Derek Collins and Janice Orion (Lanham, England: Rowman and Littlefield, 1997): 149–156. J. Pouilloux and G. Roux, "The Delphic Dancers and the Base Known as Pankrates," in Enigmas at Delphi (Paris: E. Boccard, 1963): 123-149.
THE BEGINNINGS OF THE DITHYRAMB. Among the fragments of poems dating from the 7th century BC. lyric poet
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ditirambation. He also wrote that Arion coined the term dithyramb and instructed the Corinthians to interpret it. There were choruses of songs and dances in honor of gods and heroes before Arion created the dithyrambs; In Corinth's western neighbor, Sicyon, "tragic choirs" were performed annually in honor of the legendary king of Sicyon, Adrastus, and they were very ancient. Modern scholars suggest that the word dithyramb itself was not Greek, and an ancient form of dithyramb may have predated the immigration of Greek speakers to Greece. However, under Arion's tutelage, the dithyramb probably acquired form and structure; henceforth it would be sung by a regular chorus and would tell a story. The dithyrambs performed before Arion were likely an undisciplined song-and-dance performance, with dancers improvising folk songs about the heroes of yore. Arion added music that he composed and choreographed, and it was probably he who established the traditional dithyrambic chorus size of fifty dancers. Therefore, modern scholars generally credit Arion as the inventor of the classical Greek dithyramb.
Monument erected by Lysicrates in Athens to commemorate the victory of a boys' choir in the dithyrambic contest of 334 BC. to remember. so it was coregus. PHOTO BY HECTOR WILLIAMS. © HECTOR WILLIAMS.
Archilochus of Paros describes the poet's skill in introducing the dithyramb ("graceful singing circle") of the Lord Dionysus when the wine has gone mad. This is the first time the word dithyramb appears in surviving Greek literature, although scholars are certain that Archilochus was not the first Greek to use it. The dithyramb was a song and dance in honor of Dionysus at festivals where much wine was drunk. The Greeks themselves did not know how the dithyramb developed. Several Greek states claimed it as their invention, but it probably developed among the Dorians who lived in the Peloponnese, south of the Isthmus of Corinth. ARION'S CONTRIBUTION. There is an account of the creation of the dithyramb in the Histories of Herodotus (circa 425 BC). In the years 627-587 BC. The city of Corinth was ruled by a tyrant named Periander, and in his court was Arion, the greatest musician of his time. Herodotus attributes creation to him58
NEW ADDRESS. Thespis was leader of a dithyrambic chorus in the Athenian city of Icaria in early 530 AD, an innovation in dithyrambic production that had far-reaching consequences. When his choir performed at the local festival in honor of Dionysus, he participated as a soloist. Before Thespis, the chorus sang a story from the heroic age of Greek mythology and danced to the accompaniment of a flutist. However, Thespis went a step further and took on the role of the heroine, singing antiphonally with her chorus in a kind of musical dialogue while gesturing with her hands to add drama to the story. So, in 534 B.C. the tyrant of Athens, Pisistratus, founded the great festival of the Dionysian city. Cities outside the city of Athens had held festivals in honor of Dionysus long before this time, but now the city of Athens itself had a festival that eclipsed it. During the festival, a competition was held in which dithyrambs were performed, usually with a dancing chorus responding to a soloist who also sang and danced. Thespis' innovation made dithyrambs very popular during these festivals, but it also created an offshoot, the tragic plays, which threatened to overtake the popularity of dithyrambs in the generation after Thespis. CONTINUOUS DEVELOPMENT. The development of the dithyramb continued until the end of the 6th century BC. EC continued. Around 525 BC After the death of the tyrant Pisistratus, a lyric poet named Laso came to Athens to enjoy the patronage of Pisistratus' youngest son, Hipparchus.
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Following Arion's lead, he standardized the number of choristers in the dithyrambic chorus of Athens at fifty, and they sang, not just one, to the accompaniment of several pipers playing aulos. It was thanks to Lasus that at the festival of the Dionysian city in 508 BC. a separate competition for dithyrambs was created in Athens. The first winner of the competition was Hippodicus of Chalcis, and although his works were lost, their background became important to scholars. Hypodicus was not from Athens, but from the neighboring state of Chalkis on the island of Euboea, showing that dithyrambic poets were not just a phenomenon of mainland Greece and that these poets traveled and practiced their craft from state to state. ATENI MANUFACTURER. The date of the first dithyrambic contest at the Festival of the Dionysian City is significant. Athens expelled the tyrant Hippias and adopted a democratic constitution that created ten new "tribes," political groups into which all citizens were divided according to a complicated formula that ensured that each tribe included citizens of the three regions of Attica: the city of Attica itself. Athens, the hinterland of Attica, where people lived in rural towns and the coastal region. At the City Dionysia Festival, each tribe was expected to perform two dithyrambs: one played by boys and one by men. The commoner who produced these dithyrambs in each tribe was a rich man who was chosen to be the corego (chorus master), and his duty was to be the poet who wrote the dithyramb and music for it, the choreographer who taught the chorus, paying for his dance steps, the dance and the musician playing the double reed instrument called the aulos, as well as dressing the fifty singers and dancers who performed the dithyramb. It was no small expense, but the coregus whose choir won won a tripod, a three-legged teapot, the equivalent of a mug now given to a victorious football or hockey team, and would erect a memorial to him. There was a street in Athens called "Street of Tripods" which was once lined with Coregian monuments depicting tripods conquered by dithyrambs, tragedy or comedy, each mounted by the proud Choregus whose production won the prize. The name of the street survives to this day, but all of Khoreg's monuments are lost except one, built in 334 BC. by a Korean named Lysicrates. when his choir won the award for best dithyramb. THE DITHYRAMBIC DANCE. Dithyrambs were popular in Athens and were soon featured at other festivals as well as in the Dionysian city. However, the performance of dithyrambs seems to be similar.
regardless of location. The dithyrambic chorus entered the theater with a solemn march and then sang as they moved through the orchestra, sometimes dancing in a circle counterclockwise, sometimes dancing backwards and clockwise. Music and poetry were probably more important than dancing. The performers accompanied their singing with gestures that must have been something like the stylized gestures of Indian dances. After they finished the song, the dithyrambic chorus left the theater in a dance step, possibly a march. When in the 5th century BC. CE Over time, the dithyramb evolved into a less rigorous and more emotional interpretation. A fragment of a dithyramb by the poet Pindar, known for his "Odes of Victory", describes a frenetic dance accompanied by tambourines and castanets, which was part of the rites of the god Dionysus. The dancers shake their heads and shout, and one dancer, representing Zeus, waves his thunderbolt. The type of music has also changed; the simple, dignified Phrygian manner was replaced by elaborate flourishes and trills. A dithyrambic man named Kinesias, who lived in the late 5th and early 4th centuries BC. vivid. was responsible for some of these changes. What is known about him comes mainly from his critics, who disliked his innovations, but scholars see that the dithyramb dance grew much livelier under his leadership. The comic poet Aristophanes, who did not admire Cynesias' innovations, ridiculed Cynesias' Pyrrhic dances. In his comedy The Clouds, Aristophanes jokes that clouds are particularly fond of dithyramb writers like Kinesias because their feet never touch the ground and they always babble about the clouds. Aristophanes was apparently referring to a dithyrambic dance that had a large number of leaps and bounds, and based on Aristophanes' comments, some scholars have speculated that Kinesias must in fact have introduced pyrrhic or similar dances into his dithyrambs. STORY LATER. Most surviving information about dithyrambs comes from Athens, but fragments of evidence indicate that dithyrambs spread to many parts of mainland Greece. They took place at Delphi, where the theater overlooking the Temple of Apollo is largely intact except for the stage building, and at the Festival of Apollo on Delos. In Epidaurus, center of worship of Asclepius, the god of medicine, dithyrambs were performed at the sporting and dramatic festival that took place every four years. Around the 2nd century BC. However, dithyrambs gave way to more tragic and comic performances, and records of their performances are few.
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View of the theater at Delphi, Greece, where the dithyrambs were performed.
FUENTES
Christopher G. Brown, "The Dithryamb", in Encyclopedia of Greece and the Hellenic Tradition. ed. Graham Speake (London, England: Fitzroy Dearborn): 499-501. Lillian B. Lawler, The Dance of Ancient Greek Theater (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1964): 1–21. A. W. Pickard-Cambridge, Tirambo, Tragedy and Comedy. 2nd ed. Rev. Priest. by T.B.L. Webster (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1962). G. A. Privitera, "Archilochus and the Pre-Symonidean Literary Dithyrambo", Maia 9 (1957): 95–100. —, "The Beautiful Distance to the Fifth Century" in Greek History and Civilization. ed. Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli (Milan: Bompiani, 1977-1979): 311-325.
FOLKLORIC DANCES . EVERYDAY DANCES. "Anyone who does not know how to sing and dance in a choir has no education," said Plato in the Laws, which is a clear reminder that dancing was part of Greek education. Dances played an important role in everyday life. They belonged to the popular tradition and 60
FOTO VON HECTOR WILLIAMS. © HECTOR WILLIAMS.
it often had a religious or semi-religious basis. Mourners danced at funerals. In vase paintings, they can be seen standing in long rows, with their hands raised above their heads in a gesture of pain. There were also wedding balls. There was no wedding ceremony as in the Christian church, but after the bride and groom's families had agreed on the details of the marriage contract, a chorus of young men and women accompanied the bride and groom with a dance to the groom's house. There were usually two choirs, one male and one female, and as the dancing was performed by torchlight, it probably took place after dark. The dances marked the changing of the seasons, especially spring with its flowers and the return of birds, as the Greeks did not understand the migration of birds and their reappearance each spring must have seemed almost magical. There was a folkloric dance called "Flowers" in which the dancers divided into two groups and during the performance one group sang: "Where are my roses? where are my violets Where is my beautiful parsley?" and the other group replied, "Here are your roses. Here are your violets. Here is your precious parsley. There were also folk dances like farandoles, where men and women danced together,
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Holding hands, form a chain. A young man led the chain, demonstrating dance moves befitting a virile young man, followed by a girl demonstrating humble dance steps befitting a decent young woman. When feasts were given, there could be dance shows, and this was already happening in the 5th century BC. o EG A rich man giving a feast may hire professional dancers. In ancient Greece, however, dancing was still an amateur dance, and it was the guests themselves who danced. FOLK DANCE IN SPARTA IN HONOR OF ORTHIA. In the 5th century BC. C., Sparta was a militaristic state that prioritized heroic deeds on the battlefield. Compared to Athens today, it was a smaller and less advanced community. Two centuries earlier, however, it was a center for dance and music, attracting famous musicians and choreographers such as Alcman, Terpander and Thaletas. However, folkloric dances were not the concern of these professionals and consequently we are little informed about them. There is only archaeological evidence of a type of folk dance in which the dancers wore masks. Around 700 BC A primitive temple was built in Sparta on the banks of the Eurotas River and dedicated to the goddess Orthia or Artemis Orthia, since Artemis had semi-assimilated Orthia in the classical period, although the ancient cult of Orthia remained largely unchanged. . About a hundred years after the temple was built, it was destroyed by a flood from the river which sealed the temple ruins under a thick layer of sand. The temple was built around 550 BC. reconstructed. and then a second cataclysm, an attack by a barbarian tribe called the Heruli in 267 CE, again sealed in its remains under a layer of rubble. At the end of the 3rd century AD, after the restoration of the sanctuary, a small semi-circular theater was built to accommodate tourists who came to Sparta to witness Spartan youths being flogged, sometimes to death, which was part of the cult's ritual. from Ortia. The result of these vicissitudes was that the ex-votos of Orthia, as well as other remains related to the ceremonies of the sanctuary, gained some protection from the ravages of time and were preserved for archaeologists in the 18th century. AD 20 Finds show that there were ancient folk dances of masked dancers at the Orthian sanctuary, initially ritual dances, but later evolving into simple folk dances as time confused the reasons for the rituals. Whistles for playing dance music made from animal bones and with dedications to Orthia have been found, but the most striking feature of the deposits was a set of terracotta masks. They are reproductions of wooden masks that were actually used in dances, but the wood rots in the humidity.
Earth, and the Spartans preferred to wear masks made of more durable material. Dedications began in the late 7th century BC. CE, but the vast majority of them belong to the next century. Masks are terrifying things, making it likely that the dances performed at the Shrine of Orthia were originally apotropaic, meaning they were danced to ward off malevolent occult powers that caused disease or crop failure. The masks must have become Halloween masks, once used to ward off the spirits that stalked the land on All Hallows' Day, but have lost their ritual significance over time. It is not known how long these dances in honor of Orthia lasted, as ancient literary sources do not provide information about them. THE DANCE OF THE HYPOCLEIDES. Before dancing turned professional, performing solo folk dances was the feat of the well-educated Greek youth, and a man who disgraced himself on the dance floor tarnished his character. Damon of Athens, a music teacher in the 5th century BC who counted Socrates among his pupils, held that singing and dancing arise from the movements of the soul: noble dances testify to noble souls and ignoble souls are reflected in vulgar dances. The historian Herodotus, who wrote his history around 425 B.C. C., tells a story that shows how dancing revealed a man's unworthy character, and that also illustrates the type of dancing entertainment that could be found in the banquet halls of the leading men of archaic Greece. when the wine flowed freely and the guests rejoiced. The story revolved around Cleisthenes, a tyrant in the early 6th century BC. from Sicyon, the western neighbor of Corinth. Desiring to find a suitable husband for her daughter Agariste, she proclaimed at the Olympic Games that any young man who thought himself worthy of being her son-in-law should come to Sicyon to enjoy her hospitality for a year and watch them carefully, she would choose one to be the best. her daughter's husband. A small battalion of suitors arrived in Sicyon, and Cleisthenes watched them closely, noting their athletic ability and general decorum. At the top of his list of favorites was the young aristocrat Hippoly of Athens. When the time came to announce the winner, Cleisthenes first entertained all the suitors at a feast, and after the feast was over, the suitors competed in mousike (singing, dancing, and poetry) and oratory. Hippokledes stood out, surpassing all other suitors and would have beaten Agariste had he not been drunk. When it was his turn to dance, he ordered the flutist to play the emmeleia, a type of choreographed dance used in Greek tragedy; but Cleisthenes lived before the age of tragedy,
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and the emmeleia was probably not an elegant or refined dance at this period. Cleisthenes did not like Hippoclades, but said nothing. Then Hippodresses brought out a table, climbed onto it, and performed some Spartan jigs followed by Athenian jigs. Jigs, like the emmeleia, were then considered lower-class dances, but Cleisthenes remained silent. Hippohemdes then stood upside down and gestured with his legs, mocking an acrobatic dance, a mark of great disrespect as it would normally be performed by someone far inferior to Hippohemdes. At this point, Cleisthenes could contain himself no longer and exclaimed, "Hippoclothes! You took your sweetheart dancing! Hippoclothes replied, "What does Hippoclothes care?" to identify the dances performed by Hippoically. The Spartan jig may have been something like the gymnopaideia, which Spartan boys and men performed naked. In this case, the hippopotamus dresses would undress to dance them. As for the Athenian dance that followed, it can to have been the kordax, the dance associated with ancient comedy in Athens, with high kicks, somersaults, and twirls. Hipohemdes' response to Cleisthenes: "What does Hipohemdes care?" became a proverb, meaning "So what?" the general verdict of Greece was that Hippockles was a foolish young man whose drunken dancing cost him a good marriage, though he was no doubt admired for his devotion to dancing. Greek athletes who achieved victories in the great sporting competitions of Greece (the Olympic Games, Pythians, Nemeans or Isthmians) were only given wreaths to wear on their heads, but when they returned home they could expect much more. Sometimes part of the wall was temporarily demolished so that they could enter the city without having to go through the city gates. They could stay at City Hall at government expense for the rest of their lives, which was a great honor. If they themselves were wealthy or came from a respected family, they might hire a poet to produce an ode to victory. It could be a lucrative contract, especially if the winners belonged to one of the great ruling families of Greek Sicily. The sound and spectacle of a public performance by a great poet is something that a modern reader of classical literature can understand only by relying on his imagination, for the music that accompanies it has been largely lost and early Greek authors took it for granted only in rare cases. Mention it. Sometimes a passing note from an ancient writer allows modern readers to conjure up an image of 62
how the show must have been at those popular festivals where the citizens of the victorious athlete's hometown gathered to celebrate the victory. Famous poets such as Pindar, Simonides and Bacchylides appeared in theaters in splendid costumes, playing a zither, ancestor of the guitar, although it is usually translated as "lyre", surrounded by dancers. The first lines of Pindar's ode to Hiero of Etna in Sicily, whose chariot won the chariot race at the Pythian Games at Delphi, give an example of a typical poetic overture: O Lyra of gold, the precious treasure of Apollo! the possessions shared by the muses with their violet crowns call attention to the dancers who initiate the celebrations; Its notes tell the singers when to lead the dance, each time the trembling strings play the first notes of the prelude.
With these words, Pindar motioned the dancers to begin as he ran his hand across the strings of his zither, uttering the opening notes of his ode. For the fees a poet charged for a victory ode (in Pindar's case they were high), the poet not only wrote the poems but also choreographed the dance, trained the dancers, and composed the music. Like all these poems, it was written for a special occasion, to be presented to a specific audience. Pindar's victory kill for Hiero, called the First Pythics, was performed to large patriotic audiences in Hiero's hometown of Etna, and then performed again on other occasions as long as the citizens of Etna were willing to hear Hiero's praise. . SOURCES
J. B. Carter, "Masks and Poetry in Ancient Sparta," in Early Greek Cult Practice. eds. Robin Hägg, Nanno Marinatos and GC Nordquist (Stockholm, Sweden: Svenska Institutet in Athens, 1988): 89–98. Paul Cartledge, The Lykorgan Sparta Mirage: Some Reflections, in Spartan Reflections (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001): 169–184. Guy Dickens, "The Terracotta Masks", in The Sanctuary of Artemis Orthia in Sparta. Excavated and described by members of the British School of Athens, 1906-1910. ed. RM Dawkins (London, England: Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies, 1929): 163-186. Lillian B. Lawler, The Dance in Ancient Greece (London, England: Adam and Charles Black, 1964): 116–126. William H Race, Pindar (Boston: Twayne, 1986). Albert Schachter, "Pindar", in Encyclopedia of Greece and the Hellenic Tradition. ed. Graham Speake (London, England: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2000): 1322–1323.
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DANCE
INSIDE
THEATER
DIONISAN FESTIVALS. In Athens, there were three days of tragedy and satyr plays and one day of comedy produced at the Dionysian city's major festivals in March and the Lenaean festival in January. In addition, there were the Dionysus Country Festivals held every December in honor of Dionysus in the rural towns and villages around Athens. The country festival in Piraeus, the port city of Athens, was particularly famous. The difference, however, was that festivals in Athens featured new works, whereas festivals in Rural Dionysia generally featured older, well-known works. Tragedy, comedy, and satyr plays each had their own dances. The main dance associated with the tragedy was the emmeleia, a term that encompasses a variety of dance patterns and postures. The dance in satyr works was the Sikinnis, performed by men dressed as satyrs, with pointed ears, flat noses, and goat's tails or horse's tails. The comic dance was the kordax, known for its obscene gestures. The kordax was acceptable in the theater, but no one danced it properly in everyday life unless they were drunk. Evidence for these theatrical dances comes in part from careful study of surviving artwork and sculpture and from references in literature, many of which are scattered in writings from the period of the Roman Empire, when theater was the staple of pantomime. THE TRAGEDY AND THE CONTRIBUTION OF AESCHYLUS The tragic poet Aeschylus was active in the first half of the fifth century BC. a great innovator of dramatic production. He was one of the first playwrights to produce his own material. He was also the first playwright to use two speaking actors, and when Sophocles introduced a third actor he did the same. He may not have been the first to use painted landscapes, but his stage painter was the first to experiment with perspective. Furthermore, he was careful to find appropriate dances for the chorus in his tragedies. Other tragic poets seem to have employed professional choreographers. Aeschylus did his own choreography, so well that he is remembered as the first choreographer to train his dancers in patterns—the poses, postures, and gestures appropriate to the words and music they sang. Although seven of Aeschylus' tragedies survive and the words sung by his choirs can be studied, little is known about the melodies or dances that accompanied the words. LUS.
THEORIES. Philosopher, music theorist, and student of Aristotle's Lyceum, Aristoxenus of Taranto, wrote in the fourth century B.C. that there are three important elements in choral poetry: poetry,
AESCHYLUS REINVENTED THE TRAGIC DANCE INTRODUCTION:
Athenaeus of Naucratis in Egypt, who lived in the late second century C.E., wrote a long and discursive work entitled Deipnosophistae, or Intelligent Men at Dinner. He intends to recreate the after-dinner feast where twenty-four sages discuss all manner of matters. Cooking is a popular topic, but the conversation also includes a discussion of dancing. In fact, Athenaeus is an important source of our knowledge about ancient dance, as his reading was extensive and he knew how to cite authors who today are mere names. Here he comments on Aeschylus' dance innovations in the staging of tragedies in Athens in the early fifth century BC. The mention of the Phrygians in the following passage refers to a now lost tragedy by Aeschylus, which deals with the myth of the Trojan War.
Aeschylus not only invented that splendor and dignity of dress which the hierophants and torchbearers (of the Eleusinian Mysteries) imitated in putting on their vestments, but he also invented many dancing figures and assigned them to the members of his choirs. For Chameleon says that Aeschylus was the first to pose for his choirs without recourse to dancing teachers, but developing the dancing figures himself, and generally taking over the complete direction of the play. However, it appears that he acted in his own plays. It is certainly to Aristophanes (and reliable information about the tragic can be found among the comic poets) that Aeschylus says of himself: "It was I who gave the choirs new patterns of dancing." And again: “I know about your Phrygians because I was in the audience when they came to help Priam save his dead son. They made many gestures and poses, here and there and the other. …" SPRING:
Athenaeus, Deipnosophists. volume 1. Trans. Charles Burton Gulick (London, England: Heinemann; New York: Putnam, 1927): 93-95. Text modified by James Allan Evans.
singing and dancing. All three aspects shared a common rhythm, meaning that the meter a tragic poet used for choral odes should say something about the dance that accompanied the music and poetry. For example, if the poet used a marching rhythm for the choir's entrance into the theater orchestra, the chorus probably marched in time; if he used a more lyrical measure, which
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THE MEANING OF THE GESTURE INTRODUCTION:
Quintilian was a famous rhetorician in Rome in the first century AD. that he was appointed to a salaried chair of rhetoric by Emperor Vespasian (AD 69-79). After his retirement, he wrote a book on public speaking, the Institutio Oratoria, which covered everything a public speaker should know, including the proper use of gestures. Quintilian was talking about rhetoric, not dance in the theater, yet the gestures an orator used to communicate his meaning were in large part the same gestures a dancer would use in the theater, and as such Quintilian is an important witness to study. the khironomia. The following quote is an excerpt from a much longer passage about helpful gestures for the speaker.
The following brief gestures are also used: the hand can arch slightly, as when people are making a vow, and then move slightly from side to side, the shoulders gently swaying in unison: this suits passages where we use it sparingly and speak it almost coyly. Amazement is best expressed like this: the hand is rotated slightly upwards and the fingers approach the palm, one at a time, starting with the little finger; the hand is then opened and inverted by a reversal of this motion. There are several ways to ask the question, but we usually do it with a wave of the hand, regardless of the position of the fingers. If the tip of the index finger touches the center of the right edge of the thumbnail while the other fingers are relaxed, we have an elegant gesture that is good for expressing agreement, stating facts, and making the points we are making. . There is another similar gesture with the three crossed fingers that the Greeks use a lot today, already with the right hand and now with the left, to round off their arguments point by point. A smoother hand movement expresses a promise or agreement, a faster movement urges action and sometimes expresses praise. There is also the familiar gesture of quickly opening and closing the hand to clasp what we are saying, but it is a common gesture and not an artistic one. SOURCE: Quintiliano, "Gesture of Delivery and Clothing", in La Institutio Oratoria de Quintiliano. volume IV, translation by HE Butler (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, 1922): 297-299.
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The chorus danced in the theater. There have also been tragedies where the chorus was already in the theater when the action began, in which case the fifteen choristers presumably formed the orchestra and silently took their positions before the play began. By examining the poetry's meter, scholars can guess whether the choreography was lively or calm. When a kommos ("song of mourning") was sung, the chorus presumably made gestures of mourning, as the literal meaning of the word kommos is "to beat", as in "to beat the chest", which was a gesture of pain. In general, however, the contours, poses of the dancers and figures in the dance are unknown. An aspect of dancing that survived only in Greek art was called kheironomia, the art of hand movement. Numerous vases and sculptures depict dancers performing common gestures such as the raised hand: the hand outstretched and the fingers folded back, away from the palm. The hand itself can be held in various positions, e.g. B. palm down, palm facing the dancer's body and hand in front of the dancer's face, each position having a different meaning. Both the Greeks and the Romans considered the gesture an important means of communication that orators, for example, should master, and therefore it was also an important element of dance. Telestes, a dancer hired by Aeschylus, was so masterful at communicating with his arms and hands that he could dance through Aeschylus' entire tragedy, Seven against Thebes, making the meaning clear with his gestures and dancing figures. Kheironomia can still be seen in eastern dances such as the ritual dances of Cambodia, but it has generally moved away from the western dance tradition. THE CHORUS BEFORE THE SQUIRREL. Aeschylus took tragic dancing to a new level by inventing new schemes ("choreographies") for the dancing group, including twisting, kicking, and other poses performed by the dancers, but dancing was an important part of tragedy before that 5th century BC. . The dithyramb from which the tragedy developed had choirs of fifty choristers and presumably the tragedy with which Thespis won first prize in the city of Dionysia from 534 BC. gain. there was a chorus of that number. At some point the chorus was reduced to fifteen choristers; it was probably reduced first to twelve and then increased to three, although the reasons for this are unknown. Early poets like Thespis, Pratinas, Cratinus and Phrynychus were all tragedians and dance teachers. In the first decades of the 5th century BC. A small corps of trained dancers was already available for theatrical performances, semi-professional, but some tremendously talented. There were artistic and economic reasons for the renovation.
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Downsize the tragic chorus. The corego - the plebeian who paid the cost of production - would have preferred a fifteen-piece chorus to one of fifty because it was cheaper, and the tragic poet preferred it because fifteen well-trained dancers could perform the intricate choreography he was best at. when arranging. What amateurs no matter how talented they were. Before Aeschylus, dance seemed relatively undisciplined. This is seen in Aristophanes' comedy The Wasps, in which old Philokleon gets drunk and performs the ancient dances of Thespis and Phrynicus. It's dances with jumps and spins and high kicks. There's nothing decent about them. Scholars of ancient dance have found this evidence troubling, as it seems to indicate that early tragedy, as it evolved from the dithyramb, was accompanied by dances that were much less orderly and decent than after Aeschylus' reforms. Evidence for Aristophanes' work has generally not been appreciated by scholars, as he was an author of comedy and therefore may have exaggerated the antiquated dances of early tragedy for comic effect. However, Aristophanes' wit would be meaningless if the early tragedies before Aeschylus were not remembered for their lively, perhaps amateurish, but very energetic dances. Based on this assumption, the elaborate and well-choreographed dances of Greek tragedy do not predate Aeschylus in the classical period. THE DANCE OF THE COMEDY. Both comedy and satirical works have their origin in feasts danced and sung in honor of the wine god Dionysus. The word 'comedy' must be associated with the Greek word komos, which means 'night band', revelers who sang and played as they danced through the streets. Where and how comedy took shape as a theatrical performance is a matter of debate, but it was staged in Athens in 486 BC. CE official part of the Dionysian city. and soon developed its own conventions. What is known of the "Ancient Comedy" is largely based on nine of the eleven surviving plays by Aristophanes written during the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC). His last two works, written after the end of the war, belong to the "intermediate comedy", a term used in Hellenistic times after the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC. he was brother-in-law. to mark the transition between the "Old Comedy" and "New Comedy" sitcoms, in which the chorus provided singing and dancing interludes between acts but played no role in the play itself. The size of the chorus got smaller; at a performance at Delphi in 276 BC. it consisted of just seven chorus girls, and a century later a comedy staged on the island of Delos had just four.
THE STRUCTURE OF THE OLD COMEDY. The "old comedy" plays had a six-part structure. First there was the prologue, in which the protagonist outlined the plot, which usually centered on a bizarre and impractical solution to a current problem. Then came the parodies, or performances by a choir of 24 costumed dancers. Then came the agon, the fight or debate, where the protagonist defended his brilliant solution against the objections of his opponents and always won. Then came the parabase ("digression"), where the chorus addressed the audience directly in song and dance, venting the comic poet's grudge against several prominent citizens. The parabasis song and dance contained a long phrase called pnigos ("necklace") because it had to be uttered all at once, and actors whose breath control allowed them to execute it perfectly could expect a lot of applause. A series of ridiculous scenes followed, separated by songs and dances performed by the chorus. Finally, the Joyful Exodus was performed, a scene of rejoicing that usually leads to a feast or wedding. The chorus danced away. A good example of the use of dance in comedy is the final scene of Aristophanes' Ecclesiazusae (The Women at the Meeting). Praxagora, the leader of a women's coup enacting a new constitution, sees her husband Blepyrus enter with a group of dancers heading to a banquet to celebrate the new constitution. The choir director orders the dancers to dance and Blepyrus begins a beautiful dance in the old Cretan style, and the chorus, dancers and Blepyrus break out with the music. THE CORDAX. In the parabase of the Clouds of Aristophanes, made in 423 a. C. the choir director told the audience that it was a humble job: there would be no kordax dancing. The term kordax did not refer to all comedy dances, but to one dance in particular that was performed solo, at least in the sense that the dancers performed independently rather than as members of a chorus coordinating their movements. It was a suggestive dance, like the "bumps" and "grinds" of modern burlesque dancers. The kordax dancer rotated his buttocks and abdomen and sometimes bent his hips forward. The dancer can also jump as if her feet are tied, or leap in the air, or simply strut in a lascivious manner. Leaps and turns of all kinds were part of a kordax performance, and it was performed to the music of the aulos, which was supposed to have a timbre similar to that of the bagpipes. Decent people didn't dance kordax. The philosopher Plato thought he should be excluded from the ideal state he described in his Laws.
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THE DANCES OF THE SATYRS. The characteristic dance of the satyr play was the sikinnis, a dance sometimes used in comedy as well. The creator of the satyr play was a playwright named Pratinas of Phlius, who lived at the beginning of the 5th century BC. BC performed plays in Athens. It was a lively dance with lots of pranks, fast movements and expressive gestures, many of them obscene. Two satyr plays survive, including one by Euripides containing a Sikinnis. Euripides' Cyclops is a parody of the story of Odysseus in the cave of the Cyclopes, told in Homer's Odyssey. In Cyclops, old Silenus takes the stage and, after presenting the play, summons the chorus of satyrs. He refers to their performance as Sikinnis, which is probably why they dance on stage. Satyrs were captured by the Cyclops Polyphemus and forced to herd his flocks, and when they dance, they drag sheep and goats, although it is impossible to say whether these animals are real or imaginary. However, the satyr chorus in Cyclops has only a supporting role, and the text gives little indication of what the choreography was like. However, the role of Odysseus has several solos accompanied by interpretive dancing, which gave the actor playing the role great latitude to show his gifts. SOURCES
E.K. Borthwick, "The Dances of Philocleon and the Sons of Carcino in Aristophanes' Wasps", Classical Quarterly 18 (1968): 44–51. JF Davidson, "O Círculo e o Coro Trágico", Grécia e Roma 33 (1986): 38–46. CW Dearden, The Stage of Aristophanes (Londres, Inglaterra: Athlone Press, 1976). Eleanor Dickey, "Satyr Play", na Enciclopédia da Grécia e da tradição helênica. ed. Graham Speake (Londres, Inglaterra: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2000): 1495–1497. B. Gredley, "Greek Dance and Theatre", em Themes in Drama. volume III (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981): 25-29. Richard Green e Eric Handley, Images of the Greek Theatre (Londres, Inglaterra: British Museum Press; Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995). HDF Kitto, "A Dança na Tragédia Grega", Journal of Hellenic Studies 75 (1955): 36-41. Lillian B. Lawler, The Dance of Ancient Greek Theatre (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1964). Diana F. Sutton, The Greek Satyr Play (Meisenheim, Alemanha: Hain, 1980). Oliver Taplin, Greek Tragedy in Action (Londres, Inglaterra: Methuen; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978). 66
DIONISIA DANCE Ecstatic dance. Dance and music were part of all religious celebrations, but in some dances it was an instrument through which the dancer achieved a closer connection with the deity and entered a state of ecstasy. The violent twists and turns of the dance sent the dancer into a state of ecstasy. The goddess Cybele, known as the Great Mother, whose center of worship was in Phrygia, in western Asia Minor, was assisted by eunuch priests called Coribanos, devotees of the goddess, who castrated themselves with flint knives after dancing to the sound of cymbals and castanets. he reached the state of total ecstasy. Of the twelve Olympian gods and goddesses of Greece, Demeter, who ruled over the fertility of the land, was Cybele's closest counterpart, and dances performed in her honor were usually full of lively movement. In the ancient festival of Thesmophoria, which the Athenians celebrated for three days, one of the dances was the Oklasma. During oklasma, a dancer would crouch, kneel on the floor and then quickly jump as high as she could from her crouching position to reach the perfect image of the god for ecstasy. It was the god of wine Dionysus who presided over the most famous ecstatic dances. Dionysus was accompanied by a thiasos - a group that paraded through the streets singing and dancing - and Dionysus' thiasos was made up of bacchantes (mad women) and satyrs. Dionysus and his uncles were frequent subjects for Athenian vase painters working in black and red figure techniques. DEFINITION OF MENAD. Maenads were female followers of Dionysus who would go to the mountains and participate in a frenetic and ecstatic dance in honor of the god of wine. Sometimes they caught wild animals and tore them limb from limb with their bare hands and ate the raw meat of the animals. The myth of Dionysus reports that he was born in Thebes, capital of Boeotia, a region of Greece northwest of the city-state of Athens. His father was Zeus and his mother Semele, daughter of King Cadmus of Thebes, who was destroyed by the jealous hatred of Hera. When Dionysus was fully grown, he fought in India for two years and then returned in triumph to introduce his new religion. Much of the worship of Dionysus is difficult for historians of religion to understand. Dionysus was a late entry into Greek religion, as the myths about him suggest, as he was originally not one of the twelve Olympian gods, and when he was added to the list, he supplanted Hestia, the goddess of the hearth.
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He was revered in Mycenaean times because his name appears on the Linear B Tablets found in the so-called "Palace of Nestor" at Pylos, which date back to 1200 BC. was destroyed. Apparently dancing was an important part of his worship. A prehistoric temple has been found on Keos, built in the 15th century BC. It was built. C. and has been used for a thousand years. Inside were the remains of twenty terracotta statues, all female, shown with bare chests and hands on hips, like Dionysian dancers. An inscription on an early classical offering found during the excavation identifies Dionysus as the lord of this shrine. Terracotta dancers indicate that dancing was an important part of rites performed in reverence of Dionysus, and scholars have suggested that these dancers were also priestesses of the Dionysus cult. MALEDAS IN THE CLASSIC WORLD. Diodorus Siculus, a Greek historian who lived in the mid-1st century BC Dionysus. Honor to commemorate his triumphant return from India. As a result, in many Greek cities groups of women gathered every other year for rites in honor of Dionysus. Diodorus called these bands of women Baccheia and the rites they performed orgia ("frenetic dances"). These Bacchea women included not only unmarried girls but also distinguished married women. The Baccheias would dance to the sound of the tambourine and the reed flute known as the aulos, and as they danced they would throw their heads back and shout "euhoi", which sounded like "ev-hi". Evidence from literature and temple inscriptions shows that biennial festivals of this type were held in various cities, including Delphi, Thebes, which claimed to be the birthplace of Dionysus, Rhodes and Pergamum, and Mytilene on the island of Lesbos. . As part of the festival, which always took place in the middle of winter, the women would climb a nearby mountain and dance there at night in an oreibasia, a dance or procession in the mountains. The rite involved real difficulties and sometimes dangers. Plutarch, a writer from the second century CE, related that at Delphi, for example, a snowstorm trapped a group of women on the summit of Mount Parnassus and a rescue party had to be sent down the slope. . THE EVIDENCE OF EURIPIDES DRUMPS. The most vivid description of the Maenads comes from Euripides' work The Bacchae, or The Bacchae, as the title is sometimes translated. It was written towards the end of Euripides' life, when he died in 408-406 BC.
Roman relief of maenads or maenads dancing around a votive altar, 3rd century AD ARCHIVES OF ART/MUSEO NAZIONALE TERME ROMA/DAGLI ORTI.
in Macedonia, and the play was not performed in Athens until after his death. The plot tells how Dionysus returned to his hometown of Thebes and there, as elsewhere in Greece, his new religion encountered resistance. Dionysus brought with him a Maenad thiasos from Phrygia, Asia Minor, who formed the play's chorus and danced in the theater's orchestra to the sound of aulos and tambourine. The Dionysian rite takes over the city. Pentheus, King of Thebes, who was absent, returns home to find the Bacchae dancing on Mount Kitharon, and a bowl of wine in the center of each group adds to the general drunkenness. Pentheus' own mother, Agave, joined the Maenads. Pentheus vows to end this madness. A shepherd describes the wild dance of the Bacchae that he and his fellow shepherds saw on the slopes of Mount Kitharon. Pentheus is persuaded by a stranger who is the god Dionysus in disguise to see the Bacchae themselves, and when the Bacchae discover him they tear him to pieces. In the final scene, Pentheus' mother Agave, frantic and bloodied, enters carrying Pentheus' head, which she mistakes for a lion cub. She killed her own son in her madness, and when her mind cleared, terror gripped her. Dionysus brought tragedy to the royal house of Thebes.
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The Ecstasy of the Menads INTRODUCTION:
According to Diodorus Siculus, a historian who fell victim during the reign of Emperor Augustus (27 BC) and is considered the first Greek to celebrate a triumph while sitting on an elephant. In the region of Boeotia where Dionysus was born, as well as other Greeks, sacrifices were offered to him every two years, and in some Greek cities married and unmarried women climbed the slopes of the mountains and acted as bacchantes, women, the companions of Dionysus. We see them in Greek art dancing ecstatic dances and carrying the thyrsus: a magic wand topped with ivy and vine leaves and topped with a pine cone. The classic description of the madness of the Bacchae is found in Euripides' Bacchae, telling the myth of how Dionysus returns to Thebes in Boeotia, where he was born, and the mother of King Pentheus and her sisters join his crowd of Maenads. However, Pentheus was opposed to the new cult, and when a shepherd who was grazing his cattle on the mountainside brought him an account of how the Maenads, including his own mother Agave, were dancing wildly on Mount Kitharon, he decided to leave. the same. He is discovered and torn to pieces, and in the final scene Agave enters the stage with her son's bloodied head, which she and her sisters Autonoe and Ino tore to pieces thinking it was a lion cub. The excerpt quoted below is from the messenger's speech informing Pentheus of the Maenads' madness.
Our grazing herds had barely begun to climb the hillside when the sun cast its rays to warm the earth. I saw three groups of women dancing; Autonoe conducted the first chorus, her mother Agave the second and Ino the third. Everyone fell asleep from exhaustion. Some had their backs against the branches of the firs, others were throwing themselves aimlessly against the leaves of the oaks. ...
THE MENAD DANCE IN HISTORICAL TIMES. Euripides' Bacchae possessed the study of the Maenad Dance, and the Shepherd's Speech which describes it is a classic tale. However, it seems that in most places where the biannual festival of Dionysus took place, the rites of the Maenads were not spontaneous bursts of dancing. They cannot be compared to the explosions of dance mania that afflicted communities in Europe from the 14th to the 17th centuries, when people danced until they dropped. It wasn't like the tarantella, the 68 too
Then his mother arose in the midst of the Bacchae and asked them to awaken her limbs when she heard the roar of horned oxen. Then the women shook the heavy sleep from their eyes and sprang into a display of wondrous beauty. There were women young and old and single servants. First, they let the hair loose over their shoulders, and gathered the fawn skins, those whose bonds were loosened, and girded the mottled skins with snakes, which licked their cheeks. Others held gazelles in their arms or wild wolf cubs that they fed white milk. They were young mothers who had left their babies behind and whose breasts were still swollen with milk. Then they put wreaths of ivy and wreaths of oak and flowering bluebells. One caught his thyrsus and slammed it against a rock from which a stream of liquid water gushed. Another struck his thyrsus on the ground and the god made him raise a fountain of wine. Anyone who felt like milk on snow scratched the earth with their fingertips and had a rich supply of milk. Sweet rivulets of honey dripped from the ivy branches. If you had been there to see him, you would have prayed to the god you are now insulting. … [The shepherd then related how he and his companions tried to capture the Bacchae and then found themselves in danger.] We fled, escaping a tear on the Bacchae's hands. But with bare, unarmed hands, the women attacked the heifers grazing on the grass. One could be seen with the spread legs of a well fed calf, roaring and roaring. Others rent heifers separately. You could see the ribs and cloven hooves thrown here and there, and the bloodstained pieces hanging from the fir trees, dripping with blood. SPRING:
Euripides, The Bacchae, in Ten Dramas of Euripides. Trans. Moses Hadas and John McLean (New York: Bantam Books, 1981): 296–297.
A whirling dance for couples from southern Italy, danced in six/eight beats, is believed to be a cure for a nervous disorder known as tarantism. Rather, the orgies seem to have been carefully regulated and restricted to certain groups. The women who danced at the orgy briefly played the role of maenads and then returned to their daily lives, which must have been monotonous for many of them. The dance of the maenads in Euripides' Bacchae, culminating in the dismemberment of a sacrifice, is wild and primitive, and Dionysus is a ruthless god, judging by the number of performances.
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Performances in Greek art were a dance that haunted the Greek imagination. SOURCES
J. Bremmer, "Reconsiderando o menadismo grego", Journal of Papyrology and Epigraphy 55 (1984): 267-286. E.R. Dodds, "Apêndice I: Menadismo", in The Greeks and the Irrational (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1951): 270-282. Lillian B. Lawler, "The Ancient Greek Dance: The Menads," American Journal of Archeology 31 (1927): 91–92. –, "The Menads", Memorias da Academia Americana em Roma 6 (1927): 96-100. S. McNally, "The Menade in Early Greek Art", Arethusa 11 (1978): 101-135.
PROFESSIONAL DANCERS DEFINE PROFESSIONAL. The dividing line between the amateur and the professional dancer in ancient Greek society is not easy to draw. The first tragedian, Thespis, was not only a dancer but also taught dancing, like all early tragic poets. Sophocles received lessons from Lamprus, a famous teacher of dance and music who was also known for his abstinence from wine, which was unusual among practitioners of Mousike: music, dance and poetry. The tragic poet Aeschylus, who did his own choreographies, also employed the services of a dance teacher. Although choral and dance teachers were paid, they were considered amateurs. The fifty men who sang and danced the dithyrambs in Athens were not full-time dancers, that is, they had other jobs that were their main occupation and therefore were not considered professional dancers. Dancers who enjoyed themselves at banquets belonged to an entirely different social category. Professional dancers and musicians could be hired and were generally of low social status. At the end of the 6th century BC. BC, contemporary literature speaks of professional auletrodes ("flutist"), only that their instrument was not the brittle flute, but a reed instrument that was the ancestor of the oboe. There were auletride training schools, but it was not the skill with aulos that most attracted the public. They were also courtesans and prostitutes; in the 4th century BC the word auletris was almost synonymous with cheap prostitutes. In the Greco-Roman world, it was common to hire dancers to entertain at lavish banquets hosted by wealthy hosts. The Roman writer Pliny the Younger, who lived under Emperors Domitian (r. 81-96 CE) and Trajan (r. 98-117 CE), wrote to a friend and abused him
I told him that I hadn't gone to a banquet given by Plinio and counted the delicacies he had missed, including the dancers from Cádiz, Spain. Xenophon, a student of Socrates, described a symposium attended by Socrates in which entertainment was provided by a troupe of dancers and musicians led by a Syracuse dancing master who engaged them. Both the musicians and dancers described in Pliny's and Xenophon's accounts were probably slaves. The entertainment provided included a sword dance performed by an acrobat and a pantomime recounting the myth of Dionysus and Ariadne danced by a girl and a handsome boy. Both dancers not only performed for the dance teacher, but also shared his bed. Life for professional dancers was difficult, and with a lucky few, they were at the bottom of the social ladder. THE DIONSIAN GUILDS. Sometime very early in the third century BC. The actors, dancers and musicians of Athens founded a synodos ("guild"). It may not have been the first such association, as there is reason to believe that the first actors' guild was founded in Hellenistic Egypt, where the government imposed it on actors. In any case, the Athenian guild was the first on mainland Greece, and the Isthmian guild based in Corinth and others soon followed, until there were six in all, including one for the Greek cities of southern Italy and Sicily. They engaged in a bewildering array of activities: they exchanged gifts and tributes with cities and kings, secured tax breaks and front-row seats for their members, and organized festivals. Travel in the Hellenistic world was unsafe because many poor people had committed theft, and the roads were infested with robbers and the sea lanes with pirates. So the guilds negotiated the right to asylum, the right to safe passage from city to city. The Athenian guild rights were lost after 274 BC. officially recognized. by the Amphicious League, a Delphi-based intergovernmental organization closer to the "United Nations" known to Hellenistic Greece. Dionysian companies of professional artists moved from place to place, and even small towns built stone theaters. Next to the theaters they built odeons, music halls with roofs so that a storm would not interrupt a performance. Pericles built in the 5th century BC. one in Athens; It was a square building, its roof supported by a forest of columns, but later odeons look like small theaters with roofs that must have been wooden. The interiors were too dark for tragedies and comedy productions, but the lights were adequate for music and dancing. The Music Hall of Pompeii, in southern Italy,
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A FUN DANCER AT A BANQUET IN ATHENS INTRODUCTION:
Xenophon's Symposium describes a banquet attended by Socrates, held shortly after the great Panathenaic sports festival of 421 BC. it happened. C., which the rich Athenian Callias offered to his friend and father to celebrate the boy's victory in wrestling. Xenophon wrote his symposium some forty years after it was held, so it is probably not a completely accurate account, although he himself claims to have attended the banquet. However, his account refers to the entertainment provided by a group of musicians and dancers owned by an anonymous professor from Syracuse, Sicily. The performers were likely slaves, and their master was likely a pornobosco, or pimp, who hired the performers for entertainment and sexual favors when his clients requested it.
When the tables were cleared and the guests served a libation and sang a hymn, a man from Syracuse came in to enjoy himself. He had with him a girl who played the bagpipes with mastery and a dancer, one of those who performed amazing acrobatics, and a very handsome young man, a talented player on the zither and a brilliant dancer. The company's Syracusan professor made money by showing them to them. Now the girl who played the bagpipes played a piece for the guests and the boy played his zither, and everyone agreed that both had played satisfactorily.
It was shortly after 80 BC. Built in the 1st century BC, it has the design of a small Roman theater with a low and narrow stage, and you can still see the gap in the stage where the curtain was rolled up. The popularity of Dionysian artists. During the first century and a half after the death of Alexander the Great (323 BC - AD 14), the city of Rome had a large underemployed or unemployed population, and Augustus knew the importance of keeping people happy. A story is told of Augustus who in 17 B.C. C.E., when some citizens were irritated by the strict moral laws of Augustus, who allowed those responsible for feasts to spend three times the amount authorized by the treasury, and allowed the people of Pylades to return to Rome, although he already had speech of hatred. been banned. However, he scolded Pylades for his disjointed rivalry with the dancer Bathillus, to which Pylades replied that Augustus won when people spent their time with dancers. Pylades recognized the value 70
Conversation in the room continues until Socrates signals that the dancer is ready to perform. Immediately afterwards, the girl playing the flute began to play a melody, and a boy accompanying the dancer passed the rings to number twelve. The dancer caught them and tossed them through the air as she danced, realizing how high she had to throw them to catch them in a steady rhythm. Watching the performance, Socrates commented that he had proved that women are not inferior to men and therefore any guest who has a wife should not hesitate to educate her. Socrates was immediately asked why he was not practicing what he preached with his own wife, Xanthippe, who was notoriously ill-tempered, and Socrates responded that horsemen practiced their skills on energetic horses, not docile ones. Then the guests turned their attention to the acrobatic dancer. Then they brought out a bow and placed it in the center of a circle of vertical swords. The dancer then turned these swords in the direction of the hoop and then in the opposite direction. Spectators feared that something might happen to him, but he bravely accomplished the feat without suffering any harm. SOURCE: Xenophon, Symposium. 2.1-11. Translated by James Allan Evans.
of the dance to divert the crowd's attention from the government's omissions. SOURCES
James N. Davidson, Courtesans and Fishcakes: The Consuming Passions of Classical Athens (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998). Brigitte LeGuen, Dionysian Associations of Technites in Hellenistic Times. Flight. I, documentary corpus; Flight. 2, Synthesis (Studies in Classical Archaeology, XI–XII) (Nancy, France: Association for the Dissemination of Research in Antiquity, 2001). G. M. Sifakis, "Organization of Dionysian Guilds and Festivals," Classical Quarterly 15 (1965): 206–214.
DANCE
EM
ROMA
THE INFLUENCE OF ETURIA. The city of Rome in 364 BC. CE suffered from a plague. Believing that the plague was the result of the wrath of the gods,
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Mural from a tomb in Ruvo di Puglia, Italy, depicting a mourning dance.
Men brought Etruscan dancers to appease the gods and gain some relief from the ravages of the plague. The Etruscans danced to the sound of the aulos, precursors of the oboe, without singing or gesture, but their graceful movements captivated the Romans, who began to imitate them. Much about the Etruscans remains a mystery, the riddle of their language still unresolved, but in ancient times they were known for their love of luxury, as paintings found in their tombs attest to the splendor of their festivals and feasts. In one tomb, the Tomba dei Cacciatori (Tomb of the Hunters), men dance in the open air, most of them naked except for a loincloth. They are shown separated by trees or bushes, dancing wildly to the music of the double aulos. In another tomb, the Tomba delle Leonesse (Tomb of the Lionesses), a naked man is shown dancing in front of a half-naked woman. On opposite walls of the Tomba del Triclinio (Tomb of the Dining Sofa) are two groups of five dancers each, alternating in gender. In one corner a musician plays a double aulus and in the other a man plays the lyre. Another tomb shows a man apparently in armor dancing to the music of the aulos. Like the Greeks, the Etruscans also knew the Pyrrhus ("war dance") or something like that. ROMAN ATTITUDE TOWARD DANCE. The Roman character had a strong ascetic streak. While the Etruscans introduced the dance to the Romans, it maintained a reputation as a foreign import for years. Plato might have said that a man who could not dance was uneducated, but Plato was a Greek and his Roman contemporaries thought that feelings
© MIMMO JODICE/CORBIS. REPRODUCED WITH PERMISSION.
ridiculous. The art of dancing eventually came to Rome along with the rest of Greek culture, but for the Romans, dancing was always entertainment. It was never part of a Roman's formal education. At the end of the 3rd century BC. Upper-class Romans began to send their children to dance master classes, and in the first half of the 2nd century BC. When Greece itself fell under Roman rule, most Greek dancers were probably brought to Rome as slaves and then freed, they founded dance schools. From the Roman point of view, the creation of dance schools gave dance a status far beyond mere entertainment, and its potential for falsification of character provoked a backlash against the art form. In the middle of the second century BC. C., Scipio Aemilianus, a Roman aristocrat who admired Greek culture in general, decided to close the schools, but his success was short-lived. However, Scipio's views on dancing persisted into the first century BC. in Roman culture: Romans were allowed to know how to dance, but knowing how to dance skillfully was a symptom of depravity. NATIVE DANCES OF ROME. However, there were dances native to early Rome. Supposedly introduced by the founder of Rome, Romulus, the so-called belicrepa was an armored dance performed by warriors lined up in battle lines. The worship of the god Mars Ultor ("Avenger") involved dancing armed men, and there are representations of Mars dancing on several surviving medals and gemstones, as well as on a bronze figurine. There were also ancient priestly brotherhoods with
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DEATH OF A ROMAN ENTREPRENEUR INTRODUCTION:
Excavations under St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican in the 1950s have revealed an ancient burial ground that stood on Vatican Hill before Emperor Constantine built a church there over St. Peter's tomb. . Numerous mausoleums, funerary urns and inscriptions marking the graves of the dead have been found there, including the one mentioned below. Aurelius Nemesius was apparently the master of a troupe of pantomime dancers. The date of the inscription is uncertain, but it is likely sometime in the 3rd century AD.
Aurelio Nemesio, beloved and worthy husband who lived 53 years, 9 months and 11 days and received the highest praise for his art, acted as chorus, dance and pantomime teacher. His wife Aurelia Eutychiane dedicated and erected [this stone] for him. SPRING:
"The School of Dance", detail of a red-figure vase, 5th century BC. C, Greece. The master plays the double aulos; A kithara hangs on the back wall. THE ART ARCHIVE/MUSEUM
"Tombstone of an Impressario" in The Empire. volume 2 of Roman Civilization: Selected Readings. ed. Nephtali Lewis and Meyer Reinhold (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990): 145.
PROVINCE SIGISMONDO/CASTROMEDIA LECCE/DAGLI GORTI.
ritual dancers. The best known are the Salii, priests of Mars Gradivus ("Marchs to War"), who are said to have been installed by Romulus's successor as king of Rome, Numa. They wore helmets and breastplates over embroidered tunics and carried swords and the sacred shields of Mars. They paraded through the city of Rome to the sound of trumpets, stopping at religious places and performing the salic dance there. They moved from left to right, then right to left, all the while stomping their feet and leaping into the air as they slammed into their shields. Roman historian Titus Livio mentions another ancient dance that dates back to 207 BC. was performed to appease Juno. C., during the long and difficult Second Carthaginian War. Twenty-seven young men walked to the forum while singing a hymn, and there they took a rope and danced with it through the streets on their way to the Temple of Juno. Ancient rope dances were also found in Greece; A fragment of a Mycenaean fresco shows men in donkey-head masks in a procession carrying a rope. INTRODUCTION TO PANTOMIMES. Historian Zosimus, who wrote in Greek in the reign of Em72
Peror Theodosius II (408-450 AD) on the decline of Rome from the time of the first Emperor Augustus (ruled 27 BC Development of dance during the reign of Augustus. At that time, the pantomime dance was introduced, which did not exist before. Pylades and Bathillus were the first to introduce it, although there are other reasons for the many ailments that have survived to this day.
Zosimos was still a pagan scripture at a time when the pagan religion had become a small minority in a largely Christian empire, but it reflected the old-fashioned belief that the decline of Rome was caused by moral decline and that dancing was a symptom of decadence. . The attitude of the ancient Romans towards dancing was hard to die for. Pliny the Younger, an elegant letter writer of the late 1st century AD, commented in one of his letters on the death of an 80-year-old woman, Umidia Quadratilla, who owned a troupe of pantomime dancers and was most fond of their performances. than ever. typical of a woman of her social standing. She did not allow her grandson to see her, so she remained faithful to the old man.
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LUCIANO DE SAMOSATA ARGUMENTS THE VIRTUES OF PANTOMMENT DANCE INTRODUCTION:
Lucian of Samosata in Syria, who lived in the 2nd century AD. He often wrote essays and dialogue from a satirist's point of view, but his dance dialogue is a serious endorsement of pantomime. He imagines a fanatical mime talking to a cynical philosopher who mocks her, but is eventually won over. The dialogue was probably written in Antioch in 162–165 CE. when the Emperor Lucius Verus, until his death a collaborator of Marcus Aurelius and a fan of pantomime, was in Antioch, supposedly to lead a campaign, but actually enjoying the joys of the city. In this passage, Lucian compares pantomime to contemporary productions of tragedy.
As for the tragedy, let us form our first opinion of its character from its outward appearance. What a repulsive and at the same time terrifying spectacle, that of a man of enormous stature, riding in high clogs, with a mask that extended over his head, his mouth open in a great yawn as if to devour the spectators! I hold myself
Roman opinion that dancing spoils youth. Being extremely wealthy, Quadratilla could afford its pantomime society to put on private performances for its own entertainment, but by then Rome had built permanent stone theaters; The first was in 55 BC. open. long after many cities in Italy had them, and it was pantomime dancing rather than tragedy and comedy that filled them. PANTOMIME BACKGROUND. Before pantomime was invented, there was pantomime. In Greece, a pantomime was a short piece that could be sung and danced on stage. The feast attended by Socrates after the Great Panathenaic Feast of 421 BC Ariadne, daughter of King Minos of Crete, helped Theseus escape the Minotaur and accompanied him on his journey home to the island of Naxos, where he left her and Dionysus came to make her his wife. This pantomime seems to have at least some features of the later pantomime. The subject was a story from mythology, which was the working tool of pantomime. Mimes reached in the 3rd century BC. BC Rome, where they became very popular and covered a wide range of subjects. Women
of chest and stomach pads so that you look obese and your body is not too thin in relation to your height. So inside the costume is the actor himself, screaming his lines, leaning back and forth, sometimes even singing the poetry and - this is really embarrassing - making a song of his unhappiness. [Lucian gives some examples of ludicrously tragic performances and then contrasts them with the pantomime.] On the other hand, needless to say, the dancer is decent and proper, as it is evident to all that she is not blind. The mask itself is very attractive and suited to the theme of the dramatic presentation. Her mouth is not wide open like the masks in tragedy and comedy, but closed, because the pantomimist has many actors who take over the lines for him. In the past, pantomime performers undoubtedly sang and danced. But when her labored breathing during the dance interfered with her singing, it seemed best to let others sing for her. SPRING:
Lucian, "The Dance", in Lucian. volume 5. trans. A. M. Harmon (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1936): 239-243. Text modified by James Allan Evans.
they regularly appeared as mimae ("mimic actresses") as well as men. A popular feature of the festival known as the Floralia (Festival of Flowers) was a pantomime in which Mimae appeared nude. The masses worshiped mummies and Roman emperors favored them. Emperor Domitian (ruled 82-96 AD) satisfied the bloodthirsty tastes of the Roman public by ordering an actual crucifixion inserted into a pantomime. Groups of mimes, some owned by businessmen who were also mimes, roamed the cities of the empire and performed in local theaters at festivals funded by wealthy local citizens to publicize their public spirit. At the time of the late Roman Empire, it was difficult to distinguish between pantomime and pantomime, and the Christian Church disapproved of both. But in the year 22 a. Roman pantomime was invented by two pantomime artists, Pylades and Bathillus, and recognized as something new independent of its predecessors. DESCRIPTION OF THE PANTOMIM. Pantomime created a new type of dance performance by combining three arts: singing, music and pantomime. Music and dance have been part of Roman theatrical productions since the first playwright, Livius Andronicus, produced works in Rome. Livius Andronicus had lost his singing voice and his hearing allowed him to imitate songs as a child sang.
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THE DANCING MIME, PYLADES INTRODUCTION:
Macrobius, the author of the Saturnalia from which this extract is taken, lived towards the end of the fourth century AD, and little is known about him, except that he was not a native of Italy; It is possible that it originated in Africa. However, he was very attached to the traditions and literature of ancient Rome at a time when they were under threat. In his Saturnalia he imagines the leaders of Roman society of his time, many of them still pagans or at least sympathetic to paganism, who gather in December for the festival of the Saturnalia, their conversation embracing various ancient themes such as dancing, indigestion and drunkenness. , between others. In the passage quoted below, Macrobius traces four centuries before his time to Pylades, the dancer who, along with Batelo, revolutionized pantomime in the reign of Emperor Augustus (27 BC - 14 AD). .).
Having begun to speak of the stage, I cannot fail to mention Pylades, a famous actor in the time of Augustus, and his pupil Hylas, who passed under his tutelage to become his peer and rival. Asked about the respective merits of these two actors, public opinion was divided. One day Hylas performed a dramatic dance, the last theme of which was The Great Agamemnon, and by his gestures he represented his theme as a man of great stature. This was more than Pylades could bear, and from his seat in the pit he exclaimed, "You're just making it loud, not great." Then the crowd made Pylades perform the same dance, and when he reached the point where he was
for him. In pantomime, music was sung by a chorus, not a soloist. The piercing tones of the doubleaulos provided the music in the past, but Pylades added other instruments. The pantomime players soon became an orchestra, with musicians playing aulos, panpipes, cymbals, sitar (a type of lyre), lyre, and trumpet. The conductor kept time with a scabellum (“iron shoe”), a clapper with a resonator that could be triggered with the foot. As the choir sang and the orchestra played, the mime imitated the action of the drama. He wore masks, but unlike the masks of a tragic or comic actor, which had an open mouth so that the actor's voice could be projected, pantomime masks had a closed mouth because the pantomime ("mimic actor") did not speak. . Behind him was an assistant who may have been an actor with a speaking role, but he also gave pan74
He blamed the other's performance, giving the portrait of a thoughtful man, arguing that nothing makes a great commander better than thinking for everyone. On another occasion, when Hylas performed the Oedipus dance, Pylades criticized him for moving with more confidence than a blind man could show, shouting, "You are using your eyes." viewers thought he did not keep the storyline appropriate for the stage. She then took off her mask and addressed critics, saying, "Fools, my dancing pretends to be a madman." Also in this work, Hercules Furens, shot arrows at the spectators. And when he played the same role in a sovereign representation at a banquet given by Augustus, drawing his bow and shooting arrows, the emperor showed no resentment at receiving from the actor the same treatment as the rabble of Rome had received. He is said to have introduced a graceful new style of dancing into the clumsy fashion popular in the days of our forefathers, and when asked by Augustus what contribution he had made to the art of dancing, he replied in Homer's words: The sound of the flutes and flutes and the voices of the people. – Iliad 10.13. SPRING:
Macrobius, Die Saturnalien. Trans. Percival Vaughan Davies (Nova York e Londres, Inglaterra: Columbia University Press, 1969): 183–184.
Tomimus Helps When Needed: When Mime switched roles, he switched masks, and sometimes a little help was needed. Favorite pantomime acts were taken from mythology and known to the general public. THE BIG PLAYERS. Two major pantomimes were associated with the invention of the new pantomime: Pylades, a former slave of Emperor Augustus, and Bathyllus, a former slave of Augustus' minister of public affairs Maecenas, who also maintained a stable of writers. They may date back to around 22 BC. helped in introducing this new entertainment. Bathillus's performances were more lively and happy than those of the Pylades, and their dances were livelier. Pylades created the tragic pantomime: a show with choir, full orchestra, scenography and even a second pantomime when the action required it. Both Pylades and
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Bathyllus had enthusiastic followers who sometimes fought fierce battles in the streets. Emperor Augustus even banished Pylades from Rome for a period, but relented and allowed him to live in Rome in 17 BC. to return. at a time when the emperor's popularity was waning. For the Roman masses, the removal of Pylades compensated for other measures that were unpopular. THE STARS. The rivalry between the pantomime stars was intense. Pylades fell out not only with Bathillus, but also with one of his students, Hylas, whose talent on stage challenged his teacher's. Pylades became rich. He owned his own pantomime company and by 2 B.C. He financed a festival himself, although he was too old to perform at the time, and sat in the audience. Emperor Nero, who also had ambitions as a pantomime dancer, killed a pantomime named Paris because he considered him a rival. The names of the great pantomime dancers survived as later dancers chose them, hoping to inherit some of their fame. There was a Paris under Nero, another under Domitian (81-96 AD) and another under Lucius Verus (161-169 AD), co-emperor of Marcus Aurelius. Five pantomime dancers are found under the name of Pylades and six under the name of Apolaustus. In the fourth century CE, women danced pantomimes. They always played pantomimes, and the distinction between the two crumbled. In the 6th century AD, Empress Theodora (527–548) was a pantomime dancer in her youth in Constantinople, then a Christian city, and respectable women were not allowed to go to the theater. However, when Theodora became empress, she did not forget her old theater friends. They were received as guests at the Imperial Palace and she arranged good marriages for her daughters. SOURCES
Mario Bonaria, "Dinastie di Pantomimi Latini", Maia 11 (1959): 224-242. EJ Jory, "Actors Associations in Rome", Hermes 98 (1970): 224–253. —, "Literary Evidence for the Beginnings of Imperial Pantomime", Institute of Classical Studies Bulletin 28 (1981): 147-161. O. Navarre, "Pantomimus", in Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romaines. volume IV, point. 1st Ed. Charles Daremberg and Edmund Saglio (Graz, Germany: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1962-1963): 316-318. Charlotte Rouché, Performers and Partisans at Aphrodisias in the Roman and Late Roman Periods (London, England: Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies, 1993).
Louis Séchan, "Saltatio", in the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. Flight. IV, Part 1. Eds. Charles Daremberg and Edmund Saglio (Graz, Germany: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1962–1963): 1049–1054.
Important people in dance A RION c. 650 BC -C. 590 BC BC choreographer musician THE GLORY OF ARION. Arion was a master of mousike (dance, poetry and music) whose greatest influence was in the last half of the 7th century BC. BC. His fame endures, although none of his poems survive. He was from Methymna, a city-state on the island of Lesbos off the west coast of Turkey, but spent much of his life in Corinth, where his patron was the tyrant Periander. During Periander's forty-year reign, Corinth was a glittering center of art and culture, and among the artists drawn to his court was Arion. ARION AND THE DICTARY. The dithyramb was a choral hymn accompanied by dancing sung in honor of the wine god Dionysus, and it is not known how exactly the music and dancing was before Arion. Arion's contribution was to give a new organization to the dithyrambic chorus. It was he who fixed the number of choristers at fifty, and he himself composed dithyrambs and taught the Corinthian choirs to interpret them. The oxen were prizes for the winning choirs, and the sacrifice of the winning oxen was part of the festival. From Corinth the dithyramb was brought to Athens, where its development is linked to an equally dark figure, Lasus of Hermione, who lived around 548-547 BC. he was born. Aristotle claimed that Greek tragic drama developed from the dithyramb. ARION AND THE DOLPHIN. Arion was almost more famous for his adventures with a dolphin than for his contributions to dance and music. The story goes that he took a sabbatical from Periander's court and traveled to the Greek cities of Italy and Sicily, where he made a lot of money. When the time came to return to Greece, he chose a Corinthian ship for the voyage because he trusted the Corinthians more than anyone else.
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However, the sailors knew that he had a lot of money and they planned to take it and throw Arion overboard. Arion begged her to accept his money but spare his life, and when he could not be persuaded, he asked him to stand at the stern of the ship and sing one last song before he died. The sailors agreed and Arion donned the clothes he wore when he played and sang a song, and then jumped into the sea, where a dolphin picked him up and carried him to shore on its back. Arriving there, still in disguise, he made his way to Periander's court. Later, the sailors returned to Corinth and informed Periander that Arion was still safe and sound in Italy. They got a nasty surprise when Periander confronted them about Arion. It is said that the god Apollo, who was the god of the lyre and to whom dolphins were sacred, helped Arion. The Greeks believed that Apollo helped musicians in need and ensured that Arion's would-be murderers were punished. After this account of Arion, there is no other reference than to mention his death around 590 BC. CE SOURCES
Lillian B. Lawler, The Dance of Ancient Greek Theatre (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1964). Sir Arthur Pickard-Cambridge, Drama, Tragédia e Comédia. Rev. 2nd Ed. por T.B.L. Webster (Oxford, Inglaterra: Clarendon Press, 1962). Emmet Robbins, "Arion", em The New Pauly: Enzylopathy of the Old. Eds. Hubert Cancik e Helmut Scheider (Weimar/Stuttgart, Alemanha: Metzler, 1996): 1083–1084. Richard AS Seaford, "Arion", no Oxford Classical Dictionary. 3ª ed. (Oxford, Inglaterra: Oxford University Press, 1996): 158.
BATTLE
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P YLADEN
mid 1st century BC CE - early 1st century AD
The dancers were rivals and their fans often clashed during street riots, so much so that Augustus briefly banished Pylades from Rome. Both men had disciples, and one of Pylade's disciples, Hylas, became his master's rival. Bathyllus was famous for his comic pantomimes, while Pylades specialized in serious or tragic subjects from Greek mythology. THE NEW PANTOMIM. Information about Bathylus and Pylades is scarce, but it is clear that they introduced to Italy a new type of dance that combined characteristics of the ancient Greek classical dance known as the kordax, the more tragedy-worthy dance known as the emmeleia. , and the dance from the satyr play called Sikinnis. In fact, Pylades wrote a treatise on dancing. Bathillus' performances were more lighthearted. An ancient author compared her dancing to the hyporchyme, which was lively choral music and dancing, although there was a similarity to the spirit and joy of the hyporchyme, as there were no choral dances in the pantomime. Bathyllus is also said to have introduced the Memphis dance, which involved making all the muscles in the dancer's body match the rhythm of the music and dealt with serious matters. An ancient source mentioned performances of Bathyllus tragedies and Pylades comedies, so they may occasionally have crept into each other's territory. The date of death of Bathylus or Pylades is unknown, although 2 BC. C., Pylades produced and financed a festival, but did not perform because he was too old. Bathilus was probably older than Pylades, so he stopped dancing around the same time or earlier, although some dancers had very long careers on stage. SOURCES
EJ Jory, "Literary Evidence for the Beginnings of Imperial Patronage", Bulletin of the Institute for Classical Studies 28 (1981): 147-161. Sir William Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. volume 1 (London, England: Walton and Maberly, 1849–1858): 474.
Pantomime dancers INTRODUCTION TO PANTOMIMME. The introduction of pantomime to Rome is attributed to two dancers, Bathillus and Pylades. Bathyllus was from Alexandria, Egypt, and nothing is known about his childhood. Somehow he became a slave to Maecenas, minister of public affairs to the Roman emperor Augustus (r. 27 BC - AD 14), nephew and heir of Julius Caesar. Maecenas freed him and became his patron. Pylades, who came from Cilicia in Asia Minor, was a former slave of Emperor Augustus himself.
MEMPHIUS mid 2nd century AD - early 3rd century AD PANTOMIME ARTIST'S BACKGROUND. Menphius, also known as Apollostos, was a famous mime during the reign of Emperor Marcus Aurelius (161-180 AD) and a great favorite of Lucius Verus, who was co-emperor with Marcus for the first seven and a half years. . your reign when
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Verus returned from a campaign against the Parthians, he brought actors from Syria, one of whom was a slave, Agrippo, whom Verus and Marcus Aurelius freed. Agrippus acquired the name Lucius Aurelius from his patrons, and he also had two nicknames, his stage name Apolaustus and Memphius (“Memphis pantomime”). Memphis, Egypt may have been where he became famous as a pantomime artist or it may refer to the type of dancing that was his specialty as there was a Memphis dance where the dancer used every muscle during performance to move his body. The first dancer to introduce the Menfian dance in Rome was Batilus of Alexandria, in Egypt, who belonged to the reign of Emperor Augustus (27 BC-14 AD). The name "Apolaustus" was a favorite nickname for pantomime performers; In fact, there was already a former slave called "Lucius Aelius Aurelius Apolaustus" who belonged to the imperial house before Menfio arrived in Rome. He was probably also a pantomime artist and had the misfortune to be executed in AD 189 by Emperor Commodus, son of Marcus Aurelius. However, Menfio was still alive in 199 AD when mentioned in an inscription. PANTOMIM OF PYTHAGORAS. A pantomime that made Menfio famous was his representation of Pythagoras' philosophy in dance. Pythagoras was known for his theory of numbers, but in the second century CE he was best known for his teachings on the transmigration of souls. As Memphius was in the tradition of Bathyllus, whose presentations were lighter than those of Pylades, Memphius' presentation of Pythagorean wisdom was probably not particularly serious. CAREER AFTER LUCIUS VERUS. While Lucius Verus was still alive, Memphius was probably part of the retinue of actors, mimes, and jugglers that made up his household. But Marcus Aurelius did not like Vero's hobbies, and Menfio had to build his own career. He had his own Grex, a troupe of backing musicians and dancers who performed in Rome and throughout Italy, where every respectable city had its own theater. He was hailed as "the pre-eminent actor of his time". The date of his death is unknown, but it still occurred at the end of the 2nd century AD. SOURCES
EJ Jory, "The Literary Evidence for Early Imperial Patronage", Bulletin des Institute for Classical Studies 28 (1981): 147–161. P. R. C. Weaver, Familie Caesaris (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972).
THEODORA c. 500 CE–548 CE Mime Empress DAUGHTER OF A GUARDIAN BEAR. The woman who would one day become Empress of the Roman Empire was born one of three daughters to the bear keeper of the Green Faction, the company that produced chariot races and theater entertainments in Constantinople. Her father died when Theodora and her sisters were very young, and Theodora's mother remarried, hoping her new husband would take over from her ex-husband. However, her plan was thwarted when the green faction's top ballet master, who had the right to choose a new bear keeper, was bribed to choose another candidate. The change of fate left Theodora's small family destitute, but Theodora's mother insisted on securing her daughters' future. He disguised her as a suppliant and placed her in front of the green supporters' area at the Hippodrome in Constantinople and begged for mercy. Though the Greens didn't mind, the Blue Fanatics took pity on the small family and gave Theodora's stepfather the job of bear keeper for their faction. HE ON STAGE. As soon as they were old enough, Theodora and her sisters took to the stage. Her older sister Comito soon became a star, and Theodora's first role was as Comito's assistant, carrying a stool for her on which Comito could briefly rest between dances. Teodora herself did not shine as a dancer. However, he excelled as a performer of myths, particularly popular with audiences was his pantomime of Leda and the Swan, which told the myth of how Leda, the mother of Helen of Troy, was raped and bathed in the god Zeus, who became disguised as a swan. Like most actresses and dancers on the Roman stage, she worked as a prostitute and had an illegitimate daughter during this period of her life. One of her lovers, who bought himself a provincial government, took her to his province in modern Libya. They soon fell out, however, and when Theodora was dismissed by the governor, she was left to her own devices. TRANSFORMATION. Theodora went to Alexandria, which was full of refugees from religious persecution. At that time, the Christian church was divided by a dispute over the nature of Christ. Catholics held that Christ had a human nature and a divine nature, as set out in the Chalcedonian Creed, while their views
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speakers believed that the divine nature of Christ was dominant; some have argued that it even included the human nature of Christ. When Justin I became Emperor in AD 518, he launched an anti-Chalcedonian persecution throughout the empire except Egypt, and so the Anti-Chalcedonians fled to Alexandria. There Theodora came into contact with them and converted to their faith. She then went to Antioch, present-day Antakya in Turkey, and there she befriended a dancer named Macedonia, who belonged to the Blue Faction troupe. Macedonia had a second run; In addition to being a dancer, she was also a secret agent for Justinian, the emperor's nephew, and it was probably thanks to her that Theodora met Justinian. They fell in love, and although it was illegal for an upper-class Roman to marry an actress, Justinian persuaded Emperor Justin to enact a law permitting the marriage. After Justin died in 527 CE, Justinian and Theodora became emperors and empresses. EMPRESS. Theodora did not forget her old theater friends when she became empress. Dancers with names like Chrysomallo and Indaro were welcome at the palace. Justinian also passed a series of laws that made it easier for actors to give up their careers if they wanted to and marry upper-class citizens. Indeed, Theodora found suitable husbands for the daughters of some of her old friends. She was Justinian's partner in power and, in theological disputes, did not hesitate to intervene on behalf of the anti-Catholics. Justinian favored the Catholics but had enormous respect for Theodora's intelligence. The Assyrian and Coptic churches of the Middle East and Egypt hold Theodora in high esteem and reject the story that she was an exact. However, the evidence that she had a career as a stage dancer before meeting Justiniano seems strong. He died of cancer in 548 CE. SOURCES
Robert Browning, Justiniano e Teodora. Ed. Rev. (Londres, Inglaterra: Thames and Hudson, 1987). James Allan Evans, The Empress Theodora: Partner of Justinian (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002). Lynda Garland, Byzantine Empresses: Women and Power in Byzantium AD 527-1205 (Londres, Inglaterra: Routledge, 1999).
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DOCUMENTARY SOURCES on the Squirrel, Supplicating dance (462 BC) – the tragedy of Squirrel Supplicating is the best-preserved example of a drama whose effect depends on the interpretive dance of the chorus, which in this case could number fifty instead of the usual fifteen members. Apuleius, Metamorphoses (commonly known as 'The Golden Ass', c. AD 180): The 'Golden Ass', the only complete surviving Latin novel, contains a description of a production dance and pantomime in book 10.29–34. held in Corinth. Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae ("The Scholars at a Banquet", c. 200 CE): The Deipnosophistae, written in Greek by Athenaeus of Naucratis in Egypt, is an imaginary symposium in which scholars discuss all manner of subjects, both in the first and second fourteenth books, its themes include dance. Athenaeus is an important source of modern knowledge of ancient dance. Homer, Iliad (c. 750 BC): The eighteenth book of Homer's Iliad contains an ekphrasis, or detailed description, of a scene from Greek everyday life in which there is a verbal image of young men and women dancing on a dance floor as those for Ariadne, daughter of King Minos, at Knossos in Minoan Crete. Lucian of Samosata, Peri Orcheseos ("On the Dance", ca. AD 165): Author of some eighty plays, most of them in dialogue form, Lucian wrote a pantomime dance dialogue in which he imagines that a taste for pantomime defeats a cynical philosopher who had condemned him. Xenophon, Anabasis ("The Inland Expedition", c. 360 BC): Xenophon, an Athenian who was a student of Socrates in his youth, accompanied Prince Cyrus of Persia in his attempt to achieve the overthrow of his older brother, the king Artaxerxes II. The Anabasis, which describes Cyrus' ill-fated expedition and the return of his ten thousand mercenary troops, contains a description of the folk dances of the various ethnic groups that made up the troupe. Xenophon's Symposium is another source for ancient dancing, as it describes professional dancers who provided entertainment at a banquet attended by Socrates.
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chapter Three
MODAJames Allan Evans
IMPORTANT EVENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 OVERVIEW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 TOPICS Fashion in the Minoan Period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 Clothing in Classical Greece. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 The cloak . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 Textiles from the Greek and Roman Worlds. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 dress to impress in Greece and Rome. . . . . . . 102 The clothing of Roman women. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 The soldier's clothing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 IMPORTANT PEOPLE Alcibiades . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 Constantius II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114 Diogenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 DOCUMENTAL SOURCES . . . . . . . . . 115 MAIN PAGES AND DOCUMENTS Primary sources are listed in italics
The adoption of the Ionian chiton (Herodotus describes how a military defeat affected Athenian fashion). . . . . . . . . 89
The importance of the toga (Livio describes the role of the toga in public commerce). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 The Costume of Emperor Augustus (John the Lydian describes Augustus' various styles of dress) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 The production of flax (Pliny explains the processing of flax to obtain flax fiber). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 Unusual costume of Emperor Gaius Caligula (Suetonius describes Caligula's unique fashion style) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 coan silk (Aristotle describes the origin of coan silk) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Thucydides on Athenian fashions (Thuchidides comments on changing Greek fashions). . . . . 103 New fashions from Persia (a work by Aristophanes reflects the influence of Persian fashion). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 Women's Attire (Gellius records criticism of men for wearing long-sleeved tunics) . . . . . . 105 Funerary inscriptions of a seamstress and a hairdresser (inscriptions of two slaves of wealthy Roman women) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 Seductive Dress at the Roma Augusta (Ovid offers fashion tips for women) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
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336 BC Macedonian King Alexander the Great begins his campaign that will lead to the conquest of the Persian Empire, opening the Middle East to the Greeks and exposing them to Persian fashion.
IMPORTANT EVENTS in fashion c. 1700 BC BC In Neopalatial Minoan Crete Pe–c. 1450 BC River frescoes show women wearing short jackets that expose their breasts and a full skirt that falls from a sash at the waist. The men, when not naked, wear a kind of short double apron that covers the genitals. around 1200 BC The safety pin appears in Greece, indicating that women already wore peplos fastened on their shoulders with safety pins called peronai. approx. 600 BC In the late-early Archaic period, the Ionian chiton becomes popular in Athens, replacing the simpler Doric chiton or peplos, which remains the standard dress for women in Sparta and other Doric states. 594 BC CE Solon, the chief magistrate (Greek archon) of Athens, enacted a law prohibiting women from wearing more than three garments at funerals or festivals. This is an attempt to curb the overly elaborate fashion that was introduced to Athens along with the Ionian chiton. 490 BC Chr Persia makes an unsuccessful attempt, -479 BC. conquering Greece and, after the Persian War, there is a shift in favor of simpler fashions and away from the elaborate fashions associated with Persia.
330 BC The last king of Persia of the Archaemenid dynasty, Darius III. Codomannus is deposed and murdered, and Alexander claims to be his successor. He adopts Persian clothing, causing an antagonistic reaction among his Macedonian troops, who believe he is deviating from the traditions of their homeland. 323 BC Alexander the Great dies in Babylon. His generals carve out kingdoms in their conquered territories, whose capitals become fashionable leaders (Pella in the Macedonian kingdom; Antioch and Seleucia-on-the-Tigris for the Seleucid kingdom and Alexandria in the Ptolemaic kingdom of Egypt). 205 BC Chr Publius Scipio the Younger, a rising general in the second war between Rome and Carthage, dressed in Greek clothing instead of the Roman toga, setting the style for members of the Roman ruling class who were drawn to Greek fashion. 189 BC Sometime after this date, a luxury fabric called "Attalic" was traded in Rome. The "Athallic" cloth is a gold embroidered fabric made in the workshops of Attalus II, King of Pergamum in Asia Minor, with embroidery by Phrygian embroiderers, famous for their skill in working with gold threads.
In Athens, peplos are back in fashion.
80 BC BC Julius Caesar, who died -79 BC. from Rome. the most famous general and politician, he is nicknamed "the baggy boy" by the dictator Sulla because, under his purple-striped toga, Caesar wore a tunic fringed to the wrists and a loose belt.
approx. 430 BC In Athens, Persian fashion became popular again with wealthy citizens.
13 BC The first stone of the "Altar of Peace" was erected in Rome
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Roman Senate on the Campus Martius (Field of Mars). The south frieze of the altar shows the imperial family, with the exception of the Emperor Augustus himself, in procession and illustrates the new style of Roman toga drapery in the Augustan period. 37 CE Emperor Gaius Caligula -41 CE leads fashions borrowed from eastern monarchies at the imperial court in Rome along with divine kings. circa AD 90 A portrait of an unknown Roman woman, now in the Capitoline Museum, Rome, is carved and shows elaborate hairstyle with hair gathered in tight curls above the forehead. The hairstyle is a wig that can be removed from the head and replaced with a wig of a different style. 117 AD The Roman emperor Hadrian, who reigned in these years 138 AD, prefers the Greek style and wears a robe
which resembles the Greek himation or mantle. 284 AD Emperor Diocletian Institute – 305 AD Changes to imperial office and introduction of elaborate, bejeweled attire for the imperial court, among other reforms. 324 CE Emperor Constantine fashioned the imperial insignia as a jeweled tiara, i.e. a beaded cloth headband tied around the head with a knot in the back and the ends dangling. 547 AD The Church of San Vitale in Ravenna, Italy, with mosaics showing Justinian (Emperor 527–565 AD) and Theodora (Empress 527–548 AD), is dedicated. The mosaics give a vivid representation of the fashions of the imperial court in the 6th century, at a time when the Byzantine court placed more emphasis on court ceremonies.
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OVERVIEW FASHION DRESSES MAKE MEN. In the 21st century, fashion in clothes and hairstyles are temporary trends that are significantly influenced by the media and fashion designers. Fashion can change quickly, often with designers introducing seasonal clothing lines using a variety of natural and synthetic fabrics. However, the existence of fashion trends does not negate the fact that fashion can also be a highly individual expression, with everyone personally deciding what to wear. This modern concept of fashion stands in stark contrast to fashion in the Greek and Roman worlds, where there was little change in clothing trends, no stylists, and few fabrics to wear. Furthermore, clothing acted as a social tool to emphasize the strict social and gender classifications of these ancient societies. Clothing denoted a certain condition of life and not an expression of individuality; For example, women used to dress according to their marital status, with young women wearing clothes that were different from the clothes worn by married women. Even hairstyles provided telltale clues as to whether or not a woman was married, and the scandalous behavior of an adulteress or prostitute earned her an outfit as distinctive as Hester Prynne's scarlet letter 'A' in Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel, The Scarlet Letter. in nineteenth-century America. Men were no less devoid of such obvious labels, with generals, politicians, soldiers, youths and slaves each wearing distinctive robes that denoted their rank. FABRICS. Wool and linen were the main fabrics of the Minoan/Mycenaean period; Cotton also existed, although it was not commonly used until Roman times. Hemp was also used to make cloth in Thrace, present-day Bulgaria and northeastern Greece, but in the rest of the Greco-Roman world, hemp was valued more as rope than cloth. Greece had its own silk industry on the island of Kos, using fibers disentangled from the cocoons of a local moth, 82
the pachypassa otus. However, production was small and likely inferior to Chinese silk, a luxury fabric only the wealthy could afford. The Greeks and Romans valued silk so highly that they sometimes frayed silk fabrics and re-braided them with linen threads to stretch the wear. In the 6th century CE, the Byzantine Empire under Emperor Justinian (527-565 CE) acquired silkworm eggs smuggled from China and established its own silk industry. Greeks and Romans also used leather and fur. It is said that Agamemnon, the legendary leader of the Greek coalition in the Trojan War, wore a lion's skin, and his brother Menelaus had a leopard's skin, which is believed to have been imported from Egypt. However, the vast majority of Greeks and Romans had clothing made from wool and linen. SPORT WEAR OR THE LACK OF THEM. In the summer heat, Greek men probably dressed as little as decency would allow, for unlike Middle Eastern civilizations, Greek culture seems to delight in the bare flesh. In gyms, men are naked to train and compete (the word gymnos itself means "naked" in Greek). Also in Sparta, a large city in Greece, women trained naked. Nudity wasn't always in fashion; in early Greece, before the 7th century BC. Men wore loincloths, but legend has it that the style changed after a runner named Orsippos of Megara won his race at the Olympics after removing his loincloth mid-race. After that, athletes competed naked in the Olympics, and the practice spread to the rest of Greece. STANDARD CLOTHING IN GREECE AND ROME. Standard types of clothing in both Greece and Rome had one thing in common: they required a minimum of sewing. While the Greeks' neighbors in Asia Minor, the Phrygians, were famous for their embroidery, especially fine embroidery with gold thread, the Greeks themselves apparently did not imitate this skilled handwork. The Greek needle was much less sophisticated than the modern needle; Indeed, the Greek word for "needle" - raphis - is rarely found in Greek writings, suggesting that among Greek women's domestic achievements, sewing was second only to weaving. The Greeks and Romans had buttons and ties and had safety pins called peronai in Greek and fibulae in Latin, and these sometimes took the form of ornate brooches. The two types of clothing common in Greece, the chiton (tunic) and the himation (cloak) were rectangular pieces of cloth that covered the body. The same was true of the Roman toga. The original meaning of the word "toga" seems to have been "covering", and in early Rome it was so
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simply a piece of homespun wool cloth worn during the day to keep the wearer warm, removed and used as a light blanket at night. The shape of the toga is disputed; Some ancient authors called it a semicircular piece of cloth, but it was probably more of a semi-ellipse than a true semicircle. Originally it was a humble peasant dress, but it became the standard attire of a Roman citizen and several variations developed. A style that the Romans, for example, learned from their neighbors, the Etruscans, who introduced them in the third century BC. It was worn by members of the ancient Roman college of priests known as the Salii, the Leaping Priests of Mars, who celebrated the March and October festivals of Mars with ritual dances. The attire of a Roman priest making sacrifices to the gods was simply a toga with a hood covering the head. (Sacrifices performed in the Roman manner in Romano ritu required a head covering - capite velato - whereas sacrifices performed in the Greek manner in Graeco ritu left the head uncovered.) Roman Senators and Members Most municipal councils in the cities of the Empire wore togas when conducting state business, and as long as there were city councils in the Roman Empire, there were still occasions when men wore togas. Dressing in Rome means status. The toga with the wide purple sash indicated that the wearer was a senator, while the narrow purple sash indicated that the wearer was of the class below the senatorial class known as equites. This group began as an order of Roman chivalry in the early days of the empire, which gave rise to the Roman chivalry, but later became simply a census group. The proper attire for a married woman was a stole, a shawl with which to cover the head when going out into the open air, where it was not proper to be seen bareheaded. Improperly dressed people would face social scorn and sometimes even legal sanctions. MILITARY CLOTHING. Military attire was practical and evolved as fighting styles shifted from single combat to structured military formations. The ancient Greek warrior, for example, was usually a foot soldier who fought individually for his own glory; The horsehair crest on his helm was a challenge to his enemy. This type of warrior gave way to the hoplite, a heavily armed foot soldier with a helmet, cuirass, greaves (which protected the lower legs) and a triangular metal plate called a miter to protect the groin. The hoplites fought in battle formation, eight ranks deep and foot to foot, with their round shields in their left arms and spears in their right hands.
At camp, a hoplite wore a military cloak; The cloaks worn by Spartan hoplites were red, the color of blood. The Roman soldier was also equipped for battle with a helmet, chain mail (later replaced by a cuirass), and a military boot called a caliga for the feet (hence Emperor Gaius' childhood nickname "Caligula" or "little boot"). . ). and a cloak called Sagum, which left his arms free. Sagum was a practical garment; it was recommended to agricultural workers in adverse weather conditions by a Roman writer on agriculture named Columella. The Roman army had weapon and armor workshops, and sometimes these state-owned and state-owned factories also produced clothing for the troops. DECORATIONS AND COSMETICS. Although their style of dress changed little, the Greeks and Romans had a sense of style. The perfume market was lively and hairstyles varied from place to place. Spartan hoplites wore their hair long and carefully styled it. Elsewhere, Greek men wore their hair soon after reaching adulthood. After the time of Alexander the Great, who died in 323 BC. Greek men shaved their beards, and the fashion continued into the third century B.C.E. In Rome. Under Emperor Hadrian (117-135 AD), beards came back into fashion. Lucius Verus, who was briefly co-emperor with Marcus Aurelius, is said to have used gold dust to give his beard a fashionable yellow glow. Roman women's hairstyles were often elaborate and dyes were used to achieve the fashionable blonde color. Wigs hid bald or thinning hair, and a wig with hair supplied by a German across the Rhine border was a safer method of going blonde than using strong dyes that could damage the hair. Changes in Late Antiquity. How the Empire Went from a Period of Invasions, Plagues, and Short-lived Emperors in the 3rd Century AD. In the more stable fourth century, fashion, at least among the upper classes, became more sophisticated. By the end of the 4th century, Chinese silk had become fashionable among the elite. The imperial court loved jewelry, especially pearls. Clothes marked condition. The long embroidered tunics worn by nobles and noble ladies corresponded to their station in life, while the middle class was content with somewhat simpler attire. Priests in the Christian church were distinguished by their dress, typically adaptations of Roman dress. The tunics of the nobles and the garments of the priests are very different from the clothes of the peasants, who used a kind of sagum or cucullus - a hooded cloak to protect the head - or the barbarians, who wore long pants. However, the toga retained its prestige as the proper garment of a togatus, or Roman citizen. Archaeologists have found a sculptor's courtyard near Rome that was
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still produced statues until the 4th century AD. They were impeccably dressed in tunics, with lace to hold interchangeable portrait heads. The presence of such statues does not mean that the toga continued to be widely used during this period; Roman troops had long since abandoned the toga in favor of more practical fashions, many borrowed from the so-called barbarian world.
FASHION TOPICS FASHION
INSIDE
MINOIC PERIOD
PROOF. The history of Greek fashion dates back from the Bronze Age to the Minoan culture on the island of Crete on mainland Greece. Evidence of clothing worn in Minoan Crete comes mainly from the frescoes that decorated the walls of palaces and from Minoan figurines found on the island. Clothes and textiles from this period have long since deteriorated, although a linen found in a tomb from the pre-palace period (3500-1900 BC) has been reported from the site of Mochlos in northeastern Crete. .w.) . It was probably an import from Egypt, but it shows that flax was known and used in Crete before the arrival of the Minoan civilization in the early 2nd millennium BC. Egypt also provides evidence of Minoan fashion. In Thebes, the capital of Egypt during the 18th dynasty, murals in five tombs of high officials from the dynasty's early years depict Aegean foreigners paying homage to the pharaoh. One of these tombs from the mid-15th century BC. In the Neupalast or “New Palace” period in Crete (1700–1450 BC), it belonged to Rekhmire, a vizier (high official) of Pharaoh Thutmose III, and in it these Aegean people are referred to as “princes of the land of Keftiu' So Crete. The artists who made these paintings of the Cretan envoys clearly made an effort to accurately portray their attire. CLOTHES FOR MEN. The basic garment for men was a loincloth, wrapped around the waist and secured by a belt or sash. Loincloth styles varied according to place and time; Some styles seem to have been fashionable in certain regions. The loincloth can be worn like a kilt, loose at the waist, or tucked under the crotch, becoming a kind of short. Indeed, sew the thong flaps, front 84
and on the back, together below the placket, it forms a short. This is a style found at Mycenae, where a bronze dagger depicting a lion hunt on its blade inlaid with gold was unearthed. The scene features men in shorts buttoned below the crotch. Men generally wore nothing above the waist, as in Egypt. When colder weather called for extra covering to stay warm, there were hides and hides from wild animals that could be used as capes. KILTS AND PAIRS. A bow tie is defined as a flap attached to the front of a pair of tights worn by men in the 15th and 16th centuries, but the term is used to describe a feature of men's clothing in Minoan Crete. In early depictions it is shown as a straight and narrow lapel, sometimes worn only with a belt and without a loincloth underneath. In the New Palace period (1700–1450 BC) it is commonly shown as wide lapels worn over a short, stiff kilt, which was slit at the sides to expose the thighs and thrown back like a duck's tail. But after 1500 B.C. C., the fly apparently went out of fashion and was replaced by long kilts supported by a sash or, in time, by a wide belt; sometimes a large beaded tassel replaced the codpiece. The "Keftiu" paintings from the tomb of Rekhmire in Thebes, Egypt, testify to the change in style. The paintings depict Cretans (residents of the island of Crete) wearing long kilts without a codpiece, but recent cleanups of these paintings have revealed that the Cretans' clothing was altered shortly after the paintings were originally painted. As originally described, Cretans wore short, stiff kilts with breeches. Scholars suggest that the Egyptians altered the paintings after realizing that Cretan fashion had changed to update the costumes. WOMEN'S CLOTHING. In the pre-palace period (1900-1700 BC), women wore long skirts with sashes that wrapped around the waist twice and were tied with the ends hanging forward. Bodices exposed the breasts and suits had collars that rose to the nape of the neck. In the early protopalatial period, women appeared to wear cloaks made from a semi-circular swatch of what was probably woolen fabric, although scholars have suggested it might have been leather. She put a sash around her waist and tied it in front. Openings were made for the arms, the breasts were bare and there was a high collar at the back of the head. Over time, the skirts became more elaborate. In paintings they are often depicted with ruffles, and when women appear at court ceremonies, their skirts feature intricate weaving designs that require skillful weaving. Minoan women, if they could afford it, clearly took very good care of them.
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your closets. A feature of Minoan women's clothing of the New Palace period (1700-1450 BC) is an elaborate belt, sometimes padded, sometimes apparently metal, covering the waist where the bodice connects to the skirt. There is also evidence that a patterned apron falls from the belt not only in front, but also in the back. In fact, it looks like it was modeled after the men's thong. In the late period of the Minoan civilization on Crete (after 1450 BC) and also in the Mycenaean civilization on the mainland, which was heavily influenced by the Minoan style, images show women in ruffled floor-length skirts woven into elaborate patterns apparently cut so that bottom of skirt falls to center front and back. It is not entirely clear whether these depictions accurately represent the clothing; It has been suggested that artists who painted women in skirts of this type were simply trying to show split skirts or, alternatively, that this was the way to represent the movement of full skirts as women walked. However, there is no doubt that the Cretan women who participated in palace life wore elaborate costumes that were brightly colored and undoubtedly expensive. However, only a small percentage of women were allowed to dress at court and it is difficult to determine what ordinary women wore, as they were not usually the subject of palace frescoes. However, an ivory seal was found at Knossos, depicting a girl with a sweater hanging loosely from her shoulders to her knees without a belt. The skirt is short but still appears to have elegant ruffles. The seal is suspected to be a fake, but if it is genuine, it is evidence of short skirts among the common women of Minoan Crete.
Minoan woman or goddess called La Parisienne: fragment of a fresco from the Palace of Knossos, Crete. In the Museum of Heraklion, Crete. © ROGER WOOD/CORBIS.
SHOES AND CAPS. The Minoans walked barefoot in religious ceremonies and probably in their private homes, but when shoes were needed they wore boots and sandals. The Greek word for "sandal" (sandalon) is of pre-Greek origin and may date back to Minoan times, before Greek speakers arrived on Crete. Boots and sandals are often shown with the toes up. As for headgear, the usual type was a wide, flat cap for males, while females, at least in the protopalatian period (before 1700 BC), had beaks in the shape of a forward beak. , but much of this evidence comes from paintings depicting religious ceremonies, although whether women in secular settings wore a similar headdress is debatable.
Necklaces, anklets and a wide range of earrings in gold, silver, copper, bronze and semi-precious stones. Jewelers were remarkably skilled. They had the technical knowledge for delicate jobs that required soldering tiny gold or silver wires together. They also produced extremely fine grain work, in which tiny grains of gold were welded onto a gold or silver backing. They mastered the technique of stone or paste marquetry and drawn work, in which a design is engraved on a thin sheet of metal by pressing from behind, creating the embossed pattern on one side of the sheet and the same hammered pattern. from below to the other. French excavators unearthed one of the most remarkable examples of the Minoan jewelry trade in the Tomb of Mallia on the north coast of Crete, and now in the Museum of Heraklion. It is a pendant in the shape of a bee, designed and executed with great skill.
JEWEL. Both men and women wore a variety of jewelry, including bracelets, bracelets on their wrists,
FABRICS. As in classical Greece, the basic material in Minoan Crete was wool. much of what is written
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Tablets found at Knossos document herds of sheep, possibly rescued for their wool. The Minoans also used flax; They probably imported it first from Egypt, but may have produced their own flax later on. Mycenaean Greece, borrowing its style from Minoan Crete, definitely produced flax, as evidenced by written texts from Pylos in southwest Greece around 1200 BC. C. refer to the cultivation of flax in the region. The Minoans wove fabrics on vertical looms of the type used in later Greece, and although no looms survive (they were wooden and all had long since rotted), a stone with two rectangles has been found in a Minoan house at Ayia Varvara in Crete. Holes made in it were found in the women's quarters; Archaeologists suggest that it may have supported the vertical posts of a loom. As primitive as these vertical looms may seem, a look at the clothing worn by Minoan women reveals that they could produce intricate designs. DYES. Linen is difficult to dye, so linen dresses were often left white. However, wool accepts pigments well and vegetable dyes were commonly used for dyeing. The Minoans almost certainly imported the dried leaves of the henna plant from Egypt to make a red dye, and the addition of sodium bicarbonate (sodium carbonate), another Egyptian product, turned the henna dye yellow. Alkanet, a deep red dye made from the roots of a variety of plants, was another way to dye fabric, as was a purple dye made from the shellfish known as murex. Mounds of crushed murex shells have been found at coastal sites in eastern Crete such as Palaikastro, providing good evidence for purple dye production in the protopalacial and neopalacial periods. PERFUMES. There is good documentary evidence of a perfume industry on Crete and mainland Greece in the Bronze Age, before 1100 BC. The Palace of Pylos, on the southwest coast of mainland Greece, overlooking the Bay of Navarino, was built around 1200 BC. Chr. was suddenly destroyed by fire. C., created a cache of clay tablets written in "Linear B" script, which is an ancient form of Greek, and detailing the manufacture of perfumes conducted under the direction of the palace bureaucracy. "Linear B" is a label given to this script by modern archaeologists to distinguish it from "Linear A" which is found on Crete and is not Greek. The Pylos tablets give the names of four perfumers employed by the palace to make perfume. There is also evidence of perfume making at Knossos on Crete and Mycenae on the mainland. The ancient peoples of this area made perfumes by transferring the aroma to oil, most commonly olive oil. Although oil does not absorb aroma well, cooking aromatic leaves and strong-smelling buds with the oil gave an acceptable result for 86
the upper class in the Minoan and Mycenaean world. It is likely that both men and women used the perfumes. SOURCES
Arthur Cotterell, The Minoan World (Londres, Inglaterra: Michael Joseph, 1979). Reynold Alleyne Higgins, Minoan and Mycenaean Art (Londres, Inglaterra: Thames and Hudson, 1997). Sinclair Hood, The Minoans: Crete in the Bronze Age (Londres, Inglaterra: Thames and Hudson, 1971). Bernice Jones, "Revelando las modas minoicas", Archaeologie 53 (2000): 36–41. Cynthia Wright Shelmerdine, The Perfume Industry of Mycenaean Pylos (Göteberg, Alemanha: Paul Äströms Föring, 1985).
DRESSES
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CLASSICAL GREECE
PROBLEMS WITH THE TERMS. The names of types of Greek clothing can be confusing, not least because the Greeks themselves sometimes wore them carelessly. The oversight is understandable, as in ancient Greece all clothing, whether male or female, was made from a rectangle of fabric. The difference was in the size of the cloth and the way the body was covered. To add to the confusion, the Romans adopted Greek styles. The national dress of Rome was the toga, but by the 3rd century BC. Rome extended its rule to Greek cities in what was known as “Magna Graecia” (Magna Graecia) in southern Italy, and the more Romans learned about Greek culture, including fashion, the more intrigued they were. The Roman Publius Scipio Africanus, responsible for Hannibal's defeat at the Battle of Zama in 202 BC. C., was one of the Roman leaders who adopted Greek fashion in place of the Roman toga. The confusion stems from the fact that the Romans adapted Greek fashions to suit their own, so finding exact Greek equivalents for Roman dress is not always easy. The toga also seems to have begun its long history simply as a rectangular cloth, as it came off the loom. DORIAN VS IONIAN. The Dorians were Greeks who lived after 1150 BC. migrated to the Peloponnese, i.e. With the collapse of the Mycenaean civilization, they founded several states, most notably Sparta in southeastern Greece and Argos in the north. The Dorians favored physical fitness and simplicity in their daily lives, and Doric fashion was reflected
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He. The Spartans, in particular, were famous for their rigor. Dorians liked simple fashions that allowed the body to move freely. Expelled by the Dorians, the Greeks fled to Athens and from there to the west coast of present-day Turkey and the nearby islands, where they founded twelve cities that grew and prospered. This was Ionian Greece: twelve cities united in a loosely organized league, and although there were more Greek foundations on the Turkish coast and islands than in the twelve Ionian cities, it was Ionia that set the style. Ionian fashion reflected the rich, comfortable and luxurious life of the Ionians, and although in the mid-6th century BC. lost their independence in the 1st century BC, they continued to prosper. The type of clothing worn by the Dorians and Ionians was the same, but while the Dorians favored a simple, unadorned style, the Ionians preferred more elaborate fashions and fine fabrics. In the 5th century BC. However, the Ionian cities fell under the rule of Athens and lost their supremacy as creators of style. GREEK CLOTHING TERMS. The basic garment was the chiton, which was a tunic. When it was short it was called chitoniskos, which means "little tunic", and when it was sleeveless, as was often the case, it was called exomis, which means "sleeveless garment". There were some tunics with sleeves, which conservative Romans saw as a sign of oriental luxury, although Rome's greatest general and politician, Julius Caesar, actually wore one. The range of terms becomes even more confusing with the Doric chiton, which is actually a peplos (a simple rectangle of folded cloth slung over the shoulders). The epic poem The Iliad, written by the Greek poet Homer, described heroes fighting at Troy wearing a cloak over their tunic called a chlaina or sometimes a pharos; In fact, they weren't exactly the same, as the faro was a bigger garment. In fact, Homer used the word pharos for any large piece of cloth, including a ship's sail or a shroud. Chlaina seems to have been a general term for any heavy woolen coat worn in cold weather. In the classical period, the word usually referred to the robe called himation, an outer garment worn by both men and women. The Romans used the Latin word pallium for himation and considered it peculiarly Greek costume, to the point that comedies performed in Roman theaters and adapted from Greek plays were called fabulae palliatae, scenes performed in Greek costume. Another popular robe was the chlamys. It was a long strip of fabric that folded almost into a perfect square. The Peplos, also called
A man wearing a canopy.
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the Doric chiton was a rectangle of fabric folded over at the top and then folded over and draped over the body and held in place with safety pins or snaps at the shoulders. The crease or apotygma at the top of the garment may fall down to the waist. It was probably the first Greek dress for women and was capable of many variations. THE QUITON. The Greek word chiton is translated as robe in Latin, from which the English word "robe" is derived. It was a shirt worn directly on the body, sometimes as underwear. There is evidence of prototypes from the Minoan period, but in the sub-Mycenaean period (after 1200 BC), at about the same time as the fibula or safety pin appeared in Greece, men began to wear a recognizable short sleeveless tunic. like the chiton worn by warriors in Homer's Iliad. The word chiton has an oriental origin, being related to a Semitic word referring to flax; This evidence suggests that early chitons were linen garments, although later chitons are often made from wool. chitons
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Man dressed in a short chiton.
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Woman with a long chiton.
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came in a variety of styles. Young men and those who were regularly physically active preferred a short chiton that left the legs exposed. If the chiton skirt was too long, the wearer would lift it up and let it hang from the belt in a fold known as a kolpos. A warrior wore a chiton as undergarment under his cuirass (a piece of armor that protected the upper body). A passage from the Iliad illustrates the use of a tunic in describing how the warrior goddess Athena donned armor: she first took off her peplos, which was a woman's dress, and placed a tunic like underwear between the breastplate and the skin. Those who are not as active, such as older men, men of high rank, and professional musicians, may wear a long chiton, reaching down to the ankles, and over it a robe such as the chlaina or pharos. Both short and long chitons were widespread throughout the ancient Greek world.
Feet began to appear, leaving only bare toes. There are good ancient examples from Ionia, where several seated statues were found along the Sacred Path to the Temple of Apollo at Didyma. The so-called kore statues of girls (Greek: korai), which were made in 480 BC. in Athens among the rubble of the Persian sack of the Acropolis. They also provide models for the chitons worn by women in the Middle and Late Archaic periods. They were of fine linen and fell to the feet in even folds, and over them a woman wore a shawl or cloak like the himation or chlaina. Carving evidence suggests that the Ionian chiton was made around 600 BC. B.C. came into fashion in Athens. C. and replaced the Doric peplos or chiton as it was sometimes called. The historian Herodotus wrote in the second half of the 5th century BC. C.E., he explained the exchange of the peplos in Athens as the result of a violent incident, the veracity of which cannot be verified. According to Herodotus, in the early 7th century BC. CE The Athenians attacked the island of Aegina in the Saronic Gulf. It failed and only one survivor of the Athens Expeditionary Force returned.
THE IONIC CHITON. Around 600 BC C., the end of what art historians call the "Early Archaic Period", Statues of women in chitons living to be 88
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THE ADOPTION OF IONIC CHITON INTRODUCTION:
At the end of the 7th century BC. The EG The ornate Ionic chiton became fashionable among Athenian women. Unlike the peplos, or Doric chiton as it was sometimes called, the Ionian chiton did not require safety pins. According to Athenian tradition, the fashion changed after a terrible incident involving the sole survivor of a disastrous Athenian military expedition against Athens' rival, Aegina. When the man with the bad news returned to Athens, the widows of the missing soldiers killed him with the most readily available weapons: the safety pins in his clothes. Later, Athenian women's fashion changed to a style that did not require lapel pins. Historian Herodot reported in a writing from the second half of the 5th century BC. EC about the incident.
On this the Argentines and the Eginetes agree, and the Athenians also admit that only one of their men managed to return to Attica alive: the only point of contention is the reason for his flight, the Argentan saying that he escaped after having spent the rest of the the city destroyed by the Athenian forces, the Athenians claimed that it was all an act of God. Even the sole survivor soon met a bad end; for when he arrived in Athens with the news of the disaster, the wives of the other men who had gone with him
drove to Athens. On his return, the widows of the men lost in Aegina attacked him, stabbing him with the safety pins of their Dorian tunics in grief and anger that only he should have survived. The Athenians were so shocked by this murder that they enacted a law forbidding women to wear Doric chitons fastened around their shoulders, ordering them to wear the Ionian chiton, which was sewn and had no security. Pens that can become deadly weapons. However, the Aeginets continued to use safety pins, as did the Argives, who helped the Aeginets defeat the Athenians. In fact, Herodotus claimed they used safety pins with even longer stems that were more deadly. REACTION AGAINST DORIAN'S DRESS. Even if the incident actually happened, it was probably not a one-off event that caused the shift to the Ionian style of women's clothing. Both the Aeginetes and the Argives were Dorians and spoke the Doric dialect of Greek, while the Athenians were Ionians and the women adopted the fashions of the Ionian Greeks of Asia Minor, whose cities flourished at the time.
to Aegina, saddened and angry that he alone had escaped, they surrounded him and drove into his flesh the pins with which they held his clothes, each, as he struck, asking where her husband was. So he died, and the Athenians were more shocked by his fate than by the defeat of his troops at Aegina. The only way to punish their wives for the terrible thing they had done was to make them wear Ionian robes; former Athenian women wore Doric clothing very similar to the fashion in Corinth; Now they were forced to wear linen tunics to avoid wearing brooches. In fact, this type of dress is not originally Ionic, but Carian, since in ancient times all women in Greece wore the costume that is now known as Doric. But the Argives and the Eginets enacted a law that in both countries brooches should be half the length of formerly, and that brooches should be the principal articles offered by women in the sanctuaries of these two deities; moreover, nothing was to be brought from Attica to the temple, not even pottery, and henceforth only home-made drinking vessels were to be used. From that time until today, because of the quarrel with Athena, the women of Argos and Aegina wear brooches with longer pins than before. SPRING:
Herodotus, Histories. Ed. Foot. Trans. Aubrey de Selincourt (London: Penguin Books, 1972): 309–310.
political statement. Later, when Ionia after 546 B.C. was conquered by Persia. CE the Athenians tended to look down on the Ionians because they were no longer free men and their splendid fashions indicated readiness to be subjects of the Persian king; In Greek thought, everything Persian was associated with luxury and opulence. But at the beginning of the 7th century BC. C.E., Ionia was the cultural leader of Greece. Men in Athens also wore Ionian chitons, and Thucydides, a younger contemporary of Herodotus, comments that older Athenians of his day still wore them. But the Persian Wars in the first quarter of the 5th century BC. it marked the beginning of a taste for simpler fashions in Athens; In Doric Greece, the Doric chiton never went out of style. In the new post-war world, the elaborate Ionian chiton was considered a sign of oriental luxury and leisurely living. It indicated the Persian way of life. FASHION IN QUITONS. The peplos came back into fashion in Athens after the Persian Wars, but they did not supplant the chiton. In fact, the chiton and peplos existed in the 5th century BC. side by side. C., borrowing features from each other. The kandys, a chiton
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man with himation.
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with long sleeves over a longer chiton became fashionable among free women throughout the century. Mangoes were considered exotic; the Persians wore them, and in the last quarter of the fifth century, fashionable Athenians developed a taste for styles with touches of Persian opulence. Also from the same century are examples of a short, waist-length tunic worn over the chiton. It is probably what was called a chitoniskos or "little chiton" and appears to have been made of a heavier fabric than the chiton itself and is usually richly decorated. Classical men abandoned the Ionian chiton, as noted by Thucydides, but it continued to be worn by priests, charioteers, singers, musicians and actors. The short, sleeveless chiton has remained fashionable among physically active men. However, for ceremonial occasions, the himation has become the attire of choice. THE HIMATION. The himation was an essential outer garment for both women and men. It was simply an elongated wool scarf of generous proportions. There were several ways to wrap it around the body. a 90
woman with himation.
For example, a woman can tuck it under her right arm and clip or tie it around her left shoulder. In colder climates, he could cover his torso with it and pull it over his head like a hood. However, he sometimes wore a separate piece of cloth to cover his head, with one end falling over the himation. A man threw his himation around his body from left to right and tied his arms; indeed, it was the mark of a knight not to extend an arm outside his himation. Wearing the himation gracefully was a sign of social standing in the community and was not always an easy task, as the himation was usually worn without any fasteners such as buttons or safety pins, and the wearer was sometimes expected to use hidden hands. by your himation to keep it in place. It was a very uncomfortable garment for a worker who usually wore a sleeveless tunic called an exomis. In fact, using a himation meant that the user didn't have to do any physical work. Politicians and philosophers liked it, and in portrait sculpture it carried some of the same connotations as the Roman toga, which it somewhat resembled.
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mounted It showed that the wearer was not a member of the common people and was a good garment to wear when giving a lecture or public speech. THE PEPS. The peplos was a woman's garment made from an elongated piece of woolen cloth. The cloth was first folded horizontally so that the top quarter was at the back, and then folded from top to bottom. The result was a piece of cloth folded into a square with a fold, called apotygma in Greek, at the top edge. It wrapped around the wearer's body and was secured with safety pins or buttons on each shoulder, allowing it to hang freely. On the right side, the peplos were open and the woman's body could be seen as she moved. Young women in the Greek city of Sparta were fond of this style, but women elsewhere often wore a belt or sash around the waist to keep the side of the peplos closed, thus maintaining the wearer's modesty. The open side of the peplos can also be fastened; In Homer's Odyssey, one of the suitors, trying to win the favor of Penelope, wife of Odysseus, presented him with a peplos with twelve golden pins. As he only needed two or at most four loops to secure it over the shoulders, the rest were presumably used to hold the side open. THE ORIGIN OF PEPLOS. The peplos was not a Mycenaean costume and probably arrived in Greece around the same time as the safety pin, i.e. in the sub-Mycenaean period (after 1200 BC), after the citadels of the Mycenaean civilization had fallen and the great palaces had been destroyed. Dorian newcomers may have brought the peplos with them after migrating to Greece in the sub-Mycenaean period, so the name "Dorian chiton" sometimes applied to the peplos may be justified. However, it was also used in early Athens until the end of the Archaic period, around 600 BC. AC, used. C. when women switched to ionic chiton. With the reaction in Athens against frills and frivolities after the Persian War, peplos came back into fashion. In Sparta and the rest of Doric Greece, the Ionian chiton never supplanted the peplos. As the Greek language evolved, the word "peplos" took on a broader meaning and was applied to a variety of attire. However, there was one case where the word "peplos" continued to mean a simple piece of old-fashioned woolen cloth folded into a woman's dress. Every four years, at the festival of the Great Panathenaea in Athens, the women of the city presented the goddess Athena with a new tunic they had woven. They clothed with her the ancient wooden statue of Athena Polias, i.e. Athena, guardian of the city, the most sacred cult statue in Athens, kept in the famous temple
Woman with peplos.
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like the Erechtheum. The tunic was a peplos and the pattern has not changed. TYPES OF PEPLOS. Styles change with the times and Peplos was no exception. From the classical period of the 5th century BC. Also, we must distinguish between peplos worn without underwear, known as Endyma peplos, and peplos worn over a chiton, Epiblema peplos. The sash in early examples of peplos simply encircled the waist, but with the skirt folded over it to form a loose fold. The apoptigma, or crease, which was initially short, lengthened until it reached the hips. On statues and relief sculptures of the 4th century BC. The tuck is sometimes shown falling freely, but over time it was more often held in place by the belt. Worn over a chiton, Epiblema peplos has developed a number of variations. Sometimes the skirt reached down to her ankles, showing just a hint of the chiton underneath. Sometimes the peplos did not go beyond the knees, and the chiton covered the lower part of the legs. Some
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chlamys her usual dress. The chlamys was a roughly rectangular strip of fabric with three straight sides and a fourth concave side. It was worn by wrapping it around the shoulders, with the point straight upwards, and fastening it at the base of the neck so that its folds fell to the knees. The chlamys can also be fastened at the back, exposing the wearer's back and buttocks. The two ends on the concave side formed spikes hanging down on either side, often compared to wings. After its introduction in Greece, it became the standard attire for knights. It appears on the Panathenaea frieze in the Parthenon in Athens, where young ephebes (young men in military training) carry it as they gallop after the procession or prepare to mount their horses. In the Greek city of Sparta, the chlamys became the preferred garment for the Spartans, the military elite that ruled Laconia. It was not adopted by the Romans, but the Romans had several similar military cloaks such as the paludamentum, ababola and sagum. A similar garment appears to have been the trabea worn by members of the Order of Chivalry in Rome when they were paraded on horseback in honor of Castor and Pollux. However, the Chlamys lasted well into the Byzantine period. The Church of San Vitale in Ravenna, Italy has a mosaic of the Empress Theodora (527–548 CE) wearing a cloak as part of her imperial insignia. A man wearing a cape and the hat on his head known as Causia. CREATED BY CECILIA EVANS. THE GALE GROUP.
Statuettes of Athena show her wearing a peplos with a fold that has folds of unequal length, and sometimes the peplos is attached to the right shoulder only, with the fold folded at right arm's length, half short to form sleeves. It is difficult to distinguish this type of peplos from the Ionian himation. In fact, the same Greek authors used the terms for their clothing throughout the 4th century BC. looser. THE CLAIM. The chlamys was a garment of the non-Greeks of northern Greece, the Thessalians and the Macedonians. In fact, along with the petasos or causia (brimmed hat), the chlamys was the national dress of Macedonia. The distinctive garments worn by northern foreigners when depicted on Greek monuments were the chlamys, the causia, the alopekis (a fox fur hat) and the embades (half boots). ). A Macedonian nobleman marked his position in a robe of purple and causia, and Alexander the Great, the Macedonian king who conquered the Persian Empire, made the 92nd
FUENTES
Ephraim David, “Dressed in Spartan Society,” Ancient World 19 (1989): 3–13. Evelyn B. Harrison, "The Dress of the Archaic Greek Korai," in New Perspectives in Early Greek Art. ed. Diana Buitron-Oliver (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1991): 217–239. Rolf Hurschmann, "Chlamys", in Der Neue Pauly (Stuttgart/Weimar, Germany: J.B. Metzler, 1997): 1133. —, "Chiton", in Der Neue Pauly (Stuttgart/Weimar, Germany: J.B. Metzler, 1997): 1131 -1132. Marion Sichel, Costume of the Classical World (London, England: Batsford, 1980). David J. Symons, Ancient Greek Costume (London, England: Batsford, 1987). SEE TOO
Architecture: Greek architecture
THE NATIONAL COSTUMES T O G A OF ROME. The toga was the national garment of the Romans. the roman people
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they were the gens togata, the "people who wear the toga." In his epic poem, the Aeneid, the Roman poet Virgil used the term proud to refer to the populus Romanus, which means "the Roman people". Foreigners, non-Roman citizens and Roman exiles were prohibited from using it. However, it appears that the law prohibiting non-Romans from wearing the toga was not generally enforced, as the provinces of Cisalpine Gaul and Transalpine Gaul were officially called Gallia togata, i.e. "Gaul where the toga is worn ". Toga". - suggesting that Romanized provincials sometimes wore the toga before they even received citizenship. There was a tradition that the toga came to Rome from Etruria, the modern region of Tuscany in Italy, inhabited by people called Etruscans by the Romans and Tyrrhenian by the Greeks, who appear to have been immigrants from Asia Minor around 1000 BC Their underground tombs were decorated with murals depicting men in a short toga, although by no means the Roman version of it. The Roman toga probably began as a simple piece of wool worn without underwear and secured with a safety pin called a fibula in Latin. The name comes from the Latin verb tegere, meaning "to cover." A toga was a quilt used to cover a person's body during the day and his bed at night. In the early days, it was used by both women and men. Roman men even used it in battle in the early days of Rome. THE CINCTUS GABINO. In some war-related rituals, such as opening the Gates of Janus, which the Romans wore when embarking on war, they girded their garments with what is known as the Cinctus Gabinus. They took the ends of their robes, threw them over their left shoulder, wrapped them under their right arm and around their chest, transforming their robes into clothes that didn't impede their movement. The origin of this strange custom can be explained by the history of the ancient enmity between Rome and the city of Gabii, which dates back to before the expulsion of the last Roman king in 510 BC. Dating back to The Romans used the Gabinus cinctus when fighting the Gabii. The 193 centuries or battalions of the ancient Roman citizen army were divided into five classes based on wealth, with only the first class being able to afford full body armor. A Roman of the lowest rank in those distant days tied his toga around his waist so that his arms were free to wield a weapon and went into battle to fight as best he could. His robes offered little protection, but it was better than nothing. DEVELOPMENT. Gradually the toga became more elaborate and its use more restricted. Women
The toga was worn as early as the first century CE.
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ADOPTION BY CECILY EVANS. THE GALE GROUP.
she replaced it with the stole, a long outer garment that became the conventional attire of a married woman. Soldiers exchanged it for a more comfortable cloak called sagum. However, at the end of the republican period in the 1st century BC. and in the imperial period that followed, togas were sometimes given to Roman armies in winter camps. By this time, however, the toga had lost its military function and had become a garment of peace and a symbol of citizenship. In Rome, a commoner was expected to wear his toga in public. Emperor Augustus (reigned 27 BC to AD 14) forbade citizens to enter the Roman Forum or the circus unless they wore togas. Outside Rome, however, citizens quickly adopted foreign attire that could be easily put on and off; The toga became so elaborate as it evolved that a Roman needed help putting it on. In Rome itself, too, Greek fashion became increasingly popular in the 1st century AD, with the toga being increasingly reserved for official occasions. Women left early, except courtesans or those found guilty of adultery. the stole
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THE IMPORTANCE OF INTRODUCING THE TOGA:
The toga was the national dress of Roman citizens. Indeed, the Romans were sometimes referred to simply as "togati" (the "toga-wearing men"), and when dramas about Roman citizens were performed in the theater, they were referred to as fabulae togatae, in contrast to dramas in which characters such as the Greeks were represented. called fabulae palliatae. Roman senators wore togas on public business, as did members of city councils in other cities of the Roman Empire until the fourth and fifth centuries AD The following passage from the Roman history of Livy, who lived under Emperor Augustus, illustrates the importance of wear the toga when conducting public business. In the year 458 BC CE the Roman Republic faced potential catastrophe. Rome's enemies, the Aequi, cut off a consular army led by one of the consuls, Lucius Minucius. In this crisis, the Roman Senate decided to appoint Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus as dictator; Dictatorship in Rome was a six-month appointment made only in emergencies, when the state was threatened and a strong leader was needed. Cincinnatus had a small farm across the Tiber from Rome and was working on his land when a delegation from the Senate arrived to invite him to Rome. Before handing over the Senate invitation, the delegation asked Cincinnatus to don his toga. Cincinnatus accepted the dictatorship, defeated the Aequi and left office after the Crisis, occupying it for only fifteen days. Here Livy described the meeting of the Senate and Cincinnatus delegation.
worn by married women was denied them because it was the mark of the honorable Roman matron, a duly wedded woman. TRANSITION RIT. In many cultures, a young person's transition from childhood to adulthood is marked by what is called a "rite of passage." In Rome, the rite of passage involved exchanging the toga of youth for a man's toga. A freeborn Roman youth wore the toga praetexta, a toga with a purple ribbon woven along the hem of the garment. Underneath it he wore a tunic with two purple stripes woven from the shoulders to the hem, and around his neck he wore a medallion called a bulla, which could be made of gold, silver, bronze, or even leather. When the young man came of age, he exchanged the toga praetexta for the toga virilis, the men's toga, which was all white, the natural color of wool. In the early days of Rome, well into the second century B.C. A young man abandoned the toga praetexta at the age of sixteen. Later, the ceremony took place at the end of the teenager's fifteenth birthday. There were exceptions: Emperor Tiberius did not allow the future in 94
Now, I would like to bring to the special attention of many people who believe that money is everything in this world and that rank and ability are inseparable from wealth: Cincinnatus, the one man in whom Rome placed all its hope of survival, he worked that time on a small three-acre farm (now known as Quinctian Meadows) west of the Tiber, opposite the present shipyard. A quest from the city found him working in the field, perhaps digging or plowing. Greetings were exchanged and he was invited, with a prayer for God's blessings upon him and his country, to put on his toga and obey the instructions of the Senate. This surprised him, of course, and when he asked if everything was all right, he told his wife, Racilia, to run to his hut and find her cloak. The toga was brought and he wiped the dirty sweat from his hands and face and put it on; Immediately, the city's envoys greeted him with congratulations, as a dictator, invited him to enter Rome and informed him of the terrible danger from the army of Minucius. A ship of state was waiting for him on the river, and on the bank of the city he was greeted by his three sons, who had come to meet him, then by other relatives and friends, and finally by most of the senatorial body. SPRING:
Livy, The Ancient History of Rome. Trans. Aubrey de Selincourt (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books, 1960): 213.
Emperor Caligula adopted the toga virilis until he was twenty, and the future Emperor Nero adopted it at age fourteen. The praetexta toga was also worn by important state officials, and the fact that it was also worn by children was perhaps an acknowledgment of both the vulnerability and importance of childhood. Children were as important to the state's future as the men who held prestigious positions. The ceremony, in which a young man presented the toga praetexta, took place on March 16, during the feast of Bacchus known as Liberalia. The night before, the boy had taken off his praetexta toga and put on a white tunic to sleep; This tunic was known as the straight tunic (the "straight tunic"), so called because it was woven on the ancient vertical loom. The ceremony began the next morning with a sacrifice made to the Lares, the household gods of the family. The boy dedicated his praetexta toga to the Lares and with it his bulla, the reliquary that contained the amulet or amulet he wore around his neck as a child to ward off bad influences and protect him in his vulnerable childhood years. it was
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more like a modern good luck charm, except Roman society really believed in the "evil eye" and a variety of evil influences, so seductive signs to ward them off were more important than good luck charms in modern times. It also identified the user as the child of a freeborn Roman citizen. So the young man donned his new robe. It was the pure garment, which did not mean that it was "pure", but that it was not dyed, that is, it was the natural color of wool. That was a “man's toga”, the so-called man's toga. That meant he was a grown man now. His family and friends, dressed in his new masculine toga, accompanied him to the forum where he was presented to the Roman people, the populus Romanus, who would henceforth count him as one of their members. The youth then went to the Capitoline Hill and made offerings in the Temple of Jupiter to the gods of state, the divine triad Jupiter, Juno and Minerva, interested in public affairs and learning from their elders how to conduct state affairs. He crossed the line between vulnerable youth and manhood. TOGAS FOR GIRLS. Girls also wore the praetexta toga, but discarded it at age twelve, when they reached puberty. From then until marriage, girls wore a palla, or mantle. On the southern relief of the "Altar of Peace" in Rome, dated 13 BC. commissioned by the Roman Senate, it depicts a girl of about twelve years old with a palla; It can still be reconstructed into modern Rome on the banks of the Tiber. Unlike the toga, it was a rectangular strip of cloth, but on the "Altar of Peace" it appears folded over the girl's body in a manner similar to a toga that could be mistaken for one, except that its bottom edge is squared through the SHAPE OF THE TOGA given. The toga was simply a piece of cloth that was folded and wrapped around the body. In early Roman times, when fabric was a piece of homespun wool, it probably retained the shape it had when it came off the loom: rectangular. Evidence from ancient authors, though sparse, indicates that the toga was a semi-circular piece of cloth with a straight edge, and when a purple band was woven along the edge, a wide one (latus clavus) for senators and a narrow one (angustus clavus) . ) for riding class members; it could only have been woven along the straight edge. There have been many modern attempts to reproduce the toga style of the monuments, and it seems likely that it was not a piece of cloth, which was a true semicircle, but rather a half-ellipse with a straight edge just as wide. just enough so that purple stripes are woven parallel to it. although conservative
Imperial Procession (detail from Ara Pacis Augustae), showing members of the imperial family in procession at the dedication of this altar commemorating the pacification of Spain and Gaul by Emperor Augustus, begun 13, dedicated 9 BC. © ARALDO DE LUCA/CORBIS. REPRODUCED WITH PERMISSION.
Romans went, toga styles changed over time; The toga of the late empire was generally similar to the toga of the Roman Republic, but it was not the same garment. However, stonemasons in the late Empire made toga-clad figures for the official statues of emperors and officials erected throughout the Empire. HOW THE TOGA WAS WEARED. The toga of republican Rome, in its simplest form, was thrown over the left shoulder, passed across the back and under the right arm, and then thrown back over the left shoulder, creating an oblique fold across the chest. . The right shoulder and arm were left bare, but not bare as a man would wear a tunic under his toga. There is a statue in the Archaeological Museum in Florence, Italy, known as Il Arringatore (The Speaker), showing the type of toga worn in the 2nd or early 1st century BC. could have been used. The skirt does not reach the feet, and on its lower edge there is an apparent row of embroidery. The toga that Roman politicians Cicero or Julius Caesar may have worn in the last days of the Roman Republic,
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THE LACERN. As the toga offered little protection from the elements, the Romans adopted a hooded wool outer layer popular with the military: the lacerna. It was worn over the toga and opened on one side, leaving the arms free. The Romans fastened it to the right shoulder with a brooch or buckle so that it could be thrown back over the shoulder. It was dark in color when worn as a military cloak, but when adopted as civilian clothing it was often made in lighter colors and fabrics, particularly for upper-class men and women. When it was cold, toga spectators in the amphitheater or theater needed their shoelaces to keep warm.
Man in Short Republican Toga, c. 100 B.C. chr
CREATED BY CE
CILIA EVANS. THE GALE GROUP.
however, it covered both shoulders. Under Roman emperors, togas became elaborate with carefully arranged folds. The imperial toga had two additional features: a fold of fabric called a bosom, which crossed diagonally across the chest, and a set of drapes called an umbo, a kind of decorative knot made by lifting the folds on the left side. to hold the curtains together. Such elaborate clothing could not be easily put on and off. The correct disposition of the folds of the toga was a sign of elegance, and there were slaves who were trained for this task, called vestiplici when they were male slaves, or vestiplice when they were female. If a Roman magistrate was officiating a ceremony in Imperial Rome that required the wearing of a toga, slaves of his might have to sit down the night before to prepare the folds and folds, tightening them with tongs. The bust, in particular, required attention, as in some depictions of toga-clad figures it hangs loosely but gracefully over the chest, almost touching the ground. The toga, which began as a practical garment, ended up as an elaborate ceremonial garment. 96
TYPES OF TOGAS. Clothes were made of wool, a light wool fabric for summer and a thicker one for winter. When undyed, they retained the natural color of the wool, which was off-white, although for lack of a good wash many of the togas worn in Rome must have been a rather dirty grey. It was important that a commoner running for office wear a pure white dress, and he used chalk to give the dress the required color; therefore, the Latin word for "candidate" (candidatus) comes from the word for "objective" (candidus). The praetexta toga worn by children and state officials had a purple border. Likewise the garments worn by senators and men of the equestrian order. Senators had a broad purple fringe (the latus clavis or "laticlave") to denote their status, while men of the equestrian order, called equites or "knights", whose minimum income was less than half that of a senator, had a fringe narrow . stripes. The knights of the 2nd century BC they were realtors who avoided a career in politics; They incorporated into their ranks businessmen and tax collectors, that is, private businessmen who had contracts with the government to collect taxes. The Flamen Dialis and Flamen Martialis, the high priests of Jupiter and Mars, as well as the Augurs, the priestly officials who assumed patronage, wore a variety of striped togas known as trabea, but it is unclear how the stripes were arranged. . A toga called a trabea was also worn by men of the equestrian order who paraded on horseback at the festival of Castor and Pollux (the legendary founders of Rome) to commemorate the semi-mythical Battle of Lake Regillus. However, its trabea seems to have been a short coat, like the Greek chlamys. It was the characteristic costume of knights, because when Roman theaters presented comedies in which the characters were citizens of the knightly order, they were called Ediae Trabeatae, comedies in which the actors wore trabeae. Dark robes were worn as a sign of mourning. This type of toga was known as a toga
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pulla: the "dark cloak". A pullum was a dark gray colored garment. A toga, known as a toga picta or trabea triumphalis, was decorated with patterns and must have required great skill in weaving; It was used by generals returning from a victorious campaign and granted the right to celebrate triumph during the period of the Roman Republic. The triumphant general led his booty and captives through the streets of Rome, finally ascending the Holy Road (Via Sacra) through the Roman Forum to the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill. At the end of the procession, the general himself came in a carriage, dressed in a Pictish toga. In fact, the general did not own this cloak, as such cloaks were kept in Jupiter's treasury and only brought out on special occasions. Under the Roman Empire, however, triumphs were reserved for the emperor, and the first emperor, Augustus, made the toga picta his official attire. THE END OF TOGA. Juvenal, the Roman satirist probably writing in the first quarter of the second century CE, wrote in his third satire that in most of Italy no one was seen wearing a toga until his dying day, when he was in one. When there were performances in the country's theaters on holidays, everyone, including the judges, wore a simple white robe. However, the toga remained the proper ceremonial garment until the 4th century AD, as evidenced by developments in Roman sculpture. A relief sculpture of Marcus Aurelius, emperor from 161 to 180 AD, reused in the Arch of Constantine in Rome, shows a figure in a short toga, reaching only to the knees; Another panel by the same emperor, now in the Museo Conservatori in Rome, shows a person in a similar short toga playing the reed flute known as the aulos. It has been suggested that this short robe was the robe of the common Roman, but the absence of such figures in art makes it difficult to draw a conclusion. Marcus Aurelius' predecessor, Hadrian, appears on a statue wearing a toga resembling a Greek himation. Hadrian was a lover of Greek culture, which might explain his Greek-style toga, but the fad didn't last long. In the 3rd century AD, a new style was developed with a wide fold running under the right arm across the chest and over the left shoulder, giving the appearance of a valerik or sash running diagonally across the chest. This was the "robe with bands" and a man needed the help of a servant to put it on. It wasn't a costume for everyday wear. Sometimes it looks like the straps have been held in place with hidden seams. As difficult as it is to wear, the banded toga remained popular as ceremonial attire well into the fourth century. Dating back to the 5th century, a statue of a toga-clad consul in the Capitol
A man dressed in a lacerna (soldier's coat).
CREATED BY CECILY
EVANS. THE GALE GROUP.
The Museum of Rome shows the final stages of the toga's development. The statue dates from around 400 AD and depicts a man wearing a short-sleeved robe over a long-sleeved robe. He wears a tunic with long breasts in front, which the judge had to hold with his left arm to prevent it from dragging on the ground. This was clearly a purely ceremonial garment as it did not allow the wearer to move freely. As the robe reached the end of its long history, it was no longer suitable for physical exercise. However, it was not without problems. It was converted into the attire of a Roman Catholic priest known as an stole, not to be confused with the attire of a married Roman woman of the same name. SOURCES
F. Courby, 'Toga', in Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. Ed Charles Victor Daremberg and Edmond Saglio (Paris: Hachette, 1877; reprint, Graz: Academic Drawing and Publishing House, 1962): 347–353.
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THE COSTUME OF THE EMPEROR AUGUST INTRODUCTION:
Known as John the Lydian, the author lived during the reign of Emperor Justinian (527–565 CE) and worked in the imperial bureaucracy in Constantinople for forty years. Three of his best-known works survive, entitled De Magistratibus (On State Offices), De Ostentis (On Omens) and De Mensibus (On Months), which provide information about the ancient Roman religious calendar and the various feasts that followed. had, collected appointments that are defined by the calendar. In his work "Über Staatsämter", he describes the attire of various officials, the following passage describes the clothing of Emperor Augustus. John lived five centuries after the death of Augustus, and no doubt confused Augustus' attire to some extent with that of later emperors; The outer robe of Augustus, for example, was not silk, but silk was regularly used in the clothing of later emperors, and jeweled robes were a feature of imperial dress in the late Roman Empire. John correctly reports that Augustus was the high priest of Rome (pontifex maximus) and died in 12 B.C. CE He became high priest. after the death of the previous holder and all his successors until Emperor Gratian (367–383 AD) took office after him. The word pontifex means “builder of bridges” – at this point John is correct – and the reason for this is that when Rome was pagan, it was believed that each river had its own divine spirit that would offend if a priest failed. to perform the prescribed rites while she was tied to a bridge that joined its two banks.
In time of peace he [Augustus] wore the high priest's robe - the name means high priest, connected with bridges - purple on the feet, priestly, adorned with gold, and a robe also of
CF Ross, "La reconstrución de la toga posterior", American Journal of Archaeology 15 (1911): 24-31. Shelley Stone, "La toga: del traje nacional al cerimonial", em The World of Roman Costume. Eds. Judith Sebesta e Larissa Bonfante (Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994): 13–45. Lillian W. Wilson, The Roman Toga (Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1924).
THE TEXTILES OF THE ROMAN WORLD
AND
GREEK
Y
THERE. Sheep were multipurpose animals in the Greco-Roman world. They provided sheepskins that peasants used as cloaks, wool for fabric, rams for dinner, and wool for clothing.
Purple that had golden folds at the ends. He covered his head for the reasons I gave in the essay I wrote about the months. For wars, he wore the paludament, scarlet cloaks of double thickness, woven of fine raw silk and fastened at the shoulders by a clasp of gold set with precious stones. We call it a primer, as the Italians do, but people in the palace still refer to it today, with a kind of special term, like a cornucopia. At parties he wore limbo: it is a purple mantle covering the body down to the feet, with a sinuous pattern; On the shoulders, light stained tabulament - that is, fabric in the form of a bar - and a paragauda embroidered with the golden letter gamma [that is, a tunic with figures like the Greek letter "gamma" embroidered] . Starting at the toes and bottom of the robe, these small figures decorate the tunic with gold on each side to form a gamma letter. In the Senate he wore a robe purple (of course) and decorated at the edge of the hem near the wearer with squares outlined in solid gold; Court officials call these squares Segmenta, which means "gold". Embroidery on the hem”, while the man in the street demands such embroidery on the covers of individuals. This mantle is called bracteolate (overlaid with gold flakes), gemose (set with precious stones) and lanceolate (bedecked with embroidered spear points). He also wore the rest of the emperor's official attire, for which I would sum up a detailed description as exaggerated. ... SOURCE: John the Lydian, De Magistratibus, in Bureaucracy in Traditional Society: Roman-Byzantine Bureaucracies Seen from Within. Trans. by T.F. Carney (Lawrence, Kansas: Coronado Press, 1971): 44. Text modified by James Allan Evans.
complement the Greek diet and milk to make cheese. In ancient Greece and Rome, wool fabric had the added benefit of being easily dyed, unlike linen. Furthermore, wool in its natural state came in different colors depending on the breed of sheep. Latin had words to describe the different shades: albus meant "white", niger "dark brown" or "black", coracinus "jet black", and fuscus "brown with a red tinge". There was also a wool color called pullus, which came from sheep from southern Italy and also from Liguria, a region in the northwest of the peninsula. Pullus was obviously brownish black and a color associated with mourning. In the Po Valley of northern Italy, a breed of sheep developed that produced fine white wool that could be woven into a net-like fabric. However, if a man or woman prefers an artificial color, there you have it.
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INTRODUCTION OF LINEN MANUFACTURING:
The natural history of Pliny the Elder, who died when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE, is the main source of information about how flax thread was made from flax. In the section of his natural history from which this extract is taken, Pliny discussed several plant-derived substances, including esparto grass and, surprisingly, asbestos, which he believed was a plant found in the deserts of Egypt. Pliny thought that the best "linen" was made from it, but second was cloth made from the fine linen grown in Elis, Greece. The following section describes flax processing to obtain flax fiber.
With us, the maturity of flax is determined by two signs, the swelling of the seed or its yellowing. It is then harvested and tied into small bundles, each about a handful, hung to dry in the sun, roots up, for a day, and then with the heads of the bundles inside for another five days. each other so that the seed falls in the middle. Flaxseed is a powerful medicine; It is also popular in an extremely sweet-tasting rustic porridge made in Italy north of the Po, but a long time ago.
there was a wide variety of dyes; According to legend, Numa, the second king of Rome after Romulus, founded the dyers' guild in Rome. The legend is unlikely to be true, but the guild certainly had an ancient history. LINEN. Flax was made from the domesticated flax plant, which evolved early in the Mediterranean from wild flax for its fiber and oil from its seeds. Linen was used in the Bronze Age before 1100 BC. used. C., both in the Minoan period on Crete and in the Mycenaean period on the mainland. Tablets found in the so-called "Palace of Nestor" at Pylos, Greece, show that flax was grown in the southwest Peloponnese before 1200 BC. was cultivated. C., and in the later classical period Elis, in the northwest Peloponnese, was known for its fine linen. In the Hellenistic period after Alexander the Great, Egypt produced flax with great prestige, but by the Roman period the main centers of production had shifted to Syria and Palestine. Flax from the Po Valley enjoyed a good reputation in the west, as did flax from coastal areas in southeastern Spain. Flax was used not only for clothing, but also for fishing nets, ship sails and theater awnings.
Time is only used for sacrifices. When the wheat is harvested, the flax stalks are dipped in water heated in the sun and a weight is placed on them to keep them on the ground, as flax floats very easily. The loosening of the outer layer is a sign that they are soaked, and they are dried again in the sun, turned over as before and then, when completely dry, beaten against a stone with a hammer. The part that was closest to the skin is called tow: it is a lower quality linen and, in most cases, more suitable for lamp wicks; but this too is combed with iron points until all the outer skin is shaved off. The pith has varying degrees of whiteness and softness, and the discarded skin is useful for heating stoves and ovens. There is an art to combing and parting the flax; it is a fair amount for fifteen ... [wording is incorrect here] ... subtracted from the weight of fifty-pound packages; and spinning flax is a decent occupation even for men. It is then polished with thread a second time, after being soaked in water and repeatedly beaten against a stone, and woven into cloth and then beaten again, as it is always better for rough treatment. SOURCE: Pliny, Natural History. Books XVII-XIX. volume V.Trans. H. Rackham (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1950): 431, 433.
amphitheaters that sheltered spectators from the sun; Awnings were also made of cotton as they dried quickly, or a half cotton half linen fabric was woven to be used as canopies. COTTON. Cotton was an imported fabric. It first appeared in India, where it has been found at archaeological sites in the Indus Valley dating back to the early 2nd millennium BC. he appeared. In the Hellenistic period, from the 3rd to the 1st century BC. BC, had spread to Upper Egypt, Nubia and Ethiopia, apparently along the trade route between East Africa and India. Greek and Roman authors seemed to believe that cotton was grown on trees; the Roman poet Virgil, for example, refers to the cotton plants of Nubia in his Georgics. This was probably not a mistake, as many modern scholars believe. Cotton is now grown on a shrub with the botanical name Gossipium herbaceum, but a cotton tree, Gossipium arboretum, also exists and may have been the source of the cotton fiber known to the Greeks and Romans. SILK. Real silk comes from the domesticated mulberry silkworm, which extracts a silk fiber to create its cocoon. Under Emperor Justinian (527-565
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the imperial court. The following passage is from the biographer of the early Caesars, Suetonius.
THE UNIQUE DRESS OF THE EMPEROR GAY CALIGULA INTRODUCTION:
Gaius Caligula, great-grandson of Emperor Augustus, became emperor in 37 CE, largely because of his distinguished lineage. In his four years as Emperor, he proved to be a terrible and seemingly insane ruler; He was killed before he could harm the Empire. His general appearance was pitiful: he was tall, of poor build, with scrawny legs and a thin neck, and his body was very hairy, except for his head, which was mostly bald. Instead of the simple garb favored by his two predecessors as emperors, Augustus and Tiberius, Caligula introduced elaborate styles that were seen as borrowed from the East and associated, in the Roman view, with divine kingship. Indeed, it is argued that Caligula's madness had method; he tried to introduce absolute monarchy with all the bells and whistles, following the example of royal courts like Cleopatra's in Egypt. Three centuries later, Caligula's clothes wouldn't be considered particularly outlandish.
CE)
Silkworm eggs were smuggled into the Roman Empire and became the basis of the Byzantine silk industry. Prior to this development, all silk was imported. Silk finds existed in Europe before Emperor Augustus, but silk was rare before the Augustan period, when trade with India opened up. It was a luxurious fabric; Silk samples were sometimes unrolled and the silk thread woven with fine linen to increase durability and lower the price. Emperor Caligula (37–41 AD) wore a silk cloak, and Emperor Elagabalus (218–222 AD) insisted on having a new silk cloak every day. Historian Ammianus Marcellinus, a Greek writer in Latin in the late fourth century AD, commented that the use of silk, once restricted to the imperial court, was widespread among upper-class Romans. When the Visigoth chief Alaric demanded a ransom for Rome in 408 CE, one of the demands he made was 4,000 silk cloaks for his men. The main trade route that carried silk to Mediterranean markets, shipped it from China to Indian ports where Persian merchants bought it, carried it to the head of the Persian Gulf, and then transported it by caravan to the ports of entry of the Roman Empire on the Euphrates. Trade made Persia rich, which made the Roman imperial government unhappy and tried to develop alternative routes. The problem was not resolved until the Byzantine Empire developed its own silk industry.
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Caligula paid no attention to traditional or current fashions in his clothing; ignoring male conventions and even human decency. She often appeared in public wearing an embroidered and bejeweled cape, a long-sleeved tunic, and bracelets. or in silk (which the law forbade men), or even in a woman's tunic; and he was shod sometimes in slippers, sometimes in boots, sometimes in military boots, sometimes in women's shoes. Occasionally he wore a golden beard and carried in his hand the thunderbolt of Jupiter, the trident of Neptune or the staff of Mercury entwined with serpents. He even dressed as Venus and donned the uniform of a triumphant general long before his expedition, often adorned with the breastplate he had stolen from the tomb of Alexander the Great in Alexandria. SPRING:
Suetonius, "Cayo Caligula", in The Twelve Caesars. Trans. Robert Graves (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books, 1957): 175.
COAN SILK. Not all silk in the Greek world came from China. On the island of Kos, most famous for the great physician Hippocrates of Kos, who established a medical school there, there was a thriving silk industry using silk from the cocoon of a local moth. The main ancient sources of information about this industry are Aristotle and Pliny the Elder, who agree that the technique of extracting silk fibers from the cocoon of this moth was discovered by a woman named Pamphilus. Coan silk was woven by both men and women, which was unusual in Greece, where weaving was considered women's work. But the output of the Coan silk industry could not have been large because Cos is a small island and its silk was probably inferior to Chinese silk. China provided a demand that Cos was unable to meet. TO SEW. Women wove in ancient Greece. The Greek historian Herodotus, who traveled to Egypt in the mid-fifth century B.C. He noted that men worked on looms in Egypt and commented on the difference between Egyptian and Greek customs. In Greece, the housewife was in charge of weaving the clothes of the house. The Greek historian Xenophon commented on the importance of the wife's duty to weave in his treatise on household management, Oeconomicus. In this work he described a dialogue between his mentor Socrates and the Athenian sage
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Isomachus, where Isomachus emphasized the importance of his young wife being the pre-eminent weaver of the house. However, not everything was knitted at home. Fine fabrics in particular required professional weaving, and in classical Athens there had been weaving since the late fifth century BC. Chr. There is evidence of one establishment specializing in chlamys (short cloak) and another specializing in chlanis, which were an upper body cloak like chlaina but of finer fabric. In Italy, the fine white wool fabric made in the north, in the Po Valley, required specialized weaving, and the factories there used highly skilled slaves to weave. Since the first century AD, wealthy women had more to do with their leisure time than with their slaves, although the Empress Livia, third and last wife of Augustus, tried to give her husband an example of age-old virtue encouraged by working at the loom. . However, in the cities of the Roman Empire, already at the time of Augustus, there were stores that sold ready-made clothes for both free men and slaves. THE CREATION OF THE FABRIC. Despite the evidence of ready-made clothes, the vast majority of people in ancient Greece and Rome had to make not only their own clothes, but also their own yarns and fabrics. The fabric making process was long and tedious. After shearing the sheep in the spring, the women would wash the wool and separate the tangled fibers with their fingers. Then they carded it, separated the fibers with a comb and rubbed it in a mass of burlap or worsted wool, knelt on a kind of terracotta cushion and placed their feet on a stool called an onos or donkey. At that point they dyed the wool unless the finished fabric was the natural color of the wool. So wool had to be spun, but the spinning wheel had not yet been invented; The person in charge of the spinning, known as a spinster, used a distaff and spindle to spin the wool. The spinster wrapped the rope around the distaff, pulled out a length, and fastened it to the spindle she held in her left hand. A weight called a spindle spiral was attached to the bottom of the spindle. He held the piece of wire taut and as the spindle began to turn it twisted the wire into a strand. The spinner continued to thread the raffia from the distaff along the increasing length of the line until the spindle reached the bottom. Then he wound the thread around the spindle and the process started again. Once she had spun a whole ball of yarn, she would take it off the spindle and place it in the woolen basket. He
INTRODUCTION OF COAN SILK:
Chinese silk was highly prized, but had to be imported at great cost until the reign of Emperor Justinian (527–565 AD), when silkworm eggs were smuggled into the Byzantine Empire, and white mulberry (Morus alba ), the food culture of the silkworm. was introduced around the same time. However, on the island of Kos, there was a caterpillar whose cocoon could be disintegrated to produce a silk thread. Kos silk was famous for its lightness and transparency, although production must have been small. The following passage is from Aristotle's Historia Animalium (Research Notes on Living Things). Pliny the Elder also describes the making of coan silk in his Natural History, and both authors attribute the invention to a woman named Pamphila, daughter of Plataeus. It has also been suggested that coan silk was known as far back as the Minoan period.
From a particular large worm, which has horns as it were, and differs from worms in general, a caterpillar first develops through the metamorphosis of the worm, then the cocoon, then the Necydalus; and the creature goes through all these transformations in six months. A class of women unwinds and unwinds the cocoons of these creatures, and then weaves a cloth from the threads thus unwound; A Choan woman named Pánfila, daughter of Plateo, is considered to be the first to invent this fabric. SPRING:
Aristotle, Historia Animalium, Book V. Vol. IV of the Works of Aristotle. Trans. D'arcy Wentworth Thompson (Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1910): 551b.
The strength and texture of the yarn depended on the speed of the spinning spindle. Once the yarn has been created, it can be woven on a loom. In ancient Greece there were two types of looms. One was a small, easily transportable loom used to make relatively narrow bands and patterns, and the weaver could work on it while seated. The other was the old big vertical loom used to weave the fabric patterns that became tunics or cloaks. This was the vertical loom on which the straight Roman tunic was woven, which a young man wore when he came of age and donned the "man's toga" (toga virilis). The warp threads hung from the top of the loom and were held taut by the loom weights. The weavers sang as they worked. Homer in the Odyssey
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he described the nymph Calypso, who held Odysseus captive until the gods commanded her to let him return to Ithaca, as a weaver singing at her loom. The witch Circe from the same literary work also sang while weaving. However, the monotony of working at the loom did not necessarily lead to happy songs. Weaving was hard work and it is more than likely that the female slaves who worked at the loom sang sad songs. STAMPED CLOTH. In 1972, a kore, a statue of a fully clothed woman, and a kouros, a nude male figure, were unearthed in a cemetery near Merenda, on the outskirts of Athens. At the base of the Kore statue was an inscription that read: "Tomb of Phrasikleia. They will always call me Kore. The gods gave me this name in lieu of marriage. Phrasikleia died before her marriage and therefore was always referred to as a virgin (kore), never as a married woman. More remarkable than this inscription, however, was the original painting that survived on the statue. Art historians knew that the Greeks painted their statues, but on those that survive the painting has disappeared or faded to almost nothing. The painting Phrasikleia chiton shows swastikas, which were considered good luck at the time, and rosettes on the obverse, four-pointed stars and various flowers on the reverse. The predominant colors are red, black and yellow. This was clearly a colorful patterned wedding dress for a wedding that never took place. There was a time when it was thought that Greek weavers could not produce patterned fabrics with their warp looms; When Greek authors mentioned decorated tunics, scholars assumed this meant that they were embroidered: the decoration had been sewn on after the cloth was woven. But the Phrasikleia chiton shows that they were capable of making fabrics with bright patterns. The peplos that the Athenians presented to Athens at each festival of the Great Panathenaia must have been patterned fabrics of the same type, and Athens was not the only place to regularly present a new dress to its patron goddess. At Elis, in northwest Peloponnese, Hera, the patron goddess of the state, was periodically given a peplos worked by sixteen women. Homer's Iliad relates that Helen of Troy wove a battle scene in color in her spare time. Helen was no different from other Greek housewives in this respect: she was also skilled at the loom. DYE. Excavations at a Roman fort at Vindolanda, near Hadrian's Wall in Britain, have recovered several textile fragments and fifty of them have been analysed. Analysis showed that eight of them were stained, and in all cases a 102 red dye was used.
madder root (Rubia tinctorum). The Romans had a variety of dyes, the strongest red being one of the cheapest. Among the expensive dyes were various shades of purple made from murex shellfish. A cheaper fake purple could be obtained by combining darker red in the right proportions with indigo imported from India. Coccinus, a bright scarlet from kermes, a cochineal, was in high demand as a sophisticated dye. It originated in Asia, but Spain has also developed a lucrative kermes industry. Other shades were a deep green with a blue tint (Prasinus), a very bright red (Russeus) and a dark blue (Venetus). Dyes, however, were of little use without mordants to fix the colors. Ancient mordants included alum made from wood ash or even human urine, and soda or soda ash extracted from soda wells in Egypt. To fix the color, dyers dipped the wool in the mordant, placed it in the dye vat, and heated it. SOURCES
John Beckwith, "Textile Fragments of Classical Antiquity", Illustrated London News 224 (1954): 114–15. John Ferguson, "China y Rome", The Rise and Fall of the Roman World, II–9–2. edited by Hildegard Temporini and Wolfgang Haase (Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1978): 581–603. Reinhold Meyer, A History of Purple as a Status Symbol in Antiquity (Brussels, Belgium: Latomus Collection 116, 1970). Judith Lynn Sebesta, "Tunica Ralla, Tunica Spissa: The Colors and Fabrics of Roman Costume," in The World of Roman Costume. eds. Judith Lynn Sebesta and Larissa Bonfante (Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994): 65–76. Beate Wagner-Hasel, "Garnets and Weaving Colors" and Women's Clothing in the Ancient Greek World. edited by Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones (London, England: Duckworth and the Classical Press of Wales, 2002): 17–32. Jonathan P. Wild, “Flax,” in the Oxford Classical Dictionary. 3rd Ed. Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999):863.
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COLOR IN GREEK AND ROMAN CLOTHING. A visitor to ancient Greece or Rome would be impressed by the vivid colors of people's clothing, especially women's. At this point, surviving Greek and Roman art tends to give a false picture. The marble statues were originally painted
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using wax-based paints, but today it is very rare to find a statue with traces of the original paints. Bronze statues almost all disappeared a long time ago and were melted down in the Middle Ages because of their metal. Images of Greek vases from the 6th and 5th centuries BC. BC, when Athenian black and red figure vases were in vogue, testifies to changing fashions, but the vase painter was limited by the colors of his medium. In fact, Greek and Roman clothing was much more colorful than most people realize. Weavers could create fabrics with intricate patterns. Presented to the goddess Athena every four years at the festival of the Great Panathenaea, the peplos were a masterpiece of design. It was woven by the women of Athens in a public building in the city where space was reserved for the loom, and the style of the garment did not change, but there was room for innovation in the fabric pattern. THE GREEKS OF THE EASTERN. The Greeks always viewed the fashions of the East, especially of Persia, with admiration mingled with disapproval and contempt. On the one hand, the luxurious fashions associated with Persia suggested a soft and effeminate life; Greek admiration for the muscular naked body was not found in Persia. On the other hand, oriental fashion was extremely attractive to those who wanted their clothes to signal their wealth and cosmopolitan culture. Eastern Greece, the Greek foundations in Asia Minor and Cyprus, has always been a way to get in touch with the civilizations of the East. The collapse of Mycenaean civilization was followed by a period of migration, when three waves of immigrants from Greece founded cities on the coast of Asia Minor and in the Dodecanese islands. The most important of these new foundations were made by Greeks who spoke the Ionian dialect, hence Eastern Greeks are often referred to as "Ionians", although there were also Aeolian and Doric foundations made by Greeks whose dialects were Aeolian or Doric. These Ionian cities were side by side with the Lydian Empire, and the last Lydian king, Croesus, subjugated those on the mainland, while cities on nearby islands were protected by his fleets. 546 BC C.E. Croesus, in turn, fell victim to a new empire builder, Cyrus, the founder of the Persian Empire. The Ionian cities that had belonged to the Lydian Empire fell under Persian control. Persia was not content with the Greek cities on the coast of Asia Minor. Gradually he conquered the cities of the islands off the coast and from Asia moved to Europe in 512 BC. controlled the region north of the Aegean. The rule of Persia, however, was relatively easy. Ionian culture continued as before and Ionian fashion influenced by Lydia
TUCIDIDES ABOUT ATHENIC FASHION INTRODUCTION:
The Athenian historian Thucydides, who lived at the end of the 5th century BC. wrote his history of the Peloponnesian War. C., devoted a section of his introduction to events in Greece in the Archaic period (700–480 BC. He claims that the Athenians took the lead. It is more likely that it was the Ionian cities that took the lead, but the evidence obtained do not allow us to contradict Thucydides with confidence.
The Athenians were the first to abandon the custom of carrying weapons and adopt a more relaxed and luxurious lifestyle. Indeed, older men of wealthy families, who had this lavish taste, have lately given up wearing linen undergarments [chitons] and tying their hair at the back of the head in a bun secured with a golden locust clip: the same fashion has come to pass. be used by its extended relatives. in Ionia and stayed there for a while among the elders. It was the Spartans who began to dress simply and in accordance with our modern tastes, and the wealthy led lives that resembled as closely as possible the lives of ordinary people. They were also the first to play naked, openly stripping naked and rubbing themselves with olive oil after exercise. In ancient times, even in the Olympics, athletes wore loin protectors, and in fact, the practice still existed not so many years ago. Even today, many foreigners, especially in Asia, wear this loincloth in boxing and wrestling matches. Indeed, a number of other cases can be pointed out in which the customs of the ancient Hellenic world are very similar to the customs of contemporary foreigners. SPRING:
Thucydides, "Introduction", in History of the Peloponnesian War. Trans. Rex Warner (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Classics, 1954): 38-39.
and then from Persia they were elaborate and ornamented. Ionia became a conduit for the Persian style to reach Greece, particularly Athens, which the Ionians considered their mother city. In the first two decades of the 5th century BC. CE Persia attempted to conquer Greece, resulting in Persia's defeat and withdrawal from the Aegean Sea. Luxury fashion from the East went out of style in Athens
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NEW FASHION FROM PERSIA INTRODUCTION:
During the last quarter of the 5th century BC. Around 1000 BC, Persian fashion was in full force in Athens, though not without the usual clash between old and new styles, reflecting the clash between old traditions and new customs. In his play The Wasps (performed 422 BC), Aristophanes illuminates both conflicts in an exchange between a son and his father, in which the son Antikleon tries to persuade his father Procleon to exchange his brown cloak for the distinctly more bizarre styles of Persia, in this case, a Kaunake or a Persis. The clothes worn by the two men (like their names) in this case also reflect their political beliefs; Cleon was a political leader much hated by the rich and fashionable Athenians, but he was supported by the masses.
Procleon: What should I do? Anticleon: Take off that tattered old cloak and throw that dress over your shoulders. Procleon: How nice to have children and raise them when they can only try to smother you! Anticleon: Come on, go ahead and don't talk so much. Procleon: In the name of all the gods, what is this terrible thing? Anticleon: It is a Persian dress: some call it a high waist. Procleon: I thought it must be one of those wild goatskin things. Anticleon: You would. Well, if you've ever been to Sardis, you'd know what it was; but it doesn't look like it. Procleon: Certainly not. Looks like one of Morychus' fancy wraps to me. Anticleon: No, they are woven in Ecbatana. Procleon: Of what? calluses? Anticleon: Seriously, you're hopeless! Don't you realize this is an extremely expensive Persian fabric? Well, at least thirty kilos of wool must have been used to make it. SOURCE: Aristophanes, The Wasps. Trans. David Barrett (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books, 1964): 80-81.
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He chose a more sober and austere look, although older, conservative men continued to wear Ionian chitons with their many folds and comb their hair with grasshopper-shaped pins. Ionia gained its independence from Persia after Xerxes' disaster in Greece, but later fell under the rule of Athens. Ionia had a reputation as a place where life was quiet and easy, and the scientific view at the time was that a quiet life produced weakly muscled men who were no good on the battlefield. Hard lives made tough men, and as the Greeks saw it, it was the tenacity of their foot soldiers and the free men who rowed their warships that ensured their victory over Persia. Simple clothing and robustness went hand in hand. The fact that Ionia gained her freedom from Persia only to lose it to the Athenian Empire seemed to prove that Ionia, with her love of Persian jewelry, was incapable of defending her freedom. However, the backlash against Persian fashion did not last. Active warfare between the Athenian Empire and Persia ended in 450 BC. C. and peaceful contacts were resumed between Athens and Persia. PERSIAN FASHION IN ATHENS. In the last quarter of the fifth century, the Athenians again showed their taste for Persian styles. New clothing items appear with revealing names. The fine wool coat called Sirius must have been inspired by Syrian fashion. These cloaks may even have been imported from Syria. There was a type of women's shoe called Persikai. One of Plato's dialogues refers to wealthy people wearing "Persian belts"; the dialogue is fictitious, but Plato imagines that it took place before 415 BC. takes place. C., and it is likely that some wealthy Athenians of the period wore expensive belts, probably imported from Persia. Another garment from the late 5th century BC. They were the Kaunakes, also known as Persis, a name that betrays their lineage. It appears to have been a heavy cloak with small tufts of wool. Chitons with sleeves also appear, another Persian innovation. Vase paintings show examples of chitoniskos cheiridotos, i.e. the short sleeved chiton worn over a long chiton. The short chiton could have fringes at the bottom, and fringes were considered Lydian, or at least Oriental. Another Persian garment adopted by the Greeks was the kandys, a tunic with sleeves dyed purple and buttoned at the shoulders. The wearer wore their kandys to keep their arms warm, though the sleeves were too long for practicality and were sewn shut at the end. In the Persian court, these sleeves served to protect the king from assassination, as men could not wield a murderous knife with their arms wrapped in the long sleeves of their kandys.
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THE SYMBOLISM OF THE MANGO. Mangoes were nothing new in ancient Greece. When performing at public festivals, musicians wore long-sleeved tunics, but the musicians' sumptuous attire was not an everyday garment. The policemen who patrolled the streets of Athens also wore tunics and pants with sleeves, but these officers were actually state-owned Scythian slaves and wore their native clothes. Sleeves were considered a hallmark of Persian fashion, but gained acceptance when the carved frieze on the Parthenon in Athens (carved in 430 BC) depicts some of the young knights in the parade wearing short-sleeved chitons. It seems that some wealthy Athenian youths have adopted the latest Persian fashions. However, when mangoes reached Rome, they were considered effeminate. A passage from Virgil's epic Aeneid shows the prevailing attitude of the Romans towards this fashion. In the passage, a native Italian (representing the Romans) opposes a foreign Trojan settlement in Italy by insulting its leader, Aeneas; Among the insults were ironic comments about the use of sleeves, which the Italian described as unmanly. Aeneas had come from Troy, which was in Asia, and so the Trojans were Asian and wore Persian clothing. In the Aeneid, the Trojans must abandon their Asiatic way of life before gaining a place in Italy. It need not have been outright negligence, however, as Julius Caesar's biographer Suetonius reported that the purple-striped senatorial tunic that Julius Caesar wore under his toga had fringed sleeves. THE UMBRELLA. Parasols were known in the Mycenaean world, but disappeared in Greece in the Middle Ages. They appeared at the end of the 6th century BC. revived in vase paintings. as part of a wealthy woman's wardrobe, although apparently they were not intended exclusively for women. The lyric poet Anacreon, who enjoyed the patronage of a Samosan tyrant until the conquest of Persia in 522 BC. conquered the island. E.C., used his poetry to criticize a guy named Artemon, who wore gold earrings and held an ivory parasol: "As fancy as you want! In Athens, the parasol became a status symbol for the woman born free In Athens in the 5th century BC There was a clear distinction between citizens and metics or resident aliens. After mid-century, when the statesman Pericles passed a law denying citizenship to anyone whose parents were not Athenian citizens, it was impossible for a Metic to become a citizen. Thus the Athenian citizen body became an elite group, keeping out outsiders. The umbrella marked division. There was a law that may have been from the same period as that of Pericles.
PRESENTATION OF THE GIRL'S DRESS:
The Latin writer Aulus Gelius was a wealthy Roman who received the standard education in rhetoric in Rome and then went to Athens to study philosophy. He was in the habit of making notes on things which he seemed to remember whenever he read a book in Latin or Greek, and during a winter spent in the countryside outside Athens he began to assemble them into a collection which he later compiled. published as Noctes Atticae (Attic Nights). He wrote during the reigns of Emperor Antoninus Pius (138–161 CE) and his successor Marcus Aurelius (161–180 CE). In the following excerpt, he describes second-century BC criticism. the Roman EG Publius Scipio Africanus in the female dress of his compatriot Sulpicius Gallus, who wore long-sleeved tunics. Long sleeves were considered Persian finery and were not appropriate attire for a strapping Roman of the 2nd century BC.
In Rome and throughout Latium it was considered improper for a man to wear tunics that reached under the arms and down to the wrists and almost to the fingers. Our compatriots called these tunics the Greek name chiridotae (long sleeves) and thought that for women, and women only, a long, flowing garment was not unsuitable for hurting your arms and legs in public. But Roman men at first wore the toga alone, without tunics; then they had short, tight tunics, ending below the shoulders, of what the Greeks call exomides (sleeveless). Accustomed to this old fashion, Publius Africanus, son of Paul, a man endowed with all the worthy arts and all the virtues, rebuked, among many other things, Publius Sulpicius Gallus, an effeminate man, among them the one who wore tunics, which they covered all your hands. Scipio's words are: "He who perfumes himself every day and dresses himself in front of a mirror, whose eyebrows are trimmed, who goes out with his beard pulled and his thighs smoothed, who has reclined at long feasts because he has young sleeves." Tunic at the bottom of the bed with a lover who loves not only wine but also men, will anyone doubt that she does what libertines are wont to do? SPRING:
Aulo Gelio, Nights in the Attic by Aulo Gelio. volume 2 of 3 volumes. Trans. John C. Rolfe (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1927): 57, 59. Text modified by James Allan Evans.
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Citizenship law that obliged the daughters of Metics to carry umbrellas and stools for the daughters of citizens in the Panathenaic procession. The parasol wasn't just an umbrella; it was a status symbol. Persian fashion in Rome. "I hate Persian frivolity, boy," wrote the poet Horace in the first line of one of his odes. Horace stated that he liked the simple life. He lived under Emperor Augustus and enjoyed the generous patronage of a minister of Augustus, Maecenas, thus expressing the official opinion on luxury in dress and life in general. This view of Persian fashion was not just a matter of taste, but a clever piece of propaganda, reminiscent of the Greeks' abandonment of Persian fashion after their military clashes with Persia. Augustus had begun his political career as the teenage grandnephew and adopted heir of the powerful Roman politician Julius Caesar; After Caesar's assassination, Augustus had to defeat Mark Antony and Cleopatra, the queen of Egypt, before he could become master of the empire. His propaganda portrayed Cleopatra as the epitome of oriental luxury, which extended to his attire. Augustus presented himself as a champion of Roman traditions in dress as in everything else. However, those Romans who could afford it were fond of luxurious clothing. The longest fragment of a novel written by Petronius during the reign of Emperor Nero (54-68 BC) describes a feast hosted by a wealthy former slave named Trimalchio, who liked to show off his wealth. He made a grand entrance into the banquet hall on a litter, dressed in a bright scarlet cape and a tasseled napkin with a wide purple sash in imitation of the senatorial fringe around his neck, which he was not legally allowed to wear as a freedman. He wore rings on his fingers and on his right arm a gold bracelet and an ivory bracelet with a shiny metal clasp. The suit signaled a message, and the message of Trimalchio's suit was that he had "done it". PERSIAN COSTUME AT THE END OF THE EMPIRE. At the time of the late Roman Empire, imperial court dress under Diocletian (AD 284-305) and Constantine (AD 324-337) leaned heavily on Persian fashion. Constantine began to wear a beaded diadem as a symbol of his autocratic power. In late antiquity, costume borrowed from the Persian court signaled the emperor's authority. Persia provided much of the trappings for the imperial court as the Roman Empire evolved into the Byzantine Empire. SOURCES
MC Miller, Athens and Persia in the Fifth Century BC: A Study of Cultural Receptiveness (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). 106
—, „The Umbrella: An Oriental Status Symbol in Archaic and Late Classical Athens“, Journal of Hellenic Studies 112 (1992): 91–105. GM A. Richter, "Griechen in Persien", American Journal of Archaeology 50 (1946): 16–30.
A DRESS
VON
ROMAN WOMEN
GIRL DRESS. Free-born girls, that is, those whose parents were not slaves, wore the same attire as free-born boys: a toga over a tunic. The toga was the praetexta toga with a purple border that must have been wool. The violet edge was, at least in its origin, apotropaic, meaning that it protected the wearer from the evil eye or other unseen dangers that might befall a child. Her hair was carefully combed, braided and tied with a single strip of wool called a vitta in Latin, or "steak" in English. The filet was probably white, signifying purity. A boy also wore a bulla or reliquary containing an amulet, i.e. an amulet used to ward off evil spirits or miasma that might infect him, but it seems that the girls did not wear them. Few sculptures of Roman youths wearing the toga praetexta survive, but those that do not show blisters. However, a girl could wear some kind of necklace, which could serve the same purpose as an amulet. As soon as a girl reached puberty, she would take off her toga praetexta and dedicate it to the goddess "Fortuna Virginalis", Venus in her capacity as tutelary goddess of girls. This was the sign that she was ready for marriage. THE COSTUME OF THE ROMAN BRIDE. On the night before her wedding day, a bride wore the straight tunic, so called because it was woven on the old vertical loom that weavers had abandoned for making normal fabrics. The wedding rite required the bride to weave her white woolen cloak on the vertical loom, as well as her orange-yellow shawl, which was the color of flame. On her wedding day, the strands of her hair and her net showed her chastity, in Latin her modesty. Around his tunic he put a belt made of the wool of a sheep, a female sheep. The belt was tied with a knot that the husband untied when they walked together to the marital bed. Then the bride put on the yellowish-red bridal veil. He would protect her from evil spirits when she made the journey from her father's house to her husband's house, or, more ritually, when she left the protection of her own family homes (household gods) for her husband's homes. Her new husband gave her fire and water.
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Epitaphs of a Master Tailor and a Barber INTRODUCTION:
Wealthy women in Rome had their own barbers and seamstresses, who were usually slaves. Seamstresses and barbers were available for lovers who could be demanding. A mistress who finds her hairstyle unsatisfactory would not hesitate to spank her slave. Many slaves who died left no trace of their existence, except perhaps for a tombstone erected by a friend or fellow slave. The epitaphs on the two tombstones listed below are first by a seamstress named Italia and second by a barber named Psamate. Think how young they were when they died; Italia was twenty and Psamate only nineteen.
To the Italian seamstress of Cocceia Phyllis. He lived twenty years. Acastus, his co-slave, paid for this tombstone because he was poor. Psamate, the barber of Furia, lived to be nineteen. Mitthrodates, the baker of Flaccus Thorius, erected this tombstone. SPRING:
Jo-Ann Shelton, "Working Women", em How the Romans Did It: A Sourcebook on Roman Social History. 2. Aufl. (Nova York: Oxford University Press, 1998): 303–304. Römerin mit Stola.
CREATED BY CECILIA EVANS. HE
GALE GROUP.
then, upon entering the house, she placed a coin on the small altar in her husband's homes, which would be in a niche in a wall near the entrance. Whenever she moved to a new neighborhood in the city, she placed another coin on the altar of the neighborhood's home, the lars compitales. THE MARRIED WOMAN. The standard attire of the Roman matron, i.e. a married woman, was the stole. It was a dress fastened with shoulder straps; it went down to her feet and looked like modern panties, except the skirt was fuller and fell in distinct folds called wrinkles. Over his shoulders and head he wore a cloak called Palla. Proper Roman women wore headcoverings, and the ramifications of neglecting this element of fashion could be serious. In the second century B.C. A Roman named Sulpicius Gallus, who died in 166 BCE. EC was consul. He divorced his wife because she left the house without a hat. A Roman woman's hair also indicated her status as a married woman; Her hair must be carefully combed and tied with bands. He
the stole and blankets that held back her hair would remain the attire of a chaste married woman for the rest of her life. AMAZING WOMEN. Just as this garment demonstrated the purity of the Roman girl and the fidelity of the Roman woman, adulteresses and prostitutes also wore different clothes. If a husband divorced his wife because she was having an affair with another man, she would wear a plain white robe; he no longer had the right to wear a stole. Proper attire for a prostitute was also a toga. This particular way of labeling impure women seems to have loosened over time. Juvenal, the bitter satirist of Roman life who lived in the second century AD, claimed that in Rome in his day it was difficult to find a virtuous woman, yet no one wore the toga. THE WIDOW. When a woman's husband died, she would remove the stole and replace it with a ricinium, a word derived from the Latin verb meaning "to renounce." The ricinium was a shawl made from a square piece of cloth.
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SEXY DRESS IN ROME BY AUGUSTUS PRESENTATION:
Ovid's Ars Amatoria (The Art of Love) is an ingenious manual on the art of seduction, published in 2 BC. In the next passage, Ovid tells women how to style their hair and dress stylishly on a budget. Purple dye was expensive and highly prized, but there were other cheaper dyes that were just as effective. It ends with a purely imaginary illustration of the myth: Briseis, over whom Achilles and Agamemnon fought in Homer's Iliad, was a blonde dressed in black, and the wife of the Trojan hero Hector was brunette and dressed in white.
SOURCE:
Ovidio, "The Art of Loving III", in Os Poemas de Amor. Trans. AD Melville (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990): 131-133.
which a woman doubled over and apparently threw over the middle of her shoulder. Wearing it was a sign of mourning, and as such it was likely dark in color and made from naturally dark wool. The widow wore ricinium for the prescribed year of mourning. It is possible that he would have used it longer if she had not remarried, but this cannot be conclusively proven. THE ONLY WOMAN. Roman marriages were usually arranged. Parents found suitable husbands for their daughters. Romantic love sometimes gets in the way of their plans, and it is significant that the god who made young people fall in love was Cupid, son of Venus, who shot poisoned arrows at his victims. In other words, romantic love was a poison that caused young men and women to neglect their duties to their families and pursue inappropriate relationships. In ancient Rome, there probably weren't many single women. In Roman law, an unmarried woman and a widow were considered equal, but it is unclear whether they used the 108
The same thing. It is also unclear what the appropriate guise was for a woman divorced for reasons other than adultery, particularly at a time when some Romans were marrying and divorcing on political grounds. However, it is understood that the clothing prescribed for women was part of the customs of ancient Rome, known by the Romans as mos Maiorum, the way of life of our ancestors. Although the Romans revered the way of life of their ancestors, they did not always follow it religiously, so guidelines for women's clothing at different stages of life may not have been closely followed. THE LATEST STYLE. Although fashion in ancient Greece and Rome changed much more slowly than it does today, it was important to keep up. Wealthy Roman women had their own seamstresses and barbers, who were usually slaves; If they failed to satisfy their lovers' whims, they could be flogged. Evidence of hairstyles comes from portrait sculptures and
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Diagram. In the sixth century BC. In Greece, both young men and women wore elaborate hairstyles, judging by the so-called kouros and kore sculptures, that is, freestanding statues showing naked young men and clothed young women, erected in archaic times. Marcelling (arranging her hair in rows of waves) and braiding her hair must have taken hours to get ready. In the classical period, hairstyles became easier. In the Augustan period, Emperor Augustus in Rome established the style with short hair brushed forward over the forehead, and his wife Livia is depicted with a parting down the middle and hammered hair. By the end of the first century, tight curls that came together on the head were in vogue. Hair dye turned brunettes into blondes, which was the most fashionable color. Sometimes the results were disastrous; Latin poet Ovid wrote a compassionate poem for his girlfriend who had lost her hair from using strong hair dye. SOURCES
George MA Hanfmann, Classical Sculpture (Greenwich, Connecticut: New York Graphic Society, 1967). Mary G. Houston, Ancient Greek, Roman and Byzantine costume. 2nd ed. (London, England: Adam and Charles Black, 1947). Laetitia La Follette, "The Costume of the Roman Bride", in The World of Roman Costume. eds. Judith Lynn Sebesta and Larissa Bonfante (Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994): 54–64. Judith Lynn Sebesta, "Symbolism in Roman Female Costume," in The World of Roman Costume. eds. Judith Lynn Sebesta and Larissa Bonfante (Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994): 46–53.
CLOTHES
DO
SOLDIER
MILITARY ARMAMENT IN GREECE FIRST. Armor evolved throughout Greek and Roman history, but the requirements remained standard. The armor had to protect the soldier's body, move his arms and legs freely and be visually appealing. Some of the earliest examples of military dress date from the late Mycenaean period; A vase called the "Warrior Vase" shows soldiers marching in columns. They wear helmets and short kilts with tassels exposing the legs, and carry shields aft, shields compressed in the middle so that when the soldier holds them in front of him to protect his body, he can still use his weapons to ward off the enemy. . The warriors described in Homer's Iliad who fought in the Trojan War wore similar armor, except most of them were
4th century BC Bone tablets with figures of armed soldiers carrying shield and spear from a necropolis at Columbella, south of Palestrina, outside Rome. ART ARCHIVE/MUSEUM OF VILLA GIULIA ROMA/DAGLI ORTI.
described as having round shields. Their armor allowed them to run if the spears they threw at their enemies missed. THE HOPLITE. As the Greek Middle Ages drew to a close, the warrior found in Homer's Iliad gave way to a heavily armed foot soldier known as a hoplite. He wore a helmet, a metal corset with metal shoulder pads, and a triangular plate called a miter to protect his groin. Its legs below the knee were protected by armor-like greaves like the lower legs and fastened behind the calf. Under the bodice she wore a linen tunic and below the waist a kind of pleated leather skirt that somewhat protected her lower body. He appeared to be barefoot, as he is usually depicted barefoot in art. He got the name "Hoplite" from his large round shield, called Hoplon. He fought in eight rank formation so that his shield on his left arm protected the right side of the hoplite beside him, while his own right side was shielded.
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It was the battle formation used by Alexander in the two great battles in which he defeated the Persian King Darius Codomanus and conquered the Persian Empire. THE ROMAN ARMY. The army that dominated the battlefields of the ancient world for the longest time was the army of Rome. In the early days of the Roman Republic it was a citizen army. A consul conducting a campaign (Rome elected two consuls each year to serve as magistrates-in-chief and commanders-in-chief) recruited troops from the census list of those eligible for service and possessors of property. At the end of the second century B.C. Rome was in dire need of more recruits, and a soldier named Marius, who held the consulate seven times in his life, opened the army post to all volunteers. The next big change came with Emperor Augustus, who instituted a citizen army made up of legionnaires, who were citizens, and auxiliaries, who weren't citizens and paid slightly less. We find his armor represented in sculpture; Trajan's Column in Rome is particularly useful as it depicts Emperor Trajan's campaigns in Dacia, present-day Romania. Sometimes the archaeologist's spade discovers or accidentally finds fragments of a soldier's equipment.
Roman soldier in armor of the type known as "lorica segmentata", first introduced in the 1st century AD. CREATED BY CECILIA EVANS. THE GALE GROUP.
Hoplite on the other side. As long as the formation known as the phalanx remained intact, a hoplite army could avoid heavy casualties. It was different when the phalanx was broken. The hoplite was not an agile soldier, as running in full hoplite armor was not easy. As Athenian hoplites in 490 B.C. defeating the Persians at the Battle of Marathon seems to have been the first time that a fleeing hoplite army attacked. In the 4th century BC. Around 300 BC, the Greeks discovered how effective the little soldier called "Peltast" could be against hoplites, especially in rough terrain unsuitable for hoplite tactics. The "peltast" wore a pelte, a small, light rimless leather shield that did not impede its movements; If a hoplite had to run for his life, the best he could do was drop his shield, and that was considered a great misfortune. Despite this, Greek armies continued to use the phalanx. Philip II of Macedon (reigned 359-336 BC), father of Alexander the Great, renovated and enlarged and armed the troops with spears about 13 feet long. this 110
MAIL ARMOR. Roman soldiers in the Republic wore chain mail, which was not abolished until the first century AD. Chain mail was made by interlacing an iron ring with four others. Making a knitted corset required great skill and patience, but once completed, it required little maintenance. Iron rings rubbing against each other kept the chain mail clean. The peasants who formed the backbone of Roman armies in the early Republic probably wore chain mail inherited from their parents or grandparents. knitted shirts in the republican era until the 1st century BC reaches mid-thigh; in the early imperial period from Emperor Augustus (27 BC – 14 AD) they reached just below the hips, and the soldier was also protected by leather straps, called pteruges, on the shoulders and around the hips. Mail left much to be desired, for although it protected a man from the slash of a sword, it was poor protection from the blow of an arrow or dagger. The arrow didn't need to pierce the armor to kill, as it could press the chainmail rings into the wound and cause infection, and the consequences could be fatal. ARMORS. Scale armor consisted of bronze or iron plates of various sizes connected in rows and then layered together like shingles on a roof. He
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The finished product looked like fish scales, hence the name. It was cheaper to produce than chain mail and offered better protection. The downside was that it was more difficult to put on and take off. In relatively calm times, soldiers could rely on each other to help them don their armor, but if a detachment was caught off guard by a surprise attack, some soldiers might not be able to don their armor in time to catch up with the enemy's attack. enemy. Scale armor was standard equipment in the Persian army long before Rome introduced it, for as Herodotus described in his Histories, the army King Xerxes wore in 480 BC sleeves and chain mail like fish scales. This style of armor remained popular in the east, both with Parthia, Rome's enemy on the eastern frontier in the time of Emperor Augustus, and with the Sasanian Persians who took control of the Parthian kingdom in the 3rd century AD. The Persians used cavalry on both horsemen. and horses, armed from head to toe in scale armor, reminiscent of medieval knights, except the knights rode without stirrups. Always quick to pick up on good ideas, the Romans adopted scale armor for both infantry and heavy cavalry. ARMOR PLATE (LORICA SEGMENTATA). A corset made of metal bands, called a lorica segmentata in Latin, is the type most commonly associated with the Roman soldier. It's the armor of choice for filmmakers making cinematic epics about ancient Rome. It was invented at the beginning of the 1st century AD. and one theory is that it was introduced after a military disaster in AD 9. when three Roman legions were annihilated in the Teutoberg Forest in Germany. However, excavations at a site identified as the scene of the disaster have revealed fragments of an early form of Lorica Segmentata, showing that some of the Roman legionnaires who lost their lives in the Teutoberg Forest actually wore a bodice. of metal strips. Therefore, the invention was not the result of disaster, although its rapid adoption may have been. The cuirass, which protected the chest and belly, had overlapping straps and curved shoulder pads that offered good protection. The downside was the fastening: the soldier attached the armor to the body with Velcro straps, which were never quite satisfactory. Furthermore, soldier sweat during combat degraded the leather straps that held the metal plates in place, and the resulting damage could require expensive repairs. However, the initial cost of making this type of breastplate was less than chainmail or chainmail. It was widely believed that cuirass, made of metal strips attached to a leather lining, had become more or less standard.
The Augustus of Primaporta, marble copy of a bronze sculpture of Caesar Augustus addressing his soldiers, extending his right hand and wearing a breastplate with mythological and historical scenes in bas-relief, Roman, High Empire, c. 20 BC Chr © BETTMANN/CORBIS. REPRODUCED WITH PERMISSION.
the Roman legionnaire from the second quarter of the 1st century AD to the 3rd century AD, when it was abandoned. However, this theory is difficult to prove with evidence from ancient monuments and archeology. The column, which still stands in central Rome today and depicts Emperor Trajan's (98–117 AD) campaigns in Dacia (modern-day Romania), shows legionary soldiers with the Lorica Segmentata. It appears to have been standard equipment for regular troops, while auxiliaries, not citizens, recruited from Roman provinces wore other styles such as chain mail. But most of the Lorica segmentata breastplate accessories that archaeologists have uncovered come from Roman forts maintained by auxiliaries, not Roman legions. Although Trajan's Column in Rome shows the lorica segmentata as the legionary's standard armor, there is another monument commemorating Trajan's campaign in Dacia - a tropaeum, or "victory monument", erected at Adamklissi in Romania
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Pectorals and abs that the viewer assumes are low. (Indeed, Augustus did not have the physique of an athlete; he was not an impressive physical specimen.) Statues of torsos draped in armor plates of this type were found throughout the empire, often without heads, as the heads were carved separately. and attached pinned to the base of the neck. It was a popular type for statues of emperors. In fact, archaeologists have not found a single example of an actual Roman "muscular breastplate", although there are surviving examples from the Hellenistic period. This suggests that in Roman times, muscular cuirass was more popular parade armor among sculptors than on the battlefield. Roman sculptors came up with two types: one with a high waist, which would be appropriate for a knight, and another that falls below the hips and has a curved extension at the bottom, which would not be very appropriate for a knight. These breastplates were attached at the sides with hinges or rings that were tied together.
A man wearing a cucullus (a hooded outer garment).
CREATED
BY CECILY EVANS. THE GALE GROUP.
Legionnaires and auxiliaries wear scale armor. The Adamklissi Monument was created by artists who were close to the front lines and knew what the Romans and Dacians wore in battle. The sculptors who carved the great spiral of Trajan's Column, which represents the Dacian campaign on a continuous frieze, worked in Rome. They only knew what the legionnaire was supposed to wear, not what he wore. “MUSCULAR ARMOR”. The 'muscle breastplate', which covered the torso and revealed the underlying pectoral and abdominal muscles, developed in the Hellenistic world and became a popular type of imperial sculpture by Emperor Augustus. One of the most famous statues of Augustus, the Prima Porta statue, shows him in warrior uniform with a muscular breastplate modeling the musculature of his abdomen. Augustus is depicted with the physique of an athlete - indeed, his body has the proportions used by the classical sculptor Polykleitos for his athletic nudes - and his cuirass follows the contours of well-developed 112
HELMETS. The helmet of the first Roman legionary soldier was an inverted hemispherical shell with cheeks. A large number of these helmets were found in a region of northern Italy called Montefortino, so it is now known as the Montefortino Helmet. A cheaper alternative to the Montefortino was the Coolus type, which had a neck brace to protect the neck. Both types were borrowed from the Celts, with whom the Romans started in 387 BC. fought many battles. when a horde of Celts sacked Rome towards the end of the 2nd century BC. The Romans Romanized them by adding crests, initially composed of feathers seated in a protuberance on the crown of the helmet, but by the end of the 1st century BC. It was horsehair, red or black. During the Civil War of the first century B.C. New styles of helmets appeared, made of iron instead of bronze, with prominent cheek guards, raised eyebrows and ribs on the back of the helmet. The magazine was no longer attached to a button, but to a magazine holder on top of the helmet. The coats of arms were decorative and may have been used in battle in the early Imperial period, but the troops shown on Trajan's Column did not wear coats of arms. The helmet evolved to offer better protection to the wearer until the 3rd century CE, when the head was almost completely covered. STAY HOT. Roman armies operated in a variety of climates, from the cold, wet climate of Hadrian's Wall in Britain to the Euphrates River in present-day Iraq. Keeping cool in hot weather was a real issue. The chainmail troops operating on the eastern frontier were known as clibanarii, a word derived from clibanus, meaning 'furnace'. In other words, when it's hot, and-
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Roasted dressed troops. However, in colder climates, the soldier had several layers to keep warm. The sleeveless robe of varying lengths, called a paenula, was made of thick fabric of wool, leather, or sometimes fur. It varied in length and sometimes had a hood. It survives as a chasuble, a sleeveless robe worn by priests while saying mass. Another garment used as a church robe was the dalmatic, so called because it was woven from the wool of sheep from Dalmatia (the east coast of the Adriatic). It was a long tunic with long, wide sleeves that came into fashion in the 2nd century AD. The cucullus was a tight-fitting robe with a pointed hood that reached the waist. It offered protection from rain and cold. If it was open at the front it had to be secured with some sort of clasp, but if it was closed at the front it had to be pulled over the head like a poncho. The lacerna was a cloak first worn by troops and became popular with civilians because it was a practical garment for the toga. The sagum was a short thick woolen military cloak borrowed by Rome from the Gauls that became so popular with soldiers that "wearing the sagum" became an idiom for war. It was probably nothing more than a rectangle of heavy fabric, draped over the shoulders and tied under the chin. The paludamentum was a military cloak for the general. It was woven from purple wool, and although the size can vary, the 9 feet long and 5 feet wide is a good estimate of its size. When displayed as a sculpture, it is fastened at the right shoulder with a round clasp, then pulled back to allow the general or emperor's muscular cuirass to be displayed. It was a runway outfit, not a campaign outfit. KEEP YOUR LEGS WARM. The Greeks and Romans shared the opinion that trousers were barbaric clothing. The Gauls used them. They were called bracae in Latin, a word related to the English word breeches. Virgil called them "the barbarous covering of legs" in his Aeneid. At the time of the Roman Republic, the province of Transalpine Gaul, that is, Gaul beyond the Alps, had the unofficial name of "Gallia bracata": Gaul where trousers are worn. On the other hand, Gaul Cisalpina, Gaul south of the Alps, i.e. the Po Valley of Italy, which existed in the 5th and 4th centuries BC. was colonized by the Gauls. C., was "Gallia togata": the Gaul where togas were worn. If Roman soldiers considered trousers barbaric, they condescended to wear socks. At Vindolanda, one of the forts along Hadrian's Wall in Britain, a cache of Roman plaques contained a letter from a Roman.
male soldier thanks a friend or relative for the gift of socks and underwear. Socks were also worn by civilians, often in bright colors. Even Emperor Augustus, who was not robust, liked warm socks. By the 4th century AD, paintings and mosaics show a new type of leg covering, which appears to be a strip of cloth wrapped around the lower legs, like the leggings worn by soldiers in World War I. Presumably, the soldier also wore socks over his military boots. The Roman prejudice against breeches was not universal; Soldiers recruited from non-citizen provincials who had served in the Roman military for 25 years and obtained citizenship on discharge apparently wore trousers. SOURCES
Norma Goldman, "Reconstruction of Roman Costume," in The World of Roman Costume. eds. Judith Lynn Sebesta and Larissa Bonfante (Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994): 213–237. Mary G. Houston, Costume and Decoration of Ancient Greece, Rome, and Byzantium. 2nd ed. (London, England: Adam and Charles Black, 1947). A.H. Snodgrass, Early Greek Armor and Weapons (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1964). —, Arms and Armor of the Greeks (London, England: Thames and Hudson, 1967). Graham Sumner, The Roman Army: Wars of the Empire (London, England: Brassey's, 1997). George R. Watson, The Roman Soldier (London, England: Thames and Hudson, 1969).
IMPORTANT PEOPLE in fashion ALKIBIADES c. 450 BC - 404 BC CREATING THE RIGHT IMPRESSION. Public figures in Greece often dressed to impress, and none more so than Alcibiades, the Athenian general who ruled in 420 BC. assumed leadership of the extremist democrats in Athens. and he contributed as much as anyone to the defeat of Athens in the Peloponnesian War, which ended in 404 BC. it ended. with the surrender of Athens to Sparta and its allies. Alcibiades destined to his fashion and to his
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Personal life to attract attention as a member of the "smart set" in Athens, a group generally condemned by conservative Athenians for flouting principles or traditions. Plutarch (circa 46, after AD 120), in a brief biography of Alcibiades, compared his intelligence as a statesman to the waste of his private life. But with all these words and deeds, and with all this cunning and eloquence, he mixed exorbitant luxury and debauchery into his depraved life of eating, drinking, and debauchery; he wore long purple robes like a woman who dragged him behind her as he crossed the market square; he had the boards of his trireme cut so that he could lie softer, and he put his bed not on boards but in strips.
Alcibiades took great care of his appearance; He refused to learn to play the aulos, the reed instrument often mistakenly called the "flute", because the person playing it had to make an ugly-looking face. Alcibiades considered the lyre a much more appropriate instrument, mainly because one could still speak and sing while playing the lyre. Alcibiades promoted the ill-fated Athenian expedition against Sicily (415-413 BC), which ended in complete disaster. Alcibiades himself was born in 415 BC. summoned from Sicily. face a charge of sacrilege; Not daring to face an Athenian court, he defected to Sparta. Once there, he adopted the austere Spartan lifestyle and gave up his expensive Milesian woolen cloak. He took cold baths and exercised regularly, naked like the Spartans. Then, having exhausted his reception in Sparta, he transferred his services to Persia and adopted the Persian costume and the Persian way of life. He eventually responded to a call from the sailors of the Athenian fleet to lead them and again became an Athenian general until his fleet suffered defeat at Sparta. He was not personally responsible for the defeat, but he lost command and did not dare return to Athens. Athens surrendered in 404 BC. C., and after the surrender, Alcibiades was assassinated at the instigation of Sparta, believing that Athens would never accept defeat as long as Alcibiades lived. SOURCES
Edmund Bloedow, Alcibiades Reexamined (Wiesbaden, Deutschland: Franz Steiner, 1971). Walter M. Ellis, Alcibiades (Londres, Inglaterra: Routledge, 1989). Donald Kagan, The Fall of the Athenian Empire (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1987). —, The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1981). 114
CONSTANCE II 317 AD–361 AD ROMAN EMPEROR'S CLOTHES FOR IMPERIAL OFFICE. Roman emperors, starting with the first Emperor Augustus (27 BC - 14 AD), always tried to preserve the dignity and prestige of their office in their dress and behavior, but towards the end of the 3rd century AD. in addition to ordinary citizens has become more pronounced. One of the most striking public descriptions of this period of an emperor concerns Constantius II, who inherited the empire along with his two brothers Constantine II and Constantine upon the death of his father Constantine I in 337 AD. After the death of his brothers in 340 and 350 respectively, he became the ruler of the entire empire. In 357 CE, Constantius II visited Rome for the first time, and the last great classical historian to write in Latin, Ammianus Marcellinus, vividly describes his ceremonial entry into the city. The emperor drove seated in a golden chariot studded with jewels. Before him were servants with banners in the form of fluttering dragons attached to the tips of jeweled golden spears. On either side of his chariot were soldiers with shields, feathered helmets and shining breastplates, and with them rode bodies of cavalry, clad in armor made of thin steel plates covering their bodies. Constantius II looked straight ahead, oblivious to the applause, although when passing under a door he would bow slightly as if he were too tall to fit under, thinking that he was indeed a very small man. He didn't spit or blow his nose; Instead, she remained immobile, even as her carriage lurched over a bump in the road. He tried to look superhuman. REFLECTS THE CHANGE OF STATE. While the Roman Empire was still pagan, Roman Emperors were considered divine and loyal subjects sacrificed to them. But after Constantine I, all but one of the Roman emperors were Christians, and their relationship to the divine world had to change. Emperors became God's representatives in heaven on earth and, as such, had to adopt a style and attitude to fit this new Christian concept of imperial office. The "advent" or ceremonial entry of Constantius II into Rome in 357 CE is a vivid illustration of this new fashion in practice. SOURCES
Amiano Marcellinus, The Later Roman Empire. Uber. Walter Hamilton (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books, 1986): 100–101.
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HP L'Orange, The Roman Empire: Art Forms and Civic Life (New York, Rizzoli, 1985).
Emperors often banished them from Rome. SOURCES
DIOGENES c. 400 BC -C. 325 v PHILOSOPHER FASHION FOR A PHILOSOPHER. Philosophers did not always dress according to convention. Empedocles (c. 493–c. 433 BC), best known for defining the four elements of earth, air, fire, and water, wore sandals with bronze soles. Socrates walked barefoot in all weathers. But the philosopher who made a cult of shunning all luxuries was Diogenes of Sinope, who founded the Cynic school of philosophy (although some attribute its founding to a disciple of Socrates named Antisthenes, whom Diogenes considered his teacher). Diogenes was banished from Sinope on the southern coast of the Black Sea, some said that he or his father were masters of coinage in the city and minted coins adulterated with base metals. Arriving in Athens, he soon gained a reputation as a man who rejected all convention. He believed that a person would become happy by satisfying his needs as simply as possible. ACCUSED OF FINERY. Several stories have been told about his rude remarks to the classy people he met. A richly dressed young man asked him some questions, and Diogenes said he would not answer until he knew whether the questioner was male or female. He told a man who boasted that he wore the skin of a lion so as not to dishonor the mantle of nature. When she saw a young man who dressed carefully to appear elegant and handsome, she told him that if she adorned herself to impress men, she would pity her, and if she adorned herself for women, it would be immoral. His rudeness earned him the nickname "dog" (kyon in Greek), which is where the word "cynic" comes from; for this reason followers of her were called "cynics". IT IS NOT A FORMAL SCHOOL. The Cynics were never organized into a formal school of philosophy, but like the "hippies" of America in the 1960s and 1970s, each Cynic chose his own philosophy. The common thread among the Cynics was a love of the simple life and a contempt for fine clothes and all possessions. Although the Cynic sect in the second and first centuries B.C. He revived in the first century AD, and Rome was full of cynical philosophers pleading, their tattered clothes proclaiming their vocation. Like Diogenes, they exercised their right to free speech and open criticism.
Donald R. Dudley, A History of Cynicism from Diogenes to the Sixth Century A.D. (London, England: Bristol Classical Press, 1998). Mark Edwards, „Cynics“, en Encyclopedia of Greece and the Hellenic Tradition. ed. Graham Speake (Chicago, Illinois: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2000): 426–427.
MODERN DOCUMENTARY SOURCES Author unknown, Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (c. 100 AD): The unknown author of this seaman's handbook was familiar with trade along the sea routes from the Red Sea ports to India, and the goods that reached the Eastern Roman Empire were Indian cotton, raw silk, silk threads and silk fabrics, as well as "mauve cloth" or jute, a raw fiber now used for jute bags. Herodotus, The Histories (ca. 425 BC) - The main subject of The Histories is the Persian War of 480-479 BC. when Persia tried to invade Greece, but Herodotus explains why Athenian women end up with the 6th death. Ovid, The Art of Love (c. 1 AD): Ovid's handbook of poetry on how to win the love of women contains a wealth of information about fashion in Rome during the reign of Emperor Augustus. Phaidimos, Peplos Kore (c.530 BC): Dedicated at the sanctuary of Athena on the Acropolis of Athens and discovered during excavations of the Acropolis in the late 19th century, this statue of a girl depicts a simple Doric peplos in the style of the Athenians. Women in the mid-sixth century BC. Pliny the Elder (Gaius Plinius Secundus), Natural History (c. 79 AD): This vast body of information was still being mined when Pliny was killed in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. It contains a lot of information about clothes. do and die in 1st century CE Italy Plutarch, Life of Alexander the Great (after 100 CE): Collection of Biographies of Plutarch Entitled Parallel
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Lives covers the life of Alexander the Great, who tells of his attraction to Asiatic dress: he did not actually adopt trousers, sleeved waistcoat or cap known as a "diadem", but adopted other fashions from Persia, to the chagrin of his Macedonian compatriots. Unknown sculptor Kore from the Acropolis of Athens wearing an Ionian chiton and a himation above (ca. 510 BC): This statue of a young woman was made in the late 6th century BC. dedicated on the Acropolis of Athens. and her dress exemplifies the change in fashion over the two decades since Peplos Kore opened. This girl wears a brightly colored linen tunic under a draped wool with a border showing the intricacy of the draperies to weave the patterned material. Tertullian (Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus), De Pallio (“In my robe”; 209 CE): Tertullian, a courageous defender of Christianity, writes here with a cheerful tone. He was reprimanded for trading his gypsy toga for a pallium, a Greek robe popular with philosophers, and here he explains why.
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Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War (c. 400 BC): Thucydides' subject was the war between the Athenian Empire and the Spartan alliance (431–404 BC), but he introduced it with a discussion of the economic and social progress of the Greece ahead in archaic times. Among the topics he tackles are "fashion"; The Athenians, he claims, were early adopters of luxurious "Ionian" linen clothing, while the Spartans wore the simpler styles that were becoming the fashion of choice in Greece in Thucydides' time. Livy, Ab urbe condita libri cxlii ("History of Rome from its foundation, 142 books"; 39 BC - AD 17): A passage from Livy's History (34.1) describes a demonstration by women in Rome to repeal a law twenty years earlier, after Hannibal's disastrous Roman defeat at Cannae, which curbed expensive and luxurious fashion. Women continued to demonstrate until the law was repealed. Vegetius (Flavius Vegetius Renatus), De Re Militari ("On the Military Arts"; c. AD 390): Vegetius's subject is the art and science of war, but a section of his The first book deals with the History of Arms and Armor.
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chapter four
Written by James Allan Evans
IMPORTANT EVENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 OVERVIEW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 TOPICS The era of the Homeric epic. . . . . . . . . . . . The Boeotian School of Epic. . . . . . . . . . The Age of Poetry. . . . . . . . . . . . . Poets for Hire. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Herodotus, the father of history. . . . . . . Thucydides. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . History after Thucydides. . . . . . . . . . . . . Greek comedy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Greek tragedy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The art of public speaking in Greece. . . . Greek Literature after Alexander the Great. roman theater. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Latin Poetry Before the Age of Augusta. . . . Latin prose writers before the time of Augustus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Golden Age of Latin Literature under Augustus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Latin Literature of the Silver Age. . . . . . . Imperial Greek Literature. . . . .
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Important People Aeschylus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Thucydides. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Virgil. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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175 175 176 177
DOCUMENTAL SOURCES. . . . . . . . . 178 MAIN PAGES AND DOCUMENTS Primary sources are listed in italics
A love poem by Sappho (Sappho writes about his desire for another woman). . . . . . . . . . Aristotle on Tragedy and Comedy (Aristotle discusses the six elements of tragedy). . . . Antigone's speech in defense of conscience. . . . The Great Library of Alexandria. . . . . . . . . . Lucretius and the Atomic Theory (Lucretius claims that nothing can be created from nothing). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Virgil's Proclamation of Rome's Mission (Virgil writes about Rome's mission to rule the world). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Horace on patriotism (Horace's poem praises commitment to empire). . . . . . . . . .
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462 BC Chr Aeschylus produces his work Supplicants. 458 BC Chr Aeschylus produces his trilogy, the Oresteia, consisting of Agamemnon, Choephoroe and Eumenides, all of whom survive; a satirical work, Proteus, is lost.
KEY EVENTS in the literature c. 725 BC Homer's Epic Poems Iliad and Odyssey –c. 675 BC are written. approx. 700 BC Chr. Hesiod writes the Theogony and the Works and Days. approx. 650 BC Archilochos of Paros gains a reputation for his iambic and elegiac poetry. approx. 620 BC The poet Alceo of Lesbos is born. approx. 612 BC The poet Sappho of Lesbos is born. 535 BC A theater competition is held in Athens for the first time. 534 BC Thespis of Icaria, the first tragedian to act as an actor and play a solo role alongside the chorus, wins a tragedy award at the Athens Theater Competition. 518 BC The poet Pindar is born. approx. 493 BC The Athenian tragedian Phrinic produces The Capture of Miletus on the fall of Miletus to the Persians in 494 BC. and is punished for reminding the Athenians too clearly of their friends' misfortune. 472 BC Aeschylus produces his work The Persians. 468 BC Sophocles wins his first tragic literary victory by defeating Aeschylus. 467 BC Aeschylus produces his Seven Against Thebes, the last work in a trilogy based on the legend of Oedipus. 118
456 BC Aeschylus dies in Gela, Sicily. 455 BC Chr Euripides appears for the first time in a tragic competition with a series of three tragedies and a satyr play and takes third, i.e. last place. approx. 442 BC Sophocles produces his tragedy Antigone. 438 BC Euripides produces his play Alcestis, which has a happy ending and is replaced by a satyr play in his tetralogy. 425 BC Aristophanes produces his play Acharnians, the earliest surviving example of the Old Comedy. 405 BC Chr Euripides dies just a few months after Sophocles. 322 BC The orator Demosthenes dies and takes poison to avoid capture by the Macedonians. 305 BC Chr Calimaco is born. He becomes the librarian of the great library of Alexandria and a typical poet of the Alexandrian school, writing for a small but educated readership. 293 BC Chr Menander, the Athenian playwright and greatest master of new comedy, dies before the age of fifty. approx. 270 BC Gnaeus Naevius is born, author of the Latin epic "The War Against Carthage" and inventor of the Roman historical work. 240 BC The first play, a Latin adaptation of a Greek tragedy by Livius Andronicus, is performed in Rome at the harvest festival (ludi Romani).
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239 BC Roman poet Quintus Ennius is born. He will write the Annals, eighteen books of epic poetry written in dactylic hexameter, drawn from Greek epic poetry.
Octavian, who would become Emperor Augustus. At the request of Maecenas, he wrote between 37 and 29 BC. his Georgics, a didactic poem in four books on agriculture.
205 BC Chr Plautus will direct his play The Glorious Miles in Rome.
30 BC Chr Horace publishes his Epodes in which he converts Archilochus' iambic into Latin.
166 BC Chr Terence produces his first work, Andria (wife of Andros).
23 BC Chr Horace publishes the first three books of his Carmina, i.e. his Songs.
106 AD Rome's greatest orator, Marcus Tullius Cicero, was born in the Italian town of Arpinum (present-day Arpino). In addition to his orations, Cicero wrote dialogues on philosophy, rhetoric, and religion, and a large corpus of his private letters also survives.
19 BC Chr Virgil dies, leaving his epic poem The Aeneid unfinished. However, the Aeneid became the national epic of the Roman Empire.
circa 84 BC The poet Catullus was born in Verona. 70 BC Cicero accuses the politician Verres of mismanagement in Sicily. After the trial, Cicero publishes his orations against Verres under the title Verrine Orations. 63 BC Chr Cicero is consul and gives his four Catiline speeches in which he uncovers Catiline's conspiracy. Virgil was born near Mantua, in what was then the Roman province of Cisalpine Gaul. 59 BC Roman historian Titus Livius (Titus Livius) is born. He will write a history of Rome since its founding. 44 B.C. Chr Cicero gives fourteen known speeches -43 BC. like his "Philippians" attacking Mark Antony, Julius Caesar's aide who tried to seize power after Caesar's assassination. His criticism of Mark Antony led to his execution in late 43 BC. EC
around 13 BC Horace publishes the fourth book of his Carmina. around 17 A.D. Columella (Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella) is born, author of a treatise on agriculture. AD 37 Flavius Josephus is born. He will write Antiquities of the Jews and the Jewish War, an account of the rebellion in Judea that began in 66 BC. erupted. c.56 A.D. Historian Cornelius Tacitus is born. He will write the annals, covering the history of the Julio-Claudian emperors from Tiberius to Nero, and the history that continues from the Year of the Four Emperors in 68 CE. C. 65 AD Pliny the Younger (Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus) is born, nephew of Pliny the Elder. He will write Pliny's Epistles and an eulogy (a formal prayer) in praise of Emperor Trajan. 65 AD The epic poet Lucanus becomes involved in a conspiracy against Emperor Nero and is forced to commit suicide.
43 BC Chr Ovid was born in Sulmo, now Sulmona, about 150 kilometers east of Rome.
around 66 CE Petronius Arbiter, author of the Latin romance Satyricon, commits suicide after being accused of a false charge of treason against Emperor Nero.
circa 42 BC Virgil joins the circle of Maecenas, the wealthy minister of public affairs to Julius Caesar's heir and adopted son.
79 CE Pliny the Elder, author of natural history, dies in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
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LITERATURE DATA AT A GLANCE. An overview of literature in the world of ancient Greece and Rome takes us from the eighth century B.C. to the sixth century CE, a period of nearly 1,400 years. Greek literature began with the development of the Greek alphabet in the 8th century BC. which became the basis of the Latin alphabet still used by Romance languages today. Greek literature then gave rise to Roman (Latin) literature when the Romans came under the influence of Greek culture; The conventional date for the beginning of Latin literature is 240 BC. when the former Greek slave Livio Andronikos translated the Odyssey of the Greek poet Homer into Latin. The unofficial end of Greco-Roman literature can be associated with the closing of the Neoplatonic Academy in Athens in 529 AD, marking the end of Athens as a center for the teaching of Greek philosophy and the traditions of the pagan world. While this is a fitting mark for the end of the Greco-Roman literary tradition, the literary and philosophical traditions of the pre-Christian Greco-Roman world did not come to such an abrupt end. Furthermore, the production of Christian literature in Greek and Latin was not affected by the closure of the Academy of Athens. THE AGE OF THE HERO. In the years before 1100 B.C. There was a Bronze Age civilization in Greece that scholars have called "Mycenaean" after its most important center, Mycenae, in the region of Argolis, south of the Isthmus of Corinth. The Mycenaeans are descended from Greek-speaking immigrants who arrived shortly after 2000 BC. came to Greece. C., but their civilization began around 1600 BC. bloom. C. thanks to contacts with Egypt, the Middle East and especially with the "Minoan" civilization of Crete. Five hundred years later, this Mycenaean civilization ended, dominated by unknown invaders who left a trail of devastation in the eastern Mediterranean. However, as this civilization retreated into the hazy past, it left behind the literary legacy of a heroic age. The Greeks told stories of mythical heroes like Heracles, the superman of Greek mythology; Jason and his 120th
Argonauts sailing in search of the Golden Fleece; and Oedipus, king of Thebes in central Greece, who was destined to kill his own father and marry his mother. Greek literature began with oral bards singing poems about the exploits of such heroes in the banquet halls of aristocrats or at religious festivals. The most famous of these myths was the story of the Trojan War, in which the Greeks besieged the city of Troy to retrieve the kidnapped wife of a Greek king. The epic story of famous warriors and fascinating gods told in Homer's Iliad and Odyssey may be based on real events; Trojan ruins have been found in the northwest corner of Asia Minor, near the entrance to the Hellespont. Trojan myth provided material for Greek poetry and drama throughout the great period of Greek literature. HOMER AND EPIC POETRY. The written literature of Greece begins with Homer. We have no concrete information about his identity. The legend that he was blind may be true, but it cannot be proven. The two epics attributed to him, the Iliad and the Odyssey, draw their theme from the myths of the Trojan War, but differ greatly in tone and mood. The Iliad describes how the hero Achilles made the quest for glory his main goal, while the Odyssey tells a story of survival as the Greek hero Odysseus undergoes a ten-year journey before returning home after the war. The Homeric poems were not unique in their subject. Other poets told stories of the heroes, and fragments of their epics survive. But of the great harvest of heroic poetry, only the Iliad and Odyssey survive in full. At the same time there was another epic school that served a less aristocratic public, and its great exponent was Hesiod. OTHER POETICAL FORMS. The epic soon had to share the spotlight with other poetic genres such as elegiac, iambic, and personal and choral poetry. Elegiac poetry was perhaps first used for war poetry, as its first teachers wrote about the glories and horrors of war, but thanks to one of the first teachers of elegy, Mimnermus of Colophon, it became the preferred vehicle for expressing love and pleasure. the first hedonist in Western literature. The foremost teacher of iambic poetry was Archilochus of Paros, a gleeful cynic who attacked the ideals of chivalry and heroism in battle. Poetry dealt with personal feelings: political animosity, the enjoyment of wine and love. Alcaeus of Lesbos was a master of personal poetry, that is, songs intended to be sung in private gatherings of like-minded people; The greatest of lyric artists, Sappho, also from Lesbos, wrote about love and marriage with an intensity that no later poet could match.
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THE CHORUS. From the 6th to the 5th century BC. BC two masters of a different kind of poetry became popular: Simonides of Ceos and Pindar. The first pioneered the Epinikion, an ode to victory sung by a choir in honor of the winner of one of the great sporting competitions. Simonides was also famous for the epigrams he wrote for the monuments of Greek warriors who died in the Persian Wars (490-479 BC), and a long papyrus fragment of his poem about the Battle of Plataea (479 BC) has recently been discovered. ). . . Pindar wrote a large number of poems, but what survives are his victory songs for the winners of major sporting games. His style was elevated, with many references to Greek myths familiar to his listeners. Bachylides, the third notable author of choral texts, struck a different note. His style was direct and simple. It marks the end of the great era of choral poetry. THEATER. The fifth century BC It was the great age of drama, and the main patron was Athena. There were two dramatic festivals honoring Dionysus, the god of drama: the City of Dionysia in March and the Lenaean Festival in January. Comedy took center stage on the second day of the festival, followed by three full days of tragedy: one day for each tragic poet who was given a chorus by the Archon, the chief magistrate of Athens. Three tragedies were performed each day, followed by a burlesque play called Satyr Play, and at the end the audience judged which tragedian had won. Production costs were borne by wealthy citizens, who were expected to shoulder them as a civic duty. The vast majority of these comedies and tragedies have been lost, but there are still a representative number of dramatists that the Greeks themselves believed to be the best: Aristophanes for comedy and Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides for tragedy. After the 5th century BC. tragedies continued to be written. But the heyday of the genre ended, and with the conquest of Greece by Philip, father of Alexander the Great, the classical era of literature came to an end. A century after Aristophanes, a new playwright, Menander, produced comedies in Athens that changed the face of the stage. Menander's comedies drew their plot from domestic life. The political satires and coarse jokes of Aristophanic comedy are gone; The "New Comedy" of Menander and his rivals was part of a new political climate in which writers needed to be more careful with what they wrote. THE WRITERS OF HISTORY. Herodotus, whose histories were written around 425 B.C. were published was the first Western historian to record not only what
the events happened; he asked why they happened. His search for why Persia invaded Greece led him to examine the underpinnings of Persian imperialism. Thucydides, a young contemporary of Herodotus, chose to write about a more recent story: the great war between Athens and Sparta (431-404 BC), and left his work unfinished. His History was an accurate year-by-year analysis of the war and is an excellent study of wartime psychosis. Time was cruel to the successors of Herodotus and Thucydides, such as Theopompus and Ephorus, who died in the 4th century BC. and the historians who wrote about Alexander the Great, whom we know only second-hand. In the second century B.C. CE Greece produced another great historian, Polybius, whose subject was the rise of Rome. THE HELLENISTIC AGE. In Hellenistic times, after the death of Alexander the Great, Alexander's generals founded kingdoms that consciously cultivated Greek culture. In Egypt, the Ptolemaic kings built a great library in their capital, Alexandria, and turned it into a center of literary culture. The writers and researchers who worked there wrote for a restricted audience, as Greeks were a minority in Egypt and Egyptians preferred their own native culture. The most important Alexandrian poet was Callimachus, who was much admired, although his surviving poetry seems dry to modern readers. Two other Alexandrians wrote more interesting material; Apollonius of Rhodes and Theocritus. Apollonius wrote an epic poem about Jason's quest for the Golden Fleece that reads more like a novel than a heroic epic. Although Theocritus wrote many types of poetry, his fame rests on his bucolic idylls: pastoral poetry filled with nostalgia for the land and the life there. The power of Greek culture even influenced mighty Rome, founded in the 3rd century BC. conquered the prosperous Greek cities of southern Italy and Sicily. Unlike most trends in warfare, where the conquered culture is subsumed into the culture of the conqueror, Greek culture became dominant after Greece's defeat by Rome. The Latin poet Horace commented on this phenomenon by saying, "When Greece was conquered, she captured her rude conqueror." Latin literature begins with a Greek, Livius Andronicus. He came to Rome as a slave, was freed and became a teacher, then an actor and stage manager. His translation of the Odyssey from Greek into Roman Latin marks the beginning of Latin literature. The Roman ruling class fully embraced Greek literature, and soon there was a cultivated circle that learned Greek and dabbled in Greek culture. He
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The Romans so valued the Greek culture and language that early Roman historians wrote in Greek rather than Latin. The Beginnings of Latin Literature. The Romans did not stray for long from their mother tongue, the rapidly developing Latin literature. A younger contemporary of Livius Andronicus, Plautus translated and modified plays from the Greek "New Comedy" for Roman tastes. Ennius wrote an epic on the history of Rome, adapting Homeric meter into Latin. The tenacious Roman statesman Cato the Elder wrote in the second century BC. the first history of Rome in Latin. C.E., and in the following century there was a flourishing of Latin literature: Julius Caesar described his conquests in straightforward prose, Cicero was famous as much for his oratory as for his philosophical works, which introduced Greek ideas into a Latin context, and the poetry of Catullus marked a new wave when poets broke with the conventions of the past. The golden age of Latin literature came with the next generation under Emperor Augustus, whose minister of culture, Maecenas, gathered a circle of poets around him. In addition to promoting culture, he had an ulterior motive: Augustus wanted literature to serve the interests of his new regime. He wanted his achievements to be celebrated in poetry, and the poet Virgil rose to the challenge. He did not write an epic about Augustus, but chose as his subject the Trojan hero Aeneas, whom Augustus described as his last ancestor. Although another Trojan hero, Hector, overshadows Aeneas in Homer's Iliad, it was Aeneas who survived the fall of Troy; Long before Virgil wrote his Aeneid, the Romans claimed him as the warrior who would reach Latium and establish the royal line that included Rome's founder, Romulus. Weaving Greek and Latin mythology into the fabric of his great epic, Virgil added a new episode: a romance between Aeneas and Dido, Queen of Carthage, ending with Aeneas leaving Dido at the behest of Jupiter, who had chosen him to do so. the founding of the Roman Empire. Latin literature experienced a boom in the 1st century BC. a second great period in which writers such as the historian Tacitus, the biographer Suetonius, the satirist Juvenal and the novelist Petronius wrote important works. Literary output continued, but the spark of genius did not reappear until late in the empire, when the soldier and historian Ammianus Marcellinus and a number of other authors, both in Latin and Greek, continued to write in the classical tradition. At the same time, Christian literature in both languages flourished: hymns, ecclesiastical histories and chronicles that take us to the threshold of the Middle Ages. 122
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THE RISE OF THE CITY-STATE. The word "city-state" is a translation of the Greek word polis, from which we derive the word "politics". It was the political entity that had emerged from the ruins of the Mycenaean world and had a social and economic structure closer to Babylonian and ancient Egyptian than to the later world of classical Greece. The palaces that housed the Mycenaean Wanaktes, a word meaning "god-kings," were also bureaucratic centers where officials kept records and sent messages to lesser officials. Among them were the chiefs of various peoples, with the title of pa-si-reu, a word derived from the classical Greek basileus, a king with a legitimate claim to the throne based on inheritance and the favor of the gods. As the Mycenaean civilization grew in the century of revolts and migrations after 1200 B.C. But the basileis with their small domains resisted, and after 1000 BC. BC life in Greece became safer again. C. these small baronies emerged as autonomous political entities. In the halls of these petty kings, bards invented stories about the heroes that eventually became the Iliad and Odyssey. THE WORLD OF HOMERS. Homer's reputation as Greece's greatest epic poet rests on two famous works attributed to him: the Iliad and the Odyssey, which focus on a legendary war between Greece and Troy known as the "Trojan War" and its aftermath. . . Although these works have been studied for centuries until modern times, the details of Homer's life are incomplete at best. Greek sculptors made portraits of him, easily recognizable by his blind eyes and beetle-like forehead, but these are more fanciful creations than a true representation of his appearance. Several cities claimed to be his homeland. The two with the best claims were Chios, one of the Dodecanese islands off the Turkish coast, and Izmir, a large Greek settlement on the west coast of Asia Minor. Both were Ionian cities founded during Greece's "Dark Ages" by refugees displaced by a wave of immigrants in the Peloponnese after the collapse of the Mycenaean world. Homer's Greek dialect is mainly Ionian, although his Greek was not Street Greek; was "Epic Greek", the language
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used by epic poets. We don't know exactly when he lived. It is clear from the Iliad and Odyssey that the Trojan War took place long before they were written, at a time when humans were more powerful than in the world today. However, once the Iliad and Odyssey were written, it follows that Homer could write or dictate to anyone he could. We must therefore date it after the Greeks borrowed the North Semitic alphabet from the Phoenicians and adapted it for their own use, adding vowels that were missing from the Phoenician alphabet. When the adaptation took place is very controversial, but the general consensus dates it not much later than 800 BC. Thus, a Homer who could write would have existed as early as the first half of the eighth century B.C.E. B.C., but hardly before. The last date, the so-called terminus ante quem, is indicated by a fragment of a vase found on the island of Ischia, off the coast of Naples. A verse inscription on the vase fragment refers to a cup of the hero Nestor described in the Iliad, and the vase dates to before 700 BC. Therefore, the epic must have been written before this vase was made. This date allows scholars to date between 725 and 675 BC. CE to aim. Like the time the Iliad and Odyssey were written. REPRESENTATION OF THE EPIC POET. Homer's poems were composed at a time when oral bards sang poems to lyre accompaniment, the epic composed as music in half notes and quarter notes; A long syllable is a half note and a short syllable is a quarter note. The accented accents found in medieval and modern poetry were not present in this poetry, which was written to sing, but there were tonal accents; Almost every word had an accented tone where the voice was raised or lowered. Music from the lyre, a stringed instrument that the bard played while singing, provided a melodic background. As she sang, dancers could perform to the music, but both music and dance were subordinated to the spoken word. Homer's poems must have started out as songs sung by bards, but eventually became writing. School children learned them and memorized parts of them. They were recited at religious festivals. They had a similar impact on the language of Greece as the 1611 English translation of the King James Bible had on the English language. The Homeric poems not only mark the beginning of Greek literature; Its influence can be felt in all aspects of Greek culture. THE TROY WAR. The legend of the Trojan War probably has a historical basis, as there is archaeological evidence that around 1250 BC a fortified city
It met a violent end at what Greek tradition identified as Troy. So, once upon a time there was a war that ended with the conquest of Troy, but the story told in Homer's account of the Trojan War is imaginative and involves the gods. Indeed, the conflict with the gods begins when a beauty pageant between the goddesses Athena, Hera and Aphrodite takes an ugly turn. After choosing a mortal Trojan prince named Paris to judge who is the fairest, each goddess tries to bribe the young man into choosing them, with Paris choosing Aphrodite on her promise to give him the most beautiful woman in the world. Unfortunately, the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen, is already the wife of a Spartan (Greek) king named Menelaus, so the kidnapping of Paris by Troy prompts the Greeks to assemble a fleet to pursue her, led by the Great King of Greece, Agamemnon. The bloody conflict in Troy lasts for ten years and finally ends when the Greeks trick the Trojans into opening the city gates to a large wooden horse that hides the Greek warriors inside. These warriors then open the gates for the rest of the Greek army, allowing the sack of Troy. Trojan warriors were killed and women sold into slavery, although there were myths that some Trojans escaped; Some aristocratic Roman families claimed descent from Trojan heroes. THE NOSTOI. The return of Greek victors after the war spawned a series of other myths known as nostoi, the Greek word for "homecoming". The most famous Nostos was the story of Odysseus trying for ten years to reach his island of Ithaca, theme of Homer's Odyssey. The Trojan War left a deep mark on the Greek imagination, perhaps because the date is 1250 BC. is more or less correct: it was the last great adventure of the Greek Bronze Age before the fall of the Mycenaean civilization. Myths about her were elaborated and re-elaborated by Greek poets and playwrights. Not just the Trojan War itself, but Nostoi provided the raw material for the earliest Greek literature in Greece, and from Greece accounts of the Trojan War reached Rome, where the Iulii family, ending with Julius Caesar, claimed descent. of them the Trojan hero Aeneas. Thus, the Trojan War would contribute to the self-definition of both Greeks and Romans. THE ILIAD. One of the reasons the Iliad has stood the test of time is that it is so much more than a story about war. In epic format, Homer offers stark psychological portraits of the heroes on both sides of the conflict. At the center of the story is the character of Achilles
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Leader of the Myrmidons and the greatest warrior on the Greek side. He is virtually invincible on the battlefield because his immersion in the River Styx as a baby prevents him from injuring any part of his body except his heel, the only part the water has not touched. He is the quintessential doomed hero, knowing that death awaits him if he continues to fight in Troy, but is consumed by his desire for glory in battle. His status as Greece's greatest warrior puts him at odds with the army's leader, Agamemnon, and when the two clash over the distribution of the spoils of war, Achilles allows the insult to his ego to deny his duty in battle, and he refusal. to fight the Trojans. His decision has serious consequences both for him personally and for the cause of the Greek military. Without Achilles in the battle, the tide of war turns in the Trojans' favor, and several key leaders on the Greek side are wounded, including Agamemnon, Menelaus, and Odysseus. Achilles, although he does not return to battle, lends his armor to his friend Patroclus and allows him to lead the Myrmidons into battle, where Patroclus is killed by the Trojan hero Hector. Upon learning of Patroclus' death, Achilles returns to the battle and avenges Patroclus' death by killing Hector. Then he buries his friend with magnificent, almost barbaric, funeral rites. Although Achilles is portrayed as a warrior relentless in battle, Homer humanizes him with a show of compassion when Hector's father, the aged King Priam, visits Achilles in the dead of night to save his son's corpse. Achilles feels sorry for Priam and his own father, Peleus, for his mother has warned him that if he returns to battle, his own death will soon follow Hector's. He accepts the ransom and sends Priam safely back to Troy and the Iliad ends with Hector's funeral. Throughout the story, Homer leaves no doubt that Greek heroes are better warriors than Trojans, and yet he has a surprising sympathy for Troy. The most sympathetic character in the story is the Trojan hero Hector. He is a great warrior, but he doesn't love war. He fights to defend Troy, but he knows that Troy is doomed and that his wife and child face a dangerous future. Hector's last farewell to them is the most moving passage in the Iliad. He is hopelessly defeated when he meets Achilles in their final duel; However, his honor as a warrior prevents him from retreating behind the city walls. This determination to fight in the face of certain death is part of an overarching theme of battle glory that runs throughout the epic. Characters are judged on their fighting prowess and bravery, with those who fight despite knowing the harsh fate that awaits them (like Hector and Achilles) getting the most credit. 124
THE ODYSSEY. The Odyssey is the story of one of the Greek heroes in Troy, Odysseus, trying to return home after the war. A series of misfortunes turns the journey into a ten-year ordeal, and a combination of luck and cunning saves him from several perilous situations. A wandering story that spans many years is not easy to tell, as it can fall into a long chronological account. To get around this, Homer uses a "flashback" technique, in which Odysseus tells most of his own story as a series of episodes, with each episode recounting a new danger he encountered on his journey. At the start of the story, Odysseus nears the end of his journey as he tells his story to an audience of Phaeacians who have granted him temporary refuge in their land on his way home. Their stories of encounters with fantastic creatures and their experiences in foreign lands amaze them. Between his adventures, he tricked the giant one-eyed Polyphemus (the Cyclops); he sailed between the two monsters Scylla and Charybdis; subjugated the witch goddess Circe; and was the captive lover of the nymph Calypso for seven years. Although he had sailed from Troy with a fleet of twelve ships, he arrived alone in Ithaca, his birthplace. Each new adventure resulted in the loss of crew. In the land of the lotus eaters, some ate the fruit of the lotus plant, making them forget their homeland, and Odysseus had to force them back into their ships. Others were eaten by the giant Cyclops while he was held captive in his cave. The cannibal Lestrygonians destroyed all of their ships except Ulysses' own ship. The witch Circe turned Odysseus' men into pigs, and Odysseus saved them only with the help of the god Hermes. Finally, Odysseus was again caught in a storm. Zeus struck his ship with a bolt of lightning and threw his men overboard, and only Odysseus survived, clinging to the wreckage and wandering the sea for nine days until he reached the island of Calypso. Moved by his story, the Phaeacians take him back to their kingdom of Ithaca, where Odysseus discovers that ambitious suitors have invaded his mansion by the hand of his wife Penelope. Though Odysseus' long absence has led many to believe he is dead, Penelope has managed to keep her suitors at bay through clever ruse. He promises to choose a husband after weaving a shroud for Odysseus' father Laertes, but each night he undoes the previous day's work. The suitors eventually discover the deception and increase the pressure on her to choose one of them. At this point, Odysseus returns home disguised as a beggar. No longer able to use the shroud as an excuse to postpone the wedding, Penelope presents the suitors with a new test: she announces that she will choose to be her husband the one who wins an archery competition with Odysseus' bow. Her choice will fall
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in him who can bend the great bow and shoot an arrow through twelve axes. None of the suitors can pull a bow, much less shoot an arrow with it, but Odysseus pulls off the feat with ease and kills all the suitors. However, Penelope is still not entirely convinced that Odysseus is her long-lost husband and puts him to one final test: she orders a servant to remove her double bed from the bedroom so that Odysseus can sleep in it. Only Ulisses and Penelope know that the mission is impossible to complete, as the bed is anchored to a tree stump; When Odysseus reveals that he knows the secret of the bed, Penelope knows he is her husband. Odysseus regained his kingdom. Cunning over strength. Whereas much of the Iliad focuses on the prowess of warriors, the Odyssey elevates cunning to brute force. Odysseus is repeatedly depicted as a cunning man who often escapes the perilous passages of his journey by using his wits to overcome his opponents' superior strength. On more than one occasion, she disguises or masks her identity to assert herself, as she did when confronting suitors. The Cyclops encounter is a particularly good example of Odysseus using his wits to overcome a seemingly impossible situation; Ulysses and his men are trapped in the cave of the Cyclops Polyphemus, a giant one-eyed cannibal shepherd who was the son of the sea god Poseidon. They face certain death, as only Polyphemus can push back the rock blocking the cave entrance, which he does only to let his sheep out of the cave each morning and bring them back to safety each evening. Physically, Odysseus is powerless, but he uses his cunning to get the giant drunk. When Polyphemus asks Odysseus his name, Odysseus replies that his name is "Nobody". After the giant falls into a drunken slumber, the men gouge out his eye with a sharpened stick; He yells at the other Cyclopes for help, but they assume a god must have caused his misfortune when he tells them that "Nobody" ("No man") plucked out his eye. With Polyphemus outnumbered by his blindness, Odysseus and his men escape the cave by tying themselves to the bellies of Polyphemus' sheep when he lets them out in the morning. The blind Cyclops runs a hand over the sheep's backs to make sure no one leads them to freedom, but he doesn't notice the men below. As Odysseus departs in his ship, he cannot resist shouting his true name at the Cyclops, allowing the giant to pray to his father Poseidon for revenge against Odysseus. Poseidon sends a storm to blow the ships off course and
Odysseus is under a curse: he will not return home, or if he does, he will arrive very late and alone and have problems at home. TEMPTATION AND RESISTANCE. Odysseus' inability to resist revealing his identity to the Cyclops is an example of another dominant theme in the play: the danger of temptation. Odysseus' pride in having tricked the Cyclops leads him to tell the Cyclops his name, despite warnings from his men. Indeed, when Odysseus found the Cyclops' cave, his men urged him to steal some cheese and lamb and return to their ships, but Odysseus is seduced by his thirst for knowledge: he wants to know who owns this cave and waits. for the Cyclopes to return home. In the land of the lotus eaters, the temptation is great to give up and forget his goal of returning home, and no matter what he has to endure, Odysseus remains determined to return: he forces his men back to their ships. As Odysseus navigates the reefs where the half-woman, half-bird sirens sang their seductive songs, luring the sailors to their death on the rocks, he saves his men from temptation by ordering them to cover their ears, while he himself is seduced by his thirst for knowledge. , lets himself be tied to the mast, which allows him to hear the sirens' melody and survive. After the incident with the Cyclops, Odysseus receives a magical bag from Aeolus, lord of the winds, enclosing all winds except the one that will bring his ships safely home, and forbidding his men to open it. Ithaca is already in sight when the crew, suspecting that Odysseus is hiding treasure in the bag from them, disobeys orders and is tempted to open the bag while Odysseus is asleep. The winds subside and a storm carries Odysseus back to the land of Aeolus, who angrily refuses to give him another bag. On the island of the sun god Hyperion, the men are solemnly warned by Odysseus not to touch Hyperion's cattle, but hunger drives them on and they are tempted to kill some of them when Odysseus is gone. Hyperion, the god of the sun, is so angry that he threatens to stop shining in the sky unless Zeus avenges him, and Zeus agrees to destroy Odysseus' ship with a thunderbolt. Only Odysseus perseveres and never gives up on his goal to return home. THE EPIC CYCLE. There were also other epics that completed the story of the Trojan War. One, titled Cypria, described how Paris kidnapped Menelaus' wife Helen and took her to Troy. It seems to have been composed almost as far back as the Iliad and was mistakenly attributed to Homer by some Greeks. Another, entitled Aethiopis, related how an Ethiopian king named Memnon came to the aid of Troy and was killed by Achilles.
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who in turn died of an arrow wound to his vulnerable heel. The Little Iliad and The Sack of Troy tell how Troy fell, and there is a group of poems called Nostoi (The Return) that tell of the experiences of heroes other than Odysseus on his journey home from Troy. These poems survived into the 2nd century AD, still being quoted by later authors, but seem to have been lost in the upheavals of the 3rd century AD. There were also epics dealing with subjects other than Troy. One told the story of Oedipus of Thebes, who killed his father and married his mother, and there were several poems about Heracles. There were many other epics besides the Iliad and the Odyssey, but these two poems were by far the most popular and were most often recited on religious holidays. Another poem, that of the Daisies, is also worth mentioning, for even as perceptive a critic as Aristotle thought that Homer had written it. It was an epic act, a burlesque recounting the woes of a fool named Margites. One surviving fragment tells of their wedding night misadventures, and if Homer wrote it, he must have used it to make his audience laugh after they had had enough of the Trojan legends. A small mock epic, The Battle of the Frogs and Mice, survives, describing, in heroic style, a fight between a corps of frogs and a regiment of mice. The banquet halls of aristocrats in Greece's first city-states clearly reveled in their comic moments. SOURCES
Charles R. Beye, Ancient Epic Poetry (Ithaca, NY; Londres, Inglaterra: Cornell University Press, 1993). Mark Edwards, Homero; Poetas da Ilíada (Baltimore; Londres, Inglaterra: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989). Moses Finley, O Mundo de Odisseu. 2ª Edição Rev. (Harmondsworth, Inglaterra: Penguin Books, 1979). Jasper Griffin, Homer (Bristol, Inglaterra: Bristol Classical Press, 2001). GS Kirk, The Songs of Homer (Cambridge, Inglaterra: Cambridge University Press, 1962). Joachim Latacz, Homer; His Art and His World (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996). JV Luce, Homer and the Heroic Age (Londres, Inglaterra: Thames and Hudson, 1975). MS Silk, Homer: The Iliad (Cambridge, Inglaterra: Cambridge University Press, 1987). George Steiner e Robert Fagles, eds., Homer: A Collection of Critical Essays (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1962). Michael Wood, Em Busca da Guerra de Tróia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998). 126
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HESIOD. It is common to speak of Homer and Hesiod at the same time, but in fact the two poets lived in different worlds and produced markedly different poetry. Both belonged to the 8th century BC. BC, but Hesiod reflected a different lifestyle. He grew up in the poor town of Ascra in Boeotia, a district in central Greece that borders Athenian territory. The Athenians thought the Boeotians were very stupid, and Boeotia was a cultural outback compared to Athens. Despite this reputation, Boeotian poets composed poems on more realistic subjects at about the same time as Ionian bards sang heroic ballads about the Trojan War. There must have been a great number of poets, but of their works only three poems attributed to Hesiod survive: the Theogony, the Works and the Days, and a rather bad piece called The Shield of Heracles, which few believe is actually a composition. of Hesiod. . THEOGONY. The Theogony, or The Generations of the Gods, is the first attempt by a Greek to write a systematic theology. Hesiod begins by invoking the nine muses who taught him the art of poetry while tending his flock on Mount Helicon. The Muses, the daughters of Zeus who could speak the truth if they wanted to, inspired him to sing of "things to come and things that have gone before". "Hail, daughters of Zeus! Give me a sweet song to celebrate the sacred race of gods who live forever, children of starry heaven and earth and dark night and salt sea. Dorothea Wender, trans., Hesiod and Theognis (Penguin Classics): 26.
Hesiod started with Chaos, the formless matter that was the most primitive state of the universe, from which emerged Earth and Tartarus, Night and Erebus, who was a mythical being in Theogony. Earth gave birth to Uranus (Heaven), and from the sexual union of Earth and Heaven arose the race of Titans. The titan Kronos, with Mother Earth's tacit consent, castrated the sky and propelled it skyward. But Kronos feared that his children would overthrow him as he had overthrown their father, and he swallowed the children his wife Rhea bore. However, Rhea tricked him by giving him a wrapped stone to swallow instead of her last child. When this child that was Zeus reached adulthood, he overthrew Kronos and forced him to vomit up the children he had swallowed. Then the generation of Zeus took over.
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THE EASTERN CONNECTION. It is difficult to say whether Hesiod repeated traditional wisdom about the gods in his theogony or whether it sprang from his own fertile brain. Certainly the Middle East had creation stories before Hesiod wrote; one that Hesiod may have known second- or third-hand was the Babylonian creation epic Enuma elis, of which over 900 verses survive. The story of how Kronos castrated Uranus has a parallel in the myths of the Hittites, whose empire ruled Asia Minor until the raids and invasions that started the Mycenaean civilization after 1200 BC. it ended. it also destroyed him; The Hittites, in turn, borrowed it from a people called Hurrians, pre-Semitic inhabitants of Syria. The Hittite saga relates that Kumarbi, the equivalent of Kronos, bit off the genitals of the sky god Anu. Motifs in folk tales can travel from one culture to another with surprising ease, but they change as they travel, and by the time the Near Eastern creation myths reached Boeotia they had taken on a different form. However, the cultural influence of the Middle East was felt even in Hesiod's small and isolated community. In Works and Days, he recounts the Middle Eastern myth of the ages of men, but with a change to match Greek folk wisdom: the Eastern version has four ages corresponding to the four metals of gold, silver, bronze and iron. but Hesiod adds a fifth age before the Iron Age - the Heroic Age - thus creating a place in human history for the heroes who, as all Greeks knew, lived before the present age. It seems unlikely that Hesiod was the first Greek to use Middle Eastern myths, as Greek contacts with Syria date back to Mycenaean times. Much of the theology of Theogony, however, was Hesiod's own creation. THE WORKS AND THE DAYS. In Hesiod's second poem, we hear the real voice of a peasant. Hesiod's father, fleeing poverty, left Aeolian Cyme and came to the city of Askra near Mount Helicon, which Hesiod described as "hard in winter, uncomfortable in summer, not very good in all seasons". Hesiod's brother Perses tricked Hesiod into sharing their father's inheritance and then squandered some of it. He then dishonestly tried to get more of his brother's share by bribing the corrupt aristocrats who administered justice in the city-states. Works and Days is Hesiod's advice to Perses. It tells you how to farm, when to marry, what kind of slaves to have, what days to be lucky, etc. The sixth day of the month, for example, was not a happy time for the birth of girls, but it was a good day for the castration of goats and lambs, and for the birth of young men, although young men born on that day are given lies and flattery. . . Other warnings always included washing hands before serving libations.
to the gods, and another to wash one's hands in a stream before crossing it. This "wisdom literature" is typical of ancient Egypt, but Hesiod's advice is rooted in Boeotian soil. He had a great sense of justice and a message for corrupt judges: gentlemen, pay attention to this punishment. The immortal gods are never far away; They point to corrupt judges who crush their fellow men and fear no gods, three times ten thousand guardians of men, immortals, roam the fertile lands of Zeus, shrouded in mist, visit all lands and watch over trials and crimes, one of them is the maiden , born of Zeus, the justice worshiped by all the gods of Olympus. Dorothea Wender, trans., Hesiod and Theognis (Penguin Classics): 66–67.
Hesiod's suggestion that Zeus is the enforcer of fair play differs from Homer's amoral version of the god. CORINA. Boeotia continued to produce poets after Hesiod, although none wrote in the epic tradition. Nearly two centuries after Hesiod, one of the greatest Greek poets, Pindar, was born there near the Boeotian capital of Thebes. An older contemporary of Pindar, a poet named Corinna, wrote lyrical narrative poems on Boeotian themes for a circle of friends. A papyrus fragment from Egypt preserves essential remains of two of his poems. In one, he describes a singing contest between Mount Helikon, more specifically the god Helikon, and Mount Zithaeron. Helicon was Hesiod's mountain where the Muses appeared to him and taught him to sing, and Mount Cithaeron was closer to the polis of Tanagra than Corinna. The gods judge whether Hesiod's Hesiod or Corina's Citheron sang the poem better. The muses commanded the great gods to secretly deposit their vow stones in the gleaming golden urns. The gods rose together. Cithaeron won more than votes. Immediately Hermes announced to him with a great cry how he had obtained the desired success, and the blessed gods crowned him with garlands to make his heart happy. Richmond Lattimore, Greek Letters (University of Chicago Press): 52.
Mt. Helicon was a sore loser. The poem may have been Corinna's declaration of independence from the Hesiodic school of epic poetry.
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FUENTES
J. P. Barron e P. E. Easterling, „Hesíodo“, em The Cambridge History of Classical Literature. Hrsg. P. E. Easterling und B. M. W. Knox (Cambridge, Inglaterra: Cambridge University Press, 1981): 92–105. Robert Lamberton, Hesiod (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1988). Dorothea Wender, Hesiod und Theognis (Harmondsworth, Inglaterra: Penguin Books, 1973).
TO ALTER
VON
LETTER
THE GREEK WORLD IN TRANSITION. In the years after 700 B.C. The Greek world experienced social and economic changes. The polis, or city-states, have already fully emerged from the so-called "dark ages" that followed the collapse of Mycenaean civilization. They started sending out colonies; Around 770 BC C., the main island cities of Euboea, Eretria and Chalkis, established a trading post on the island of Ischia, off the coast of Naples. Some twenty years later, Chalcis - its partnership with Eretria dissolved in hostility - founded a colony on mainland Italy at Cumae. It was the first of a series of colonies, and over the next two and a half centuries Greek settlements, each a nascent city-state, sprang up in Italy, Sicily, southern France, northeastern Spain, and the coasts of the sea. Aegean and Black Sea. . The east coast of the Mediterranean and Egypt were not open to colonization, but even there the Greeks established a trading post at al-Mina in modern Lebanon; in Egypt, the Pharaohs of the 26th Dynasty allowed them to establish a post at Naucratis, at the mouth of the Nile. Egyptian culture was a revelation to the Greeks; in the middle of the 7th century BC. C. Greek sculptors carved nude male figures in poses borrowed from Egyptian sculpture. In Corinthian pottery workshops, potters made vases with oriental motifs borrowed from Asian goldsmiths, and their fine Proto-Corinthian pottery found export markets throughout the eastern Mediterranean, as well as in Italy and Sicily. The polis began to build independent temples; the oldest ones have a semicircular apse or wall at the end, but in the second half of the 7th century BC. CE was born the canonical plan of the Greek temple. This was an era of revolution in which the rule of "lords", whose injustice Hesiod had attacked, was swept away and replaced by dictatorships, which the Greeks called "tyrannies". In this context, the era of poetry emerged. DEFINITION OF LYRIC POETRY. Poetry is poetry sung on the lyre, but that in itself was nothing new.
development, since epic poetry also had a lyre accompaniment. The great poets, starting with Archilochus, belong to the exuberant seventh and sixth centuries, when Greece passed from the "Dark Ages" into the great classical period of Greek culture. Lyric poetry is commonly divided into three types of poetry: melish, elegiac, and iambic. Its borders are blurred. "Melic" means "to music" and can include anything from party songs to choral cantatas. Elegies were also sung, but they are defined by their meter, the elegiac couplet. Although it uses an iambic meter, poetry classified as iambic relates more to its subject matter, which is ridiculous, abusive, or sometimes risque. Not all lyrics were sung to the sound of the lyre. Mimnermo de Colophon was accompanied by a girl playing the aulos, a distant ancestor of the oboe. The choral cantatas could be accompanied by aulos and lyres, of which there were several models. THE POETS OF WAR. It is believed that elegiac poetry most commonly expresses emotions such as love or pain, but there was a group of poets who used the elegiac couplet for patriotic themes. The 7th century BC CE was not a time of peace in the Greek world. In the so-called "Dark Ages" that followed the collapse of the Mycenaean civilization, the Greeks migrated to the west coast of Asia Minor and nearby islands and established settlements that prospered but were always threatened by non-Greeks. in the interior of Asia Minor. An elegiac poet who used his talent to spur the Greeks to self-defense was Callinus of Ephesus. Ephesus was one of the twelve cities of Ionia, founded by Greeks who spoke the Ionian dialect who fled from the ruins of the Mycenaean world first to Athens and then from Athens across the Aegean to Asia Minor. Ephesus was at the forefront of Greek cultural development from the early to mid-7th century. However, it was a time of war. Anatolia, the highlands of Central Asia, was under attack by nomadic immigrants, and Callinus' only surviving elegy is an appeal to courage in battle. How long will you be inactive? When are you going to lighten up, young people? Aren't you ashamed, so carefree, our neighbors? TYRTAEUS, THE POET OF THE SPANISH WAR. A generation later, in Sparta across the Aegean, Tirtaeus used elegiac poetry for a similar purpose. The Spartan state had been founded by Dorian immigrants, the last immigrants to arrive in Greece after the collapse of the Mycenaean world. They spoke their own dialect of Greek, although Doric is not much closer to Ionian Greek than Spanish is to Italian. Spartan immigrants conquered and reduced the natives of the Eurotas river valley
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the helots, servants who worked the land and gave half of the harvest to their lords. Sparta prospered and its growing population of Spartans, Sparta's landowning class, needed more property. In order to obtain more land, Sparta conquered its western neighbor Messenia in the early 7th century and made the Messenians its helots. But at the end of the 7th century the Messenians revolted. Tyrtaeus' poems awakened Sparta's determination to defeat them. He recalled how Sparta conquered Messenia in the first place and reminded his listeners of the glory of battle. …our ruler Theopompus, whom the gods loved, for whom we conquered the vast dancing fields of Messene, Messene to plow well and plant well to bear fruit. To win it, they fought for nineteen years. …Because it's okay to die at the front, a brave man fighting for his homeland, and the most painful fate is to leave your city and fertile lands for the life of a beggar. ML West, trans., Greek Lyric Poetry (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1993): 23.
MINNERMO IN DEFENSE OF SMYRNA. The elegiac poet Mimnermus of Smyrna also wrote war poetry. Smyrna was one of the first Greek settlements in Asia Minor, but it was attacked by the neighboring Lydian Empire and destroyed around 600 BC. She lost the battle and was destroyed. Mimnermus's patriotic efforts were in vain. ARCHILOCH. The Greeks themselves ranked Archilochus among the greatest poets of ancient Greece, along with Homer and Hesiod, but unfortunately little of his poetry survives as evidence of his genius. He was the illegitimate son of a nobleman from Paros (an island in the Aegean Sea) and a Thracian slave. He earned his living as a mercenary, but he did not adhere to the soldier's code of honor. In one of his poems, he openly confessed his cowardice in battle with a Thracian tribe called the Saiian: Some Saiians carry my splendid shield: I had to leave it in a forest, but I saved my skin. I don't mind. I'll get another one just as good. ML West, trans., Greek Lyric Poetry (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1993): 14.
Archilochus was famous for the insults he used to attack his enemies, most notably Lycambes, who had two daughters, one of whom, Neobule, was the object of Archilochus' lust.
The poet Sappho of Lesbos.
THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.
I wish I had the same opportunity to touch Neobule, the hard worker, and press belly to belly and thigh to thigh. ...ML West, Greek Lyric Poetry, (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1993): 6.
Lycambes did not imagine Archilochus as a son-in-law, and Archilochus' verse mocked him and his two daughters so cruelly that, according to legend, they hanged themselves. Much of his surviving poetry reflects his observations of current events: angry attacks on his enemies, jokes with friends, sad lyrics for men lost at sea, contempt for dandies. In his description of a good soldier, "A little fellow crooked in the shins / He's my ideal, full of courage and steady on his pins", he may have been describing himself. THE CORAL LETTERS. Choral lyric was poetry sung by choirs who danced as they sang, usually accompanied by a musician. Sparta, for all its emphasis on militarism in the seventh century BC. E.C., was also a center for music and dance. The first great composer and virtuoso of the type of lyre known as a zither, Terpander of Lesvos, worked there, as did Alcman, who wrote choral works sung by girls' choirs. A long fragment of a choral song survives, preserved on a papyrus fragment found in Egypt. It is a parthenion, a song sung by girls to the accompaniment of
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A LOVE POEM BY SAPHO INTRODUCTION:
Sappho, who lived in the city of Mytilene on Lesbos, was famous for her short lyrics, written in well-articulated stanzas. The following poem expresses Sappho's desire for a girl who leaves her family to marry. It is particularly famous both for its open expression of love from one woman to another and for its existence in both the Greek original and the Latin translation by the Roman poet Catullus.
SOURCE: Sappho of Lesbos, "Invocation to Aphrodite", in Greek script. 2nd ed. Trans. Richmond Lattimore (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960): 39-40.
aulos - is sung by a chorus of ten. Choral poetry was also popular in the Greek cities of Sicily and southern Italy, where the first prominent poet whose name we know was Esthesichorus, who came from Himera, not far from present-day Palermo. The most famous composer of choral poetry was Sappho of Lesvos, often classified as a Melician because her songs express personal feelings. A group of unmarried girls and women apparently met Sappho regularly at a school, the "house of the disciples of the muses", as Sappho called it in a surviving fragment of poetry, may have been her own home. where they sang and learned to play musical instruments. Sometimes they sang publicly at weddings and religious ceremonies; his group of students was called thiasos, which means something like “religious association”. Safo was a music teacher and choreographer, and her choirs often expressed their personal feelings. 130
POETRY AS A PERSONAL VOICE. Poetry gave voice to the personal feelings of lyric poets and their circles, usually related to love, politics and patriotism. For Sappho of Lesbos, love was an all-consuming passion. She expressed her affection for some of the girls she taught with an intensity that made "lesbian" synonymous with women who are gay lovers, even though Sappho herself was married with a daughter. Love between young men and older married men was accepted in Greek society, and Sappho simply represented the other side of the coin, expressing romantic bonds between women. The world of his contemporary Alcaeus of Lesbos was very different. He lived on Lesbos during a period of civil war, particularly in the main polis of Mytilene, where tyrants challenged the aristocrats' rule and the aristocrats fought back. Alcaeus used to be best known for his political songs, his Stasiotika, as they were called in Greek for "civil strife", stasis. They were songs of political engagement. Aristocrats formed political societies to defend their interests and, when they ate together, they sang songs like the ones Alceu wrote. In the last century, however, papyri were found in the sands of Egypt containing poems that show another side of Alcaeus' genius. He also wrote hymns to the gods, love poems and poems on mythological themes. The poet's individual voice is heard in the works of Sappho and Alcaeus, but Mimnermus of Smyrna, whose war poems have already been mentioned, also deserves a second mention as a poet of love. The publishers of the great library of Alexandria in Hellenistic times published an anthology of his poetry entitled Nanno after the name of a courtesan. Mimnermus also looked longingly at death; fear of the ills of old age was another of his favorite subjects. POETRY AT THE SERVICE OF POLITICS. The age of prose had not yet arrived, and when men expressed their political opinions in writing, they used poetry to recite at public meetings. A political poet belonging to the Megaran polis was Theognis. Megara is sandwiched between Corinth to the south and Athens to the north and in the last decades of the 7th century BC. In BC, the winds of change that overthrew aristocratic governments elsewhere also swept through Megara. Theognis was an aristocrat who apparently lost his country and went into exile. His poetry reflects a bitter cynicism about the state of society where good people can be thrust into poverty. Some of his eulogies are addressed to a friend named Cyrnus, and not all of them are political: some offer advice, some reflect the infidelities of friends, and some are love poems. However, the
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Surviving literature attributed to Theognis was not entirely written by him and projects a blurred image of Theognis himself. In a political poem attributed to him he says that no country on earth loves a tyrant, and in another non-political poem he only interested himself in bourgeois life and the culture of the spirit, for which he wants to continue to enjoy life: the lyre , dancing and singing. The social pressures that threatened the political power of Megaran's landowning aristocrats were also felt in its larger neighbor, the city-state of Athens. There, too, rival political factions recognized the danger of tyranny without reform and sought to avoid it. They turned to Solon, a poet, merchant, and aristocrat, because of his lineage if not political leanings, and by common consent he became king in 594-593 BC. sole ruler or "archon" of Athens for one year. with a mandate to bring about political and economic change. He used poetry to defend his reforms, which were an attempt to find a middle ground between the extreme left and the extreme right. He was not a great poet and he was not the creator of Athenian democracy, but two centuries later Athenians, especially those who followed conservative politics, considered him the founder of an ideal constitution. THE ERA OF TYRANS. The Age of Tyrants in archaic Greece was a period of transition between the first polis, ruled by aristocrats whose power was based on land ownership and long pedigrees, and the classical polis, where government was broader. Tyrants - in the modern world they would be called dictators - took power by force and sometimes passed it on to their children and even grandchildren, and while tyrannies gave them a bad name, not all of them were evil. Some tyrants were patrons of poetry. A Corinthian tyrant, Periander (reigned c. 625–585 BC), extended helpful hospitality to a famous lyric poet, Arion, but nothing of his work survives. Across the Aegean, at Samos, the tyrant Polycrates supported Ibycus of Rhegium, modern Reggio at the tip of Italy, until its overthrow by the Persians in 522 BC. The Ibycus choral texts continued the tradition of Stesichorus, but he was equally famous for his love poems. Anacreon, possibly Polycrates' music teacher, also wrote well-crafted poetry: exquisite songs about the joys of wine and love. When Polycrates fell, Anacreon, together with Ibycus, moved to Athens, where Hipparchus, the younger brother of the tyrant Hippias, gathered several poets. Hippias was born in 510 BC. expelled from Athens around 300 BC, and when the age of tyrants came to an end, so did their promotion of literature. A poet, Simonides of Keos, of the court of Hipparchus,
he moved into the new era, in which professional poets sold their services and earned their living as literary entrepreneurs. He had a nephew named Bacchylides, who was as enterprising as his uncle, though lacking in poetic inspiration. SOURCES
William Barnstone, Greek Poetry (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1967). C. M. Bowra, Poesia Grega. De Alcman a Simonides. 2ª ed. (Oxford, Inglaterra: Clarendon Press, 1961). AR Burn, The Lyric Age of Greece (Londres, Inglaterra: Arnold, 1960). Paul Allen Miller, Textos Líricos e Consciência Lírica; The Birth of a Genre from Archaic Greece to Augustan Rome (Londres, Inglaterra; Nova York: Routledge, 1994). David D. Mulroy, trad., Early Greek Poetry (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992). D.L. Page, Sappho and Alcaeus: An Introduction to the Study of Ancient Lesbian Poetry (Oxford, Inglaterra: Clarendon Press, 1955). ML West, trad., Greek Lyric Poetry (Oxford, Inglaterra; Nova York: Oxford University Press, 1993).
P. POLISH
FOR
DEFINE
THE END OF ARCHAIC GREECE. The Persian Wars, 490-479 BC CE marked the end of the archaic era. The Persian Empire slowly advanced west. Shortly after 546 BC he conquered the Greek cities on the west coast of Asia Minor. 513 BC CE King Darius led a Persian army across the Bosphorus into Europe and conquered Thrace, the region south of the Danube. But what drew attention from Persia to mainland Greece was the Ionian Rebellion, an uprising of Greek cities on the coast of Asia Minor and nearby islands that began in the Ionian city of Miletus in the year 500 and spread across the coast and up to so far away. as Cyprus spread. Athens sent and then withdrew aid to the rebels during the first year of the revolt, but its intervening years were enough to arouse Persian discontent. A Persian expeditionary force landed in 490 BC. on the plain of Marathon north of Athens. C., with the intention of taking Athens and establishing a Persian bridgehead in Greece. But in a battle that gave Athens a new sense of pride and accomplishment, the Athenian citizen army defeated the Persian force. Ten years later the Persians attacked again, this time with a large land and sea force, and once again Athens' contribution to the alliance of Greek states sworn to resist Persia was crucial, as Athens in later years built up an army armed. Marathon and the
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The decisive battle that stopped the Persian attack was a naval victory fought on the island of Salamis, in full view of Athens. Athens emerged from the Persian War as a center of power in the Greek world, strong enough to challenge the former dominant power, Sparta. Over the next half century, it acquired an empire and became the cultural center of Greece. The Persian War marked the beginning of the classical period, considered the moment when Greek cultural production reached its peak, and Athens led the way. POETS OF THE PERSIAN WAR. The poets Simonides, Pindar and Bacchylides had one thing in common: their lives were split in two by the Persian Wars. This fact places them in the transitional period between Archaic and Classical times. Simonides was born early enough to enjoy the patronage of Hipparchus, brother of Hippias, the tyrant of Athens. Hipparchus was born in 514 BC. murdered. Four years later, Hippias was banished to the court of the Persian king Darius. Simonides wrote the epitaph for the 300 brave Spartans who died in 480 BC. died defending the Pass of Thermopylae against the Persians. C.: "Strange, inform the Spartans that we are lying here and obeying your orders." All three lived in a different post-war world. There were still tyrants in Sicily, but in Greece itself the era of tyrants was replaced in their patronage by many wealthy Greeks willing to pay for a poem, including hymns, lamentations, songs sung in the service of Dionysus were called dithyrambs, and songs to girls' choirs called partheneia. One of the bestsellers was a poem in praise of a victory in one of Greece's four major sporting competitions. The winner or his friends commissioned an Epinikion (victory song), which was originally a simple song of welcome, but Simonides turned it into an art form. The contract probably specified the length of the poem and what was to be included. The poet may or may not need to train the chorus to perform the ode. The poet asked for a fee for his services. Simonides in particular had a reputation for being expensive. SIMONIDE. Simonides was from the small island of Keos, but he gained an international reputation as a poet and used it to promote himself. Only fragments of his work survive, but they include songs of victory, songs called "peanes", dirges, epigrams and various lyric poems. His subject was not limited to mythology, but also included the Persian War. He wrote 480 B.C. a poem about the naval battle of Artemisio. C., a defeat for the Greeks, followed later that same year by a great victory against the island of Salamis. The few surviving fragments of the poem indicate that 132
is a choral lyric. Recently, a papyrus from Egypt revealed an elegiac poem about the Battle of Plataea in 479 BC, in which the Persian army fought. was destroyed. Their lamentations or dirges called Threnoi were also famous. His simple pathos was unparalleled in Greek poetry, and over four centuries later the Roman poet Catullus used the phrase "sadder than the tears of Simonides" to describe his sadness at the coldness of a friend. PIND. Pindar, born in 518 BC near Thebes in Boeotia, he was one of the poets whose towering importance was recognized by the Greeks during his lifetime, though he must be judged by the four books of his Songs of Victory, as well as the surviving fragments of his other poetry. At the age of twenty, he received his first commission to write an ode in honor of Hippocles of Thessaly, winner of the men's double race at the Pythian Games. He lived until his death around 438 BC. CE honored even more. His language is brilliant and his allusions are often obscure to the modern reader, but less so to his contemporaries. The structure of his victory songs is precise: first comes nomination, in which the winner is named along with his hometown and patron; then comes the central element, which tells a myth that somehow reflects the success of the winner; and then the conclusion returns to the victor and his congregation basking in his reflected glory. The ode was sung in celebration of the athlete's victory, but it is unclear how it was performed; perhaps a single conductor would sing the poem while the chorus danced behind him. Pindar was Boeotia's greatest poet, having already produced Hesiod and Corina, his older contemporaries. Such was its reputation that the destruction of Thebes by Alexander the Great in the following century spared only one house: that which had belonged to Pindar. BACHILLID. Little more than the name of Bachylides, nephew of Simonides of Ceos, was known until 1896, when the British Museum acquired the remains of two papyrus scrolls containing poems by Bachylides, found in a tomb. One parchment contained songs of victory, the other six dithyrambs. He competed with Pindar for commissions, apparently not without success. 476 BC He and Pindar wrote victory songs for Hiero, the tyrant of Syracuse in Sicily, for a victory in the horse races at Olympia, but in 468 BC. When Hiero won the chariot race at Olympia, he charged Bacchylides with the Ode of Victory and bypassed Pindar. Bacchylides' surviving dithyrambs have a sort of ballad quality, recounting episodes from Greek mythology with plot twists likely drawn from Bachylides' own imagination. His charm lies in his skill as a storyteller.
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He gives the impression of a capable poet rather than a great poet, competent in his craft, and the opinion of ancient Greek critics that he is not equal to Pindar is not unjust. SOURCES
D. S. Carne-Ross, Pindar (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1985). Gregorian Lyrics. 2. Rev. Fr. The. Details trans. Richmond Lattimore (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960). Gilbert Norwood, Pindaro (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1945). The Oden of Pindaro. Trans. CM Bowra (London, England: Penguin, 1969). The Oden of Pindaro. Trans. Richmond Lattimore (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1947). William H. Race, Pindaro (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1986).
HERODOTUS OF HISTORY
PATER
ASCENSION OF HISTORY. Around 425 BC BC Herodotus published his history with the proem (introductory sentence): This is the publication of the researches of Herodotus of Halicarnassus, which I prepared so that what men did would not be obscured by the passage of time, and that great and wonderful accomplishments, some accomplished by the Greeks, some by the Persians, cannot be without glory, and especially to show whose fault it was that they fought. [Italics added.]
Herodotus sets his theme early on: the Persian Empire's invasion of the Greek city-states, which would coincide with the Persian conquest of the cities on the coast of Asia Minor and neighboring islands in the years after 546 BC. it started. and ended in 479 BC. with the annihilation of the Persian army at the Battle of Plataea. However, Herodotus did not compile a mere chronicle of events, as ancient historians had done. He had two goals in mind. One was a concern he shared with the epic poets: keeping alive the memory of the exploits and conquests of the old. The other was to investigate the cause of the conflict, and the cause could not be separated from the blame. Who or what was blamed for the great war between Persia and Greece? Finding the answer to that question would be the subject of Herodotus' investigation, as his word for "investigation" was stories that would take on new meaning after Herodotus. The story as written in the Ionian dialect
Herodotus, or history in Greek spoken on the streets of Athens, would become the word for "history" in the modern sense. It would be a search for causes and developments and not just a collection of facts. BOTTOM. Herodotus was born shortly before 480 BC. in Halicarnassus, now Bodrum in Türkiye. Halicarnassus had been founded by settlers from the small Greek polis of Troizen in the Peloponnese, and they were Dorians who spoke the Doric dialect they shared with Sparta. By the time of Herodotus, the Ionian dialect had taken over, and Halicarnassus also had a sizable population of Carians, non-Greeks from southwest Asia Minor who had partially assimilated into Greek culture. The ruling dynasty of Halicarnassus was Carian, and in 480 BC When King Xerxes of Persia launched his invasion of Greece, the ruler of Halicarnassus was Queen Artemisia, and when Xerxes recruited naval contingents from her subordinate cities, Artemisia personally led the fleet into Halicarnassus. . Herodotus treats her with admiration in his history, but at a young age she was involved in a revolt against Artemisia's grandson Lygdamis, along with her uncle Panyassis, a poet who attempted to revive the epic and was quite successful. . ranked with Homer by some Greek critics. Panyassis lost his life and Herodotus fled from Halicarnassus. His exile made him a historian. TRIP. Herodotus was now a stranger everywhere because a Greek was born a citizen of a polis and could acquire a new citizenship only in exceptional cases. Finally, when a new city called Thurii was founded in southern Italy, Herodotus was able to enlist in the list of citizens, thus ending his life as "Herodotus of Thurii", not "Herodotus of Halicarnassus". Historia's first sentence probably identified him as "Herodotus of Thurii", but later editors changed it to "Herodotus of Halicarnassus". Regardless of his origin title, his history indicates that Herodotus was restless and traveled widely. He visited Egypt at least once and interviewed Egyptian priests. He went to Babylon. He reached as far as northern Ukraine, where the Scythians lived, and interviewed a Karian who was an agent of the Scythian king in the trade between the Greeks and the Scythians. He visited Sparta and Athens, and some scholars believe he befriended the then Athenian political leader, Pericles, and used Pericles' family traditions to gain information. However, there is no strong evidence to support this theory. Eventually he gained a reputation as a Logian, that is, an oral artist who did not sing poetry to music but recited prose. A late source that can
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There are reliable reports that during the Olympic Games Herodotus went to Olympia, pitched his tent there, and gave recitations to all who would listen. There are also stories of other visits to Greek cities. Athena liked his performance and paid him handsomely, but he was not allowed to speak to the young men of Thebes in Boeotia. Thebes sided with the Persians in the Persian Wars and probably did not like to be reminded of their lack of patriotism, and indeed Herodotus treated Thebes in his history with a marked lack of sympathy. HERODOTUS' PLAN: THE PREPARATIONS. History is a long and voluminous work, full of digressions. Long after Herodotus' death, scholars at the Library of Alexandria, where the kings of Egypt maintained a research institute, divided the history into nine books named after the nine muses, but this is an artificial, if convenient, division. Herodotus simply follows the course of Asiatic aggression against the Greek world, with the result that the subject of the story becomes an examination of imperialism and resistance to Eastern imperialism. The east was home to several em134
Pires, which culminated in the Persian Empire while Greece was home to free city-states. Herodotus begins with the first Asiatic to subjugate Greek cities and pay tribute to them: Croesus, king of Lydia. He conquered the Ionian cities on the western edge of Asia Minor. It was in turn conquered by Cyrus, the founder of the Persian Empire, and all Greek cities on the eastern side of the Aegean, whether Ionian, Doric or Aeolian, came under Persian control. Thus, Herodotus followed the course of the Persian expansion when Cyrus conquered Babylon and his successor Cambyses conquered Egypt. As the Persian giant acquired new subjects, Herodotus digressed to describe what they were like. King Darius, Cambyses' successor, crossed the Bosphorus into Europe and the region between the Aegean and the Danube fell under Persian rule. Until now, Persian expansion has been driven by imperialism, but it was the Greeks themselves, particularly Athens and Eretria on the island of Euboea, who provoked the Persian invasion of mainland Greece. At the beginning of the 5th century BC. CE Ionia rebelled against the Persian yoke, and Athens and Eretria sent aid to the rebels. Darius got it again
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Vengeance in 490 BC CE Dispatch of an expeditionary force across the Aegean against Athens and Eretria. Eretria fell within a week, and the Persians landed at Marathon, north of Athens, to march on the city with their infantry and cavalry. The Athenians were outnumbered, but they adopted the bold tactic of lengthening their line of battle to match the Persian line, thinning their center and strengthening their wings. They hoped to defeat the Persian wings and then attack the flanks of the Persian centre, where it was vulnerable to attack. It was a desperate tactic: the Athenian center was broken, but the Athenian wings swept away the Persians who opposed them and closed the Persian flanks. After a hard fight, the Persians fled. Despite their fearsome reputation, they were not invincible, as the onslaught of heavily armed infantry - the hoplites - from Athens routed the Persian army, including the cavalry. THE BATTLE FOR GREECE. Revenge and countervengeance were a plot point in the story, as Herodotus saw it, but Darius died before he could take revenge on the Greeks for that defeat. His court hawks managed to persuade his son Xerxes to carry out his father's plans for Greece, despite his uncle Artabanus's advice against rash actions. At crucial moments like this, Herodotus often turned to a wise adviser who almost always discouraged rash action. Although initially following his uncle's advice, Xerxes decided to continue the invasion thanks to a vision that appeared to him twice in a dream, telling him that he must attack Greece or be crushed. Herodotus is suggesting that Persian imperialism had developed its own momentum and that no mere king could stop it without paying a heavy fine. Xerxes raised a large army and fleet and fought his way across northern Greece on pontoon bridges over the Hellespont, while in Greece itself, under Sparta's leadership, the resistant states were formed into an alliance and the defense planned. They tried to contain the Persians at Thermopylae Pass, where the distance between Mount Kalidromos and the sea is so narrow that in some places only a single chariot could pass; At the same time, a Greek naval contingent tried to contain the Persian fleet off Artemisium, on the northern tip of the island of Euboea. But a traitor betrayed the Greeks defending Thermopylae and an old Spartan king, Leonidas, and his royal escort of 300 hoplites died there in battle to allow the rest of his army to escape. The Persians advanced and burned Athens. But the Athenian general Themistocles persuaded the Greek fleet to remain on the island of Salamis, and there the arrogant Persian navy was so badly treated that it withdrew.
obtained in the western Aegean. Xerxes himself left Greece at the end of the campaign season, but he left a smaller but more efficient force under an able general, Mardonius, who recaptured and burned Athens. But at Plataea, in southern Boeotia, a Greek army under the Spartan Pausanias, regent for the younger son of Leonidas, utterly defeated Mardonius, and at the same time - some say on the same day - a Greek fleet destroyed a Persian fleet at Mykale. on the coast of Ionia. Thus, Persian imperialism reached its zenith and began its long recession. LOOKING FOR A REASON. Herodotus explains in his introduction that one of his goals was to show why the Greeks and Persians were at war. Who or what was to blame? Herodotus never explicitly tells us why, but he leaves the reader to infer a lot. Revenge was a motive for historical action: one power harmed another, and the offended power seeks revenge. Revenge is a force that maintains boundaries and balance. When something upsets the balance of nature, something else will take revenge and restore balance. By forcing its empire's borders beyond Asia and seeking world domination, Persia upset the natural balance between the continents and the two very different ways of life. But it is also clear that a force beyond the motive of revenge was pressuring the Persian Empire in its ill-fated attempt to conquer Greece. Persia, under a despot, embraced expansionism as a way of life, and when it invaded Greece, it found a people whose way of life embraced individual liberty. Two ways of life struggled for supremacy in the Persian War, as Herodotus saw it, and Greece's victory demonstrated the importance of freedom. When we look for themes in Herodotus' story, two stand out: imperialism drives empires to expand, and individual freedom makes soldiers bolder than despotic government. SOURCES
Egbert J. Bakker, Irene JF de Jong and Hans van Wees, companion of Herodotus de Brill (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2002). Peter Derow and Robert Parker, Hrsg., Herodotus and His World: Essays from a Conference in Memory of George Forrest (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2003). JAS Evans, Herodotus (Boston: Twayne, 1982). Stewart Flory, The Archaic Smile of Herodotus (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1987). Charles W. Fornara, Herodotus, An Interpretative Essay (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1971).
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John Gould, Herodot (Nueva York: St. Martin's Press, 1989). James S. Romm, Herodot (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1998).
T HUCIDIDES THE LONELY HISTORIAN. Thucydides occupies a lonely place in the pantheon of historians. He is considered one of the greatest in the world, but he lacked the following to emulate his type of story. His plan was to write an accurate history of the Peloponnesian War, the battle that devastated the Greek world at the end of the fifth century BC. C.E., who lived from 431 to 404 B.C. He intended to create a "forever possession" that future generations could refer to when they found themselves in situations similar to the Peloponnesian War. Unlike Herodotus, he did not write in a clear and legible style. He was stern and aloof, treating war like a doctor watching a sick patient. It was the time when the medical school on the island of Kos, founded by the great diagnostician Hippocrates, compiled descriptions of illnesses so that doctors could make correct diagnoses, and Thucydides was influenced by this medical school's approach. Among ancient Greek critics, Herodotus had an undeserved reputation as a storyteller, while Thucydides had an undeserved reputation as a truthful narrator of what really happened. His prejudice is easily seen in his admiration for Athenian democracy under Pericles, which was not really a democracy, as Pericles dominated politics to such an extent that democracy was really one-man rule. The historian's admiration for Pericles did not extend to his successor Cleon, the son of a tanner who was a crowd favorite in the Athenian assembly. In reality Cleon was a better administrator than Thucydides admits in his writings, but Thucydides favored Cleon's rival Nicias, a conservative man who feared the gods but whose incompetence nearly brought Athens to its knees. For the most part, however, Thucydides played the part of an impartial reporter very well. THE PELOPONESIAN WAR. The so-called Peloponnesian War, which lasted from 431 to 404 BC. C., was fought between Athens, which built an empire in the years after the Persian war, and Sparta, which led an alliance of states centered on the Peloponnese. , the region of Greece south of the Isthmus of Corinth. After the first ten years of the war, sometimes referred to as “Archi136
Damian War" named after the Spartan king Archidamus, who commanded the Peloponnesian forces during the early years of the war. The Archidamian war ended in a peace treaty that was never accepted by some of Sparta's allies, and during the brief period in which As hostilities ceased, Athens launched an expedition against Sicily to extend its imperial reach there, and its expeditionary force was completely destroyed.In 413 BC In the final years of the war, Persia intervened and granted Sparta a subsidy to build a Spartan fleet, and when the war ended with the surrender of Athens, Sparta and Persia divided the Athenian empire between themselves. The motto of Sparta and its allies at the beginning of the war was "liberation for the Greeks", i.e. liberation from the Athenian Empire , but by the end of the war the motto had been forgotten. THE FALL OF ATHENS. Thucydides began his story with the causes of the Peloponnesian War. The underlying cause was the fear that Sparta and its allies had of Athenian imperialism, although Thucydides pointed to three causes immediate. Initially, Athens was locked in a battle between Corinth, a member of the Spartan alliance, and the former colony of Corkyra (Corfu, now Kerkyra), and Corinth appealed to its allies. Second, a subsidiary state of the Athenian Empire, Potidaea, rebelled against Athens, and Corinth sent aid to Potidaea. Eventually, Athens imposed a trade embargo with its neighbor Megara, which was an ally of Sparta. Pericles had a war-winning strategy for Athens that capitalized on her strength. Athens had a mighty fleet of galleys, called triremes, rowed by well-trained crews of Athenian citizens. On land, however, Sparta and its allies were no match, and when the Spartan-led army invaded Athens, the Athenians evacuated their farms and took refuge behind the walls of the great city. Long walls fortified the road between Athens and its port of Piraeus to allow Athens access to the sea and use its fleet to conduct commando raids into Peloponnesian territory. This would become a war of attrition, with each side trying to wear down the other, and Pericles believed that Athens would outlast Sparta. But an unexpected event messed up his calculations. In the second year of the war, the Athenians were struck by a plague detailed by Thucydides. Pericles himself fell ill, recovered, but died soon after. The first ten years of the war ended in 421 BC. with a peace treaty. E.C., but the result was to trade a hot war for a cold one. Athens, always eager to expand her empire, sent in 415 BC. BC An expedition to the neutral territory of Sicily. CE, hoping to capture its capital, Syracuse. to Thucydides,
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To anyone familiar with the tragedies played out on the Athenian stage, the Sicilian expedition must have seemed like an act of arrogance by a protagonist before his descent into tragic drama. The attempt to capture Syracuse failed and Athens lost all the ships and men she had sent to Sicily. The powerful prose of Thucydides' description of the last desperate battle in the port of Syracuse stirs our emotions because it is outwardly unfeeling. The Athenians, having lost their best warships and troops, were in dire straits, bankrupt and facing revolts in their empire, but they didn't give up. When Thucydides 411 B.C. In his narrative, he stopped the sentence in mid-sentence, leaving his story unfinished. It might have been sudden death; According to reports, he drowned in the sea. All that is certain is that he knew full well that the war would end with the defeat of Athens, and he intended to bring the story to an end. TUKIDE CONTINUED. More than one author has endeavored to continue Thucydides' work. Two historians, Theopompus and Cratinus, have individually taken the story of Thucydides' separation from society and placed it in 394 BC. CE, ten years after the year of Athens' defeat. Athens around 394 BC he was about to be resurrected and therefore Thucydides' tragic vision gets a happy ending. A piece of papyrus discovered in 1906 at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt contains about 900 lines of continuation clearly written by a skilled historian and attributed by many scholars to Cratinus. However, the lack of concrete evidence to support this assumption forces the more general authorship of "The Oxyrhynchus Historian" or Hellenica Oxyrhynchia. The only continuation we have, the Hellenic one, was written by Xenophon, a former student of the philosopher Socrates. Xenophon's Hellenica picked up Greek history where Thucydides left off and continued until 362 BC. EC continued. As far as we know, none of those who continued Thucydides' work ended their story with the Athenians' surrender to Sparta in 404 BC. CE SOURCES
Charles Norris Cochrane, Thucydides and the Science of History (London, England: Oxford University Press, 1929). W. Robert Connor, Thucydides (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984). J.H. Finley, Thucydides (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1942). Simon Hornblower, Thucydides (London, England: Duckworth, 1987). Jonathan Price, Thucydides and the War Within (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
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Xenophon. The fourth century had many historians, but only a small part of their output survives. The author with the best surviving record is Xenophon, an Athenian of good family and a member of Socrates' circle. Against Socrates' advice, he joined a group of Greek mercenaries in the army defeated by Cyrus, the Persian king's younger brother, in 401 BC. usurp the throne. The expedition was a disaster, but Xenophon guided them safely to the Black Sea coast, and from there they scattered in search of other employers. Xenophon himself placed himself in the service of the Spartans. He was banished from Athens shortly after the death of Socrates (he did not return to Athens until 365 BC) and lived on property granted to him by Sparta for much of his banishment until the revolts that followed Sparta's defeat at Leuctra in 372 AD they forced him to move. He wrote on subjects ranging from the Spartan constitution to horse training, but is best known for his Memoirs of Socrates (Memorabilia); his Anabasis, or "March Up Country", which tells the story of the failed attempt by Prince Cyrus, younger brother of King Artaxerxes II of Persia, to ascend the Persian throne; and his Hellenic, which tells the story from Thucydides to the Battle of Mantinea in 362 BC. continued C.E. Xenophon is an easy-to-read author, and among his other claims to fame is the introduction of a new literary genre: the historical novel. His "Education of Cyrus" (Cyropaedia) is a fictitious account of Cyrus the Great, founder of the Persian Empire. It's a bad novel full of cautionary tales and rarely read these days, but it's a groundbreaking adventure in historical romance. THE LOST HISTORIANS. Many historians wrote in the 4th century BC. but his works did not survive. We know them because they were cited by later writers, or used by later writers as a source for their own stories, or in some cases because papyrus fragments containing remains of their works surfaced in the sands of Egypt. One of the most prominent was Theopompus of Chios, who wrote a long history of Alexander the Great's father, Philip II of Macedon. It was groundbreaking because it focused on a single personality, portraying Theopompos as the greatest man Europe had ever produced. Another highly respected historian was Ephorus of Cyme, who composed what has become the standard history of Greece: a universal history of Greece from the Dorian invasion to his own time. Some of what he wrote has survived at second hand because his story was written by another world historian, who lived in the first century BC. wrote, was used as a source. C.E., Diodorus the Sicilian, and we still have the story of Diodorus. Diodorus based his world history on authors other than Ephorus, but Ephorus was a preferred source for him.
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Gordon S. Shrimpton, Theopompus der Historiker, (Montreal, Kanada: McGill-Queens University Press, 1977). Frank W. Walbank, Polybius (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972). —, Polybius, Rome and the Hellenistic World: Essays and Reflections (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
GREEK COMEDY
Imaginative engraving of Xenophon, one of the modern sources of information about the life of Socrates. LIBRARY
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Copy of. The conquests of Alexander the Great produced a wealth of historical writings, but none have survived except as sources for the work of other Greek and Roman historians, such as Plutarch and Arrian, writing in Greek, and Curtius Rufus in Latin, all dating from this time. period. period of the Roman Empire. Greece in the fourth century BC he also developed a taste for local chronicles; The Chronicles of Athens were known as the Atides, or "Chronicles of Attica", and two of their notable authors were Androtion and Philochorus. There is also a historian from the 2nd century BC. 400 BC, Polybius of Megalopolis (208-126 BC), who was exiled from Greece to Rome, where he wrote a forty-volume history of Rome, beginning with the first war between Rome and Carthage (265-241 BC). About a third survived. He is an important source of information about Rome's war with Hannibal. However, he is reliable as a dry writer and was an astute observer of Rome's growing power. SOURCES
John K. Anderson, Xenofonte (Nova York: Scribner, 1974). William E. Higgins, Xenophon of the Athenians: The Problem of the Individual and the Society of the Polis (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1977). 138
START. The early history of comedy is unclear, Aristotle commented in his book On the Art of Poetry, because no one took it seriously. The Megara polis, situated between Corinth and Athens, claimed to have invented it, as did Sicily, which produced a farsistic poet, Epicharmus, who was ruled by the Syracusan tyrants Gelon (485-478 BC) and his successor Hiero (478 BC – 467 BC). Little of his work survives, though there is enough to make us mourn its loss. He wrote burlesques of myths: a play entitled The Marriage of Hebe was set on Mount Olympus and parodied Heracles' marriage to Hebe. Idolized as he was, Hercules was still portrayed as he was in the comic theater: a boorish boor, devouring his food and getting drunk. Another type of comedy that Epicharmus wrote dealt with contemporary life and introduced standard characters (that is, characters with signature roles like the smart slave, the arrogant soldier, and the young lover), and a third type of comedy that he wrote humanized the understated. abstractions in the midst of action; for example, one seems to have revolved around a debate between women's logic and men's logic. Epicharmus' plays, unlike the comedies produced in Athens, had no chorus, although there was musical accompaniment. Farces were evidently popular in Sicily and "Magna Graecia", as the Greek colonies of southern Italy were known, as local potters used scenes from the comic theater as vase paintings. These farces anticipate the New Comedy that would supplant Aristophanes' Old Comedy on the Athenian stage more than a century later. ANCIENT ATHENENINE COMEDY. Ancient Comedy was an Athenian theatrical development with current allusions to Athenian politics, and its acceptance as an art form dates to 488-487 or 487-486 BC. C., when the Archon, i.e., the chief magistrate of Athens, who gave its name to the year, was charged with providing a chorus for a day of five comedies to be performed at the festival of the Dionysia of the City every spring of the modern month of March. Shortly before 440 BC CE A Day of Comedies was incorporated into the other great festival of
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Dionysus, where dramas were performed, the Lenaea festival in January. We also know that in the fourth century B.C. Comedy was produced in Dionysia Rural, which were festivals in the rural districts of Athens called "demes", and it is likely that comedy was also produced there before, given the physical evidence of theater in some of these demos. Until the rise of Aristophanes, there are few names and a handful of fragments of the comic poets of the day, including Cratinus, old and notorious for drinking wine but still writing when Aristophanes began his career, and Eupolis, who was a worthy rival of Aristophanes and popular in his day, as he often says. Other comic playwrights like Crates, Pherecrates, Hermippus, Phrynichus, Teleclides, Ameipsias, Theopompus and Plato, not to be confused with the philosopher Plato, are little more than names attached to the titles of lost comedies. The eleven plays of Aristophanes are all that remain of ancient Greek comedy, and they owe their survival to the fact that Aristophanes became popular as required reading for Greek schoolchildren in the second century AD. BACKGROUND OF ARISTOFANO. The approximate dates of Aristophanes' life (450-385 BC) place him in one of the most turbulent periods of Athenian politics. He was a boy in Pericles' time, when the politician Pericles ruled Athens. Pericles' authority rested on his rule over the popular assembly, the Ekklesia, in which all male citizens could vote. A well-connected and wealthy man, Pericles could dominate the assembly as long as he followed popular policy, which he did. He adopted an imperialist approach to Athens' neighbors that resulted in the creation of an Athenian Empire profitable enough to fund a lavish Athens building program. It also led to the Peloponnesian War with Sparta and its allies. Nine of Aristophanes' plays were written in times of war and date from after Pericles' death in the autumn of 429 BC. The great man proved irreplaceable, and cracks began to appear in the Athenian body under the pressure of war. THE FIRST WORKS. Aristophanes' first comedy was The Banqueters, produced in 427 BC. C., which won second prize in City Dionysia, followed by The Babylonians the following year. Although the Babylonians won first prize, they also earned the ire of the politician Cleon, who successfully prosecuted him for anti-Athenian propaganda. The reason for the arson of the work has escaped history, as none of these works have survived. His next play, The Acarnii, was performed at the Lenaea Festival in January 425 BC. listed. A year later in
Bust of the Athenian comedian Aristophanes.
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The same festival produced the knights, and in 423 B.C. produced Las Nubes, a burlesque by Socrates that won only third prize. Aristophanes was bitterly disappointed; the Acharner and the Knights won first prizes, and as the number of comedies had been reduced from five to three during the Peloponnesian War for economic reasons, this meant that the clouds took last place. Aristophanes began rewriting it, and at least part of the surviving text is from this second edition, which was never executed. 422 BC his play The Wasps won second prize, and the following year, when Athens and Sparta signed a peace treaty, Aristophanes produced his comedy La Paz and again won second prize. FORMULA OF THE OLD COMEDY. The structure of the comic work was already established at the height of Aristophanes. First, there was a prologue where the main character has a bright idea that kicks off the plot. Then comes the Parodos: a 24-man chorus performing in fantastic masks and costumes. Next comes the Agon: a debate between a character who supports the brilliant idea of the prologue and an opponent who always loses. Then comes the parabase in which the choir steps forward and sings directly to the audience. The parabasis gave the comic poet the opportunity to do so.
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express your opinion on the current state of affairs. Then come the episodes in which the brilliant idea is put into practice, with sometimes comical results, and then comes the Exodus, which ends the play on a happy note: a wedding, feast, or happy occasion. This was not a fixed formula. The Acharnians has two episodes, The Knights has three and The Clouds has two Agons. The last two plays by Aristophanes lack a parabasis, but at the time they were produced, the Ancient Comedy gave way to the Middle Comedy, which dispensed with the parabasis. He belonged to an age that preferred not to listen to the personal opinions of comic poets. THE AKARNER. One of Aristophanes' early works, The Archarnian, is a work whose theme is the madness of war. The Acharnians of this work's title were Demo (constituent) citizens of Acharnae, war hawks who made their living by making charcoal. The Peloponnesian War is in its sixth year as this work is written. The peasants suffered great hardship and were forced to leave their farms when the Spartan allied troops invaded Attica - as they did every year when the harvest was ripe - and took refuge behind the walls of Athens. The plague aggravated their suffering; the great plague reached its worst peak in the second year of the war, but lasted for another three years. The setting for Akarner is the Pnyx in Athens, where people would gather for Ekklesia meetings. Diceopolis, a decent citizen, tells his problems while waiting for the assembly. In doing so, Aphiteus proposes peace talks with Sparta, but is silenced. Disgusted, Diceopolis recruits Amphiteus to negotiate a private truce for him with Sparta, and returns from Sparta to offer Diceopolis three options: a truce of five, ten, or thirty years. Diceopolis chooses a thirty-year peace and leaves. The chorus of peace-hating Acarnians arrive, looking for the man who dared to sign a truce with Sparta. When Diceopolis returns, stones are thrown at him, and to save himself he runs to the house of the tragic poet Euripides, whose works were famous for their pathetic heroes. Euripides gives Dikeopolis a tattered garment, and with his Euripidean accoutrements, Diceopolis cleverly parodies a speech by Euripides in his defence, in which he examines the causes of the war and acquits Sparta. The chorus' sympathies are divided, and the warhawks call upon an ally, Lamachus, a familiar falcon. Lamachus takes the stage, magnificent in his full armor, but Diceopolis' arguments knock him down. Diceopolis announces the end of all war boycotts. The choir then advances to the front of the stage and sings the parabase directly to the audience, the theme of 140
these are the virtues of Aristophanes. After two more episodes, Lamachus is ordered to go to battle, and the play ends with Lamachus returning from the war wounded and Dicaeopolis returning drunk from a feast, with a courtesan on each arm. In the final scene, Diceopolis revolts and Lamacos groans, and the madness of belligerence becomes clear to everyone. THE KNIGHTS. The Knights was an attack on Cleon, the Warhawk chieftain and favorite of the Athenian commoner. The year before, the Athenians defeated Sparta at Sphacteria, an island at the northern end of Navarino Bay, where they abandoned a Spartan force, including 120 of their Spartan elite, and forced it to surrender. Cleon received the honor he partly deserved, although Aristophanes disagreed. In The Knights, Demos is a good old man, easily deceived, and his new slave, a Paphlagonia tanner, keeps him under his control to the dismay of two other slaves, Demosthenes and Nicias. Each character represented a real-life person: the Paphlagonian was Cleon, barely disguised; the other two slaves were the Athenian generals Demosthenes and Nicias; and the ancient Demos represented the Athenian people, for whom the Greek word was demos. Demosthenes and Nicias depose the Paphlagonian by introducing an even greater villain, a sausage seller who outshines the Paphlagonian for Demos' favor and turns out to be a statesman whose real name is Agoracritus, meaning "Choice of the Agora". In Exodus, Agoracritus announces that he has rejuvenated Demos into a young, vigorous, and highly sexualized man. CLOUDS. The target of Aristophanes' mockery in The Clouds is Socrates, who is portrayed in the play as possessing a phrontisterion, a think tank combined with a school for Athenian youth. The plot revolves around Strepsiades, an ancient Athenian, and his failed son, Pheidippides. Pheidippides' passion for chariot racing has landed him deep in debt, and Strepsiades fears his son's creditors are after him. To avoid creditors, he decides to enroll his son in Socrates school, which teaches debaters how to make weaker arguments look better. Pheidippides refuses to go, so Strepsiades enlists. Socrates' attempt to teach poor Strepsiades is a good slapstick, but the result is Strepsiades thrown out for stupidity and insisting his son enroll or leave home. Pheidippides is mentored by two think tank professors, Just Cause, who teaches the old-fashioned virtues, and Unjust Cause, who teaches how to find loopholes. They discuss the goals of education. Unfair Cause wins on technical grounds and takes on Pei-
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bad workout. He's making so much progress that he could justify his father's beating. Strepsiades realizes that the new learning Socrates represents has ruined his son and burns down Socrates' institute. THE BEES. A citizen of Athens had the right to be tried before his fellow citizens, and in practice this meant that he was tried by a grand jury of 100 plus one to 500 plus one, who heard the arguments of both the plaintiff and the accused heard and then voted for the verdict. . A jury's salary was low. For seniors, however, jury duty was as welcome a supplement to income as entertainment. However, because many saw jury service as entertainment, it was often seen by many as a pointless process system. In Wasps, a farce about the jury system, a conflict of wills arises between the old man Philocleon (Cleon's lover) and his son Bdelycleon (Cleon's hater). The chorus of wasp-clad jurors summon Philocleon to join them on the jury, but Bdelycleon has his father locked inside. After an argument, Bdelycleon convinces his father that juries are just tools in the hands of selfish demagogues, and promises Philocleon that if he gives up his jury addiction, he will feed him and let him play in court at home. Then, in a parody of a court case, Philocleon puts the dog Labes on trial for cheese theft; Bdelycleon defends the dog so well that Philocleon acquits him. Realizing his mistake as he has never voted not guilty before, Philocleon collapses and is carried off stage. Two episodes follow: in the first, on his way to a feast with Philocleon, Bdelycleon instructs him to behave like an Athenian gentleman; and in the second Philokleon returns from the banquet with a pied piper, very drunk and with a naked girl on one arm. When Philocleon tries to sleep with the girl, Bdelycleon forces him into his house. PEACE. When peace came, Cleon was dead, as was the main Spartan Warhawk, Brasidas. Both died in the same battle at Amphipolis in northern Greece. For Athens, the battle was disastrous, but in both Athens and Sparta, the factions that supported peace maintained control and during the year 421 BC. a peace treaty was signed. In La Paz, Trygaeus, an Athenian, flies into the sky on the back of a scarab, where he discovers that the Olympian gods have turned their backs on the Greek warriors in disgust, leaving war and turmoil in charge of their palace. War threw peace into a well and threw stones over it. Trygaeus, with the help of a chorus of Greek peasants and workers, frees Peace along with Harvest and Diplomacy, two women that Trygaeus brings with him when he returns to Earth. Trygaeus prepares a wedding feast at which a pledge occurs
Sayer appears and prophesies that the war cannot be stopped. In Exodus, a group hard hit by peace appears: armor makers, trumpet makers, etc. They try to offload their excess weapons and armor on Trygaeus, but he wants none of it. He throws her out and the party begins. THE BIRDS. The play "The Birds" is a humorous parody of the "castles in the air" built by some Athenians as they imagined their triumph in the conquest of Sicily in the late 5th century BC. introduced. The castles in the air would soon implode. 415 BC CE Athens sent a large fleet to Sicily, and two years later the fleet was completely destroyed in an unsuccessful attempt to capture the city of Syracuse. However, when The Birds was being produced, Athenians still harbored hopes of conquering an empire in Sicily that would make Athens the superpower of the Greek world. In the play, two Athenian adventurers, Pisthetaurus and Euelpides, convince the birds to build a new city in the sky between earth and sky called Cloudcuckooland. Cloudcuckooland isolates the gods from the smoke that rises from human sacrifices, and the gods are forced to seek a peace treaty with the birds. Pisthetaurus and Basle (meaning 'kingdom') get married, leave the stage and fly to Zeus' palace to take over. THE LYSISTRAT. In 411 CE, after the disastrous Sicilian expedition, many of the richest and most conservative Athenians lost faith in the war of Athenian democracy. Lysistrata is Aristophanes' plea for peace. Lysistrata is an Athenian housewife who is fed up with war. Traditionally, women in Athens have been excluded from government, but Lysistrata's aversion to male clumsiness leads her to lead a women's revolt to seize the Athenian government and end the war. The women agree to deny their husbands sex until they make amends, all while making themselves as attractive as possible to boost their husbands' hormones. They conquer the Acropolis, where the Parthenon housed the treasure. The revolution spreads to Sparta, where women banish their husbands until peace is made. Finally, in the third episode, envoys arrive from Sparta to plead for peace, and everyone calls out to Lysistrata. He appears onstage with a statue of the goddess of Reconciliation and gives a speech about the value of women and the value of Panhellenism when all Greeks unite instead of fighting each other. The play ends with the Athenians and Spartans feasting and dancing. THESMOPHORIAZUSAE. Thesmophoriazusae (Women Celebrating Thesmophoria) is a parody of Euripides,
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whose tragedies were controversial: he was famous for hating women because he did not idealize them in his plays. In Thesmophoriazusae, the women of Athens decided to execute Euripides for his insults to the female sex. Euripides, together with his father-in-law Mnesilochus, turns to the tragic poet Agathon for help. Agathon was famous in real life for his femininity and for inventing plots for his plays rather than drawing them from mythology. When Agathon agrees to receive his visitors, he is shown lying on his bed surrounded by women's toiletries. He refuses to help, but agrees to borrow Euripides' women's clothing for Mnesilochus to wear when he meets the women at Thesmophorion, the temple of Demeter where the women's religious festival known as Thesmophoria is held. Finding them denouncing Euripides, he takes up their defence, arguing that women are far worse than Euripides described them. He angers the women into attacking him, whereupon a known pedophile, Cleisthenes, also dressed as a woman, exposes him as a man. So Euripides himself tries to save Mnesilochus, using various dramatic devices from his own plays, and finally manages to save his father-in-law using a tried-and-true method: he disguises himself as a pimp - that is, a pimp - and goes with two girls on stage. They distract the policeman holding Mnesilochus and allow Euripides to free Mnesilochus. THE FROG. 405 BC The Peloponnesian War was coming to an end, but the Radical Democrats in Athens still didn't want peace. The deaths of Sophocles and Euripides the year before had given the frogs a bittersweet tone. In the play, the god Dionysus, patron saint of the Athenian stage, descends into the underworld to bring back his favorite playwright, Euripides, for no living tragedian was as brilliant as he was. In the underworld there is a competition between the late Aeschylus and the newcomer Euripides. The value of the poets is determined by taking a scale and placing a verse from one of each contestant's works on the scale and seeing which verse weighs the most. Aeschylus wins on three tests because his lines express heavy ideas, while Euripides is a comparatively light intellectual. However, when Dionysus chooses Aeschylus, Euripides reminds him that Dionysus had descended into the underworld in the first place to bring him back. Dionysius responds with a famous quote from Euripides' tragedy Hippolytus, which the Athenians considered the height of sophistry the moment he first uttered it on stage: “My tongue swore. My heart remains without an oath." Job 142
It ends with a feast, and Hades, the lord of death, sends Aeschylus back to Athens with messages to some surviving Athenians that he wishes to see them soon. The Frogs is the last surviving example of ancient comedy, and it is Aristophanes at his most brilliant. THE ECCLESIAZUSAE. After the end of the Peloponnesian War, Old Comedy lost popularity. It flourished under the carefree democracy of Athens in the 5th century, but after the war the political atmosphere changed, although democracy was restored after a group of disaffected right-wingers known as the "Thirty Tyrants" seized power and established a regime of short term. one had group. oligarchic government. Ecclesiazusae (Women in the Congregation, produced 391 BC) and Plutus (388 BC), the last surviving play by Aristophanes, belong to the Middle Comedy. Middle Comedy differs from Ancient Comedy in that the parabase is omitted, the refrain is less important, and direct attacks on Athenian politicians are absent. The object of Aristophanes' satire Ecclesiazusae is Plato's republic. Although it is unclear whether the Republic had been published at the time Ecclesiazusae was produced, Plato's lectures had disseminated his ideas, and the idea of an ideal society without private property satirized by Aristophanes in his work was familiar to Aristophanes. ' public. In the play, the women of Athens, led by Praxagoras, dress in their husbands' clothes, go early to the Ekklesia, that is, the assembly that held the supreme power in the Athenian democracy, and establish a new constitution in which everything is common. , even the women . The following episodes are commentary on the new order. Praxagora's husband Blepyrus is pleased with his wife's initiative as he looks forward to a life of laziness. Another citizen wants to share in the benefits of the new order without contributing anything. A handsome young man wants to sleep with a charming courtesan, but he is obliged by law to first please two old women who drag him along to enjoy their sexual prowess. The play ends with a shared feast. The moral of the play is that an ideal society needs ideal citizens to make it work, and none can be found in Athens. THE PLUTO. One of Aristophanes' darkest comedies, Plutus reminded audiences that a certain degree of injustice may be necessary for an economy to work. In this play, an old blind man dressed in rags enters the scene, followed by Cremilo and his slave Carlo. The oracle at Delphi ordered Cremilus to follow the first man he found after leaving the temple, and it turned out to be this blind old man. Chremylus and Carlo ask the old man who he is, and he reluctantly says it's him.
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it is Plutus, the god of wealth whom Zeus, jealous as ever of humanity, blinded. Chremylus decides to cure Plutus of his blindness and takes Plutus to his home. Chremylus' friend Blepsidemus agrees to restore Plutus' sight in exchange for a share of the wealth bestowed by Plutus. They take him to the temple of Asclepius, the god of healing, but are interrupted by a vile woman, the goddess of Poverty. She and Chremylus debate whether poverty or Plutus, the god of wealth, is more beneficial to humanity. Chremylus argues that if Plutus could see, he would only reward the good, and therefore everyone would eventually become good. Poverty counteracts the fact that, in this case, nobody wants to work anymore. Chremylus wins the argument and a miracle cure restores Plutus' eyesight. So we see the good and bad results of rewarding only the good and deserving people. Not everyone is excited about this new dispensation. A righteous man enters the scene. Is he happy. He enter an informant. He's broke. An old woman disguised as a girl comes to tell Plutus that her gigolo has left her. Hermes arrives to report that men are no longer making sacrifices and the gods are starving. A priest of Zeus reports that he too is starving and is going to the new god Pluto. Then Plutus himself enters the picture, followed by the old woman who has lost her gigolo. She is sure that he will come back to her. The play ends with a procession to the Acropolis to install Pluto and begin his reign. AVERAGE COMEDY. Between the defeat of Athens in the Peloponnesian War in 404 BC. and 321 BC, the probable date when Menander produced his first comedy The Wrath, comedy underwent a tremendous transformation. Audiences became solidly middle class as the poor could no longer go to the theater. The focus of the plays shifted from politics to courtesans, food and sex. The chorus only provided singing and dancing interludes instead of being part of the action. Although we have the names of some fifty authors and the titles of over 700 comedies, no intermediate comedies survive, with the exception of Aristophanes' last two plays. Titles range from The Birth of Aphrodite, obviously burlesque mythology - spoofs of myths were popular in in-between comedy - to The Stolen Girl, which sounds like a sitcom. Characters from the periphery of high society reappear as regulars: the professional courtesan who sometimes has a heart of gold, the cunning slave, the arrogant soldier and the freeloader who survives submissively to rich friends. These are international character types with panhellenic appeal, meaning they could be from any Greek city, not just Athens. In fact, many of the playwrights propagate it
Imaginative portrait of Menander, the most important New Comedy playwright. THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.
who produced the Middle Comedy in Athens were not Athenian citizens. THE DISCOVERY OF MEANDRO. Until the early 20th century, the only known examples of New Comedy came from second-hand adaptations of Greek plays by Roman playwrights Plautus and Terence for the Roman stage. These adaptations gave a certain flavor to the New Comedy playwrights Menander, Diphilus, Philemon, and Apollodorus. In 1905, a papyrus codex, that is, a papyrus document bound like a modern book, was found in Egypt at Aphroditus, present-day Kom Esqawh. Contains large portions of Menander's Girl from Samos, The Rape of the Locks and The Arbitration, as well as fragments of two other works. A little over fifty years later, a papyrus came to light containing the full text of Dyscolos (The man with the hot temper), as well as fragments of The Girl from Samos and half of a play entitled The Shield. Since then, other papyrus fragments have been discovered, one in 2003 containing 200 lines of an unspecified work, but Dyscolos is the only complete work discovered.
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THE DISCS. Dyscolos was first mentioned in 316 BC. Produced at the Lenaea Festival in Athens. It is one of Menander's earliest works, a light situation drama without the typical New Comedy characters. In the play, Knemon, a misanthropic man, marries a widow who has a son, Gorgias, from a previous marriage. They have a daughter, but Knemon's wife, unable to bear his bad temper, leaves him and he lives practically like a hermit on his farm. Sostratus falls in love with his daughter and asks for her hand. Knemon refuses, but after falling down a well and being rescued by Sostratus, he becomes a different man. He reconciles with his wife and agrees to give their daughter Sostratus in marriage. He also marries Gorgias to Sostratus' sister. INFLUENCE OF THE NEW COMEDY. New Comedy shaped the style of Greek theater after Alexander the Great of the 3rd century BC. advance. Numerous theater festivals sprang up in every city, and groups of professional actors traveled from place to place performing their plays. From Greece, New Comedy arrived in Rome, where playwrights Plautus and Terence created plays inspired by New Comedy. Whereas Aristophanes' early comedies were specific to time and place, the new comedy had universal appeal. SOURCES
KJ Dover, Aristophanic Comedy (Londres, Inglaterra: BT Batsford, 1972). RL Hunter, The New Comedy of Greece and Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985). Hans-Joachim Newiger, "Guerra e Paz na Comédia de Aristófanes", Yale Classical Studies 26 (1980): 219–237. Gilbert Norwood, Greek Comedy (Londres, Inglaterra: Methuen, 1931; reimpresso, Nova York: Hill and Wang, 1963). FH Sandbach, The Comic Theatre of Greece and Rome (Londres, Inglaterra: Chatto and Windus, 1977). Dana Ferrin Sutton, Old Comedy: The War of the Generations (Nova York: Twayne Publishers, 1993). Michael J. Walton e Peter Arnott, Menander and the Making of Comedy (Westfield, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1996). CH Whitman, Aristófanes e o herói cômico (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1964).
THE BEGINNING OF THE GREEK TRAGEDY. The evidence for the origins of tragic drama is ambiguous. The name itself is strange, as Tragoidia means 'goat song' or perhaps 'goat song'.
for a goat" and attempts to explain its meaning have been ingenious but never entirely successful. The Roman poet Horace, a contemporary of Emperor Augustus, thought that the "tragedy" was so named because the prize for best tragedy was a goat, but this is unlikely. One fact, however, is indisputable: tragedy was closely related to the cult of Dionysus, and Aristotle claimed that it developed out of the dithyramb, a choral song in honor of Dionysus. The great age of Greek tragedy began in Athens when, around 536 BC, the tyrant Pisistratus founded the Dionysian city festival. Where dithyrambs were performed by amateur singers. Pisistratus hoped to use the festival to publicize Athens. After his death in 527 BC. His sons Hippias, who succeeded as tyrant, and Hipparchus, who became quasi-minister of culture, continued his policies until Hippias was murdered and Hippias was killed four years later, in 510 B.C.E., expelled from power. In the city of Dionysia from 534 BC 536-533 BC, or at least between 536 and 533, the conductor Thespis of the city of Ikaria participated in his dithyramb, featuring an actor who was part of history. As Aristotle pointed out, tragedy was the performance of an action worthy of attention and, once there was an actor, there could be imitation of the action, although the chorus continued to sing the action. We know almost nothing about Thespis except that her father's name was Themon and that she had a disciple named Phrynichus who lived until the 5th century BC. lived in it. Meanwhile, the great age of tragedy had dawned, ruled by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. AGE OF TRAGEDY. The great age of tragedy was short lived. It began with Thespis, but the oldest surviving tragedy is Aeschylus' The Persians, performed in 472 BC. It ends with the death of Sophocles and Euripides shortly before Athens' defeat in the Peloponnesian War. Other surviving plays are seven plays by Aeschylus, seven by Sophocles plus one satyr play (The Trackers), and seventeen by Euripides plus one satyr play (The Cyclops). There is also Rhesus, the smallest Greek tragedy we have, possibly by Euripides. Other tragedians whose work is now lost are Phrynicus, Choerilus and Pratinas, all of whom wrote before Aeschylus, and the sons of Phrynicus and Pratinas, who belonged to the generation of Aeschylus and Sophocles. Aeschylus' son Euphorius also performed tragedies. TRAGEDY BEFORE THE SQUIRREL. Aeschylus was the first playwright to add a second speaking actor, and Sophocles added a third. Before Aeschylus, when there was only one actor, the chorus must have played a very important role in the development of the drama's plot. One
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Verse Song is a term whose meaning is obvious to everyone.
Aristotle on Tragedy and Comedy Introduction:
The great Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BC) wrote in his Poetics on the subject of tragedy, along with many other subjects. In the following excerpt, he discusses the main components of the tragedy.
Tragedy, then, is an account of action worthy of serious, independent attention, and of some magnitude; in a language enriched by a variety of artistic resources suited to the different parts of the work; presented in the form of action, not narrative; through pity and fear causing a purification of such emotions. By rich language, I mean language that has rhythm, music, or singing; and by artistic means appropriate to the various parts, I mean that some are created by verse only, and others again by song. Now that representation is performed by actors, it follows, first, that spectacle is an essential part of tragedy, and, second, that music and diction must be the means of performance. By diction I mean arrangement here
One of Aeschylus' tragedies, The Supplicants, fits this pattern. Earlier scholars believed that even before the Battle of Marathon in 490 B.C. C., where Aeschylus fought as an infantryman in the Athenian battle line against the invading Persians, but under the large papyrus deposit discovered at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt is a small fragment that disturbs the initial dating of the supplicants. It now seems likely that it was in the Dionysian city of 462 BC. it happened. The late date of Supplicants shows that Aeschylus did not feel the need to follow the latest fashions on stage. THE PERSIANS. 480 BC The Persian Empire launched a major land and sea invasion of Greece, led by King Xerxes himself, and ended in total defeat. The decisive point was the Greek victory at Salamis, and the Athenians had a certain claim to victory, for although the admiral of the Greek allied fleet was a Spartan, the Athenian navy provided by far the largest contingent. The Persians is an imaginary representation of the impact of the Persian defeat on the Persians themselves. Set in the Persian capital of Susa, the play uses a chorus of Persian advisers who are magnificent in their attire. Atossa, mother of Xerxes, tells of a disturbing dream
In tragedy an action is imitated, and that action is performed by actors who necessarily have certain characteristics both of character and of thought, by which we also define the nature of actions. Therefore, thought and character are the two natural causes of action, and all people depend on them for success or failure. The presentation of action is the action of tragedy; for the orderly arrangement of events is what I mean by action. Character, on the other hand, allows us to define the nature of the participants, and thoughts arise in what they say when proving a point or expressing an opinion. Thus, every tragedy inevitably has six components that determine its quality. They are action, character, diction, thought, spectacle and song. Of these, two represent the means by which the action is represented, one concerns the form of representation and three are related to the objects of representation; nothing more is needed. SPRING:
Aristotle, "On the Art of Poetry," in Classical Literary Criticism. Trans. TS Dorsch (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Classics, 1965): 38-39.
and receives consolation from the chorus. A messenger arrives with news of the defeat of the Persian fleet. His description of the naval battle of Salamis was masterful and should make Athenian hearts swell with pride. Atossa brings offerings to the tomb of Darius, the wise old king who fathered Xerxes, and Darius' spirit is lifted. He describes how the power and wealth of the Persian Empire blinded the foolish Xerxes and prophesied doom. Finally, Xerxes takes the stage, his royal robes in tatters, and the drama ends with a lament sung in antiphon by Xerxes and the chorus. This was top-notch patriotic drama, but don't denigrate the Persians; except Xerxes himself, all Persian characters are dignified and noble. But the subject was familiar: the man, blinded by pride and size, takes an unexpected fall. THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBAS. The Seven Against Thebes was the last and only surviving work in a trilogy dealing with the curse of the royal house of Thebes. History provided Sophocles with the material for three great tragedies, the tyrant Oedipus, Antigone, and Oedipus at Colonus. According to the story, Laius, king of Thebes, becomes a friend during his exile
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sing a dirge The play's message is utterly fatalistic, suggesting that nothing can stand in the way of fate as it should be.
Imaginative portrait of the tragic Aeschylus.
AP/WIDTH
PHOTOS OF THE WORLD. REPRODUCED WITH PERMISSION.
Pelops, but falls in love with his benefactor's son, Chrysippus, and kidnaps him; The fact casts a curse on Laius and his family, in which his son is destined to kill him. In the second lost play of this trilogy, Oedipus, Laius is actually murdered by his son Oedipus. The curse extends to Oedipus' own sons, Polynices and Eteocles, when they reach adulthood and agree to share rule of Thebes with each other, each reigning in alternate years. While Polyneices reigns and resigns during his regnal year, Eteocles renounces the agreement and refuses to resign after his regnal year. To regain the throne, Polynices gathers an army led by seven heroes, one for each of the seven gates of Thebes, and besieges the city. At the beginning of this siege, the Seven Against Thebes begins. Each of the seven heroes in Polyneices' army leads an attack on the designated gate, which in turn is defended by six champions chosen by Eteocles. he himself defends the gate attacked by his brother Polyneices. Although the theme of the play is full of action and violence, the Greek audience saw nothing of the battle that was taking place behind the scenes, while on stage the chorus sang about the terrible curse that hung over the house of the King of Thebes. A messenger informs the public of the outcome of the conflict; The city was saved, but Eteocles and Polynices killed themselves, making the chorus 146
SUBSTITUTE WOMEN. The Suplicant Women is part of a trilogy of three tragedies that modern critics conveniently call the Danaid trilogy. Only the first work of the trilogy, Supplicating Women, survives, but we know the titles of the next two works: The Egyptians and The Danaides (the 'daughters of Danaus'). The myth underlying the play was familiar to Athenians: the fifty sons of Egypt (meaning 'Egypt') force the fifty daughters of Egypt's brother Danaus (meaning 'Greek') to marry them, and the daughters run away. from Egypt. with his father to seek refuge in Argos, his ancestral homeland. At the beginning of the play, the daughters are in Argos, begging refuge (hence the "beseeching women" in the title) from Pelasgos, king of Argos. At the risk of risking war with Egypt, the Pelasgians and Argives agree to give them refuge and challenge the pursuing Sons of Egypt. The fifty daughters function as a chorus in this work, although they are probably represented by twelve female singers, a standard size for tragic choruses. After defeating the Egyptians, Danaus gives his daughters fatherly advice: obedience to their father's orders. The full weight of this advice is confirmed in the last two works of the now lost trilogy, in which the sons of Aegyptus manage to marry the daughters of Danaus and Danaus instructs his daughters to kill their husbands at their nocturnal nuptials. All except Hypermestra, the only daughter who fell in love with her Egyptian husband, Lynceus; she obeys the demands of love instead of her father. A fragment survives from the last work of the trilogy: a speech by the goddess of love, Aphrodite, who exalts love as the generating principle of the universe. THE ORESTEIA. The Oresteia is Aeschylus' only surviving complete trilogy, comprising Agamemnon, the Libations, and the Eumenides. The trilogy is about a constitutional blood feud. A Trojan War hero, Agamemnon, had sacrificed his own daughter before going to war to ensure favorable winds for the journey. This act set off a chain reaction of revenge killings when, upon his return from Troy, Agamemnon was killed by his wife Clytemnestra and her lover, and his son Orestes later killed the murderous couple. Morally tainted by his matricide, Orestes is pursued by the Furies until he is tried in Athens before the ancient Council of Areopagus. The council had recently been stripped of most of its power when the Oresteia occurred, but it still served
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like a murder court. The Furies argue that, according to the Law of Blood, Orestes must pay the penalty for matricide. The gods intervene, with Athena presiding as judge and Apollo speaking in defense. The juries are split evenly, with Athena having the casting vote. She decides that since murdering a father trumps murdering a mother, Orestes was not wrong in killing his mother for killing his father. The decision entails the replacement of a matriarchal society by a patriarchal one, though whether or not that is the hidden meaning of this work is open to endless debate. Anyway, the Furies are outraged, but Athena offers them a place in her city as good spirits to control crime under her new rule. The Furies agree and become "graceful goddesses" under the new rule of law that replaces the "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" law. PROMETEUS LINK. Prometheus Bound is considered the last work of Aeschylus. The story tells of the myth of Prometheus, a titan who incurred the wrath of Zeus by secretly giving the gift of fire to mortal men whom Zeus despised, and would have replaced them with a more perfect race had he gotten away with it. For his rebellion against Zeus, Prometheus was condemned to be chained to a rock forever and have his liver devoured by an eagle every day. Prometheus' immortality as a Titan provided for the endless torture of his punishment, as his liver grew larger each day only to be devoured again by the eagle. The drama ends with an earthquake (how the then "special effects" department managed to pull this off is a matter of conjecture) and Prometheus and his stone sink underground as the chorus flees. Despite overwhelming power, Prometheus remains a man of principle. This ending shortens the myth, but we know that the trilogy had two more works and ended with the peace between Zeus and Prometheus. The supremacy of Zeus is recognized, but also the right of humanity to exist and live according to the rule of law and without violence. SOPHOCLES. During his long life, spanning from about 496 to about 406 BC. C. Sophocles wrote 123 plays, seven of which survive along with an incomplete satirical work discovered on a papyrus. This short catalog of works provides only a small glimpse of his development as a playwright. By all accounts, he was well-born, handsome, and pious, and an active participant in public life. He introduced the convention of a third actor in tragedy productions early in his career (earlier tragedies had only two actors with a chorus), and Aeschylus soon included three actors in his Oresteia. Sophocles also introduced some scenarios
Imaginative portrait of Sophocles.
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to separate. The recurring theme of his tragedies is the suffering of men and women, sometimes self-inflicted suffering from character flaws or suffering resulting from being in the wrong place at the wrong time. AJAX. Ajax is considered by most scholars to be Sophocles' first tragedy and revolves around the legend of Ajax's suicide. According to Homer's Iliad, after Achilles, the hero Ajax was the strongest warrior in the Greek army that fought at Troy. After Achilles' death, there is a dispute to see who is the most valuable hero in the Greek army and therefore worthy of inheriting his armor. Ajax loses the competition to his comrade in arms Ulysses and goes crazy with disappointment. In his madness, he attacks what he believes to be the Greek camp and, early in the play, delights in the supposed slaughter of Odysseus and two of the Greek champions, Agamemnon and Menelaus. Coming to his senses, he realizes he has attacked a flock of sheep instead of the Greek camp and is so overcome with shame that he commits suicide. His death was dishonorable and therefore the question arises of what kind of burial Ajax should have. His half-brother Teucer is determined to see him buried honorably, but Menelaus and Agamemnon forget about him.
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ANTIGONE'S SPEECH IN DEFENSE OF CONSCIOUSNESS INTRODUCTION:
In Sophocles' tragedy Antigone, the conscience of the individual and the demands of the state collide. Title character Antigone is on trial for burying her brother Polyneices, against the decree of Creon, king of Thebes, who ordered that he be left unburied for leading an invasion of Thebes. The funeral rite, which consisted only of scattering a few handfuls of earth over the corpse, allowed the spirit of the deceased to enter the House of Hades. In war, there was a regular truce after a battle so that each side could bury its own dead. The family of a dead soldier would be shocked and devastated if he could remain unburied. However, there was no such obligation to bury enemy dead, and Creon considered Polynices an enemy. For Antigone, however, Polynices is her brother, despite what he has done, and her conscience demands that she bury him. In this speech, Antigone challenges Creon and defends his right to obey his own conscience and not the law of the State. Antigone's obedience to her conscience is admirable in modern terms, but in ancient Greece her actions ran counter to cherished Greek maxims of "abundance in abundance" and "moderation in all things". Both Antigone and Creon have excessive and inflexible views, and their excess leads to Antigone's destruction; the son of Creon Haimon, who was engaged to Antigone; and Creon's wife, who commits suicide. The play ends with Creon bowing in pain.
ask, because Ajax intended to kill her, although he did not succeed. The dispute is resolved when Odysseus successfully argues that grudges must be forgotten. There's a large cast of characters here: Ajax, absorbed in his own grievances; Menelaus and Agamemnon, both mean and narrow-minded; and Odysseus, who allows his wits to overcome any resentment he feels and realizes that statesmanship requires magnanimity. Ajax demonstrates the value of true political skill. ANTIGONE. Antigone is a dark work with a disturbing message. The attack on Thebes dramatized in Aeschylus' Seth against Thebes is over, and the two warrior brothers, Polynices and Eteocles, are dead. Creon, the new king of Thebes, orders Polynices to remain unburied because he died a traitor who invaded his homeland. Polynices' sister, Antigone, however, disobeys and gives Polynices' body a formal burial, that is, she spreads earth over his corpse. He challenges Creon in a grand speech and claims his 148th throne.
Creon Do you know the command forbidding such an act? ANTIGONE Of course he knew. It was pretty clear. Creon: And yet you dared to contradict him? Antigone: Yes, this order did not come from God. Justice He who dwells with the gods below knows no such law. I didn't think your edicts were strong enough to nullify the immutable unwritten laws of God and Heaven while you were just a man. They are not from yesterday or today, but eternal, although none of us can say where they come from. I cannot be guilty of any person on earth for their transgression before God. I knew, of course, that with or without your orders I would have to die. If it's soon, even better. While living in daily agony, who wouldn't want to die? This punishment will not be pain. Only if I had left my mother's son unburied, then I wouldn't have borne it. I can handle it. Sound silly to you? Or are you stupid to judge me like that? SOURCE: Sophocles, Antigone, in Thetheban Plays. Trans. EF Watling (Harmondsworth, England: The Penguin Classics, 1947): 138-139.
Right to place divine laws above the man-made rules of a state. Creon condemns her to be locked alive in a vault for her disobedience, but when the seer Tiresias warns him that the city is defiled by the unburied corpse of Polyneices, he reluctantly repents and sets out to free Antigone. However, it is too late, as she has hanged herself. Her son Haemon, who was engaged to Antigone, commits suicide, as does Creon's queen upon learning of what happened. Creon leaves the stage a broken man. Two stubborn ones clashed: one, Creon, defending the right of a state to impose its laws, and the other, Antigone, defending the right of the individual to follow his conscience. Both follow their plans and both suffer, although Antigone reaches a certain degree of martyrdom. There are no clear winners in this battle of wills, however, and the play's message seems to be that one person's refusal to accept another's point of view can bring bad luck to both. Oedipus Tyrant. In his tyrant Oedipus, Sophocles returns to the myth of the curse that hung
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about the royal house of Thebes, but the setting is a generation before Antigone. A plague has hit Thebes and an oracle from Delphi reveals that the cause is moral corruption: the murderer of Laius, who ruled Thebes before Oedipus, goes unpunished. The Athenians in the audience knew from the myth underlying the play that the murderer is Oedipus himself, a fact he is unaware of because he did not know that the man he had killed, Laius, was his father. He compounded his crime by marrying Laius's widow, Jocasta, not knowing that she was his own mother. In his ignorance, Oedipus asks everyone to tell him what information they have about the crime and places a curse on the murderer and anyone harboring him. He sends for the blind seer Tiresias so he can feel it. Tiresias is unwilling to say what he knows at first, but Oedipus' insistence angers him and he tells Oedipus very clearly that he is his father's murderer and his mother's husband. Oedipus does not believe him. He suspects that Tiresias is a tool of Creon, his wife's brother, who wants to depose him. Jocasta assures Oedipus that he need not fear the oracles, citing as proof of his unreliability the fact that an oracle warned Laius, her ex-husband, that her son would kill him. She, like Oedipus, bases her trust on ignorance, believing that Laius was killed by thieves while on a journey. Jocasta's attempt to calm him down has the opposite effect, as the same oracle at Delphi had told Oedipus that he was destined to kill his father and marry his mother, and now he suspects the truth. This was called an incident: a push in one direction that leads to the opposite of what was expected. Then Oedipus learns that the man he thought was his father, Polybus of Corinth, has died, and not at Oedipus' hands; Oedipus is relieved to believe the oracle is wrong. Then the truth is revealed that Polybus was not really his father, leading Oedipus to discover the whole truth. His wife/mother Jocasta is actually the first to recognize the awful truth and hangs herself in horror. When Oedipus realizes the terrible truth and sees Jocasta's lifeless body, he tears out his eyes to put out the light. The Tyrant Oedipus is the most famous Greek tragedy for two reasons. First, its structure: the action is compressed, one scene logically following the one before it, and Sophocles' dramatic irony for which he was famous builds the suspense to final resolution. But the second reason for his fame is the multiple messages he projects. It seems to be a drama of fate; Oedipus is doomed to kill his father and marry his mother, and although he takes steps to avoid his fate, he cannot. But on the other hand, it is Oedipus' determination to examine Laius.
Death and discovers the cause of the plague, leading to the revelation of the terrible truth he inadvertently blames for his own downfall. After all, this is a game that has attracted psychologists. Sigmund Freud, the father of modern psychology, argued that it expresses a young man's unconscious desire to kill his father and become his mother's mate, a primitive urge repressed because it is taboo in civilized society. Freud called this repressed pleasure the "Oedipus complex", although this psychological angle probably did not occur to Sophocles when he wrote the play. His drama focuses on the horror with which the Greeks viewed patricide and incest. THREE SUBSEQUENT TRENDS. The three tragedies, entitled Elektra, The Wives of Trachis and Philoctetes, do not create the same suspense as Sophocles' masterpiece, but they are good plays. Elektra uses the same myth as Aeschylus' libation, but the general tenor is very different. Whereas Aeschylus's version presents Orestes' murder of his mother as a horrible crime pursued by the Furies, Orestes' murder of Clytemnestra in Elektra is merely a reward for his crime of murdering Agamemnon. The title character is Orestes' sister and she lives a life of revenge because she is dedicated to her father's memory and she lives in hope that her brother Orestes will come home and kill Clitaemnestra and her lover. But Sophocles does not have many problems dealing with the same myth as Aeschylus. Sophocles' characters are ordinary people caught in an extraordinary situation. The women of Trachis dramatize the myth of the death of Heracles. Heracles has taken the city of Oechalia, and his servant Lichas brings the captives of Oechalia to Heracles' home in Trachis, including Iole, whose beauty is striking. Heracles' wife Deianira is a good woman by the standards of the time, but when Lichas blurts out that Iole is Heracles' new wife, she believes she is losing her husband's love. She sends Heracles a garment anointed with a love potion, not knowing that the love potion is poisonous. Heracles dons the mantle and burns the flesh. Hyllus, son of Deianira, curses her for causing his father's death, and Deianira hangs herself. Hercules enters the stage in his sleep, but soon wakes up in excruciating pain. He learns the truth about Deianira from Hyllus and commands her pyre on Mount Oeta. Philoctetes focuses on the conflict between two characters, Neoptolemus, the young and honorable son of Achilles, and the ancient and cunning Odysseus. The hero Philoctetes, owner of the Arch of Heracles, was left on a deserted island by the Greek army on the way to Troy because he was suffering from illness.
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an incurable ulcer caused by a snakebite. However, the Greeks discover that they cannot take Troy unless they possess the Arch of Heracles, which belongs to Philoctetes. Neoptolemus and Odysseus travel to the island of Philoctetes, and Neoptolemus reluctantly agrees to accept a trick Odysseus proposes of taking Philoctetes' bow and then leaving it again. But once Neoptolemus receives the bow, Philoctetes' despair touches him so much that he hands it back, despite Odysseus' protests. The work ends with an epiphany of Heracles ordering Philoctetes to sail to Troy, where Asklepios will heal him. The ending is unusual for Sophocles in that it involves a deus ex machina, i.e. a god, in this case Hercules, who is lowered onto the stage in a basket by a rope attached to a crane to set things right. The resolution of the drama does not develop out of action, but is brought about by divine intervention. OEDIPUS AT THE COLONUS. Sophocles' last and longest surviving work deals with the death and apotheosis of Oedipus, that is, his acceptance among the gods. It is also a play that requires four actors; Sophocles, who early in his career introduced the innovation of using three speaking actors, adds a fourth here. Oedipus, already old, blind and helpless and cared for by his daughter Antigone in exile, arrives in Colonus, on the outskirts of Athens, Sophocles' hometown. There he recognizes the enclosure of the Venerable Goddesses as the place where he will die. His daughter Ismene arrives and tells him that his son Polyneices is about to attack Thebes and Creon wants Oedipus back because he has been told that his presence in Thebes will save the city. Theseus, king of Athens, accepts Oedipus as a resident of Athens. Creon arrives and tries to persuade Oedipus to come and live outside the confines of Thebes, and when Oedipus refuses, his companions attempt to drag Antigone and Ismene away, only to be thwarted by Theseus. Then Polynices comes and asks Oedipus for help. Oedipus hears what he has to say and responds with a solemn curse. A thunderclap warns Oedipus that his time is near. He calls Theseus again and together they leave the stage. A messenger arrives to report that Oedipus has disappeared. Only Theseus knows what happened, and his knowledge is the exclusive domain of the kings of Athens. This work was probably written shortly before Sophocles' death in 406 BC. Written. EURIPIDES. For Euripides, the last of the triad of great classic tragedians, the most important thing in drama was the character. He tasted the deepest feelings of his heroes and heroines. The great questions of fate and the nature of justice were not for him. Instead, he put the 150
Character of a hero or heroine under stress to see how they would react. The fact that he often used heroines may have been the reason for his reputation as a misogynist among his contemporaries. In his greatest work, Medea, created in 431 BC. C., the first year of the Peloponnesian War, depicts a woman who has been terribly wronged by her husband and seeks revenge. The myth was well known: the hero Jason had sailed to Colchis in search of the Golden Fleece and only found it with the help of the Colchis princess Medea, who took it with her to Greece. When the play opens, Jason and Medea have settled in Corinth. Jason has become a comfortable member of Corinthian society and his foreign wife Medea has become an embarrassment, especially now that Jason has the chance to marry the king's daughter. Jason, who is completely self-centered, argues with Medea that everyone will be better off if he dumps her and enters this beneficial marriage. Medea sees it differently. She destroys the king's daughter and with her the king, then kills her children and leaves in a chariot of fire sent by her grandfather, the sun god. The drama ends with a supernatural intervention - the kind of ending she liked. Euripides and what he criticized. THE ALKESTIS. Eighteen dramas by Euripides survive, including a satyr play, The Cyclops, and a drama, The Alcestis, written in 438 BC. it was staged. and which took the place of satire as the fourth drama in a tetralogy. It's not a tragedy. Instead, he points to Menander's New Comedy, written a century later, when Euripides was the tragedian whose plays were most frequently reenacted. The story of Alceste is a popular tale with the following pattern: A man learns that he must die at some point unless someone else dies in his place. In Euripides' play, Admetus, king of Pherae in Thessaly, possessed of all the conventional virtues, is the man who discovers his destiny and tries to find someone who will accept him. His parents refuse because they want the last years of their lives for themselves. However, his wife Alcestis agrees to die in his place. Admetus accepts his wife's sacrifice and, in doing so, realizes that he has not been brave at all. However, he is ready to live and forgets all the virtuous resolutions he has made to save his conscience. Alcestis is saved from death by the hero Heracles, who fights Thanatos, the god of death, to bring her back to life. The characters are brilliantly drawn, especially Herakles, who has a massive appetite for food and drink. The further development of Herakles' character as a court jester owes much to Euripides. The play ends happily, although a modern reader might appreciate that.
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I think Admetus will have to explain a few things the next time he talks to his wife. THE HORRIBLE PASSION. Hippolytus, made in 428 BC. B.C., shows a woman stressed by passion and a man obsessed with virtue. Phaedra, the young wife of Theseus, falls head over heels in love with her stepson Hippolytus, who loves nature and is not interested in sex. Phaedra's nurse offers herself as a mediator and proposes Hippolytus to her. Hippolytus reacts with disgust and Phaedra, overcome with shame, commits suicide, leaving a note for Theseus accusing Hippolytus of inappropriate advances. Furious with jealousy, Theseus tells his father Poseidon to punish his son, and Poseidon sends a sea monster, frightening the horses of Hippolytus' chariot, to flee. Hippolytus is thrown from the car and mortally wounded. Theseus learns the truth about his son's innocence and the two are reconciled shortly before Hippolytus's death. Phaedra is devastated by her desire for sexual love, while Hippolytus is devastated by her obsession with chastity. Hecuba, written three years after Hippolytus, shows another woman stressed, this time by the catastrophe of defeat. Troy fell, Hecuba, wife of the king of Troy, was enslaved and saw her daughter Polyxena sacrificed to the spirit of Achilles. Now he learns of the murder of his last son, Polydoros, who had been entrusted to Priam's ally, the Thracian king Polymestor, to be kept safe. Upon learning of Troy's fall, Polymestor kills Polydoros and dumps his body in the sea. Calamity transforms Hecuba from a fallen queen to a heartbroken mother bent on revenge. She makes a desperate plea to the victor, Agamemnon, and after he gains her cooperation, she lures Polymestor to her tent, where she and his wives kill their two children in front of him, blinding him. The play ends with Polymestor being banished to a desert island and the old queen leaving to bury her dead. WAR PROPAGANDA. The popularity of the Athenian theater spread to Athens itself amidst the bitter Peloponnesian War, which split Greece into two warring sides, each eager to justify itself. Many of Euripides' plays written during the war had a message for both combatants, and Sparta and Delphi (a Spartan ally) tend to fare poorly. It is true to call these works wartime propaganda, since Athens did not intentionally mobilize its tragic poets to produce works conducive to its goals. However, Andromache seems to have been inspired by a Spartan atrocity that took place in the early years of the war, and one of Euripides' early commentators reports that it did not take place in Athens. He
Bust of the Athenian tragedian Euripides.
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ORIGIN/BODY.
Thus, asking where the work was produced leaves two possibilities: one was Argos, neighboring Sparta, where Athens wanted to stir up anti-Spartan sentiments; the other was the kingdom of Epirus in northwest Greece, which had a young king educated in Athens. The plot deals with the aftermath of the Trojan War. When the spoils of Troy were divided, Andromache, the captive wife of Hector, went to Neoptolemus, son of Achilles, also called Pyrrhus, whom the kings of Epirus claimed as their ancestor, and she went home with him and gave him a son. At the beginning of the play, Menelaus and Helen's daughter Hermione has married Neoptolemus, and Andromache is no longer welcome in Neoptolemus' household. Posing as a typically cruel, unfaithful, and arrogant Spartan, Menelaus plans to kill Andromache and her son in cold blood while Neoptolemus is at Delphi. She is saved by the intervention of Peleus, Neoptolemus' elderly grandfather. Then comes devastating news; Neoptolemus was ambushed at Delphi and killed by a group of gunmen acting under orders from Orestes, another Spartan. The Delphians, whose fondness for Sparta during the Peloponnesian War was no secret, prove to be an insidious bunch in Andromache. The Sons of Hercules is even more anti-Spartan. The Dorians claimed to be Heraclides, that is,
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descendants of Heracles, and the Spartans were essentially Dorians. The sons of Heracles and their mother Alcmene flee from their old enemy Eurystheus at Marathon into Athenian territory. Eurystheus is captured and the vengeful Alcmene insists he be killed. Before he dies, he promises the Athenians that if they give him an honorable burial, he will be their friend when the ungrateful descendants of the Heraclides, namely the Dorians, invade, a clear reference to the Peloponnesian War when the Spartans were uniting by leading intruders . Army in Attica to destroy crops in the early years of the war. The supplicants, who are also anti-Spartans, end up with an oath from Adrastus of Argos never to invade Athenian territory and prevent the enemies from doing so. In the year 420 BC, Athens and Argos negotiated an alliance, and the Oath of Adrastus sounds like an indication of this. But a few years later, in 415 B.C. BC, when Euripides' Trojan Women were presented in the Dionysian city in March, on the eve of the disastrous Sicilian campaign, it is the brutality of war that weighs on Euripides. The year before, an Athenian force had taken the small island of Melos in the Aegean Sea, slaughtered the men, and sold the women and children into slavery. The Troy Women portray the plight of the women captured at the fall of Troy, but Euripides takes a liberty with traditional mythology: he so eloquently accused Hecuba of Helen as a war criminal that Menelaus decides to kill her on her arrival in Sparta to run anyway, war was fought on Troy to restore her to him, her rightful husband. THE HERACLES. In the Renaissance, this work was called Hercules Furens ("The Madness of Heracles"). In the play, Lycus has become the tyrant of Thebes and is about to kill Heracles' wife Megara and her children. Heracles arrives just in time to save his family and kill Lycus. Then his enemy, the goddess Hera, inflicts madness on Heracles and he kills his wife and children. When the madness leaves him, he falls asleep only to wake up to the news of what he has done. But Theseus, whom Heracles rescued from Hades, comforts his friend and offers him asylum in Athens. There is no reliable date for this work but 414 BC. C., when the Athenians still had high hopes for their campaign in Sicily, it is a good possibility. HAPPY ENDING. Euripides did not always end his works in tragedy. Iphigenia in Tauris, Ion and Helen have a happy ending. The first uses the myth of Agamemnon's daughter Iphigenia, who sacrificed Agamemnon to the gods so that they would grant favorable winds to the Greek fleet to sail from Aulis to Troy. An alternate version of Myth 152
He had the goddess Artemis save Iphigenia at the last moment and bring her to Tauris to be his priestess there. While in Tauris, he recognizes his brother Orestes and his friend being held captive by the Taureans. She plans to save them from bullfighting and does so with the help of the goddess Athena. The second non-tragedy, Ion, has a plot similar to that found in The New Comedy, in which a child conceived by rape is subjected to death, to be rescued years later and reunited with its parents. In this work, Ion is the son of a rape committed by the god Apollo of the unjustly treated heroine Creusa, daughter of King Erechtheus of Athens. Fearing the wrath of her parents, Creusa secretly exposes Ion to the elements and leaves him for dead, but Apollo takes the boy to his temple at Delphi, where he becomes a devout temple servant, little aware of the evil of the outside world. At the start of the play, Creusa and her husband Xuthus arrive at Delphi to consult the oracle about their inability to bear a child, and their arrival at the temple where Ion serves threatens to reveal the truth about Ion's paternity. To save Apollo's reputation, the Oracle tries to impose Ion on Xuthus, and Creusa, fearful for her own future with an unwanted stepson in her house (unaware that he is her real son), tries to kill Ion. The conspiracy is discovered and Ion and the Delphi are about to kill the Creusa stone when the ancient priestess of Apollo who raised Ion arrives with the cradle and clothes she wore when she conceived him. resolved with the help of Athena, who explains that she came in Apollo's place because Apollo is ashamed to admit to hurting Creusa. Apollo portrays himself as an ordinary politician who has been involved in a sex scandal and is attempting what in this day and age would be called a "cover-up". The message is that organized religions cannot claim special privileges when it comes to moral standards. Helen uses an alternative myth about Helen of Troy invented by the Sicilian poet Stesichorus. Paris did not bring Helen to Troy. Instead, headwinds pushed his ship towards Egypt, where Helen stayed and only an ectoplasmic facsimile of Helen made it to Troy. Returning home from the Trojan War, Menelaus is shipwrecked off the coast of Egypt and is surprised to find Helen alive there. The facsimile he made of Troy simply evaporates. This fantastic drama ends with Menelaus and Helen fleeing Egypt, where the king had a nasty habit of killing any Greek who landed. There is nothing tragic about Helen. The myth it tells is simply a beautiful story with comic elements.
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FOUR MELODRAMAS. With Elektra, made around 413 BC. and Orestes (408 BCE), Euripides returned to the familiar theme of revenge for the murder of Agamemnon. In Electra, neither Electra nor Orestes are completely sane. Euripides' addition to the legend is Elektra's marriage to a respectable peasant; Her mother, Clytemnestra, gave her to a low-ranking man to prevent her from having high-status children, in order to embarrass the royal house of Mycenae. Despite her marriage, Electra remains a virgin. Electra and her brother Orestes plot the murder of Clytaemnestra for killing her father Agamemnon and have him mercilessly executed. His mood then changes to hysterical remorse. But Castor and Polydeuces, Clytemnestra's brothers and now also divine beings, appear and set things right: Orestes goes to Athens, his friend Pylades marries Elektra, and as for the matricide, Apollo is to blame. In Orestes we have several unpleasant characters: Orestes, who is crazy; Electra, whose only redeeming quality is her devotion to her brother; Menelaus; Helena; his daughter Hermione; old Tyndaro, who is Helena's father; and faithful Pylades. Elektra and Orestes are sentenced to death for the murder of Clytaemnestra, but are given the privilege of killing each other. They then plan to kill Helen, who mysteriously disappears, so they take Hermione hostage to force Menelaus to intervene. Menelaus finds Orestes with a knife to Hermione's throat while Electra and Pylades burn down the palace. Apollo intervenes and declares that everything went for the best. The Phoenician Women is a play about the sons of Oedipus who died fighting in Thebes. Jocasta, still alive despite her suicide at the end of Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrant, tries to stop the duel between Polynices and Eteocles, but arrives too late and commits suicide over their corpses. Iphigenia at Aulis was a play that Euripides never completed, but someone else supplied the missing parts and it was performed after his death. It tells the story of Iphigenia's sacrifice and the text ends with a messenger arriving to denounce him. The characterization is great. Agamemnon is indecisive and terribly disturbed by the idea of sacrificing Iphigenia to gain favorable winds to sail to Troy, but his army is combative. It is important for Menelaus to continue the war. Clytemnestra brought Iphigenia to Aulis because Agamemnon had sent her a fraudulent message that he wanted to marry her to Achilles. Achilles emerges from history as an honorable warrior. Angered by the misuse of his name, he is willing to defend Iphigenia. But then Iphigenia agrees to die as her patriotic duty, and Achilles leaves, vowing to defend her should she change her mind.
THE BLOWS. If 408 BC CE o Early the following year, Euripides left Athens for the court of King Archelaus of Macedon, where he produced The Bacchae, his last drama, generally recognized as a masterpiece. The story comes from a Theban legend that tells how Pentheus, grandson of Cadmus, the founder of Thebes, opposed and suffered for the coming of the god Dionysus (also known as Bacchus). Dionysus himself explains the situation in the play's prologue: he has returned to his hometown and his mother's sisters, including Agave, Pentheus' mother, are hesitant at first, but have been overcome by Bacchic frenzy and are now on the mountain Cithaeron, where he is on his way to join them. Then two old men, Cadmus and Tiresias, take the stage. They too join the followers of Dionysus and Pentheus cannot stop them. Then a servant arrives with a mysterious prisoner who is never identified, but when Pentheus locks him in the palace stables, the palace collapses in an earthquake and the stranger emerges, carrying out Pentheus' threats with cold confidence. A messenger arrives with an account of the incredible celebration of the women on the mountain, and the stranger convinces Pentheus to disguise himself and go witness. Shortly after Pentheus leaves the stage, news arrives that the women have captured and torn him to pieces. Then Agave arrives, still under the spell of her frenzy, wearing what she believes to be a lion's head. It is actually the head of Pentheus. Cadmus comes to her senses and she bursts into lamentations, which Dionysus interrupts by reappearing and justifying his revenge against the infidels; Much of his speech was lost. The work raised many questions. Did Euripides attack or defend the religion of Dionysus? Who was the mysterious stranger that Pentheus was trying to imprison? In any case, one thing is certain: Euripides, whose attitude towards conventional religion was often characterized by cynicism, here recognizes its frightening power. Lost in the wild ecstasy of the Dionysian cult, Pentheus' mother Agave becomes a tragic figure: a mother who killed the son she loved. Dionysus himself does not hesitate to be ruthless when cruelty helps to spread his religion. The message seems to be that mass religion is a force to be reckoned with. SOURCES
JAS Evans, "A Reading of Sophocles' Ajax," Urban Journal of Classical Culture 33 (1991): 69-85. John Ferguson, A Companion to Greek Tragedy (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1972). HDF Kitto, Greek Tragedy: A Literary Study (London, England: Methuen, 1939).
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B. M. W. Knox, Édipo em Tebas (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1957). Richmond Lattimore, Story Patterns in Greek Tragedy (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1964). A. Lesky, Greek Tragic Poetry (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1983). Gilbert Norwood, Tragédia Grega. 4ª ed. (Londres, Inglaterra: Methuen, 1948). Jacqueline de Romilly, La Tragédie Grecque (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1973). Brian Vickers, Toward Greek Tragedy (Londres, Inglaterra; Nova York: Longman, 1979).
THE ART OF PUBLIC SPEAKING IN EARLY GREECE. Greece admired a good orator who could effectively make a point before a gathering of men or bring a case to court. According to tradition, public speaking as an art was first developed in the years before the middle of the 5th century BC. Grown in Syracuse, Sicily. Syracuse had been ruled by tyrants and numerous legal disputes followed its fall, demanding the oratorical skills of various individuals at court. According to reports, the art first arrived in 527 BC. as an import from Sicily to Athens. During a diplomatic visit to Athens, the rhetorical skills of Gorgias of Sicily fascinated the Athenians. Gorgias became a famous sophist, i.e. a teacher who taught the skills needed for public speaking and was known for his high tuition fees. However, the Athenians were willing to pay the fee, since public speaking was a valuable skill in Athens, not only for a politician to speak before the assembly but also in court, since neither the plaintiffs nor the accused hired lawyers in court cases. to speak. for her. The best they could do was hire a speechwriter, or a "logographer" as they were called. Speechwriting thus became a lucrative profession, particularly attractive to orators like Lysias, who were foreigners living in Athens and therefore unable to speak in court or assemblies. The pioneering speechwriter was the sophist Antiphon (ca. 480–411 BC). Antiphon first counseled citizens involved in legal disputes, but by 430 B.C. He started writing speeches for others to memorize and do. He only spoke once for himself. He was born in 411 BC. accused of high treason. and wrote a speech in his own defense. His speech failed, Antiphon was executed, but he put accents. After him, orators wrote and published their own speeches in court or, more rarely, in meetings.
Fortunately, oratorio was in full bloom when Aristotle wrote a treatise on rhetoric, which he classified into three types: forensic, for the courts; consultative, to speak at the assembly; and epidic, for a special occasion like a funeral. THE TEN SPEAKERS. In the great age of rhetoric from about 420 to 320 B.C. Athens saw or heard many orators and logographers in BC, but only ten of them were chosen for study by ancient scholars. Speeches by unknown speakers sometimes survive, mistakenly thought to have been written by one of the Ten. Of the sixty prayers attributed to the great orator Demosthenes, only half are genuine. The ten speakers were Antiphon and Andocides, whose careers date back to the 5th century BC. belonged to; Demosthenes and his rival Aeschines; Dinarchus and Lysias, both foreigners residing in Athens; Isaius, whose strength seems to have been inheritance, as all eleven of his surviving prayers deal with inheritance; Lycurgus, better known as an Athenian statesman represented by a single speech; Hyperides, who, like Demosthenes, opposed Philip of Macedon and his son Alexander the Great, for which the Macedonians accused him and Demosthenes in 322 BC. Sentenced to death; and Isocrates, who may have been unhappy to find himself among the Ten Speakers because he thought of himself as a philosopher and educator rather than a public speaker. Two of them stand out for their competence and reputation, as well as for the number of lectures they have received. ISOCRATES. The end of the Peloponnesian War in 404 BC. Political unrest ensued and Isocrates was apparently on the wrong side when he lost the family property. Isocrates first dabbled in logography for a living, but later took up teaching, first on the island of Chios and then shortly before 387 BC. until his death in 338 BC. aged 98 in Athens, where students from all over the Greek world attended his school. Among his students were two leading historians of the fourth century BC. C., Ephorus and Theopompos. Greece at the time of Isocrates was divided into warring camps; Not only did the ancient powers Athens, Sparta, and Thebes compete for supremacy, but new powers such as Thessaly and Macedonia also emerged. Isocrates was not a public speaker. His speeches are indeed political pamphlets, but they reveal a coherent political purpose. Isocrates advocated an alliance, or perhaps a federation of states, that would shift the Greek powers from fighting each other within Greece to fighting the Persian Empire, which had regained control of the Greek cities of Asia Minor from the Peloponnese by the end of the war. . In his Panegyric of 380 B.C.
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He advocated an alliance led by ancient enemies Sparta and Athens that would liberate the Greek cities of Asia. 346 BC C.E. Isocrates, now ninety years old, addressed an open letter to Philip of Macedon, urging him to lead a Panhellenic alliance that would attack Persia. In the year 339 BC he published his last long work, the Panathenaicus, an elaborate eulogy of Athena. Although he never mentions Philip by name, it seems clear that he still saw him as the champion of Greece. The following year, Philip defeated Athens and Thebes on the battlefield of Chaironea, and Isocrates' last work is a post-battle letter to Philip, still urging a campaign against Persia. DEMOSTHENES. Demosthenes is notable for two reasons. First, as an Athenian statesman, he vehemently opposed the imperialist ambitions of Philip II of Macedon, whose son Alexander the Great would continue his father's policies and transform the world of Greece with the conquest of Persia. For this reason, some historians have hailed Demosthenes as the courageous defender of Athenian freedom and democracy, while others have condemned him as a politician with no way out of the past. Second, he took public speaking to new heights, a conclusion few would dispute. His masterpiece was his speech On the Crown in defense of Ctesiphon, one of his supporters accused of illegally proposing a tribute to Demosthenes. The combined armies of Athens and Thebes were in 338 BC. been defeated. at the Battle of Chaironea, and it was the anti-Macedonian policy imposed on the Athenians by Demosthenes that led to disaster. Two years after the defeat, however, Ctesiphon, one of Demosthenes' supporters, introduced a motion to the assembly that Demosthenes should receive a golden crown for his services at the next feast of Dionysus. The time and place of the award was against the law, and Demosthenes' bitter rival and enemy Aeschines accused Ctesiphon of the suggestion to attack his true enemy Demosthenes. The fall did not come until 330 BC. EC in court. Demosthenes rose to address the jury after the jury had spent the whole morning listening to Aiskhine's argument that this extraordinary honor proposed by Ctesiphon to Demosthenes could not be justified by the great service he had rendered to the state, promoted by his policy anti-Macedonian had ended in disaster. With brilliant sophistication, Demosthenes ignored the legal issues and concentrated on slandering his accuser. He treated the jury with a malicious caricature of Aeskhines' parents, who were very ordinary people, and finally attacked Aeskhines himself, implying that Aeskhines was actually responsible for Aeskhines' disaster.
the Battle of Chaironea, which was a perversion of the truth. He ended with a prayer to the gods to protect the state. The speech is a shining example of how to make the worst argument sound better. Demosthenes died in 323 BC. after an anti-Macedonian revolt in Greece. The tough Macedonian general Antipater crushed the rebellion in Athens, and Demosthenes tried to escape punishment by fleeing to the island of Calauria. He sought refuge in a temple, but was poisoned when it became clear that Antipater's men intended to remove him from his sanctuary. SOURCES
Charles D. Adams, Demosthenes and His Influence (Nova York: Cooper Square Publishers, 1963). GL Cawkwell, A Coroação de Demóstenes, Classical Quarterly 19 (1969): 163-180. Isócrates. Volumes I-II. Trans David C. Mirhady e Yun Lee também (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000). David C. Mirhady, "Demóstenes Advocate: The Private Orations", em Demóstenes, Estadista e Orador. ed. Ian Worthington (Londres, Inglaterra; Nova York: Routledge, 2000): 181–204. Raphael Sealey, Demosthenes and His Time: A Study in Defeat (Nova York: Oxford University Press, 1993).
GREEK LITERATURE AFTER ALEXANDER THE GREAT A CHANGED WORLD. When Alexander the Great in 323 B.C. died in Babylon. he left the Greek world irrevocably changed. The centers of Greek culture shifted from the ancient city-states of Greece to the capitals of the new Hellenistic kingdoms, centers of wealth and power. Athens kept the culture, but it was an exception. Egypt became a magnet for the Greeks. After Alexander's death, one of his astute generals, Ptolemy, secured Egypt as his province and settled in Alexandria. Alexander's youngest son was born in 310 BC. assassinated in 305 B.C.E. When the pretense of unity in the empire conquered by Alexander no longer existed, Ptolemy proclaimed himself king. Ptolemy wanted Alexandria to be a center of Greek culture, as the Greeks lived side by side with the native Egyptians, who had an ancient culture of their own and there was very little cross-pollination. Shortly before his death, Ptolemy founded the Great Library of Alexandria, and his son Ptolemy II Philadelphus, who lived between 285 and 247 BC. C., continued the work. The kingdom of Pergamum, founded in 263 BC. founded in Asia Minor also established a library, but Alexandria did not.
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The Great Library of Alexandria Capital of the kingdom founded by Ptolemy in Egypt, the Library of Alexandria was a legendary institution in antiquity. Estimates of the size of his collection vary widely (between 70,000 and 700,000 books), but any number within that range is impressive in an age when all books had to be copied by hand. Although it is neither the first nor the only public library, it was the most influential literary and scientific center of the Hellenistic period for nearly two centuries. Ptolemy I founded 280 BC. the Museum (Mouseion) of Alexandria. The English word "museum" is not an exact translation of the Greek mouseion, which means "house of the muses" who were worshiped in the Museum of Alexandria. The museum was part of the royal palace and was a meeting place for scholars, writers, scientists and artists, with a common dining room and what appeared to be living quarters. Attached to the museum was the Great Library or Palace Library, which may also have been founded by Ptolemy I, but his son Ptolemy II can claim the expansion of the collection as his own. There, literary texts by classical authors were published and standard texts were produced; One author who benefited from this scholarly work was Homer, whose Iliad and Odyssey were
Take a close look at this rival. The Ptolemies cut off Pergamum's supplies of papyrus, but Pergamum developed parchment as a substitute. Alexandria never ceded its supremacy to the Library of Pergamum, which was neglected after Rome in 133 BC. Chr. Pergamon had acquired. C., and ended when Mark Antony donated his collection to Cleopatra, the last of the Ptolemies, to the Library of Alexandria in the period 40-33 AD. C. The dynastic capitals of Antioch in Syria and Pella in Macedonia also had important libraries. THE ALEXANDRIANS. Alexandria took the lead in literary development. He promoted a hothouse culture with no roots in the native Egyptian way of life. The literature produced there was not intended for the masses because the masses did not speak Greek. There was an attempt to cross the Greek and Egyptian traditions; An Egyptian priest, Manetho, wrote a history of Egypt in Greek under Ptolemy I, using Egyptian records, but it was not widely read. Alexandrian poetry was written for an elite Greek-speaking audience and was intended to be read, not performed. Learning was highly valued and didactic poetry, that is, written to instruct, was in vogue. A Poet, Aratus of Soloi, 156
edited by the Alexandrian scholar Aristarchus of Samos, the text of which has survived into modern times. The question of what happened to the library is a matter of debate. Julius Caesar, who lived from 48 to 47 BC. CE wintered. in Alexandria with the young princess Cleopatra, he became involved in the power struggle between her and her brother, burning books in the city's harbor area in the process. Some scholars date the end of the library to this time. But when Cleopatra became queen of Egypt, she continued to collect books; Her lover Mark Antony gave her the collection of the ancient Royal Library of Pergamum, once the second largest library in the Mediterranean world. Certainly the palace library survived well into Roman times and there is no reliable evidence as to the date of its destruction. Emperors Caracalla (AD 198–217), Aurelian (AD 270–275), and Diocletian (AD 284–305) did significant damage to Alexandria, and some hold one or the other responsible for the library's demise. A late legend says that the Arabs burned the collection when they conquered Alexandria in 642 AD. However, what destroyed the library was probably negligence. The papyrus rolls became old and brittle. In late antiquity, the worn parchments would have been replaced by codices, volumes bound like modern books, but there was not enough money to cover the expenses. The greatest enemy of the old castle library collection was probably the natural process of decay.
He received wide acclaim for writing a book on astronomy in verse. All of his information is secondhand, not being an astronomer himself, and his work has little appeal to a modern reader. Another didactic poet of the same type was Nicander of Colophon, who wrote a poetic work on reptiles and poisonous insects and another on poisons and their antidotes. Poets were fond of wise and sombre allusions. A good example is Lycophron, who belonged to the Pleias, a group of seven poets named after the Pleides constellation. Although none of the tragic dramas written by Pleias survive, a poem by Lycophron, Alexandra, survives. It is said to be a long-standing prophecy by the daughter of Priam of Troy, Alexandra, better known as Cassandra, who was destined to predict the future and not believe when she predicted it. Lycophron's Greek is peppered with words found nowhere else in surviving Greek literature. GREEK POETIC INFLUENCE. Alexandria produced three poets who influenced Latin literature: Callimachus, Apollonius of Rhodes, and Theocritus. Callimachus was a librarian at the Alexandria library and wrote a book catalog for them. He wrote a large number of poems, including
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including six surviving hymns written in iambic in imitation of Colophon Hipponax, mid-6th century BC. vivid. He also wrote a poem titled "Aitiai" (Origins), which sets out the origins of various local customs, and a short narrative poem titled "Hekale", which modern scholars have dubbed the "epyllion" or "little epic". ; the word does not appear in antiquity. Callimachus believed that the long narrative poem was dead. In the Hellenistic world there was no more room for long epic poems. Apollonius was the second chief librarian of Alexandria, after Zenodotus, who was the first; If this information is correct, it must have increased his rivalry with Callimachus, who seems to have been passed over in favor of a man about five years younger. Apollonius set out to prove Callimachus' censorship of epic poetry wrong and wrote a four-book epic, the Argonautica, about Jason and the Argonauts' quest for the Golden Fleece. It's not entirely successful. Jason is anything but heroic. Medea, the princess of Colchis who helps Jason obtain the Golden Fleece, is the quintessential romantic heroine who faces challenges that intimidate men. She would have many descendants in literature, including Dido in Virgil's Aeneid and Scarlett O'Hara in Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind. Theocritus has two claims to fame as a poet. First, he revived pantomime as a poetic form. They were short, dramatic dialogues on everyday topics. The genus originated in Syracuse, hometown of Theocritus. Second, he was the inventor of pastoral poetry, which purports to be rural poetry: songs sung by shepherds as they tend their flocks. Writing first in Syracuse but receiving little support or patronage from the Syracusan tyrant Hiero II, he moved to the island of Cos and then to Alexandria, which proved more profitable. His idylls were short pantomimes that gave a snapshot of contemporary life. Sometimes it's shepherds or shepherds talking or arguing - hence the name "pastoral" from the Latin word pastor, meaning "shepherd" - or a girl trying to use a love spell to remember her lover, or two housewives from Alexandria visiting royalty. Palace open to the public for the Feast of Adonis. Both in antiquity and today, you must find a multitude of imitators. GREEK LITERATURE UNDER THE ROMAN EMPIRE. Greek authors continued to write after the Roman Empire conquered the eastern Mediterranean, although the Hellenistic kings who patronized them no longer existed. The historian and geographer Strabo, of Asian descent, was born around 63 BC. C.E., wrote a work entitled Historical Sketches That Have Been Lost and Geography That Survives. Describe the known world
on the west with Gaul and Great Britain, advancing from east to east and India, and ending with Africa. In historiography, the Hellenistic age produced a first-rate historian, Polybius of Megalopolis, who died in 167 BC. was taken hostage to Rome. He used his forced stay to study the language, customs and history of Rome. He wrote a universal history in forty books covering the period from 220 to 144 BC. The first five books are complete and deal with the Second Carthaginian War, when Rome met a brilliant general, Hannibal. We have only fragments of the rest of Polybius' story. In the following century, around 30 BC. another Greek, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, to Rome. C.E., he taught rhetoric there for about 22 years and wrote a history of Rome called Roman Antiquities. Not surprisingly, his story is rhetorical and not very useful as a reliable source of Rome's past. Under Emperor Augustus, another Greek, Diodorus Siculus, attempted a universal history beginning with the Trojan War and continuing his world history until 59 BC. The writer most famous in the modern world is Plutarch of Chaeronea, born around AD 46 and who lived until AD 120. He wrote a large body of essays collected under the general title Moralia, but his claim to fame runs parallel. Life, which juxtaposed the biographies of famous Greeks with those of famous Romans. Plutarch has had many admirers in modern times. Among the writers who used it as a raw material was William Shakespeare, who used it for Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, and Coriolanus. SOURCES
Luciano Canfora, The Vanished Library (London, England: Hutchinson Radius, 1989). Andrew Erskine, "Culture and Power in Hellenistic Egypt: The Museum and Library of Alexandria", Greece and Rome 42 (1995): 38–48. John Ferguson, Callimachus (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1980). CBR Pelling, Plutarch and History: Eighteen Studies (London, England: Duckworth, 2002). Thomas G. Rosenmeyer, The Green Cabinet; Theocritus and the European Pastoral Lyric (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969). Philip A. Stadter, Plutarch and the Historical Tradition (London, England; New York: Routledge, 1992).
BEGINNING OF THE ROMAN THEATER. The Roman historian Titus Livius wrote about the years 364-363 BC. that there was the plague
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In Rome. With neither human remedies nor prayers to the gods to appease the plague, the Romans introduced musical shows in hopes of entertaining them. Etruscan dancers were brought in, dancing to the sound of a whistle. Rome already had a comic tradition; at the home harvest festival or at other occasions, such as weddings, "women's songs" were sung: harsh, insulting verses sung in antiphon in improvised rebuttals. Sometimes they were composed in the native Latin meter known as "Saturnian"; Saturn's verse consisted of a group of seven syllables followed by a group of six syllables with a pause between them. No one considered coarse jokes incompatible with solemn ceremonies; Even a victorious general celebrating a triumph could hear his soldiers singing festive verses as their procession made its way through the streets of Rome to the Temple of Jupiter. An example of their revered leader, sung by Julius Caesar's soldiers as he marched through the streets, translates as "Citans, arrest your women / We bring the bald libertine". Livy records that young Romans, seeing the Etruscan dancers in the year of the plague, began to imitate them and to add rough, improvised humor to the fescenine verses known as saturas or 'medleys'. There were many lewd jokes and teases, but no plot worthy of mention. However, female verses were not the only influence. The Campanian Samnites between Rome and Naples, who spoke an Italic dialect called Osker and therefore often referred to as Osker, had a penchant for silly antics of a standard character. When these were introduced to Rome, they were called Atellanae after a town in Campania called Atella, with which the Romans associated them. As with the Punch and Judy shows, the characters were determined by lore. There was a clown called Maccus, a simple guy called Pappus, a fat boy called Bucco and the hunchback Dossenus. With their antics and exaggerated masquerade, they enjoyed a mass appeal that Latin adaptations of Greek plays never achieved. GREEK INFLUENCE. With Livius Andronicus, whose translation of Homer's Odyssey into Latin marked the beginning of Latin literature, the actual staging of dramatic performances of the type popular in Greece began in Rome. He began producing scripted plays. He produced 240 BC. a work translated from the Greek entitled Ludi Romani at the Roman Harvest Festival. This was a landmark in Roman theater because it was apparently the first time a play was staged in Rome. He wrote more tragedies than comedies, and although he was not a great literary figure, he was a pioneer as Rome's first dramatist. Naevius, who came after him, was more comfortable with comedy than tragedy, not that he wrote 158 originals.
plays since all of his comedies were adapted from Greek New Comedy. He invented a new variety not borrowed from Greece: the historical drama, or in Latin the fabula praetexta. The name comes from the purple-bordered praetexta toga worn by Roman magistrates because the dramas dealt with characters from the Roman past. According to Naevius, the historical drama had a very modest success. Some works dealt with the early history of Rome - Ennius wrote A Rape of the Sabine Women - and others with the victories of generals, survivors or recently dead. Ennius had a nephew, Pacuvius, born in 220 BC. C., who came to Rome as a young man and distinguished himself as a poet and painter. Their forte was Greek-themed tragedy: Fabulae Cothurnatae, named for the tall boots called cothurni worn by tragic actors. We know the titles of thirty tragedies he wrote, but none have survived. The same fate awaited the works of a more important tragedian, Accius, who died in 130 BC. EC Pacuvius superimposed. when each of them was producing a drama: Pacuvio was eighty and at the end of his career, and Accio, thirty, was making his debut. With Accius, the popularity of the fabula cothurnata reached its peak, and in later years the Romans looked to the second half of the 2nd century BC. like the golden age of tragedy. However, only fragments of the works survive. ROMAN COMEDY. Roman comedy fared better. We have 27 comedies, more or less complete, all adaptations of Greek New Comedy. They are fabulae palliatae, that is, dramas with Greek characters dressed in a kind of Greek mantle (pallium) much appreciated by Greek philosophers. Twenty-one of these comedies are by "Titus Maccius Plautus", about which there is little reliable information. He allegedly came from Umbria, where he was born, to Rome, worked for a time in the theater, tried his luck in commerce, lost his money and was forced to work in a factory where he used his free time to write plays. He died in 184 BC. The remaining eight are by Publius Terentius Afer, who was born in Carthage and brought to Rome as a boy slave by a senator who was so in love with the boy that he gave him a good education and set him free. Before age 25, he produced six plays. So he left Rome for Greece, never to return. Various accounts have been given of his death, but they agree that he had in his luggage a large number of new works-translations from the Greek-which were lost with him. PLAUTUS. It is impossible to judge the extent to which Plautus adapted his Greek originals to suit Roman tastes, but works by him seem to have Greek settings like Athens or
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epidamo Although it could have been any city, much of the slapstick must have come from Atellanae, the popular Atellan farces. Plautus used the standard New Comedy characters but gave them his own stamp. His courtesans are not always sweet and seductive; In Truculentus, a ruthless courtesan ruins her lovers. One popular character type that Plautus developed brilliantly was the clever slave. He also reintroduced the song into the sitcom. There were songs on Old Comedy, but they've sunk into oblivion. Plautus found that Roman audiences enjoyed musical comedy and added more and more songs over time. The Bragging Soldier, an early play, has no songs; the Menaechmus brothers, who are later, have five. His dialogue is piquant but not filthy, for the Romans were still Puritans, and as the plots of Plautus' comedies unfolded on the stage, many Romans must have reflected that such things happened in Greece but never in Rome, and found satisfaction in this morality. sense. Superiority. THE SOLDIER BRAGGART. The "swashbuckling soldier" of the title is an ordinary character, the mercenary soldier who is all bombast and over the top. In this case, the titular soldier bears the appetizing name of Pyrgopolynices. A young Athenian, Pleusicles, is madly in love with a courtesan from Philocomasium, but while away from Athens on business, the soldier kidnaps her and takes her to Ephesus. Pleusicles' clever slave, Palaestrio, decides to tell his master what happened, but is captured by pirates. Coincidentally, they introduce him to Pyrgopolynices. Palaestrio receives a letter for Pleusicles summoning him to Ephesus. Pleusicles arrives and stays at the house of a friend of his father, who lives next to the soldier. Clever slave Palaestrio concocts an elaborate hoax to trick the soldiers into believing that a rich old man's wife is madly in love with him. The woman is actually a courtesan playing the role assigned to her by Palestrio, and the old man is a friend of Pleusicles' father. The soldier easily renounces the Phyllocomasio for his new love, but is caught in the act attempting adultery, severely beaten and threatened with castration. The old man relents when Pyrgopolynices swears he will never avenge the beating she received. THE MENACHUS BROTHERS. The Menaechmus Brothers is a comedy of mistaken identities; It was adapted and elaborated by Shakespeare in his Comedy of Errors. Identical twins were born to a Sicilian merchant from Syracuse. A twin, Menaechmus, was kidnapped and his father died of grief. The remaining twin's grandfather then renamed him Menaechmus to commemorate his lost brother. Then we have Menaech-
Mus I and Menaechmus II, identical brothers. Menaechmus I, the kidnapped boy, was brought to Epidamnus by his captor, who turned out to be childless, so he adopted Menaechmus I and made him heir to his vast fortune. At the beginning of the play, Menaechmus II has come to Epidamnus in search of his twin; This is the sixth year he is looking. Menaechmus I is having an affair with a courtesan, Erotium. Erotium confuses Menaechmus II with Menaechmus I, and Menaechmus II agrees with the error; He eats lunch with Erotium and enjoys her favor. The deception causes all sorts of mayhem, so when Menaechmus I returns to the scene, he finds a jealous wife, an angry lover, and a father-in-law who thinks he's crazy. Through the intervention of Menaechmus II's slave, he escapes being dragged to a doctor, a fate worse than death. Eventually, the two Menaechmuses meet and patch things up again. The drama comes with a variety of standard characters: an appendage, a seductive courtesan, and a goofy doctor. It's Plautus' only comic blunder, and when Shakespeare adapted it, he doubled down on mistaken identities by having not one, but two sets of identical twins. terence All six plays that Terence wrote survive, which is a remarkable tribute to his perseverance in the Middle Ages. His comedies did not enjoy the popularity that Plautus' plays did because they lacked, as one early critic put it, their "comic power". They were, however, polished and well-constructed dramas, written in a kind of Latin that could serve as a model for schoolchildren. His first work, The Wife of Andros (Andria), was written in 166 BC. B.C., is based on two works by Menander and uses common characters with originality: the typical young man is in love, but wants to marry a young woman of good family. , not a courtesan. The strict parents are sympathetically introduced and the crafty slave is more than just a cheater. The plot is as follows: Simo married his son Pánfilo to Filumena, daughter of Cremes. But Pamphilus loves Glycerium, an orphan, while his friend Charinus wants to marry Philumena. The two parents negotiate; The cunning slave Davus orchestrates the action and everything is resolved when he discovers that Glycerium is the daughter of Cremes and Pamfilo has also given birth to a son. Pánfilo marries Glicerio and Carino marries Filumena. A year after The Woman from Andros, Terence produced Her Mother-in-law, which failed in its first production. Then came the Punisher and the eunuch and in the same year as the eunuch Phormio. His last work was Adelphi (The Brothers), which many critics consider his best. There are two sets in this game.
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of brothers One group are old men with opposing characters: Micius, who lives in Athens and is quiet, and Demea, a peasant from the outskirts of Athens, who is frugal. Micio is childless and adopts one of Demea's two children. Thus, we have a second group of brothers: a virtuous one from his father and another indulgent one from his adoptive father who is also his uncle. The plot revolves around Micio's adopted son's attempt to kidnap a girl who plays the harp for her virtuous brother. The conspiracy is resolved when Demea adopts a more forgiving attitude, her son stays with the harpist and marries Micio's adopted son. THEATER AFTER TERÊNCO. Survival accidents make post-Terence dramatic genius seem to have dried up. Indeed, the theater remained popular. While Terence wrote comedies that were purely Greek except for the language, other playwrights brought Roman characters to the stage. These were called fabulae togatae, i.e. dramas in togas, in contrast to the fabulae palliatae, where the characters were dressed in Greek fashion. Its success was modest. The crowd was drawn more to Atellan's pantomime and farce. SOURCES
W. Geoffrey Arnott, Menander, Plautus and Terence, (Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1975). W. Beare, The Roman Stage. Brief History of Latin Theater in the Times of the Republic. 3rd ed. (London, England: Methuen, 1964). George E. Duckworth, The Nature of Roman Comedy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1952). Bruno Gentili, Theater Performances in Antiquity: Hellenistic and Early Roman Theater (Amsterdam: JC Gieben, 1979). David Konstan, Roman Comedy (Ithaca, NY; London, England: Cornell University Press, 1983). Plautus, Four Comedies: Private Praggart, The Menecmus Brothers, The Haunted House, The Pot of Gold. Trans. Erich Segal (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1996).
Latin poetry before the age of AGUSTANO
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Latin epic poetry. The Latin epic begins in 240 with Livius Andronicus, a Greek from Tarentum, now Taranto, on the southern coast of Italy, which had been founded as a Greek colony from Tara and had fallen to the Romans after Rome's war with Pyrrhus. Andronicus was brought to Rome as a slave and bought
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by a member of one of the great Roman families of Rome, the Livians, who freed him for raising his owner's children very well. After his release, he continued to teach and wanted to develop a teaching model similar to that of the Greeks. Greek children learned from the Greek epic poet Homer, but Rome had nothing like it, so Andronicus translated one of Homer's most famous works, the Odyssey, into Latin, using Rome's only native rhythm, Saturn's verse. He became a professional poet and playwright and wrote a hymn to the gods to gain their favor during Rome's war with Hannibal. In recognition of his craft, Rome allowed him to found a writers' and actors' guild based in the Temple of Minerva on Aventime Hill. However, he remained best known for his translation of the Odyssey, published in the mid-1st century BC. It was still an integral part of Roman education when the poet Augustus Horace was a boy. NAEVIUS AND ENNIUS. Gnaeus Naevius took the next step in the development of the Latin epic. He fought in Rome's first war against Carthage, which ended in 241 BC. it ended. E.C., and wrote a story about it in poetry. Like Andronicus, he used the Saturn Gauge. His work is lost, but we do know that he traced the enmity between Rome and Carthage to its roots and picked up the story of Dido and Aeneas, as Virgil would later do in his epic Aeneid. With Quintus Ennius (239-169 BC), the Latin epic took a giant step forward. He came from a town in Calabria, spoke Oscan, the language of the Samnites, as well as Latin and Greek, and adapted Greek dramas for the Roman scene. His major work was his Annales, a poem about the history of Rome from its beginnings. Unlike Nevio, he adapted Homer's meter, the dactylic hexameter, to his verse. This was an important step, as all subsequent Latin epic writers followed his example and used hexameter verse. TITO LUCRECIO CARO. Lucretius (94-55 BC) is considered one of the greatest didactic poets (from the Greek didaskein, "to teach") to write in any language. Early pre-Socratic Greek philosophers (before Socrates) wrote in poetry, but poetry gave way to prose as a medium of philosophy even before Plato popularized the dialogue form. Didactic poetry revived in Alexandria, but none of the poets working in the cultural hothouse around the Library of Alexandria ever reached the heights of Lucretius. He converted to Epicureanism, which taught that all things are made of atoms and voids and that when people die their atoms dissolve and there is no afterlife. Epicureanism did not deny the existence of gods, but
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LUCRETIUS AND THE ATOMIC THEORY INTRODUCTION:
Lucretius (c. 94–55 BC), a Roman poet, attempted to explain the atomic theory of the universe put forward by the Greek philosophers Democritus and Leucippus in their great poem De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things). The theory argued that since all matter is composed of atoms and a vacuum, death is simply a dissolution of atoms and should not be feared by anyone. In the next paragraph he begins his explanation of creation with the principle that nothing can be created out of nothing. The prose translation gives little indication of Lucretius' poetic genius, but it is a clear exposition of his ideas.
This fear and darkness of the mind cannot be dispelled by the rays of the sun, the bright rays of the day, but only by understanding the outer form and inner workings of nature. In dealing with this subject, we will start from this principle: divine power can never create something out of nothing. The reason all mortals are so terrified is because they see all kinds of
banished them to a region far removed from life on Earth. The advantage of Epicureanism was that it eliminated all fear of death, Lucretius believed. Lucretius deserves an honorable mention among philosophers, but he must also be recognized as a great poet because he wrote with enthusiasm, skill and great passion for his subject. Describes matter and the vacuum and the shapes and movements of atoms in the vacuum, explains how life and sensibility arose and plants and animals evolved more or less randomly and then reproduced and what the gods were to them too Atoms and Voids , and ends with a powerful description of a sudden plague epidemic; clearly the poem is unfinished and must have been published after Lucretius' death. POCHARD. Thanks to the happy discovery of a manuscript in the early fourteenth century, we have 116 poems by Gaius Valerius Catullus of varying lengths, revealing a poet of genius. He belonged to a new wave of poets of the first half of the 1st century BC. who sought inspiration from the writers of Alexandria. They followed in the footsteps of an unconventional poet named Laevius, who lived in the 1990s BC. C., he wrote love poetry expressing personal feelings. The orator Cicero, who despised them, called them neoterói (the new writers or "the new wave"), and the name stuck; modern critics call them "Neoterists". Catullus is the only one whose work has survived. His poems express his passion.
Things that happen on earth and in heaven for no apparent reason and that they attribute to the will of a god. Then, when we have seen that nothing can be created from nothing, we will have a clearer picture of the way forward, the problem of how things are created and produced without the help of the gods. First, if things were made from nothing, any species could sprout from any source and nothing would need seeds. Men could arise from the sea, and fish with scales from the earth, and birds could be born from the sky. Cattle and other domestic animals and all kinds of wild animals, breeding indiscriminately, would occupy cultivated and uncultivated land alike. The same fruits would not always grow on the same trees, but they would change constantly: any tree could bear any fruit. If each species does not consist of its own procreative bodies, why would each always give birth to the same parent species? SPRING:
Lucretius, "Matter and Space", in On the Nature of the Universe. Trans. RE Latham (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Classics, 1951): 31-32.
the passionate love for a woman he named Lesbia and the emotional roller coaster he went through when his love turned sour. Without her pseudonym, Lesbia was actually Clodia, a brilliant woman who was the sister of a political agitator in Rome, Publius Clodius, and Catullus could only have been a minor figure in the group of influential rulers she gathered around her. But Catullus wrote more than just love poetry. Following the lead of Callimachus and the Alexandrians, he attempted an epyllion, a short epic poem, and translated one of Callimachus' most famous poems, Berenice's Bolt. Sappho also influenced him; he translated a poem of his by imitating the Sapphic stanza. But it's his lyrics, expressing his ill-fated love for Lesbia, that made him famous. SOURCES
Cyril Bailey, "Lucretius", Proceedings of the British Academy 33 (1949): 143-160. WR Johnson, Lucretius and the Modern World (Londres, Inglaterra: Duckworth, 2000). Duncan F. Kennedy, Repensando a Realidade: Lucrécio e a Textualização da Natureza (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002). Kenneth Quinn, Catullus: An Interpretation (Londres, Inglaterra: Batsford, 1972). TP Wiseman, Catullus and His World: a Reappraisal (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985).
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LATIN PROSE WRITERS BEFORE THE AGE OF AUGUSTIAN
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WRITER BEFORE CICERON. Roman historical traditions shaped the Roman people; From earliest times, the Pontifex Maximus (high priest) of Rome kept a register of whitewashed magistrates for each year and notable event. The first true historian of Rome, Fabius Pictor, wrote in Greek rather than Latin. Written during the desperate war with Hannibal the Carthaginian, his story was intended to foster pro-Roman sympathies in Greece. Marcius Porcius Cato (234–149 BC) was the first author and statesman to use Latin in his writings. He was a great orator and in his old age he wrote a story entitled Origines about the origins not only of Rome but also of neighboring peoples. Of his writings only one treatise on agriculture survives, giving the impression that he was an inveterate but devout farmer. After him there are even Cicero and Julius Caesar in the middle decades of the 1st century BC. CE no significant prose author. MARCO TULIO CÍCERO. The facts of Cicero's life may be briefly given. He was born in 106 BC. to be born. in the small town of Arpinum (today Arpino). At the age of sixteen, he teamed up with a then-known lawyer, Quintus Mucius Scaevola, to make his way in the Roman legal industry. At eighteen he entered the military service. He served under Pompey, the father of Julius Caesar's rival, which he always thought gave him a special bond with Pompey. For the next few years he studied rhetoric and philosophy in Rome, making his debut in 81 BC. on court. This was the time of Sulla's dictatorship, and Cicero became a marked man, successfully defending a man who had incurred the enmity of one of Sulla's henchmen, Chrysogonus. Cicero thought it prudent to retire to Greece for further study after this event, and only returned after Sulla's death in 78 BC. BC he Returned to Rome. His first major court triumph was in 70 BC. when he accused Gaius Verres of his corrupt rule over Sicily. Verres went into exile voluntarily before being convicted, and the Sicilian provincials who fell victim to him received no compensation. To win the case, Cicero beat the best lawyer of the time, Hortensius, and his reputation was earned. 63 BC C.E., although he was a “new man” – that is, no one in his family had been consul before – and during his year in office he suppressed Catiline's conspiracy and executed the conspirators without trial, which was illegal. For this he was banished in 58 a. EC and was only allowed to return after making it clear that he would not make waves for 162
the political triumvirate of Pompey, Crassus and Julius Caesar, who manipulated politics behind the scenes at the time. When Caesar 49 B.C. the Civil War began. Cicero crossed the Rubicon River, which marked the boundary between his province of Cisalpine Gaul and Italy, and after some hesitation, joined the senatorial group led by Pompey, who were enemies of Caesar. After the defeat of Pompey's army at the Battle of Pharsalus the following year, Cicero returned to Italy. He was not one of the conspirators who defeated Caesar on the Ides of March (March 15) 44 BC. murdered. C., but there is no doubt that he agreed and shortly thereafter tried to get the Senate to nullify the efforts to acquire Mark Antony. He mistakenly thought that he could use Julius Caesar's great-nephew Octavian, whom Caesar had adopted in his will, against Mark Antony and then discard him when he was no longer needed. Events were different; Octavian joined Antony and another of Caesar's officers, Lepidus, in a second triumvirate of power brokers, and when that second triumvirate came in November 43 BC. He was murdered by Antony's troops and his head was nailed to the podium, or tribune, in the Roman Forum where Cicero used to speak. CICERON'S LETTERS. The sheer number of Cicero's works is impressive. He left for posterity private letters, public speeches-some in court, others in the Senate or before a public meeting-treatises on rhetoric and dialogues on philosophy, which were enormously influential, although he was by no means an original philosopher. Letters from him were written to his friends and family, including his younger brother Quintus and his close friend and confidant Titus Pomponius Atticus, a wealthy businessman and financier who stayed out of politics and survived the civil wars. The letters reveal the private Cicero as distinct from his public persona. Lawyers from this period in ancient Rome did not charge their clients, claiming that lawyers were above such considerations. They did expect gifts and legacies from their clients, however, and Cicero's income was such that he was able to maintain a large number of country villas, although for men of his class his lifestyle was not particularly extravagant by society's standards. . Cicero's letters provide a rare glimpse into the private life of a Roman statesman as the Roman Republic descended into civil war. CICERO'S CONVERSATIONS. Of Cicero's orations delivered in the Roman Senate or in public forums, the most famous are his four orations against Catiline and his Philippices,
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Speeches against Mark Antony, the first of which is dated September 2, 44 BC. was delivered in the Senate, and the second, more famous, was even published as a pamphlet, albeit in the form of a prayer. The Prayers of the Roses were written in the year of Cicero's consulship in 63 BC. spoken. The seriousness of the threat Catiline posed to constitutional government is disputed; no doubt Cicero exaggerated. Cicero's court speeches cast a harsh light on public life in Rome. His Verrine Prayers against the corrupt governor of Sicily, Verres, who died in 70 BC. was brought to trial. C., were released after the fall; In fact, they were not extradited to the court, as Verres went into exile voluntarily. Another great speech on behalf of the leader of a gang of bandits, Milo, in 52 BC. it was also not delivered in court. Cicero lost the case but corrected himself by publishing the version he would have given but did not because he was confused when Pompey's soldiers summoned the court. Other prayers offer magnificent vignettes of Roman life. One of them, "In Defense of Cluentius", is a murder case in an Italian town. Another, "In Defense of Caelius", casts a sidelight on Catullus's love affair with Lesbia, as Caelius was a former lover of Clodia, who seems to have been Catullus's Lesbia in real life. Caelius was having an affair with Clodia, and when he left her, she accused him of trying to poison her. Cicero's defense of Caelius gives him a chance to reflect on Rome's underworld and Clodia's personal life in particular. AGREEMENT ON RHETORIC AND PHILOSOPHY. Cicero was an eclectic philosopher who wrote philosophical dialogues at a time in his life when the alliance of the powerful Caesar, Pompey and Crassus, known as the First Triumvirate, isolated him from politics. Of his works on rhetoric, his Brutus is interesting because it discusses the development of oratory in Greece and Rome, leading to a description of its own development. Cicero followed with his Orator, arguing that the true orator must be a master of all styles: the simple, the somewhat florid, and the grandiose. Cicero is an important source of modern oratorical knowledge in the Roman Republic. OTHER NOTABLE WRITERS IN PROSE. Gaius Julius Caesar is best known as a world conqueror, but he was also an author. His fame in the latter field lies in his commentaries on the Gallic Wars and the Civil War. His Latin style differs from that of any other writer, except for his imitators. He wrote a "commentary", not a "history" of his conquest of Gaul and the civil war that followed; a "commentary" was intended to be a first draft, later enriched with literary embellishments. falls-
Cicero, portrait in profile, engraving.
PUBLIC DOMAIN.
Sar wrote for propaganda purposes, but he reads like a good war correspondent. His bias is obvious, but not obvious. One of his officers, Aulus Hirtius, added an eighth book to the Gallic Wars and continued Caesar's Civil War with a work in a style that emulated Caesar's Alexandrian War. He is the source of the romance between the young Cleopatra of Egypt and Julius Caesar. Another follower of Caesar with a more eloquent style was Sallust (Gaius Sallustius Crispus), who wrote a Historia, now lost, monographs on the Conspiracy of Catiline in 63 BC which was won by Marius, Caesar's uncle by marriage. In the second, Marius comes out very well. In his monograph on the Conspiracy of Catiline, Cicero's role pales in comparison to that of Julius Caesar and Cato the Younger. Cicero is portrayed as a decent but cheerful politician, but Cato represents the austere justice of a far-right statesman, while Caesar has the makings of a benevolent ruler. Finally, there was a prolific writer, Marcus Terentius Varro, of whose many works only one survives in full: a dialogue about buying and running a farm. Another notable author is Cornelius Nepos, whose book Excellent Leaders of Foreigners was published
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Cities, 22 of them, all Greek except two Carthaginians and one Persian, is written in simple but somewhat monotonous Latin prose. SOURCES
Samuel W. Crompton, Julius Caesar (Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2003). Anthony Everitt, Cicero: A Turbulent Life (London, England: John Murray, 2001). Elizabeth Rawson, Cicero: a Portrait. Ed. Pfr. (Ithaca: N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1983). David Stockton, Cicero: A Political Biography (London, England: Oxford University Press, 1971). Sir Ronald Syme, Sallust (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002). Kathryn Welch and Anton Powell, Eds., Julius Caesar as Artful Reporter: The War Commentaries as Political Instruments (London, England: Duckworth, 1998).
THE GOLDEN AGE OF LATIN LITERATURE IN AUGUST A NEW CLIMATE OF OPENING. The civil war that began when Julius Caesar 49 BC and ended when Caesar's heir Octavian 31 BC. He defeated Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium. C.— ended the era of literature at the end of the Republic and began the Age of Augustus. The poet Horace fought as a staff officer (tribune) in the army of Brutus and Cassius, but he was not a staunch supporter of the Roman Republic. After the defeat of Brutus and Cassius at Philippi in 42 BC. he returned to Italy. C. and made peace with the new regime. The poet Tibullus personally disliked war, as he tells us in two poems celebrating the victories of his patron Messala, and Propertius preferred to write about the love of his life, whom he called Cynthia - her real name was Hostia and she was a beautiful courtesan, but as she belonged to the circle of writers supported by Augustus's unofficial minister of propaganda, Maecenas, she was asked to praise Augustus' exploits and apologize in the most elegant way possible. Virgil, the greatest of august writers, had no nostalgia for the ancient Roman Republic, having seen firsthand how it misgoverned the provinces, having been born in one. Born a year after the assassination of Julius Caesar, Ovid never knew the republican days when writers could write whatever they wanted, but he learned that under the Principality, as Augustus' regime was called, an author failed at his own peril. . respect certain limits of their freedom. When Ovid was about fifty years old, Augustus exiled 164
he went to Tomis on the Black Sea in present-day Romania. Augustus' successor, Tiberius, did not remember this and died there. The reasons for his exile are unclear, but one may have been a playful poem he wrote called The Art of Love, a witty poetic guide to seducing women. THE ECOLOGIES OF VIRGIL. A group of minor poems survive that are considered Virgil's earliest works, and one of these, the Culex (El Mosquito), is a worthy epileum for Virgil. The poem describes how a mosquito wakes a shepherd from a nap, which he kills only to find that a venomous snake is about to attack him; the mosquito had sacrificed its life to warn him in time. Some scholars accept Culex as a Virgilian, but the earliest works undoubtedly written by him are his bucolics (country poems), also known as his eclogues (selected poems). There are ten, and two, the first and the ninth, are considered autobiographical because they deal with land confiscations after the Battle of Philippi, when Octavian expropriated lands in the regions of Cremona and Mantua to settle soldiers. . Virgil's family property was expropriated, and the first eclogue tells how a freedman, Tityrus, returned his small farm to him. There are problems with this interpretation, and it is more likely that Virgil's intention, in both the first and ninth eclogues, was to publicize the unrest and injustices caused by land confiscation. The fourth poem, called the "Messianic" Eclogue, welcomes the expected birth of a child who will mark the beginning of a new era. The identity of this child has been hotly debated, and later Christian commentators have interpreted the poem as a prophecy of the birth of Christ. It could be a child that Octavio is expecting; as the fourth Eclogue 40 BC. it was written. he was still married to his second wife, Scribonia, with whom he had his only child, a daughter, Julia. But if so, the child whose birth Virgil predicted was never born. In the Eclogues the influence of Theocritus is evident, but it was Virgil who invented Arcadia, not Arcadia in central Greece, but an imaginary Arcadia where shepherds and shepherdesses sang, made love and lived away from the hustle and bustle of the city. . In the literary tradition of Europe, it was Virgil, not Theocritus, who invented pastoral poetry. THE GEORGIC. The Georgik (On the Cultivation of the Earth) is a didactic poem written at the behest of Maecenas, who gathered around him a group of writers and tried to use their talents for the benefit of Octavius. The restoration of agriculture in Italy after the Civil War was a major concern, and although the Georgics are the most elaborate verse Virgil ever produced, it is propaganda. He also took didactic poetry to a new level. the theme of
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The first book is the harvest and the signs of good and bad weather. The second speaks of vineyards and olive groves, the third of livestock, the last of beekeeping. Virgil worked on the poem for seven years and somehow manages to make the simple passages about plowing, planting and beekeeping interesting. THE NATIONAL EPIC OF ROME. Augustus wanted a heroic poem, an epic that could be uncompromisingly compared to the Greek poet Homer, whose Iliad and Odyssey eclipsed the works of the Roman poets. Of the leading Roman poets of the time, only Virgil answered the call and produced the Aeneid. It has been rightly admired from its time to the present day. Even as it was being written, the poet Propertius wrote that "something greater than the Iliad is being done", generating glowing reviews even before the publication date. It soon became Rome's national epic, the Latin answer to Homer. It tells the story of the Trojan hero Aeneas, who escaped the sack of Troy and came to Italy, bringing with him the gods of his homeland and carving out a place in Lazio for himself and his descendants. The Romans were familiar with the myth. Aeneas' son Ascanius founded Alba Longa, whose royal houses produced Romulus, the founder of Rome. Ancient Roman families called themselves "born of Troy," which was tantamount to claiming ancestors who arrived on the Mayflower. Julius Caesar's family, the Iulii, made the claim, and Emperor Augustus was Caesar's grandnephew and adopted son. The Julian tradition tells that Aeneas had a son, Iulus, who was the first ancestor of the family. Virgil identifies Iulus with Ascanius, stating that Iulus was Ascanius' other name. Thus, Augustus was a descendant of Aeneas, and the story of Aeneas gave a semblance of legitimacy to his emperor and dynasty. Aeneas' struggle to establish his Trojans in Latium paralleled Augustus' struggle to bring peace and prosperity to the empire after the civil war generation had destroyed the ancient Roman republic. ENIDA. For the first half of the Aeneid, Virgil took Homer's Odyssey as a model and the Iliad for the second half, deliberately inviting comparisons. For example, the character Aeneas is a Trojan War warrior who must face a long and arduous journey after the end of the war, as well as the character Odysseus from The Odyssey. However, unlike Odysseus, Aeneas actually runs away from home after fighting on the side of the Trojans. With a ship full of survivors, including his son and father, he flees Troy for Italy, where he is destined to found Rome. However, the reality of his destiny doesn't give him an easy passage; A storm throws Aeneas' small fleet ashore
mosaic c. 3rd century AD, "Virgil writes the Aeneid inspired by two Muses", at the Bardo Museum in Tunis, Tunisia. Clio, the muse of narrative, with a manuscript, is on Virgil's left, and Melpomene, the muse of tragedy, with a mask, on the right. © ROGER WOOD/CORBIS.
of Carthage, which has just been founded by Queen Dido. Dido welcomes Aeneas and his Trojans, giving them a royal feast equivalent to Odysseus's landing on the coast of Fea and his greeting by the king and queen of Fea. As with the banquet scene in the Odyssey, Virgil recounts what happened before the Trojan landing at Carthage as a "flashback" sequence in which Aeneas tells the Carthaginians about the fall of Troy, including the famous story of how the Greeks finally broke. the city walls. The Greeks built a big wooden horse, left it outside the city gates, and then wanted to go home. A Greek pretending to be a runaway slave told the Trojans that the horse was a gift from the gods and that if they brought it inside the city walls, their city would never be taken. Deceived by its story, the Trojans brought the horse back to their city, not knowing that inside its hollow belly was a group of Greek soldiers, waiting for nightfall to open the gates to the Greek forces outside. That night, Greek troops came out of hiding and sacked the city. This story is so famous that the "Trojan Horse" has become an enduring symbol of deceit and duplicity. The Trojans fought with the courage of desperation, but when resistance proved futile, Aeneas obeyed the gods' command to depart. The story of how he carried his crippled father Anchises on his shoulders and fled from Troy was already famous in Rome.
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INTRODUCTION OF THE PROCLAMATION OF THE MISSION OF VERGIL IN ROME:
In ancient Rome, literature used to serve the state's purpose as propaganda. In the year 30 a. C., the Roman poet Virgil began his epic work The Aeneid in response to the emperor Augustus' demand for a poem that glorified his regime and that could be shamelessly compared to the works of the Greek poet Homer: the Iliad and the Odyssey. Using these texts as models, Virgil told the story of the founding of Rome, using the Trojan hero Aeneas as its legendary founder. Although by the time of Virgil's death in 19 B.C. C., the work became Rome's national epic, glorifying the establishment of the Roman Empire with the "blood, sweat and tears" of Rome's ancestors. In Book 6 of the Aeneid, Virgil tells the story of Aeneas' descent into the underworld, where he encounters the spirit of his father Anchises, who shows him the souls of the unborn Romans. In concluding this spectacle of Roman history, Anchises proclaims in the following lines the singular mission of the Roman Empire.
Others, I have no doubt, will beat the bronze for smoother breathing figures. Others will draw living likenesses in marble. Others will argue the case further or use their team to trace the paths of the stars in the sky and predict their departure. Your task, Roman, and don't forget about it, will be to rule the peoples of the world with your empire. These will be his arts: enforcing a standard of peace, forgiving the vanquished, and vanquishing the arrogant. SOURCE: Virgil, The Aeneid. Book 6. Trans. David West (London: Penguin Classics, 1990): 159.
Aeneas escaped safely with his father, son Ascanius, and the gods of his homeland, but his wife Creusa was lost. Aeneas returned to Troy to look for her, but her spirit told him to move on: a new home awaited him in Italy. Like Odysseus, Aeneas suffered hardships and casualties during his sea voyage; he lost his father in Sicily and a storm washed them off the coast of Carthage in Africa. Like Odysseus and the Phaeacians, Dido and his people are moved by the sad story of Aeneas and the Trojans, and the two peoples seem ready to join forces. Dido and Aeneas begin an affair, but the gods see the romance as a threat to Aeneas' fate and order him to leave Carthage for Italy. the plot unfolds166
The attitude is very similar to the order of the gods to the nymph Calypso to release her lover Odysseus so that he can return home. None of these powerful female characters wanted to let their loved ones go, and Dido stages a dramatic suicide at Aeneas' departure, using Aeneas' discarded belongings to build a pyre for herself and commit suicide at her bonfires. Dido's death attests to the Roman belief that romantic love was a poison that broke engagements and family ties; In Rome, marriage was a business established by the parents of the bride and groom, and among wealthy Romans it was a matter of property. Love led to irrational behavior and inappropriate marriages. Aeneas' rejection of his beloved is also evidence that the Romans emphasized duty over emotional attachments; Aeneas is devoted to duty: Virgil's usual epithet for him is pius, which means more than its English derivative "pious". It means pious, obedient and even compassionate. DESTINATION IN ITALY. Although Aeneas does not lose as many traveling companions as Odysseus, he is forced to abandon the women of his group in Sicily after the voyage-weary women set fire to the ships to prevent them from leaving the island. Therefore, the Trojan colonists in Italy will be men only, which means they will have to find Italian women for their mates. Aeneas is aware that his settlement in Italy will require another Trojan War-like war, but sees it as his destiny to be on the winning side this time, as he visits the underworld and sees the spirits of Rome's future builders. The last six books describe the struggle in Italy between native Rutulians and immigrant Trojans, and Virgil shifts his narrative model to the Iliad. Aeneas arrives at the future location of Rome and there he meets King Latinus, who was instructed by an oracle to marry his daughter Lavinia to a non-native. Although the king is willing to marry Lavinia to Aeneas, Queen Amata is not; she favors the Rutullian prince Turnus, and the rivalry between Turnus and Aeneas sparks a war between the two peoples. After much bloodshed, the war is decided by a fight between the two suitors, in which Aeneas kills Turnus. EVALUATION OF A GREAT POEM. Virgil's Aeneid became the national epic of the Roman Empire. The poet was based on several literary influences, mainly Homer, for his creation. Virgil was also based on the Argonautica of the Hellenistic poet Apollonius of Rhodes. Virgil's Dido owes something to Apollonius's Medea. Virgil was familiar with Alexandrian poetry; his Eclogues are inspired by Theocritus and the Aeneid is even inspired by Alexandria
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although his model was Homer. Finally, there was Ennius, the first Roman epic poet to use dactylic hexameter, from which Virgil borrowed heavily for his knowledge of early Italy. The Aeneid certainly celebrates the Roman Empire, Augustus' contribution to it, and the courage and sacrificial work of Rome's founders. However, he also sympathizes with people oppressed by Rome's rise to power. Both Turnus and Dido elicit our sympathy, while Aeneas can be remarkably brutal and his epithet pius (obedient) is a little off-putting. In the end it becomes clear that the Trojans will be assimilated. Aeneas has brought his gods from Troy and plans to make them the gods of Rome, but the god Jupiter makes it clear that he will decide which gods the Romans will worship. Aeneas, an Asian immigrant, will start the historical process that will lead to the Roman Empire, but he will lose his native culture and his descendants will be purely Italian.
problems because Maecenas had given him a farm in the country of the Sabines, not far from Rome. Horace advised his manager to make do with what he had. Emperor Augustus, who was fond of Horace and wrote to him frequently, urged him to write more in praise of the imperial house, and in response he added a fourth book to his odes and also produced a long hymn for the secular games from 17 to . The games were not 'secular' in the modern sense, as the word comes from the Latin saeculum, meaning 'century', so 'centennials' would be a better description of this year's celebrations. The anthem is called Carmen Saeculare and is not Horace at his best. Horace wrote another famous long poem: the third book of his Epistles, which he takes up in full in his Ars Poetica (The Art of Poetry). It is a good example of didactic poetry, but its content is not original, as Horace followed a treatise written by a Hellenistic author, Neoptolemus of Parion.
Horace. Quintus Horatius Flaccus was the son of a former slave who ensured that his son received a good education in Rome and later managed to send him to Athens. These were the heady days after the assassination of Julius Caesar, and Horace, swept up in the enthusiasm of the Romans studying in Athens for the republican cause, joined the army formed by Marcus Brutus, the assassin of Julius Caesar. The defeats of Brutus and Cassius at Philippi understandably dampened his enthusiasm, so he returned to Italy, secured a low-paying administrative post in the government, and took up writing. Some of his epods date from this period. They take their name from their meter, invented by the Greek lyricist Archilochos, as almost all of them have a long line followed by a shorter one, technically called an epoid (later song). Some time before the Battle of Actium, he was introduced to Octavian's minister, Maecenas, charged with shaping public opinion, and his days of poverty were at an end. It was Maecenas who suggested putting together a collection of his epods. Around 35 BC BC EG He produced a collection of satires or, as he called them, sermons, which can be accurately translated as "babbling". He also experimented with something new: an attempt to use the meter of the lesbian poets Alcaeus and Sappho. Although the poet Catullus was interested in the Sapphic stanza, Horace could claim that it was original because the theme was his own. The first three books of his Odes - or, as he called them, his Carmina (songs) - lasted seven years and were written around 23 BC. Published. He followed these up with his Epistles, so called because they are intended to be complete letters to different addressees. One thing he said to his peasant:
PROPERCIUS, TIBULLUS AND SULPICE. Propertius, Tibullus, and Sulpicia wrote love poems for specific individuals they claim as objects of their devotion. Propertius addressed his poems to Cynthia and Tibullus to Delia. Sulpicia was a woman and the lover she addresses is a man, but otherwise she follows the conventions of this genre of poetry. Propertius belonged to Maecenas's circle, but Tibullus had another patron, Messala. Both wrote in elegiac couplets, used in Greek literature for centuries and translated into Latin in the time of Augustus. The pioneer of the genre was a friend of Virgil's, Gaius Cornelius Gallus, who wrote four books of elegies for a pantomime he calls the Lycoris; in real life, her name was Cytheris and she had several lovers, including Mark Antony. Gallus became prefect of Egypt, where he proved too independent for Augustus' regime; The Roman Senate tried and condemned him and committed suicide. His political misfortune overshadowed his poetry. Tibullus left two books of elegies. In the first he addresses Delia and in the second a woman he calls Nemesis. In Messala's circle there was also a poet, Sulpicia, probably Messala's niece, who wrote six short poems addressed to a man whom she called Cerinthus. They are small gems of open passion. A more prolific poet than any other was Sextus Propertius, whose love was a woman he named Cynthia. Maecenas noticed her small book of 22 elegies entitled Cynthia and brought it to her circle. Like the other poets in Maecenas's stable, Propertius was urged to help popularize the Principate (Augustus's constitutional government), but his heart was really with love poetry. Propertius is the most interesting of these elegiac love writers if we look directly at the vicissitudes of his love affair.
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HORACE ON PATRIOTISM INTRODUCTION:
Horace (65-8 BC) owed the comfortable life he led to his patron Maecenas, who among other things gave him a small property on the outskirts of Rome: his "Sabian Farm", which became famous for his poetry. But Maecenas was a close friend and adviser to Emperor Augustus, and in return for his generosity, both Maecenas and Augustus expected Horatius to support the empire's goals, one of which was to revive patriotism and morale among the Romans. This excerpt is from one of Horace's odes, written to please his patron. Some of his phrases are famous, such as dulce et decorum est pro patria mori ("Sweet and worthy is to die for the fatherland" or, as the print translation below says: "The glorious and decent way to die is for that country itself.") ), which is inscribed on numerous cenotaphs for those who died in the war. Equally famous is the metaphor that closes the poem that Vengeance or Punishment, though it limps, rarely abandons its quest for a man.
SOURCE: Horace, Odes. Book III Trans. James Michie (New York: Modern Library, 2002): 119, 121.
Value. But we must not be too quick to infer autobiographical details from their poems, for they wrote within well-defined conventions. Sincerity was not considered a virtue in Latin poetry, and when a poet claims to be dying of love, he may just be expressing a conventional emotion that his art form demands. Sulpicia's poems differed in only one respect: women were usually objects of male desire in elegiac love poetry, but Sulpicia is portrayed as a woman who craves a mate as much as any man. Ovid. Ovid was truly a man of letters. Challenging and technically brilliant, he effortlessly wrote poetry. Although he was not wealthy, he was wealthy enough to renounce a patron and remained outside Maecenas and Messala's circles. He began as an elegiac love poet. His collection, known as the Amores, follows the lead of Tibullus and Propertius in that it chronicles romantic encounters, but while the love affairs of these two writers probably existed, Ovid's mistress Corina probably did not exist outside of literature. for 168
he wrote the Amores, he was working on a more ambitious work, the Heroides, letters in verse from mythological women to their husbands or lovers. Among other things, he imagines Dido writing to Aeneas, Ariadne writing to Theseus from Naxos where he had abandoned her, and Medea writing to Jason after learning of his plans to abandon her and the Corinthian king's daughter in order to marry. Ovid then turned to didactic poetry, but his subject was not as respectable as agriculture. Ovid wrote The Art of Love in three books, the first two instructing men in the art of seduction and the third teaching women aspiring to become courtesans how to bring out the best in their husbands. This was followed by a fourth book, the Remedium Amoris, on how to fall in love. Ovid's greatest work is undoubtedly his Metamorphoses (changes of form). No one believed the old legends anymore, but they were still the stuff of literature, and Ovid decided to bring them together around the common theme of metamorphosis. He tells myths that told how heroes and heroines changed shape like Actaeon, who was
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turned into a deer, or Alkyone turned into the Alcyon bird. The resulting epic is a tapestry of myth, told with wit and all the tricks an author skilled in rhetoric can muster. Then came his exile. Augustus forwarded it to Tomis, present-day Costanza in Romania, for unknown reasons. He burned his Metamorphoses, but luckily copies were circulating and it survives, albeit unfinished. Exile did not break Ovid, although he never saw his beloved Rome again. He wrote five Tristia books (poems of pain); The first book was completed before I came to Tomis. He continued with his Ponto letters; "Point" was the name of the Black Sea. He wrote Ibis, an attack on an imaginary character probably written as psychological salvation, and a poem about fish in the Black Sea. His main exile work was the Fasti, a complete Roman calendar of religious festivals. Ovid was winding down the first six months of the year, perhaps hoping that his interest in Roman religion would soften Augustus' heart. If that was his intention, he must have been disappointed with the result. Ovid died in exile.
Jasper Griffin, Vergil (Bristol, Inglaterra: Bristol Classical Press, 2001). WR Johnson, Escuridão Visível: Um Estudo de Vergils Aeneis (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976). W. R. Johnson, „The Figure of Laertes“, em Vergil em 2000; Ensayos comemorativos sobre o poeta e sua influência. ed. John D. Bernard (Nueva York: AMS Press, 1986), 85–105. Sara Mack, Ovid (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1988). Alexander G. McKay, Vergils Italien (Nueva York: Graphic Society, 1970). Niall Rudd, Hrsg., Horace 2000: Essays for the Millenium (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, 1993). David R. Slavitt, Vergil (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1991). —, trad., Propertius in Love: The Eclogues (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002). JP Sullivan, Propertius: Eine kritische Einführung (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976).
LIVIUS. The era of Augustus had a distinguished prose writer, Titus Livius, known in English as Livy, who wrote in 142 books the history of Rome from its founding to his time. He was the type of historian who wrote to edify his readers, and his story characters were either heroes or villains. The healthiest result of knowing history, he told his readers, was having examples of all kinds of behavior so that a person could choose models who knew in advance what the results of their choices would be. He was not a careful researcher, but he had long-lost historians to consult, and this gives real value to his work for the historian of the Roman Republic. Its history dates back to the Roman triumph over Perseus, the last king of Macedon, in 167 BC. EC back. His style is smooth and his characterization lively, but his panorama of the Roman past is not an example of historical accuracy.
SILVER AGE OF LATIN LITERATURE
FUENTES
William S. Anderson, El arte de la Eneida (Englewood Cliffs, Nueva Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1969). David Armstrong, Horace (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1989). D. Thomas Benediktson, Propertius: Ein modernistischer Dichter der Antike (Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press, 1989). Harold Bloom, Hrsg., Vergil (Nueva York: Chelsea House, 1986). Francis Cairns, Tibullus: A Helenistic Poet at Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979). TA Dorey, Hrsg., Livy (Londres, Inglaterra: Routledge und Kegan Paul, 1971).
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WRITER BEFORE THE DEATH OF NERO. The name "Latin Silver Age" applied to literature after the "Golden Age" under Augustus reflects the judgment of generations of scholars. Silver Age writers valued rhetorical skill and literary embellishment and created a style markedly different from ordinary human language. Contemporary Greek writers moved in another direction; They were Attic, that is, they revived the style and even the dialect of the best classical Greek authors. His example did not rub off on his Latino colleagues. Still, most of his lyrics are impressive. A poet, Marcus Manilius, wrote a didactic poem in five books on astrology. Calpurnius Siculus wrote pastoral poetry that drew heavily on Virgil's Eclogues. A former soldier, Velleius Paterculus, who served under the future emperor Tiberius, wrote a two-volume history of Rome, and when it comes to his own time, he is a good historical source. Valerius Maximus compiled nine books of proverbs and anecdotes under the title Remarkable facts and proverbs, and Phaedrus condensed Aesop's fable. SENEKA. Lucius Annaeus Seneca's family came from Roman Spain, and his father was a rhetorician known as Seneca the Elder to distinguish him from his son. The old Seneca's reputation derives from a collection of anecdotes about rhetoricians written in his old age. The young Seneca is known for his philosophical treatises: he was a stoic who did not know how to practice
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what he preached - four prose works - one of them an amusing but cruel essay on the disgust with which the gods greeted the late Emperor Claudius when he entered their society, after he had been declared divine by the Roman Senate - and nine tragedies . The tragedies were based on Greek originals, with the exception of Thyestes, which tells how the father of Agamemnon and Menelaus, Atreus, fed Thyestes to his own sons. The work allowed Seneca to express his love of blood and gore. He reworked Euripides' Medea and turned Medea into a bloodthirsty witch. Her Phaedra reworks Euripides' Hippolytus, giving Phaedra nymphomaniac tendencies and making Hippolytus a misogynist. It is generally accepted that these works were intended for public reading to selected audiences, not for production in large theaters for the masses whose tastes were interpretive dance and pantomime. Seneca's plays appealed only to the educated elite associated with the Golden Age of Tragedy in Athens in the 5th century BC. it was familiar. COLUMELLA. Like Seneca, Lucius Junius Columella was from Spain, but his interests were quite different. After a career in the Roman army, he acquired land in Latium outside Rome and took up farming. His De Re Rustica (On Agriculture) is a treatise on scientific agriculture. It offers a picture of the central Italian countryside of his time, with its growing number of country houses for wealthy Romans and their absentee landowners. His cure for the decline of agriculture in Italy was hard work, personal supervision, and mastery of the science of agriculture. GAIO PETRONIO. The novel as a literary form grew in popularity in Greece in the early imperial period, and Petronius chose to use it for what he called saturae: the 'blending' of writing. It is now known as the Satyricon. It's a picaresque novel (similar to the adventures of the vagabonds), but instead of the hero and heroine of the Greek novels having a series of wild adventures as they wander from place to place, Petronius has a trickster named Encolpius and a cheeky boy named Giton. . . Only fragments survive, but a sizable portion, describing a feast given by a wealthy ex-slave named Trimalchio, is a masterpiece. The feast was a gluttonous revel, and Trimalchio takes vulgarity to breathtaking heights. A favorite of Emperor Nero, Petronius organized orgies for this pleasure-seeking emperor until court intrigues destroyed him and he committed suicide with the grace and irony befitting a man of his talent. MARCO ANNEO LUCANO. The fame of Lucanus, nephew of Seneca the Younger, rests on one work: his epic poem about the civil war between Caesar and the senate party led by Pompey. His name, the 170
Pharsalus comes from the decisive battle fought in Greece at Pharsalus, modern Pharsalus in Thessaly, where Pompey's army was defeated. Lucan's style is a little contrived, but he's smooth verse. His sympathies were with Pompey and the republican form of government advocated by Pompey. All this suited the popular Stoic philosopher of the day, who looked longingly at the republic that had died in the civil war. Lucan died young. He was implicated in a conspiracy against Nero and bled to death, reciting some of his own lines about bleeding to death as he breathed his last. PERSIAN. Little is known about Aulus Persio Flaco, except that he left behind a collection of six satires and died young. The first dealt with the decline of literary taste, the second with the vanity of wealth, the third with idleness, the fourth with self-knowledge, the fifth with true freedom, and the sixth with the proper use of wealth. His poems are full of allusions to contemporary life. His fourth satire, for example, exhorts a popular statesman named Alcibiades to examine his soul and ignore public adulation. There was an Alcibiades, an Athenian politician of the 5th century BC. C.E., but perhaps the "Alcibiades" Persius has in mind has the Emperor Nero. Persius's style is not easy to read. Not for beginners in Latin. But his small production reveals an interesting talent. THE SILVER AGE AFTER EMPEROR NERO. Despite Emperor Nero's failings, he was a culturally sensitive aesthete, and his death in A.D. 68 did not improve the lot of the literary artist. The Flavian dynasty—the emperors Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian, who succeeded the Julio-Claudian clan that included emperors from Augustus to Nero—were of Sabine peasant origin. The Flavians were sensitive to their lack of prior knowledge, and Domitian in particular was a menacing and frightening presence. Greater freedom reigned under Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius (who died in 180 BC), but a comfortable mediocrity reigned at the time, and it wasn't until the fourth century AD that there was a burst of renewal. literary talent. However, the era was not without its writers. Silius Italicus was one such figure; His main position was as an informant under Nero, passing on information about potential enemies of the regime, although he later polished his reputation by earning praise for his administration in the province of Asia. He wrote an epic titled Punica about Rome's wars with Carthage, called the Punic Wars after the Latin word for Carthage: poenus. The meter is correct, but as poetry it is secondary. He likes to show off his learning, and the result is more tiring.
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something impressive. Papinius Statius, writing under Domitian, whom he carefully flattered, left five books by Silvae, several poems on various subjects, and two epics, the second unfinished. The first epic was Thebaid and covered the Theban legends: how Oedipus killed his father, how his sons fought for the throne and killed each other, and how Creon ascended the throne. The poem reflects the period's taste for romance through its inclusion of battles, exaggerated passions and acute feelings. The second epic, Achilles, tells the myth of how Achilles' mother, Thetis, tried to save her son from being drafted into the Trojan War by disguising him as a woman and hiding him among the court girls of King Skyrus. Statius wrote 1,127 lines on the subject, but died before he could write more. Valerius Flaccus wrote an epic about the legend of Jason and the Golden Fleece, taking the Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes as a model. Son and grandson of rhetoricians, Quintilian is known for his training as an orator. His perfect orator was Cicero, and he concluded that all the advances since Cicero's time had brought rhetoric to ruin. Martial was a master of the epigram: the short poem that ends with a sharp, poignant wit. He took his themes from contemporary life and threw an interesting spotlight on them. Suetonius, secretary to Emperor Hadrian, wrote biographies in plain Latin, and one collection survives complete: his Lives of the Twelve Caesars, from Julius Caesar to Domitian. A little after Suetonius, another author wrote the only Greek or Latin novel comparable to Petronius's Satyricon: Apuleius, whose tale Metamorphosis, better known as The Golden Ass, tells how the hero Lucius tried out sorcery and got it on a donkey. We also have another work by Apuleius when he married a wealthy widow and was judged by his relatives for winning her affections through magic. The Apology of Apuleius is the speech he gave in his own defense before a court in Sabratha, in modern-day Libya. Of all the writers of these last and somewhat troubled years of the Silver Age, there are three that should stop us: Juvenal, Pliny the Younger, and the historian Tacitus, for having been excellent practitioners of their literary genre. ADOLESCENT. Juvenal was a bitter man. Juvenal, to judge from his poetry, life in Rome did not treat him well, and after the death of Emperor Domitian and the veil of fear lifted, Juvenal wrote satires, sixteen in number, attacking the evil of contemporary life. He didn't like the women, all immigrants from the East, most of them Jewish, closely followed by the Greeks: the greed, the misery of the rich, and the horrors of living in poorly constructed apartment buildings.
of Rome He attacked scoundrels by name, though he only assumed scoundrels who were already dead to avoid retaliation. He is the source of the aphorism that the Roman mafia only cared about bread and circuses. Accepting the dictum of the Stoic philosophers that all transgressions are equal, he accused Emperor Nero of murdering his mother and writing bad poetry as sins of equal magnitude. He was a good poet himself, writing powerful verse in hexameter. Pliny the Younger. The reputation of Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, Pliny the Younger's full name, may have been surpassed by that of his uncle, Pliny the Elder, an encyclopedia writer who died in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE, except that he was the single parent. Pliny's surviving work is his Natural History, which is a mine of information but not casual reading. Pliny the Younger is known for his collection of pleasing letters, apparently written to various contemporaries, including the historian Tacitus, to whom he addressed an eyewitness account of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. The last book of his collected letters is correspondence between him and Emperor Trajan, for Trajan sent Pliny to the province of Bithynia in Asia Minor around 110 CE. to correct the mismanagement there. Among the topics of conversation with Trajan was a cell of Christians he encountered. Pliny wanted to know the legal status of Christianity, and Trajan replied that it was forbidden, although he warned against any witch hunts. For historians of Christianity, this is important evidence; tacitly defines the attitude of the Roman state towards Christianity in the 2nd century AD. Cornelius Tacitus wrote five works: a dialogue on orators, apparently his first; a biography of his father-in-law Agricola; an essay on Germany, the Germania; and his two great works, his histories and his annals. The first is a discussion of previous speakers, giving full marks to Cicero. Agricola ruled Roman Britain under Domitian, and thus Tacitus' biography contributes significantly to the knowledge of Britain in the years following its conquest under Emperor Claudius. The stories begin with the turmoil after Nero's death, when there were four emperors in 68 CE, and cut off two years later. The rest is lost. The annals also survive mutilated; Tacitus begins with Emperor Tiberius, but Caligula's reign is lost. Still, Tacitus' account of Claudius and Nero is great. Tacitus knew firsthand the misery of Rome under the tyrant Domitian, and when he describes these early emperors he sees them as the forerunners of Domitian. His descriptive skill was superb and he is the last great Latin historian until the 4th century AD. Wenn
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Taking Tacitus as a model, Ammianus Marcellinus produces a history that compares well with any other in Latin, even though Ammianus was Greek and Latin was presumably his second language. SOURCES
Frederick Abel, Lucan (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1976). Philip B. Corbett, Petronius (New York: Twayne, 1970). MD Grant, “Plautus and Seneca. Acting in Nero's Rome", Greece and Rome 46 (1999): 27-53. GO Hutchinson, Latin Literature from Seneca to Juvenal (Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1993). Ronald Mellor, Tacitus (London, England: Routledge, 1993). ) Anna Lydia Motto, Seneca (New York: Twayne, 1973) Victoria Rimell, Petronius and the Anatomy of Fiction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
IMPERIAL GREEK LITERATURE
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MODIFIED TERMS. When Queen Cleopatra of Egypt 30 BC The last independent Hellenistic monarchy disappeared and the entire eastern Mediterranean came under Roman rule. Hellenistic kings were replaced by Roman governors whose official language was Latin. Roman rule, however, was light. At the local level, cities governed the people. Each Roman province contained several cities, some very ancient, others dating back to the founding of a Hellenistic king or even Alexander the Great himself. Alexandria, Egypt, was not the only city founded by Alexander; The Middle East was dotted with cities called "Alexandria" that claimed Alexander as their founder. The Roman governor established his headquarters in the most important city in his province and was primarily interested in law and order and the payment of taxes; but within certain limits the cities were left to govern themselves. Governors cultivated local elites and nurtured the loyalty of wealthy landowners who rejoiced in the protection of an empire that safeguarded their economic interests, but at the same time looked with pride on Greece's golden age and its great literary achievements. The literature of Greece under the Roman Empire reflected this view: pride in the past and support or at least approval of the Roman Empire. Rome would not tolerate anything resembling turmoil. CLASSICISM. The new imperial era inaugurated by Emperor Augustus seemed classical. then 172
looked for its models in the Greek classics (480-330 BC). Taste is reflected as much in the fine arts of the Roman Empire as in literary tastes. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, a professor of Greek rhetoric who died around 30 BC. settled in Rome. E.C., expressed the same opinion in the various treatises on literary style which he wrote; his On Ancient Orators defends the Athenian or "Attic" style of oratory exemplified by Demosthenes and rejects the elaborate "Asiatic" style that replaced the Attic style in the Hellenistic period. We find the same taste for the past in the essays of two great essayists of the time, Plutarco and Luciano. PLUTARCH. Plutarch (c. 40–c. 120 CE) is best known for his Parallel Lives: Paired Biographical Essays of Greeks and Romans, in which Plutarch compared the life of a famous Greek with a Roman whose career was quite similar. , and follow each pair with a comparison. Alongside their parallel lives, we have a large collection of essays grouped under the heading Moralia: 'Moral Essays', where the adjective 'moral' means 'based on the general observation of people'. His subjects are very diverse: religion, music, philosophy, superstition (which Plutarch hated), love and divine justice. It was typical of the Greeks, who were happy to cooperate with their Roman rulers, yet they were proud Greeks nonetheless. Lucian (ca. 117–after AD 180), born in Samosata, now the city of Samsat in Syria, tried his hand at a legal career before turning to lectures and traveling throughout the empire giving public lectures. In his forties, he settled in Athens and wrote satirical essays that laughed at the lives and beliefs of conventional Greeks and Romans. So, when age began to get the better of him, he accepted a position on the Egyptian governor's staff, thus joining the "establishment" that had been the butt of his humor. His favorite literary forms were dialogue and letters; the former is taken from the theater as well as from Plato's dialogues, and the epistle was supposed to be a letter addressed to someone: thus his essay on a charlatan, Alexander von Abonoteichos, takes the form of a letter to a certain Celsus. Alexander invented a religion centered around a god called Glycon incarnated as a large, meek serpent equipped with an artificial head with a mouthpiece so that the serpent could make prophecies and answer questions, just as the Wizard of Oz Luciano ends his letter with the hope that he can help the general reader by shattering his illusions and confirming any reasonable ideas he may have. LUCIAN. Lucian was raised under a system heavily influenced by a literary movement known as the "Second Sophist". He taught that an author should follow the best Greek authors in terms of content and style.
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past, and the most obvious way to do this was to use lots of quotes and allusions to these authors. He also placed great emphasis on rhetorical exercises, and the main "sophists" of the movement were orators who gave declamations, often before large audiences crowded to hear them in theaters or music halls (called "odeons") or other public buildings. . The movement received the designation of "Second Sophist" from its thinker Philostratus, who belonged to a family of literati on the island of Lemnos. Philostratus gave the name "Second Sophist" to the literary renaissance he chronicled in his Lives of the Sophists. Philostratus' "sophists" were polished and learned orators who differed from the sophists of the classical period of the 5th and 4th centuries BC. must distinguish. They were men like Dio of Prusa, nicknamed Chrysostom ("golden mouth"), who lived around AD 40–110, Aelius Aristides (117–189 BC), and Maximus of Tire (c. AD 125–185). .). His repertoire of speeches celebrated both the power and charity of Rome and Greece's glorious past. Today its sociological content is more interesting than its literary excellence. Aelius Aristides, for example, wrote a hymn to Rome, which shared power with the ruling classes among the peoples it ruled, granting them Roman citizenship as a reward for their cooperation. Aristides opens a window into the psychology of Greece under Roman rule. THE ROMANCE. Romance script did not begin with the Second Sophistry, but this was the time of its greatest development. In fact, Dio de Prusa inserted a soap opera into one of his sentences. The other novels we have are Chaereas and Callirhoe by Chariton, An Ephesian Tale by Xenophon, Leucippe and Clitophon by Achilles Tatius, Daphnis and Chloe by Longus, and Aethiopica by Heliodorus. To us, authors are just names. The plots are full of journeys and adventures involving pirates, shipwrecks and premature burials, and the characters live in a world where everything is determined by chance, but apart from that they present considerable variations. The Chariton romance, which may date to the 1st century BC. Dating is a historical novel; Chariton places it after the Athenian expedition to Sicily (415-434 BC), which took place in the Peloponnesian War and ended in disaster at Syracuse. Her heroine Callirhoe is the daughter of Hermocrates, the Syracusan leader of the resistance against Athens. Daphnis and Chloe is the story of a shepherd, Daphnis, and his lover Chloe, who, like the characters in a new Greek comedy, are the children of wealthy parents. There are religious overtones to these novels. Xenophon's History of Ephesus celebrates the cult of Artemis of Ephesus and Heliodorus celebrates the
Worship of the sun god, known in Rome as Sol Invictus. In that sense they resemble Apuleius's Latin novel The Golden Ass, which is a better novel than any other. It should come as no surprise that some of the Christian apocryphal gospels, as well as the stories of Christian saints, borrow features from the novel. THE ACCEPTANCE OF THE ROMAN DECREE. The underlying theme of historians writing in Greek was acceptance of Roman rule and recognition of the benefits it brought to its subjects. The same Dionysius of Halicarnassus who wrote On Ancient Orators also wrote a history of ancient Rome entitled Roman Antiquities, covering the period from the beginning of Rome to the beginning of its history by Polybius with Rome's first war with Carthage (265-241 BC). ). . Chr.) covered na). Its purpose was to celebrate Rome's empire and also to demonstrate a special relationship between Greece and Rome, showing that Rome's origins were Greek. Flavius Josephus (37–100 AD), a Jew who participated in the Judean rebellion against Rome that broke out in 66 AD. but he went over to the Roman side in 67 CE and wrote the history of the revolt in his Jewish War, a seven-volume work written in the tradition of the great classical historians Herodotus and Thucydides. His writing goals, he tells the reader, were to remind war victors of the bravery of the men who defeated them, and also to comfort the defeated Jews and urge them to reflect on their failed revolt. Josephus wrote another important work, his Jewish Antiquities on Jewish history, and a treatise entitled Against Apion, which is a reply to an anti-Semitic treatise written by an unknown person named Apion. Josephus accepted Roman rule but remained proud of his Jewish heritage. The Egyptian Appian, born in the late 1st century AD, emphasized the benefits of Roman rule in his Roman history. He was not an original researcher, he was an official attempt at history, but his organization was an effort at a new approach. He wrote a history of Rome's conquests, city by city and region by region. He did not entirely abandon the analytical technique with which the historian relates the spectacle of the past year year after year, but he endeavored to treat Rome's wars of conquest as separate military operations. ARYAN. Arrian, or Flavio Arrian to give his full name, was governor of Cappadocia in Asia Minor under Emperor Hadrian (117–138 CE), where he defeated an invasion in 134 CE by an Iranian tribe known as the Alans. He was a student of the philosopher Epictetus and, like Xenophon with Socrates, preserved his teachings. His most important surviving work is his Anabasis, which borrows its title from Xenophon's Anabasis.
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sis ("The March to Earth"), but Arrian's "March" is the story of the conquest of the Persian Empire by Alexander the Great (334-323 BC). He based his story on the memoirs of Ptolemy, Alexander's general, who became king of Egypt and founded the Ptolemaic dynasty, ending with Cleopatra's suicide in 30 BC. Arrian's account is a sobering narrative and a valuable source for Alexander's campaign, as contemporary historians survive only in fragments. DEU CASIO. Cassius Dio deserves special attention as an important source for Roman history. Born in 163 or 164 CE in Iznik, present-day Turkey, in ancient Nicaea, he was the son of a consul and became consul and provincial governor in his own right under Emperor Septimius Severus (193–211 CE). He began writing during the reign of Caracalla (211–217 CE), one of Rome's most hated emperors. History of it, starting with the beginnings of Rome until 229 BC. It was a powerful work, which took ten years to prepare and twelve years to write. Some of it survives, and for the missing parts we have summaries written by later authors in Byzantine times. For the reign of Augustus, the first Roman emperor (27 BC – 14 AD), Cassius Dio's account is the most complete we have. CHRISTIAN WRITERS. Although Christianity was in its infancy in the first century CE, it began to produce its own literature almost immediately after the crucifixion of its founder Jesus in 33 CE. The first writings were letters exchanged between Jesus' disciples and converts, later assembled as the New Testament of the Bible. As the persecution of the Christian church increased, other writings commemorated the martyrs. One of the oldest examples is a group of seven letters written by Bishop Ignatius of Antioch, who were brought to Rome in his old age to be executed sometime during the reign of Emperor Trajan (98-117 CE). Guarded by ten Roman soldiers, whom he refers to in a letter as "ten leopards", he traveled through modern Turkey to Smyrna (present-day Izmir), where he wrote letters to nearby Christian communities and from there to the Hellespont, where he embarked on a ship to Rome. The steward of Ignatius' letters was the Bishop of Smyrna, Polycarp, who was burned in the Smyrna arena in 156 CE at the age of 86; The story of his martyrdom survives in Greek, Latin, Syriac, and Coptic versions. Excuses d. H. the Defense of the Christian Faith, appearing in the second century CE; One of the first, notable for its indulgent tone, was that of Justin 174
the martyr born in Shechem (modern Nablus in Israel). His excuses are clear explanations of Christianity for non-Christians; his First Apology, written around AD 150, is addressed to Emperor Antoninus Pius, and his Dialogue with Trypho records a discussion with a Jewish rabbi, ending on a note of mutual tolerance and respect. In the third century CE, Christian theology borrowed from Greek philosophers. The most brilliant theologian of the time was Origen (185-254 AD), who studied philosophy in Alexandria, where he was a partner of Plotinus, founder of Neoplatonism, mystical interpretation of Plato that would be the last great school of pagan philosophy. After teaching for some time in Alexandria, Origen moved to Caesarea in Palestine, where, among other things, he wrote the first critical edition of the Old Testament. During the brief but violent persecution of Christians under Emperor Decius (AD 249–251), Origen was tortured and never recovered from the ordeal. Later, Christian clerics decided that Origen had married Greek philosophy too closely to Christianity and condemned him as a heretic. The same fate befell the greatest of the Latin theologians, Tertullian, who was born in Carthage, North Africa, around 155 CE, converted to Christianity at the age of forty, and later abandoned Catholicism because of the heresy of Montanism, founded by a Christian in Phrygia. it was . (in western Turkey) who claimed to have a new revelation from the Holy Spirit. Tertullian wrote more than thirty treatises on all aspects of life, from women's fashion to arena sports. But the great age of Latin theology came in the fourth and fifth centuries AD, after the empire became Christian, with men like St. Augustine and St. Jerome. SOURCES
G. Bowersock, Hrsg., Abordagens ao Segundo Sofisma (Philadelphia, Pa.: American Philological Association, 1974). H. Chadwick, Early Christian Thought and the Classical Tradition (Oxford, Inglaterra: Oxford University Press, 1966). Thomas Haegg, The Novel in Antiquity (Oxford, Inglaterra: Oxford University Press, 1983). C. P. Jones, Kultur und Gesellschaft in Lucian (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1986). —, Plutarch und Rom (Oxford, Inglaterra: Oxford University Press, 1971). George Kennedy, The Art of Rhetoric in the Roman Empire (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1972). BE Perry, The Ancient Romances: A Literary-Histórico Account of Their Origins (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967). DA Russell, Plutarco (Londres, Inglaterra: Duckworth, 1973).
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Important People in Literature ESCYLUS c. 525 BC -C. 456 BC BC Poet's EARLY YEARS. The tragic poet Aeschylus was born in 525 or 524 BC. Born in Eleusis, now a suburb of Athens. and died 68 years later in Gela, Sicily. His life dates place him squarely in the formative period of the golden age of classical Greek culture. When he was born, Athens was ruled by a tyrant named Hippias, but after Hippias' exile in 510 BC. C. Athens opted for a constitutional government in which political power resided in a popular assembly where all citizens could vote. Aeschylus' formative period therefore coincided with the development of Athens as a democracy. Aeschylus presented his first tragedies at the 70th Olympiad, i. H. in the period between the 71st Olympiad, which places the date between 499 and 496 BC 490 BC CE Aeschylus fought at Marathon, where the Athenians defeated a Persian expeditionary force that landed there and lost a brother in battle. Ten years later, Aeschylus found himself in the middle of a naval battle on the island of Salamis, where the Greek allies defeated the Persian fleet. These experiences with the Persians in battle inspired him in 472 BC. in his production of The Persians. second in a trilogy of tragedies; the first was called Phineus and the third Glaucus Potnieus. There was no apparent connection between the three dramas, and the satyr play which was the final play in Aeschylus' staging Prometheus the Firebearer must have been a parody of the myth that Prometheus gave mankind fire. The Persians differed from Aeschylus' other plays created on the same day in that their theme was based on contemporary history and was a patriotic homage to Athena's courage. AESCYLOS AND SICILY. A few years after Salamis, Aeschylus left Athens for Sicily, where the tyrant of Syracuse, Hiero, had founded a new city, Etna, and wanted Aeschylus to celebrate the founding with a drama. Aeschylus' play, The Women of Etna, seems less like an ordinary tragedy than a parade in honor of the new city; some surviving fragments of papyrus give an idea of what it was like. Aeschylus was
468 BC again in Athens. when he entered the tragic competition and was beaten by a new tragic poet, Sophocles, who made his debut this year. The following year, Aeschylus won with a trilogy about the tragic character Oedipus, who was destined to kill his father and marry his mother. One of these tragedies survives: The Seven Against Thebes, which narrates the conflict between the sons of Oedipus. 458 BC he produced his masterpiece, the Oresteia, the only surviving complete trilogy comprising three tragedies: Agamemnon, the Libations and the Furies. Soon after, for reasons unknown, he left Athens again for Sicily. It is possible that he did not agree with some political events in Athens. Anyway, he died around 456 BC. in Gela, Sicily. According to legend, Aeschylus was killed when an eagle flying overhead mistook his bald head for a rock and threw a tortoise at him to crack his shell. The story isn't entirely believable, but it does offer a spicy ending to a great tragedy. The epitaph on his monument at Gela, said to have been written by himself, proudly mentions fighting the Persians at the Battle of Marathon, but omits any reference to his success as a tragic poet. SOURCES
DJ Conacher, Aeschylus: The Early Plays and Related Studies (Toronto, Canadá: University of Toronto Press, 1996). Michael Gagarin, Aeschylian Drama (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976). John Herington, Ésquilo (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1986). Shirley Darcus Sullivan, Aeschylus' Use of Psychological Terminology: Traditional and New (Montreal, Canadá: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1997).
CATO 234 BC - 149 BC POLITICAL HISTORIAN. Cato was the author of the first surviving Latin prose work and the first Roman historian to write a history of Rome in Latin. He was born in 234 B.C. in Tusculum near modern Frascati in the hills around Rome. C., and spent his early years on a small farm in the countryside, working in the fields alongside farm workers. At the age of seventeen, he enlisted in the Roman army and served in the long war against the Carthaginian Hannibal, which Rome did not end until 202 BC. gain. He settled around 208 BC. settled in Rome. and four years later he began his political career, where he reached the coveted position of consul in 195
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He remained in many respects a village Italian, true to his native customs and indignant at the "filhellenism" - fervor and imitation of all Greeks - which infected the circle around Scipio Africanus, the conqueror of Hannibal, and his brother Lucius Scipio. . . The Scipian circle admired Greek culture and wanted to introduce it to Rome. In Cato's eyes, the Greek way of life meant abandoning the frugality, self-discipline, and honesty that were the Roman ideal. 187 BC C.E. Cato managed to destroy Scipio Africanus' political career, and he won in 184 BC. EC elections as censor. He continued to dominate Roman politics until his death, three years before the final destruction of Carthage, which Cato vigorously defended in his later years. CATUS' WRITINGS. What survives of Cato's writings is an essay on agriculture that sets out rules for good farming. Cato was a man who feared the gods, but he was tough and unsentimental. For example, he advised getting rid of old slaves who could no longer do their share of the work. This is the oldest surviving Latin prose. Cato also wrote a history of Rome, the Origines, which he wrote around 172 BC. to write. It dealt not only with the early history of Rome, but also with the origins of neighboring Italian cities, hence the title "Origins". Earlier Romans wrote histories about Rome, starting with Fabius Pictor who wrote his history in Greek for Greek readers, but Cato was the first to write in Latin. He was also famous as an orator in his time. There is a certain irony in the fact that it was Cato who brought the epic poet Ennius to Rome, where he played an important role in introducing Greek culture, and indeed, in old age, Cato himself began to learn Greek. SOURCES
A. Astin, Cato der Zensor (Oxford, Inglaterra: Clarendon Press, 1978). Elizabeth Rawson, Intellectual Life in the Late Roman Republic (Londres, Inglaterra: Duckworth, 1985).
TUCIDIDO c. 460 BC -C. 400 BC Chr Historian ONE OF GREECE'S GREATEST HISTORIANS. Thucydides, who wrote a history of the Peloponnesian War between the two power blocs led by Athens and Sparta (431-404 BC), is considered by most scholars to be the greatest historian Greece has produced, although some rank his work as the greatest. first give space. Former contemporary, Herodotus. However, we are not well informed about his life. 176
What we know about him comes from the few autobiographical fragments he includes in his Historia and A Short and Unreliable Life, written by someone named Marcelino. From these sources we can deduce a date of birth and the date of his death, probably sudden and unexpected, as his story begins in the winter of 411 BC. CE off in mid-sentence. He belonged to the Athenian upper class and his family owned shares in a mine in Thrace, which provided him with a regular income. When Athens 430 BC. was hit by the plague. He fell ill but recovered and used the experience to write a clinical description of the illness. In the year 424 BC C. he was elected one of ten generals elected by the Athenians each year and, thanks in part to his leadership failure, the strategic city of Amphipolis in northern Greece fell to Sparta. He was banished from Athens for his failure and remained in exile until the end of the war between Athens and Sparta. Although his exile took him away from Athens, it gave him a better opportunity to gather information from the rest of Greece. His demands on source assessment were high: if he was not a witness to an event himself, he looked for credible eyewitnesses. He lived to see the end of the war, but left his work unfinished and parts of it unchecked. The circumstances of his death are unknown. However, he was buried in the family tomb of the Athenian statesman Cimon, who was Pericles' conservative rival early in Pericles' career. Despite his family connection to the anti-Pericles camp, he became a supporter of Pericles in his mature years because he admired his ability to keep the radical elements of Athenian democracy in check. HE WROTE ABOUT THE PELOPONESIAN WAR. Thucydides explains in the introduction to his history that at the start of the Peloponnesian War he realized that this would be the greatest war Greece had ever known, surpassing the Trojan War and the war against Persia. Both opponents were at the height of their power, and before the war ended both Sicily and Persia were involved. However, the war went to show that unexpected events can derail even the best laid plans. The plague that broke out in 430 B.C. Athens afflicted. weakened its strength. The great Athenian leader Pericles fell ill and died in 429 BC. CE hit by the plague, though he survived the plague's immediate onslaught. Indeed, there is a subtle anti-democratic undercurrent to Thucydides' story; He clearly doubted the ability of a government to conduct wars wisely when decisions were made by an assembly of all citizens, as was the case in Athens. However, he admired the indomitable spirit of Athena.
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After the Athenians in 413 BC. he had suffered a catastrophic loss of his entire expeditionary force in Sicily. They were still struggling in their campaign to conquer Syracuse (present-day Syracuse) and might still have won if Persia had not provided Sparta with the means to build a fleet. Thucydides clearly intended to bring the story to an end, but his story ends abruptly in 411 BC. Various reasons have been suggested for why the story is incomplete, but the most likely is that he died suddenly. Someone took the unfinished work and published it after Thucydides died. It is an in-depth study of war and the impact of wartime stress on civil society. There are also traces of the tragedy. Like a protagonist (protagonist) in a Greek tragedy, Athenian democracy recklessly entered the war and was overthrown by a series of reckless moves. However, fateful mechanisms also lurked behind Athens' defeat. Not even the best laid plans could foresee the plague and death of Pericles. SOURCES
W. R. Connor, Thukydides (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1984). Simon Hornblower, Tucídides (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987). Clifford Orwin, La humanidad de Tucídides (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994). Dennis Proctor, The Experience of Thukydides (Warminster, Inglaterra: Aris and Phillips, 1980). A. G. Woodhead, Thukydides and the Nature of Power (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1970).
V ERGIL 70 B.C. - 19 BC Poet THE DOING OF THE POET. Virgil was born in the Andes, probably in present-day Pietole, in the Po Valley of northern Italy, in 70. Virgil was born a provincial because at the time of his birth the Po Valley was still the province of Cisalpine Gaul (that is, Gaul around south of the Alps), covering the entire territory up to the Rubicon River. Roman citizenship was not granted until 49 BC. CE extended to Virgil's home territory. Seven years later, Cisalpine Gaul was incorporated into Italy. His father was a small landowner who earned his money from beekeeping and managed to send his son to Cremona, then to Milan and finally to Rome to learn rhetoric and train as a lawyer, but he only appeared in court once and ruled against him. . Instead, he went to Naples B.C.
and joined a philosophical school led by the Epicurean Siro. He may have already written poetry, as several poems (fourteen short works and five longer works) are attributed to him in this period, but modern Virgil scholars doubt that he was the author. THE ECLOGIANS AND THE GEORGIANS. In the year 42 BC A cataclysm struck Virgil's family. The troops were demobilized after Caesar's assassins were defeated at the Battle of Philippi and, to find land to settle them, farms in the Po Valley were confiscated, including Virgil's family assets. They may have been restored, however, as the first of Virgil's pastoral poems, known as the Eclogas, a conversation between the shepherds Melibeo and Tityrus, possibly by Virgil himself, refers to a restoration. Virgil's didactic poem on the art of agriculture, the Georgik (the title comes from the Greek word for agriculture), was written between 36 and 29 BC. written. in honor of Virgil's patron and friend Maecenas, but he never misses an opportunity to praise the emperor Augustus. Virgil, who had been born a provincial, had no nostalgia for the ancient Roman republic that had misruled the Roman provinces, and he appreciated the conquest of Augustus, who strove to establish law, order, and good government in Italy and the Empire. ENIDA. Augustus wanted an epic in his own honor, and Virgil took on the task. He chose the Trojan hero Aeneas as his subject, as the Julian family to which Augustus belonged claimed Aeneas as their ancestor. Virgil spent the last ten years of his life writing the Aeneid. 19 BC He left for Greece to travel Greece and Asia for three years, completing the Aeneid and immersing himself in philosophy for the rest of his life. But in Athens he met Emperor Augustus and was persuaded to return to Italy with him. He fell ill on the voyage and was taken back to Italy, only to die in Brundisium (present-day Brundisi), the preferred port for ships crossing the Adriatic Sea from Greece. Virgil asked his literary executors, Varius and Tucca, to burn his unfinished Aeneid, but Augustus ordered them to ignore this instruction and publish the unfinished poem instead. In some places the poem shows a certain lack of conclusion, but time confirmed the reign of Augustus. The Aeneid became the national epic of the Roman Empire. The character of Aeneas, a Trojan warrior who fought against the Greeks in the legendary Trojan War, escapes from Troy after being sacked; He endures many hardships on a journey that eventually takes him to pre-Roman Italy, where he lays the groundwork for Rome's future greatness. He
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Curious is the fact that Virgil emphasizes the "strangeness" of Aeneas in the work; He began writing the Aeneid just a year after the Battle of Actium, presented in Augustus' propaganda as a victory for Italian values over the decaying East represented by Cleopatra. However, Aeneas is Asian, and the epic ends with the ruthless murder of Turnus, the leader of the Italian resistance to his invasion. However, the final agreement, approved by Jupiter, calls for the Asiatic Trojans to be assimilated. They will abandon their language and embrace Latin, and even the gods of Rome will have Jupiter's seal of approval. They will not be Trojan gods. Aeneas and his Trojan followers find no new Troy in Italy. Rather, they set an example of assimilation to the idea of Rome for the various nationalities who would later make up the Roman citizen body. SOURCES
John D. Bernard, Hrsg., Vergil em Jahr 2000; Memorial Essays on the Poet and His Influence (Nova York: AMS Press, 1986). W. A. Camps, An Introduction to Virgil's „Aeneis“ (Oxford, Inglaterra: Oxford University Press, 1969). K. W. Gransden, Die Ilias des Virgil; Ein Essay über epische Erzählung (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984). MC J. Putnam, The Poetry of the Aeneis (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1965). —, The Pastoral Art of Vergil (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1970).
DOCUMENTAL SOURCES in Literature Aeschylus, Oresteia (525-456 BC) - The Oresteia consists of three tragic dramas: Agamemnon, Coephorus and Eumenides. The only complete surviving trilogy of ancient Greek tragedies, it deals with revenge and counter-revenge in the context of a blood feud within the family of Agamemnon. Alcaeus of Lesbos (c. 620–after 580 BC) - Alcaeus was a lyric poet who wrote songs generally for solo performance: drinking songs, hymns to the gods, love poetry, and poems about contemporary politics. Only fragments of his works survive. Apollonius Rhodius, The Argonautica (c. 260-247 BC) - This work is an epic poem about the story of Jason and his quest for the Golden Fleece, written at a time when long epics were out of fashion. 178
Aristophanes, The Clouds (423 BC): Written in the style of "ancient comedy" dramaturgy, The Clouds avoids the political themes of other Athenian plays, satirizing Socrates and the education he provided for Athenian youth. Cornelius Tacitus, Histories (after 96 CE, Annals (after 115 CE): The Histories and Annals together, when complete, cover the history of the first century CE from the perspective of a Roman who thought that liberty had fallen along with overthrow of the republic Julius Caesar Demosthenes, in the crown (330 BC): This speech was delivered in court in defense of Demosthenes for his anti-Macedonian policies of the last 25 years. Written and published, it is considered the masterpiece of the greatest Athenian orator of 4th century BC Euripides, Medea (431 BC): This tragic work is famous for its psychological insights as it portrays a woman suffering from the rise of the Persian Empire and its conflict with Greece in the years 480–479 BC. of History." Homer, the Iliad (c.700 BC): This epic, which focuses on an incident in the Trojan War, represents the culmination of the oral epic tradition in Greece. Homer has also been credited with the Odyssey, the story of how the hero Odysseus returned home after the Trojan War. Petronius Inquisitor, Satyricon (c. 60–65 BC): An elegant and voluptuous man at the court of Emperor Nero, Petronius wrote a long novel unique in Latin literature, nothing like that in Greek literature, and tells the adventures of three young scoundrels. in southern Italy. Fragments survive, including a long description of a feast given by a wealthy freedman, Trimalchio. Pindar, Epinician Odes ('Odes of Victory') (518-438 BC) - These lyric poems, written to commemorate athletic victories in the Olympic, Pythian, Nemean or Isthmian games, are the only ones found surviving in their entirety by the many that Pindar he wrote. . Publius Vergilius Maro, Aeneid (30-19 BC) - The masterpiece of Virgil, widely considered Rome's greatest poet, is the Aeneid, which tells the story as the Trojan.
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The hero Aeneas fled Troy, landed in Italy, and founded the royal line that would eventually produce Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome. Quintus Ennius, The Annals (c. 170 BC) - The playwright, satirist, and epic poet Ennius, in his Epic Annals, chronicles the history of Rome up to 171 AD. a year before his death. Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace), Epodes (41–31 BC): Sappho was the head of a thiasos (brotherhood) honoring Aphrodite and the nine muses. Of the seven books of his collected poems, one complete poem and fragments of others survive to this day. Sophocles, Oedipus the King (c. 429–425 BC): This tragic play was regarded by Aristotle as a model of Greek tragedy.
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War (c. 400 BC): This clinical account of the war between the Athenian Empire and the Spartan coalition (431–404 BC) was interrupted mid-sentence in 411, probably by the Intervention interrupted by Thucydides. Death. Livy, History of Rome from its Foundation (c. 28 BC to AD 17) – Comprising 142 books, Livy's History is a monumental work covering the rise of Rome from its foundation until 9:00 am, when his stepson of Emperor Augustus, Drusus, died. Only thirty-five books survive. Titus Lucretius Carus, The Nature of Things (65–55 BC) – This unfinished epic poem put forward the theory that the universe is made of atoms and emptiness and that therefore men and women need not fear death because it is just a resolution of the universe are the atoms that make up the human body and soul.
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MUSIC Nancy Sultan
IMPORTANT EVENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182 GENERAL DESCRIPTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 TOPICS Musical Instruments . . . . Music in Greek Life. . . . musical education. . . . . . . Music in Roman life. . . Women in ancient music theory. . . . . . . . .
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DOCUMENTAL SOURCES. . . . . . . . . 231 MAIN PAGES AND DOCUMENTS Primary sources are listed in italics
A whistle in ancient Rome (Livy describes the inventive solution to the whistle in Tibicine). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195 Odysseus Praises the Song (in The Odyssey, Odysseus Praises the Songs of Demodoko) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
The invention of the lyre (Hermes makes the lyre from the shell of a tortoise). . . . . . . . . Saved by Euripides' Hymns (Plutarch recalls how Euripides' songs saved the Athenian captives). . . . . . . Orestes (Text by Euripides is an early example of ancient Greek music). . . . . . Plato on musical innovation (Plato describes music as conducive to moral education). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Funerary stele from Seikilos (text on tombstone contains compositional patterns described by later theorists). . . . . . . . . . Domitian and the Feast of Jupiter Capitolinus (Suetonius speaks of a music festival founded by Domitian). . . . . . . . . Just one of the girls (Plutarch describes Clodius' plan to disguise himself as a lyre.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Helen's Ritual Lament (Euripides portrays the musical power of the Ritual Lament). . Critique of the harmonicoi (Aristoxenus argues that music must be judged empirically through the senses). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Aristotle on Music (Aristotle analyzes the influence of music on the soul). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Alypia notation tables (examples of Greek music notation). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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approx. 676 BC Schools of music founded in Sparta –c. 673 BC by Terpander of Lesbos and Thaletas of Gortyn.
IMPORTANT EVENTS in music c. 2800 BC BC During the Aegean Bronze Age, musi–c. 1100 BC Chr Cyanos and musical instruments are depicted in frescoes, on vases and sealing stones, and in sculptures. From this period survive fragments of lyres, flutes, percussion instruments and shell horns. approx. 2200 BC Cycladic figures depict Bronze Age Aegean musicians holding harp, aulos (reed flutes) and syrinx (pan flutes). circa 1490 BC A Bronze Age painted sarcophagus from Ayia Triada, Crete, depicts musicians playing the phorminx (lyre) and aulos during a sacrificial ritual. circa 1100 BC A miniature bronze votive zither from the sanctuary of Apollo at Amyklai (near Sparta) is the earliest representation of the type that became popular in the classical period (480-323 BC). approx. 800 BC During the early Archaic period, the –c. 700 BC The Homeric epics Iliad and Odyssey, the Homeric hymns, and the poet Hesiod describe musicians, instruments, and musical settings. Phemios and Demodocus, two of Homer's aoidoi (professional bards), appear in the palaces of Odysseus and the Faiacians in the Odyssey. approx. 750 BC Greeks colonize southern and eastern Italy - c. 550 BC in Sicily; Musicians, poets and composers bring Greek musical culture to Syracuse and other cities in Magna Graecia. 182
Virtuoso composer and kitharode Terpander wins music competition at Apollo's first Carneia Festival and four consecutive victories at the Pythian Games. approx. 654 BC Lyric poet Alcman lives in Sparta and –c. 611 BC composes his Partheneia ("Dance of the Virgin"). The island of Lesbos becomes a second musical center. approx. 628 BC Arion of Lesbos teaches Corinthians –c. 625 BC choirs to perform the dithyramb (male chorus dance) invented by him. It is from this type of dithyramb that the tragic chorus would have developed. approx. 612 BC The most famous poet, Sappho, was born on Lesbos. In her hometown, Mytilene, she composes lyrical songs, mostly monodys, and choral dances and leads a circle of girls and young women; Barbitos (a low-pitched lyre) and other instruments accompany the music. approx. 632 BC The composer Stesichorus (née Teisias) –c. 556 BC CE sets the first tragic refrain and is known for its use of the nomos harmateios ("chariot melody") and nomos of Athena in Phrygian mode, telling the story of Athena's birth in the full armor of Zeus. approx. 625 BC The dithyramb (male choral dance) is –c. Invented in 585 BC by Kitharode Arion of Lesbos during the time of the tyrant Periander in Corinth. approx. 600 BC Tyrants reform feasts and lures – c. 500 BC talented musicians to their cities: in Corinth, Periander supports Arion, who creates the dithyramb; in Sicyon, Cleisthenes puts an end to rhapsodic performances and opens the way to classical tragedy; and Peisistratus introduces the festival of the Dionysian city into Athens,
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A central feature of them are the dithyrambic, tragic and comic disputes. Thespis produces the first tragedy in Athens by adding an orator who interacts with the chorus. Under Hipparchus, son of Pisistratus, the poets Anacreon, Lasus of Hermine and Simonides flourished. Hipparchus develops the competence of the rhapsodes in the Great Panathenae in an organized serial performance of the entire Iliad and Odyssey. 586 BC The Chr New Aulodes and Auletes contests are added to the Pythian Games. Echembrotus Aulode of Arcadia gains a three-legged bronze cauldron. The aulet (piper) Sakadas of Argos wins a prize in the Pythian Games music contest. He will win prizes in the next two games and will be known for his Pythikos Nomos ("Pythical Composition"), in which he depicts Apollo's victory over the Python in Delphi. Argos becomes a center of musical excellence. 574 BC CE Pythocritus of Sicyon vanquishes six Pythian -554 BC. Victories over the Aulos. approx. 560 BC Philosopher, mathematician and scientist Pythagoras is born. He later founded a school at Croton where he and his followers study acoustic and musical phenomena. 566 BC Panathenaea Festival in Athens is reorganized on a larger scale and includes musical competitions for rhapsodes, zithers, aulodes and auletes. 558 BC The Pythian Song Contest is expanded to include an unaccompanied zither performance. Agelon of Tegea is the first winner. approx. 520 BC The Pres–c. by the East Greek poet Anacreon. 460 BC Skull in Athens gives rise to a series of vase paintings depicting Ionian influence
in Athenian music. In one image, a singer holds a barbito (Ionian-style lyre) called an Anacreon. 518 BC The poet Pindar, the most famous of all the lyric poets of ancient Greece, was born near Thebes in Boeotia (died 438). He is best known for his Epinician odes, which he composed for the winners of the four athletic games: Pythian, Nemean, Istmian and Olympic. approx. 508 BC Lasus presents the dithyrambic competition in Athens. approx. 500 BC BC Democratic Athens is the center of it all –c. 400 BC Chr Intellectual and cultural activity in Greece. In this city the tragic Aeschylus, Phrinic, Sophocles, Euripides and Agatho staged their dramas at the Theater of Dionysus during the Dionysian City; comic playwright Aristophanes satirizes the politics and culture of Athens; and the poets Laso, Simonides, Bacchylides, Pindar, Melanipides, Timoteo, Filoxeno and Cinesias compose dithyrambs for Athenian choirs and the so-called 'New Music'. 478 BC Hiero, tyrant of Syracuse in Sicily, –467 BC makes his city a paradise for artists, poets and musicians from all over Greece. His hospitality to Pindar is so appreciated that the poet wrote a eulogy for him. approx. 475 BC The Athenian statesman Themistocles commissioned the Western world's first concert hall, the Odeion, for musical competitions held during the Great Panathenaic period. It's on the market in Athens. 474 BC CE Hiero defeats the Etruscans at Cumae and begins his reign in Syracuse, during which time he entertains Aeschylus, Pindar, and other Greek artists and musicians. approx. 470 BC The Etruscans built the so-called "Tomb of the Leopards" and "Tomb of the Triclinium" in Tarquinia in northern Italy and painted the walls with a
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Funeral banquet scene with men and women dancing to the sound of aulos (reed flute) and a six-string chelys (turtle shell) lyre. approx. 450 BC Various forms of the harp appear in Athenian vase paintings, although before that time it was a familiar instrument for Anakreon. approx. 435 BC The famous dithyrambic Philoxenus of Cythera is born. His most famous work will be The Cyclops (also called Polyphemus and Galatea). 443 BC Chr Damon, one of the greatest intellectuals from –c. 430 BC In his day, he published an essay arguing that musical modes and rhythms are closely related to ethical qualities and that the state should be concerned with the regulation of music and music education. Ideas from him influence Plato's and Aristotle's attitudes towards the ethos of music in their discussions of music pedagogy. approx. 427 BC Philosopher Plato is born. He will speak about the character and role of music in many of his works, especially Timaeus, Republic and Laws. approx. 420 BC The musician Timothy of Miletus defeats his teacher, the eminent Phrinys, in a music contest. Several hundred verses of his Persian Kitarodic composition survive, along with an epilogue containing prayers to Apollo and a manifesto praising his own talent and originality. 416 v The playwright and composer Agathon wins first place in the dramatic competition at the Lenaea in Athens. He is later mocked by Aristophanes in his Thesmophoriazousae, but treated with great affection in Plato's Symposium. 410 BC The ingenious kitarist Stratonicus of Athens –360 BC He is active, along with several other virtuoso performers whose performance captivates audiences, including Chrysogonus, hired to command the crew of naval general Alcibiades; 184
the Pronomus aulete of Thebes, displayed on a vase (in the Museo Nazionale in Naples), appearing before a crowd of actors, dressed in an ornate tunic and with a garland on her head; and Antigeneidas, another Aulete of Thebes, who is described by the writer Apuleius as "a sweet melodist of every word and an expert interpreter of every manner" (Flor. 4). 402 BC Chr Kitharodes, most popular with spectators, wins top prizes in major competitions; The list of prizes includes: an 85 drachma gold crown, a 1,000 drachma silver crown and 500 drachma cash; other kitharode prizes are worth 700, 600, 400 and 300 drachmas respectively. There are two prizes for aulodes (300 and 100 drachmas) and three for kitaristas. approx. 400 BC The Five Day Wedding of Alexander the Great - c. 300 BC The celebration at Susa is entertained by a rhapsode, three psilokitharists, two kitharodes, two aulodes, five auletes (playing the Terpandrean Pythikos Nomos) and later accompanied choirs, three tragic and three comic actors, and a harpist. 392 B.C.E. Aristophanes produces his last survivor: 388 B.C.E. the comedies Ecclesiazusae (Women in the Congregation) and Plutus (Wealth), in which the chorus was greatly reduced and was no longer written by the playwright; The word “KHOROU” (“choral interlude”) appears in place of the choral lyrics. The soloist voice and the flute remain central musical elements in the work. 343 BC Aristotle discusses the character and purpose of music in his book Politics and Problems. Music theorist Aristoxenus becomes one of his best students. approx. 333 BC Aristoxenus was a student of Aristotle in Athens and wrote many books and essays, the most influential being Harmonika stoikheia (Harmonious Elements) and Rhythmika stoikheia (Rhythmic Elements).
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319 BC The children's choir of the Cecropid tribe wins the dithyrambic competition on the Great Dionysus in Athens with a performance of Timotheus Elpenor's composition. 316 BC Dyscolos (Grouch), the only surviving complete work by comic book writer Menander, is produced; contains four choral interludes, identified by the word "KHOROU" among the five acts. On line 879, an "aulosplayer plays" stage direction and a tempo change indicate additional musical content. 311 BC Roman censor Appius Claudius Caecus revokes the right of the Etruscan artists' guild (Collegium) to dine at public expense in the temple of Jupiter after performing at religious festivals; They protest by marching from Rome to Tibur (18 miles away) and eventually get their free dinners back. approx. 300 BC New dramatic and musical competition. 200 BC The Nemea and Isthmus games are added. Kitharode Nicocles of Taranto records his victories at the Pythian and Istmian Games, the Great Panathenaea, the Lenaea (in a dithyramb), the Hecatomboia, the Helieia, and the royal feasts in Macedonia and Alexandria. Artists gathered in various cities in Greece, Alexandria and Sicily to create professional organizations known as technitai Dionysou (Artists of Dionysus), forming guilds (koina or later synodoi). They provide musicians, composers, conductors and teachers for religious festivals and secular events. 290 BC The Technitai ("Guild of Artists") is founded in -280 Athens to produce concerts in various cities. Rival Istmian-Nemean guild settles in northeastern Peloponnese; both establish relationships with Delphi. approx. 270 BC Ktesibios of Alexandria invents the pneumatic pump and the water organ (from the Greek hydraulis).
235 BC An important guild of artists appears in Teos serving Ionia and the Hellespont. 211 BC The Isthmian-Nemean Guild is invited to participate in various festivals, including the Festival of the Muses in Thespia, in Thebes, on the island of Delos and around the Peloponnese. 205 BC Chr Kitharode Pylades of Megalopolis plays Timothy's Persians in the Nemean Games. approx. 200 BC New songs will be played along with Re-C. 100 B.C. Chr Praise for ancient patterns and selections by 5th-century tragic poets, notably Euripides. approx. 194 BC Satyr of Samos, a famous Auletete, wins the prize and offers an encore selected from Euripides' tragedy Bacchae. 191 BC Chr Plautus produces his comedy Pseudolus (The Deceiver), which, like many of his other works, incorporates polymetric canticles (solo songs) accompanied by various types of tibias (cane tubes) and instrumental flute music into the plot, in addition to musical interludes scenes. . 170 BC Menekles, sent from Teos, around 150 BC. CE constitutes the works of Timothy and Polyidus at Knossos and Priansos, Crete. 163 BC Chr Terence enacts his comedy Heautontimoroumenos (The self-torturer), whose structure depends entirely on the musical accompaniment of a tibicen (reed flute). 127 BC Athenian guild members - 97 BC CE ipate in the religious pilgrimage of the Pythaids from Athens to Delphi. The group is formed by epic and dramatic poets, rhapsodes, actors, instrumentalists, singers and a large choir singing the hymn to Apollo; The well-known music of the hymns composed for the occasion by the kitarist Limenius and the singer Athenaeus is engraved on the wall of the Athenian treasury.
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118 BC The Delphians honor two Arcadian musicians who trained children's choirs to perform excerpts from the 'Ancient Poets'. 90 BC A Cretan organist named Antipatros charms his audience at Delphi; He receives prizes at the Pythian Games and receives civic honors for himself and his descendants. circa 27 BC The Roman architect Vitruvius dies. In the fifth book of his De architectura he discusses acoustics in connection with the design of theater halls and translates the works of the Greek music theorist Aristoxenus into Latin in order to explain the system of harmony (tetrachord system) to his readers. romans. 26 BC Chr Virgil composes his epic for Augustus, -19 BC. the Aeneid, in which he describes a Phrygian type of aulos and other musical instruments and contexts. 22 BC Chr Pilas of Cilicia introduces pantomime to Rome, consisting of re-enactments of scenes from myth and history by solo dancers; musical accompaniment is provided by a choir and an orchestra of flutes, lyres and percussion instruments. 17 BC Chr Carmen Saeculare by the Latin poet Horace is performed by a chorus of 27 girls and 27 boys; Commissioned by Emperor Augustus for the Centenary Games in Rome, it is the only known poem by Horace to have been set to music. 54 A.D. A seventeen-year-old art lover who sings, plays, and plays the zither and organ, Nero becomes Emperor of Rome. 79 AD Mount Vesuvius erupts, burying Pompeii and Herculaneum, surviving a series of frescoes depicting musical scenes. c. 100 AD Roman orator Quintilian dies. In his work Institutio oratoria he analyzes
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Music as part of your instruction on how to properly train a speaker. 117 CE Hadrian becomes Emperor of Rome after Trajan's death. A highly cultured man, heavily influenced by Greek ideals, he employed a Cretan kitharode named Mesomedes to compose hymns; Several fragments with musical notation survive in medieval manuscripts. c.127 A.D. The astronomer and mathematician Claudius –148 AD. Ptolemy writes in Alexandria. Among his many books is Harmonika, a systematic treatise on mathematical harmony. circa 200 AD escort gladiator fight –c. AD 300 of an organist, trumpeters and horns. The organ is also used in religious festivals. circa 250 AD Two important music theorists are –c. Publication of his works in AD 350: Aristides Quintilianus, De musica (Greek title perimousikes); and Gaudentius, Harmonica introductio (from the Greek harmonica eisagoge). c.AD 300 Alypius, a younger contemporary of Aristides Quintilianus, compiles his Introductio musica, which contains the most complete record of notation symbols. 384 CE Emperor Carinus organizes a concert in Rome with one hundred trumpeters, one hundred trumpeters and two hundred tibicens (flutists). 387 A.D. Augustine, Latin philosopher and important church father, writes De musica, in which he analyzes meter and verse. Ten years later, in his autobiographical Confessions (397-400), he reflects on the ethics of music in the church and asks whether the believer should be touched by singing or by singing itself.
Arts and Humanities Through the Ages: Ancient Greece and Rome (1200 BC - 476 AD)
Music Overview THE ROOTS OF WESTERN MUSIC. The modern word "music" and indeed most terms and concepts associated with music (e.g. melody, harmony, symphony, orchestra, chorus, ode, hymn, anthem and rhythm) are Greek. Western music has its roots in the Greek concept of mousike techne, "the craft of the muses". The term mousike refers to poetry and dance as well as music, so all three are linked in Greek culture. Although the Greeks themselves were influenced by the musical traditions of the Middle East, Anatolia and Egypt, it was the Greek poets, philosophers and theorists whose musical compositions had the most profound influence on later cultures; The Romans followed the example of the Greeks, as did the early Christians. A VITAL PART OF ANCIENT LIFE. Art and archaeological evidence, literature, theoretical writings and some surviving fragments of musical compositions show that music was an integral part of public, private, sacred and secular life in ancient Greece and Rome. Choral singing and dancing, theatrical and solo performances, and music competitions filled the calendar year. Ordinary men and women sang as they went about their daily tasks such as weaving, making wine or harvesting grain; Bards and professional virtuosos made their living performing at parties for small groups as well as festivals for large audiences. Music wasn't just for entertainment, though. Due to its association with the gods, mainly the muses, goddesses who, according to the archaic Greek poets Homer and Hesiod, legitimize and confirm the veracity of myths, music itself was considered divine; It played a central role in Greek and Roman religion, which can best be described as polytheistic, using a combination of myths (sacred narratives) and ceremonial rituals. Music was an integral part of all major ceremonial initiation rites in Greek and Roman culture: birth, coming of age, marriage, death, and burial. EARLY DEVELOPMENT. Music has been a very important part of social and religious life since prehistoric times.
Greece. Already in the third millennium BC. C. Musicians playing instruments such as the harp, aulos (two-reed flute), and syrinx (a type of flute) are depicted in art, particularly in marble and ivory figures found in tombs. . By the second millennium, known as the Mycenaean period, many of the later popular instruments in Greek and Roman history—the forminx (lyre), sistrum (rattle), and triton (trumpet)—had already appeared. Singers and musical instruments appear in the two most important poems of the 8th century BC. BC, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. These heroic epics provided the musical link between the Mycenaean and Archaic periods of Greece for the professional bards described in the poems, which are still sung to the accompaniment of the phorminx. A century later, the lyric poets Terpander and Archilochus sang Homeric poems on a more elaborate lyre, the kithara, and other soloists, the rhapsodoi, recited the poems at parties without musical accompaniment. MUSICAL EDUCATION. Music education was considered essential for civilized people by Greek and Roman writers, as were mathematics and athletics. The first schools of music are believed to have existed sometime between the 8th and 7th centuries BC. in the city of Sparta, in southern Greece. the musicians Terpander of Lesbos, Thaletas of Gortyn and Sacadas of Argos. Terpander, perhaps the most famous kitharode (kithara player), organized and won the first major music competition in Sparta; He is one of the earliest known music teachers who is also credited with adding strings to the zither, composing, and refining compositional and performance techniques for a variety of instruments. He is also said to have invented the categories of nomoi (songs, melodies, laws, customs), used by poets to classify the types of songs in a singer's repertoire and to refer to specific melodic compositions, either for a specific instrument ( kitharodic), a composer (the terpandrean), or even a deity. The word nomos was originally used to refer to unique melodies or types of melodies associated with a specific region or people; Each nomos therefore retained unique properties. MUSIC CENTERS. Between the 7th and 6th centuries BC. Around 300 BC, the island of Lesbos, off the coast of ancient Asia Minor (present-day Turkey), became another center of music and poetry in Greece. Lesbian poets, especially Alkaios and Sappho, were influenced by the melodic forms of Lydia and Phrygia to the east, and their musical compositions had an oriental flavor. Along with the dithyramb, a ritual choral dance in honor of Dionysus, a virtuoso soloist and
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the accompaniment of songs or recitations enjoyed increasing popularity. In the 5th century BC. C. the democratic city of Athens became the most powerful polis (city-state) in Greece and the center of Greek cultural and intellectual life. During the classical period (480-323 BC) in Greek history, competitions were part of the Olympic, Nemean, Pythian (at Delphi) and Isthmian (near Corinth) festivals, and poets, including the famous poet Pindar, composed Epinikia for the victorious - elaborate lyric poems of praise - to be sung by a choir with musical accompaniment. The playwrights Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides staged their dramas or tragoidia (tragedies) in the Dionysian Amphitheater at the foot of the Acropolis as part of the festival of the City of Dionysus. Music, particularly dancing and choral singing, played a central role in the Greek theatrical tradition, which included not only tragedy but also comedy and 'satire plays' (satire); In fact, the words for "tragedy" and "comedy" (tragoidos and komoidos) contain the word for "song", oidos. INNOVATIONS. In the 4th and 3rd centuries BC. new types of music genres and innovations kept popping up. Performances by virtuoso soloists (rhapsodoi and tragodoi) singing or reciting Homeric epics, lyric or dramatic poetry were particularly popular, often with musical accompaniment by a band. Perhaps the most important contribution to music in the late 3rd century was the invention of the hydraulis (water organ) by the engineer Ktesibios. Originally conceived as a mechanical water pump, the hidraulis became a popular musical instrument in Rome and later in the Christian church. The modern pipe organ is derived from this first mechanical-hydraulic machine. ROMAN MUSIC. The Romans, always practical, were not very original when it came to music. Aside from some native Etruscan songs and ritual musical instruments, the Romans generally looked to the Greeks for guidance and inspiration. It's safe to say that once Greece in the 3rd century B.C. becomes part of the Roman Empire. Roman musical instruments such as the folk tibia (a version of the Greek aulos), the fistula (pan flute), and even the real flute were variations on Greek instrument types. The Greek zither remained the most popular instrument in Rome and continued to grow in size. As in Greece, military music played a central role in Roman life. A variety of wind instruments played in marching bands: kerata (cow horns), salpinges (ivory or bronze trumpets), cornu (round horn) and tuba (brass horn). Although the Romans adopted the Greek forms from 188 and later adapted them
Epic, lyrical, tragic and comic, very little is known about the role played by music in their versions. The comedies of Plautus and Terence in the 2nd century BC. It contained a spoken rather than sung version of the Greek chorus and contained the chant, a scene performed in song form with shin accompaniment. Pantomime and pantomime were popular in Roman times around the 1st century BC. invented and added to the repertoire around 300 BC, and the Roman architect and engineer Vitruvius improved the acoustics of theaters with his theory of sound waves. MUSIC AND PHILOSOPHY. The myths of heroes and gods of Greek and Roman religion not only included music and musical competitions, but also explained the origin of certain melodies, rhythms and instruments. The Greeks and Romans believed that music had an impact on moral behavior, and contemporary writings reflect concerns that certain types of music could mislead young people. The gods Apollo and Dionysus (Roman Bacchus) represented complementary aspects of the human psyche and were therefore of particular importance in the philosophy of music education. Early Greek philosophers and theorists, most notably Damon, Plato, and Aristotle, carefully examined the aesthetic, ethical, and moral qualities of different types of melody and rhythm. The mathematician Pythagoras (c. 560–470 BC), who also studied melody and rhythm, is said to have invented what is known as “acoustic theory” by teaching that the same numerical laws that governed the universe also governed musical range, the soul. MUSICAL COMPOSITION. There are numerous references to music, musicians and forms of music in Greek and Roman literature and art. Between 23 and 51 actually notable musical compositions survive, depending on the definition of "composition". They exist on papyrus, in stone, and in manuscripts. Many are fragmentary and most date from relatively late periods between the 3rd century BC. and fourth century CE Texts include hymns and songs to the deities, verses of poetry and drama, and choral songs. It is difficult, but not impossible, to read these compositions. Sometime in the 5th century BC. In 300 BC, the Greeks developed the science of acoustic theory, the tetrachord scale system and musical terminology, which served as the basis for the composition, performance and study of music in later periods. Although very little of what modern scholars would call proper "music theory" survives, some theoretical work helps to interpret the fragments that survive. These theoretical and technical treatises span a period of some 800 years, from the earliest, Aristotle-
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enus (c. 375-320 BC) - to the last - Alypius (c. 450 AD). These works explain and describe musical systems, melodic genres, modes, keys (scales) and rhythms, and discuss various philosophical issues in music, such as ethics and the proper use of music in education. The application of these to composition and performance may be unclear, but early surviving theory (particularly the Aristoxenic tradition) does a remarkable job of constructing discrete categories to dissect the phenomena of music, categories that are still used to some extent in modern music. music analysis.
provide a reliable, if imperfect, understanding of music in Greek and Roman life. Musicologists have used the tables of Alypius and other theorists to transcribe existing compositions into Western notation; Ethnographers and acousticians have reconstructed instruments based on surviving artifacts, descriptions in literature, and images in art; Recordings of existing compositions were made with these instruments, all in an attempt to recreate the sound of Greek and Roman music.
MUSICAL NOTES. Ancient Greek and Roman music was composed and transmitted acoustically without the need for writing, but by the mid-3rd century BC. A standard alphabetical form of music notation has been used to a limited extent. In surviving examples of music, these notation symbols are placed above the words of the song, presumably to indicate melody, but are sometimes inserted between passages of text to indicate a passage to instruments. There are also some annotated passages without text. Most modern knowledge of notation is found in the tables of Alypius, a music theorist of the late fourth or fifth century AD, who wrote the names of all notes and notation symbols for the two-octave scale, or "system". perfect". ' in fifteen tonoi ('keys'). The notation was clearly only used by professionals. Even in later times, music was primarily an oral tradition, passed down from grandparents to children, from teacher to student. Just as Gregorian Chant originated from an oral tradition and was maintained primarily through the Middle Ages, Greek and Roman music thrived for centuries without the aid of written notation or theory.
MATTERS
CONNECTION WITH POETRY. Ancient Greek music was mostly monophonic: melody without harmony or counterpoint. In the 7th century BC. C. composers such as Archilochos used heterophony (instrumental or vocal ornamentation), modulation, mixed rhythms, and the combination of text with music. It is likely that the music was improvised rather than fully composed. The Greeks used the word melos for a simple "song", vocal or instrumental, while the Romans used carmine; In its "perfect form", Teleion Melos, ancient Greek and Roman music, has always been associated with poetry and dance. The melody and rhythm of the song were closely related to the rhythm of the poetic meter. UNDERSTANDING THE MUSIC OF SURVIVORS EVI Collectively theoretical writings, literary and artistic accounts, and archaeological evidence
DANZA.
in Music VOICE MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS. The human voice was the first and most important musical instrument in Greek and Roman life. The common people sang as they plowed the fields, brought in grain, processed wool, made wine, and looked after the children. There were drinking songs, hymns to gods and heroes, lamentations and wedding songs. Winners of the Athletics Games received a song of praise; The hymns gathered the troops for battle. The singers competed for awards in solo and choral singing. One of the earliest depictions of the song is found on a black soapstone vase from the Bronze Age of Crete, dating to the second millennium BC. C.: A group of three singers march with their heads thrown back and their mouths open singing along with a group of reapers; A sistrum player (shaker) keeps the beat. The earliest surviving reference to singing in literature comes from the Odyssey, where the goddess Circe sang in a sweet voice as she worked at her loom. Singers were often depicted on Greek vase paintings from the 6th century BC. pictured; Some paintings represent the sound that comes out of the mouth in the form of small "o's". Epic poetry was sung or recited, often accompanied by musical instruments, and the few surviving examples of written music show that sung poetry was important enough to be written down even when the piece was for a solo instrument. . The language itself also glorified the voice as an important instrument. Philosopher Aristotle distinguished phone ('voice') from psophos ('sound') in his work De Anima, stating that only animals with a soul have a true voice. The Greek adjective ligys or ligyros was more commonly applied to the voice when it was melodious, clean and pure, like a nightingale. STRING INSTRUMENTS. Chordophones (stringed instruments) were the most basic and arguably the most important
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Drawing of a figure playing the lyre.
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Musical instruments in ancient Greece. These included four types of lyre, a variety of harps, psalteries (zithers) and, after the fourth century BC. A lute-like instrument called pandouros. The Romans preferred wind instruments, but the lyre emerged in Etruscan art and remained popular with soloists throughout the Roman period. Ancient scholars and lexicographers such as Pollux and Athenaeus (2nd century AD) listed and discussed the different types of lyre and harp, providing important information about their construction, tuning and use. In music pedagogy, Plato, Aristotle, and later music theorists advocated the use of simple, traditional melodies on the lyre. THE LIRA. Musicians used the lyre to accompany the singing of sacred hymns and epic and lyric poetry, and it became the instrument of choice for virtuoso soloists. People of all ages played the lyre for their personal enjoyment, in musical competitions, in ritual ceremonies such as weddings and funerals, and at festivals and feasts. In Greek myth, the lyre was also
associated with the Muses, Hermes, Apollo, Dionysus and Orpheus. According to the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, the god Hermes fashioned the first lyre from the shell of a Chelys (turtle). Archeology shows that the first lyres date back to the 3rd millennium BC. it appeared in ancient Palestine and Sumeria and probably entered Greece through trade with the Mycenaeans during the Bronze Age. The earliest depictions of the Greek lyre in action come from second-millennium Mycenaean Greek settlements, where archaeologists have found fresco paintings and sculptures depicting lyre-players and women's round dances. Lyre players appear on Mycenaean engraved rings and seals. The Greek word for "lyre" - lura - refers to the family of chordophones with strings of equal length. There are four main types of lyre: chelys, barbitos, phorminx and kithara, each with its own shape, size, mood and social function. The basic construction consisted of a sound box (turtle shell or wood) to which arms and a crossbar were attached; Gut strings were tied to the cordotonon (a small plate at the bottom of the soundbox) in a knot, passed over the bridge and attached to the crossbar at the top of the instrument. The number of strings ranged from five to nine, seven being the norm from the Archaic period onwards. The player could stand, sit, or walk while plucking or plucking the strings with a bone pick (plectrum). A lyrestrap helped the musician hold the instrument in place on his chest. types of lyres. The Chelys and Barbitos were small and light; Their bowl-shaped resonators didn't amplify the sound very loudly. They were played by amateur musicians, used for music lessons, and preferred by lyricists like Safo for smaller group performances indoors. Although the ancients attribute the invention of barbites to the Greek musician and poet Terpander, it is not a Greek word and probably came to Greece from Asia Minor. The most accomplished players wanted larger wooden soundboard lyres: the phorminx and kithara. There is ample literary and artistic evidence that these were more professional instruments. In Homer's Odyssey, two aoidoi (professional bards) named Demodocos and Phemios perform songs from the epic cycle to accompany the phorminx to an audience eager to applaud "that song which is the last to circulate among men." In the Iliad, the Achaean warrior Achilles sat in his tent and sang "The Glory of Heroes" while strumming a beautiful forminx "crafted by an artist, with a bridge of silver and a clear, lovely tone" (9.185-188). Vase paintings often showed the phorminx with a decorative eye.
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Drawing of a figure playing the zither.
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Drawing of a character playing the Barbitos.
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EVANS. THE GALE GROUP.
on the soundboard, a feature that has always differentiated it from its close relative, the kithara. In the classical period (480-323 BC) the forminge was primarily associated with the cult of Dionysus, and the zither increasingly became the instrument of choice for virtuosic competitions and performances; can be combined with the aulos (double reed flute) when playing together. Its large wooden sounding box gave the zither a powerful sound that made it suitable for playing outdoors, for example during Panathenaia (the national festival of Athena) in Athens; The frieze of the Parthenon temple depicts two kitharodes (kithara players), dressed in elegant attire, marching in the Panathenaic procession.
Theus claimed to have invented "eleven measures and rhythms"; This could mean that he added strings to embellish a song's melody with intricate rhythmic ornamentation. However, fame had its downside; The great zithers were sometimes satirized in Athenian comedies. Two famous Kitharodes in Greek mythology are Orpheus and Thamyris, both from Thrace. It is said that Orpheus enchanted the rocks with his playing, and Thamyris boasted that he played better than the muses. Both died violently, but were made up for with an afterlife cult. Orpheus was given the gift of divination, while a special type of zither was named Thamyris.
KITHARODEN. The names of several famous Greek kitharodes are known. Terpander was one of the first and best known composers and players of the instrument in the Archaic period, while Philoxenus of Cythera and Timothy of Miletus were the most famous of the Classical period (480-323 BC). Thymus-
THE HARP. The harp, an instrument used in the fourth millennium BC by the Sumerians and Egyptians. CE, first appeared in the Greek world during the Bronze Age, about a thousand years later; Several marble figures from Cycladic tombs show the triangular harp in the arms of seated musicians; No string is specified in the
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Detail of an Apulian red-figure vase from southern Italy showing Apollo playing the zither. ARCHIVE OF ARTE/LIBRARY DES ARTS DÉCORATIFS PARIS/DAGLI ORTI.
statues, but a contemporary stamp shows four. Later versions had from twenty to forty strings and were therefore called "many-stringed" instruments. Harps vary in size and come in three basic shapes: domed, triangular and C-shaped. Among the many names for the instrument are: pektis, trigonon, psalterion, magadis and sambyke. The harp falls under the category of psaltery, as it was typically played with the fingers of both hands without the aid of a reed (plectrum). The structure was made of wood and there was a sound box at the base. Strings of unequal length were stretched from the base to the top of the harp, following the curvature of the frame, and pegs located at the base or top, depending on the type of harp. The Greek figures of Bronze Age harpists were all male, but by the 5th century BC. CE harps, particularly trigonon, sambyke, pectis and magadis, were most commonly described as female instruments; They were depicted on painted vases executed exclusively by women, usually as part of a wedding or symposium (male drink) along with aulos and chelys. As it was primarily associated with female entertainment and particularly sensual or erotic, Plato did not consider the harp 192
Drawing of a figure playing the lute.
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a suitable tool for educational purposes. Professional harpists, known as psaltriai or sambykai, shocked conservative Romans when they first played there. THE TALL. In Greece and Rome, the use of the lute was limited, although the instrument was used as early as the third millennium BC. was known from Mesopotamia. C., and soon after in Egypt. The name pandouros ("lute") may derive from the Sumerian pan-tur ("little bow"). In both Egypt and the Mediterranean, the lute was another instrument played primarily by women. It is in Greece before the Alexandrian period, in the middle of the 4th century BC. unknown when pandouros appear in the arms of a group of terracotta female figures. The instrument is also held by one of the muses on a well-known embossed pedestal in a temple dedicated to the goddess Leto, built in the same century. The 4th-century comic poet Anaxilas alludes to a lute in his work The Lyre-Maker. The instrument, which resembles a small guitar or banjo, may have arrived in Greece.
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Cycladic Greek marble figure of a harpist from 2500 BC.
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Drawing of a figure playing the harp.
during the campaigns of Alexander the Great in Persia. Made of wood, pandouros consisted of a pear-shaped or triangular sounding board, from which a fretted arm of variable length projected. A rope around the shoulders served as a lute handle. Gut strings were stretched from the bottom of the soundboard to the tuning pegs in the head. Players could sit or stand and strum with their right hand while fretting with their left. The number of strands ranged from one to four. The theorist Pollux included pandouros in the trichord ("three-stringed") lyres, and it is likely that the Pythagoreans also used this very simple chordophone for acoustic research. WINDS. Wind instruments (reeds, flutes, horns and flutes) were important in Greek and Roman music from earliest times, particularly the double reed instrument known as the aulos. In fact, the aulos appears more often on vases and frescoes than on any other instrument, despite Plato and Aristotle's view that the instrument was unsuitable for teaching. Wind instruments were used in different contexts: salpinges ("tin trumpets") and kerata.
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("Horns") accompanied military processions and public spectacles. The Roman cavalry thundered to the sound of the lituus ("trumpet"); Brass ensembles featured the cornu ("horn") and the conch ("tuba"). Salamander shells were used as trumpets (or perhaps megaphones) by commoners and children; They were often imitated in stone or clay. The aulos were used to accompany small and large groups of singers at parties, banquets and religious festivals, and could be played while dancing. The aulos was fundamental during the ecstatic worship of the gods Dionysus (Roman Bacchus) and Cybele; He is often played by satyrs and sileni (supersexed forest animals associated with the ecstatic cult of Dionysus), and Aristotle commented that aulos could inspire wild and dangerous passions. Panpipes (Greek syringes, Roman fistulas) were played by shepherds and shepherds. Along with iconographic and literary evidence, archaeologists have recovered a large number of actual wind instruments, giving scholars a good idea of how many of them were made, tuned and played.
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THE CLASSES. The aulos was not a flute, but a single or double reed instrument, comparable to the oboe. Thinner than an oboe and often much longer, the aulos was usually played in pairs, one in each hand. It usually consisted of five parts: the glottis (mouthpiece), which housed a reed made of different materials; a tripartite resonator consisting of two bulbous or oval resonators called holmos and hupholmion; the bombyx (main resonator), built in sections; and the trupemata (finger holes). The whistle can be made of reeds, ivory, bone, wood or metal, and can be straight or have a curved bell. In vase paintings from the 6th century BC. The instrument was often seen strapped to the musician's face with a phobia ("cabresão"). The aulos (plural, auloi) was carried in a sybene ("bag") and the reed in a glottokomeion ("reed carrier") when not in use. In the classical period (480-323 BC), aulos typically had five finger holes, one at the base of the thumb whistle. In later Greek and Roman auloi, the holes could be covered with rotating bands. The theorist Aristoxenus listed five sizes of auloi, from highest to lowest: parthenikoi ("for girls", soprano), paidikoi ("for boys", treble), kitharisterioi ("for lyre players", tenor), teleioi ( "for lyre players", tenor), full", baritone) and hyperteleioi ("fuller", bass). the aulos was played in pairs in Mesopotamia, Babylonia and Egypt 3rd and 2nd millennium BC and is attested in Aegean art from the Early Bronze Age 2200 BC c.) Myth and history intertwine around the invention of the aulos Two Greek myths that were often retold as late as the 5th century BC attribute the instrument's invention to the Phrygian satyr Marsyas or the goddess Athena Pollux located the origin of aulos in Phrygia and claims that there was a Phrygian type of aulos, the Elymos aulos, used in commemorations of the Phrygian goddess Cybele Plutarch (1st century AD) related a famous and often illustrated Greek myth of the Phrygian satyr Marsyas, whose father Hyagnis would have invented both the aulos and the first melody for it: "The Great 194
Aulos Song of the Mother” (a reference to the goddess Cybeles). Hyagnis taught the melody to her mischievous son, who in turn taught it to a certain real musician named Olympos. Pindar (fifth century BCE), in his twelfth Pythian ode, claimed that Athena created the pamphonon melos ("sounding song") of the aulos "to imitate the shrill cry of the Gorgons". In his book On Self-Confidence Anger, Plutarch gives another account of the story in which Marsyas, seeing Athena playing the aulos, mocked how his cheeks swelled up when he played notes; Embarrassed, the goddess threw the instrument away. Marsyas then invented phobeia ("cheek butt") to control mouth and cheek movement. In another version, Athena, disgusted with the aulos, passed the instrument to Apollo. THE CLASSES IN PERFORMANCE. Numerous artistic and literary references show the use of aulos. On the famous Bronze Age painted sarcophagus from Ayia Triada, Crete (circa 1490 BC), a male aulet plays during the sacrifice of an animal; a phorminx player acts on the opposite side. Auloi is paired again with the phorminx in the Odyssey on Achilles' Shield, accompanying the dance at a wedding. The aulos was often played in conjunction with lyres and harps. He accompanied dithyramb (choral dancing) and most other types of vocal and choral performances. The aulos was considered for happy and sad occasions and played at funerals. Auloi were the instruments that accompanied the dance and music during the ecstatic Eastern worship of Dionysus, Cybele and Orpheus. Aulet prostitutes entertained men in drunken binges, and the instrument is often depicted in erotic scenes on vase paintings. THE SOUND OF THE CLASSES. There were three basic modal systems, or scales, associated with the aulos: Doric, Lydian, and Phrygian, but several dozen types have been classified by pitch range. Skilled aulects could play an impressive variety of scales and keys using techniques such as half-hole, cross-fingering, and overblowing; By playing two auloi simultaneously, the aulet could combine scales. Different pitches and timbres were also achieved by adjusting the reed and relief (position of the lip) on the mouthpiece. Several writers have described the sound of the aulos as high-pitched, humming, sweet-breathing, pure, moaning, seductive, orgiastic, and melancholy. Plato and Aristotle held that complex melodies using more than one mode or scale disturbed the soul; Plato banished the aulos from his ideal city in the Republic because it was a "paraharmonic" instrument. THE ROMAN TIBIA. The Roman tibia (plural tibiae) was a cane or bone tube, equivalent to the Greek chariot.
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O. The Roman writer Varro said of the tibia what the Greek philosophers made of the aulos: its sounds were complex and could have an ecstatic effect on the soul. As in Greece, the reed flute was played during the worship of deities such as Cybele, Bacchus (Greek Dionysus) and Isis, all associated with fertility, fertility and rebirth. The shin was also used to accompany various types of solo stage performances such as pantomime, pantomime and farce, often in conjunction with lyres and percussion. Only tibicen ("shin players") contained tragedy, and according to Cicero, audiences used to tell drama by its first notes. The tibia is ubiquitous in Roman mosaics and in paintings depicting scenes from the Roman comedy. Tibicen played instrumental pieces or accompanied songs between acts. The shin was indispensable in the comedies of Terence and Plautus as an accompaniment to certain polymetric dialogue scenes called chants; Playwrights would direct the tibia to play or mute, depending on the desired effect in the scene, and the tibia was sometimes involved in the action. Stage directions in Terence's comedies indicate what kind of tibia was needed: even tibiae ("pipes of equal length"), odd tibiae ("pipes of unequal length", probably an octave difference), and tibiae sarranae ("Phoenician shins"). "). "). The lukewarm musician who composed for Terence may also have acted as music director. THE FLUTE AND THE PANFLUTE. The aulos has often been translated as 'flute', but this is incorrect. The actual flute has no reed and is played by blowing through the ventilation hole while holding the instrument horizontally to one side. Most types of auloi were reed instruments played in pairs and held in front of the player, much like an oboe or bassoon. One type of aulos would, however , can be played like the modern flute: the plagiaulos (Greek) or tibia obliqua (Latin) Libya The flute is rare, not found in Greece until the 3rd century BC Two surviving plagiauloi are in the British Museum, each with a small bust of Bacchae (worshipper of Bacchus) at one end. Both plagiaulos and syrinx ("panpipes") were pastoral instruments played by shepherds and shepherdesses for simple pleasure. There are more artistic and literary references to the syrinx than to the flute. Although there are no surviving examples of the Bronze Age syrinx, in the Iliad (8th century BC) it is depicted on Achilles' shield held by cheerful shepherds. The so-called "Vase François" (circa 575 BC) shows a muse
A PIPER COUP IN ANCIENT ROME INTRODUCTION:
The tibicines were musicians from Rome who played the tibia, originally a bone whistle with three or four finger holes; Over time it evolved into a double reed instrument like the Greek aulos. The Tibicines guild held a festival every year on the Ides of June (June 15), during which they wore masks and costumes, sometimes women's clothing. The festival commemorated a strike by the Tibicians in 311 BC. BC, which is described in the following passage from Livy. History shows the importance of the flutists' guild in Roman sacrificial rites.
I should have omitted an episode from the same year which would scarcely be worth mentioning if it did not seem related to religious duties. The pipers (tibicines) resented that the latest censure forbade them to celebrate their festival according to the ancient custom in the Temple of Jupiter, and they marched in a company to Tibur, with the result that there was no one in it. the city to play flutes on the victims. The Senate, filled with pious doubts about the incident, sent delegates to Tibur to ask the citizens to do all they could to bring the men back to Rome. The Tiburtines politely promised this and first called the Whistlers to the Senate and told them to return to Rome. Then, finding persuasion to be of no avail, they dealt with men with a ruse which was entirely in their nature. On one holiday, several commoners, under the pretense of celebrating the holiday with music, would invite pipers into their homes and lull them to sleep by filling them with wine, so that men of their class were generally greedy. In this state, asleep, they were thrown into a wagon and taken to Rome. The floats were left behind in the forum and the pipers didn't know anything until daylight caught them there, still very drunk. People quickly surrounded her and convinced her to stay. For three days a year they were allowed to roam the city in disguise, play music and enjoy modern freedom, and those who played the flute at sacrifices were allowed to hold a festival in the restored temple. SOURCE: Tito Livio, Rome and Italy. Books VI-X of the history of Rome since its foundation. Trans. Betty Radice (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1982): 259.
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A Greek relief sculpture of a woman playing the double aulos, on Ludovisi's throne, from around 450 BC. ART ARCHIVE/MUSEO NAZIONALE TERME ROMA/DAGLI ORTI.
playing the syrinx at the mythical wedding of Peleus and Thetis, but the instrument is more associated with pastoral poetry from the 3rd century BC. BC Although Plato banishes the aulos from his ideal state in the republic, he allows the country's shepherds to have their simple syringes. In Greek mythology, the god Hermes is credited with inventing the syrinx; It is the instrument commonly associated with the son of Hermes, Pan, god of shepherds, hence the term "pan flute". Later writers suggest other origins, including Pollux, associating him with the Celts and the unnamed "Sea Islanders". The term syrinx (from the Latin fistula) was used to denote a one-tube whistle and a group of five to seven tubes of equal length tied together and covered with wax at graduated intervals to form a scale. The musician holds the instrument vertically under the mouth and blows through the tubes as if it were a bottle. Later versions include a series of tubes of varying lengths strung together or tubes with holes drilled to achieve the desired tone. THE ORGAN. The idea behind the syrinx, that scales could be created by blowing air through the openings in the tubes, was expanded upon by Greek engineers in Egypt during the Hellenistic period (4th century BC). Athenaeus, writing in the late second century AD, cred196
Drawing of a character playing the double aulos.
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is an Alexandrian mechanic named Ktesibios, credited with inventing the hydraulis ("water organ"), which used a hydraulic pump to create a continuous supply of air to rows of pipes. The Roman architect Vitruvius (late 1st century BC) later described how "caps" were used to shut off the air from entire rows of tubes to change the pitch. Hero of Alexandria, an engineer who wrote 100 years later, explained in detail how Ktesibios' hydraulic machine worked in his book Pneumatika. The hydraulis, a complex mechanical organ, was not normally played, but there is an inscription from the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi that praises the hydraulicist Antipater for winning a music contest in 90 BC. Chr. Compliments. THE TRUMPET. The Greeks and Romans played different types of horns. The ivory, or more commonly bronze, salpinx ("trumpet") was primarily a combat instrument used to send signals. It also appeared in ritual and ceremonial contexts, particularly in Roman times, where it was called a tuba and was usually made of brass or iron. The trumpet blast took some getting used to
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from the earliest times. In Greek mythology, newts and conch horns were the instruments played by sea deities such as the Nereids and Tritons. The keras ("cow horn"), often fired to produce a lighter hue, was used in conjunction with the much more powerful salpinx to signal troops in battle. In Rome, military horns and trumpets, including the tuba, the bucina (shaped like a bull's horn) and the circular horn, were featured in concerts by large choral groups and orchestras.
Roman water organ found in Aquincum, Hungary.
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Call the people to the assembly and start the races. Most authors claim that the salpinx is of Etruscan (Italian) origin, but the instrument is comparable to Mesopotamian and Egyptian trumpets. It consisted of a long, thin tube, straight or curved, with an orchid-shaped funnel or bell at the end. The glottis ("mouthpiece") was made of bone. In his De Musica, the Roman theorist Aristides Quintilianus (3rd-4th centuries AD) described the salpinx as a "terrible instrument of war" used by the Roman army to move troops by playing "codes through music". Human and divine salpinges (salpinx players) were often depicted in vase paintings; in the 5th century BC CE Cup of the Epictetus Painter, a Saytr holding a salpinx in one hand, a shield in the right, and joking as he walks; A phobeia ("halter", also used by dancing autas) brings the mouthpiece to the lips. HORNS. Animal horns and shells were commonly used throughout the Mediterranean and Middle East.
BATTERY. Percussion instruments included the sistrum ("rattle"), krotala ("castanets"), kumbala ("finger cymbals"), timpani ("drum"), kymbalon ("cymbals"), and the kroupalon (Latin scabellum), a wooden or metal touch instrument used in a shoe used to keep time. Rombos ("bull roars") can be classified as a percussion or wind instrument. It consisted of a piece of wood attached to a string that made a rumbling sound when swung upside down. Sistra, rattles made of metal or clay and wood, were popular in Egypt and throughout the Mediterranean. They appeared in Bronze Age art from the 2nd millennium BC. CE, and many royal sistras survive: more than twenty have been found in Pompeii. Evidence shows that the Parthians, ancient peoples of Iran and Afghanistan, used percussion instruments, particularly large single-sided drums (rhoptra and timpani) and perhaps mallets to frighten the enemy in battle. In Greece and Rome, percussion instruments were predominantly used by women to emphasize dance rhythms and poetic meters in the worship of Dionysus, Cybele, Pan and Aphrodite, deities associated with fertility, fecundity and sexuality. Female followers of Dionysus, called maenads, are often depicted in vase paintings dancing while striking small eardrums with the palms of their hands. In his comedy Lysistrata, from the 5th century BC. The playwright Aristophanes suggested that women who touched the eardrum during the worship of Pan and Aphrodite could cause quite an uproar. Women also played the krotala, a pair of stick-shaped wooden or metal mallets jointed at one end and played like castanets with each hand; One often-performed duo consists of a krotala player and a male aulet, both dancing wildly. Krotala is also portrayed as being surrounded by satyrs, overly sexist mythical creatures associated with Dionysus. Kumbala (finger cymbals) are also mostly associated with women who worship Dionysus. These are small round mallets made from wood, shell or clay that produce a higher pitch than krotala. Many examples can be found in museums. A pair of Kumbala from the 5th or 4th century BC. in the British Museum is inscribed with the owner's name. The sistrum (rattle or rattle) was also a female instrument. ladder shaped
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Sistro grego de bronze (musical instrument), século VI BC from necrópole de Macchiabate, Francavilla Maritima, Itália.
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The wooden version, referred to by Pollux as Psithyra, is regularly depicted hanging on a woman's bedroom wall or in a woman's hands on Greek vase paintings from Apulia, southern Italy. SOURCES
Giovanni Comotti, Música na Cultura Grega e Romana. Trad. Rosaria V. Munson (Baltimore, Maryland: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989, originalmente publicado em italiano, 1979). John G. Landels, Music in Ancient Greece and Rome (Londres: Routlege, 1999). Martha Maas e Jane Snyder, Stringed Instruments of Ancient Greece (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1989). Thomas J. Mathiesen, Apollo's Lyre: Greek Music and Music Theory in Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999). Martin West, Ancient Greek Music (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994). 198
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INTEGRATED IN ALL PARTS OF SOCIETY. Music was undeniably widespread in all sectors of Greek society. It occupied a prominent place at weddings, funerals and other social occasions, in military campaigns and, above all, at parties. Music was appropriate for all situations, whether family or community gatherings. As soon as a musical presentation started, it was common for neighbors, friends and even strangers to pass by to participate in some of the activities involving music. Music was also the central entertainment at symposiums, private after-dinner drinking sessions in the men's section of the house. Almost all types of these musical events survive, whether in the works of art or literature, which survive from this period, giving modern scholars clues to the extent of music in Greek life. EPIC POETRY. One of the first examples of music performed in public was to accompany epic poetry. the eighth century
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A mosaic depicting dancers from a village found between the 4th and 5th centuries AD in Argos, Greece. The woman plays the cymbals.
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ARCHIVES/ARCHAEOLOGICAL MUSEUM ARGOS/DAGLI GARDENS.
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The Homeric epics Iliad and Odyssey are the first written examples of myth presented in poetic form; they represent a tradition that dates back to at least the second millennium BC. Dating back to Originally sung to the accompaniment of the phorminx (lyre), the Homeric epic was composed in sticichica form, meaning that many lines were repeated in the same measure. In the case of the Homeric epic, this metric was the dactylic hexameter, composed of a combination of the dactyl (–傼傼) and the espondea (––). The melody was simple and conservative. In ancient times, the transmission of epic poetry was more oral than written; The poet formed his student, and they traveled from city to city, singing in music competitions and in patrons' homes, always adapting their performance to the public. REPRESENTATION OF EPIC POETRY. The epics themselves contain many references to his own acting.
Style: Demodocus and Phemios, two aoidoi (professional bards), sing and perform a selection of epic poetry before large audiences at banquets in the royal courts of Kings Ulysses and Nestor. In Book Two of the Odyssey, Phemios is praised by Ulysses' son Telemachus for providing the "last song in circulation". Amateur musicians were also interested in epic verse, as the poem illustrates: the Achaean warrior Achilles plays his forminx during a lull in battle and sings "the glorious deeds of warlike heroes" to his friend Patroclus in the ninth book of the Iliad. . From the sixth century onwards, epic poetry was performed by rhapsodes, professional bards who recited excerpts from Homeric poetry in musical competitions at religious celebrations such as the festival of Epidaurus by Asclepius, the god of healing who acted as mortal physician in the Iliad. In Athens, during the Great Panathena, held every four years in honor of Athena,
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INTRODUCTION TO THE PRAISE OF ODYSSEUS:
The first literary allusions to music can be found in the Iliad and Odyssey of the 8th century BC. Archaic epics attributed to Homer. The theme of these poems, the Trojan War and its aftermath, goes back to a much earlier period: the Aegean Bronze Age (Mycenaean period) of the second millennium, when aoidoi (bards) in the courts of ancient princes entertained themselves with songs of heroes. . , accompanied by the phorminx (a type of lyre). In this excerpt from Book Nine of the Odyssey, the hero Odysseus praises as the "crown of life" the good food and songs of the bard Demodocus, made available to him by his host Alcínoo, king of Feiaqui.
SOURCE:
Homer, Die Odyssee. Trans. Robert Fagles (New York: Pinguin, 1997): 211.
Groups of rhapsodes were organized to perform the complete Iliad and Odyssey. MUSIC IN THE ARMY. Another early use of music was on the battlefield. The auleto (whistle) was an essential watch for rowers on Greek warships and soldiers on the march. Bards and musicians entertained sailors and foot soldiers during the campaign and kept their spirits high. Marching songs were played on the salpinx ("trumpet"), which also served to signal and guide the movement of troops in battle. The hymn was sung during the battle to rally the troops, as the playwright Aeschylus wrote in his tragedy The Persians: “O sons of Greece, come! Free the land, free your son200
Children, their wives, the shrines of their ancestral gods, the tombs of their ancestors! Now the fight belongs to everyone!” Famous for their military prowess, the Spartans used various types of songs and marching rhythms that, according to Plutarch in his Institute Laconica, made soldiers courageous and fearless of death. The 7th century BC The poet Tyrtaeus used one of the martial knives known as an embateria when he urged Spartan troops to march, shield and spear in hand, without thought of their lives, sparing no one. EPINIC POETRY. During the Olympic, Pythian (at Delphi), Nemean and Isthmian Funeral Games, athletic competitions were held every four years, often with music played and often used as a kind of prize. The modern Olympic Games descend from commemorative festivals that featured many of the same events, including boxing, running, wrestling, horse racing and pentathlon. Athletes from all over Greece participated and prizes were handed out to the winner of a competition. After the competition, a grand welcoming party was held for the winners, and an elaborate poem known as the Epinikion was composed and performed especially for the individual. The highly paid poet praised the victor and his family and contextualized his achievement, comparing his efforts to the struggle of a mythical hero or god. The poem could be re-enacted on the anniversary of a victory. The Epinicias were composed for choral interpretation and, as the poems themselves reflect, were complemented by dances accompanied by phorminx (lyre) or aulos (reeds). The best surviving Epinician poems of the late 6th and early 5th centuries BC. are those of Pindar, of Boeotia. Four books of Pindar's Epinikia survive, one for each of the main plays; many can be attributed to specific festivals and winners. Pindar's first Pythian ode was composed for a Hiero of Etna who died in 470 BC. won the chariot race. Pindar also wrote poetry for war heroes and musicians; his twelfth Pythian ode, written to Midas of Akragas on the occasion of successive victories over the aulos, contains a reference to the goddess Athena's invention of a "many-headed" melody for the aulos. Pindar was highly respected in antiquity for his brilliant use of image and metaphor, lyrical meter and musicality. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, resident of the 1st century BC. As a theorist, he praised Pindar's "archaic and austere" beauty and the variety of his modal systems. PUBLIC HOLIDAYS. As with the Olympics, music was used at many other festivals, and many festivals had music competitions replacing the athletic competitions familiar to Olympians. Ear-
Arts and Humanities Through the Ages: Ancient Greece and Rome (1200 BC - 476 AD)
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The earliest evidence that music was part of public celebrations in Greek life comes from the Bronze Age settlement of Ayia Triada on the island of Crete (c. 1490 BC); A fresco and stone sarcophagus show musicians playing phorminx and aulos during a procession and ritual sacrifice. Public festivals in honor of the gods filled the Greek calendar, and each region of Greece had its own distinct ceremonial traditions; these came at annual or longer intervals and could last from one to seven days. Choral and solo songs, dance and poetry were central components of all festival events. The three main features of public religious festivals were the procession, the sacrifice of animals, and the feast. The prosodium ("processional hymn") was sung to the accompaniment of the aulos when people approached altars and temples; When they arrived at their destination, the prosody was sung to the kithara (a type of lyre). Larger and more important festivals, such as the Dionysian City and the Great Panathena in Athens, the Pythian Festival in Delphi and Karnea in Sparta, included dramatic, poetic and/or musical competitions. SINGING CHORAL. The festival procession normally included the dithyramb, a male choral dance with musical accompaniment, hymnoi ("hymns") and the anthem (a song of exhortation sung and shouted by men and boys in unison). Originally associated with the ecstatic worship of Dionysus, the god of "altered consciousness," the dithyramb was a passionate and tumultuous festival celebrating male sexual power and fertility. The 7th century BC The poet Archilochus proclaimed that he knew how to pour wine in the dithyramb, the beautiful song of the Lord Dionysus. Later, the dithyramb was institutionalized, and the Dionysian city of Athens featured performances organized by nearly two dozen dithyramb choirs of fifty men and boys each; Dressed in costumes, often crowned with ivy, they sang and danced under the direction of the khoregos (master or choir director) with accompaniment from the aulos. The names of various khoregoi (dithyrambic poets) and auletes (double sheet players) were inscribed on monuments. Pindar, Simonides and Bachylides, poets of the early 5th century BC. BC, were famous composers of dithyrambic choral music; The historian Herodotus named Arion the person who first wrote the dithyrambs in Corinth and after the 5th century BC. Classified. C., Timothy of Miletus, and Philoxenus are credited with adding more complex rhythms and melodies to the dithyramb through modulation and modification of the aulos. HYMNS. Hymns were often sung at the beginning and end of the festival as a sign of thanksgiving for prosperity.
ity hymnoi ("hymns") were songs of praise to the gods. These could be brief eulogies to the gods during a procession or brief introductions to hymns or epic poems. The hymns were written in the 6th and 5th centuries BC. Composed by the poets Archilochus, Alceus, Sappho, Pindar and Bacchylides. C., but the first hymns were part of an oral tradition. The Homeric hymns, so called because they were composed in the same meter, dactylic hexameter, as Homer's epic poems, were a literary genre performed by professional bards during a religious festival. They were long, extensive and detailed biographies of deities, explaining each god's origin, sphere of influence in society and places of worship. 33 survive. The Homeric Hymn to Hermes contains a description of how the god invented the first lyre from a Chelys ("turtle shell"). The Hymn of Aphrodite tells how the goddess fell in love with the mortal hero Anchises and gave birth to his son, the Trojan prince Aeneas, whose descendants later founded Rome. One of the longest and most elaborate Homeric hymns is the hymn to Demeter, the goddess of grain and agriculture. Her hymn describes how Demeter's daughter Kore came to be known as Persephone, wife of Hades, god of the underworld; The story of the hymn contains many symbols and cryptic references to the popular mystery cult of Demeter held at a large sanctuary in the city of Eleusis, near Athens. The PAEAN. A versatile form of music that could be sung on a variety of public and private occasions, the hymn was particularly important during the festivals of the gods Apollo and Artemis, twin sons of Leto. Many hymns were composed by musicians and poets to honor Apollo as the oracle of Delphi. Two were inscribed on the Athenian treasure wall at Delphi, complete with musical notation. The 33 surviving verses of the First Canticle of the 2nd century BC. praising the glory of Apollo with offerings and music from the zither (lyre) and lotus (a type of reed flute) and telling the myth of how Apollo became the Delphic prophet killed Python, the serpent that guarded the prophetic tripod. Hymns also served as a sacred song performed by soloists or choirs during the Panatheneas, a large Athenian festival held in Athens every four years; the Hyakinthia in Sparta; and other festivals in honor of the most important deities. They can also function as prayers of deliverance or thanksgiving. GIRLS CHORAL SONGS. Men weren't the only ones performing at festivals. The girls were trained in choral music and dance from an early age; Before the 7th century BC This was the only "formal" education
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THE INVENTION OF THE LYRE INTRODUCTION:
The anonymous "Homeric hymns", devotional songs in honor of a deity, were performed as a prelude to reciting or singing the Homeric epics, usually as part of a competition during a religious festival. "Hymn to the God Hermes" describes the birth of this trickster god and relates some of his many powers and accomplishments; his first achievement shortly after birth is to invent the lyre from a tortoiseshell (Chelys); He then sings a song while tapping the lyre with a pick and improvises "as young people do at party time, when they teach and tease each other" (presumably in music competitions). The Chelys lyre must have been introduced to Greece during the Bronze Age; it is in the art of the second millennium BC. represented.
QUELLE: Homer, The Homeric Hymn to Hermes, in The Homeric Hymns. Trans. Apostolos N. Athanassakis (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976): 31–32.
cation open to girls. From the 5th century onwards, vase paintings depict women teaching girls to dance or play an instrument. Many vase paintings show girls and young women in long, simple dresses holding hands as they dance together in a line or in a circle. Choirs of girls and women performed at family occasions such as weddings, but also at folk festivals. Many famous poets, including Pindar, Simonides, and Bacchylides, composed Partheneia ("girls' choral dances") for public performance. In one of the best-preserved parts of the Partheneia, dating back to the 7th century BC. Spartan poet Alcman, two girls are appointed as the most charming and charming leaders of ten girls dancing in honor of the goddess of dawn. Choruses of young women joined the men to sing hymns all night at the start of the Panatheneas and dance on the Acropolis. In Thebes, girls danced at night during the worship of the mother of the gods. MUSIC COMPETITIONS. Four great Funeral Games, multi-day festivals to commemorate a region's ancestral king, offered athletes and musicians the opportunity to compete for prizes. of 202
late 8th century BC. Musicians came from all over the Mediterranean to participate in the festival's competitions. Instrumental competitions were introduced in the first quarter of the 6th century; Competitors included concert lyre (kitharists) and double reed flute (auletes) players; poets who appeared with accompaniment (Kitharodes and Aulodes); and Rhapsode, a professional bard who performed selections from the Iliad, Odyssey, and other epic poems, introduced by a hymn. The vase photos show these contestants on a small stage in front of a judge. THE WINNERS. In his poem Works and Days, Hesiod, a pastoral poet nearly contemporary with Homer (c. 700 BC), described how, for his performance of a hymn at the Amphidamas, he gained a tripod with handles, which he dedicated to the Games of the Muses at Chalcis. (654-652 BC). The names of many winners are known, including women: a zither from Thebes named Polygnota won, according to a book from the 2nd century BC. a crown and 500 drachmas for his performance during the Pythian Games. Delphi inscription. Among the male winners, two stand out: Terpanders of Lesbos
Arts and Humanities Through the Ages: Ancient Greece and Rome (1200 BC - 476 AD)
Music
An engraving copied from a Greek red-figure vase shows a musical contest. A standing woman tunes her lyre and a seated woman plays double aulos. ARCHIVE OF ARTE/LIBRARY DES ARTS DÉCORATIFS PARIS/DAGLI ORTI.
and Timothy of Miletus. Terpander was a celebrated musician of the early archaic period (7th century BC) and was slandered by Fercrates in a comedy for singing too many notes. It is said that while Terpander increased the number of strings on the zither to seven, Timothy added four more; One anecdote tells that Timothy was banished from Sparta because he used too many strings on his kithara during the song competition at the Karnean Festival there. GREEK THEATER. The Festival of the Great Dionysia, held in Athens in March, was the most important dramatic competition in Greece. In the middle of the 6th century BC. founded. by Peisistratus, the festival lasted five days and included three tragedies, three satyr plays, five comedies, and two dithyrambs. Dionysus worshiped the god Dionysus as Eleutherios ("The Liberator"), and plays were performed in the great open-air theater dedicated to the god at the foot of the Acropolis. Here the tragedians, of whom the most famous are Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, and the comic playwrights - Aristophanes being the best known - produced their spectacular and timeless productions in front of thousands.
spectator arenas; Adaptations and revivals of these works are performed to this day. The tragedies were serious re-enactments of well-known myths, such as the murder of Agamemnon, commander of the Achaean forces at Troy, by his cunning wife Clytemnestra, or the fall of the Theban hero Oedipus, who unknowingly killed his father and married each other. with her. his mother. The playwright was free, within reason, to interpret these myths through plot and action that combined spoken dialogue between two or three actors and choral singing. All roles were played by men or boys. The oldest surviving tragedy, produced by Aeschylus in 472 BC. C., is unique because its plot is not based on myth; it deals with a historical fact: the bloody naval battle between the Greek and Persian fleets at Salamis just eight years ago. THE CHORUS. The most important musical element in Greek tragedy and comedy was the chorus. Aristotle notes in his Poetics that tragedy developed out of the dithyramb, the choral youth dance originally performed in honor of Dionysus. He adds that the tragic chorus used melody, rhythm, and meter in combination.
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An aulos player backstage with Greek actors from a Roman mosaic.
ART ARCHIVE/ ARCHAEOLOGICAL MUSEUM OF NAPLES/ DAGLI ORTI.
Nations composed by the tragic, who also choreographed and rehearsed the chorus. Each playwright participating in the competition was assigned a choir of twelve to fifteen teenagers and a khoregos ("chorus master"). Boys were around the 4th century BC. Citizens of Athens chosen as professional singers and dancers. Aristotle explained that the choral performance consisted of three basic parts: the unemployed (entrance song); the estasimon, sung standing up in the orchestra (literally "dancing field"); and the kommos, an antiphonal lament exchanged between the chorus and the actors. The musical accompaniment was provided by an auleto, a double reed flute player. In the classical period (480-323 BC) the chorus was given a character role; Playing the role of elderly statesmen, old men, slaves, sailors and even supernatural beings, they took part in the plot of the plot. His role was to provide the background for the story, to interpret and provide the storyline for the audience.
a moralizing element. Like the actors, the choir members wore masks and their musical performance was enhanced through the use of dance and gesture.
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MUSIC IN COMEDY. In the 5th century BC. "Ancient Comedy" by Aristophanes, the chorus was 24, twice the size of the tragic. The group played people, but also birds, frogs, clouds and other whimsical characters whose main aim was to entertain. Vase painters illustrated the fantastic costumes of these choirs. Contemporary popular music such as love songs were part of the repertoire, sung and danced to the accompaniment of the auleto. Some of Aristophanes' comedies featured a parabasis during which the chorus would step forward and address the audience directly, speaking on behalf of the playwright. A musical, often comedic celebration, marked the end of many comedies. Finished the work of Aristophanes Vespas
Arts and Humanities Through the Ages: Ancient Greece and Rome (1200 BC - 476 AD)
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with a sort of obscene cancan danced by men called a kordax. In his last surviving comedies, produced in the early fourth century, the role of the chorus was reduced. The poetry of choral songs was apparently no longer written by the poet or incorporated into the text; The word KHOROU ("choral song") was simply written at the end of the play or between acts to indicate the performance of music not necessarily related to the story of the play. Aristotle referred negatively to the use of such interludes, which he called an embolism. In the 4th century "New Comedy" - of which only one complete work survives, Menander's Dyscolos - no choral songs were written; Instead, the word "KHOROU" appears among the files. The play itself, like the previous tragedies and comedies, is based on the music and performances of the Aulete and asserts that music, in one form or another, has always been a part of Greek theatre. MUSICAL INNOVATIONS BY DRAMATURGENS. Thanks to a comedy by Aristophanes called "Frogs", it is possible to learn a little about how the poetry and music of the great tragedians of the 5th century BC worked. it was noticed by other artists. By the end of the fifth century, when frogs were being produced, the great playwrights Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides had died; In the play, the god Dionysus goes to the underworld to bring the best of the three to earth. A contest is organized in which Aeschylus and Euripides tease each other about language, meter, and music. Euripides labels Aeschylus as repetitive and monotonous, while Aeschylus accuses Euripides of using basic prostitute songs, foreign music, lamentations, and dance music. Aeschylus boasts that his musical style matches his sublime and heroic theme; Euripides boasts that his realism makes the audience think. At the end of the play, Aeschylus wins the dispute, but leaves his underworld throne to Sophocles, whom Aristophanes did not want to mock (perhaps because he had just died). In his comedy Peace, Aristophanes praised Sophocles' songs, which contained a variety of moods and more complex rhythms than those of Aeschylus. “MODERN” DRAMATURGENS. The most innovative poets of the tragic classics were Euripides and Agatho. Euripides' music was so popular abroad that it is said to have saved the lives of some Athenian sailors and prisoners of war: Plutarch reported that when the Athenian forces were defeated by the Sicilians at Syracuse, their captors released anyone who could sing a song. by Euripides. Unlike their predecessors, Euripides and Agathon used the chromatic genre of the scale, resulting in more notes and a wider tonal range.
SAVED BY EURIPIDES Hymns INTRODUCTION:
One source of the popularity of Euripides' works is an anecdote related in his biography by Plutarch (2nd century AD) about the Athenian general Nicias, who lived in Athens between 415 and 413 BC. led a fateful campaign against the city of Syracuse in Sicily. The Athenians were defeated by the Syracusans in 413; Nicias was killed and the captive Athenians held in a quarry; Some of them survived, Plutarch said, entertaining their Sicilian captors with fragments of Euripides.
SOURCE:
Plutarch lives. volume third translation Bernadette Perrin (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967): 307, 309.
Although other playwrights sometimes used the ritual laments of women in their choral chants, none made better use of this genre of music than Euripides. Almost all of his works contain a dirge, which is considered one of the most powerful and effective stage genres. Significantly, of all the music composed by the great playwrights, only that of Euripides survives, in two papyri from the early third century BC. The first is originally from his play Orestes
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Mother's blood driven mad by the Furies, divine avengers of matricide. The chorus describes the horror of the murder and its aftermath. Whether this piece truly represents music composed by Euripides more than 100 years before the papyrus date (still an open question), it is among the earliest authentic examples of ancient Greek music. Only the centerlines of the text are preserved; both vocal and instrumental notation are present, as well as rhythmic and time signatures, revealing an expressive docmiatic meter (傼傼傼–傼–). The notes indicate the Lydian enharmonic or chromatic scale mixed with a diatonic one. Although this fragment does not represent Euripides' actual music, it is very much in his style: ancient writers have commented on Euripides' use of scale genres, varied text rhythms, syllable reductions, and word repetitions to create emotional impact. , all of which are present in the fragment.
ORESTES INTRODUCTION:
One of the most famous of a group of musical fragments found written on mummy papyri is the so-called Wiener G 2315, which contains seven lines from a choral ode to Euripides' tragedy Orestes. The myth of Orestes, prince of the Argives, who murdered his mother Clytemnestra to avenge the death of his father, King Agamemnon, whom Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus had murdered, belongs to the Homeric tradition and has been retold in several tragedies. The surviving fragment captures lines 338-344 of an ode sung by the chorus in the role of Argive virgins who saw Orestes covered by his
Euripides' Song of Orestes TRANSLATION FROM THE GREEK TEXT
TEXT FROM THE VIENNA PAPYRUS G2315 OF ORESTES OF EURIPIDES
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408 BC Made in Greater Dionysia. CE, and the second by Iphigenia in Aulis. Despite the fragmentary state of the examples, Euripides' style is recognizable: use of chromatic lines, alteration of poetic meter, and doubling of syllables. Agathon, the youngest of the playwrights, won in 416 BC. CE your first competition. when Euripides was sixty years old; He is credited with introducing new dithyrambic modes and performing choral music unrelated to the tragedy's subject. The music of Agathon and Euripides was influenced by "modern" currents a206
Home to multiple notes, scales and complex modulations, its melodic complexity is described as anatretos ("crossed like an anthill"). The choral poet Melanippides de Melos, writing in the late 5th century, was considered a pioneer of "modern" music because of his use of multi-note anabolic steroids, instrumental preludes to a dithyrambic performance. In the 4th century, the embolism ("interlude") replaced the traditional choral ode in tragedy as well as in comedy. The tragedian would no longer write his own choral songs as an integral part of the plot and plot.
Arts and Humanities Through the Ages: Ancient Greece and Rome (1200 BC - 476 AD)
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Song of Orestes by Euripides [CONTINUED] SONG OF ORESTES IN MODERN NOTATION
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COMPETITIONS AFTER THE CLASSIC PERIOD. Agathon was practically the last of the great classic tragedians. From the 4th century onwards, solo arias and "star performances" became more popular, and the tragods, a virtuoso, would sing and imitate new material or selections from the great tragedies of the 5th century with instrumental accompaniment. Musical compositions were now written for professional use, and some texts survive (two of which may be the Euripides Fragments mentioned above). Other music competitions were
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existing festivals, and the number of festivals increased, as the inscriptions attest. 279 BC A new festival called Soteria was established at Delphi in gratitude to Apollo "El Salvador" for his divine help in defeating the Galatians who attacked Apollo's sanctuary there. Royal festivals were now held in Macedonia, northern Greece, and Alexandria, Egypt. Professional guilds established in the early 4th century BC. were founded, now they sent their musicians, poets and actors from all over Greece to these competitions. The rise of the virtuoso singer and instrumentalist
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PRESENTATION OF THE MUSICAL INNOVATION BOARD:
In Book Three of Plato's Republic, Socrates argues that certain types of harmony (scale system) and rhythm are better suited to lyrics and song than others; too many "sweet, sweet, melancholy tunes" will corrupt the soul and weaken people. He also cautions against innovations in music that are "contrary to the established order"; Simple melodies and melodies are best for moral education purposes.
Celebrations One of the earliest descriptions of a wedding march appears as a scene on Achilles' new shield in Book Eighteen of the Iliad; The bride is carried through the city on a mule cart by torchlight as the young people twirl and dance to the sounds of aulos and phorminx and the hymenaeum ("wedding song") is played loudly. The hymen was sung during the wedding itself; it was strophic and often contained a refrain invoking the god of marriage: "Hymen, Hymenaie!" The song wished the couple harmony, prosperity and love. Another wedding song, the Epithalamion, was sung by a group of single men and women at the door of the bridal chamber. This bittersweet song marked the transition from child to adult, from virgin to married. Some of the same themes and metaphors that appear in the Epithalamion (marriage as a journey, danger of parental separation) also appear in the laments. In one of her many moving wedding songs, Sappho of Lesbos wrote a dialogue between the bride and her virginity: Bride: girl girl where did you go and leave me? Girl: I won't go back to you, I won't go back.
QUELLE: Plato, Die Republik. Trans. G.M.A. Grube (Indianapolis, Indiana: Hackett, 1992): 87, 89.
Talist was alarming to more than a few people. In The Republic and the Laws, Plato argued that the sound of complex rhythms and melodies is harmful to the soul, as were the "new" styles of music over the years, such as jazz, rock, and more recently, hip-hop and more rap music. They are considered a threat to social harmony and stability. Plato and other writers complained that music with "too many notes" was vulgar and/or feminine. MARRIED. While the song was often used at very large social events, it was also used for smaller personal purposes. The wedding, a favorite subject of painters, poets, and playwrights, was a time for hymns, choral singing and dancing, wailing women, and lyre and flute music. The bridal procession from the bride to the groom's house was an occasion for great 208
BURIAL. Funerary scenes on vases from the 9th century BC also indicate that large public funerals for important people were expected and music was an important element. There was private mourning at home for nine days, but a public funeral was held on the tenth day. Each time the body was carried to or from the house, mourners would follow the coffin and show their grief by crying, pulling their hair, scratching their faces, and tearing their clothes. The main public funeral rite was the lament, performed over the body by relatives and professional mourners. The two terms commonly used in literary texts for "ritual wails" (threnos and goos) represented vocalizations that combined inarticulate screams with rocking movements and antiphonal poetic chants, and were often described in tragedy and poetry as "separation" and "separation" don't dance". ' hymns, in reference to his sobriety. Vase paintings show ushers performing at funerals, and later writers such as Josephus and Cicero refer to hiring as many as ten professional ushers for large funerals. The shudder may have been a more private, informal and spontaneous lament. In the Homeric epic, the word threnos was used for the goddesses' formal lamentations over dead heroes; may also refer to the complaint of professional mourners. In Athenian tragedy, the threnos was pronounced during the commos, a melancholy antiphon between the actors and the chorus. The first literary lament occurs
Arts and Humanities Through the Ages: Ancient Greece and Rome (1200 BC - 476 AD)
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including an epitaph and an epigram with musical notation. After the ditty, the owner signed "Seikilos, Son of Euther". The last line "He lives" may indicate that Seikilos erected the monument during his lifetime. The words of the epigram are inscribed in musical notation in iastic diatonic tones (scale) according to Alypius' tables: one note for each syllable, except some words which have a short melisma of two or three notes. in one syllable. The music's meter is iambic, and the rhythmic markings in the vocal notation indicate the duration of the notes. The balanced melody confirms the compositional patterns later described by theorists Cleonides and Aristides Quintilianus.
SEIKILOS STELE TOMB INTRODUCTION:
A funerary stele (tombstone) from the 2nd century AD It was excavated in Tralleis, Turkey, during the construction of a railway in the late 19th century. The artifact was first published by Sir William Ramsay in 1883, but the object was largely unknown to the public until it was purchased by the National Museum in Copenhagen and published in a 1967 lecture by J. Raasted. It is now on display at the National Museum in Copenhagen. The pillar is inscribed with thirteen lines of Greek text,
Seikilos Burial Epitaph TEXT OF SEIKILOS FUNERAL Epitaph
1 2 3 4 5
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Epitaph 1 2–3 4–5
I am a stone image. Seikilos brought me here A sign of eternal remembrance for all time
Epigram with musical notation 6 “While you live, shine; 7–8 Don't be sad at all. 9 Life is short; 10–11 Time takes its toll.”
.
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11
12 do λ do ( p ) 13 [
Signature 12th Seikilos, son of Euterpes 13th life
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SEIKILOS EPITAPH SONG IN MODERN NOTATION
6
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in book twenty-four of the Iliad, when the Trojan prince Hector is mourned by three relatives: his mother Hecuba, his wife Andromache, and his sister-in-law Helena. No song or dance is implied, but the poetry of lamentation is too powerful to both praise and rebuke the language of pain. The lament raised the emotions of the crowd so effectively that the sixth century B.C. The Athenian lawgiver Solon prohibited the public performance of Threnos by women, and many women of the fifth century B.C.E. The lyrics indicate that the practice of mourning by women was perceived as a political threat. Plato strongly opposed women's public lamentations, calling them unreasonable female expressions of grief; in the Laws he states that the ideal legislator would prohibit public protests in funeral processions. In later periods, an epigram, a simple, often melancholy or melancholy verse, may be inscribed on the tombstone. The only surviving funerary inscription with musical notation was found in the tomb of a certain Seikilos from the 1st century AD. THE SYMPOSIUM. The symposium (literally "drinking together") was an important social gathering for Athenian aristocrats in the 5th century BC. advance. The party took place in the men's section of a private home; Wife and kids stayed upstairs. The guests, lying on sofas, ate, drank diluted wine from large glasses, talked about silly or even serious things, played games and had fun. Entertainment was often provided by professional actors or singers and hetairai, high-class prostitutes who could sing, dance and play aulos. Guests can play the lyre and sing their own renditions of the well-studied lyric and elegiac poets of the last century: Alcaeus, Anacron, Estesichorus, Archilochus and Theognis, to name a few. Skolia ("drinking songs") were loosely constructed satirical ditties sung under the influence of wine by each guest, who in turn was given a sprig of myrtle. The poet Anacreon's skolia were very popular; he was considered one of the greatest Ionian (Eastern Greek) poets of the late 6th century. Athenaeus in his Deipnosophistae (2nd-3rd centuries AD) listed 25 skolia and discussed their style. The symposium was a popular subject with vase painters, who filled their scenes with a mixture of fantasy and reality. At his symposium, Plato enacted a philosophical dialogue over a drinking spree. In an unlikely scenario, the characters decided not to drink too much wine and let the piper go home so they could have a serious philosophical discussion about the "nature of love". It could have been a boring night if Socrates' friend Alcibiades hadn't interrupted the party and brought some raw joy to the evening. 210
FUENTES
Thomas J. Mathiesen, Apollo's Lyre: Greek Music and Music Theory in Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999). A. Pickard-Cambridge, Tirambo, Tragedy and Comedy. Rev. T.B.L. Webster. 2nd edition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962). —, Dramatic Festivals of Athens. Rev. John Gould and D.M. Lewis. 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968). Martin West, Ancient Greek Music (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994). The lives of women in Greece and Rome: a translated guidebook. ed. and trans. Mary Lefkowitz and Maureen Fant. 2nd ed. (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992).
MUSICAL TRAINING METHODS. Formal music education has existed in Athens since the early 5th century BC. known. Previously, people interested in learning to sing or play an instrument could informally study with someone else or even learn on their own. A professional bard would train a gifted student in exchange for room, food, and clothing. Repertoire and technique were passed down orally and by heart; It is unlikely that there was a tradition of teaching students to read music. Large choral groups performing at public festivals required training organized by a choral director (khoregos), who may also have taught participants how to read poetry. Between the 7th and 6th centuries BC. There were active musical centers in Sparta, where Alcman composed his partheneia (choral dances for girls), and on the island of Lesvos, where Sappho founded girls' choirs. In Sparta, a boy's military training involved learning to dance and sing hymns while wearing armor. SCHOOLS. Music and text lessons usually took place in the teacher's home, but in the late 8th or 7th century BC. professional music schools were founded. by Terpander and Thaletas in Sparta. After the 4th century BC Professional training was provided at a guild school or academy, where students from all over the Greek world studied choral and instrumental composition. Both girls and boys were educated, and some girls became professional musicians. Many vase paintings from Athens show a typical school day, which included music, lyrics, math, and physical education. A famous chalice painted by Douris in the early 5th century illustrates this in great detail: a Kitharistes
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A red-figure kylix in Berlin by the painter Douris, showing a music school. 5th century BC
("Meisterlyre") stands in front of his pupil; both hold the chelys (turtle eggs). Other lyres hang on the wall above their heads. To his right, a seated Grammatistes ("grammar teacher") holds a parchment with verses written on it, which his student recites while remaining rigidly attentive. A bearded Payagogos, a slave in charge of the children, observes the lessons. On the other side of the glass, a student prepares to sing while his teacher plays the aulos (double-reed flute); beside her, another teacher is writing on a wax tablet for her student. THE IMPACT OF MUSIC. Philosophers, theorists and even Greek poets themselves generally agree that music has a profound influence on a person's character and therefore the types of music taught in school must be chosen carefully. As a rule, educators preferred simple traditional styles; complex styles, foreign (non-Greek), no. The lyre, associated with Apollo and Orpheus, was preferred to the flute, which accompanied the wild and ecstatic worship of Dionysus. Homeric poetry or excerpts from tragic choral songs were preferred to other genres of music. Pythagoras, a mathematician of the late 6th and early 5th centuries BC. BC, believed that sounds and rhythms ordered by numbers were exemplary and corresponded to harmony.
ART RESOURCE.
of the cosmos This is explained by the Greek word for music theory, harmonics, which contains the Indo-European root -ar, meaning "to join, fit together, be in sync". According to Pythagoras, the fourth, fifth and eighth consonances were models of harmony. His investigations into the science of sound and relative numbers began with what later came to be known as "acoustic theory". UNMISSSIBLE CHARACTER. Music teacher Damon, building on Pythagoras' ideas a generation later, taught that each musical genre has its own character or ethos that influences human thought and behavior. For boys, rhythms and melodic forms should be chosen for their masculine qualities; Girls should learn music that teaches modesty and restraint. The chromatic genders of the scales were considered effeminate, while the enharmonic ones fostered courage and masculinity. Damon's focus on the ethical qualities of music, in turn, influenced followers of his, including Plato, Aristotle and the Roman writer Varus. All these authors show a conservative desire to label, categorize, select and even censor certain types of melodic forms. In the Laws and the Republic, Plato considered only two harmonies (modal scales) acceptable for educational purposes: the Doric and the Phrygian. Aristotle was a little more forgiving and admitted that all types of music have
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their place, even the lowest types. Not all philosophers adhered to the doctrine of ethos; Stoic and Epicurean philosophers of the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC. For example, they attacked the notion that music had a lasting effect on the soul. Philodemus, a connoisseur, wrote a treatise entitled On Music, in which he argued that poetry has power, but music itself is simply enjoyable. Despite those who disagreed with the Pythagorean notion that music was associated with cosmic harmony and therefore had the capacity to affect the soul, the idea would not go away. After the 1st century AD, the doctrine of ethos was adopted and adapted by Ptolemy and Aristides Quintilianus (3rd-4th centuries AD), who supported earlier arguments that traditional, rational, masculine melodic forms for Education should be used, but others as well. could be used. for educational purposes. different purposes. GUILDS. Professional guilds of artists and musicians known as the Dionysou Technitai (Artisans of Dionysus) were formed in the early 3rd century BC. Founded in Athens and Teos (northwest Asia Minor, present-day Türkiye). In his Deipnosophistae, the lexicographer Athenaeus included solo instrumentalists as kitarists and aulets, as well as poets, actors, singers, and composers as members of guilds operating under a group of officers headed by a priest of Dionysus. They made interpreters, conductors and composers available for all occasions and organized payment contracts. In that respect, Dionysou Technitai was comparable to a musicians' union. These guilds also functioned as schools, offering singing lessons, musical instrument lessons, and rhythmic and melodic composition lessons. Guild schools may have maintained a library of written compositions, but none of these survive. SOURCES
Giovanni Comotti, Música na Cultura Grega e Romana. Trad. Rosaria V. Munson (Baltimore, Maryland: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989, originalmente publicado em italiano, 1979). John G. Landels, Music in Ancient Greece and Rome (Londres: Routlege, 1999). Thomas J. Mathiesen, Apollo's Lyre: Greek Music and Music Theory in Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999). Martin West, Ancient Greek Music (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994).
MUSIC
EM
LIVE IN ROME
PRODUCT OF MANY INFLUENCES. Surviving evidence suggests that Roman musical culture was not unique and new, but a product of many external factors.
influences, particularly Etruscan and Greek. Long before Latin became the official language and Rome the seat of a great empire, Italy had indigenous peoples who spoke their own undeciphered languages and undoubtedly had their own musical traditions; Almost nothing is known about her. The Greeks interacted with many of these cultures and exerted a profound influence. Archaeologists have found imported Greek pottery, some dating back to 1000 BC. come from. C., in the northern regions of Etruria, Lazio and Umbria, along the Tiber in central Italy and in Campania in the south. During the eighth century B.C. Greeks migrated in large numbers to southern Italy and Sicily, where they established permanent colonies. The Greek musicians, composers, actors and poets who lived and worked in Italy finally found their way to Rome, where their musical ideas, traditions and practices were accepted by most, if not all, citizens. Native Italian traditions have not been fully replaced by Greek ones, but they are not well understood; only a few fragments of ancient Latin carmina (songs, poems) survive from Rome and Latium; these were monodic or choral and included ritual chant (eg Carmen Fratrum), epic-historical poetry (Carmen convivialia) - accompanied by tibia (the Latin version of the Greek aulos) - songs of triumph (carmina Triumpholia) and funerals. Lamentations (neniae). The Romans were fond of musical concerts, solo performances, and theatrical productions that were mostly versions of native Greek or Italian genres. With few exceptions, the Romans adopted lyres, double-reed flutes, and Etruscan, Middle Eastern, and Greek percussion instruments. After Rome in the second half of the 2nd century BC. conquered Greece and incorporated the whole country into the empire. C., the ubiquitous Hellenizing (Greek) presence provoked fierce criticism from Latin writers and even legislators; Both Juvenal and Cicero condemned the excessive Hellenization of Roman culture, and Roman censors issued edicts restricting the performance of Greek virtuosos and the use of Greek instruments. THE ETRUSSIAN HERITAGE. The Etruscans were a people who ruled the territory of Etruria and Latium in northern Italy before Rome became the central power. Archaeologists have discovered a large number of imported Greek vases in Etruscan tombs, showing that they date back to at least the 5th century BC. BC, perhaps earlier, had a prosperous trade with the Greeks. The fresco art of some tombs also indicates Greek influence. One tomb, called the Tomb of the Leopards in Tarquinia, contains a fresco depicting two musicians. One plays the tibia (double reed flute), known as aulos in Greece;
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the other plays a lyre similar to the Greek chelys (turtle lyre). Even after Roman rule was firmly established, the Etruscans had a great influence on Roman religious practices and the music associated with them. Many, if not most, of the state musicians hired for Roman religious festivals and other state festivals were Etruscans, belonging to a collegium ("artists' guild") in Rome. ETRUSQUE INSTRUMENTS. The Etruscans played instruments comparable to the Greek versions, but also others that seemed unique to them and paired instruments not played together in Greece. On a bronze relief from the late 6th century BC. from an Etruscan situla ("cube"). a musician playing an unusual m-shaped harp (or lyre) is paired with a fistula player ("panpipe"); The two musicians, both wearing wide-brimmed hats, sit facing each other in a formal concert pose. In Greece, the panpipe (syringe) was more of a pastoral instrument, used mainly by shepherds or for outdoor parties. If a depiction of an Etruscan funerary urn from the late 2nd century BC. It is true that the Etruscan tibia obliqua was a pipe played more like a flute than an oboe, comparable to the mysterious Greek plagiaulos. The player in the urn scene appears to keep his shin horizontally to the right, like a modern piper; The placement of his lips on the mouthpiece at the top of the tube and his criss-cross grip on the holes suggest that the instrument resembled a flute rather than a plectrum. This type of flute appeared in Roman art well after the 3rd century AD. Curved horns used by the Etruscans and later adopted by the Romans include the lituus, conch and cornu, and were more comparable to the Greek tuba, a straight trumpet, than the Greek salpinx. Both the salpinx and the tuba were referred to as "Etruscan" by Greek and Latin writers, but the Greek salpinx was almost exclusively a military instrument, while the Etruscans and Romans also played their trumpets and trumpets in concert, sometimes in conjunction with the shin. . . ("whistle") and kithara ("lyre"). GREEK INFLUENCE. Greek influence in Italy did not begin with the Etruscans in the north, but in the south as early as the end of the 8th century BC. C., when large numbers of Doric Greeks moving west from the Peloponnese colonized southern Italy and eastern Sicily. Many Italian and Sicilian Greeks became very wealthy in their new land, especially those who lived in the Sicilian city of Syracuse. Unlike Athens, founded in the 5th century BC. had established a democracy, Syracuse's political system was a kind of monarchy called "tyranny". These tyrants took power by force, but once established they could be very generous with the Greek army.
Tisanos, musicians and poets who admired them; 5th century BC The Greek poet Pindar and the playwright Aeschylus were among those who received generous hospitality at the court of the tyrant Hieron in Syracuse. The largest cities in Italy and Sicily had open-air theaters comparable to the most majestic amphitheaters in Greece (such as Epidaurus). Greek influence on Roman culture increased after the First Punic War during the 3rd century BC. B.C. More clearly as contact between the Roman people and the Greeks in southern Italy increased. Musical instruments popular in Greece - bagpipes, lyres, horns, rattles - were also played in Rome, although in different forms and combinations. The Romans imitated Greek literary and dramatic forms; They adopted and adapted Greek architecture. Wealthy Latinos hired Greek teachers and doctors. Greek gods and heroes of myth were given Latin names but were worshiped in a similar way. When the Roman army in 146 B.C. took Corinth. and brought all the land of Greece into its empire, the Roman people had long been absorbed in Greek culture. ROMAN THEATER. As in Greece, in ancient Italy, dance and dramatic music were central to the various rites and rituals performed to appease or praise the gods. Many of the earliest dances were improvised and accompanied by the tibia, the most popular wind instrument for dancers in Italy and Greece. The Latin historian Titus Livius reported that in 364 BC CE Etruscan ludions ("pantomimes") were called upon to save Rome from a plague by dancing to special music played by a tibicen ("pieder player"). The Romans adapted this Etruscan dance and added rhythmically varied music to it; The new compositions were called saturae (satire). Scenes on vases from Apulia, a coastal region of southern Italy, show that a popular form of entertainment in the Greek colonies of Italy after the mid-4th century BC. It was the traveling troupe of tragic buffoons called the Phlyakes who performed satire and burlesque on a portable stage to the sound of an auleto ("whistle"). The Romans adopted the Greek forms of epic, lyric, tragedy and comedy, and music continued to play an important role, although very little is known about its melodies or characteristics. The musical compositions of the Roman theater have not survived. In the 3rd century, Roman theatrical performances favored the revival of the 5th and 4th centuries BC. EC Greek playwrights, particularly Euripides, Aristophanes, and the New Comedy authors Menander and Philemon; The first writer/composer with a Roman name, Livius Andronicus, was actually a Greek slave brought to Rome from Taranto and later freed. His Latin successors included the playwrights Ennius, Plautus, Terence and others who flourished in the second century.
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century B.C. These Roman writers translated original Greek plays into Latin and enjoyed great poetic freedom, changing names, mixing scenes and arranging plots in a technique known as contaminatio; Sometimes they also turned the original Greek spoken dialogue into a song. ROMAN COMEDY. The comedies of Plautus (250–184 BC) and Terence (a generation later) belonged at least until the end of the 1st century BC. BC Among the most popular in Rome. His plays, like those of his Greek predecessors Menander and Aristophanes, were full of coarse, and often boorish, humor. Male actors played all the roles, even the "girlfriends" in the tough love stories. Roman comedy featured the canticum, a scene presented in song form with the accompaniment of the tibia, alternating with the deverbia (recited portions). Choral singing, so central to Greek tragedy, probably played a minor role in Roman drama; The orchestra room, used as a dance hall by the chorus in the Greek theater, served as a private seating area in Rome. Solo virtuosity was highly prized in Rome, and Tibicen often delivered a tragic or comic performance to an easily recognizable tune composed specifically for that show. Tibicen also interacted with the actors and audience during a performance. Production dates survive, listing the actors' names, production dates and the name of the festivals, as well as some information about the original music composed for the plays. Different types of shins were assigned to each actor in a comedy: "Equal tubes" were assigned to the "Girl from Andros", while the character "Phormio" required "unequal tubes" (perhaps an octave apart). OTHER FORMS OF THEATER. After Terence and his generation of playwrights, comedy and tragedy faded in Rome, but by 55 B.C. A new theater opened in Pompeii. and the antique pieces were used during Julius Caesar's funeral games after his assassination in 44 BC. listed. Pantomime and pantomime, developed from Etruscan forms, were in the Roman repertoire by the first century BC. popular; The pantomime was a reenactment of real or mythical stories performed through speech, dance and movement, sometimes with the accompaniment of the shin. Mimicry can include choral and orchestral music using a variety of instruments: shins and other types of flutes, zithers (lyres), cymbals, and a percussion instrument played with the feet called a scabella. Comic and tragic solo actors like Comoedi and Tragoedi were in high demand; the comedian Roscius and the dramatic actor Aesop were celebrities in Rome. Suetonius, the biographer of the first twelve Ro214
Man Emperors, narrated that ironically, the cruel and perverted Emperor Nero was a talented kitharode who also appeared on stage in costume along with professional actors. Latin poetry. While verses from the famous 1st century B.C. The Latin poets Catullus and Horace contain many allusions to the music and musical instruments of the Greek poets, there is no evidence that Latin poetry was actually performed to the accompaniment of the lyre, as was Greek poetry. Horace composed a publicly performed poem in sapphic meter for choir to be sung by two groups of 27 girls and boys. By Emperor Augustus for the Centenary Games 17 BC commissioned. C. No evidence of the song survives. The Latin poet Virgil, working under the patronage of Emperor Augustus, composed the Roman national epic The Aeneid using the same meter as Homer, the dactylic hexameter, and using themes from the Iliad and Odyssey, but this poem was not sung or performed. .he played to the accompaniment of the lyre, as the Homeric epic had been in archaic times. ROMAN POETS AND MUSICIANS. With few exceptions, there were no Latin poets comparable to Sappho or Nossi in Greece. Male poets such as Propertius and Ovid mentioned the names of Roman women writers in their works, but actual poems by a Latin woman, Sulpicia (31 BC - 14 AD), survive. There are six of Sulpicia's Elegies, totaling just forty lines. She was probably the niece of her patron Marcus Valerius Messala Corvinus, a historian who was also a supporter of other elegiac poets, including Ovid and Tibullus. Although Sulpicia successfully used the stylistics common during the reign of Augustus (pairs, alliteration, and assonances), she did not allude to music in her poems, and her poems were meant to be recited, not sung. Some Roman women studied music seriously from an early age and made a name for themselves as professional dancers, singers and kitarists (lyre players); Girls as young as nine or ten could perform in public like Phoebe Vocontia in Rome. According to her tombstone (Imperial Period), Phoebe was an Embliaria, a performer during interludes in the theater. "Taught in all the arts," she died aged twelve. Another grave inscription from the Imperial period reads: "To the gods of the dead. Gaius Cornelius Neritus did this for himself and for Auxesis, the kitharist, the best wife. Artists were paid a minimum wage for their craft. A papyrus from Philadelphia, Egypt, dated A.D. 206 records that a castanette dancer named Isidora received the following payment for a six-day wedding concert at a gentleman's house: thirty-six drachmas a day, four
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DOMICIANO AND THE FESTIVAL OF JUPITER CAPITOLINUS INTRODUCTION:
According to the biographer Suetonius, Domitian, son of Emperor Vespasian, began his reign in 81 AD. Encouraging festivals and religious celebrations; he also built many public buildings, including the Colosseum, where he held concerts; He may have been popular with the people, but the Senate spurned him and he was assassinated in 96 CE.
A Roman mosaic showing a musician playing the water organ and another playing the curved trumpet known as a "cornu". THE GRANGER COLLECTION.
Grain Artabas and twenty double loaves. The writer also offered to keep all her coats and gold jewelry safe and provide her with two donkeys for her round trip. Under Roman law, although actresses were admired, the social status of actors and actresses was low. The actress Bassilla, called "the tenth muse" by her admirers, "acquired fame in many cities by her various achievements in drama, pantomime, chorus and dance", according to her epitaph of the theater of Aquileia in the 3rd century AD. . MUSIC AND THE EMPERORS. During the imperial period, Rome enjoyed a rich and varied musical climate; Talented actors, instrumentalists, singers and dancers flocked to the city from all corners of the empire, including Egypt, Syria and Spain. Emperors enjoyed musical entertainment while they ate, and many of them were good musicians. Theatrical performances in amphitheaters were well attended throughout the imperial period. In the time of Nero, the mechanical syrinx (water organ) gained popularity. This ancient pipe organ, supposedly built in the 3rd century BC. was invented. of Ktesibios in Alexandria, Egypt, was strong; It was designed for use in am-
Domitian put on many extravagant shows in the Colosseum and in the circus... In honor of Jupiter Capitolinus, he founded a festival of music, riding and gymnastics every five years and awarded far more prizes than is common today. . The festival included speaking contests in Latin and Greek, choral lyre and lyre singing contests, as well as the usual solo singing with lyre accompaniment. … When presiding over these functions, he wore boots, a purple Greek tunic, and a golden crown engraved with the images of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva. SPRING:
Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars. Trans. Robert Graves (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1978): 297-298.
Theater where you could hear it from the back rows. Mosaic from a Roman villa in Germany, 3rd century AD. It shows a pipe organ with about 29 pipes placed on a wooden base in the form of an altar. Despite the lack of detail in the illustration, it appears that the instrument could have played a full two-octave scale in several different keys. Nero, who spoke Greek and learned to play the zither from a Greek virtuoso named Terpnos, initiated and participated in musical contests. Emperor Vespasian hired Terpnos, another kitharode named Diodorus, and the tragoedus Apollinaris to perform at the reopening of Marcellus's theater. Hadrian, an accomplished musician, was the patron of the Cretan Kitharode Mesomedes; Fourteen or fifteen poems by Mesomedes survive, some with musical notation. Large concerts by choral groups and orchestras were a part of both secular occasions and religious festivals. Horns such as the tuba, lituus, bucina and cornu, normally used in the armed forces, were played in ensembles. Rome was the site of many foreign religious cults; the music associated with that content
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Roman horn, a curved trumpet.
FOTO VON HECTOR WILLIAMS. © HECTOR WILLIAMS.
foreign melodies. During the cult of Cybele and Bacchus, the music of the Phrygian elymoi (reed flutes of various lengths, one of which had a curved bell at the end) became associated with Egyptian melodies and dances. MILITARY MUSIC. As in Greece, military music played a central role in Roman life. A variety of wind instruments sounded in marching bands and were used to signal military maneuvers in battle: kerata (cow horns), salpinx and lituus (ivory or bronze trumpets), cornu (round horn), and tuba (machet). The Etruscans used these horns as early as the 4th century BC. C. and remained popular for over 500 years, well into the late Imperial period (4th century AD). Archaeologists found a real lituus in the city of Caera (now Cervetri), not far from Rome. It consists of a 63-inch tube without grooves or valves; it would have sounded a bit like a bugle but had a lower pitch. Bucina and cornu, originally cow horns but the latter made of bronze or other light metal, curved around the player like a modern sousaphone. The tuba, a straight, flared trumpet, had a higher and more distinct tone than the lituus. Horns like these used by the Greeks ex216
The Etruscans and Romans also played them exclusively as military instruments in concerts, weddings and funeral processions. SOURCES
Giovanni Comotti, Music in Greek and Roman Culture. Trans. Rosaria V. Munson (Baltimore, Maryland: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989, originally published in Italian, 1979). John G. Landels, Music in Ancient Greece and Rome (London: Routlege, 1999). Timothy Moore, "Music and Structure in Roman Comedy", in American Journal of Philology 119.2 (1998): 245–273. Women's Lives in Greece and Rome: A Translated Book. ed. and trans. Mary Lefkowitz and Maureen Fant. 2nd Ed. (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992).
WOMEN
EM
OLD MUSIC
WOMEN IN SOCIETY. Ancient Greece and Rome were patriarchal societies; Men dominated social life and
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political sphere. Women's lives were tied to men's lives in their families and to a system of government that denied women an equal voice in public life. The general rule that women are not to be seen or heard held true in the Christian era and beyond. Most of what is known about Greek and Roman women in music comes not from the women themselves, but from the men who wrote about them and the male artists who depicted them in vases and murals. Only when a woman gained enough reputation (good or bad) to warrant attention was her name published. The family was considered the most important unit in ancient Greece and Rome, and women were at the center of family life; They played an important role in the family religion, presiding over all rites of passage from birth to death. The ceremonies associated with these rites gave women the opportunity to sing, dance, and play music in public. Women also participated in the state's major religious festivals, and some became professional poets and musicians. Despite the meager evidence from female writers, poets and musicians, there is sufficient evidence that women left their mark on music, while amateurs enjoyed playing for their own amusement. MISSION. In the Greek Bronze Age, Greek women must have sung and probably played instruments, but they are not portrayed as such. Mycenaean art from the second millennium BC shows only men playing the phorminx ("lyre") and aulos ("double-reed flute"). As a rule, men and women in ancient Greece and Rome led separate lives. Women tended to stay close to home and take care of domestic affairs, while men spent their time working at their jobs or at public meeting places in the city. Even private houses were divided into male and female rooms. A vase from a tomb in Italy depicts a group of women dancing and playing various instruments in the privacy of their rooms. They also talked and listened to music while they processed wool, baked bread or looked after their children. Hetairai, often highly educated and musically trained prostitute-musicians, entertained the men in symposiums (drinks). Some religious rites and ceremonies were only open to women, particularly those relating to fertility, and evidence shows that both Greek and Roman women sang and played musical instruments during these rites. INSTRUMENTS FOR WOMEN. While both men and women could be professional musicians, certain instruments were considered more appropriate for one genre or another. As men marched in military parades and moved more freely in public, larger horns and lyres were appropriate for them.
JUST ONE OF THE GIRLS INTRODUCTION:
In his Life of Caesar, the writer Plutarch (2nd century AD) related a humorous story in which a young man named Clodius tried to enter the sacred rite of the women of Bona Dea (the good goddess associated with Dionysus) by sneaking around disguising himself as a woman. . . accordion player.
Rome, 62 BC C.: Publius Clodius was in love with Pompeia, wife of Julius Caesar, but the women's house was very well guarded and Aurelia, mother of Caesar, made it difficult for the lovers to meet. During the festival of the "Good Goddess" it is customary for men to leave the house; The woman takes over and decorates the party. Most of the rites are performed at night, and also with much solemnity in solemnity and music. On the night that Pompeii performed this ritual, Clodius sneaked into the house in the guise of a young lyre. On his way out, he met one of Aurelia's assistants who asked him to play with her as one woman would with another. When he refused, she dragged him in front of the others and asked who he was and where he was from. Her voice betrayed him and Aurelia demanded that the rites cease and had Clodio thrown out of the house. Clodius was duly accused of sacrilege by the Senate, but later acquitted. Caesar immediately divorced Pompeii, saying that a wife of his "must be above reproach". SOURCE: Plutarch, Life of Caesar, in Women's Life in Greece and Rome: A Sourcebook in Translation. M Lefkowitz and M Fant eds (Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982): 292-293.
The women and girls played minor lyres, harp and aulos (reed flutes). The wife of Ktesibios, the organ's inventor, may have given concerts on it. Hetairai were hired to play aulos and chelys (a type of lyre) at men's drinking parties, while psaltriai (literally 'pluck') played the harp at women's parties; Certain melodies and instruments such as the aulos, lute and chelys were associated with erotic love. The barbitos (another type of lyre), the pectis (a type of harp) and the Lydian harp were popular instruments for women, and after the 4th century BC. C., the trichords or pandouros, resembling a lute, appeared on the arms of women. Timpani (drums), kymbala (cymbals) and other percussion instruments were most commonly played by female worshipers.
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of Dionysus, the Great Mother, and other deities related to fertility and fecundity. POETS. The task of the Pythia, a priestess of Apollo at the Oracle at Delphi, was to interpret Apollo's divine prophecy for the pilgrim, and she did this by singing the god's words in hexameter verse. While this song is not poetry per se, it is an indicator that women in ancient Greece had strong poetic voices, even though Homer's professional bards were men and not women. Between the 6th and 3rd centuries BC. However, some of the most famous poets and musicians have performed. None came from Athens, perhaps because women's lives were much more restricted than elsewhere. All were highly educated and wealthy. Sappho, born around 612 BC. On the island of Lesvos, she is the most famous of a group of female poets whose works have survived: Korinna, Erinna, Nossi and Anyte. Sappho's poetry was autobiographical, personal and often erotic. He wrote passionately about the power of Aphrodite, the Muses and the Graces. She was an innovative poet, translating the rhythms of her native Aeolian Greek dialect into new melodies; Her form of lyrical monody (solo singing), which scholars call a "Sapphic stanza", was intended to be sung with musical accompaniment. Sappho is depicted in a painting of a vase holding the tiny splinters and mentions the lyre and harp in her poems. In addition to monody, Safo also wrote compositions for choral performances. Fragments of dela Partheneia (virgin songs) and Epithalamia (wedding songs) survive, but without musical notation. Her choral works were performed by separate groups of young men and women dancing. Admired not only by her contemporary male poets but also by generations of poets to come, Sappho was a vivid portrait of female feelings: Once again this love grips me, bittersweet and inescapable. Very little is known about the other Greek poets, and only small fragments of her poems survive. The traveler Pausanias (2nd century AD) reported that Corinna of Boeotia called Pindar, a very important lyric poet of the 5th century BC. BC, more than once in poetry contests. Praxilla, another fifth-century poet, was famous for her scholia ("drinking songs"). Almost nothing is known about Roman poets, although the social position of women in Rome was better than in Greece. Sulpicia (1st century BC) was the only Latin poet whose work has survived to some extent because it was included in a volume of poetry by Tibullus, a friend. 218
MUSIC CARDS FOR WOMEN. The philosopher Plato, in his Republic and Laws, prescribed different melodies and rhythms for men and women, depending on the nature of each gender. In particular, men must play "masculine" music and women must play "clean and moderate" music. Plato and Aristotle wrote that both girls and boys should learn mousike, the broad term for "music" that includes singing, dancing, and playing instruments. Plato recommended three years of training on the lyre from the age of thirteen. These philosophers insisted that there were two types of female musicians: respectable and disgraceful. In the 4th century BC. By 300 BC, education was more within the reach of women than in earlier times, and a clear distinction was now being made between the unsavory hetairai (whore-musicians) and other female musicians who had been taught by respected music teachers in a very good school. and they were getting young because he was paid to play concert music at public festivals. An inscription from 186 BC He recognized Polygnota, a Theban woman, by her zither playing and reciting during the Pythian Games in honor of the god Apollo at Delphi. He claims to have received a crown and 500 drachmas as payment. Roman musicians also performed during religious festivities. In Rome and much of the Roman Empire, every November musicians, singers and dancers performed during the three-day festival of the goddess Isis, who had a temple in Rome despite being an Egyptian deity. The performance included actors playing the roles of Isis and Nephthys in the mystery plays celebrating the death and resurrection of Osiris. In Roman Egypt, women artists were highly paid. A third-century CE papyrus from Philadelphia, Egypt, contains a letter requesting the services of three castanets, presumably for a wedding feast. The pay was fixed at 36 drachmas a day, plus four artabas of corn and twenty double loaves. WOMAN'S RITUAL SUIT. In ancient Greece, women generally lacked a public platform to express their opinions and feelings. Ritual lamentation – public mourning for the dead during a funeral – provided women with a safe outlet for publicly addressing issues of social importance. Ritual lamentations were performed by an intimate circle of women over the body of the deceased, combining weeping and lamentation with poetic chants and stylized movements. During a ritual lament, women could say whatever they felt, no matter how explosive or threatening; In the epic poem "Aeneid" by the Roman poet Virgil, the mother of a dead soldier's lament is so critical of the war that the men are ordered to drag her away.
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INTRODUCTION OF HELENA'S LAMENT RITUAL:
Euripides, the musically gifted tragedian, was particularly attracted to the melodic forms of women, especially the ritual laments. In his play Helena written in 412 B.C. Euripides vividly captured the musical power of lamentation with its antiphonal response ("songs to answer songs"), its melancholy sonority ("lyreless elegy"), and the combination of weeping and song ("Choros to sing with my lamentations").
physical and mental pain. In Greek tragedy, ritual lamentations were often referred to as "no lyre" or "no dance" to illustrate their intense discord and grief. Euripides, a talented composer and playwright of the 5th century BC. the C.E., used to write denunciations in his works. In her musical tragedy Helena, the Queen of Sparta laments her role in the destruction of Troy and wishes that the sirens could accompany her mourning with the Libyan harp, the syrinx, with lyres and with her own tears at the climax of their own. "To suffer". for suffering, care for care, antiphonal chorus to suit the lament” (164-166). The so-called Berlin papyrus (2nd or 3rd century AD) preserves an annotated fragment of a dramatic vocal lament over the death of the hero Ajax, which seems to be in the register of a female voice. Traditionally, in Greek and Roman theatre, all roles were played by men, but this fragment suggests that a cantor, perhaps playing the role of Ajax's grieving wife Thecmessa, performed the lament. The doric mode, the same melodic system used by lyricists in love songs and the Peanes, was commonly used for formal laments. SOURCES
QUELLE: Euripides, Helena, in Greek Musical Writings I: The Musician and His Art. ed. Andrew Barker (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984): 67–68.
before discouraging the troops. There were three categories of wails: the threnos, the goos, and the commos. The threnos was a composite lamentation sung, for example, by goddesses in the Homeric epic and the formal laments of a female chorus in Greek drama. Goos, a more common term, referred to the spontaneous, discordant cry recited by the relatives and associates of the deceased. The howmos was specific to the tragedy. Aristotle defined the commos in his Poetics as a melancholy antiphony between an actor and the female chorus, which was one of the most visually appealing performances of
Diane Rayor, Sappho's Lyre: Archaic Poetry and Women Poets of Ancient Greece (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1991). Jane McIntosh Snyder, The Woman and the Lyre: Women Writers in Classical Greece and Rome (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1989). Nancy Sultan, "Private Speech, Public Pain: The Power of Women's Lament in Ancient Greek Poetry and Tragedy," in "The Rediscovery of the Muses: Women's Musical Traditions." ed. Kimberly Marshall (Boston, Mass.: Northeastern University Press, 1993): 92-110. Diane Touliatos, "The Traditional Role of Greek Women in Music from Antiquity to the End of the Byzantine Empire," in Rediscovering the Muses: Women's Musical Traditions. ed. Kimberly Marshall (Boston, Mass.: Northeastern University Press, 1993): 111-123. Women's Lives in Greece and Rome: A Translated Book. ed. and trans. Mary Lefkowitz and Maureen Fant. 2nd Ed. (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992).
REVIEW OF MUSICAL THEORY SOURCES. The study of ancient Greek and Roman music draws on a variety of sources: iconographic, literary, and archaeological. The musical scenes, depicted on vases and frescoes, on sculptural decorations and figures, as well as on coins and precious stones, form one piece of the puzzle. an iconography
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HARMONICOI INTRODUCTION VERIFICATION:
Aristoxenus criticized earlier authors, whom he called harmonics (harmonicists), for paying too much attention to mathematical proportions in determining scales and intervals; he argued that these must be judged by sensory perception. The trained ear, he claimed, recognizes the unique functional quality of sounds; In his opinion, the dynamic context of music should be evaluated empirically, not by measuring interval sizes or naming notes.
The nature and order of harmony does not depend on the properties of the instruments... neither the auloi nor any other instrument will provide a basis for the principles of harmony. There is a certain wonderful order inherent in harmony in general; in this order, each instrument contributes within the limits of its possibilities under the direction of that sensory perception on which, like everything else in music, it ultimately depends. To suppose, because day after day you see the same finger holes and the same tension in the strings, which finds harmony with their consistency and their eternally unchanging order, that is sheer madness. For just as there is no harmony in the strings, except that bestowed by the cunning of the hand, so in the holes of the fingers there is no harmony, except that introduced by the same authority. That no instrument tunes itself and that its harmonization is the prerogative of the senses is obvious and needs no proof. SOURCE: Aristoxenus, The Harmonics of Aristoxenus. Trans. HS Macran (Oxford: Clarendon, 1902): 187-198. Reprinted in Source Readings in Music History: Antiquity and the Middle Ages. edited by Oliver Strunk (New York: WW Norton, 1965): 31-32.
The image can show the position of a musician's hands or mouth on an instrument and the number of strings on a lyre or holes in a whistle. the relative size of an instrument and the material used in its manufacture can, in some cases, be reasonably determined by examining an image; then an assumption can be made, but no more than that, as to pitch, pitch, and volume. Pictures can show which instruments are played together by whom and for what occasion. Ancient poets, historians, lexicographers, philosophers and theorists, most of them Greek, contribute much more to the modern understanding of the scientific principles of music and the role it plays.
sic played in society and culture. Archaeological discovery of actual musical compositions carved in stone or written on papyrus manuscripts and actual musical instruments recovered from excavated settlements and tombs can either confirm or contradict what has been inferred from written and iconographic sources. Finally, comparative studies of the musical traditions of other cultures that influenced or were influenced by Greece and Rome have greatly contributed to our general understanding of ancient Greek and Roman music. WRITTEN SOURCES. The earliest written sources on music are descriptions of musical instruments, performance, and musical forms in Homer's epics (8th century BC); in the poetry of Sappho, Alceo, Alcman, Pindar and others (7th-5th centuries BC); and in Athenian tragedy and comedy written in the fifth century BC. the EG of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes. Historians, mythographers, and scholars writing after the fifth century attributed the invention of musical instruments and melodic forms to deities or to innovative musicians, composers, and singers. During the late 6th and early 4th centuries, the philosophical schools of Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle were founded; they influenced all subsequent scientific and theoretical reflections on music. The best application of Aristotelian science to music is the work of Aristoxenus. Aristoxenus was born around 370 BC. Born in Calabria, Italy, in Athens, he studied at the Pythagorean School and was Aristotle's star student. Aristoxenus is said to have written 453 essays on various subjects, but most of his writings survive only in fragments, quoted by other authors. Two major theoretical works on music by Aristoxenus, harmonica and rhythmic, greatly influenced later theorists. The Pythagoreans' mathematical approach to harmony is best described in a book from the 4th century BC. anonymous treatise sometimes (erroneously) attributed to Euclid, known as the Sectio canonis ("division of the canon"). The title referred to the Pythagorean method of using a canon ("ruler") to mathematically measure the pitches of notes as a function of string length. The Alexandrian astronomer Claudius Ptolemy supported this approach to acoustics in his harmonica. In the first century CE, the Roman architect Vitruvius made a contribution to the science of acoustics when he applied the principle of sound waves to the design of a theater room. Vitruvius translated Aristoxenus' harmonica into Latin and apologized to his readers for the lack of Latin equivalents for many of the Greek terms used in music theory. Much information about musical life can also be found in many non-theoretical works: Athenaeus of Crete (circa 200 AD) wrote a dialogue on Greek symbolism.
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Posium called Deipnosophistai, in which he named, described and defined 25 skolia (drinking songs) along with their performance techniques; His contemporary, a lexicographer named Pollux, compiled technical terms, analyzed types of aulos (cane tube) and types of horn (particularly salpinx), and described Greek drama and comedy structure in his lexicon, the Onomasticon. Aristoxenus and his followers. Aristoxenus' harmonica and rhythm were two of the most influential musical treatises. His discussions and explanations of intervals, tetrachords and harmonic systems were particularly important. He identified melody elements and the three genres of the tetrachord: diatonic, enharmonic, and chromatic. A series of important philosophical, theoretical and historical works written between the 2nd and 5th centuries AD. they reinforce and expand on Aristoxenus' work, including Cleonides' Introductio da Harmonica, Ps.-Plutarch's De Musica, Gaudencio's Harmonica, Alypius' Introductio Musica. , and De musica by Aristides Quintilianus. These works provide valuable explanations of the Greek musical system, including notation, melody, rhythm, scales, modulation, consonance and dissonance, and the scientific problems of acoustics. Later, during the Byzantine period (10th-12th centuries AD), material on music based on earlier work by Aristoxenus and Aristides was transmitted in manuscript form. An important collection of this kind is the so-called Anonymous Bellermanni, edited by F. Bellermann in 1841 CE, which contains the only surviving description of rhythmic notation. SCALE AND VOTE. Already in the 7th century BC. talented kitharodes and aulodes (musicians who sing while playing their instruments) taught others to play and sing; They must have developed a vocabulary of terms for explaining techniques and demonstrating techniques on their instruments. His students learned by imitation and practice. From the 5th century BC to the 4th century AD (and even later) the Greeks used the term harmonikoi to designate the teachers, scientists and philosophers they considered experts in music theory; The study of the basic components of music (notes, intervals, scales, genres, tonoi, modulation, melodic patterns) was known as "harmonics". The word harmony was originally used in Homeric poetry to mean "union, connection", so the modern word "harmony" is literally a "peak" of notes. The earliest use of armonia as a specific musical term occurs in a poetic fragment of Lasus by Hermione, an innovative kitharode (singer, lyre player, and player) who worked as a professional composer in Athens in the late 6th and early 5th centuries. B.C. The verse reads, “I sing of Demeter
Aristotle on the Introduction to Music:
In Books VII and VIII of the Politics, Aristotle considered building the ideal state with special attention to education and the arts. He argued with Plato's notion that music is more than fun; affects the soul. As young people (and humanity in general) are encouraged to imitate what they see and hear, the character and quality of all melodies and styles of music must be carefully considered before they are chosen for educational purposes.
There is a natural distinction between modes that elicits different responses from listeners, who don't all have the same opinion about each one. For example, men tend to be sad and solemn when they hear what is called Mixo-Lydian; but they are more relaxed when listening to others, for example, in more relaxed moods. A particularly balanced feeling, midway between these, is produced, I believe, only by the Doric key, while the Phrygian one intoxicates people with excitement. ... Music certainly has the power to evoke a certain character of the soul, and if it can do this it must clearly be applied to education and the young must be brought up in it. SPRING:
Aristóteles, Politik. Trans. T. A. Sinclair (Harmondsworth, Inglaterra: Penguin, 1981): 466.
and of Kore, the wife of Clymenos, singing the sweet hymn in the soft and roaring harmony of the wind.” In Lasus's time, a harmony represented a complete complex, including text, rhythm and meter, mood, scale and melody, associated with a specific geographical region: Aeolian, Phrygian, Doric, Lydian, Ionian. HARMONIAI CHARACTER. The precise nature of regional (or tribal) harmony is unknown. Plato defines the character of two varieties of Lydian harmony in the Republic as "sad", Ionian and Lydian generally as "good for drinking at parties", Doric as "manly" and Phrygian as "inspiring enthusiasm". In politics, Aristotle, who sometimes disagreed with his teacher Plato about the character of the various harmonies, agreed that the Doric was "the most serious and the most suitable for education"; he described the Lydian as "suitable for young children", but agreed
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thurium EC). His intention was to present the fifteen tonosi, covering the range of three octaves and one tone, complete with vocal and instrumental notation in each of the three scale types: diatonic, chromatic, and enharmonic. In the composite table below, Tonoi ethnic names are listed on the left in low and high form. At the top are the names of the notes and their position in the tetrachord. The staff represents the conventional approximation of pitches in each scale.
INTRODUCTION OF ALYPIC NOTATION TABLES:
The musical notation or tonoi (literally "voice record") used for the fifteen transposing scales survives in the tables of notation included by the theorist Alipius in his Introductio musicae (4th-5th centuries).
Paranete cro. diat.
TRUE
Paranete cro. diat.
Banal
overkill
TRUE
the witness Meno
Banal
paramedic
Paranete cro. diat.
TRUE
Banal
Lichanos cro diat
Synemmeno
Mes
Hip
Lichanos cro diat
to participate
Mason
Hypaton parypato
pile up
Proslambanomenos Hypate
The Alpia table of all notes (and scales)
hyperliterate
F
hypereolic
F hiperfrigio
F
F
F
hyperiastic
F F hyperdoriscus
F
[Continuation]
CREATED BY GGS INFORMATION SERVICES. STORM.
that the Phrygian harmony played in the aulos during the ecstatic adoration of Dionysus was too emotional to be used at school. Certain harmonies, such as the so-called "Tense Lydia", were more suitable for women, while the 222
"Slack" Ionian and Lydian were smoother and easier to sing. Greek poets sometimes expressed a preference for one or the other of the harmonies. The fifth-century poet Pindar praised the Doric as the most dignified and
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Paranete cro. diat.
13
Banal
12
TRUE
Paranete cro. diat.
TRUE
overkill
Banal
diezeugmenon parameses
Paranete cro. diat.
TRUE
Lichanos cro diat
Banal
to participate
Hip
Lichanos cro diat
Synemmeno
Mes
Mason
Hypaton parypato
pile up
Proslambanomenos Hypate
The Alpia table of all notes (and scales) [CONTINUED]
lydia 1
2
R3
F
19
4
5
6
20
7
8
9
21
10
11
22
14
15
sixteen
F
23
17 18
Vento
F
F
Phrygian
F
F
F
F
F
F
Asian
dorio
F
[Continuation]
He used Lydian in several of his Epinician odes (praising athletes). Dithyramb (choral dance) composers such as Alcman used Phrygian. The Mixolydian and Dorian were used in the tragedy. Perhaps the clearest-
The definition of harmonyi is found in the work De musica by the theorist Aristides Quintilian, from the 3rd to 4th century AD. He listed the notes of six harmonies and added that there were other tetrachord subdivisions.
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Paranete cro. diat.
TRUE
Paranete cro. diat.
Banal
overkill
TRUE
the witness Meno
Banal
paramedic
Paranete cro. diat.
TRUE
Lichanos cro diat
Banal
Synemmeno
Mes
Hip
to participate
Lichanos cro diat
to participate
Mason
hipate hipate
pile up
Proslambanomenos
The Alpia table of all notes (and scales) [CONTINUED]
hypolid
R
F
F
hypoeolian
F
F
F
F
F
hipofrigioma
F
from hipoja
F F
F
F
F
F
hipodoriano
F
CREATED BY GGS INFORMATION SERVICES. STORM. SOURCE: K. von Jan, Greek Music Writers: Aristotle, Euclid, Nicomacher, Bacchus, Gaudentius, Alypius and Ancient Melodies, Exist. Tables are attached. (Leipzig: Teubner, 1895).
used by the "oldest people" (probably referring to the 5th century BC): Lydian and Ionian 'time' (less than an octave); Phrygian, Lydian, and Mixolydian (spanning one octave); and Dorian (spanning an octave and a tone). He explained that each of these harmonies had its own particular set of interval relationships, forming what were called "octave varieties". THE PERFECT SYSTEMS. The tetrachord - four connected notes forming a perfect fourth - was the 224th fundamental
Building block of ancient Greek musical scale. A connected series of tetrachords in conjunction or disjunction formed the so-called systema teleion ("perfect system"), first mentioned by Aristoxenus, but defined and explained in the manuals of Aristides Quintilianus, Cleonides, and other theorists. A joined tetrachord is formed when the last note of one tetrachord coincides with the first note of the next; Disjunction occurs when two tetrachords are separated by the interval of one tone. Two tetrachords together form the heptachord (seven-tone system).
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Music
Since a fourth plus a tone equaled a fifth, a pair of disjoint tetrachords was actually a fourth and a fifth, making an octave. A pair of tetrachords combined with an additional tone above or below equals an octave (a fourth plus a fifth or vice versa). The steps within the tetrachords were all higher or lower than a tone. The names of the eight-octave notes refer to the seven strings of the lyre, plus one, the lowest, which was added later: hypate ("the main voice") was the farthest from the player's body, parhypate ("next to of a hypate"), lichanos ("touched by the index finger"), mese (the "middle"), paramese ("next to mese"), trite (the "third" from top to bottom), paranete ("to join closest") and join (the "Last"). THE PERFECT MAJOR AND MINOR SYSTEMS. Theorists have described two "perfect systems". According to Aristides, the systema teleion elatton ("Minor Perfect System") consisted of three conjunctive tetrachords plus the proslambanomenos, an "added lower sound". dem Hypate. Four conjunctive tetrachords, separated by a disjunctive tone, plus the proslambanomenos, formed the systema teleion meizon ("great perfect system"). Played in succession, the two perfect staves were called the systema teleion ametabolon ('perfect unchanging system'). Despite a series of theoretical treatises and manuals describing and explaining the theory of these systems, their application to performance and the resulting music sound remains unclear. TRANSPOSITION KEY. Aristoxenus used the terms tonoi to refer to "positions of the voice". Later, Cleonides defined tones or tropes such as note, interval, voice position and pitch. Difficulties arise because writers do not always distinguish tones from harmonies; Aristoxenus said that the harmonikoi already associated the 'octaves' with the Harmoniai, and Ptolemy applied the term tonoi to the 'octaves', which were explained as 'transposition keys' used to solve the problem of different vowels in the chorus Cleonides' groups assigned thirteen tonoi for Aristoxenus; Aristides Quintilianus noted that "younger theorists" added two additional tonoi to a total of fifteen preserved in Alipius' notation tables. The tonoi manifested themselves in three genres: diatonic, chromatic and enharmonic; Each tone started one tone within a semitone of the next and consisted of a series of tetrachords (four connected notes that form a perfect fourth). The five middle Tonoi had the same regional names as the Harmoniiai: Lydian, Aeolian, Phrygian, Iastic, and Doric. The five highest tones were preceded by Hyper (eg Hyperlydian), the lowest five - Hippo (eg Hippodorian).
MEASUREMENT AND RHYTHM. In English, meter (or accent) is determined by the stress on a syllable. In the tongue twister "Peter Piper pecked a packet of pickled peppers", correct pronunciation requires that the stress be on the first syllable of each word; This accent determines the rhythm of the line, and any deviation would spoil the meter. Ancient Greek meter was not based on accent but on tone; an increase in the pitch of the voice determined the meter. Ancient scholars developed a system of written accents to explain pronunciation: the oxytone ("high") accent meant to raise a pitch, the baritone ("low") marked a lower or diminished pitch (used exclusively at the end of a word). . . ), and the perispomenum ("circumflex") indicated a combination of rising and falling tones in a syllable. The metric standards of Greek and Latin singing and speech were based on long and short syllables. Ancient metrics explained that the value of one long syllable (–) is equal to two short syllables (傼傼). In many poetic meters these two quantities were interchangeable. Aristotle, Aristoxenus, and other rhythmic authors assigned proportionate proportions of long and short syllables to each unit (called "foot"): – 傼傼 (dactyl) = 1:1; – – (sponsored) = 1:1;傼 – (yambus) = 1:2; – 傼 傼 傼 (pawn) = 2:3; Etc. The 2:1 ratio prevailed and variations were small. Time was marked by stamping the foot: "up" or "up" was denoted by the word arsis, while "down" or "step" was denoted by thesis. Each measure (or "foot") of poetry was divided into "above" and "below" segments. Ancient composers were limited by the metric types at their disposal, and until the mid-fifth century, meter simply dictated the tempo of the verse. From Timothy of Miletus (ca. 450-360 BC) was the elegiac couplet, a stanza consisting of a dactylic hexameter followed by – 傼傼 – 傼傼 – 兩 – 傼傼 – 傼傼 – 储. Iambic (傼 -) was usually combined into the so-called metron 傼 - 傼 - which can be seen in many variants. A common pattern was the iambic trimeter 傼 – 傼 – 傼 – 傼 – 傼 – 傼 –; the first iambic formed the thesis (strong blow) and the second the arsis (strong blow). There were many variations of this rhythm and it was popular in spoken verse as well as poetry, tragedy and comedy. If the first two note values of the meter (-傼傼-) were transposed, the so-called Coriambo was created. The opposite of iambic is the 'stumble' trochaic rhythm (–傼–傼) which, when played in succession, always ends its meter with a rest (–傼–). Peony rhythms (–傼– or –傼傼傼 or 傼傼傼傼傼) – also called Cretan – were played in fivefold time and used in serious hymns and war chants, as well as in light dance music; They were favored by certain lyric and tragic poets. The comic playwright Aristophanes often used the peonic, which could be switched
Arts and Humanities Through the Ages: Ancient Greece and Rome (1200 BC - 476 AD)
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Music
with trochaic meters. Among the surviving fragments of ancient Greek musical compositions are two Delphic hymns from the 2nd century BC. reveal an extensive notation that is almost entirely in peonic rhythm. The last surviving example of the use of peonian rhythm is a poem by the composer Mesomedes (sponsored by Emperor Hadrian) that shows three new ways of combining long and short. This is how the peonian rhythm developed in the 7th century BC. EC of two variants. to seven in the 2nd century AD The five-syllable Dochmiac (傼– –傼–) was a variegated rhythm with an irregular pattern, and possibly a combination of iambic, anapastic, and peonic forms. There is no evidence of its use before the 5th century, but it was popular in tragedy, particularly in highly charged scenes in Euripides' plays, where it involved long strings of many short, consecutive tones. Ionian rhythm (傼傼–– 傼傼––), first described by the lyric poets Sappho and Alcaeus of Lesvos in the 6th century BC Many variations of this rhythm were possible. The so-called anemometer was frequently used by Sappho and Alcaeus and other poets between the 6th and 4th centuries BC. used. This rhythm is characterized by the coexistence of simple and paired short tones, starting with a free or indefinite series of short or long tones: the most common was –傼傼–傼–. MELODY. No complete treatment of Aristoxenus on melody survives, but on his harmonica he distinguished between the melody of speech and that of music; The melodic language was based on word stress, while the musical melody moved through specific intervals with greater pitch variations. Early traditional vocal melodies were simple, constrained by the pattern of long and short syllables in verse meter and the small number of strings on the lyre or holes in the flute. Modulation (passing from one note to another) and heterophony (when the lyre's strings play one melody while the singer sings another) were not commonly practiced. This started in the 7th century BC. BC, when poets like Arquílochus introduced the combination of different rhythmic genres, the mixture of spoken text with instrumental accompaniment and singing, and an instrumental accompaniment that did not follow the melodic line in unison. . In the middle of the 5th century BC. C. virtuoso composers and performers expanded and modified their instruments and playing techniques: more strings were added to the lyre, the vocal range was expanded, and the use of the scale's chromatic genre added more notes. Melodic flourishes and melismas (two or more notes sung in a single syllable) occur in important words 226
(such as the names of mythical gods or heroes), and the words of songs no longer matched the melody note for note. In the Laws, Plato criticized melodic and rhythmic heterophony as too complex and disturbing to be used in music education. Some Latin writers, such as Cicero, also vilified the melodic complexity of "modern" music and yearned for the simple, ancient melodies of yesteryear. However, the floral style remained popular throughout the Roman period, as evidenced by musical compositions preserved in papyri from the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD. MELODY FORM. Aristides Quintilianus wrote that before a lyre begins music, it would select a voice register, decide on scale structure, genre and key, and consider the style of the melody. Two terms were used in Greek for “melody, song, composition”: melos and nomos. The Greeks defined melos simply as 'melody', but more broadly as an art form incorporating notes, melody, rhythm and lyrics. The term nomos (law, custom) has been used by poets in general to designate any type of song or melodic composition, from birdsong to songs in a musician's repertoire. Professional musicians and theorists have used the term nomos more narrowly to identify: (1) a specific tune used for an occasion (eg, a sacrifice or funeral); (2) a composition for kithara (lyre) or aulos (reed flute); (3) a song to a deit