Homeric and Archaic Greek Communities: Homer

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Homeric and Archaic Greek CommunitiesHomer
Herodotus

• Reconstructing history from epic poetry, history
  and material culture

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Periodization of history
1200 1100 1000 900 800 700 600 500

End of Bronze Age 2000-1200 BCE End of Bronze Age 2000-1200 BCE
Trojan War 1186 BCE
Dorian migration? 1200-1100? Dorian migration? 1200-1100? Dorians 950
Dark / Iron Ages 1150-800/750 Dark / Iron Ages 1150-800/750    
Archaic Age 750-480 Archaic Age 750-480  
Homer 800-700
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Homer and the world he creates

• What constitutes a community in the
• family (????? génos)?
• household (????? oikos)?
• palace (µ??a??? mégaron)?
• world of the elite (???st?? áristoi)?
• world of the people (d?µ?? demos)?
• world of the slaves (d????? doúloi)?
• world of the other (????? xénoi)?

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Homer and the world he creates

• What do the passages from the Odyssey selection
  1 on the handout tell us about conceptions of
  community in the Homeric world?
• political values
• class distinctions
• gender distinctions
• generational relationships
• hosts and guests
• economic values

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Cultural values

• ?e??a xenía guest-friendship
• d??? díke justice
• ??et? arete excellence, virtue
• t?µ? tíme honor
• ????? kléos respect, reputation
• ??d?e?a andreia manliness
• ???? ágon competition
• a?d?? (avoidance of) aidos shame

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Cup of Nestor, ca. 750 BCE, Pithekussai,
Italy Reconstruction ??S????S ???? ???????
???????? ??S ? ?? ???? ???S? ???????
?????? ????? ??????S ?????S?? ?????S??F???
?F??????S Translation Of Nestor I am the
pleasant-to-drink-from cup Whoever drinks from
this cup, immediately him A desire will seize for
fair-crowned Aphrodite. Homeric references Homer
Odyssey 3.71-72 Athena offered Nestors
rich two-handled cup to Telemachus, Odysseus
son .... Homer Iliad 11.632-637 There was
also a cup of rare workmanship which Nestor had
brought with him from home, studded with bosses
of gold it had four handles, on each of which
there were two golden doves feeding, and it had
two feet to stand on.
Gold cup, Mycenae, 1500 BCE
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Herodotus Histories

• What does passage 2 - Herodotus Histories 8.144
  - tell us about his notions of community?
• "There is the Greek nation - the community of
  blood and language, temples and ritual, and our
  common customs .
• blood and language
• temples and ritual
• common customs

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Olympia, Sanctuary of Zeus stadium
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Agon competition

• Pankration

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Rhapsodes and performance
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Herodotus Histories

• What does passage 3 - Herodotus Histories the
  prooimion (p????µ??? opening song) tell us
  about the focus of his work?
• What does his characterization of the Nile tell
  us about his historiographic methodology?
• What does his study of Egyptian culture tell us
  about his attitudes and approaches towards other
  peoples?

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Archaic Age 750-480

• Land and topography
• Limited arable land
• Crops oil, wine
• Contact with Phoenicians
• Alphabet ABGDEZ YIKLM NOPRSTUFX
• later H
  J CV
• Codification of law
• Land pressures, growing population, interest in
  exploration, inquiry (?st???? historie), all led
  to
• revolutions and factionalism (the nostoi)
• migrations
• Dorian invasion
• colonization

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Delphi, Sanctuary of Apollo temple of Apollo
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Distribution of colonies
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Colonization 750-600 BCE

• Acquisition of
• arete, time, kleos
• knowledge of other places
• economic political opportunities
• Process
• Consult Delphic oracle
• Send out nobles, landless poor, disenfranchised
  politicals, exiles, merchants
• Founder oikistes to found an oikos
• Stake out land, temenos
• Reliance on hoplites (hoplon)
• Maintain connection to mother-city
• Places to colonize southern Italy, Sicily, Black
  Sea

Chigi Vase (detail), ca. 650 BCE
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Athens Acropolis and Agora (now)
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Athens Acropolis and Agora (then)
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Herodotus Histories

• What does passage 4 Herodotus on events in
  Athens in 508 BCE tell us about the evolution
  of the Athenian community?

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The p???? (pólis or autonomous city-state), ca.
700-500 BCE

• Colonization contributed to the sense of
  isolation and autonomy
• city-state (p???? polis) autonomous,
  self-governing, urban (?st? astu) and rural
  (???a chora)
• usually fortified with a high point (????p????
  akropolis)
• identified with the citizens (p???ta? politai)
• ruled by the best (???st?? aristoi) hence,
  aristocracy

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Archaic age

• an age of political development
• an age of intellectual curiosity
• an age of artistic achievement
• an age of kings giving way to aristocrats giving
  way to oligarchs giving way to tyrants and, in
  some poleis, democracy

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Persian Wars defending the Greek way of life,
490-480 BCE

• Persian motivation
• vengeance against Greeks (esp. Athens) for role
  in civil unrest and attempted revolt in 499-494
  BCE
• conquest of new lands
• Major battles
• 490, Marathon Athens, Plataeans defeats Persians
• 480, Thermopylae stalemate
• 480, Salamis Athens, Corinth, Greeks defeat
  Persians
• 479, Plataea Sparta, Athens, Greeks defeat
  Persians

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Herodotus Histories and the Persian Wars

• In the last passages, what were the key values to
  the Greeks as exemplified by the Spartans at
  Thermopylae?
• How does Herodotus present the Persians in this
  account and how do their values differ from those
  of the Greeks?

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Persian Wars
Darius I of Persia
Modern statue of Leonidas
Trireme Olympias
Spartan hoplites
Extent of the Persian Empire
Persian Wars, 490-479 BCEReal and Imagined