Homepage Syllabus Schedule Instructor Resources

Greek and Roman Religions, Fall 1999

September 23, 1999


WEEKLY ASSIGNMENT DUE TODAY: Read Burkert, Part III, The Gods:  pp. 119-125 

Skim Burkert, Part IV, The Dead, Heroes, and Chthonic Gods:  pp. 190-208 

Skim Burkert, Part VI, Mysteries and Asceticism:  pp. 276-304 

You might want to come back later in the course and read sections IV and VI more carefully, but the idea now is to get an 
overview of the types of religion in ancient Greece. 

Read Hesiod's Theogony:  lines 1-210, 459-731   [text]

 
SESSION LEADER:  Read the entire Theogony.  Be prepared to give a short discussion of who Hesiod was and what he wrote.  If possible, try to figure out what his significance was for later generations.  You might want to consult OCD.  If you feel eager, you might also have a look at the introduction to M.L. West's commentary. 

 
 
 
LECTURE NOTES:

Greek Literature: Genres, Authors, and Works

Epic
 

The problem of dating 

Definition of Epic:  meter, size of work, subject matter 

Homer: 
 

education of Greece:  style, content, model against which to measure oneself as a writer 

provides a distinct view of the gods and their relations with men:  he is both a model for later generations and an example of thinking in the late Archaic Period 

two epics about the Trojan War and its aftermath:  Iliad and Odyssey.  Very different world views, different but related styles. 

Analytic vs. Unitarian readings 

originality of Homer, genius of Homer, etc.:  how do we measure these?

Hesiod 
 

two main works:  Theogony and Works and Days.  Minor works:  Shield, Catalog of Women. 

very different from Homer in size, subject;  similar in meter and dialect 

Locus classicus for Greek cosmologies
 

Lyric
 

Definitions of Lyric Poetry: 
 
Broad sense:  as distinguished from epic by meter (short lines vs. long in epic) and subject (more personal, small subjects). 

Narrow sense:  monody accompanied by the lyre. 

Divisions of lyric broadly construed:  choral song and monody; the latter is divided into lyric narrowly construed and elegiac/iambic, which did not have musical accompaniment. 

Modern divisions between types of lyric poetry are based on Alexandrian distinctions; they might represent very poorly the genetic basis of the genres, and probably don't represent all the distinctions in the minds of the authors. 
 
Next lecture (October 7) will go into greater detail about individual authors. 

Begins in the archaic period, extends into the Hellenistic period and beyond. 

 

Drama:  Tragedy
 

The Birth of Tragedy:  according to Aristotle, derived from lyric. 

Made use of a variety of lyric meters, but extended the dramatic properties.  Many Homeric subjects, but not Homeric treatment; also other mythological subjects. 

Presented in festival of Dionysus, hence necessarily religious in some sense. 

Aeschylus:  fl. 472 - 458.   Persians, Oresteia Trilogy. 

Sophocles:  fl. 440 - 430.  Ajax, Antigone, Oedipus, Electra. 

Euripides:  fl. 440 - 400.  Medea, Heracleidae, Electra, Heracles. 
 

Drama:  Comedy
 

Aristophanes:  fl. 425 - 388 

Menander:  342 - 293 
 

History
 

Herodotus:  History of the Persian Wars;  substratum indicative of logographers, ethnographers.  historia as 'inquiry'. 

Thucydides:  History of the Peloponnesian War.  More sophisticated view of historical study. 

Xenophon:  Historian of his own times and philosopher; student of Socrates. 

Aristotle:  historian of philosophy, political and constitutional historian (and, of course, a philosopher in his own right). 
 

Oratory
 

Relations between forensic oratory, rhetoric, and philosophy. 

Antiphon(s):  the orator and the sophist. 

Andocides and the Mutilation of the Herms. 

Demosthenes:  most noted for speeches against Philip of Macedon and in support of Athenian independence. 
 

Technical Disciplines
 

Medicine and Biology 

Mathematics 

Astronomy 
 

Philosophy
 

Milesians (Asia Minor):  according to later doxography, were materialists concerned with the basic stuff and functioning of the world.  Viewed as proto-scientific in 20th century.  Thales (fl. 585), Anaximander (d. c. 547), Anaximenes (fl 546 - 525). 

[doxography:  accounts of the beliefs of earlier philosophers] 

West Greeks:  more mystical and 'religious' than the Milesians.  Pythagoras (fl 530), Parmenides (fl 450). 

Athenians:  thanks to social and political factors, all philosophers by the 5th - 4th centuries seemed to migrate to Athens. 

Sophists:  allegedly, teachers of rhetoric and interested in success and persuasion more than truth. 

Socrates (469 - 399):  wrote nothing, but father of philosophy as a discipline. 

Plato (429 - 347):  student of Socrates, but influenced by West Greek tradition. 

Xenophon  (b. 430):  student of Socrates, general and historian. 

Aristotle (384 - 322):  student of Plato, philosopher, biologist, historian, polymath. 

Later Developments as well. 
 

Greek Literature in the Roman Period
 


 

Greek Literature: Basic Issues