I. Ancient History 21: Greece and Rome--starting up.
A. Explain (honestly) status of class, need for more students,
textbooks, office policy/E-Mail, distribute syllabi.
B. Cards--Names, majors, two-three sentences on interests, E-
Mail addresses, phone numbers, yes/no on changing class
format.
C. Check cards, if no "no's", re-schedule.
D. Talk with students about their interests.
II.Course Philosophy--
A. Mini-biography: how I got into this Mess
B. Basic idea--Fundamental legacy of Ancient Civilizations
1. Western Civilization Mk. I.
a) Invasions from the North
(1) Persians--2000 B.C--Cyrus, 550
(2) Minoan-Mycenean--1900
(3) Dorian Invasion--1150
(4) Persian Invasion of Greece--490/80
(5) Macedonian Invasion--356-338
(6) Gallic Invasions--400 in Italy, 300's in Greece
(7) German Invasion of Italy--104-100
(8) Parthians, Sassanians--54
(9) Goths--A.D. 364
(10) Huns--Attila in 453
(11) Tartars, Turks, Tamerlane--The Fulda Gap
b) Basic Legacies--
(1) Human Liberty--Greeks fight Persia--Thermopyle
(2) Democracy--Athens and Elsewhere
(3) Value of Learning--Seven Sages, Sophists
(4) Individualism
(a) Duality between Man and God
(b) Capitalism
(c) Philosophy
(5) Their History
(a) They valued it
(i)Thucydides: "So that you will see that we have
suffered too."
(ii) Colossus of Rhodes--nail Lazarus
(b) Others have since:
(i)That British Monk
(ii) The Renaissance--Petrarch, Leonardo, Dante
(iii) Shakespeare
(iv) Founding Fathers
III. Plutarch--Philosopher-Priest-Teacher.
A. Biography
1. Born in Chaeronea, site of final loss of Greek independence
vs. Macedonia
2. Old Family--much of ancient education family oral history.
3. Greek in World dominated by Rome--glory days behind them
(cf. Modern Britons
4. Five children
5. Priest of Apollo at Delphi
6. Visit to Rome (consularis?) c. 90, lectured.
7. Philosopher--Read Plato, Aristotle
B. Writings--
1. Moralia--writings meant to educate and inform
2. Lives--Twofold purpose
a) Educate Modern Greeks/Romans by example
b) Educate Romans of past Greek achievements
3. Outstanding success
a) Statue in 500, epigram
b) Shipwreck--Book to be salvaged
c) Preservation of most of his writings throughout Middle Ages
d) Editions listed on pp. xxiii of text,
e) Translations-
(1) Sir Thomas North
(2) This One--North, Dryden fronting for revisers.
(3) Problems with Penguins
4. Why I want the comparisions read--
a) Additional Information
b) Source Criticism
(1) Difference Between Primary, Secondary Sources
(2) Sifitng Out Plutarch
(3) "Subjectivity" and the four pointing fingers.
V. Hand in Hand with Plutarch--What He Says, What it Means
A. The method here shall be to take you through the text of
Plutarch, explaining the unclear stuff as we go. Gradually, I'll
need to explain less and you'll find the going easier. Your
questions are a valid way of telling me what needs to be
explained, and prevent mishap.
1. Other helps:
a) The OCD--Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd Edition Pending.
(1) Plutarch Most Well-Known source, entries for every
one of his lives.
(2) Plutarch as standard--most of the answers, in fact,
there--but no substitute for class and/or reading!
Quizzes prove.
b) Starr--Good general history with Index
c) Pauly-Wissowa--German Encyclopedia, Large and Kleine
Pauly
d) Me--In Class, by E-Mail
B. Theseus--Age of Heroes
1. Probably lived c. 1200-1100 B.C., "The Age of Heroes."
a) Older, bronze-based Mycenean culture at height
b) Had a literate culture, but lost literacy due to Dorian
Invasion
c) Legends from that time survived--Schliemann and the
Trojan War
2. Source Criticism of Plutarch
a) Sosius: Sosius Senecio --One of the Consuls under the
Emperor Trajan (98-117).
(1) Probably commander in Trajan's Dacian War
(2) Trajan fancied himself a 2nd Alexander, hence
popularity of "Ancient" Greek history
(3) Patron of Plutarch--
(a) "The Godfather" wedding scene--Roman system, not so
much used in the Greek World (but not unknown there,
either)
(b) Patrons offered support/political patronage--A Greek
needed that in Rome to get doors opened for him
(i)Access to private libraries and family histories
(ii) Attendance at Plutarch's lectures
(c) Clients celebrated name of patron--hence references to
Sosius in Plutarch's Work!
(d) Note description of the system in the Life of Romulus
(p. 32)
3. Note Plutarch's very opening paragraph (have books
handy!!)--Many people say that there's no point going back
this far because of the lack of historical record, but
Plutarch believed himself capable of sifting out the
improbable(p.3) "purifying processes of Reason"--what are
the modern scholars doing?
a) Aristotle, most famous intellectual, had included legends of
Theseus in his Constitution of Athens, which survives
b) Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus (both 1st C.) had
included Romulus in their "straight histories."
c) We can fault Plutarch's reasoning, but we really can't call
him gullible.
4. Always--Always Always Always--Remember that Plutarch is
a moralizing priest who is writing to make his readers
better men by Neo-Platonic standards.
C. Background of Athens
1. Off the main invasion routes during the Dorian Invasion
a) Not particularly fertile land, best crops of Wine and Olives
products of more advanced farming
b) Language very similar to that of Mycenean (Ionian/Aeolian)
Greeks who fled before the Dorians into Asia Minor
c) Athenian legends claimed that they were always there BUT
(1) Admitted conquest by King Minos
(2) "Pelasgian Wall" (pre-Mycenean) on the Acropolis
d) Legends of Erechthonius, Cecrops
(1) Athena/Poseidon
(2) Ge and Ophidophorm bodies
(3) Political power of myth (Invasion of Haiti!)
D. Plutarch priest of Apollo at Delphi--believes Oracles
1. Aegeus and the wine-skin
2. Modern theories of fertility
3. Note in comparison--(p.49)--Aegeus' indiscretion in Troezen
meant that Theseus's birth was unpleasing to the gods--
hence his troubles?
E. Legends of the Hero--Joseph Campbell and the Folklorists
1. Theseus's Emulation of Heracles--Athens wants its own
Hero
2. Heracles hero of Argos
F. Greece emerging from the dark ages--Slaughter of thieves,
Invasions
a) Story of Sciron--Plutarch (and you!) trying to reconcile
disparate traditions
(1) Megara bitter enemy of Athens--Sciron thief-taker and
gives Megarian arguments (Megarian decree of 432,
Athenian occupations of Megara during the P.W. (431-
404) and after)
(2) Plutarch (as in story of Phaea--sow/whore) adopts
Herodotus's (485-430) old trick of offering both stories
and not saying which one he believes.
(3) Mythography by that time an established study--cf.
Pausanias's (c.150) travellogue of Greece and the
myths attached to every place, e.g., Ariadne's nurse's
grave on Naxos (p. 13)
b) Legend of Minos
(1) Powerful king, Labyrinth, Navy (Thucydides in the
Archaeologica)
End as of 1/24/95