Introduction to Ancient Greece Ideas, Culture, Legacy.

Introduction to Introduction to Ancient GreeceAncient Greece

Ideas, Culture, Legacy

Greek Achievement

“They wanted to know what things are and what things mean.”

—Edith Hamilton

Created written language that was used as a permanent record.

Greek Accomplishments

• The City-State• Democracy• Jurisprudence• Mystery Cults• Reason• Systematic Analysis and Scientific Method

• Epic Poetry

• Lyric• Music• Mathematics• Physical Sciences• Ethics• Political Science• History• Psychology

City-State

• Allowed for people to come together for market, school, prayer.

• Allowed for exchange of ideas.

• Ostracism considered worse than death.

Democracy and Jurisprudence

• Created participatory government (excluded slaves and women).

• “innocent before proven guilty” concept established

Mystery Cults:Dionysis

• Dionysis was the Greek god of fertility, wine, and drama (party god).

• Greeks held drama festivals in his honor (that’s where Oedipus was originally performed).

Science and Reasoning

• Aristotle in particular focused on science and reasoning

• Observation, classification based on analysis

• That’s what we do now (scientific method)

ArtsEpic Poetry

LyricMusic

Epic Poetry

Homer’s “Rosy-fingered dawn”

Sappho’s LyricsFull Moon

The glow and beauty of the starsAre nothing near the splendid moon

When in her roundness she burns silverAbout the world

ThenIn gold sandalsDawn like a thief

Fell upon me

Music• Instruments

associated with gods (Pan, Apollo)

• Pythagoreans: cosmos generated out of music

• Plato speculated on impact of music on emotions

• Used in plays and for straight entertainment

Words from Ancient Greece

• Triangle• Cosmos• Criticism• Nuclear• Cosmopolitan• Logical• Physical• Crisis• Technology• Dichotomy• Energy• Analysis• Pentagon

• Circle• Enthusiasm• Ellipse• Cosmetics• Synthesis• Atom• Erotic• Psychology• Theory• Statistics• Geography• Politics• Ethics

Greek Drama

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Types of Plays

• Tragedy• Comedy• Satyr

– Performed between acts of tragedies

– Made fun of plights of tragic heroes

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TragedyEvery Moment is

Eternity• Celebrated at the Great Dionysian Festival (Festival Dionysus)

• Linear (beginning, middle, and end)

• Purpose is catharsis• Watch the hero at the brink of abyss and observe his behavior

• “Count no man happy until he is dead. The ending tells all” (Sophocles).

ComedyEternity is in the

Moment• Celebrated at Lenaia Festival

• Cyclical• Initial problem followed by humorous complications

• Pretends that death does not exist

• Celebrates craziness of life

• Purpose: reminder to keep perspective and communal laughter

Art and ArchitectureBalance and Beauty

• Serenity• Strength• Simplicity

• Symmetry

Sculpture

Philosophy“Love of Wisdom”

• Dedicated to Truth

• Seeking truth is human duty

• Not for practical reasons– Socrates– Plato– Aristotle

Philosophical Questions

• What is real?• What is the meaning of life?

• What is fate?• How should a person best conduct his/her life?

• Is perfection possible?

• What is good?• What is virtue?

• What is just?• What is happiness?

Moderation vs. Excess

Toward the Golden Mean• Ideal behavior

• Midpoint between extremes• Well lived life = nothing to excess

• Balance, Proportion, Harmonia found in all aspects of Greek life: literature, art, architecture, ethics, politics,

psychology until Alexandrian times when excess and decadence became the norm.

Universal Knowledge vs

Self-Knowledge• Microcosm and macrocosm

• Part reflects the whole and whole shaped by parts

• Personal reflects public and vice versa

• Socrates: without self-knowledge, one cannot understand the world

Oracle at Delphi: “know thyself”

Two Strifes

• Greeks recognized that strife was a part of life

• Healthy strife: Olympics

• Unhealthy strife: war

• Competition essential: drama, sport, intellect

Idealism vs. Realism

• According to Plato: – Real vs. really real (chair vs. idea of chair)

– We can’t trust real, only really real– We understood the really real before we became encumbered by our bodies and the earthly world

– Goal of philosophy is find our way back to the ideal through questioning

– Questioning leads us to the ultimate good (idealism)

Idealism vs. Realism

• According to Aristotle: – Real could be seen in the world– We can find it if we classify it– We can understand it if we can analyze it

– Observation and study of the real leads to understanding

– Realism

Dialectical Reasoning vs. Intuition

Greek Dialectical Process:Statement (thesis) -->

Counter-statement (antithesis) -->Balance point (synthesis)

Dialectical Reasoning vs. Intuition

PLATO• Spent most of his

life defending dialectical

reasoning (banished poets)

• At the end of his life, reconsidered

poetry and intuition

Dialectical Reasoning vs. Intuition

ARTISTOTLE• Learned from Plato’s evolution

• “Poetry is more truly scientific, or philosophical than history because history shows us only those things that were or are, while poetry shows us what should be or ought to be.” --The Poetics

God centered vs. Man centered

• Greeks began to believe the world to be human-centered

• Odysseus – rejects immortality

• Stories illustrate belief– Odysseus/Calypso– Prometheus steals fire

• Socrates preferred the god within to gods of Olympus

God centered vs. Man centered

Socrates believed “the gods’ behavior was too unpredictable. They could not, in their imperviousness to the pain experienced by mortals, be understood, used as models, or trusted.” —Kenneth Atchity

Examining Polar Differences

• Set the opposites apart so that you can examine what is in between

• Understanding comes when the right questions are asked

Enduring Questions

• Should a person pursue truth despite the ruin pursuit might unleash?

• Should the individual’s rights be protected at whatever cost to the community?

• Does the community have the right to destroy the offending individual?

The Greek Way

• Seek harmony• Seek the middle way

• Draw on opposites as needed to deal with what life deals you

• Seek balance• Seek moderation in all things

Sources

• Text comes from “Introduction” in The Classical Greek Reader by Kenneth Atchity.

• Music comes from “Ancient Greek Music” at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. <<www.oeaw.ac.at/kal/agm/index.htm>>