Ancient Greece 
 Culture and Society
Foundations of the Modern World
Overview
•	Greek Society
•	Literature
•	Philosophy
•	Religion and Mythology
The Rise of Humanism
•	"Man is the Measure of all Things"- Protagoras of Abdera (c. 480 - 410 B.C.)
•	Importance of the individual
–	Early communities were based on family
–	Colonists were rugged individuals
•	Humanism:  individual’s
–	Uniqueness
–	Potential
–	Prerogatives (rights)
•	Athenian Democracy developed around the fifth century BC in the Greek city-state (known as a polis) of Athens, comprising the city of Athens and the surrounding territory of Attica. Athens is one of the first known democracies.
Greek Society
•	The flaw in Athenian democracy:  only for true citizens
–	Adult males, Athenian ancestry (15 %)
•	Slaves
–	Foreigners, about 30 %
–	Worked shops, farms
•	Some special skills e.g. sculpture
•	Some mining, hard labour
–	Provided freedom to owners for politics & philosophy
•	Women
–	Sparta - public freedom
–	Athens - confinement
Athenian Marriage
•	Men absolute household authority
–	Families arranged marriages, usually older man to young woman
–	Custom deemed necessary to protect male property & citizenship rights
•	Women no formal education
–	Learned weaving, cooking
•	Patterns of the elite
–	Records written by upper classes
Separate Lives
•	Elite women
–	Had female slave attendants
–	Were confined to homes except for
•	funerals, festivals, visits to female relatives
•	Thesmophoria festival
–	3-day camp
–	Mystery & ritual
•	Plays
–	Antigone, Lysistrata
–	About assertive women
•	Elite men
–	Work, politics by day
–	Dined, slept in men’s quarters
The Phylae
•	“tribes”:  largest political subgroups in polis
–	Athens:  10 phylae
•	Kin groups
–	All citizens belonged
•	Religious
–	Own priests, temples
•	Military
–	Trained and served as hoplite units
•	Political
–	Own officials, representatives to Assembly and Council
Symposium
•	Means "drinking together"
–	Aristocratic social institution
–	After meal, men only
–	Private association of individuals
–	Slaves, musicians, dancers, prostitutes, young boys
•	Role of Conversation
–	Aristocratic males expected to participate
–	Debates on political & philosophical issues, recitations of speeches & poetry
Gymnasium
“School for naked exercise”
–	Public institution for training athletes (opposite of palaestra - private school for physical training)

–	Staff: 10 gymnasiarchs, one from each tribe
•	Maintained gymnasium, paid athletes in training, held athletic festivals, supervised training staff
–	Facilities
•	dressing rooms, baths, training quarters, stadium, covered porticos for exercise & lectures in philosophy, literature, and music
–	Athens: three great public gymnasia: Academy, Lyceum and Cynosarges 

Greek Literature
•	Lyric poetry:  celebrating the individual
–	e.g. Sappho
•	Pre-Socratic Thinkers
–	Questions about nature
–	Air, earth, fire, & water
–	Atomic theory
•	History
–	Logographers:  wrote historia, accounts of geography, cities, families
–	Herodotus 485 - 425 BC
•	First modern historian
•	Greek war with Persia, analyzed causes
Greek Thinkers
•	Sophists (“wise men”)
–	Traveling teachers
–	Taught logic, public speaking
–	Rhetoric:  constructing persuasive arguments
•	Belief in Reason
–	phusis (nature):  amoral, inhuman, often lethal
–	nomos (culture): custom, power of mind to order & control
Socrates
•	470 - 399 BC
–	Sculptor by trade
•	Life
–	Teacher, thinker
–	Company of young men
•	Deflated pretensions, challenged people to think
•	Socratic method:  asking probing questions
•	Death
–	Charged with
•	Corrupting youth
•	Not believing in gods
–	Condemned to death by drinking hemlock
•	Young men withdrew from public life
Plato
•	428 - 347 BC
•	First truly literate generation
•	Founded school for young men
–	The Academy
–	Higher education, especially philosophy and mathematics
•	Wrote Dialogues
–	Socrates uses question and answer method
–	Meaning of justice, excellence, freedom
–	Best known Dialogue:  The Republic
•	Theory of Forms:  particular vs. ideal
•	Political Utopia:  philosopher kings
Aristotle
•	384 - 322 BC
–	Born in Macedon, father physician to king
–	Educated at Plato’s Academy in Athens
–	Tutored Alexander the Great
•	Founded school in Athens, Lyceum
–	Peripatetics:  walking while lecturing
–	History, biology, zoology
•	Works:  De Anima, Poetics, Metaphysics
–	Covered every field of knowledge, established modern arts & sciences
–	Only lecture notes survive:  remarkable range, sophistication, originality, systemization
–	Approach is empirical, pragmatic, worldly
Greek Religion
•	Eusebia
–	Piety, reverence for traditional gods
–	Concern for family, clan, polis
–	Public display to foster peace, avert disfavour of the gods
–	Rite of animal sacrifice, feasts of music drama dance sport
•	Philosophy 
–	Cosmology:  origin of universe
–	Theology:  gods’ nature & function
–	Psychology:  study of soul
–	Ethics: man in society
•	Mysteries
–	Secret cults of individual gods
–	Two Goddesses of Eleusis, Dionysus
Public Worship
•	State-sponsored festivals
–	Civic pride & personal piety
–	Central ritual:  sacrifice of animals
•	Temple:  gods’ residence in town
–	Gifts for favours
•	Cake, wine at altar
•	Luck, protection
•	Oracles
–	Sacred sites where gods spoke with humans about future
–	Sought by individuals, city-states
–	Oracle of Apollo at Delphi most sought
Mythology
•	Living our myths
–	Not our history
–	Need for origin story
•	Literature is displaced mythology
–	Basic stories of our culture
–	Repeated in modern forms
•	Anthropomorphic gods
–	Looking & acting human
Principal Deities
•	Titans
–	Cronus & Gaia
•	Olympians
–	Zeus and Hera
–	Apollo & Artemis
–	Aphrodite & Athena
–	Poseidon & Hades
–	Ares & Hermes
•	Other Gods
–	Dionysus, Eros, Pan, The Muses