Classical Period/Athenian Empire (1 gen 500 anni a. C. – 1 gen 338 anni a. C.)

Descrizione:

development of drama, philosophy, and major building projects in Athens

"From the time of the Mycenaeans, violent conflict was common in Greek society"

"First, the Greeks beat back the armies of the Persian Empire. Then, turning their spears against one another, they destroyed their own political system in a century of warfare culminating in the Peloponnesian War. There was no enforceable international law, very little diplomacy, and each polis maintained a substantial military force and a culture of militarism. Constant armed conflicts allowed the rise of a dominant new power: the kingdom of Macedonia."

"The defeat of the Persians created a power vacuum in the Aegean, and the Athenians took advantage of the situation. Led by Themistocles, the Athenians and their allies formed the Delian League, a military alliance aimed at protecting the Aegean Islands, liberating Ionia from Persian rule, and keeping the Persians out of Greece. The Delian (DEE-lee-uhn) League was intended to be a free alliance under the leadership of Athens, but as the Athenians drove the Persians out of the Aegean, they also became increasingly imperialistic...Athenian ideas of freedom and democracy did not extend to the citizens of other cities."

"“Relations between Athens and Sparta grew more hostile, particularly when Pericles (PEHR-uh-kleez) (ca. 494–429 B.C.E.), an ambitious aristocrat, became the leading statesman in Athens by gaining support among ordinary citizens through measures that broadened democracy. Like the democracy he led, Pericles was aggressive and imperialistic. In 459 B.C.E., Sparta and Athens went to war over conflicts between Athens and some of Sparta’s allies. The war ended in 445 B.C.E with a treaty promising thirty years of peace…” which only lasted 13 years.

"Athens continued its severe policies toward its subject allies and came into conflict with Corinth, one of Sparta’s leading supporters. In this climate of anger and escalation, Pericles decided to punish the city of Megara, which had switched allegiance from Sparta to Athens and then back again. In 433/2 B.C.E., Pericles persuaded the Athenians to pass a law that excluded the Megarians from trading with Athens and its empire. In response the Spartans and their allies declared war."

"The Athenians normally hiked up the long approach to the Acropolis only for religious festivals, of which the most important and joyous was the Great Panathenaea, held every four years to honor the virgin goddess Athena and perhaps offer sacrifices to older deities as well. For this festival, Athenian citizens and legal noncitizen residents formed a huge procession to bring the statue of Athena in the Parthenon an exquisite robe, richly embroidered by the citizen women of Athens with mythological scenes. The marchers first saw the Propylaea, the ceremonial gateway whose columns appeared to uphold the sky. On the right was the small temple of Athena Nike, built to commemorate the victory over the Persians. As visitors walked on, they obtained a full view of the Parthenon, the chief temple dedicated to Athena at the center of the Acropolis, with a huge painted ivory and gold statue of the goddess inside. After the religious ceremonies, all the people joined in a feast."

"The development of drama was tied to the religious festivals of the city, especially those celebrating the god of wine, Dionysus (see “Public and Personal Religion”). Drama was as rooted in the life of the polis as were the architecture and sculpture of the Acropolis. The polis sponsored the production of plays...At the beginning of the year, dramatists submitted their plays to the chief archon of the polis. He chose those he considered best and assigned a theatrical troupe to each playwright. Many plays were highly controversial"

"given the incessant warfare, conflict was a constant element in Athenian drama"

"Aeschylus (EHS-kuh-lihs) (525–456 B.C.E.), the first of the great Athenian dramatists"

"Sophocles (SOF-uh-klees) (496–406 B.C.E.) also dealt with matters personal and political"

"With Euripides (you-RIHP-uh-dees) (ca. 480–406 B.C.E.), drama entered a new and, in many ways, more personal phase. To him the gods were far less important than human beings. The essence of Euripides’s tragedy is the flawed character — men and women who bring disaster on themselves and their loved ones because their passions overwhelm reason."

"comedies of Aristophanes (eh-ruh-STAH-fuh-neez) (ca. 445–386 B.C.E.), an ardent lover of his city and a merciless critic of cranks and quacks."

"The Athenians, like other Greeks, lived with comparatively few material possessions in houses that were rather simple."

"Meals consisted primarily of various grains, especially wheat and barley, as well as lentils, olives, figs, grapes, fish, and a little meat, foods that are now part of the highly touted “Mediterranean diet.” The Greeks used olive oil for cooking, and also as an ointment and as lamp fuel. The only Greeks who consistently ate meat were the Spartan warriors. They received a small portion of meat each day, together with the infamous Spartan black broth, a concoction of pork cooked in blood, vinegar, and salt. One Athenian, after tasting the broth, commented that he could easily understand why the Spartans were so willing to die."

"Slavery was commonplace in Greece, as it was throughout the ancient world. Slaves were usually foreigners and often “barbarians,” people whose native language was not Greek. Most citizen households in Athens owned at least one slave. Slaves in Athens ranged widely in terms of their type of work and opportunities for escaping slavery."

"Citizenship was the basis of political power for men in ancient Athens and was inherited. After the middle of the fifth century B.C.E., people were considered citizens only if both parents were citizens, except for a few men given citizenship as a reward for service to the city. Adult male citizens were expected to take part in political decisions and be active in civic life, no matter what their occupation."

"Women did not play a public role in classical Athens. We know the names of no female poets, artists, or philosophers, and the names of very few women at all. The Athenian ideal for the behavior of a citizen’s wife was a domestic one: she was to stay at home, bearing and raising children, spinning and weaving cloth, and overseeing the household and its servants and slaves. This physical seclusion kept citizen women away from men who were not family members, assuring citizen men that their children were theirs."

"Women from noncitizen families lived freer lives than citizen women, although they worked harder and had fewer material comforts."

"Among the services that some women and men sold was sex. Women who sold sexual services ranged from poor streetwalkers known as pornai to middle-status hired mistresses known as palakai, to sophisticated courtesans known as hetaerae, who added intellectual accomplishments to physical beauty. Hetaerae accompanied men at dinner parties and in public settings where their wives would not have been welcome, serving men as social as well as sexual partners."

"Same-sex relations were generally accepted in all of ancient Greece, not simply in Sparta. In classical Athens part of a male adolescent citizen’s training might entail a hierarchical sexual and tutorial relationship with an adult man, who most likely was married and may have had female sexual partners as well. These relationships between young men and older men were often celebrated in literature and art, in part because Athenians regarded perfection as possible only in the male. Women were generally seen as inferior to men, dominated by their bodies rather than their minds."

"Along with praise of intellectualized love, Greek authors also celebrated physical sex and desire. The soldier-poet Archilochus (d. 652 B.C.E.) preferred “to light upon the flesh of a maid and ram belly to belly and thigh to thigh.”"

"Like most peoples of the ancient world, the Greeks were polytheists, worshipping a variety of gods and goddesses who were immortal but otherwise acted just like people."

"The Greeks also honored certain heroes. A hero was born of the union of a god or goddess and a mortal, and was considered an intermediary between the divine and the human. A hero displayed his divine origins by performing deeds beyond the ability of human beings."

"Many people also believed that magic rituals and spells were effective and sought the assistance of individuals reputed to have special knowledge or powers. Even highly educated Greeks sought the assistance of fortune-tellers and soothsayers, from the oracle at Delphi to local figures who examined the flights of birds or the entrails of recently slaughtered chickens for clues about the future."

"some Greeks also participated in what later historians have termed mystery religions, in which participants underwent an initiation ritual and gained secret knowledge that they were forbidden to reveal to the uninitiated."

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