Archaic period sources

Question 1

Mycenae evidence: military

Answer 1

The Agios Vasileios excavated from 2010 testifies to a military society through the discovery of swords (so large - practical or ceremonial?)

Question 2

Mycenae evidence: language

Answer 2

Clay linear b tablet records detailing storeroom records show language.
indicates central hierarchy. written for economic accounts. None contain narrative history. impermanent records, preserved due to destructive burning + found away from economic buildings. No evidence for stelaes/tablets for the public, writing had a very specific + finite purpose, unlikely to extend beyond those responsible for economic accounts.

Question 3

Mycenae evidence: religion

Answer 3

The pylos tablets show religion; Mycenaean gods and offerings parallel to iron age.

Question 4

Homer and oral poetry: different interpretations of the Homeric Question

Answer 4

• F. Wolf, (1795) argues there are a string of Homers, building on each other.
• M. Parry, (1928), comments on the epithets, how they are repetitive and came up with a functional theory that they are slotted in to keep the poem in rhythm.
• A. Lord, (1960) did comparative studies and noticed changes in the same songs sung by bards; not verbatim. Every line of Iliad and Odyssey falls in a certain rhythm.

Question 5

Epic cycle and pictorial narrative: Did epic drive art? Susan Langdon quotes

Answer 5

“when homer is compared with early images, it can be shown that the narrative scenes of Geometric art do not derive from preserved versions of Homeric epic, are unlikely to have depended on any epics, and can just as plausibly be assumed to have a basis in folktales.” - Susan Langdon, 2008 Art and Identity in Dark Age Greece, p4-5

Question 6

Epic cycle and pictorial narrative: the blinding of polyphemos: Sarah Morris quote

Answer 6

“The blinding of Polyphemus is by far the most popular episode from the Odyssey for early Greek vase painters, but was also equally common in non-Homeric and even non- Greek folktales and other oral traditions.” Sarah Morris, 1999 (Review of Snodgrass)

Question 7

The Symposion: literature: conspicuous sympotic leisure: lyric poetry as a source

Lyric poetry (ANACREON 356) : when, who and how (and divine patronage)

Answer 7

“Boy, bring me a cup to drink at a gulp;Mix ten measures of water and five of wine,So that once again and peacefully I may honour Dionysos.Let’s not fall into riot and disorder with our wine, like the Scythians.But let us drink in moderation listening to the lovely hymns.”(Anacreon 356, trans. by Lissarrague)

Question 8

The Symposion: who was at the symposium? wecowski quote

Answer 8

“a social group that could afford to spend time, perhaps even a great deal of it, learning, practicing, and then deploying various cultural competencies” (Wecowski 2014, Ch 1).

Question 9

The Symposion: Hetairai - csapo and miller quote

Answer 9

“Did hetairai really get together to drink and play kottabos? Or is this simply a humorous inversion of reality (where prostitutes play for the favours of free youths), an erotic daydream, and the painter’s witty compliment to a παȋς καλός, a symposium joke for the symposium?” (Csapo and Miller 1991: 380)

Question 10

The Presocratics and the invention of philosophy: What did Aristotle think?

Answer 10

“all people, by nature, desire understanding” - Metaphysics I.1
“it is because of wonder that people both now begin and first began to philosophise” - Metaphysics I.2.