CULTURAL LITERACY: CLASSIC UNIT THE GREEKS AND THE ROMANS COMPILED BY MARY KING FORMER TEACHER AT DAVIS HIGH

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1 CULTURAL LITERACY: CLASSIC UNIT THE GREEKS AND THE ROMANS COMPILED BY MARY KING FORMER TEACHER AT DAVIS HIGH List 1: Classic Greek Literature 1. Oedipus Rex: A tragedy by Sophocles that dramatizes the fall of Oedipus. In classical mythology, he is a tragic king who unknowingly killed his father and married his mother. The Delphic oracle predicted that King Laius of Thebes, a city in Greece, would be killed by his own son. To save himself, Laius ordered his newborn son placed on a mountain top and left to starve. The infant was rescued, however, by a shepherd, and raised in a distant city where he was given the name Oedipus. Years later, King Laius was killed while on a journey by a stranger with whom he quarreled. Oedipus arrived at Thebes shortly thereafter and saved the city from the ravages of the Sphinx. He was proclaimed king in laius stead, and he took the dead king s widow, Jocasta, as his own wife. After several years, a terrible plague struck Thebes. The Delphic oracle told Oedipus that to end the plague, he must find and punish the murderer of King Laius. In the course of his investigation, Oedipus discovered that he himself was the killer, and that Laius had been his real father. He had therefore murdered his father and married his mother, Jocasta. In his despair at this discovery, Oedipus blinded himself. The story of Oedipus is the subject of the play Oedipus Rex by Sophocles. The character of Oedipus gave his name to the Oedipus complex explored by the psychiatrist Sigmund Freud. Oedipus means swollen feet. 2. Antigone A tragedy by Sophocles. It concerns the punishment of Antigone for burying her brother, an act that was forbidden by law. In classical mythology, she was a daughter of King Oedipus. Her two brothers killed each other in single combat over the kingship of their city. Although burial or cremation of the dead was a religious obligation among the Greeks, the King forbade the burial of one of the brothers, for he was considered a traitor. Antigone, torn between her religious and legal obligations, disobeyed the king s order and buried her brother. She was then condemned to death for her crime. 3. Homer An ancient Greek poet, author of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Many literary critics have considered him the greatest and most influential of all poets. According to tradition, Homer was blind, so his stories weren t written by his own hand, but told verbally. Someone else wrote them down. 4. The Iliad An epic by Homer that recounts the story of the Trojan War.

2 5. The Odyssey An ancient Greek epic by Homer that recounts the adventures of Odysseus during his return from the war in Troy to his home in the Greek island of Ithica. Figuratively, and odyssey is any difficult, prolonged journey. 6. Odysseus (Roman name= Ulysses) A Greek hero in the Trojan war. Odysseus hlped bring about the fall of Troy by conceiving the ruse of the Trojan Horse. After Troy was ruined, Odysseus wandered for ten years trying to return home, having many adventures along the way. The story of Odysseus journey home is told in the Odyssey by Homer. By extension, an odyssey is any long or difficult journey or transformation. In the Aeneid of Virgil, which was written in Latin, Odysseus is called Ulysses. The Irish author, James Joyce, adopted the name for the title of his masterpiece of the early twentieth century, which is, in part, a retelling of the myth of Odysseus. Alfred Lord Tennyson also wrote a famous poem called Ulysses. 7. Aeneid an epic in Latin by Virgil. The Aeneid begins with the adventures of Aeneus and his men after the Trojan War, and ends when Aeneas gains control of the Italian peninsula, which will eventually become the base of the Roman Empire. 8. Aeneas A famous warrior of classical mythology, a leader in the Trojan War on the Trojan side. After the fall of Troy, Aeneas fled with his father and son, and was shipwrecked at Carthage in northern Africa. There, Dido, the queen of suicide, realized that Aeneas could not stay with her forever. After many trials, Aeneas arrived in what is now Italy. The ancient Romans believed that they were descended from the followers of Aeneas. Aeneas is the hero of the Aeneid of Virgil. Because he carried his elderly father out of the ruined Troy on his back, Aeneas represents filial devotion and duty. The doomed love of Aeneas and Dido has been a source for artistic creation since ancient times. 9. Horace an ancient Roman poet, known for his odes. Horace insisted that poetry should offer both pleasure and instruction. (Ode= tribute poem) 10. Cicero An orator, writer, and statesman of ancient Rome. His many speeches to the Roman Senate are famous for their rhetorical techniques and their ornate style. A Ciceronian sentence is clear, rhythmic, and powerful, and is often composed of many subordinate clauses and figures of speech. 11. B.C.E. A term used to label a time period as meaning Before the Common Era or Before the Christian Era. A less academic term commonly found is B.C., which some recognize as meaning Before Christ. List 2: Greek Background. Greek: 1. Peloponnesus The first Greek peoples settled here around 211 B.C.E. The isthmus of Corinth links this southern mountainous and fertile peninsula to mainland

3 Greece. Among its ancient Greek cities were Sparta, Corinth, Argos, and Megalopolis. 2. Two Peloponnesian Wars B.C.E. When Sparta and Athens destroyed themselves because they could not live together in peace. Greeks lost their ability to govern themselves, Pericles died of the plague (429), and Sparta was finally victorious. Ironically, this was a time when Athenians produced their greatest achievements in sculpture and architecture, establishing a classical style whose influence has endured to the present. (Irony= incongruity the opposite of what you expect). 3. Lyric poems Following the objective and straight forward epic poems of Homer, a new generation of poets adapted the meters and melodies of hymns and folk songs into short lyric poems which spoke in a very personal voice. Poets, Arhilochus (7th century B.C.E.) and Sappho and Pindar (6th) experimented in emotional self expression (Sappho was a woman) 4. Choragos and odes Leader or spokesman for the chorus who gives opinions on p rofound topics addressed in the play. The chorus speaks in odes, which are complex and lyrical poems written in dignified language on a serious subject. 5. Marathon A footrace of 26 miles yards: so called from a messenger s ( Pheidippides) run from Marathon to Athens to announce the Athenian victory over the Pe rsians, 490 B.C.E. 6. Delian League An anti Persian alliance of Greek cities scattered throughout the Aegean, who collected taxes. At this time Athens, under the leadership of the orator and general, Pericles, dramatically altered their system of government to achieve the world s first notable experiment in democracy. By 450 B.C.E. the polis, a free speech assembly of all male citizens, was formed. 7. Sophists professional thinkers who argued both sides of an issue without questioning its validity. Criticized by Socrates, for their empty reasoning. (pseudo intellectuals.) List 3: Tragedy 1. Tragedy Dramatic or narrative writing in which the main character suffers disaster after a serious and significant struggle, but faces his or her downfall in such a way as to attain heroic stature. Examples: Oedipus the King, Antigone, and Julius Caesar. According to the playwright, Arthur Miller: Tragedy is the consequence of man s total compulsion to evaluate himself justly. ****(Understand /memorize this quote.)

4 2. Tragic Hero the character in a tragedy who goes through all the stages of the tragic hero: (****Understand/Memorize) 1) Noble but not perfect 2)Has a character flaw 3)Because of this flaw her o makes a serious error in judgment 4) Fall 5) Catharsis (purging/pit) 6) Enlightenment (protagonist and audience learn from error.) 3. Catharsis Purging of the soul This is when the tragic hero is at the bottom of the pit. He realizes his mistake, but it is too late to undo it. Hero faces himself honestly and acknowledges his weakness. This is painful. According to Aristotle in his Poetics, catharis means purification. The play still evokes the emotions of pity and fear, but rather than expelling them, it transforms them from something dangerous to something helpful for the audience. 4. Enlightenment This is when the tragic hero pays the consequences of his actions and learns from his mistakes. The audience learns about the human potential and what we can become, both good and bad. Tragedies are uplifting and optimistic, though sad, because we learn we can do better if we face ourselves honestly. 5. Tabula Rasa Clean Slate The philosophy that the human mind is blank at birth before ideas have been imprinted on it by the reaction of the senses to the external world. 6. Tragic Flaw Character weakness which causes (or enables) the tragic hero to make a serious error in judgment. Hero feels an unwillingness to remain inactive and passive to what degrades him. Dignity is challenged. He must know the truth and face it. Ex: Oedipus could have escaped judgment for killing his father and marrying his mother by keeping it secret, but tragic heroes can t escape the stages of purging and enlightenment. 7. Pathos Pessimism, pity, pathetic. Evokes sympathy and a sense of sorrow, but does not assume a catharsis or enlightenment as does tragedy in Greek drama. Pathos is melodrama, not tragedy. (Understand/memorize Arther Miller s ladder which we will work with in class). Three great Athenian tragedians of the fifth century B.C.E. : 8. Aeschylus founder of Greek tragedy by introducing a second actor making true dialogue and dramatic action possible. He wrote ninety plays of which only seven survive: The Suppliant Women, The Persians, Seven against Thebes,

5 Prometheus Bound, and The Oresteia trilogy. He took part in the Persian Wars and fought at Marathon in 490 B.C.E. 9. Sophocles developed a third actor and stage scenery. He wrote 120 plays, of which seven survive: Antigone, Oedipus Tyrannus, Electra, Ajax, Trachiniae, Philoctetes, and Oedipus at Colonus. Sophocles lived in Athens when the city was ruled by Pericles, a period of great prosperity. He was a great friend of the historian, Herodotus. In his tragedies, human will plays a greater part than that of the gods, and his characters are generally heroic. This is why he said of Euripides He paints men as they are and of himself I paint men as they ought to be. 10. Euripides plays deal with the emotions and reactions of ordinary people and social issues rather than with deities and the grandiose themes of his contemporaries. He wrote 80 plays of which 18 survive. Best known are Media, Andromache, The Trojan Women, and Electra. A realist, he was bitterly attacked for his unorthodox impiety and sympathy for the despised: slaves, beggars, and women. He went into voluntary exile from Athens to Macedonia at the end of his life. His was probably the greatest influence on later drama of the three great Greek dramatists. List 4: Characters in Oedipus and Antigone 1. Sophocles Author. Play was first performed around 440 B.C.E. (Before the Common Era) in Athens, as a competition where Sophocles began to defeat the great playwright Aeschylus at the annual religious festivals in honor of the god of wine, Dionysus (Roman name= Bacchus, son of Jupiter) 2. Laios Once king of Thebes, who abandoned his son, Oedipus, in the mountains, later to be killed by Oedipus. Husband to Jocasta. 3. Jocasta Past queen of Thebes, wife of Laios, and mother of Oedipus. Also wife of Oedipus after wshe wears the magic necklace of youth and unknowingly marries her son. Mother to Antigone, Ismene, Eteocles, and Polyneices. Hanged herself. 4. Oedipus King of Thebes, father to Antigone. Fated to kill his father and marry his mother. Oedipus = swollen feet because they wer bound when abandoned by Laios. 5. Eteocles king who wouldn t give up his year of rule to his brother, Polyneices, in a bargain made. Buried with honors after brothers kill each other. Son of Oedipus and Jocasta. 6. Polyneices Brother to Eteocles. Buried by Antigone unlawfully for religious reasons. Deemed a traitor by King Creon (Uncle who rules after Oedipus and Eteocles) for raising an army of Argives and storming the gates of Theves to claim his term of rule from brother, Eteocles. (Also son of Oedipus and Jocasta).

6 List 7. Antigone Daughter of the former king of Thebes, Oedipus and Jocasta. Sister to I smene, Eteocles, and Polynceices. Enganged to the son of King Creon, Haimon. (Last of the ancient line of Abdicus; is living under the curse of Oedipus). 8. Ismene Daughter of Oedipus, swimpy sister of Antigone, Polyneices, and Eteocles. 9. Creon Present king of Thebes during Antigone. Uncle of Antigone, Ismene,a nd brothers. Tragic hero in the play Antigone. Husband to Eurydice. Brother in lawto Oedipus. (Creon s sister was Jocasta, wife and mother of Oedipus) Creon is the son of Menochias. 10. Eurydice Wife of Creon, mother of Haimon who is engaged to Antigone 11. Haimon Creon s son, engaged to Antigone. Son of Eurydice. 12. Teiresias Blind prophet (augurer) who warns Creon of doom ( also warns Oedipus in Oedipus Rex). 5 : Background of Rome 1. Plutarch First great historian. Shakespeare was able to write his tragedies and history plays true to fact because he had the histories of Plutarch, The lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans. 2. The Fall of Rome 476 A.D. Rome fell in upon itself, one might say, because of internal corruption and greed. This time period coincides with the birth of King Arthur. Rome controlled England until its fall and then the legendary King Arthur held England together against invaders until he died. Even though the round table ended, Arthur s influence lasted three hundred years. 3. Romulus and Remus believed by the Romans to be the sons of Mars (God of War) who founded Rome. A great she wolf was supposed to have rescued the baby boys from the Tiber River and suckled them. 4. Gladiators specially trained fighters who fought for other people s entertainment. They were mostly paid slaves or prisoners. 5. Jupiter worshipped as the king of gods. Romans built temples to worship him 6. Basilica town hall. When Christians gained control, these buildings were eventually turned into Cathedrals, or places of Christian worship. 7. Triumphal arches monuments built in honor of a famous general or emperor 8. Legionaries ordinary soldiers of the Roman army 9. Centurions an officer in the Roman army 10. Caesar The family name of Julius Caesar and the next eleven rulers of Rome, who were emperors. The emperors of Germany and Russia in modern times adapted the word caesar into titles for themselves Kaiser and czar. 11. Veni, Vidi, Vici I came, I saw, I conquered. Famous message to the senate by Julius Caesar after a conquest in Asia (In Latin).

7 List 6: Seven Wonders of the World plus three 1. Pyramids a group of huge monuments in the Egyptian desert, built as burial vaults for the pharaohs. These triangular structures began about 2700 B.C.E. and required vast amounts of slave labor. 2. Hanging Gardens of Babylon roof gardens, laid out on a series of rising terraces irrigated by pumps from the Euphrates; ascribed to King Nebuchadnezzar II (600 B.C.E.) 3. Statue of Zeus at Olympia (Roman name is Jupiter) thirty feet high and plated with gold and ivory, showing the god on an ornate throne, made in 430 B.C.E. by Phidias of Athens, sculptor of the Athena in the Parthenon. Destroyed in the 5th Century A.D. Zeus was the chief of the Greek and Roman gods, who defeated the Titans to assume leadership of the universe. He lived atop Mount Olympus, from which he hurled thunderbolts to announce his anger. Despite his awesome power, he had a weakness for mortal women. 4. Colossus of Rhodes a huge iron reinforced bronze statue, 100 feet high, of Apollo at Rhodes. Built, 292 B.C.E. in honor of the sun god in commemoration of the raising of the siege of Rhodes, 305 B.C.E. It toppled in an earthquake in 225 B.C.E. and sold for scrap by the Arabs in A.D Temple of Artemis at Ephesus built in 550 B.C.E. by Croesus, king of Lydia. Famous for its imposing size (more than 300 by 150 feet) and for the works of art that adorned it. The temple was destroyed by the Goths in 262 A.D. 6. Mausoleum of Halicarnassus Tomb of Mausolus, built by his widow Artemisia; he was an Anatolian King of the 4th century B.C.E. Fragments are preserved in the British museum. 7. The Pharos of Alexandria the most famous lighthouse of the ancient world; built for PtolemyII of Egypt in 280 B.C.E. on the island of Pharos off Alexandria. 440 feet high, it remained standing until the 12th century. 8. The Gaungzhow dig In recent years archaeologists uncovered a huge burial ground where eight thousand pieces, mostly large statues of soldiers, were un earthed. They were probably buried with their leader after he died. (near Canton, Red China) 9. Stonehenge ancient circles of large upright stones that stand alone on a plane in England. There is some disagreement about who formed, carried, and set up these huge stones, which may have had religious or, more likely, astronomical uses, or both. Believed to date from about 1800 to 1400 B.C.E. We will come back to this term in the Middle Ages Unit.

8 List 10. Aztec Empire a native American people who ruled Mexico and neighboring areas before the Spaniards conquered the region in the 16th century A.D. Starting in the 12th century A.D., they built up an advanced civilization and empire. 7 : Roman Quirks and Customs 1. Wishbone this custom is at least 2400 years old and it originated with the Etruscans. Etruscans believed the hen and cock to be soothsayers the hen because she foretold the laying of an egg with a squawk; the cock because his crow heralded the dawn of a new day. 2. Thumbs up, thumbs down to a 4th century B.C.E. Etruscan gladiator thumbs up literally meant spare his life. Where, today, thumbs down suggests disapproval, in Etruscan times the disapproval was invariably terminal ; ) Roman historians in the time of Julius Caesar offered the first written explanation for the gestures. They observed that an infant often enters the world with its thumbs tucked within clutched fists. As the baby gradually responds to stimuli in its environment, the hands slowly unfold, releasing the thumbs upward. As if to come full circle, at the time of death the hands often contract, enclosing the downturned thumbs. Thus, to the Romans, thumbs up became an affirmation of life, thumbs down a signal for death. 3. Flip of a coin It was Julius Caesar who instituted the heads/tails coin flipping practice. Caesar s own head appeared on one side of every Roman coin, and consequently it was a head specifically that of Caesar that in a coin flip determined the winner of a dispute to indicate an affirmative response from the gods. Such was the reverence for Caesar that serious litigation, involving property, marriage, or criminal guilt, often was settled by the flip of a coin. Caesar s head landing upright meant that the emperor, in absentia, agreed with a particular decision and opposed the alternative. 4. The wedding cake the wedding cake was not always eaten by the bride; it was originally thrown at her. It developed as one of many fertility symbols of fertility and prosperity, was one of the earliest grains to ceremoniously shower new brides, and unmarried young women were expected to scramble for the grains to ensure their own betrothals, as they do today for the bridal bouquet. Around 100 B.C.E., Roman bakers began baking the wedding wheat into small, sweet cakes to be eaten, not thrown. Later, in England, the brew to wash down the cake was referred to as bryd ealu, or bride s ale, which evolved into the word, bridal. 5. Broken mirror Much like a gypsy s crystal ball, a glass water bowl a moratorium to the Romans was supposed to reveal the future of any person who cast his or her image on the reflective surface. The prognostications were ready by a mirror seer. If one of these mirrors slipped and broke, the seer s straightforward

9 interpretation was that either the person holding the bowl had no future 9that is, he or she was soon to die) or the future held events so abysmal that the gods were kindly sparing the person a glimpse at heartache. 6. New Year s Day under an ancient calendar the Romans observed March 25, the beginning spring, as the first day of the year. Emperors and high ranking officials, though, repeatedly tampered with the length of months and years to extend their terms of office. To reset the calendar to January 1 in 46 B.C.E, Julius Caesar had to let the year drag on for 445 days, earning it the historical sobriquet Year of Confusion. Caesar s new calendar was called the Julian Calendar. 7. St. Valentine s Day As early as the 4th century B.C.E. the Romans engaged in an annual young man s rite of passage to the god Lupercus. The names of teenage women were placed in a box and drawn at random by adolescent men; thus, a man was assigned a woman companion, for their mutual entertainment and pleasure, for the duration of a year, after which another lottery would take place. Determined to put an end to this 800 year old practice, the early Catholic Church sought a lovers saint to replace the deity, Lupercus. They chose Valentine, who had enraged the mad emperor Claudius II, after he had issued an edict forbidding marriage in A.D Claudius felt that married men made poor soldiers. Valentine was clubbed, stoned, and beheaded, February 24, 270 a.d. for performing marriages. In A.D. 496 Pope Gelasius outlawed the mid February pagan Lupercian festival, and it was gradually replaced with a holy day. The custom of the lottery was replaced with the practice of sending valentines. 8. Birthday Celebrations into National Holidays Before the dawn of the Christian era, the Roman senate inaugurated the custom (still practiced today) of making the birthdays of important statesmen national holidays. In 44 B.C.E. the senate passed a resolution making the assassinated Caesar s birthday an annual observance highlighted by a public parade, a circus performance, gladiatorial combats, an evening banquet, and a theatrical presentation of a dramatic play. 9. Easter Easter, which in the Christian faith commemorates the Resurrection of Christ and consequently is the most sacred of all holy days, is also the name of an ancient Saxon festival and of the pagan goddess of spring and off spring, Eastre. How a once tumultuous Saxon festival to Eastre was transformed into a solemn Christian service is another example of the supreme authority of the Church early in its history. The Christian missionaries astutely observed that the centuries old festival to Eastre, commemorated at the start of spring, coincided with the time of year of their own observance of the miracle of the Resurrection of Christ. In A.D. 325, the Council of Nicaea, convened by the emperor Constantine, issued the so called Easter Rule: Easter should be celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the vernal equinox. Consequently, Easter is astronomically bound never to fall earlier than March 22 or later than april 25.

10 10. Christmas The idea to celebrate the Nativity on December 25 was first suggested early in the 4th century A.d. to eclipse the December 25 festivities of a rival religion that threatened the existence of Christianity. Several theologians attempted to pinpoint the Nativity and came up with a confusion of dates: January 1, January 6, March 25, and May 20. The latter eventually became a favored date because the Gospel of Luke states that the shepherds who received the announcement of Christ s birth were watching their sheep by night. Shepherds guarded their flocks day and night only at lambing time, in the spring; in winter, the animals were kept in corrals, unwatched. What finally forced the issue, and compelled the church to legitimize a December 25 date was the burgeoning popularity of Christianity s major rival religion, Mithraism, who worshipped the Sun God, Mithras. In the early 300s, the cult seriously jeopardized Christianity, and for a time it was unclear which faith would emerge victorious. The Christians needed a December celebration, so they recognized Christ s birth even though births weren t really recognized; deaths were more important. And to offer head on competition to the sun worshiper s feast, the Church located the Nativity on December 25. The mode of observance would be characteristically prayerful: a mass; in fact, Christ s Mass. As one theologian wrote in the 320s: We hold this day holy, not like the pagans because of the birth of the sun, but because of Him who made it. The celebration of Christmas took permanent hold in the Western world in 337, when the Roman emperor Constantine was baptized, uniting for the first time the emperorship and the Church. Christianity became the official state religion.