LibGuides: Ancient Greece: Journal Articles

Art

Misunderstood Gestures: Iconatrophy and the Reception of Greek Sculpture in the Roman Imperial Period Anthropologists have defined iconatrophy as a process by which oral traditions originate as explanations for objects that, through the passage of time, have ceased to make sense to their viewers. One form of iconatrophy involves the misinterpretation of statues' identities, iconography, or locations. Stories that ultimately derive from such misunderstandings of statues are Monument-Novellen, a term coined by Herodotean studies. Applying the concept of iconatrophy to Greek sculpture of the Archaic and Classical periods yields three possible examples in which statues standing in Greek sanctuaries may have inspired stories cited by authors of the Roman imperial period as explanations for the statues' identities, attributes, poses, or locations. The statues in question are the portrait of the athletic victor Milo of Croton at Olympia, a bronze lioness on the Athenian Acropolis identified as a memorial to the Athenian prostitute Leaina ("lioness"), and the Athena Hygieia near the Propylaia of Mnesikles. Inscriptions on the bases of Archaic and Classical statues in Greek sanctuaries typically named the dedicator, the recipient deity, and the sculptor, but did not include the subject represented or the historical occasion behind the dedication. These "gaps" left by votive inscriptions would only have encouraged the formation of iconatrophic oral traditions such as the examples examined in this article. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]
Reading between the loins: a curious anomaly in the portrayal of the male physique in Greek sculpture Despite their apparent mastery of the representation of anatomical detail, Greek and Greco-Roman sculptors from the Classical period onwards regularly exaggerated the prominence of the "iliac crest" and its extension into the lower abdomen, creating the so-called cuirasse esthetique. This article explores possible reasons for this phenomenon.
Amber, Oil and Fire: Greek Sculpture beyond Bodies. This essay is about works of sculpture that either exceed or fail to attain ‘embodiment’ or ‘objecthood’. Specifically, it examines Archaic Greek works that were made of, or incorporated, fire. It has three parts. The first sketches two keywords – wonder (thauma) and grace (charis) – that identify the work of art in terms of a constitutive relation to beholders. The second is about amber, which the Greeks understood to be congealed fire. Three case studies – a pendant in the form of a maiden, a frontlet for a horse and an ivory lyre – show how amber could be ‘wonderful’ by virtue of its fiery lustre. The third section connects a class of marble lamps bearing human protomes to Homer’s account of heroes with jets of flame emerging from their heads. Here fire is at once literally present and part of the depictive content of the work: a juxtaposition that was quintessentially ‘wonderful’.
The Study of Greek Sculpture in the Twenty-first Century. The writer outlines the way in which the study of Greek sculpture has progressed from the older method of inquiry, which was based on guidelines established in the 18th and 19th centuries. Among his conclusions are that emphasis on the Great Masters has diminished and that context is essential to assessing chronology and purpose.
Ancient Greek Women and Art: The Material Evidenc Ancient Greek women and their relationship to the visual arts are here discussed solely on the evidence of the extant monuments, rather than on the information of the literary sources. Although this review makes no attempt to be complete, several forms of the relationship are explored. The most important is that of women as sponsors of architectural projects; second is that of women as dedicators of statues and other offerings. Finally, the objects meant to be used by women, or those that represent them, are included, although the men of the family might have been responsible for the commission and the funding. The survey follows a chronological arrangement.
FUNERARY SCULPTURE
The Development of Archaic Greek Sculpture

Francis Vernon, the Early Royal Society and the First English Encounter with Ancient Greek Architecture. The article disucsses the English historian of architecture and member of the Royal Society Francis Vernon's research on ancient Greek architecture during the 1670s. An overview of Vernon's travel to Greece and the Middle East, including his murder in Isfahan, Iran in 1677 and his travel journal, is provided.
Credit the Greeks! Architectural historians have long credited the Romans with inventing the aboveground barrel vault, but a recent discovery at the site of Morgantina shows that the innovation goes back to the third century B.C. and may have originated in Hellenistic Sicily. A collapsed vaulted room was revealed during excavations at the ancient Greek settlement last summer. Constructed of a parallel series of interlocking hollow terra-cotta tubes encased in mortar, the vault in the Baths of Aphrodite is known to antedate the Roman capture of Morgantina in 211 B.C., making it apparently the earliest freestanding, aboveground barrel vault yet known.
Sicily’s Lost Theater. English Summary: The article discusses the ancient Greek theater in Akragas (present-day Agrigento), Sicily, from its founding by Greek colonists in 582 B.C.E. to the beginning of Roman influence in 262 B.C.E. An overview of the theater's construction using stone is provided.
An Ancient Greek City in Central Asia. The article provides information about the culture and civilization of pre-Hellenistic Central Asia. The evidence shows that when the Greeks arrived in this place, it was already the seat of a highly developed urban civilization with an ancient tradition of monumental architecture. As the Greek colonists on the banks of the Oxus strove to preserve their cultural identity they were also prepared to assimilate the lessons that could be learned from the local civilization.
The Astronomical Orientation of Ancient Greek Temples. The article presents a discussion related to the astronomical orientation of ancient Greek temples. In this context, the results of a survey of archaic and classical Greek temples in Sicily, are presented, along with their comparison with temples in Greece. Through a binomial test, it is shown that there is a preference for solar orientations. A magnetic compass and a clinometer were used to conduct the survey of Greek Sicilian temples. It is stated that differences in alignment patterns between Sicily and Greece indicate differing forces in the expression of ethnic identity.
Built for the Gods: Ancient Greek Architectural Sculpture. For the ancient Greeks, architecture and sculpture were not the distinctly separate notions that they are now. Greek temples were the result of major building projects that required extensive collaboration between architects, sculptor, masons, and carpenters, as temples involved a great deal of stone carving. The greatest Greek temples ever built, including the Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis and the Artemision at Ephesus, were stunning sculptural ensembles that served as monumental votives to the gods.
Temples, Stars, and Ritual Landscapes: The Potential for Archaeoastronomy in Ancient Greece The study of astronomical knowledge and observations in ancient cultures has enabled and enriched archaeological interpretations in contexts as diverse as pre-Columbian America, later prehistoric Europe, Egypt, Babylonia, and the Far East. The application of archaeoastronomy to the study of ancient Greek religion has been less successful and has been hampered by poor practice. Through a case study that investigates the astronomy in Alcman’sPartheneionand its possible relationship with the Artemis Orthia rites carried out at her sanctuary in Sparta, we aim to show that a robust and methodologically sound archaeoastronomical approach can contribute to a better understanding of the role of astronomy in Greek religious practice and perceptions of the cosmos.
Greek Art and Architecture Encyclopedia Article

Timely lessons from Ancient Greek tragedy Sophocles's most famous tragedy, Oedipus Rex, has enjoyed a remarkable afterlife considering its humble beginnings. When the play was first performed at an Athenian theatre festival in around 429BC, Sophocles was awarded only second place (a now little-known nephew of Aeschylus was named the winner). Perhaps we have more empathy these days for a man who has the misfortune to kill his own father and sleep with his mother...
Greek Gods in Baltimore: Greek tragedy and The Wire The gods will not save you. --Ervin H. Burrell, The Wire (1) [I]t's the Postmodern institutions that are the gods. And they are gods. And no one is bigger. --David Simon, "Behind The Wire" (2)
"Oedipus...The structure of funny": Allusions to Greek tragedy in contemporary cinema Although several high-profile European auteurs have created film adaptations of Sophoclean and Euripidean dramas, Greek tragedy as a genre is hardly a mainstay of contemporary cinema. Nonetheless, Francis Ford Coppola designed a tragic end for his Godfather trilogy, and some films that are set in the modern world incorporate ancient tragic themes. Examples are given of these and other films that focus on widely recognized tragic characters, like Oedipus and Medea, make specific verbal allusions to other Greek tragic protagonists or motifs, incorporate major components of tragedy, and attempt to define tragedy itself, most notably in Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors...
Sharing emotions through theater: the Greek way Presentations of tragic theater in ancient Greece both represent and elicit the sharing of emotions. The theory behind this is cognitive: In order to share the emotions of another, you must understand the situation of the other. In keeping with the theory, tragic texts emphasize the importance of understanding. Ancient Greek poets did not conceive that one person could respond emotionally to another without understanding the situation of the other, ideally through having lived through a similar situation--if not, then by imagining oneself in that situation. The word we translate as "compassion" is cognitive at root--"with-knowing," sung-nomosune. Its cognate in modern Greek, sungnome, still means "pardon me," but through its etymology one has to hear "understand me." We shall see that even primal emotions such as pity and fear have strong cognitive elements in ancient Greek theory.
Hephaestus the Hobbling Humorist: The Club-Footed God in the History of Early Greek Comedy.
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This article argues that Hephaestus, the only physically disabled Olympian deity, occupies an important position in the history of comedy and the Greek tradition of laughter. From the Homeric epics to fourth-century comedy and vase-painting, Hephaestus is consistently to be found in cultural contexts which explore the instrumentality of laughter in domestic and social relationships, rituals and entertainments. The article proposes that the structure of the mythical narrative of the Return of Hephaestus, with its estrangement of the protagonist from his community, riotous reconciliation, and komastic procession, underlies several Old Comedies. It also suggests that his banausic profession and deformity helped to make him particularly popular in cultural artifacts—vases and dramas—produced in Athens in the democratic period because neither his trade nor his appearance would have disqualified him from wielding sovereign power, κράτος, as a citizen there. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
'Genitalia of the Sea': Seafood and Sexuality in Greek Comedy Fish play a sizable role in the remains of ancient Greek comedy. Although scholars have proposed various cultural, economic, and generic explanations for comedy's interest in sea creatures, they have not adequately considered the importance of seafood's relationship to obscenity and sexuality. Greek comic poets correlate a range of sea creatures with sex and sexuality in imaginative and humorous ways, making obscene jokes about courtesans and aphrodisiacs, as well as creating double entendres for male and female genitalia. This study provides a lexical resource for Greek comedy's numerous seafood fragments, uncovering many neglected ancient sexual jokes and offering fresh insight on comedy's interest in sea creatures.
Humiliation? Voyeurism, Violence, and Humor in Old Comedy. The article discusses the attribute of aggression in Old Comedy as it relates to theories of humor. It notes that the spectacle of violent humor can evoke political anxiety and triumphant heroism. It examines the implications of the audience's visual experience and pleasure using perspectives from feminist film theory including Laura Mulvey's theory of the sadistic male gaze and Kaja Silverman's masculinity in crisis.

Sappho's "Brothers Poem": An Interpretation. This article explores the overall meaning of Sappho's "Brothers' Poem" by elucidating its web of interwoven verbal repetitions. "The gods", Sappho seems to say, "reward those who have moderate wishes, think in longer time frames by trying to exploit all their resources and understand the law of natural alternation, regulated by Zeus, by bringing about an even more spectacular reversal of fortune".
Greek Poetry in Antiquity - Research Starter The earliest Greek poetry was unlettered, oral, and traditional. For centuries before the appearance of the alphabet in the eighth century , Greek poets were creating songs, probably in dactylic hexameter, for entertainment, ritual, and religious purposes. Some of these poems were probably short lyrics and others were longer tales about their heroes and gods. Most, if not all, were probably intended for public performance by individuals or by choruses. Especially in longer, narrative poetry, fixed phrases such as epithets and formulas were used as mnemonic devices and compositional tools to tell and retell tales through generations.
When the Ancient Greeks Began to Write. The article discusses the development of the Greek alphabet in ancient Greece, through heavily referencing Greek inscriptions discovered at an excavation of Methone, Greece, including the influence of Phoenicians on the Greek alphabet. The role that the written recording of oral poetry of ancient Greek poet Homer play in the development of the Greek alphabet is discussed.
Poetic Visions of the Past. Discusses poems with archaeological allusions. Poets who contributed to the January/February 2000 issue of `Archaeology'; Analysis of several Greek poems.
Reading Poetry through a Distant Lens: Ecphrasis, Ancient Greek Rhetoricians, and the Pseudo-Hesiodic "Shield of Herakles"
Plato and Aristotle on Music and Music Education: Lessons From Ancient Greece The purpose of this paper is to discuss the Athenian views of music and music education as these are presented in the works of the ancient Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle and to suggest ways in which the issues raised by them are still relevant for music education today. Their philosophical and practical views on music education, apart from being an excellent and very up-to-date source for advocacy, can also initiate thoughts and promote solutions on problems that still remain unsolved. During the study, of their works, the reader surprisingly realizes that these philosophers had stated 2,500 years ago what the music education community has, just recently, come to realize concerning the value of music education, children's musical development, and instructional strategies in music.

Pottery of Ancient Greece - Research Starter The pottery of ancient Greece is a form of early utilitarian art that has provided insight into the social and cultural lives of early Greek society. While the term ancient Greece can refer to any time period of Greek history stretching from between 1050 B.C.E. and 330 C.E., Greek pottery reached its high point between approximately 700 and 323 B.C.E., when it faded from Greek society as a signature art form. However, any pottery that predates the Middle Ages period (after the fourth century C.E.) of Greek history may sometimes be classified as being from ancient Greece.
My "Big Fat" Greek Life The article presents a lesson plan for elementary and middle-school students which teaches about Classical Greek pottery, Greek mythology, and pottery design, and includes information on materials used in the project and the lesson's alignment with U.S. national art standards.
Sex and death in the classical world Sex and death in the classical world: From striking coffin portraits to boldly erotic statues, the art of the Romans and Greeks tells us compelling stories about how they lived, died and loved
Warriors in Black and Red. The article discusses the depiction of the Trojan War in ancient Greek pottery and drinking vessel art, deriving from the Greek poems "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey," by Homer. An overview of the depiction of warriors involved in the Trojan War in ancient Greek pottery, including the legendary character Achilles, is provided.
Reflection of The Social Values in Ancient Greek Art It is well known the part that Ancient Greek civilization played in the formation of today's modern thought. It's art is certainly the one part which attracts attention mostly. It's essential to know the values which this art was born into and the circumstances which caused it's development to be able to understand and interprete it. These are the elements peculiar to Ancient Greek society; A suitable geographical location and the beauty thought which was born within this circumstance, humanism ideal along with the image of human shaped (anthropomorphic) gods, Homer and the heroism ideal that took shape in his legends and the identity comprehension. Throughout the ages, it has been thought that art was a matter of inspiration but certainly it has a intellectual dimension too and this is determined by the society that the art is born into. The explanations on Ancient Greek art will gain a more realistic characteristic if the values of the Greek society are known well.
Un-Making Sense of Alleged Abkhaz-Adyghean Inscriptions on Ancient Greek Pottery A large number of Ancient Greek vases dated to the 1st millennium BC contain short inscriptions. Normally, these represent names of craftsmen or names and descriptions of the depicted characters and objects. The majority of inscriptions are understandable in Ancient Greek, but there is a substantial number of abracadabra words whose meaning and morphological structure remain vague. Recently an interdisciplinary team (Mayor et alii 2014) came up with the idea that some of the nonsense inscriptions associated with Amazons and Scythians are actually written in ancient Abkhaz-Adyghe languages. The idea is promising since in the first half of the 1st millennium BC the Greeks initiated the process of active expansion in the Black Sea region, so it is natural to suppose that contacts with autochthonous peoples might be reflected in Greek art. Unfortunately, detailed examination suggests that the proposed Abkhaz-Adyghe decipherment is semantically and morphologically ad hoc, containing a number of inaccuracies and errors of various kinds. The methodological and factual flaws are so substantial that it makes Mayor et alii 's results improbable.
Art forensics: processing questionable ancient ceramic Greek pottery (1200 BCE~ICE) for authenticity/fakery
Small and Miniature Vases at Ancient Corinth This study surveys the small and miniature vases from a number of different sanctuaries and burials in ancient Corinth from the later 7th century B.C. on, in order to determine which shapes appear where and when. Their contexts and chronology identify the variation in types, important for understanding cult rituals. Some misconceptions about miniatures are addressed: they were not for poor people or children, nor were they substitutes for their larger prototypes. Their supposed low value is in fact fundamental for their meaning, as several ancient writers suggest. Because they are inexpensive, offered anonymously, and nonfunctioning as vases, they are special-gifts for the gods.

Military History and Athletics

Ancient Greek Mercenaries: Facts, Theories and New Perspectives. This article presents an overview of the historiography of Greek mercenaries and the proliferation of the phenomenon during the fourth century BC. It evaluates theoretical approaches to the political, economic and military roles that mercenaries played in Classical Greece during that century. In doing so, it considers the ways that interstate relations between the poleis shaped the development and recruitment of this form of soldier. The article disentangles the mercenary from a rich body of scholarship in economic history, demonstrating that analysis of the roles and functions of this figure can shed light on other dimensions of the Classical period, including international relations. Finally, it signals paths that the study of Greek mercenaries might take in the coming years.
Combat stress disorders and their treatment in ancient Greece. Every disorder is embedded within multiple sociocultural aspects, and in mental disorders they acquire paramount significance. Nonetheless and despite the cultural diversity of ancient and modern societies, the consistency of psychiatric reactions to combat stress throughout history is remarkable. The situation in ancient Greece was quite different from the contemporary one. Hippocratic physicians turned a blind eye to a series of worrying conditions they could neither explicate nor treat, but enlightened laypeople noticed mental disorders disregarded by physicians and even looked for ways to assuage them. In ancient Greece, fear, panic, and ensuing short-term psychological consequences were well-known to military men who tried to prevent them by some methods that are considered to be efficient even today. Nonetheless, long-term mental disorders following exposure to battle were almost entirely ignored. The 5th century BC sophist Gorgias seems to be the only author who discussed their nature. Combat-related mental disorders existed more than 2000 years ago, as they do today, and the idea that they could be prevented by means of social conditioning proved to be false. The fact that some modern therapeutic approaches appear to have been used in Greece is reassuring: it suggests that modern Western attitudes to psychological treatment of trauma are not entirely culturally dependent, but rely on universal human processes and may therefore be applied to the treatment of trauma with patients from different cultural traditions. Awareness of the persistence of combat psychological trauma in history may provide insights to different professionals: historians may identify and comprehend allusions to combat trauma in their sources, while mental health professionals may use ancient history to broaden their understanding of the effects of trauma and related treatment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)
The Laws of War in Ancient Greece
No Woman No War: Women's Participation in Ancient Greek Warfare
The Persian Wars (480-479 BCE) and the Defence of Thermopylae. The article discusses the war tactics used by ancient Greek hoplites to fought several Persian invasions such as Battle of Marathon, the defence of Thermopylae, and the Battle of Plataea in the fifth century BCE. Topics discussed include the purpose of stylised musculature on the Greek armour, the use of cuirass, and the thrusting spear as their primary weapon.
The Persian Wars against Greece: A Reassessment
Reading and Misreading the Ancient Evidence for Democratic Peace In the course of the debate over the existence and possible explanations for democratic peace (the tendency of democracies not to fight wars with one another), some scholars have looked to the world of Classical Greece to bolster their claims about the phenomenon. This article critiques the best of these efforts, looking at the way the ancient evidence has been handled and the conclusions drawn therefrom. It is argued that while the ancient world is an entirely appropriate era to investigate with regard to the issue, the analyses offered thus far have not made a strong case for the existence of a Greek democratic peace. Indeed, contrary to what investigators had hoped to show, the evidence from the period in and around the Peloponnesian war indicates that not only did ancient democracies go to war with each other, they did so with relatively high frequency. Both quantitative and more traditional literary analyses support this conclusion. These results do not so much attack the general notion of democratic peace as offer a more fruitful way of using ancient history to help explain it: by focusing on the differences between ancient and modern democracies and their historical settings, future studies may be able to identify the factors which encourage or discourage democratic peace.
Rewriting the Just War Tradition: Just War in Classical Greek Political Thought and Practice. The just war tradition is the predominant western framework for thinking about the ethics of contemporary war. Political and military leaders frequently invoke its venerable lineage to lend ballast to their arguments for or against particular wars. How we understand the history of just war matters, then, for it subtends how that discourse is deployed today. Conventional accounts of the just war trace its origins to the writings of Saint Augustine in the 4th century CE. This discounts the possibility that just war ideas were in circulation prior to this, in the classical world. This article contests this omission. It contends that ideas homologous to a range of core jus ad bellum, jus in bello, and jus post bellum principles were evident in classical Greek political thought and practice. This finding challenges scholars to re-consider not only the common view that the just war is, at root, a Christian tradition, but also the relation between victory and just war, the nature of the ties binding just war and Islamic jihad, and an innovative approach to the comparative ethics of war.

Citizenship and State-Sponsored Physical Education: Ancient Greece and Ancient China In ancient Greece and ancient China, small states engaged in intense military competition and incessant warfare. In such contexts, there was naturally much emphasis on the training of soldiers. One might have expected state-sponsored physical education to develop as a by-product of the need to train soldiers, but the historical record shows that ancient Greek states placed far more emphasis on physical education compared to their counterparts in ancient China. This essay attempts to (partly) explain the divergent outcomes with reference to the idea of citizenship. The first part outlines the practice and philosophy of state-sponsored physical education in ancient Greece and ancient China and addresses the question of why the two ancient civilizations should be compared in this respect. The main body of the article discusses the political differences between ancient Greece and ancient China that help to explain the different outcomes regarding state-sponsored physical education. The last part ends with some normative reflections that may be relevant for present-day societies.
Ancient Olympic Superstars and the Remarkable Skills They Could Teach Today's Athletes. A data base of Ancient Olympic events was exhaustively researched by the Perseus Project and combined into one table by Wikipedia, containing nearly 900 results. The Wikipedia table was sorted to obtain the distribution of events and to identify the most successful Olympians of Ancient Greece. From 776 BC through 277 AD, just 30 events were contested, eight of which were offered only once. An average of only 3.5 events were contested in each Olympics. Of the five sports, track and field (called athletics internationally) comprised 49% of all contested events with the 200 m stadion sprint, comprising 30% of all contested events. Competition was so highly focused that winning once was very difficult and winning repeatedly was remarkable. From the sorted winners, 12 superstars of antiquity are chosen for discussion. These superstars include the most unlikely winner in that men's Olympics, a woman, Kyniska of Sparta, who became a double winner by owning and training the horses that won two chariot races. Leonides of Rhodes won all three of the major running events four times successively, for 12 individual wins, not exceeded until 2016 by Michael Phelps. Herodoros of Megara won the trumpeter's competition nine consecutive times. Two wrestlers won the boy's event followed later by five successive wins in the open competition. The emperor Nero of Rome won six times, showing venerability by acting and playing the lyre in public. The pentathlete Phayllos of Kroton outfitted and commanded a battleship at the 480 BC Battle of Salamis, helping Greece defeat Persia. One of the few recorded measurements of Ancient Greece, his long jump of 55 feet has been nearly duplicated by five successive standing long jumps, each employing a re-invented strategy for jumping with weights in each hand. The remarkable skills of those 12 may serve as inspirations for today's athletes.
Women of Ancient Greece: Participating in Sport? d in physical activity, sports, and games. Homer's "Odyssey" describes women playing ball and driving chariots; vases dating back to 700-675 B.C. portray women driving light chariots in a procession; a girl juggling 12 hoops appears on an Attic cup dated around 475-450 B.C.; feminine acrobatic performance was portrayed in Xenophon's "Symposium"; aquatic activities were not only recreational but a necessity of everyday life--the earliest known evidence of women involved in swimming was found once again in Homer's "Odyssey"; the only known artifact depicting women in the act of swimming is a red figured vase, dated around 500 B.C.; accounts of women hunting are found in mythological Greek writings; there is some evidence for women being involved in horseback riding; wrestling for women was introduced by Lycurgus in the ninth century B.C.; and mythology and art indicate running was the most popular physical activity for women in ancient Greece. Although women were banned from participating in the Olympic games, they had their own running competitions at Olympia
Athletics and Social Order in Sparta in the Classical Period This article seeks to situate the athletic activities of Spartiates and their unmarried daughters during the Classical period in their broader societal context by using theoretical perspectives taken from sociology in general and the sociology of sport in particular to explore how those activities contributed to the maintenance of social order in Sparta. Social order is here taken to denote a system of interlocking societal institutions, practices, and norms that is relatively stable over time. Athletics was a powerful mechanism that helped to generate consensus and to socialize and coerce individuals. It thus induced compliance with behavioral norms on the part of both females and males and thereby contributed meaningfully to the maintenance of social order in Sparta. Athletics inculcated conformity to norms that called for females to be compliant, beautiful objects of male desire. Athletics had an equally profound effect on Spartan males because it inculcated compliance with norms that valorized subordination of the individual to the group, playing the part of the soldier, and meritocratic status competition. Athletics may well have also to some degree empowered both Spartan females and males, but its liberatory dimensions can easily be unduly amplified. There is an ever-present dialectic in athletics, between its ability to reinforce norms that underpin the prevailing social order and its ability to foster individual autonomy. In the case of Sparta, the balance in that dialectic always inclined very much toward the former.
‘Men who were the most beautiful, not only among their fellow citizens, but in all Hellas’ (Aeschines, Against Timarchus 1.156): sports and athletics on Athenian vases of the sixth to fourth century bce. The task of archaeology is to assemble the marks and traces of the past in order to gain a vivid impression of bygone circumstances. Bearing in mind the fact that they also underlie contemporary ideal and ethical conceptions, Attic vase paintings of the sixth to fourth century bce give the most vivid pictures of Athenian sports. However, they have not only to be seen as mere illustrations for publications on ancient sports, but also to allow the reconstruction of the sporting activities of contemporary Athens. They bring to life several areas of the ancient Athenian training methods and competitions, and many details of the actual execution and performance of the disciplines can be verified in that way. Moreover, they do not give information only about men's physical activities, but about if, and to what degree, Athenian children and women were integrated into the world of athletics and sports.
Contemporary Athletics and Ancient Greek Ideals Daniel A. Dombrowski
Gold, Silver and Bronze. The article discusses the ancient Greek Olympics, examining aspects of nationalism, politics, and finance, and focusing on the 416 B.C.E. games. It comments on the rivalry between the Greek city-states of Athens and Sparta, noting Sparta's exclusion from the 420 B.C.E. competition. The author reflects on the role of Athenian aristocrat and statesman Alcibiades in organizing the 416 B.C.E. competition, noting that he entered seven chariots and organized entertainments. Suspicions surrounding Alcibiades' power and influence after the games, his later exile, and the dismantling the Athenian Empire are also discussed.
The ancient olympics as a signal of city-state strength. Ancient Greece was wealthy enough to invent many of the foundations of Western Civilization. In order to accomplish this, they had to avoid the trap of dissipating wealth through continuous feuding. We contend that the ancient Olympics was one, of several, institutions that helped achieve this by acting as a signal of city-state strength. Although it could not prevent all battles, it provided information to reduce hostilities between competing cities. This hypothesis explains the rise and fall of the Olympics, and the unique and puzzling characteristics of the rules and events.
The role and significance of dance in the Dionysian Mysteries. The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of dance in the Dionysian cult of Classical Greece and, in particular, the significance of dance as a means of mental elevation in the Dionysian Mysteries. In classical times, the religious sentiment acted as a trigger for dancing. The function of dance was essential during the Dionysian Mysteries, and dance was not a series of simple movement of the legs, arms and body. It was an explosion of mental impulsions - a mental response to a variety of religious sentiments. Thus, dance served as a means of expressing mental states and as a sign of religious faith and devotion through rhythmic movements. In the Dionysian cult, the honor and the rendering of respect to God was expressed in joyful dances, while the believers thought that they acquired healing properties through sacred fury, lawlessness and abolition of their moral inhibitions. With the help of orgiastic dances, the initiate was becoming "en-theos" (Greek: ένθεοϛ, inspired, theopneustic), i.e. reaching a state of ecstasy and thus mental release. Dance played an important role in the Dionysian Mysteries and held a prominent position in the initiation of the believers; people felt completed and were mentally and physically perfected, purified and united with the Divine, gaining spiritual freedom and mental elevation.

Did Thucydides Believe in Thucydides' Trap? The History of the Peloponnesian War and Its Relevance to U.S.-China Relations. The Peloponnesian War, a conflict between the Greek city-states of Athens and Sparta and their respective allies, is held to be a classic example of war between a hegemon and a rising power. Graham Allison has recently coined the term "Thucydides' Trap" to emphasize how structural forces are leading to instability in U.S.-China relations. This interpretation of history is inaccurate and reflects the influence of misleading translations. Drawing on the original Greek text of Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War, I argue that the concept of Thucydides' Trap does not find support even in the case that has given it its name. Thucydides' famous attribution of the war to "the growth of the power of Athens" actually refers to the expansion of the Athenian Empire rather than a shift in the distribution of capabilities. Structural arguments do offer valuable insights about potential sources of conflict in U.S.-China relations, but the causal mechanism has little to do with the analogy of Athens and Sparta. As exemplified by the flashpoint in the Strait of Taiwan, structural change has aggravated long-standing differences between the United States and the PRC. Beijing's growing economic and military power has resulted in a growing threat to Taipei, which has led the United States to affirm its commitment to Taiwan's security in ways that are inconsistent with the One-China policy. If this trend continues, it will raise the potential for a military confrontation between the great powers in East Asia.
Sea Power in the Peloponnesian War The article examines maritime and naval operations in the Peloponnesian War. Topics covered include the limitations imposed by technology on naval forces of the period, the concept of sea control during the Peloponnesian War, Athenian strategy under Pericles, and duties of navies in the protection of trade and the interdiction of enemy seaborne trade.
Beware the furies: the fortunes of war are hardest on the vanquished, but for a cadre of Athenian commanders during the Peloponnesian War, victory proved fatal
Where We Get Thucydides Wrong: The Fallacies of History’s First “Hegemonic” War. Thucydides’Historyremains the basis for numerous claims within International Relations Theory, contributing to defining concepts from the security dilemma to the dynamics of bi-polarity and hegemonic transition theory. But the historical record that underpins Thucydides’Historyprovides a more complex view of the rivalry between Athens and Sparta. This analysis argues that basing explanations for the Great Peloponnesian War on the premise of Spartan “fear” is incomplete. A bi-polar, hegemonic rivalry did not lock-in the two states; they existed in a complex multi-polar system. This multi-polarity allowed other actors—notably Corinth—to play a key role in the outbreak of war. It was consideration for alliances, empires, and political rivalries within the context of multi-polarity, rather than a prosaic Spartan “fear,” that were at the heart of the war. These unique characteristics combined with the misrepresentation of the historical record, make generalising from the Peloponnesian War dangerous.
The Theory of Hegemonic War
THUCYDIDES ON POLICY, STRATEGY, AND WAR TERMINATION
WHAT HAPPENED AT AEGOSPOTAMI? Xenophon and Diodorus on the Last Battle of the Peloponnesian War As the relative stock of Xenophon and Diodorus has risen or fallen over the centuries, historians have usually picked one to follow and one to discard in interpreting the events of the fateful battle of Aegospotami. This habit has left a puzzling and incomplete picture of the clash. The present study reexamines the accounts and proposes harmonizing the two, building on the observation that they represent opposing yet largely complementary perspectives of the participants. Doing so also sheds light on perceived problems in interpreting the battle, including the movements of Lysander's triremes and the location of the Athenian camp.

Philosophy, Politics and Religion

Were There Better Angels of a Classical Greek Nature? Violence in Classical Athens. This article explores Steven Pinker's thesis with regard to fifth-century BCE Athens. Pinker's view that the political state became the arbiter of violence is important, but for ancient Greeks that meant that wars became more devastating. States coordinated military action more effectively than earlier tribal chiefs. With regard to violence within communities, the absence of civic values, human rights, or robust legal systems meant that violence mediated many relationships between men and women, masters and slaves, and even aristocrats and lower-status citizens. Violence was a prominent aspect of all ancient people's lives. In short, Pinker's thesis provides an excellent heuristic device to analyze Greek antiquity if only to discuss how it may or may not apply in real terms.
Epicureanism and politics. This article aims to present the relation that Epicureanism had with politics in Greece and Rome. Epicurus instructed his disciples to not participate in public life which meant to not participate in politic. We will discuss the reasons why he did so and whether his disciples accurately followed this teaching. Thus we use as bibliographic source the following books: (i) Book X from Lives of Eminent Philosophers of the Greek doxographer Diogenes Laertius; (ii) Vatican Sayings; Principal Doctrines; Letter to Menoeceus of Epicurus; and (iii) On Nature of the Things (De Rerum Natura), the book of the Roman Epicurean poet Titus Lucretius Carus.
Ancient Greece: The Historical Needle's Eye of Modern Politics and Political Thought.
The Significance of the Ancient Greek Political Philosophy. The context in which the ancient Greek Philosophers wrote was characterized by the guiding principle that a position is only as good as the arguments that support it. This principle represents the real and lasting legacy they left to the modern world. What really mattered for the Greeks were the criteria used to determine the sort of life one should live. Their intended aim was to search how to achieve eudaimonia, or human flourishing, by means of arete, or excellence in human conduct, both at the individual and at the socio-political level. This was to become a major theme in the search for the just society conducted by social and political philosophy up to our time. They asked: (1) are State and Society there by Nature or Convention? (2) What is justice and its import on how to govern? (answering this question involves: whether to give persons what they want or what they need; how burdens and benefits of living in a society should be shared; who should make the decisions; and what are the sources of political obligation.) (3) Finally, how to practically implement what the nature of society and justice indicate we should do? (This means providing at least some practical guidance on how to reform politics in order to achieve the common good and construct a just society.) The Sophists seem to have already debated some of these fundamental issues. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle spurred on by the Sophists, but at the same time critical of them, took more convincing, even though not entirely uniform, ethical stands. They have constantly been recognized as genuinely seeking the moral truth, thus setting the beginning of the still ongoing philosophical discussion about the role and ends of government.
Decalogue of Democracy The article discusses the history and definition of democracy in relation to ancient Greece. Topics include the etymology of the word demokratia, the views of the philosopher Aristotle in relation to philosophical anthropology and life in the polis, and the constitutions of ancient Greek city-states. The political theory of ancient Greeks, especially as recorded by the historian Herodotus, is addressed.
How Tyranny Paved the Way to Democracy: The Democratic Transition in Ancient Greece Considerable scholarly work has examined the transition to democracy. In this paper, we investigate a path to democracy that is very different from that typically described. During the Archaic period (800–500 BCE), many Greekpoleis(city-states) replaced aristocracies with a more narrow governing institution—an autocrat known as the tyrant. Yet as classical scholars have noted, many of thepoleiswhere tyrants reigned in the Archaic period became among the broadest democracies in the subsequent Classical period (500–323 BCE). We analyze a data set of ancient Greek political regime types and review the history of the best-known Archaic period tyrants in order to explore why a transitory narrowing of power—Greek tyranny was a transitory institution—can set the stage for democratization. We briefly consider other historical and modern examples. Our paper shows why an understanding of progress toward democracy requires recognizing the potential importance of nonmonotonic transition paths.
Path dependence and transitions from tyranny to democracy: evidence from ancient Greece For empirical research on the effects of institutions, an important question is whether a given institutional type will generate different outcomes depending on the circumstances that give rise to that institution. In this paper, we examine a unique historical episode in which a specific type of institution--rule by a tyrant--arose in similar states yet differed in terms of whether the impetus came from local support or external influences. Over the course of the sixth century BCE, a substantial subset of Greek poleis (city--states) experienced a period of tyranny. In some cases, the tyrant came to power with the support of local elites, yet in other cases, the tyrant was imposed by a conquering power, Persia. Although it is likely that the tyrants' proponents--whether local elites or Persian rulers--sought to increase stability and maintain policies necessary for wealth creation, the long run effects of tyranny differed: In poleis where the rise of a tyrant would have depended on local support, a record of tyranny predicts a greater propensity for subsequent development of democracy. By contrast, in poleis where the rise of a tyrant would have depended on Persian support, a record of tyranny has a weak (and perhaps negative) association with subsequent development of democracy. These findings illustrate both the long-run importance of institutional paths and the difficulty in transplanting institutions.
The Symbiosis of Democracy and Tragedy: Lost Lessons from Ancient Greece Democracy and tragedy were intrinsically linked during the time of the Athenian city-state. But though vital at the time, this symbiosis is largely forgotten today. We address this puzzling silence. What was it about democracy that encouraged, even needed, the ascendancy of tragedy? Why did the mass performances of tragedy play so central a role in the democratic polis of Athens? We address these questions not as historians or philologists, but as scholars of contemporary international relations. Our hope, in particular, is to uncover whether the Greek experiment, radical and short-lived as it was, can provide us with clues about how to extend democracy to the global realm, which increasingly shapes people's lives but so far lacks mechanisms for democratic participation and accountability. We explore how the paradoxical plots that lie at the heart of tragedies remind us — as they did the Greeks — that no order is ever complete or void of contradictions; that democracy is not about complete control but about recognising the limits of politics and dealing with the forces of chaos and change. We illustrate the issues at stake — along with their relevance for contemporary international relations — through tragedy's so-called multivocal form, which brought into the public realm a multitude of voices and issues that could not otherwise be heard in democratic

The Rise of Women in Ancient Greece. The article focuses on the history of women and women's roles in ancient Greece during the fourth century BC. The author argues that the losses suffered by the city-state of Athens as a result of the Peloponnesian War had a longterm impact on women's roles, education, and status. Some of the historical information considered includes women characters in the plays of comic playwright Aristophanes, especially "Women in the Assembly (Ecclesiazusae);" the writings on curse tablets uncovered at the archaeological excavation at Dodona, Greece; and accounts of the 4th century women of Sparta, known for their athletic ability and patriotism.
The ignorant environmental education teacher: students get empowered and teach philosophy of nature inspired by ancient Greek philosophy. This paper presents an attempt to apply Jacques Rancière’s emancipatory pedagogy of ‘the ignorant schoolmaster’ to environmental education, which emphasises environmental ethics. The paper tells the story of a philosophy of nature project in the framework of an environmental adult education course at a Second Chance School in Greece, where adult students researched ancient Greek philosophy of nature, discovered and adopted environmental values and taught their schoolmates. The paper presents the findings of this pedagogical experiment and evaluates the benefits and the skills that students can acquire through emancipatory pedagogy and through peer teaching and learning. Α cross-disciplinary combination of emancipatory pedagogy, environmental education, philosophy of nature and environmental ethics that can empower students and strengthen their environmental conscience with emphasis in ecocentric and ecojustice values is proposed. Τhe role of the teacher as a student, who continues to investigate and learn, trusting the intelligence and the abilities of his/her students is also examined. Furthermore, it is argued that there is a need to focus on the role of philosophy of nature and environmental ethics in environmental education and, because of its wealth and subtlety, ancient Greek philosophy can contribute to this emancipatory, environmental education paradigm
Teaching Ancient Greek Philosophy as a Non-Western Tradition. Comparative philosophers are well aware of the interpretive difficulties that arise when using the methodological tools of one tradition to understand another. Such difficulties, however, also arise when looking back through traditions. This is especially the case with ancient Greek philosophy understood as the foundation of the Western philosophical tradition. Unreflective application to ancient Greek thought of methodologies that developed later in the tradition can introduce ways of thinking as foreign to it as to a non-Western tradition. This essay demonstrates how certain strategies developed by comparativists can and should be employed in interpreting ancient Greek philosophy.
Epicurus and B. F. Skinner: In search of the good life. This paper examines similarities in the works of Epicurus, an ancient Greek philosopher, and B. F. Skinner, a behavioral psychologist. They both were empiricists who argued in favor of the lawfulness of behavior while maintaining that random events were included within those laws. They both devoted much effort to describing how individuals could live effective, rewarding and pleasurable lives. They both emphasized simple and natural pleasures (or reinforcers) and the importance of combining personal pleasures with actions that benefit friends and community. They both opposed punishment and all aversive measures used by governments and religions to control behaviors. And both created utopias: a real community, The Garden, where Epicurus lived with his followers, and a fictional one, Walden Two, by Skinner. We consider how a combination of the ideas of Epicurus and Skinner can contribute to their common goal of helping people to live better lives
Epicurus on Pleasure, a Complete Life, and Death: A Defence. Epicurus argued that the good life is the pleasurable life. He also argued that 'death is nothing to us'. These claims appear in tension. For if pleasure is good, then it seems that death is bad when it deprives us of deeply enjoyable time alive. Here, I offer an Epicurean view of pleasure and the complete life which dissolves this tension. This view is, I contend, more appealing than critics of Epicureanism have allowed, in part because it assigns higher value to pleasures that we produce by exercising our rational capacities and by establishing control over our lives.
A Feminist Philosopher on the Fringe of History: Ksenija Atanasijevic and Ancient Greek Philosophy Ksenija Atanasijevic's usually neglected philosophical work and her feminist rereadings of ancient Greek philosophy is examined. I argue that four short Atanasijevic essays written from 1923 to 1927 represent the forerunners of later feminist critique of and interventions into the philosophical canon. I further provide a critical analysis of Atanasijevic's work during this period, acknowledging the fact that these essays show a more or less fragmented and unsystematic effort by Atanasijevic as an expert in ancient Greek philosophy. Necessary attention is paid to her need to write for a feminist and not only academic audience, so that her feminist engagements with the history of ancient philosophy can be seen as unprecedented in the region. Finally, I provide a comparative analysis of Atanasijevic's essays devoted to ancient Greek women philosophers, published in 1924 and 1927, and a similar effort by Kathleen Wider, published in 1986, to show similar theses and conclusions developed by these two authors working in different times with different available resources.
Socrates and the madness of method The author discusses the historical use of the term Socratic method, named for the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates, for describing teaching methods in the U.S. The professionalization of teaching, the use of the case law teaching method at Harvard Law School since the 1870s, and the Great Books liberal arts educational movement are discussed. Curriculum design, pedagogy, and educators such as Edward Franklin Buchner, Christopher Columbus Langdell, and Mortimer Adler are also mentioned. The history of teacher education and educational philosophies during the Enlightenment in Europe are discussed.
What did Socrates teach and to whom did he teach it? Socrates disavowed the role of teacher, and his disclaimer, although often interpreted as ironical, is of central importance to his moral stance. Responding to the Delphic oracle, Socrates questioned those who believed themselves to be wise to discover whether they deserved to be considered so. This search required a tentative approach inconsistent with the role of teacher. This view is based on the early dialogues, as the 'Gorgias' and the 'Meno' mark the beginning of Plato's own interpretation of Socrates' role.

Religion and Mythology in Ancient Greece - Research Starter Summary: The civilization of Ancient Greece refers to a period that began during the Greek Dark Ages (c. 1200-800 BCE) and lasted until the Roman conquest of Greece in 146 BCE. The ancient Greeks were known for their mythology, the myths and legends of their twelve major gods and heroes that formed one aspect of their religion. Though not all religious principles were universal among all Greek peoples, many of their myths and beliefs were commonly shared. Prior to the Hellenistic Age, one of the four main periods of ancient Greece--about the fourth century BCE--no recorded collection of Greek myths existed that could be compared to the religious writings of other civilizations, such as the Vedas or the Bible. Instead, the religion and mythology of Greece survived through the oral tradition, such as mothers teaching the stories to their children.
Ancient Greek Atheism? A Note on Terminological Anachronisms in The Study of Ancient Greek "Religion". During the last forty years, religion as a concept has bedeviled scholars not only in defining the term, which certainly goes way back in history, but also regarding its applicability as a first-order scholarly tool. Some have argued to dismiss the term altogether, others have sought to re-approach how the term is used, while other scholars have endorsed its usage, but based on scholarly stipulative definitions. Recently, further discussions have emerged regarding whether contemporary scholars can use the category "religion" to talk about ancient traditions and classifications. While the issue of anachronisms is undoubtedly present in such debates, the term "atheism" has not been approached in a similar way. What classical studies on ancient "religions" often lack is a theoretical background already available in the discipline of religious studies. This brief article seeks to open the path for further examination of the place of "atheism" in antiquity based on the problem of applying the term with its modern content and meaning to the ancient world. Even though this study is not exhaustive by all means, its aim is alerting both classicists and historians of religion of the pitfalls neatly hidden behind the scholarly tools often adopted for the description of practices, beliefs, and movements in the ancient world.
A Forum of Their Own: Rhetoric, Religion, and Female Participation in Ancient Athens. Recently, rhetoricians have been trying to explain the absence of women from the history of rhetoric by locating female rhetoricians in classical era canonical texts. This effort, similar in intent to the movement towards redefining the literary canon, challenges the traditional Western rhetorical canon to create a more inclusive and accurate representation of its history. It is time to call for a new definition of rhetoric, one that broadens its scope beyond the modern interpretations of Platonic and Aristotelian traditions of public agonistic argumentation among peers. Within the realm of this new understanding of rhetoric will be the discourse practices of those not permitted regular participation in the traditional forum. Scholars should consider the discursive practices outside the "agora" under contemporary perceptions of rhetoric, and by doing so rewrite rhetorical history from classical times to the present, including a consideration of the rhetoric of the oppressed. In this case, the oppressed groups are wives and/or relatives of legitimate male citizens. In ancient Athens, any speech by women was grounded in the premise that they were of inferior status addressing an audience of superiors, which prohibited their ability to argue publicly. In fact, wives of legitimate citizens were so secluded from the public that they were prohibited from negotiating in the marketplace. The religious expressivist participation they were permitted (such as the cult of the goddess Athena) provided them with one of their only forums for discourse.
Greek Magic, Greek Religion
Ancient Mystēria And Modern Mystery Cults. The modern study of the ancient Hellenic and Hellenistic cults called mystēria has struggled over taxonomic issues related to typically and modelling for several decades. By refocusing on the artificiality and rhetorical deployment of both the ancient word mystēria and the modern phrase mystery cults, it is possible to step back from issues of reification and focus on ancient social contexts for another view. Doing so allows one to note the numerous points of overlap (in ritual action, goals, symbols and narratives) between mystery cults and the broader cultural fields of ancient Hellenic communities. For instance, when one does not assume that mystery cults are the major origin for eschatological thinking in Greece, other (at times competing) vectors come into view and present a much more diverse field of data on the topic. Using Eleusis as an example, it is possible to see that many of the other allegedly typical features of mystery cults are at best problematic viewed against their social backgrounds and not placed in decontextualised juxtaposition with another mystery cult. This suggests that modern theories of culture-as-repertoire and of popular religious cultures are appropriate for making sense of ancient mystēria and thereby rectifying the scholarly construct of mystery cults.
Association of Dance With Sacred Rituals In Ancient Greece: The Case Of Eleusinian Mysteries. The aim of the present paper is to investigate the role of dance in ancient Greek mysteries, particularly, in the Eleusinian mysteries. In classical antiquity, the religious sentiment served as a signal for dancing. The ancient Greeks tried to praise the gods as well as to express their personal sensibility to the Divine through dancing. The dance ritual was essential during the mysteries and it was far from a simple movement of the feet, hands and body. It was an outpouring of mental impulses -- a psychic answer to a variety of religious sentiments. Hence, dance served as a means of expressing mental conditions and as a sign of religious faith and devotion through rhythmic movements. In particular, honor and reverence to the gods were expressed with joyful dances, while believers thought that they possessed therapeutic attributes through a sacred mania, lawlessness and extirpation of their inhibitions. The basic principle of the Eleusinian mysteries' ritual was a circle of initiates in the form of a dance. It was a sacred dance leading to perfection and spiritual freedom, which played a very significant role in the believers' initiation in the Eleusinian mysteries and in the process of their reaching mental elevation as well as spiritual freedom.
Greece Gods, and the Great Beyond The article offers information on Greece and belief of Greece people that God played role in their life and how these believes have changed. Topics discussed include the National Geographic book "The Greeks" about Greek culture, an exhibition celebrating 5,000 years of Greek culture at the National Geographic Museum in Washington, D.C. until October 10, 2016, and Olympus mountain that is believed to possess human trait.
Ecstasy and Possession: The Attraction of Women to the Cult of Dionysus

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