The Greek Renaissance

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MDS2/3 TGW

Ancient Greece: The Greek Renaissance

Gillian Shepherd Lion Gate, Mycenae

NB Linear B script (syllabary)

Photo © Gillian Shepherd Fall of the Mycenaean Civilisation • c. 1200 BC • Palaces at Mycenae, Pylos, Tiryns destroyed by fire, other sites are abandoned • Only at Tiryns was there later palace construction • Many features of palatial culture lost, including: – Writing (and administration) – Monumental architecture and stone carving – Wall painting – Trade with eastern Mediterranean • BUT there is also much continuity, e.g. in pottery styles, settlement occupation • Enter the Dark Ages… The 8th century BC: The “Renaissance” of Ancient Greece?

• Burials • Settlement patterns • Technology (monumental art and building especially from 7th cent. BC) • Sanctuaries and religion • Overseas contacts (settlement and trade) • Literacy Image source: http://cw.routledge.com/textbooks/9780415469920/images.asp (after Snodgrass 1980, fig. 4)

Burials in Athens, Attica and Argos c. 950-700 BC Image source: http://cw.routledge.com/textbooks/9780415469920/images.asp Image source: hp://cw.routledge.com/textbooks/9780415469920/images.asp

Dark Age sites in Attica occupied prior to 800 BC Sites in Attica occupied in the 8th cent. BC Heraion, Samos, 8th cent. BC “Hekatompedon” ie 100 Greek feet

Image source: http://www.trentu.ca/faculty/rfitzsimons/AHCL2200Y/LE%2006-03.htm Sanctuary site/ 11th-10th 9th/early 8th Later 8th/7th Dedication type cents BC cents BC cents BC Philia (Thessaly) 0 2 1783+ Bronze fibulae Philia (Thessaly) 1 4 37 Bronze pins Perachora 7 1 50+ Bronze fibulae Perachora 0 15 81 Bronze pins Argive Heraion 16 10 88 Bronze fibulae Argive Heraion 3 c. 250 c. 3070 Bronze pins Lindos (Rhodes) 0 52 1540 Bronze fibulae Lindos (Rhodes) 0 0 42 Bronze pins Dedications of bronze pins and fibulae at Greek sanctuaries (after Snodgrass 1980, p. 53) Bronze tripod-cauldron from Olympia Image not available 8th cent. BC for copyright reasons

Stadium, Olympia Photo © Gillian Shepherd Image source: http://www.platos-academy.com/archives/magna_graecia.html

GreekGreek settlement settlement around around thethe MediterraneanMediterranean Greek Settlements in Sicily and Italy

For mother-cities and foundation Greekdates settlements see esp. in SicilyThucydides and SouthernBook Italy 6 (Sicily)

Image source: http://www.utexas.edu/courses/greeksahoy!/maps.html Some major Western Greek sites

City Mother-city Date Oikist Source

Naxos Chalcis 734 BC Thukles Thuc. VI.3 Syracuse Corinth 733 BC Archias Thuc. VI.3 Megara Megara 728 BC Lamis Thuc. VI.4 Hyblaea Taras Sparta 706 BC Phalanthos Strabo 278 Gela Rhodes 688 BC Antiphemos Thuc. VI.4 Crete Entimos Selinus Megara 628 BC Pammilos Thuc. VI.4 Hyblaea Poseidonia Sybaris Late 7th cent. ? Strabo 252 Akragas Gela 580 BC Aristonous Thuc. VI.4 Pystilos Theories for colonisation

• Trade (“Trade before the flag”) • Overpopulation • Political dissatisfaction Pithekoussai (Ischia) Founded c. 750 BC (Euboeans) Cf. Livy 8.22.5-6; Strabo 5.4.9 Bone-and-amber fibula

Photo © Gillian Shepherd Photo © Gillian Shepherd Ischia from Cumae (on the Italian mainland, founded c. 750) Photo © Gillian Shepherd Agricultural land around Selinus, Sicily Thera (Santorini)

Image source page: hp://stac.travel.usnews.com/images/desnaons/73/santorini_main_image_- _revamp_cropped_445x280.jpg

Cyrene (Libya, c. 630 BC))

Image source page: hp://www.livius.org/a/libya/cyrene/cyrene_overview.jpg During the seven years that followed, not a drop of rain and every tree on the island, except one, withered and died. In this difficult situation the Therans sent to Delphi for advice and were reminded about the colony which they had omitted to send to Libya… [the Therans send out a reconnaissance party] … it was thereupon decided to send a party to join the new colony; the party was to represent all the seven villages in Thera, and brothers were to draw lots to determine which should join in. It was to be under the sole authority of Battus. Two fifty-oared galleys then got underway…

Herod. 4.1.152-3 Image source page: hp://www.historvius.com/images/original/Corinth-542.jpg

Corinth (Temple of Apollo, mid 6th cent. BC) Image source page: hp://www.gutenberg.org/ﬁles/14189/14189-h/images/ﬁg2.jpg

Plan of ancient Piraeus Hippodamos, the son of Euryphon, a Milesian (it was he who invented the dividing up of cities and cut up [ie applied a grid plan to] Piraeus…)… He also divided the area of the town into three parts, one of sacred land, one of public land and another of private land…

Aristotle, Politics 1267 b22 Megara Hyblaea

(Megara, 728 BC; local Sikel King Hyblon; destroyed by Syracuse 483 BC)

Image source page: hp://www.sicilyontour.com/images/MegaraHyblaea.jpg

Image source page: hp://www.utexas.edu/courses/greeksahoy!/megara_hyblaea_street.JPG Image source page: hp://archeoporolio.efrome.it/Megara/PicturesGallery/promenade.jpg

Megara Hyblaea (plan of the archaic city) Megara Hyblaea (archaic city - detail)

Image source page: hp://archeoporolio.efrome.it/Megara/PicturesGallery/promenade.jpg Photo © Gillian Shepherd Temple G, Megara Hyblaea

Megara Hyblaea South Colonnaded Temple

Photo © Gillian Shepherd Image source page: hp://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/rials/verres/syracuse1.jpgSouth Colonnaded Temple, Megara Hyblaea Image not available for copyright reasons Ortygia, Syracuse Ancient street plan? A new form of writing…

• The Phoenicians had devised a script of 22 phonetic letters • The Greeks adapted this script to represent their own language • They made one crucial innovation: • Reassigned five Phoenician signs for which Greek had no consonantal equivalent (such as ‘aleph’) as vowels (Phoenician was an alphabet of consonants) • Greek could now be written via an alphabet (rather than a syllabary, as in Linear B)

“Nestor’s Cup” (Pithekoussai, 750-700 BC)

Image source: http://codex99.com/typography/13.html

“I am Nestor’s cup, good to drink from. Whoever drinks from this cup will straightway be seized with a desire for fair- crowned Aphrodite”

Image source: http://codex99.com/typography/13.html