Paper 2 Assignment

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

HIST 4003 Democratic Athens Paper 2 (3200 Words) Due December 3 by 10:45 am We read three “old comedies” of Aristophanes for class, all of which were written in the late 5th century. Attic comedy continued to evolve over the course of the fourth century, eventually developing into “new comedy.” Te greatest poet of new comedy was Menander, although only one of his works survives substantially complete, the Dyskolos (Bad-Tempered Man), from the late 4th century, or 100 years afer Aristophanes. For this paper you will read the Dyskolos (attached) and examine how it diﬀers from the plays of Aristophanes and what that shows about the developments in Athenian society over the course of the fourth century. Some points of comparison between Aristophanes and Menander you may want to consider include, but are not limited, to: • Te hero • Te types of characters in the plays and their social status • Te driving motivations of the characters and the plot, and how they are resolved • Te antagonists and how they are defeated • Te actual setting of the plays and the role that plays in the action • Te depiction of the city and city life, the countryside and country life • Te relationships of parents and children • Te portrayal of and role of women • Te portrayal of and role of slaves • Te role of politics • Te role of money and wealth Based on your comparisons, explain how comedy has changed across the fourth century, and what this might show about the changes in Athenian tastes, Athenian values, Athenian concerns, and Athenian society. You can consider material on the fourth century covered in class lectures as well, but otherwise you are to limit your analysis to the four comedies themselves - do not look at modern scholarship or other sources. I want to read what you have to say, not what someone else has to say. Looking at outside sources will result in an automatic F on the assignment. Use direct quotes sparingly and when they will directly illustrate your arguments. Otherwise, paraphrase and summarize as necessary. Whenever you are quoting, paraphrasing, or simply referring to something an author says, cite the particular passage in you paper. Cite the texts with the following abbreviations: Acharnians: Ach, Clouds: Cl, Lysistrata: Lys, Dyskolos: Dys. Cite parenthetically by line numbers, eg: (Ach. 540-550). Use Times New Roman or a similar serif font, double-spaced, with 1” margins all around. Don’t forget to put a page number at the bottom of each page and your name at the top of the ﬁrst page. Papers are due on December 3 before the start of class. Send your paper as a .doc, .docx, or .rtf attachment to [email protected]. Late papers will not be accepted except in cases of documented emergencies. .

Copy Link

Recommended publications

Blocking Fathers, Illicit Marriages: Continuity and Change from Sophocles to Menander
Blocking Fathers, Illicit Marriages: Continuity and Change from Sophocles to Menander It is a truth universally acknowledged that the plays of Menander owe a great debt to Classical Athenian drama: connections between plays such as Aristophanes’ Cocalus and Menander were noted in didascalia, and similarly the thematic and structural similarities between New Comedy and the works of Euripides were already recognized in Hellenistic scholarship (Arnott 1972; Csapo 2000; Hunter 2011). Sophocles, on the other hand, is rarely included in this discussion of dramatic influence, more often regarded solely for his role as the pinnacle of tragic poets. It is the purpose of this paper to reanalyze possible connections between the corpus of Sophocles and that of Menander by examining both the Antigone and the Dyscolus as plays employing one of the most familiar stock characters of ancient comedy: the “blocking” father figure. This father figure—whose earliest incarnation arguably belongs to Old Comedy, such as Strepsiades from Clouds—is perhaps best known for his characterization in the plays of Greek New Comedy and their later, Latin iterations. Generally an old and intransigent father, the “blocking” figure is generically defined by his interference in the life of his young offspring; in New Comedy, this interference takes the form of intervention in the budding romance of two young lovers, whose inconvenient marriage will inevitably bring about the typical finale. This character, at first glance, may appear to be a creature created solely for light-hearted drama. Creon of the Antigone, however, whose stubborn and belligerent character has been carefully surveyed for his role within the tragedy itself (see Roisman 1996), additionally shares many features with the father of Menander’s only intact play, Knemon of the Dyscolus.
[Show full text]
Middle Comedy: Not Only Mythology and Food
Acta Ant. Hung. 56, 2016, 421–433 DOI: 10.1556/068.2016.56.4.2 VIRGINIA MASTELLARI MIDDLE COMEDY: NOT ONLY MYTHOLOGY AND FOOD View metadata, citation and similar papersTHE at core.ac.ukPOLITICAL AND CONTEMPORARY DIMENSION brought to you by CORE provided by Repository of the Academy's Library Summary: The disappearance of the political and contemporary dimension in the production after Aris- tophanes is a false belief that has been shared for a long time, together with the assumption that Middle Comedy – the transitional period between archaia and nea – was only about mythological burlesque and food. The misleading idea has surely risen because of the main source of the comic fragments: Athenaeus, The Learned Banqueters. However, the contemporary and political aspect emerges again in the 4th c. BC in the creations of a small group of dramatists, among whom Timocles, Mnesimachus and Heniochus stand out (significantly, most of them are concentrated in the time of the Macedonian expansion). Firstly Timocles, in whose fragments the personal mockery, the onomasti komodein, is still present and sharp, often against contemporary political leaders (cf. frr. 17, 19, 27 K.–A.). Then, Mnesimachus (Φίλιππος, frr. 7–10 K.–A.) and Heniochus (fr. 5 K.–A.), who show an anti- and a pro-Macedonian attitude, respec- tively. The present paper analyses the use of the political and contemporary element in Middle Comedy and the main differences between the poets named and Aristophanes, trying to sketch the evolution of the genre, the points of contact and the new tendencies. Key words: Middle Comedy, Politics, Onomasti komodein For many years, what is known as the “food fallacy”1 has been widespread among scholars of Comedy.
[Show full text]
Social Welfare in the Greco-Roman World As a Background for Early Christian Practice
Acta Theologica 2016 Suppl 23: 1-28 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/actat.v23i1S.1 ISSN 1015-8758 (Print) / ISSN 2309-9089 (Online) © UV/UFS P. Lampe SOCIAL WELFARE IN THE GRECO-ROMAN WORLD AS A BACKGROUND FOR EARLY CHRISTIAN PRACTICE ABSTRACT The essay investigates if and how Greco-Roman theorists attempted to motivate altruistic behaviour and devise a social-welfare ethics. In comparison, it studies actual social-welfare practices on both the private and the state level. Various social-welfare tasks are touched upon – health care; care for the elderly, widows, orphans and invalids; the patron-client system as countermeasure to unemployment; distribution of land, grain, meals and money; alms, donations, foundations as well as education – with hardly any one of them being especially tailored to the poor. The enormous role of civil society – private persons, their households and associations – in holding up social-welfare functions is shown. By contrast, the state was comparatively less involved, the commonwealth of the Romans, especially in Republican times, even less than the Greek city-states. The Greek poleis often invested income such as wealthy citizens’ donations in social welfare, thus brokering between wealthy private donors and less well-to-do persons. The church, living in private household structures during the first centuries, took over the social-welfare tasks of the Greco-Roman household and reviewed them in the light of Hebrew and Hellenistic-Jewish moral traditions. Prof. Peter Lampe, Professor of New Testament Studies, University of Heidelberg, Germany, and Honorary Professor of New Testament, Faculty of Theology, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa.
[Show full text]
Narcissus the Hunter in the Mosaics of Antioch
Narcissus the Hunter in the Mosaics of Antioch Elizabeth M. Molacek Among the hundreds of mosaic pavements discovered at as the capital of the Hellenistic Seleucid kingdom in 300 BCE Antioch-on-the-Orontes, a total of five represent Narcissus, and remained a thriving city until the Romans took power in the beautiful youth doomed to fall in love with his own 64 BCE. Antioch became the capital of the Roman province reflection. The predominance of this subject is not entirely of Syria; however, it was captured by the Arabs in 637 CE, surprising since it is one of the most popular subjects in bringing an end to almost a thousand years of occupation.2 Roman visual culture. In his catalogue of the mosaics of While its political history is simple to trace from the Hellenis- ancient Antioch, Doro Levi suggests that Narcissus’ frequent tic founding to the Arab sacking, Antioch’s cultural identity appearance should be attributed to his watery reflection due is less transparent. The city was part of the Roman Empire to the fact that Antioch was a “town so proud of its wealth for over five hundred years, but the inhabitants of Antioch of waters, springs, and baths.”1 The youth’s association with did not immediately consider themselves Roman, identifying water may account for his repeated appearance, but the instead with their Hellenistic heritage. As was standard in the present assessment recognizes a Narcissus that is unique to Greek East, the spoken language remained Greek even after Antioch. In art of the Latin West from the first century BCE Rome established control, and many traditions and social onwards, Narcissus has a highly standardized iconography norms were deeply rooted in the Hellenistic culture.3 Antioch that emphasizes his youthful appearance, the act of seeing was a hybrid of both eastern and western influences due to his reflection, and his fate for eternity.
[Show full text]
The Successors: Alexander's Legacy
The Successors: Alexander’s Legacy November 20-22, 2015 Committee Background Guide The Successors: Alexander’s Legacy 1 Table of Contents Committee Director Welcome Letter ...........................................................................................2 Summons to the Babylon Council ................................................................................................3 The History of Macedon and Alexander ......................................................................................4 The Rise of Macedon and the Reign of Philip II ..........................................................................4 The Persian Empire ......................................................................................................................5 The Wars of Alexander ................................................................................................................5 Alexander’s Plans and Death .......................................................................................................7 Key Topics ......................................................................................................................................8 Succession of the Throne .............................................................................................................8 Partition of the Satrapies ............................................................................................................10 Continuity and Governance ........................................................................................................11
[Show full text]
'Techné' and 'Paideia'
Acta Scientiarum http://www.uem.br/acta ISSN printed: 2178-5198 ISSN on-line: 2178-5201 Doi: 10.4025/actascieduc.v38i3.28713 The rapports between ‘techné’ and ‘paideia’ in the Roman Empire: reading the Antiochene mosaics Gilvan Ventura da Silva Departamento de História, Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo, Av. Fernando Ferrari, 514, 29075-910, Vitória, Espírito Santo, Brasil. E-mail: [email protected] ABSTRACT. Discussion on the Roman mosaic as techné or as ars, is provided, or rather, a decoration technique for interiors made at high specialization levels. When the main procedures adopted in mosaic art are established, we will show how a certain technique, a particular way in handling unsophisticated materials learnt by semi-illiterate people, lost throughout the ages, was used to express themes and motifs connected with paideia, the superior education of the Greco-Roman elite. As a case study, two mid-3rd century CE mosaics found in the so-called House of Menander, a villa located in the suburb of Daphne, in southern Antioch, will be investigated. Keywords: late antiquity, paideia, image. Artes do fazer e usos do saber no império romano: ‘lendo’ os mosaicos de Antioquia RESUMO. Neste artigo, pretendemos desenvolver algumas reflexões acerca do mosaico romano como techné ou ars, ou seja, como uma técnica de decoração de interiores que comportava um alto nível de especialização. Uma vez estabelecidos, em linhas gerais, os procedimentos empregados na confecção dos mosaicos, buscaremos, em seguida, demonstrar como determinada técnica, uma maneira particular de manipulação de materiais rústicos dominada por indivíduos semiletrados cuja memória praticamente se perdeu, é mobilizada com a finalidade de exprimir temas e motivos conectados com a paideia, a formação cultural superior concedida aos membros da elite greco-romana.
[Show full text]
Miracles in Greco-Roman Antiquity: a Sourcebook/Wendy Cotter
MIRACLES IN GRECO-ROMAN ANTIQUITY Miracles in Greco-Roman Antiquity is a sourcebook which presents a concise selection of key miracle stories from the Greco- Roman world, together with contextualizing texts from ancient authors as well as footnotes and commentary by the author herself. The sourcebook is organized into four parts that deal with the main miracle story types and magic: Gods and Heroes who Heal and Raise the Dead, Exorcists and Exorcisms, Gods and Heroes who Control Nature, and Magic and Miracle. Two appendixes add richness to the contextualization of the collection: Diseases and Doctors features ancient authors’ medical diagnoses, prognoses and treatments for the most common diseases cured in healing miracles; Jesus, Torah and Miracles selects pertinent texts from the Old Testament and Mishnah necessary for the understanding of certain Jesus miracles. This collection of texts not only provides evidence of the types of miracle stories most popular in the Greco-Roman world, but even more importantly assists in their interpretation. The contextualizing texts enable the student to reconstruct a set of meanings available to the ordinary Greco-Roman, and to study and compare the forms of miracle narrative across the whole spectrum of antique culture. Wendy Cotter C.S.J. is Associate Professor of Scripture at Loyola University, Chicago. MIRACLES IN GRECO-ROMAN ANTIQUITY A sourcebook Wendy Cotter, C.S.J. First published 1999 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2003.
[Show full text]
The Late Antique Image of Menander Sarah E
The Late Antique Image of Menander Sarah E. Bassett If a life be delayed till interest and envy are at an end, we may hope for impar- tiality, but must expect little intelligence; for the incidents which give excellence to biography are of a volatile and evanescent kind, such as soon escape the memory, and are rarely transmitted by tradition. We know how few can portray a living acquaintance, except by his most prominent and observable particular- ities, and the grosser features of his mind; and it may be easily imagined how much of this little knowledge may be lost in imparting it, and how soon a succes- sion of copies will lose all resemblance of the original. Samuel Johnson, Rambler no. 60 (October 13, 1750) N THE LONG HISTORY of the Greco-Roman portrait tradi- tion, no image better demonstrates the acuity of Samuel Johnson’s observation than the likeness of the Athenian I 1 comic poet Menander (342/1–ca. 291 B.C.). Created originally in the third century B.C., the portrait went on to a long life in the Roman period where it was sculptured for and displayed in settings public and private as late as the fifth century A.D. From first to last the portrait maintained a consistent typology, or established set of facial features, preserving as it did Menan- der’s “most prominent and observable particularities.” In the fourth century A.D., however, the introduction of technical and formal changes to the portrait’s physical production so trans- formed those “particularities” as to give the poet a new look, one that might be said from a Johnsonian point of view to have lost “all resemblance of the original.” This loss of resemblance 1 The following will be cited by author’s name: O.
[Show full text]
Women and Property in Ancient Athens: a Discussion of the Private Orations and Menander Cheryl Cox University of Memphis
Women and Property in Ancient Athens: A Discussion of the Private Orations and Menander Cheryl Cox University of Memphis There has been a great deal of discussion in the past two decades or so among social historians and anthropologists of the proposition that women in European societies, both in the past and in the present, have informal power at the private level of the household. Women’s interests were reflected and expressed in succession practices and in the management of the household economy. Central to the status of women was the dowry because of its place in the conjugal household and the negotiations over its use and transmission. A large dowry ensured the woman’s important role in the decisions of the marital household and thus helped to stabilize the marriage. Because the dowry, as the property of the woman’s natal kin, would ideally be transmitted to the man’s children, the man could become involved in the property interests of his wife’s family of origin.1 In a material sense, in classical Athens the wife’s dowry allowed for the cohesion of two households (oikoi): the oikos of her marriage and that of her natal family. The dowry in legal terms belonged to the woman’s natal family, as it had to be returned to her family of origin either on divorce or on the death of her husband and her remarriage. Much of the information we have for dowries pertains to elite families. Because the woman’s dowry could be inherited by the children, it was worth fighting for, especially if she had not received her full share (Dem.
[Show full text]
Tales of Philip II Under the Roman Empire
Tales of Philip II under the Roman Empire: Aspects of Monarchy and Leadership in the Anecdotes, Apophthegmata , and Exempla of Philip II Michael Thomas James Welch BA (Hons. Class 1) M.Phil. A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at The University of Queensland in 2016 School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry P a g e 1 | 270 Abstract This thesis examines the role anecdotes, apophthegmata , and exempla play in the historiography of the Macedonian king Philip II in the Roman world - from the first century BCE to the fourth century CE. Most of the material examined comes from moral treatises, collections of tales and sayings, and military works by Greek and Latin authors such as Plutarch, Valerius Maximus, Aelian, Polyaenus, Frontinus, and Stobaeus (supplemented with pertinent material from other authors). This approach will show that while many of the tales surely originate from the earlier Greek world and Hellenistic times, the use and manipulation of the majority of them and the presentation of Philip are the product of a world living under Roman political and cultural domination. This thesis is divided into six chapters. Chapter one defines and discusses anecdotal material in the ancient world. Chapter two examines two emblematic ancient authors (Plutarch and Valerius Maximus) as case studies to demonstrate in detail the type of analysis required by all the authors of this study. Following this, the thesis then divides the material of our authors into four main areas of interest, particularly concerning Philip as a king and statesman. Therefore, chapter three examines Philip and justice.
[Show full text]
Menander's Characters in Context
Menander’s Characters in Context Menander’s Characters in Context: From the 4th Century BC to the Modern Greek Stage By Stavroula Kiritsi Menander’s Characters in Context: From the 4th Century BC to the Modern Greek Stage By Stavroula Kiritsi This book first published 2019 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2019 by Stavroula Kiritsi All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-5275-4017-0 ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-4017-0 TABLE OF CONTENTS Abbreviations ......................................................................................... vii Acknowledgements .............................................................................. viii Introduction .............................................................................................. 1 Part I Chapter 1 ................................................................................................. 18 The Conceptual World of Menander’s Comedies Chapter 2 ................................................................................................. 59 Epitrepontes Chapter 3 ..............................................................................................
[Show full text]
A Private Spectacle in Antioch: Investigation of an Initiation Scene
ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation / Thesis: A PRIVATE SPECTACLE IN ANTIOCH: INVESTIGATION OF AN INITIATION SCENE Ozge Gencay, Master of Arts, 2004 Dissertation / Thesis Directed By: Professor Marjorie S. Venit Department of Art History and Archaeology The House of the Mysteries of Isis, contains a controversial mosaic pavement identified as Mors Voluntaria. It shows a female and a male figure with Hermes on their right, standing in front of a door. The subject has been identified as an initiation scene into the cult of a motherly goddess ± either Isis or Demeter--, but the lack of scenes depicting mysteries and the singularity of the iconography have also led to the suggestion of a theatrical representation. This paper aims to explain the choice of iconography from the standpoint of the ancient viewer. After a brief historical survey, each object and each figure and its gesture are investigated separately and compared with elements in contemporary works of art. These comparisons suggest a scene of the initiation into the cult of a deity with an hidden identity, which provides a secret spectacle for the pavement' s patron. A PRIVATE SPECTACLE IN ANTIOCH: INVESTIGATION OF AN INITIATION SCENE By Ozge Gencay Thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts 2004 Advisory Committee: Professor Marjorie S. Venit, Chair Professor Marie Spiro Professor Eva Marie Stehle Acknowledgements I would like to thank to Prof. Marjorie Venit for her infinite patience and help in the preparation of this work.
[Show full text]