Ancient Greece: The Classical Spirit

Early Greece Of all the civilizations of the ancient world, one came to have the greatest influence on Western societies that of the ancient Greeks, honored for their enduring achievements in art, literature, philosophy, and science. Greek civilization originated in two Bronze Age civilizations of the eastern Mediterranean, the Minoan (c. 2500-1250 B.C.) and Mycenaeam (c. 1600-1150 B.C.) cultures. Both were eventually destroyed by natural calamity and invasion, and after a dark age there arose the earliest Greek civilization proper (900-480 B.C.). The early Greeks were at first backward in comparison to their Mediterranean neighbors., but they developed quickly, stimulated by contact with Egypt and Persia, and soon built colonies along the northern Mediterranean. The Aegean world The Minoans [muh-NOH-un] established an expansive and distinctive civilization on the Mediterranean island of Crete, strategically connecting to Aegean basin and the rich cultures of Egypt and Mesopotamia. The minions constructed sprawling palace-cities of brightly colored and undefended buildings, archeologist named the island civilization after the legendary king minos, whose queen before the feared monster, the minotaur. They were also skillful artisans, producing mall objects that were easily traded with their Mediterranean neighbors. Minoans crafted jewelry and figurines in precious metal and ceramics, like the earthenware Snake Goddess. The Mycenaeans [ my-suh-NEE-uns] were a warrior civilization that inhabited fortified palace-cities on the Greek mainland. From their citadels, Mycenaean warrior mounted pirate expedition to the rich cities of the Aegean basin. Later Greek stories of the Trojan war dimly recalled Mycenaean expeditions in search of plunder and slave. Excavations inside the Mycenaean palaces reveal a civilization of fantastic wealth that was fascinated by death and the afterlife. The Mycenaeans predominance in the Aegean was brief. About 1150 B.C., a century after the supposed Trojan expedition, invaders may have entered Greece from the north, destroying the Mycenaean palaces and dispersing their civilization.

Early Greek Poetry At centers on the Greek mainland and the across the Aegean to Asia Minor, Greekspeaking communities gradually reestablished themselves in the wake of the collapse of Mycenaean civilization. By 733 B.C., Geek city-states were sending expeditions to establish settlements abroad, and by 600B.C. Greek colonies were scattered from the black sea to the Sicily. Though geographically diffuse and politically contentious, the early Greeks were unified by language, religion and legend. The most important poetic works of early Greece told of the siege of troy, an ancient city in Asia Minor. The story was told in two remarkable poems entitled Iliad and the odyssey. The Homeric poems are both epics, long narrative works that recount deeds on a heroic scale, centered on a hero who defines a sense of ethnic or national identity. Homers epics are the wellspring of Greek storytelling, much like the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh (c.2000B.C.,) and the Indian Mahabharata (c 400-200 B.C., ), in Babylonian and Hindu cultures. Homers epic heroes were Achilles, the greatest warrior of the Greeks forces of Troy, and Odysseus, the great adventurer who voyaged home from Troy. Homers heroes served as models of rightful action and skillful speech, much as biblical heroes did for Jews and Christians. In the Iliad, ethnic warfare between Trojans and Greeks (called Achaeans) provides the setting for a deeply human drama of honor, love and tragic loss. The proud hero Achilles quarrels with his chieftain Agamemnon and angrily withdraws from the battle. When his closest comrade is killed, Achilles rejoins the fray defeating the Trojan Prince Hector and defiling his body. Homer follows this gruesome confrontation with a scene of great tenderness and sympathy, when King Priam of Troy steals into the Achaeans camp to ask Achilles for his sons body. Sapphos Lyric Poetry when the Greeks tired of the epics high and elevated style, they could turn to lyric poetry, which took its name from the lyre. The most renowned of Greek lyric poets was Sappho, who lived on the Aegean island of Lesbos around 600 B.C., Sappho was the leader of a circle of female friends devoted to music and poetry. In the fragment quoted here, Sappho contrast a womans gentle love for friends and family with her subservient love for a man called to war. Yet Sapphos regret does not cloud her tender love for Anaktoria, whose beauty surpasses the military splendor of the battlefield. Religion and philosophy in early Greece When the Homeric hero Achilles complains of the sorrows sent by Zeus, he expresses the common Greek belief in the Gods power over human destiny. In fact, dying warriors in the Iliad

reconcile themselves to defeat and death by explaining that the Gods had simply chosen that moment for their death. The deities of Greek were highly anthropomorphic-shaped like humansand took an active role in the lives of mortals. Because early Greek communities were so widely dispersed, there was considerable variety in their beliefs and practices\, reflecting local traditions. Around 700 B.C., the p[oet Hesiod sought to consolidate and synthesize Greek belief in his poem Theogony, which means the making of Gods. Following models from the ancient Near East, Hesoid describes the cosmos as originating in a succession of generations of gods, beginning with Chaos and the mother of all being, Gaia. By 600 B.C., Greek thinkers began to supplement the vivid stories of Greek with more philosophical speculations on the mature of things. Like the mythmakers, these earliest Greek philosophers, active chiefly in the Greek cities of Asia Minor ( todays Turkey) and Italy, asked themselves, What is the nature of the cosmos? their answers reflected a new rationalism- that is, a belief that the human reason is the surest source of truth about the world. Some, yhe socalled materialists, reasoned that the natural world must be derived from a primal stuff. The early materialist Thales of Miletus held that all nature was composed of water. A different branch of early Greek philosophy followed the teaching of Pythagoras (active sixth century B.C.,), the most venerated early Greek Philosopher. Pythagoras was a charismatic teacher who advised a disciplined life of silence and restraint and believed in the transmigration of souls. According to a later commentator, Pythagoras supposed the elements of numbers to be the elements of all things and the whole heaven to be a musical scale and a number. Much like the Greeks artistic methods, their philosophical thinking evolved rapidly in the years around 500. Parmenides claimed that the cosmos was actually composed of one primal and universal substance-what Parmenides called the What-is a philosophical belief called monism, Greek pluralist like Empedocles (c.495-435 B.C.,) argued that the what is actually, consisted of earth, air, fire and water. Finally the atomist returned to Parmenides monism by claiming that tiny particles called atom (atoma means things indivisible made up everything in the cosmos. The stunning his advances of early Greek philosophy were often to mixed with ethical teachings. Pythagoras advised his followers to eat no meat, lest they devour the soul of an, ancestors, and Empedocles believed that, by living purely during successive lives, human could achieve immortality. Art in early Greece From 650-4i90 B.C., the Greeks developed a distinctive style in the visual arts, now called Archaic. Although the archaic style in Greece barrowed liberally from more advanced

Egyptians and Persian civilization, the Greek artisans transformed these barrowing s into an art concerned with natural beauty and the human form. Since few early Greek wall paintings survive, we know early Greek painting chiefly through pottery vases. The geometric technique, as it is now called, demonstrated the Greeks interest in intricate, rationalized patterns. The most advanced form of vase painting was the red-figure technique, in which the background of a scene was entirely painted ( appearing as black) and the figures was lefty unpainted (appearing as red) except for fine details of anatomy. The red figure technique permitted subtle effects of bodily movement and expressive storytelling. Red figure vases the Euphronios vase illustrate early Greek artists command of the full range of human feelings and activity. Archaic sculpture showed a similar development from formalized representation to naturalism. The most common form of Archaic statue was the kourus, a freestanding nude male youth that served as a grave maker or stood outside a temple. The early kourus shows the rigid symmetry and geometric hairdressing that the Greek had borrowed from Egyptians statury. Late in the Archaic period, sculpture began to soften the rigid geometry of the Archaic style, lending their figures more supple curves. The Kore, or female version of the kouros, was less stringent in design, in part because the kore was always clothed. The drapery created more varied lines, although the hair is still arranged in stylized geometric patterns. The lips are pulled back in the Archaic smile, perhaps to lend the face more animation. The Calf Bearer most likely stood next to an altar on Athenian acropolis. The decisive turning point between the Archaic and classical style in sculpture came in the Kritios Boy where its sculptor had learned to represent the human figure in motion. The Kritios Boy declares the masterful naturalism of classical Greek art.